You Philanthropic Bastards

Hello there, you ugly, ugly people.

As for the recent assault on your self-esteems the only real explanation for it that I can comes in three points:

a) I'm feeling rather satirical of recent,

b) It's a pretty good way of getting your attention and,

c) You're all horrible, disgusting, sinful people. Probably.

I should probably think more about my target audience. Wait. No. Damn you media course, getting me to think like a businessman...

For the sake of structure and what not, today's post comes to you in two parts, the first being an alluded and slightly ironic attempt to beg you and the second being a criticism of some of the behaviour of a certain number of charities nowadays.

First part! So for a while I've not been updating my blog posts much under the reasoning of me having a super secret amazing project that I couldn't tell you about, but now I can! 

So over the summer I spent a lot of my time blogging or looking through blogs and reading blogs and looking at the history of blogging, how it relates to other forms of writing, wondering profusely what people did before blogging, that sort of thing, and something occurred to me.

On the 'blogosphere' there are a ton of amazingly talented people - whether they are not far off of being able to write professionally or whether they found that they are better at something else and just never got round to it. So what was stopping these people from using their powers for good, writing a book, helping charities? I'm kind of pointing rather obliquely towards my point here but anyway - I wanted to use as little of everybody's time as possible to unleash the power of the blogosphere, and do some amazing work for charity.

Hence - The Thought Report! I got together 12 amazing bloggers from around the world (Me included, obvsly) to pool their skills and write about what happened in the last 12 months - whether it's a satirical piece, or a serious thoughtful piece, or simply giving you some awesome facts. Then I wanted to step it up - I wanted to get all their thoughts on the past year printed, into a nicely bound book that would be sold to raise money for an amazing charity (More information on the website) when it gets sold to all our amazing minions fans who want to use some of their Christmas money to spend some holiday cheer (It's being released in December, see what I did there?). 

Glad I got that out the way. What? You mean I need to write a second part about charity? Oh ball-sacks.

So today is Children in Need day, which is a pretty big thing in Britain where everybody gets together and do stupid s**t to raise money for children... in... well, need. I guess it doesn't take much explaining. 

But the explaining isn't what I want to do, I want to strip straight through to the criticising part.

And don't worry, it's not just applicable to CIN, so put down the machete Pudsey, you fluffy yellow bastard.

Every time there's a charity event big enough to get on television, it seems that the only way that they can get you to donate your hard earned benefits is to guilt trip the absolute balls out of you. 'Yeah, we'll give you a night of entertainment, but only if you sit through slow motion pictures of sad children every ten minutes'. Yeah, that.

Maybe this is the only way for people to give money to charity, maybe we all need to be skull-f**ked with sad images to want to do something nice for the world around us, but my point is this - isn't that terrible? Isn't it bad that we can't just want to help people? Isn't that missing the point?

Whenever I give money to charity or volunteer, or run an amazing project, I don't do it because I masochistically blasted myself with videos of starving Africans, it's because I thought it was a good idea, and it helped people - and strike me down if it's strange, but I like spending my time doing that. 

When you give money to charity, or help out at a charity event, which you should do right now you greedy bastards, don't do it out of sympathy. Why? Because I told you to. Do it to do something good for the world around you, and appreciate the gesture, the power of your movements. Some people can write a book to help people, some of us just have to settle with change - but don't do it out of guilt, do it out of love.

-Lewis

Jesus Christ that sounded fucking soppy. Better bust out some well-placed swearwords to re-acclimatise you shitheads. Douche sack.

You Should Take Heroin

This is not a government approved message.


Sit up scumbags, because I'm about to ask you to use your brains, and if you don't have very good blood flow that might be hard or something... I don't know, go ask a scientist. That part of your brain, imagination, that part that's been killed by too many soap operas and conversations with your dentist, is about to get a bit of usage - don't worry, we won't be going far.

Maybe even it's debut, taking a look at you... Jesus Christ, close your mouth before start catching flies.


Imagine that you're sat on your couch, mouth drooling, TV blaring. You've just finished your 51st packet of Monster Munch in three days and so to celebrate you're watching one of the many films that you own, The 51st State. You know, that one with Robert Carlyle as a Liverpudlian and Samuel L Jackson in a kilt. Yeah, that one.

Anyway what I'm trying to say is that your life, in this 'scenario', is very boring and uneventual and your weekly outing is to the Job Centre and every night before you go to bed you cry because you're so lonely and whatnot. Like I said, not far.

What could make your life better? I mean, lets be realistic - you fail at life so you're probably not going to get a job, and if you're sitting around waiting for Mr. Opportunity to come knocking you better realise that it's a recession and he's working at McDonald's now because it pays better. What you need, is an adventure. Yeah, like on the television, but real!

Where shall your adventure start? On a road trip into the abyss! A plan ticket to a foreign land! Nope, neither of them, you're broke, remember?

What you need to do, is to go to the pub, go and sit in the corner, and wait for Shady Dave to arrive. You know, Shady Dave, the one who wears sunglasses even when he's inside and there's a power cut? Well he has this briefcase, and in that briefcase, is exactly what you need to start your adventure.

Heroin.


Ever seen Trainspotting? It's a good film. Do you know why? Because it's interesting - not like a documentary on wildlife or anything boring like that, but for one simple fact - heroin addicts have more interesting lives than you.

When you're sat at home, you have nothing to achieve except trying to get a job, which probably won't happen because it's a recession and you're virtually unemployable anyway. However, when you have a feisty heroin addiction (Which don't worry, isn't hard to get) you have something to live for, which isn't Monster Munch and Jeremy Kyle.

You wake up in the morning, and you think - holy vagina-balls! I need more smack but I'm all out of cash? I could mope around and wait for some to appear but that won't work, because if I don't feed my addiction I might die!

This might be a good time to mention that you should get all your dole scum friends to try it as well, because then you have a few partners in crime to help you!  Then it's good whole-hearted fun for all the family - apart from the family who owns the house you broke into at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and stole all the valuable possessions of, they're probably not so happy! Maybe they'll try heroin, then everyone will be happy.

Feeling un-creative? We'll see how creative you can get when you're on a cheeky three day skag binge and you run out of cash! Maybe you'll steal a television from an old peoples home or spray deep heat into the eyes of a homeless guy to mug him - it'll probably be more fun than you're having at home.

If you're not convinced, go watch Trainspotting - it's even got Robert Carlyle in it! Then you might see how attractive the career prospects of being a fully fledged crack addict really are.

-Lewis
Warning, side effects of heroin may include death, prison shower rape, the ability to travel inside toilets and Ewan McGregor.

The Legend of Eternal Flashmob Guy

One of the many joys of college life, is that there are so many people.

If you want quiet people, loud people, people with purple hair or people with bowl cuts, black people, white people, slightly unhealthy coloured people, college people has the people for you. People. 

And this variant populace, does of course have it's own characters, one of whom I am going to share with you today. 

If you watch carefully, you'll see a man walking around the college grounds. A man with cheap clothes (Normally tracksuit bottoms) a plain shirt, and a black back with a blue Puma logo. He has a little mess of black hair atop his head, and a pumpkin patch of facial hair upon his face.

He has spent time with only a select few people, and with them, shared little information. It's been a bit of a while since he has made human contact, but foggy memories recall him going by the name Ben - although that is not his more common handle. 

Some contacts remember him referring to himself as The Master of Pain, under the belief that he himself could control the pain of others.

But what we call him, is something completely different.

We call him:

Eternal Flashmob Guy.

A flashmob, for those of you who are unaware, is the instantaneous movement of a 'mob' of pre-organised movement, usually a dance or protest. People will mill around a planned area, acting as if with no purpose - a signal will be given, and it will begin. People come out of almost nowhere and all move as one.

YouTube it, fools.

But the thing is, with eternal flashmob guy, his flashmob hasn't happened yet. He walks around the grounds, maybe for years now, not going to lessons, walking back and forth, round and round, waiting for the signal, for the music to start, so he can begin. 

The other day he walked around a picnic table 34 times in quick succession.

Reactions are mixed - some people feel sorry for him, that he might be lonely. Others are scared - he's a loner and he's referred to himself as the master of pain - because that doesn't sound Columbine-ish. Some people are amused, obsessed, watching him, following him, observing, bemused.

I myself am ever so slightly fascinated, confused, sorry, disturbed. EFG is an enigma, and will no doubt stay that way. His future? No idea. He's probably just going to carry on waiting.

-Lewis