My blog is one year old today

All together now:

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear bloggy
Happy Birthday to you


... and you smell like one too!

Wow. A whole year has gone by since Thomas HW Phipps, a mild-mannered newspaper journalist cage-fighter, turned on his computer and logged onto blogspot.com, and was transformed into the wild and kerazy pimp of magic known only as Chainsaw Zombie. It's been a journey, everyone. But wow. Isn't it amazing when you think that a whole year has gone by? And I mean, Christ, what a year it's been. Lets just think of the crazy things I've done, and all the amazing adventures that I've had.

...

Wow. A WHOLE year has gone by since last Christmas, and literally nothing has happened to me. I haven't matured, either emotionally or physically. No life-changing events have occurred. I haven't had any terrible experiences that have left me older and just a little bit wiser inside. I didn't get a job. I didn't learn to play the lute. No decent celebrities have died. Nothing has knocked me out of my comfortable rut. I still haven't been able to complete Goldeneye on 00 Agent. Thinking about it, what the hell was the point of 2005? I achieved fuck all. This blog is probably the most worthwhile thing that I've done all year.

That is undeniably depressing.

Well, this has been a shambles of a year. What a fucking waste of time 2005 was.

But anyway, back to the blog. Well, we've had some tears, we've had some anger, we've had some brutal fistfights to the death, we've even had some laughs. Actually, I hope we've had some laughs. I mean, I am a funny guy, and I do spend like an hour on a half on every post. There is some EFFORT put into this blog. I check the speling on every word, just to make sure there's no reason for anybody to think that this is some shabbily put together organisation. And you don't even realise how much work goes on behind the scenes of chainsawzombie.blogspot.com. You think that this magic just happens. BUT NO, YOU'RE WRONG. Every post goes through a 2 week long vetting process, in which I check and re-write every word at least twice. If I write a post and it's not good enough for my audience, then do I put it up anyway? NO I DON'T. I delete it and pretend it never happened. (NB: this is definitely not just a case of me being lazy and not being arsed to fix the post/write it).
Because of this, there are a number of pictures that I've made that no longer have posts to go with them. They're just floating about in cyberspace. They're alone and postless. Here are a couple of examples. If you want to, you could imagine the posts to go with them. They were really funny:







Kerazy, huh?

Anyway, I pasted my entire blog into Word. IT WAS 400 PAGES LONG. It also froze my computer twice, which just shows the power of decent literature. Here are some fun statistics:

Total words: 212, 731.
Total characters: 1,158,099.

FUCK that is a LOT of button pressing. I wonder how much energy I've used up just pressing the keys to work this blog? I KNOW I'LL WORK IT OUT USING MY AMAZING PHYSIX POWERZ. Well, using some weights I found downstairs, I reckon it takes about 60g of weight to depress one key on my keyboard. This is 0.06 kg, yeah? This is therefore 0.6 newtons, N. And you move the key, say, one cm, or 0.01 metres. And if work done (j) = force (N) x distance moved (0.01m) x the number of repetitions, then the total amount of work I've spent creating this blog is 0.6N x 0.01m x 1,158,099 = 6,948.59 JOULES. Or kilojoules. I can't remember. But that's still pretty cool. To be honest, I no longer do physics, so I have no idea what that number means. Or if I worked it out correctly.

Total number of Paragraphs: 7,705 (I quote my first ever post: "There will be paragraphs. Paragraphs are good." I feel I have lived up to my promise)
Total usage of the word 'fuck' (or varients): 603 (I therefore said this word an average of 1.65 times EVERY DAY)
Total usage of the word 'shit' (or varients): 427
Total usage of the most foul of foul C words (or varients): 71
Total number of swear words: 1,241 (which is 3.110275 times more than the South Park movie. Take that, you fiends!)
Total usage of "Oli G": 41
Total usage of the word "God": 194 (although it does pick up every time that "God" is included in a word, so a few of those might be from "Godzilla Ninjas". Yaaaay.)
Total usage of the word "Jesus": 44. So that means that all the combined power of religion can't compete with the F word. GO SWEARING!
References to sex: 147
References to drugs: 39
References to rock and/or roll: 183

And if you've just stumbled upon this blog after a long wandering through cyberspace, and want to know what all the magic is about, but you have some sort of alien lifeform eating its way through your brain and you only have a few minutes left to live, here's my blog compressed into a 100th of its size via the magic of Word's 'Autosummarise' feature:

Right. Cool, . Shit, . Yolk time.
"Right... ZOMBIE FILM TIME.
Cool . Poor guys. I hate people
Shit. If you're me. I hate people.
Zombie HEAD!"
DANCE PARTY TIME! Other cool guy: , .
FOUR TIMES. Shit. LIFE. Bond Films. Cool death? well.. Anyway. Cool. Fat people. ANYWAY. Shit, . ANYWAY. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. If I want
ANYWAY. Shit, posted points posted points
Anyway... Saving people? Kill zombies... Guys. Ogg: Shit... Fucking God.
Zombie Films. Zombie... zombie... zombie... zombie.... Shit. If they're hard core."
Zombies. Killed. Zombies? Thomas's brain: SHIT!
Run. Zombies? Zombies? Class film.

I have no idea what that's all about. Screw you, Autosummarise. Piece of crap.

So basically, I'm great. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG-BUDDIES! ONWARDS TO 2006!

(By the way, if you've enjoyed this blog and would like to send me money, please leave me a comment and we'll make the necessary arrangements. No time wasters.)

Blogging? Smlogging. Kerkaplogging. Klerklamumped. Siggedyumpted. Dumppedtumped. Dumped.

I know it's a long time since I last blogged, but GUESS WHAT GUYS? I have BIG NEWS. Really big news. If you're female, this could be the best news you've heard all year. I GOT DUMPED.
THAT'S RIGHT. I'M SINGLE AND AVAILABLE AGAIN. I'm now a solo pimp, back on the block, back on the blog, rollin' wit me homeboys and drive-buying from car-wheeling merchants on THE WIKKITY-WEST TOWN BROKEN-DREAMS BOULEVARD GHETTO HOMIE-BLUD. But seriously, take a ticket and form an orderly line, ladies, there's probably enough of me to go around. Actually, who am I kidding? There are only a few tickets left to Thomasville, population Me, principal industry: being really fit and amazing at everything. Walk, don't run, and SNAP ME UP before some passing Hollywood Starlet does.

"But Thomas, how did it happen?" I hear you cry. "Was there drama? Was there illicitness? Was there a love rat? Did you fall to your knees in the rain, crying out your heart, screaming your grief and loneliness at the sky? Did you ever give her the ring? What were her reasons? What are the details?"

Well, there are many answers to these questions. Many of these answers contain the word 'no'. The drama mostly consisted of two MSN conversations. No illicitness. Only one love rat, and that was an actual rat who was in love with another rat, and has no role in our breakup. No falling to my knees in the rain, crying out my heart, screaming my grief and loneliness at the sky. WHAT RING? Was it made of chocolate?

And now onto the reasons and details. Well, actually, if you're expecting reasons, I'd probably stop reading now, seeing as the female mind works kind of like a clock filled with custard and frogs (ie: oddly and non-sensically).

Well, my friends, firstly, the big dumping speech was over MSN. MSN. (I actually typed that MSN in capitals, as if SHOUTING IT, but you can't tell because MSN is already capitalised, so it doesn't really work. Perhaps I could incorporate some html or something? Maybe an exclamation mark or two? Hmm.) MSN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. MSN is such a coward's choice. Like, in ancient Japan, when you lost a battle you were supposed to stab yourself with your own sword in order to avoid the embarassment of losing a battle against the Godzilla ninjas. The same basic priniciple applies here, except stabbing yourself with your sword to avoid embarassment is kind of cool, whereas using an internet chat program is just wussy.
And anyway, you're only supposed to use MSN for asking out, not dumping (Unless you're me, in which any way of dumping is fine. Hey, the girl was lucky to get a chance in the first case, not my fault if she blew it, and I don't want get cried on). So that was Failure No.1 on girlfriend's part. She wanted a quick and easy breakup (Like a prostitute with running shoes), now she has long and drawn out (Like my penis being captured in pictoral form using a pencil).

Failure No.2: Giving me literally no decent reasons. Now, I know it's a female's perogative to instantaneously change her mind/change her mind again/have wild mood swings/have mild mood swings/change her mind AGAIN/go feral and eat her own babies/randomly start crying for no reason, but COME ON. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to go from happy as larry one day, to full nuclear relationship meltdown the next for no reason, but hey, thats why I'm not a girl, and that's what happened.
I mean, if she'd found me having sex with a swahlilian horse, or she wanted to run away with an emotionally-diorheatic midget dwarf with mother issues, or she'd suddenly been offered ONE MILLION DOLLARS to spend the night with an ugly billionaire played by Robert Redman, or she'd found me listening to Coldplay and enjoying it, well, then, I'd understand. But I'm a MALE, and I need CONCRETE REASONS. Possibly with a nice table of figures and numbers to back up the point. To be honest, for me, the optimum break-up would be in graphical form, including at least one multicoloured pie-chart. But I didn't even get a SCATTER GRAPH.
Instead, she chose to explain herself using a seemingly endless list of random female feelingful reasons that mean nothing to the more intelligent (read: male) members of society. Despite their total weakness and lack of reasoning, they still won the day. To explain this concept to the average male, I will use the famous Terminator 2: Judgement Day analogy.
The problem with fucked up female touchy-feely reasons is that they're the T-1000. No matter how many times I detonate them with your powerful explosive shrapnel shells of compressed logic and reasoning (as the Arnie terminator), they always seem to subltly shift to something different and equally non-sensiscal. This continues until I have no more shells left, or I lose interest. Therefore, "I feel we work better as friends due to some core differences in fundamental beliefs" shifts to "Well I'm actually a lot more female than you thought I was" shifts to "Well now I can't possibly go on because I KNOW we're going to break up sooner or later" shifts to "Well it's like a balloon, see, and when it pops IT'S GONE," shifts to "I don't want to break up with you, really, but now its just IMPOSSIBLE to go on because of my feelings". Its impossible to win this battle. Even liquid nitrogen/a really hot pit of molten metally stuff/the might of common sense can't defeat this T-1000 - the T-1000 of female emotions. This proves an important scientific point: Logic does not work on females. Write that point down in your copy-books. However, being a boatie, I've not won things for the past three years, and it hasn't really put me off. I'm used to it. To be honest, losing feels like the natural progression to me. Therefore, I kept pegging away at destroying her reasons, thus combatting the T-1000, thus fighting an unwinnable fight, for far too long. Reason for Failure No.2.

Failure No.3: Her third failure was in that she weakend - my endless attacks overwhelmed her enough for her to 'agree' to us 'going on a break'. Usually, when couples "go on a break" it means that they'll spend half a week apart feeling sad, before probably gett back together and having lots of fun make-up sex (By the way, make-up sex is NOT sex involving lipstick and rouge being thrown about willy-nilly. It's actually sex in which you make-UP your differences in opinion and vow to become better people). In this case "going on a break" does not mean that. We both knew that 'going on a break' meant 'stopping this awkard MSN conversation by throwing Thomas a possible bone of reconciliation, but then dumping him in two weeks time'. That bone was a bad idea. It was not a good idea to throw me that bone. That bone will bring you down, dear, no matter how much it makes you look less harsh for dumping your boyfriend of four months for no reason OVER MSN. I knew that the bone was just a bone. I knew that was literally no point. But then I thought to myself "I'll make a romantic gesture and VISIT HER AT HER HOUSE". So I did. Then I spent the day with her. In the process, I realised, 'What the fuck am I trying to get back with her for after all? She's very nice and all, but to be honest all the spark has gone and she spends all the time talking to her vacuous friends on the phone instead of building a totem pole to me, and then worshipping it."
So therefore, girlfriend, I have come to a decision. I don't think that it's a good idea that we go on a break. It is totally pointless. Nothing is going to happen. You obviously has no wish for us to be back together, and I've totally lost interest. Therefore, that's it. We've officially broken up. IT'S OVER. *Cries and screams at the sky* Actually, shit, shouldn't I tell you this in private first, instead of just randomnly coming up with it on my blog? Fuck, that would be really harsh, wouldn't it? Hey, at least it's not over MSN. Ha ha, I WIN.

So therefore, Lucia, overall I rate you 3/10 for your dumping technique. Must try harder (possibly, by PICKING UP THE PHONE AND CALLING, and by ACTUALLY HAVING SOME DECENT REASONS and GIVING ME EVEN A TINY BIT OF WARNING)

But anyway, I've gotten over the deep spiritual malaise that's plagued me for the past week. I feel fine again. Food tastes better, I'm full of blog ideas and best of all: IT'S NEARLY BOXING DAY! I am now a happy person. I am totally not twisted, deeply resentful, or suppressing feelings of violence or rage. In fact, as an example of my new zippedy-doo-da outlook on life, I offered to decorate our family Christmas cake:





I know what you're thinking. Shouldn't "SEASONS" have an apostrophe in it? After all, they are the greetings of the seasons - POSSESSIVE.

What? Bitter? Me? Nah.

Christmas, eh?

Shucks.
I'm liking these minimal posts that I've started doing.
They require less work. And they have a nice sort of cool white art-deco styling. I bet that Edward Hopper would love 'em.
Seriously, though, I WILL blog properly when I gain some motivation.
Which should be soon.
Hopefully.

Oh, and for all my Buddhist readers out there (seeing this is the most multi-cultural blog in the WORLD), aiming to achieve total spiritual enlightenment through meditation, fasting, and prayer, I have a SPECIAL Christmas present. Check out this sign I saw on my travels:



You guys must all feel so stupid. You thought that the only way to reach Nirvana was by extinguishing craving and breaking the circle of reincarnation, no longer experiencing any sense of the self and becoming one with Buddha, when IN FACT, it's readily available for a few quid from a kiosk in Kingston train station.
Tea latte is the way to go.
Cunts.
Merry Christmas.

I'm not going to blog

So stop fucking asking me.
Cunts.
Merry Christmas.

The BEST thing happened today

Okay. Picture the scene. It's just getting dark. It's the car park of our school. We boaties are just going out for our warm-up run. A certain boatie, Jack, is slightly ahead of the rest of the pack. He starts to jog out of the carpark. He's watched by a fat little 3rd year.
3rd year: Hey, run faster, you ginger shit.
Apparently this fat little 14 year old has been yelling insults at dear old Jack all day. Jack loses it. Like, he goes mental. And red. If you like swearing I advise you to read the next bit.
Jack: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU FUCKING LITTLE PRICK CUNT! I'L KILL YOU.
Jack chases the little 3rd year, who gives a petrified little scream and runs behind a car.
Jack: COME BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE FUCK!
Third year squeals again. Deputy Headmaster comes out of the front of the school. He takes in the scene, gasps, and shakes the monacle, mortarboard and ginsugars from his head.
Deputy Head: Hey, stop that! STOP IT I SAY.
Jack doens't stop it and continues to chase the little 3rd year. Deputy Head goggles.
Deputy Head: STOP! What's going on?
Jack: Fuck off, ask him.
Jack begins to run off down the road. Deputy Head calls again after him angrily, Jack stops, turns back, gets reprimanded.

Now, why was that the best thing to happen today? Have a guess. Write it down on a bit of paper. In fact, write it down on the screen here:

..................................................................................................................

If the ink isn't flowing properly onto the screen, use a solvent pen. That oughtta do it.

Was it because I dislike Jack and the idea of him getting reprimanded makes me happy and warm? No (in fact, Jack didn't even get in that much trouble). Was it because I dislike the Deputy Head and the idea of HIM getting cussed makes me happy and moist? No. Was it because I like swearing, and the idea of such foul cursewords being thrown around the car-park makes me secretly thrillful? No.

It's because, just for once, a 6th former managed to deafeat a 3rd year at SOMETHING. For ONCE, it was a victory for our side. For ONCE, the smile was wiped from the face of one of the Lower School. We won. Why does this please me so much?

Because I fucking hate the lowest three years in my school.

Seriously. It's hate. It really is. The first, second, and third years in my school can all go fuck themselves. For some reason, God has managed to gather together the most annoying bunch of 11, 12, 13 year olds in the entire country and sent them all to my school. Perhaps he's testing me for when I take his place.

I KNOW that, in order for the 6th form to keep replenishing itself, the school has to allow some younger boys in at some point, and 11 year olds probably deserve a decent education too. But WHY DO THERE HAVE TO BE SO MANY OF THEM? It's like a feckin plague of 11 year old squeaky voiced screaming gel haired greasy little small testicled cheeky barging pre-pubescent smelly loud little shits has suddenly descended on my previously calm haven of solitude.

They run into me when I'm walking along. They yell loudly while I'm contemplating the deep lyrics of Coldplay's White Shadows. They stand in the middle of the corridors with their massive backpacks, blocking the routes for all to pass. They're cheeky to me, they wander about in huge gangs, they act like they own the entire school.

PSA: If you haven't grown any pubic hair yet, you don't get to own any large educational buildings. In fact, you don't get to be a proper member of society.

I walk down the corridors like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, scowling at the scum that now fills my school. They're everywhere, screaming and giggling in the toilets, running full pelt into lunch and skipping the queue because they're little, running around in circles and hurling balls at my head on the field, hanging out in droves outside the girl's school next door, screaming randomly in the corridor, blocking the pathways. And they all look so feckin BAD. I mean, god forbid I we have just a FEW good-looking members of the lower school. But noooooooo. Most of them seemed to have tailored their appearance with the sole objective of pissing me off. To clarify, they all fit into one of five categories:

Fat -- When the Lower School does the cross-country run, these are the flabby little shits who start walking after ten metres, go red, start holding their sides and act like they're the most hard done-by members of the entire school. Then they buy all the chocolate bars in the Tuck Shop before I even arrive there and wander about eating them and talking loudly about how great they are. They also stand in doorways and force me to literally enter their tubby bellies in order to pass.
Oh yeah, for some reason all the fat ones think that they're really great.

Long hair -- These stupid little emo/indie rock kids with long hair and little badges on their bags wander the corridors of my school in rebel posses, looking really superior. These are the kids who show up on mufi day dressed in ultra-ripped jeans (with Green Day badges on them), a Nirvana t-shirt, an Offspring hoody and long stripey gloves with cut-out fingers. These feckin fecks probably listen to Kiss FM in the morning and get really psyched when they hear Westlife playing a rocky cover of a Daniel Beddingfield song then stroke their long hair and thing about how cool and rockenroll they are for having such nice long hair. Hey, guess what, fuckos? Long hair is no longer a rebellious fashion statement. Seeing as a good third of the country has grown long hair in an attempt to grapple-hook onto this trend, it's turned into just a depressingly non rebellious trend. And not even a good trend, like those guys in the sixties who had their teeth replaced with tiny watercolour pictures of some different teeth. It's a stupid trend and in ten year's time, you'll look at a photo album and say "What the hell was I thinking?". Then hopefully you'll hang yourself. With some high tech rope.
Every-time I see some of these cooly-cool-Jim-coolios, I just wanna grab their pseudo-rebellious locks, bang their heads together, give them a bowl cut, nail them to a chair (it'd have to be a proper wooden chair, not the crappy brown plastic ones we get given at our school) and force them to listen to the Pixies for six hours straight. Knock some proper rockenroll into their skullz. Little wankers.
Oh yeah, for some reason all the ones with long hair think that they're really great.

Ugly ones -- A lot of the kids in the Lower School don't quite look right. A lot of them are unsavoury looking. Many of them are just offensively ugly. They have weird shaped heads, sticking out ears, shiny skin, massively undersized bodies, eyes too close together, fucked up teeth, wheels where feet should be, braces, bad posture, weird looking hands, horribly twisted bodies, tongues too big for their mouths, greasy hair, hunched backs, and BO. And they don't just keep this ugly to themselves. They won't just do me a favour put a paper bag/cast iron mask over their freakishly malformed faces. Oh, no. They've been told by their mothers their whole lives how beautiful and perfect and unique they are, so they go out of their way to be the most obnoxiously loud, inyourface ugly fucks they can be. I don't want to look at your greasy skin, Bruno, fuck off.
Oh yeah, for some reason all the ugly think that they're really great.

Quiet ones that don't say/do much -- Hey, I don't mind these. This is probably because, if I squint my eyes, I can almost pretend that they're not there. Then that's just another memeber of the Lower School that I won't be seeing. The quiet ones don't really think that they're really that great, because they have low self-esteem. I think that we have too much self-esteem in this school. The Lower School need to have their spirits broken.

The "Too Cool for School" kids -- This could almost incorporate the 'Long hair' category, as many of the long haired members fit directly into this section. Basically, the TCFS (usually the really rich ones) have got an idea that they're better than the entire school, so swagger around being superior. They usually wear fancy custom blazers that their grandparents bought them in an attempt to look slightly rebellious, and are usually the ones who spend their holidays skiing in a specially built mountain in Switzerland. They buy out the entire stock of sweets at the sweet sale then walk about eating them right in front of me just as a demonstration of their wealth and utter superiority to me. On mufti days, they are dressed head to toe in designer threads. Usually, their hair is gelled into a tiny little quiff, which they wear with a moronic amount of pride. Like a crown. A little hair crown. Cunts.
These are the cheeky fucks who think that it's a hilarious idea to pat me on the back and say 'HI MATE!' as they walk by. Or they yell insults at the rowers as we do our run, then giggle and high-five each other for being so clever. BLAM. Dragon punch, right in the throat. But you can't, because the moment you touch a younger member of the school, they burst into tears and run to fetch the nearest teacher. And does the teacher EVER take the side of the older 6th former? NO. It's not FUCKING FAIR.

So now you can see why I'm so happy that Jack managed to frighten the crap out of one, and didn't get that harshly punished.

Why do I hate the Lower School so much? Perhaps it's because that, now I'm finally leaving childhood, I resent their youthful exuberance. Perhaps they just have a confidence in life that I lack, and I express my burning jealousy in anger and violence. Perhaps I'm already a twisted bitter old man. Except, no, wait, the reason why I hate the Lower School so much is because they're all a bunch of arrogant little fucking penii.

I recently got so sick of all these fuckers in my school, I decided to right back. I did this by training a guerilla army to break into their houses, sterilise their mothers and set fire to their arms. No, not really. The only thing to do is a series of lighning maneuvres to break down their spirits and crack their morale. Therefore, I barge them full on whenever I see one standing in the middle of the corridor. I do this by using my shoulders. In addition to this, I often utilise my elbows to really smackem in the ribs. I also like to grab their backpacks, just for a second, and knock them into the walls. If I see one running towards me, I suddenyl step directly in his way and cackle as he bounces off me. It's the small victories like this that keep me sane. The Lower School deserve this. They really do. It's not bullying. There are so many of them, and they outnumber me by like 400-1. They're a plague on the school. It's like that bit in Starship Troopers when there's like a billion bugs rushing the compound and they keep killing them but they just WON'T STOP and they end up climbing on the bodies of their fallen comrades. Me vs the Lower School: It's a riteous religious war. Jesus supports me. He does, I asked him other day.

"Hey, Jee-Zizzle, can I go ram the Lower School?"
"Sure thing, Thomas. Have fun!"

And that was Jesus talking, so I think that I'm in the right here.

Seriously, this is what English Public School life is like

I went to our school's Prize-Giving ceremony yesterday. This is because I won a prize. The English Literature prize. For being good at English Literature. I don't go to Prize-Givings for fun. I was thus required to attend said Prize-Giving to collect said prize from said Ex-Chief Commissioner of Police. Did I say that Sir John Stevens was giving out the prizes? Sir John Stevens is the Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, which means that he could probably have me arrested and locked up for life with a phone call. But of course, he wouldn't do such a thing. He was looking very bright and cheery as he sat at the front of the hall and the Prize-Giving ceremony began.

But first, let me give a quick explanation. Every Public School in England has its own set of very esoteric rules. Every school has their own. For example, in the school of Radley (or as it's more properly pronounced, "Wadley"), all the boys must wear blueberries on the cuffs of their bell-bottoms on Saturdays and midwinter holidays. Meanwhile, at Eton they must wear top hats and tails every time the Headmaster is making an inspection of the school. They must also refer to male teachers as "Sir" and female teachers as "Giddy Ma'am". Over in Tiffin, all blonde pupils must keep their armpits and noses thoroughly waxed. This is inspected every Ha'Penny day. However, 6th formers are encouraged to grow long bushy mustaches. Our school is no different, and thus the Prize-Giving ceremony followed a very set ritual.

Well, first of all came the ritual sacrifice of the pig. Now many of you Americans who read this blog may not know this, but pig-sacrifice is still a fully accepted part of Independent School life (as long as it follows EU standards), as well as canings and the occasional bit of sodomy in the boy's common room. Smoking is forbidden on school grounds, however. But anyway. The tradition in our school is to sacrifice the pig and then daub the blood on the forehead of the boy who wins the Headmaster's Commendation Book Award. So, after Mr Cullen (RS teacher) had taken out the ceremonial silver knives and pierced the swine's throat, and allowed the blood to collect in the ceremonial silver dish (this was by far the most exciting part of the evening, especially when the pig nearly kicked our history teacher in the face), the silver bell of Sageness was rung by the oldest boy in the school and the Prize-Giving Ceremony could begin.

The rest of the teachers then filed in, wearing their ceremonial robes and looking either very proud of themselves, or mortified beyond belief. Everyone in the audience pretended that they were taking this solemn procession very seriously. I don't know why, it looked frankly ridiculous. I kept rupturing blood vessels in an attempt to not laugh at Mr Simpson wearing his huge fluffy red robe. I'm sorry, I should have been taking proceedings seriously, but COME ON. THEY WERE WEARING STUPID ACADEMIC ROBES. I bet that they all chased each other around the corridors beforehand yelling "I'M BATMAN!", giggling madly, and pushing hoops along with a stick.

Oh yeah, and talking of dumbass uniforms, the MP (member of parliament, dickhead) of our region was also present. Now it is the rule that MPs in this country have to wear full elaborate beefeater dress complete with huge gold medallion and lacy gloves at all time. He sat on the front row for the entire proceedings, said nothing, did nothing, just clapped ocasionally. Wearing lacy white gloves. I actually wish that I was making this bit up.

Next came the speeches. The school governor, a solemn looking man wearing the traditional public school laurel wreath across his ears and carrying the Hampton chalice of knowledge, gave a glowing speech about how great the school was. This was followed by the Headmaster (an aloof character who never leaves his office in school hours except to administer canings), who gave a glowing speech about how great the school was. Between the two speeches, everything possibly connected with the school was complimented, many times over. The buildings, the staff, the chapel, the buildings again, any future buildings that they might be planning on building, the staff again, the sports results, the staff, the way that the wind blows past the south-east block, the trees, the grounds, the groundkeeper, the little hobo who lives in the entrance halls and shines the teacher's shoes, the staff AGAIN, the gruel provision of the kitchens, the caning facilities, the caretakers, the staff, the exam results, the exam results, the exam results, the exam results, the brilliant way in which we did in our exams, the staff again, and finally... the staff.

This speech lasted roughly fifteen and a half hours. The staff were mentioned about seven hundred and fifty times. The boys in the school were not mentioned once. We are therefore not important. We knew this beforehand. There are posters up all around our school with the words You are not important in big bold letters. The teachers take these down every time parents come for a tour of the school. We're also allowed to smile and breathe above the regulated 20 breaths a minute when parents come round. It's quite a treat, really.

Finally, the prizes were given out, the winner of the Headmaster's Commendation Award was daubed, and I recieved my book prize (seeing as I won an English prize and I no longer do art, I chose an art book about Banksy; king of graffiti artists) and heartily shook the hand of Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. "Very well done," he said to me cheerily. I nodded at him with a healthy amount of respect. Actually, I was kind of glad that he hadn't just taken that opportunity to flick through the book he was about to present to me. The artist has a kind of anti-police thing going on. This was like on the second page:



Would it have done for him to have seen that? No. I think not. Anyway, after three solid hours of prizes being given out to increasingly stoned looking leavers, and a nice recital by the school Chamber-Piccolo Sextet, Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police gave us a speech. It was a very rousing speech, full of such hilarious jokes as 'Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police phoning up another police station, only to be rudely treated by the operator" and "Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police tells a joke featuring a boat and a lighthouse". Man, how we laughed at his many witty jokes. You know, if he hadn't been the Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force, I reckon that he'd have been an EXCELLENT stand up comedian. No, seriously, people were ROLLING IN THE AISLES. I was laughing so hard, my sides LITERALLY split. Actually, I was too busy watching him and thinking about how many confessions he'd beaten out of people in the past. There's a man whose done some torturing, I thought. Ol' Sir John "I'll hacksaw off your other foot if you don't tell me who sold you those drugs" Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police - funny guy.

Talking of torture, I haven't even got to the reception after the main event. Well, first the school amateur mime-acrobatics team had to perform a ten minute solo from the acrobatic-mime adaptation of Journey's End. Following this, the organist played the National Anthem. Everyone stood up and sang it, looking very confused. I got to 'God Save our Gracious Queen" before petering out into singing random vowels in the vague tune of the song. Personally, I think that they should replace the National Anthem with "Into The Groove" by Madonna. That's a song that everyone loves and can sing along to. It's also finger-clickin' groovay.

Finally... FINALLY... we were allowed into the reception area, where we all mingled and congratulated each other on being just so damn amazing at everything. I also invented myself a brand new game.

Canapé Russian Roulette
This is an awesome game. It's a game of skill, luck, and bravery. And best of all, it's very simple to learn, and can last you any number of foolish corporate gatherings. You don't need very much to play this game. In fact, all you need is yourself. And one other person to play against. And some canapés. And possibly a large prize-giving occasion in which you are served such canapés. Because you can't go out and buy them yourself, oh no! That would ruin the whole point of the game.

Right. Once you have your crucial elements, the game is simple. You just pick up a canapé at random (one that you've never seen before in your life) and take a BIT bite. You must then chew and swallow it. You are NOT allowed to poke, closely examine, sniff, nibble, lick, test-taste, gulp, sluice, or spit out said canapé. That is against the rules. Once you've done this, you can either eat the rest of the canapé, or get rid of it. You then move onto the next tray and repeat. This continues until you are physically incapable of trying any more disgusting cheese whip garlic fish paste puff pastry chewy crunchy vegetable paste spicy crap covered wrap sausage battered pieces of shit canapés.

I was not good at this game. I managed a total of ONE canapé before giving up. But it was a motherFUCKER of a canapé. Of all the canapés in the world, this baby must have been the worst. This baby and its brothers and sisters. There was a big pile of them. They looked like a delicious combination of Yorkshire Pudding and Profiterole. There was a delicious looking white cream oozing from one. "Ooh" I thought to myself. "That does look delicious. I shall partake." I then picked it up and took a huge bite.

Oh. My. God.

I don't know what was in that canapé. I don't want to know. It was like some weird salmon mousse cream cheese culinary inbred incestuous abortion of a paste. Literally, the room span around me. I choked on it, gasped for air, leapt around gurkking, before rushing to the juice bar. Christ. And then I was stuck with three quarters of the canapé of doom still to eat. Because you can't just put it down somewhere. Oh no, that's against social conduct. And you can't just put it back on the plate, half eaten. Unhygenic. And you can't throw it in the air then punt it across the room into a crowd of 13 year olds. So I was left holding this thing, until I thought 'fuck it' and threw it into a random sink.

Who the fuck eats canapés and enjoys them? I'll tell you who: RICH PEOPLE. There. I made some social commentary.

So that's Canapé Russian Roulette, the first of two games that I've been playing recently. The other is the original Gameboy version of Donkey Kong Land. This game is so awesome. First of all, the cartridge is YELLOW, which is pretty cool, as all the other Gameboy cartridges were crappy old grey. Secondly, you get to play as either Diddy (boo) or DONKEY (woo) Kong, and you can run around jumping on the heads of snakes, gophers, evil monsters, armadillos, flying pigs, giant men, but not wasps. Whatever you do, DON'T try to jump on the wasps. They kill you.
What's brilliant is that its been like seven years since I last played this game, but I still remember the exact location of nearly every enemy, every K-O-N-G piece, most of the bonus levels, and in fact every jump in the game. I automatically remembered the traditional 'roll off every edge to give yourself an extra long jump' tactic without even thinking about it.
THOSE are reflexes. Awesome. And yet, I can remember all that, but I have no clue about the subjunctive? Life, ce ne'st pas fair.

I'm living it up, y'all.