Wow, haven't blogged for a while

Oh well. It'll be a New Year's resolution to blog more often in teh futurezzzz. Because now I'm an Oxford Student, I can't deprive the rest of the world of my greatness, can I?

I have so much to write about. My christmas party. My recent entry into the terrifying world of Myspace and Facebook. My gap year. Me getting into Oxford (Admittedly, I have written about this already but I think that it bears repeating - I am simply Better than 99.9% of the blogging community. That's right, you. YOU. Scum). The fact that I have so far written 1607 words of my English coursework about the syntactical, lexical and phonological implications of the ramblings of Karl "K-Man" Pilkington. My ingress into the working world - I am now a waiter so could change this blog into one of those "True Confessions of a Waiter" things. Like yesterday, yeah, I picked up the plates and was like 'This is fine' but I realised that they were scalding hot halfway walking down the aisle of the restaurant and I was like wtf omg this hurts so I basically ran to the table and threw the hot plates of chicken and gravy at the two gents and what thanks did I get?? ONE POUND IN TIPS nuts to that. So yeah, stick around for more quality anecdotal gems like that. I suppose I could blog about this Christmas - especially the fact that I think this Xmas has been especially important as I have literally not been bothered by Jesus or God at all. Christmas TV. Commercialism. Some more stuff about the kerazy stuff those muslims get up to. The lack of homework I have done compared conversely to the amount of homework that I have to do.

Basically you see that there is a PLETHORA of things for me to write about today. But no. I have decided that all of these pebbles are just tiny jigsaw pieces in the great tapestry of life, and in order to weld together those innumberable shards of life's great mosaiic, it is necessary to pick up all the fragments and try to glue them together to form some sort of meaningful whole - checkmate!. Mixed metaphors aside, I have been wracking my brains for a way to sum up 2006 in a nutshell. After all, so much happened this year... from the news to my girlfriend suddenly appearing from the primal swamp again to Saddam Hussein misinterpreting the rules to Hangman to me throwing TWO AWESOME PARTIES to everything that's happened... it seems that summing up 2006 in a nutshell will be difficult. But nevertheless I have tried to to sum up 2006 in a nutshell. Below is my attempt to to sum up 2006 in a nutshell.

To sum up 2006 in a nutshell.



AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!!!!!! HAHAHAHHAHA!! YOU SEE IT'S LIKE SUMMED UP INSIDE A LITERAL NUTSHELL. I CAREFULLY TOOK THE TWO METAPHORICAL TERMS AND RETRANSLATED THEM LITERALLY TO FORM AN ALMOST RIDICULOUSLY SURREAL CONTRAST! OH VERY GOOD SIR!



That's good. Happy New Year to people I like, AIDS and rusty needles to those I don't.

I assume that you are all wondering

... whether or not I got into Oxford University. After all, it's been nearly a week since I got the results and I have yet to write a blog full of simpering self-congratulation or boisterious self-loathing, or a weird combination of the two. Contgratu-Loathing, perhaps. Or self-self. I have decided to clear up this state of affairs by writing this post in which I inform everyone who doesn't know how I did of the decision of the nice people at Oxford University. Although, thinking about it, everyone who I know in real life (AKA actual real people who I like) already knows the answer, as I have already told them. And if you read the comments in the previous post of this blog, it's pretty obvious how I did.

So actually this post is aimed at people who have never met me and who do not read this blog. To be honest, if somebody makes a point of not reading this blog, I assume that they'd be some kind of gibbering retard, happily sitting in a padded room somewhere, eating flies and writing scientific thesii on the wall with fecal matter. And such people have no place even hearing about Oxford University. Scum.

To to be honest a simple blog in which I just said "I GOT IN YAY" or "I DIDNT GET IN BOO" is a waste of time, as it would be lost on your people. I'd better write a long rambling story about the interview procedure instead so that people who weren't following me around all day with a camera will be able to see what was goin' down. I tell you, there was some dark shit goin' down at that college. Hoo boy.

First things first, I was applying to do English Literature at Schmalliol College (the name of the college has been changed in case a don happens to Google the college, finds this blog, gets offended, hunts me down like a dog and bludgeons me to death with a volume of Keates). Schmalliol College is, I found out following my application, like the hardest college to get into in the history of Oxford. To be honest I didn't even do any research on it, I only wanted to go because I'd been to an open day and the lady taking me on a tour told me a fun story of how the Schmalliol Collegians vandalised the boat house of their neighbouring college, Schminity. It amused me and I thought "Why not here's as good as any other place" (NB: I did not voice this point of view in the interview).

FLASH CUT FORWARD to the day of the interview. I rolled up to Schmalliol, smokin' a doobie, clutching my bag and planning my line of attack. You see, I was pretty sure that although there were likely to be a few nerds who knew more about books than I did, there'd also be loads more who didn't begin to touch my intellectual superiority. Thus the plan was to find somebody not as good as English as me and to essentially make them my bitch. This would then give me armour against the people who knew more than me. So if Nerd started talking about, I don't know, 15th Century Poetry or something and Bitch said "Wow I haven't read any of that", I'd be able to go "YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T READ ANY 15th CENTURY POETRY?", look at the nerd and roll my eyes before moving the conversation onto Magic Realism. I like Magic Realism. I can talk about it at length. Do you want to hear about Magic Realism? No? Well fuck you then. Magically. And realistically.

Before finding such an unfortunate specimin, I went up to the room, where literally my first action was to jump on the bed and crack my head against the wall. I rolled about in pain for a bit, before sitting on the bed and staring blankly at the cupboard for about ten minutes. It was dead good. Then I stood up, cracked my knuckles, tipped my hat (NB: metaphorical. I was not wearing a hat) and headed down to the JCR to find a mate. For any idiots out there, JCR stands for 'Junior Common Room', it is where we young student dudes hang out and shoot the breeze; they have such quaint names for things in Oxford.

To cut a long story short, I ended up gazing longingly at the huge group of people who all seemed to be best friends with each other, before quietly sitting on a sofa and wondering what the fuck I was meant to do. This went on for about ten minutes until I panicked and went to get coffee with my girlfriend, who was to be honest like a ready made Oxford bitch - she was ALREADY my friend AND she knew less about Literature than me, thus making her a perfect foil for my foibles! Unfortunately she fucked off to learn some Geography or something and I had to go back to Schmalliol to find myself a Polonius. At first it didn't go brilliantly; I kind of perched on a sofa and listened in on people's conversations until I heard a cheery northern voice. I looked round and saw an odd sight. A northern dandy (replete with cravat, long coat and boots) was having a deep conversation about Dostoevsky with some huge hulking asian-looking brer. I thought 'Ah this is my chance, time to turn on the Phipps charm' and did a very subtle conversation-joining maneuvre; basically I looked at them and slowly leant towards them until they were forced to acknowledge me.

I joined the converation and mentally cracked my knuckles - I needed to find the dumber of these two and mercilessly hound him until he accepted me as his literal God. This did not happen and both of them blew me out of the water with their skillz. I mean, I thought that I knew something about literature but HO - LEE SHIT. Literally the entire conversation was them saying long words about rhyme meter and old poets and Shakespearian verse and Dostoevsky's childhood. "I READ CRIME AND PUNISHMENT! It wasn't that good!" I proudly ejaculated when big D was mentioned, and they both gave me withering looks which sent me scurrying back to my fallback position of 'nod wisely and positively backchannel everything they say'.

We moved into the dinner hall and a girl joined in the conversation. She was blonde and called Prune or something. "Aha," I thougth to myself "A chance to prove myself a true king of the Books; time to turn on the Phipps charm". Unfortunately the Northern Dandy got to her first and started a conversation about Sylvia Plath, which now I wish I had fucking listened to. "So do you prefer Sylvia or Ted?" he asked. "Well I always thought I'd prefer Sylvia and hate Ted," she mused, "But I did read a bit of Ted the other day and to be honest some of his structures are incredible". I was like wtf who the hell is Ted why have I not been informed. To be honest the entire first evening was me staring blankly at highly verbose, knowledgeable people, with my mouth slightly ajar, and the letters W T F floating above my head, along with a question mark and a burnt-out lightbulb. If there had been a camera crew following me around, I would have looked directly at the camera and made a kind of bemused slightly angry confused face. Like s:-s or >':(

Actually, I think that the entire Oxford admissions procedure would make a really groovy reality TV show. Think about it - you have your cast of hot young things all staying in the same building. You have the inevitable drama of them all competing for an amazing prize and the tears and heartbreak that come from realising that they might have let themselves, their school and - yes - even their country down. Hell, there was a pub quiz on the second day so we were all split into different factions - I was in a team called "Fenglish Park" (a name that was a combination of English, Fine Art, and Linkin Park (?)) with a bunch of nice people who were in the same "What the fuck am I doing here" position as me. You even have mini challenges in the shape of the interviews themselves. And viewers could vote off the uglier contestants. This idea was what was bubbling inside my skull when the rest of the gang were reciting Shakesperian sonnets LEARNT BY HEART and deciding on their favourite rhyme meter (not a joke, the Northen Dandy - who later turned out to be safe blud - actually asked the question "What is your favourite rhyme meter?" and got annoyed at the lack of immediate response; he claimed that he was joking afterwards, but I also got the impression that, had someone responded, he would have been fully equipped to have a lively debate on the merits of the iambic pentameter vs the dactylic hentameter).

Actually, thinking about it, I have spent this entire blog so far describing how woefully in over my head I was, but I have yet to get to the most important bits of all - the INTERVIEWS THEMSELVES. DUH DUH DUHHHHH. They were ok. Well the two at Schmalliol were fine, with lovely lovely people, discussing an easy poem (ah, the Holocaust, eh? Elegy, you say? SCHWINGGGG) and, yes, a nice talk about the magic, the beauty, the masterpiece of fictional symmetry that is MAGIC REALISM!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, my final interview did not go so well. I got referred to St John's college, famous for being the college of current British PM Tony "Butters" Blaire. Schmalliol is best known for being the college of famous British legend Boris "Crumbs" Johnson. Use that as you will to extrapolate the relative ethoses - ethii? - plural of ethos - of the two colleges, but basically my St John's interview consisted of me getting bent over a chair and gang raped for 45 minutes. With a cactus. Metaphorically.

I am not going to lie, there were a few problems with this interview. The first was that I'd expected to be interviewed by a nice grandmotherly old woman. However when I entered the room I saw that there were in fact TWO OTHER GENTS in the room, including one bald guy who asked all the questions and spent the entire interview BLAM BLAM BLAMMING me with hard questions.

The second question revolved around my complete ineptitude with poems. See, I'd been given this poem by famous ladypoet Sylvia Plath. Unfortunately, her name was not featured on the poem itself. Had it been, I might have recalled the snatches of the conversation between the Northen Dandy and the Blonde Girl and would have remembered that Platthy had some kind of problem with men. Unfortunately as it was I totally misinterpreted the poem and decided that a mournful elegy about coming to terms with a father's death by cleaning an old statue was actually about a man cleaning a ship, and was thus a paean about paganism and the futility of God. BUT GOD-DAMNIT IT WAS A CRAP POEM ANYWAY the central metaphor made no sense and as it turns out, Plath's father was later lost at sea so I think that my interpretation worked just as well IF NOT BETTER. But unfortunately as soon as I brought up my idea they were like no get out you silly boy.

The other problem came when I decided to cuss the Gothic. I'm sorry to all you goths out there, but Gothic Literature is some of the most uninteresting simplistic emotionless crap I have ever read and I was annoyed that I'd wasted two years of school studying fricken Dracula and Frankenstein and being beaten across the head with imagery - OH LOOK IT'S NATURE V NURTURE! IMAGERY! BLOOD! I happened to voice this point of view in the interview, which led to a ten minute reaming in which the tutors tried to think of something interesting about the Gothic, failed, and thus quizzed me on Mary Shelley's home life instead. How the fuck do I know who Mary Shelley's mother was? I guessed that she was a human rights lawyer (predating lawyers and human rights by like a century) which made them laugh nastily and write mean things on their clipboards.
They then used the fact that I knew no background information about Mary fecken Shelley to prove that the Gothic was somehow much smarter than it actually was but at this point I was pissed off and I was having none of it so I was like 'Nuts to you baldy, the gothic is crap, the writers just adopt a theme for the day and make up some dumb monster to personify it' which kind of shut him up so he went onto discussing The Tempest.

I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE TEMPEST. It's like Shakespeare's randomnest play, makes no sense, and just gives the main character magic powers which lets him do whatever he wants when it is thematically convenient. I would rather talk about Hamlet which at least has characters who can't make demons appear and chase their enemies away every ten seconds. Unfortunately they were dead set on The Tempest, and in particular the Masque - a random trippy scene in the middle of the play in which a load of random trippy goddesses appear on stage, dance about singing about harvest, then fuck off again. I know less about the Masque than I do about Mary Wollstonecraft (Shelley's mum - so we've all learnt something today!). I didn't even read it when we did the Tempest as the teacher was like 'You don't need to read this it will never appear in any exam' THANKS A LOT MISS.
The Tempest bit of the interview climaxed with the guy staring me dead in the eye, putting on a high pitched squeaky voice and saying - "Why do you prefer Caliban to Ariel? Do you empathise more with him cos he's ugly? Ugly? Do you want to be ugly? Ugly? Are you ugly? Why do you prefer the ugly one? I love thee, master. I love thee. What do you say to that?"
I pretty much just stared blankly at him and mentally cross St John's off the list of colleges I am likely to get into.

So in conclusion, that was my Oxford interview procedure. So how did I do? What did the letter say? Did I get in? Or am I scum? In or scum? IN OR SCUM? To be honest I am bored of typing now so I'll tell you the answer:

IN. Not scum. You are scum. I am not. I am in.


Yay.


I think it's a mistake, to be honest. A typo. There's probably an English Literature genius called Tuomas Phelps sitting at home crying now with his Never ha ha not ever you fool you think we'd give a place to a moron like you? letter clutched in one pudgy fist. Ho hum.

What happened at my Oxford interviews

I know that you would like to know how my interviews at the University of Oxford went. I was going to write a long blog post about it tonight.

However, I got distracted by the fact that, following the interviews, I have basically turned into a nervous wreck. The results come in Friday and that seems simultaneously MILES TOO FAR AWAY yet MILES TOO CLOSE.

My disintegrating mental state has manifested itself in several ways. Firstly my mouth has started randomly bleeding. Secondly I keep pulling bits of skin off of my hands. Thirdly I have become addicted to repetive puzzle games. Firstly Tetris, secondly Minesweeper.

Tetris is awesome... my personal best is a rather good 162 lines.
Unfortunately I would not class Minesweeper as being an 'awesome' game. I am now addicted to it. And not addicted in a good cocainey way. I am more addicted in a bad heroiney way. Like I keep playing, not because I want to, because I know that if I stop I will lie in bed hating myself. Basically, the version of Minesweeper I have is shit - bombs are placed randomly, and so to win it is neccesary to just randomly make repeated guesses as to where the fucking bombs are. This is annoying.

To conclude, I just spent THE PAST HOUR AND A HALF compulsively playing Minesweeper. I DIDN'T WIN ONCE. NOT ONCE. I start a new game, click on a few things, die, restart, repeat. THE PAST HOUR AND A HALF. My mouse broke halfway through.

After a near-mental breakdown and -not even kidding- a single tear brimming up in my eye - I only only JUST managed to win, which allowed me to quit. And I accidentally erased my list of best times on the Minesweeper start-up screen. This means that, after my hour and half's hard work at Minesweeper (and nothing else... literally it was just me staring at the screen in clicky silence) I had actually made myself seem LESS good at it in the mind of the computer.

Thank FUCK I finally managed to scrape through that ONE GAME. The list of best times on Minesweeper now reads "COMPUTER" for the bottom nine, and "HOLY SHIT I DID IT" at number one with a blistering time of 2.42. My head hurts and my screen is clogged up with minesweeper windows that will not disappear no matter how much I press 'FORCE QUIT'. Look check it out:



Hehehehe HUUGE. And that doesn't even begin to cover it. There are millions of other windows buried under the first pile. Like a huge atmosphere of Ozone and devilled eggs.

I fucking hate Minesweeper.

Oxbridge results on Friday. I won't get it.

I want to cry.

OXFORD INTERVIEW HELP ME

Hey dudes, I was re-reading my last post when I remembered the tenth thing that annoys me. This is a little belated but whatever - the problem is easily rectified. Just read the previous post, and when you get to the bit that goes "1: Oh crap I miscounted there are only nine things that I do not like and I cannot be bothered to change all the titles", insert the following lines:

There's this kid in my school in the year below me. I can't remember his name, but he's asian or something. Right; he plays the bassoon or the piccolo or some gay instrument, and Oxford University - yes THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY - has decided that because he has the ability to BLOW INTO A PIECE OF HARDENED RESIN in such a way THAT PRETTY SOUNDS COME OUT OF IT, he is good enough to get a scholarship. Yes that's right, he is in the year below, and just because he wastes his time playing music instead of kissing girls and sunbathing he gets to bypass the need for getting decent exams and going through the soul-crushingly difficult interview procedures. Is that justice? If I'd known that no actual aptitude for a subject was required to go to Oxford then well, shit, I would've spent my formative years fellatiating a reed. But no I spend my scholastic years reading books and doing exams and I still probably won't get into the university because the admissions tutor doesn't like my haircut. What a knob this music-boy is.

To be honest I have never spoken to him before - the sight of his annoying smiley duck-face (he has a duck-face) puts me into a bit of a rage - but I bet he is one of those people who practises his instrument for like twelve hours a day and manages not only to insert that fact into every sentence, but to hold it over you as a matter of pride, eg:

Boy 1: Hey, duck-face boy, I am going to go and watch a game of fooze-ball this weekend. What will you be doing with your free time?
Duck-face: Fooze-ball? Hah! I wish I had time for fooze-ball, but some of us have to practise playing all the arpeggios on the bassoon a hundred and fifty times each.
Boy 1: I am going to have lunch.
Duck-face: Lunch? Look at you eating lunch! Golly your life is so easy; I have no time for lunch as I have to go and play the entire works of Mozart solidly for a day and a night while simultaneously composing my own opera. My life is so hard.
Boy 1: Ok bye.
Duck-face: I play the bassoon!! :D

... something like that. I just had a thought though. If I DO get into Oxford, I am so giving him a wedgie. I'll get in a year before him so I'll be able to get a really good hiding place, and then when he walks in holding his basoon I will totally jump out from a statue and wedgie him. Man it'll be so awesome.

Of course this is assuming that I do get into the University. Which, to be honest, is the least likely thing ever. My ingress into said educational establishment is entirely based upon how I perform at a series of interviews. Taking place next week, these interviews will test my knowledge and skill at literature to the hardcore core; I will be forced to navigate a Minotaurian-style gauntlet of essay-dissections, analysis of poetry, and general literature discussion, with a load of trick questions thrown in for fun (they say that there are no trick questions in the brochure but YEAH RIGHT they also say that black people and jews are allowed into the college and to be honest that ain't happnin any time soon).

These interviews will be a delicate tightrope balancing act of saying the right thing and acting in the right way. I am currently devising my act - do I choose to go with the "Handsome but unconventional rogue who will denigrate Shakespeare and call Hamlet a 'sissy-boy'" angle, or the "Deep and philosophical thinker with a unique definition of literature and art in the global marketplace" version? I reckon if I go for the first I will wear jeans, my "Reading is awesome" t-shirt, and a blazer - just to show that I am academically enabled. If I plump for the second, then I will wear leather patches on my tweed coat and grow a little moustache. Of course, I could always wear dark glasses and bring a dog in with me and pretend to be blind. Oxford is always up for admitting comedy tokens. Hmm...

Yes yes I know, teachers and adults say 'just be yourself' but yeah right when has that ever helped anyone? Anne Frank was herself and a fat lot of good that did - and judging by the verbal diahroea that occurs whenever I am in a high stress situation - for example, meeting a lesbian and saying 'lesbian' by accident, or meeting a woman with one boob and telling her the "What's black and has nine tits?" joke - it is quite safe to say that being myself is the worst case scenario of the interview.

* * *

(The bin-bag outside a breast-cancer clinic, by the way)

* * *

It will just be so difficult to give the interviewers what they want. As well as answering all their questions satisfactorly, I will also have to show that I am 'teachable' (I think this means that if I see the correct answer straight away, I should try to get it a bit wrong so that they can point me in the right direction), confident yet not cocky, verbose yet not annoyingly labyrinthine in the vocalisation of my prosaic conceptions, good-looking yet not annoyingly handsome, knowledgeable about literature yet not a geek.

Actually I think that being perceived as an English Literature geek will not be a problem for me. I think that being perceived as having any knowledge whatsoever about English Literature might be where my problems lie. I mean, one of the good things about me is that I have read pretty widely around our English literature A-Level course. The bad point is that when I say 'widely', I mean 'books from - in the past year - America Chile Peru Brazil Japan Russia Germany France and the whole continent of South America'. Do you notice what is missing from that list? YEAH ENGLAND. It was only the other day that I realised that I have read like only one actual book coming from England ('Waterland' by Graham Swift - fucking awesome) in the past year. I decided to set that right by quickly trying to blast through a book by Henry James, but sentences like "It was vain for Mrs Wix to represent - as she speciously proceeded to do - that all this time would be made up as soon as Mrs Farange returned: she, Miss Overmore, knew nothing thank heaven, about her confederate, but was very sure any person capable for forming that sort of relation with the lady in Florence would easily agree to object to the presence in his house of the fruit of a union that his dignity must ignore," - make Henry James difficult to recomment as a 'quick read', so I kind of gave up and read American Psycho instead. Which, although being much more fun to read and having lots of killings, is basically a one-joke enterprise and is - worst of all - WRITTEN BY A FUCKING AMERICAN. When the course I am trying to get into is composed of English and ONLY English literature, my total lack of reading of that genre means that I might be in for a bit of bother.

Equally, when it comes to actual DISCUSSION of literature, I find myself increasingly unsure of my abilities. Last year I used to go to extra classes to take an Advanced Extension English exam (yes I am a geek so sue me; I got a distinction and you still wet the bed), which basically revolved around reading books and talking about them. The other day I was bored so I thought to myself - "I know what, I'll swing by English Club to see what's going down with my homies!!" So I did and to my surprise there were like eight kids from the year below who all seemed to know more about literature and were more able to talk about it than me. I AM MEANT TO BE THE BEST LITERATURE STUDENT IN THE SCHOOL and I kind of sat there with my mouth slightly ajar as they started talking about 'the Geography of the English novel' and 'the classically inward-looking climate of English literature'. One of them said the word 'peroquial' and I was like wtf. Then the teacher turned to me - as though I was some sort of fount of knowledge - and asked me for my opinion. Fortunately I managed to rinse that kid down as he was talking about Waterland, so I was like "You prick it's not important that it's in England; the fenlands in which the novel takes place only exist as the landscape of the anti-fairytale, the stage on which the actions of history can pirouette, and what's more you are ugly and I had sexual relations with your mother last night" and that shut him up.

But seriously dude... peroquial? I looked it up and according to dictionary.com it means "any of numerous small, slender parrots, usually having a long, pointed, graduated tail, often kept as pets and noted for the ability to mimic speech" so basically that guy has no clue what he's talking about. Parrots? Yeah whatever mate. Lay off the shrooms.

So yeah I basically know no technical terminology whatsoever. It's gonna be interesting in the interview when they ask me to clarify a technical term and I say "well, the word sounds kind of like what it is meant... to represent?" (actually this is onomatopoeia or mimosis I am clever). My only hope lies in the fact that usually I have a much deeper understanding of what's going on, I just have no clue of how to translate it into words. So while peroquial-boy might be able to read, I don't know, a bit of the ol'TS Eliot and say "well this interestingly links to the poem The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold (1822 - 88) in which the 'buried life' is 'the mystery of the heart which beats so wild, so deep in us'", I'll be like "THIS POEM BLOWS MY FUCKING MIND ELIOT IS A GENIUS HOW CAN HE FIT SO MUCH STUFF SO DENSELY INTO EVERY LINE I COULD TALK ABOUT THIS POEM ALL DAY WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING MATTHEW ARNOLD WHO I HAVE NOT EVEN HEARD OF AT THIS POINT" and the interviewers will give me a place at the college and they will select a heavy leather-bound tome from the bookshelf and beat peroquial-boy across the head with it, punctuating each crunching impact with the words "Nobody... likes... a... know... it... all".

That is unlikely to happen.

Oh well, my interviews will be from Tuesday-Thursday. I should get the verdict by Christmas eve, just in time to ruin the holidays for everyone.

Pray for me.

ARGH FUCK I JUST LEANT ON MY CHAIR AND PINCHED MY ARM-FLESH AGAINST THE DESK THAT IS AGONY IF I CANNOT EVEN SIT ON A CHAIR PROPERLY WITHOUT INJURING MYSELF HOW THE FUCK AM I MEANT TO GET INTO THE BUFFEST UNIVERSITY IN THE COUNTRY

Here is a list of ten things that I do not like

10. Drinking Fountains
I don't mean the act of drinking fountains (how do you drink a fountain anyway? With a curly drinking straw?); No, I am referring to the metal things in the toilet that you press a lever and drinking water comes out of. I am annoyed by them. Or rather, the small children in my school who choose to fill up their water-bottles at the drinking fountain (a process that takes like ten minutes because water comes out of the drinking fountain at about one drop a second), when they could just use the tap in the sink which would take about TEN SECONDS. I think that they actually believe that drinking fountain water is somehow different from tap water. It's not. IT'S THE SAME WATER. This annoys me. Not sure why. I mean, I don't even use the drinking fountain. Firstly it is too close to the door of the bathroom and secondly I think that it is far too low; the drinker always ends up bent over in a kind of gay manner mooning the rest of the school as they walk by. Plus it's impossible to get a decent drink out of the drinking fountain. If I am in the mood for water - and to be honest I am always in the mood for water - I either fill up my water bottle (at the sink!!!!) or I cup my hands and drink from then. This allows me to maintain my dignity by not being bent over and also lets me have more water quicker. Also I can use the moisture left on my hands after drinking the majority of the liquid to give my face a little wash - everyone's a winner.
Actually I think there was a greek myth about a king who told his army to have a drink at a river. All the soldiers who drank (like me) with cupped hands were given golden hats. All the soldiers who drank like pigs on their bellies at the drinking fountain had their heads cut off. Seems a bit harsh to me but then hey, I am not a greek king.
Have I already written a blog about drinking fountains? I can not remember. But anyway there is another one.

9: The Child in Time
This is a book written by gay scottish author Ian 'The Party Animal' McEwan*. We are studying it for English. On the surface, it is a book about loss and grief and the effect that time can have on people. In reality it is about Ian 'Fifteen Incher' McEwan showing off how clever and what a God's gift to literature he is. It is also notable for having about a million references to time in every paragraph. Basically McEwan is saying 'Hey check it out this book is about time - see time is in the title; woah man I just changed tense I JUST CHANGED TENSE!!! AND LOOK I MADE A REFERENCE TO TIME! WOAH THERE'S ANOTHER ONE FLASHBACK TIME!!!! I FLASHED BACK AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE THE JOIN!!! Oh shit man I just flashed forward OH WAIT AND BACK AGAIN you didn't see that coming did you? LOSER! I am very good at writing things."
It is annoying and I have to write a coursework piece on it and pretend to be impressed at the 'subtle' interweaving of the time theme. Subtle? The main character's mother's maiden name is Temperley. THAT MEANS TIME. That's about as subtle as a crowbar.

8: Henry James
I started reading the Henry James book "What Maisie Knew" for my upcoming Oxford interview. It annoyed me because Henry James is a very abstruse writer and his sentences are all about fifteen hundred clauses long. I eventually got bored of reading about some little girl who refuses to be corrupted and started reading "American Psycho" instead, which is about this joker who murders people and talks about suits a lot. In the four weeks I spent reading "What Maisie Knew", I managed to read 118 pages. I have been reading "American Psycho" for two days and - HAHAHA I just opened it to check - I am on page 118. That is so cool I am not even lying. What a crazy coincidence. I love life.
The fact that I an unable to read Henry James means that I am probably not going to get into Oxford University for smart people.

7: The guy who wrote the Eragon books
Maybe this just links to my dislike of young people being talented at things, but there's this fifteen year old who wrote a series of books about gay flying dragons who fly about being clichéd. Seriously, what a knob. He just makes the rest of us look bad. I mean, we have all wanted to write a crappy science fiction swords and sorcerors book at some point, but most of us listen to our internal editors and decide against it. Of course, when I say "we have all" I am naturally referring to myself. I once got 27, 932 words into a three book epic which I tentatively named "Corruption" about a mythical land called Angelterra before realising that it was complete crap. Don't believe me? Here's a sample paragraph:

“Yes, my lord, but, well, some demons suck in the sun to provide them with life. Our men, although they outnumber the demons, cannot match the fighting abilities of them, and they have Tarces to help them. And, you are also mistaken about Chfer. He has no heart to rip out, and as for destroying his cult, I know of another Demon ready to take his place. His name is Syn, and already he nearly matches the power of Chfer. Other than that, we have a fifty-fifty chance of winning. Oh, and before you say it, no, I don’t know where this other demon is.”

Hahaha fifty-fifty chance. Oh man it actually sounds so exciting. I wish I had finished it now. Annoyingly, I can't really remember what happened. I think that the 'lord' mentioned died eventually. Can't remember who Tarces is. Ooh, Chfer got killed by Syn. Syn was a fucking legend - he could melt and transform and he had these wicked sharp claws that were like a metre long. Unfortunately he was then melted by the onset of some other random demon who took over the fair land. HE then got killed by some little kid with a magical crystal and replaced by a big brown cloud monster who represented Corruption who was then killed by some passing angel.
Ahh, memories.

So yeah, this guy decided "you know what, I am just going to ignore my internal editor, churn out a load of shit about gay dragons, get my ultra-rich parents to fund them for me and become a multi-millionaire after the forgettable and badly-made film adaptation comes out". What. A. Knob.

Jealous? Me? HAH hardly! The guy who wrote Eragon (I can't remember his name, so I will just refer to him as Pimply McVirgin) may have millions of dollars, but I still have my credibility.

Thinking about it I probably would have prefered to the millions of dollars.

6: Accidentally annoying lesbians by writing blogs about them
Sorry to any readers (lesbian or otherwise) who were accidentally annoyed by my previous lesbian-related post. If you read the post carefully, I wasn't actually making fun of the lesbians (other than that bit about lesbians wearing tin hats), I was making fun of myself saying lesbian by accilesbiandent. Basically it was a piece of complicated social irony that you do not understand because you are too busy lusting after the boobs on the Angel of the North. Sorry sorry sorry. Please don't hurt me. Here, I painted you a picture to show how sorry I am:


5: Kiddy Kong
I have started playing all the Donkey Kong Land games on the gameboy in recent weeks, and have noticed that as the games progress, the characters that you play as get crappier and crappier. In the 1st, you are Donkey and Diddy Kong - legends. Then Donkey gets fecken KIDNAPPED in the second game and replaced by Dixie Kong, who for some reason can fly using her hair. She is ok but a bit annoying as she is a girl and thus is by definition of the weaker sex (amusingly she was killed off or something and replaced by Tiny Kong in Donkey Kong 64). Then in DK3 even Diddy has fucked off somewhere, to be replaced by Kiddy Kong, who is a baby monkey and looks like THIS:


Look at that. What a total shambles. Looks like a fucking frog. This character is so annoying that I always make him headbutt the giant chainsaw bees every time I get a chance. Amusingly, he too vanished and was replaced by Chunky Kong in DK64. I know too much about old video games.

4: The Water levels on Donkey Kong Land 1, 2, and 3
Water levels are boring, I always accidentally float into the fish, my fingers get tired from all the pumping of the A button to swim about, the fact that I you can go anywhere and everywhere means that it's impossible to find the bloody DK coins which are always hidden in some tiny corner of the map through a see-through wall, how can the damn monkeys swim for so long with their breath held anyway, fish are gay. Fuck water levels.

3: The fact that I have spent the last two weeks playing Donkey Kong instead of working on my Oxford application
Pretty self explanatory really. It is my interview to get into Oxford University (to study English) in about a week, and I have so much stuff to do. I apparently have to find out the names, ages, favourite books, areas of study, sexual persuasions and star signs of every single don in Oxford in case any of them happen to interview me and bring it up. I have about 6 thick-ass books that I really need to have read. I need to think up a really persuasive explanation for my desire to study English @ Oxford University. This is added to the coursework that was due in 5 weeks ago which I have not started (why oh why did I decide to do my coursework essay on Karl Pilkington????) rowing, and the rest of the crap I have to put up with in my life (reading all the shite syllabus books necessary, normal homework, talking to my girlfriend, writing blogs about how much work I need to do, doing the crossword).
I am basically screwed for Oxford. They are never going to let me in to do English. Unless... I print off the whole manuscript of Corruption thusfar and present it to them on the day, with the promise that I will finish it if they let me into the university? I mean, they are guaranteed to be swayed by high-class and dramatic dialogue such at this:

Shivering, Nettle crept forward.
“ I know you’re out th-aaagh!” A dark shape leapt out from behind the moss covered tree and pinned him to the ground, before battering in the face and screaming.
“AAAAAAGH!”
“AAAAAAGH!”
“AAAAAAGH!”
Nettle rolled into a small ball and was promptly beaten unconscious by the dark shape.

It goes on like that.

2: Hatchet Zombie
Hatchet Zombie was a little mini-blog I started over the summer in an attempt to persuade myself to blog more than once a week. The idea was that I would just post random shit up there every day. The idea did not work and I have not written anything on it for about two million weeks. I am depressed by this symbol of my failure and so Hatchet Zombie has now forever been banished to the netherworld of 'not listed on Blogger'. It might come back one day (it won't).

Now let us never speak of it again.

1: Oh crap I miscounted there are only nine things that I do not like and I cannot be bothered to change all the titles

THE END ...?

Today's Lol of the Week:

^lol

*Description and nickname may be made up

I met a lesbian the other day

It was bare exciting. Well, not from a sexy point of view - she didn't bring a fit girlfriend and start lezzin away just for my entertainment (once again the internet has lied to me... curses). But from a social point of view it was FASCINATING. Ish.

As you know, I am a very polite and considerate young man, and - actually - I was unsure of the social etiquette of talking to lesbians. I mean, what do you say? Do you actively raise the subject of lesbianity, or do you just let it slide? Is it taboo, or do you treat it with a knowing wink as if to say - "Hey babe, I know you like the women and hey, so do I - we are mutual sailers through the curvy seas of femininity; it's cool, you don't have to worry about your dykish ways around ME". I just didn't know what to say, so set about creating an analogy to describe my feelings. I suppose it boils down to two options - do you treat the lesbian like she's just got a new tattoo, or like she has an obvious and disgusting deformity? Let me explain.
If you met a girl with a huge tattoo on the side of her neck (perhaps it's a lesbian; many lesbians do have tattoos; I think it's part of the hormonal makeup), you would assume that she wants you to comment on it - after all, she wouldn't go out and get the tattoo just to entertain herself - she wants to get people talking about it. Thus any passer-by would be expected to say "Oh hey, shit, what's that thing on your neck? It looks like a rose! That's awesome." That would be socially acceptable.
However, if someone, say, had some illness that manifested itself with a huge red oozing skin lesion (say, the Black Death; many lesbians do have the Black Death; I think it's part of their hormonal makeup), I reckon that it'd be the height of rudeness to say the same thing. And the thing about people with tumours is that they often have superpowers due to their prior contact with nuclear waste. These superpowers can manifest themselves in the ability to jump over tall buildings, laser breath, and spikes, and if they take offense at your careless cussery of their illness they will take you down. This just goes to show - you can never be too careful with lesbians and the language you use to talk about their lezzic antics.

This reasoning, coupled with my uncertainty as to whether this particular specimin had come out of the cupboard or whatever it is those homosexuals do, led me to decide to not broach the whole lesbian subject at all. Plus, she looked like one of those angry lesbians that I have read about in The National Enquirer. Better to just not mention the subject and to let sleeping dogs lie.

Not that I'm saying she was a dog. As lesbians go - and my knowledge of lesbians is pretty much limited to two ladies I saw holding hands on the street once - she was a fairly atypical subject. I mean, she wasn't wearing one of those little tin hats that all lesbians have to wear - you know, the ones with the pink flags and the propellors on top. Neither was she sporting hiking boots and reading a book by Germaine Greer. I mean, she didn't even have a tattoo on the back of her ear to highlight her availability to other lesbians. For a second I was confused, disturbed even. If I hadn't been specifically informed of her swinging tendencies by a third party, I would not have a clue as to her abnormality. Had the National Geographic lied to me? For if this relatively normal-looking person was as bent as a roundabout, who else was secretly enjoying the company of other women? Luckily, my girlfriend is not allergic to cheese, so that scientifically rules her out, but when I think about all the other females I know who could be filthy raving gays... it makes me shiver.

I decided that I had to talk to her, just to see if there was anything obviously different between her and other girls. Maybe she lisped or mispronounced her rhotic r sounds or clicked her tongue after every sentence or something. I just had to know.
Of course, I had to mentally prepare myself for the controntation. Firstly, I glued a fake moustache on my face, just to stop her from thinking that I was a woman and thus trying to have sex with me in a fit of uncontrollable lust (this happened to my friend Hilary... he never walked again). Having decided not to mention the whole lesbian thing I then thought up a few good lesbian conversation topics:

Women and all their crazy foibles.

Ellen Degeneres.

Tampons.

Those lesbians glamour models who were in FHM a few months ago.

Jo Brand.

Boobs.

Jo Brand's boobs.

Hiking boots and fleeces (damnably, I had forgotten to wear both my hiking boots and my huge comfy fleece to this event, meaning that I was crucially unprepared to swap fashion tips)

Once this was done, I had a few drinks to get my courage up, then sidled up. I can't exactly remember the specifics of the conversation, but it went kind of along these lines.

Me: Hi there! *Give a knowing wink*
Her: Hello.
My Mind: Ok, going well, haven't brought up the lesbian thing yet. Nice work, Tom.
Me: So... wassup? Done anything fun today?
Her: Not really.
Me: Oh, that's a lesbian.
My Mind: Shame. Shame. Shame. I meant to say shame. Did I just say lesbian?
Her: What?
My Mind: Abort. Abort. Abort.
Me: Well, I have to be off. See you les- later.
*I run*

Smooth.

So what did I learn from the whole experience? Absolutely nothing, except that lesbians smell faintly like clocks. Remember that, children - if you smell clocks, fall to the floor and adopt the foetal position until the lesbian goes away.

The More You Know!

By the way, if you think that you are the lesbian featured in this post, you aren't.

(Fun Fact: the preceding post is 1043 words long. The word 'lesbian' is featured 23 times. This means that for a post devoted to lesbians, they only take up 0.0220517737% of the actual content. The more you know!)

Ameriblog 2 - The Hockey Match

On about the fourth day of the trip to America, we went to see an 'ice hockey' match, between the home team known as "The Boson Bruins" (FUN FACT: a bruin is a type of bear), which had a stadium full of fans and which, the commentary implied, were a force for good and a shining beacon of civilisation over the 'ice hockey' world, and the 'Calgary somethings' (Can't remember) who had about two fans, wore cowboy hats and were, the commentary implied, evil.

I was a bit annoyed as I walked into the hockey arena, for two distinct reasons. The first was that, on the coach ride to the rink, we watched the remake of Godzilla, and I was really annoyed at the ending. Yeah well done Mattew Broderick and Maria Pitillo, you killed all of this creature's children, then when it got (quite justly) annoyed at you, you ran away and got your mate with a helicopter to blow it up. Wow you heroes. I mean Godzilla didn't even TRY start a fight on you. It didn't eat meat it posed no actual threat to the people other than the fact that it was big and a bit clumsy with its tail. And we were meant to feel happy when they killed it at the end. Fuck that I hope they all get AIDs and die.
The other reason that I was annoyed was that I had just been given a free tshirt. Now usually this is a cause for jubilation and celebration - free things are always good, free tshirts 100 times more so. But firstly the tshirt was made of what I can assume was paper. It was also XL size, and we're not talking British 'Slightly Podgy' XL sizes, we're talking American "I drink a bucket of bacon fat every day for breakfast" XL here, thus the shirt was easily big enough to fit over my head and the four layers of clothing I was wearing. However what really annoyed me was the logo printed on the shirt, which proclaimed that I was now "Property of the Hub of Hockey". HOW CAN YOU BE PROPERTY OF A HUB. It made no sense and it annoyed me. But whatever I still wore the shirt because, to be honest, it was free and anyway I soon forgot my annoyance when I walked into the main rink area itself.

I mean, wow. It's hard to find a decent simile to describe this rink. I suppose if you're American you have probably been in an "ice hockey" rink at some point so I suppose you know what I'm talking about here, but we are British and the most extreme our sporting arenas get are perhaps having some Mozart piped over the rugger at half time or having - on really wild days - a performance from the Queen's bagpipe regiment. But we have NOTHING like this arena. Christ man, it was like being trapped inside a giant pinball table. A giant japanese pinball table. A giant japanese pinball table inside a huge commercial break.

I had already intuited that America is a country that runs on advertisements, flags, and being generally over the top, but fucking hell... literally every seat, every barrier, every player, every surface, EVERY NOUN YOU CARE TO MENTION was covered in huge LCD screens advertising beer bank accounts mobile (sorry, 'cell') phones mcdonalds kfc dunkin' donuts tv stations radio shows more beer coca cola upcoming games applebees pepsi ice cream. Interestingly, I noticed that there were few, if any, adverts for "Get A Life", the latest novel from Nobel-Prize-winning South American author Nadine Gordimer. My ears were bombarded with a thousand different (and equally tacky noises) - adverts blaring, children crying, ten-second snatches of hip-hop flashing, virgins dancing, hard-rock blasting, electro blooping... it was like one of those films when the main character gets the ability to hear people's thoughts and then there's invariably a scene when he's in Time Square and he suddenly hears EVERYONE'S THOUGHTS AT THE SAME TIME and he's like "Stop it stop it" because it's just a dinnish cacaphony of sound pollution and then he starts crying and he puts his hands to his ears BUT THATS NO GOOD because the sound is INSIDE his mind. Like that. And this was even before the players skated on. This was like the warm up noise.

When the players came on, I was rewarded with yet another interesting glimpse into the psyche of the American people (about three seconds in I decided to take an anthrologist's view of events) - they have literally no concept of fair play. I mean, they don't even pretend to be impartial. The home team each came on seperately, each greeted by a personal introduction, their own soundbite, a little fanfare, and raucous fan applause. They got to skate about a bit. The commentator was basically orgasming over them.

Then the opposition came on. All at once, with no introduction, to the gusty booing of the assembled fans. But I mean, I was a little confused. I didn't even know that they were the opposition. I mean, how was I to know? There was no hint. I wish that they'd, like, signposted it more. I dunno, they could have played the Imperial Death March from Star Wars when they came on. Or, like, made the entire rink go ominously red and flashed skulls on the huge video screen? That would have simplified the entire procedure up and really showed me who to cheer for. OH WAIT THEY DID. It was so ridiculously biased.
This interesting one-sidedness continued into the play itself. Every time the Bruins piloted the puck into the back of the net, all the lights in the stadium flashed on and off repeatedly, the American Flag appeared on the video screen, and the commentator screamed "BOSTON SCORE! WOO!" (NB: he actually said woo. It was a properly excited woo. WOO) However, whenever Calgary blasted a puck into the back of the net, all the lights sort of went sad - not sure how lights can go sad but trust me they did - and our commenter was like "Calgary - sigh - score" as those he had to announce that his mother had just been raped by a cactus.

(Sorry I just have to pause here. I'm typing this in the library and a guy wearing a huge mustard yellow and ketchup red checked scarf just walked past me. He looks like such a fucking mug)

It was actually hilarious. Because I consider my political ideology to be 'contrarian' and because I felt so damn sorry for them, I started to cheer for Calgary halfway through. The yank sitting in front of me actually turned round and glared at me as though cheering for the opposite team was a display of bad sportsmanship. He was pretty hefty looking and looked like he could take me in a fight (who am I kidding Dale Winton could probably take me in a fight), so I shut up. Luckily, at that point the game also stopped, so it didn't really look like I had backed down on my contrarian principles. When it restarted again, after like fifteen minutes of adverts, I cheered under my breath (Go Calgary) and nobody noticed.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention; the game consisted, as far as I can tell, of three twenty minute long thirds. We were in that rink for literally two and a half hours. You know how in football when there's a red card or something, they pause the game for a few seconds to sort it out then get right back into it again? Because they know that people come to football matches to watch other (better paid) people play football, yeah? It seems to me that people go to 'Ice Hockey' matches just to watch adverts. They would play hockey for ten minutes, then all the lights would flash and an advert would pop up on the big screen while people ran around the rink with brooms. These ads were so weird - they basically consisted of display the company's logo on the screen next to crowd footage. They pretended that they were just free fan giveaways - "Papa Joe's Pizza wants to award a free seat upgrade to THIS PERSON *show video footage*" and everyone just lapped it up, but I knew better. I. Knew. Better.

This doesn't sound too bad, but turst me: it reached preposterous limits; about halfway through the second third, the lights came up and an advert for, like "KFC's Special Fan" or something came on. "Jimmy Squashinger" boomed the commentator (can't remember the actual name) "Is tonight's KFC special fan: Jimmy has a rare terminal neurological disease that has crippled him and has limited his life severely... SO IN CONJUNCTION WITH KFC WE ARE GIVING HIM FREE TICKETS!!!"
Then the screen showed a shot of Jimmy and his family just hangin' in their seats. They all waved enthusiasically. Well, Jimmy didn't, because he was just some fat slug-boy in a wheelchair. He was pretty much staring into space. SO HIS MOTHER GRABBED HIS ARM AND MADE HIM WAVE AT THE CAMERA TOO.

Everybody in the audience cheered.

I wanted to cry.

I still do. But mainly because I'm hungry. But on the other hand, I made up a new slogan for America.

"America: we go beyond self parody."

America Blog 2 coming up

Soon.

Excited? Didn't think so. I wouldn't be. I'm not.

Ameriblog (Part 1)

This is the blog that the world - nay - the UNIVERSE - has been waiting for. It will answer one of the ultimate questions of our time. What did I think of America? I bet you are all DYING to know. I bet you're just WAITING for me to skewer this awesome iron giant with the white hot slithers of intellectual shrapnel whizzing away from the cataclysmic detonation of my white-hot wit. You're not? Well tough fuck off then you gays.

But I can't be bothered to write a good introduction to this blog. What does it matter anyway anyway you people only read this hoping I'll make a spleling mistake so you can point it out on the comments and feel smart. So just imagine the three-hundred word description of the fact that I went on a rowing trip to America, got searched a million times, managed to piss off the VISA inspector man and got my name typed into a computer, did some rowing, toured the USA and came home again. Now I'll get to the meat of the post.

I just don't know how American people do it. I just don't. I don't know how they can manage to all stay so happy and jolly and generally legendish when they live in that country. In the whole two-week trip I came into contact with millions of Americans and they were all jolly and smiling and generous. For example my chum Fudge (so called because his second name is Packer, natch), tried to buy something at a shop. He HAD the money and was getting out of his pocket, when the dear old cashier said "Don't worry son" or something and pressed a button on his till. A LITTLE DRAWER POPPED OUT OF THE DESK AND MONEY CAME OUT WHICH THE CASHIER GAVE TO FUDGE TO PAY FOR HIS SWEETS. I mean dude wtf. We all just gazed at the cashier and our faces were like :o. And he gazed back and gave a little wink. I felt like crying "Jeepers!". But I didn't. That's just an example of the level of safeness that we're dealing with here; Back in England the cashier would probably wink at you but then you realise that it's just her miserable NHS-prescription glass eye collapsing under the weight of the misery of her pathetic minimum wage rainy-day existence. Sheesh.
I would say that in the entire week, I came into contact with, like, 30 safe Americans and about four twattish ones. But fair do's I guess; all bar one of the twattish ones were shopkeepers who were unamused when we asked how much of their stuff was for free. The other twat was a rower who tried to punch our coxswain. This was while they were both sitting in different boats. Following our mid-race crash in which both of our boats had stopped dead and our stroke man had punched the aforementioned rower in the face with his oar. So yeah I guess perhaps the twattishness was warranted.

Wait, that means that there were literally ZERO non-nice Americans in the entire of the USA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, the bits I saw - Boston, Philly and EN-WHYYY. Which surprises me hardcore because, in my opinon, America is literally the most polluted country EVAR. Now I don't mean environmentally polluted - although seriously guys not every single one of you needs a 4x4 you LIVE IN NEW ENGLAND NOT THE MOON - I'm talking more on a moral, cultural and ethical basis.

I just don't understand how they can stay so CHIPPER when they live in such a cultural wasteland. I'm sorry but America has no culture whatsoever. Unless 'The American Flag' is a culture. Because they sure like their American flags. An awful lot. I wouldn't be surprised if all of America had sex with their flags just before they go to bed at night. Either that or the flags are actually sentient beings who are slowly invading the world, starting at the major superpower. Perhaps they sprount from the ground. No shit; we were driving along and I saw this flowerbed. Except it wasn't planted with flowers. Oh no. Oh NOOOOO. It was planted with - get this - GET THIS - YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT - American flags!!!!! No shit. Just a flowerbed filled with minature American flags. I saw this and buried my head in my hands. When I unearthed it I was just in time to see the petrol station with literally twenty mini-flags mounted on the top. I mean shit, why go for one BIG flag when you can really break the bank and wang out LOTS OF LITTLE ONES? I can picture it now in my brain. Actually, shit, no I can't. I think I've forgotten what the American flag looks like now without my minutely reminder. Oh wait there's one:

Wicked. But seriously I mean, ok, we get it lads, you are a country with a flag now for the love of GOD please stop reminding yourselves. Seriously, what would England be like if everyone stuck

Union Jacks up wherever they wanted? I'll tell you what it'd be IT WOULD BE A HELL. We English are plenty patriotic enough anyway we don't need a (to be honest, pretty goofy-looking) piece of cloth to remind us that we have been chosen to live on some big rock in the middle of the sea. I mean, check out our football (sorry, 'soccer') hooligans! We totally reamed those Spanish Resteraunt Owners during Euro 2000! Go England! Throwing plastic chairs at Germans and breaking windows; that is my idea of real patriotism - not some dumb flag which is just another example of the quasi-patriotism in the fake shell of the American ideal in what is essentially a total quasi-shell of a quasi-country. I don't even know what the last sentence meant but boy it did sound deep and prophetic, didn't it? I believe I'll leave it as is and if anybody asks me what it means I will just nod wisely and stroke my beard. My beard is blonde and like two milimetres long. I am going to let it grow and see if I end up looking like a Man. But I digress. I think I could probably sum up the

previous few paragraphs in fourteen words: America is totally phony. That's only like four words. Ok, NOW it's fourteen.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't see one authentic shop in the entire fucking country. The small shops all had weird exotic names that implied that the owners were Native Americans, Martians, or Irish (no shit I saw a pub called Finnigan's Wake... with a leprechaun painted on the door!). Although, I was amused by the "Wok King" diner placed directly next to "Dairy Queen". THEY COULD GET MARRIED. I see the humour in everyday situations. I am a true comic.
In the meanwhile, the big shops either had names like "Mom & Pop's Cornershop" (not owned by anyone's MUM or DAD) "The General Store" (not true you could not buy generals there), "The Village Bakery" (I don't know what sort of bakeries you have in your village but I have yet to see a bakery that is like four stories tall) or "The Fishing Shack" (not a shack). They were all TOTALLY FAKE I actually felt my soul being sucked out from under my feet at the sight of the Store Associates cheerily handing out Free-Samples-Of-Lite-Non-Trans-Fat-Liteweight-Turkey-American-Cheez-Wotsit-Slice-Bites-Plastik while waving the American flag and listening to The Star Spangled Banner muzak being piped through the intercom at a low-level drone.



At least back in England they give their stores depressing names and get on with it. You go to Budgens, you know you're not in for fun. But you go into BEST BUY, there's an implication that you might just have the best buying experience of your entire life!! Not true. They didn't even have Bonkers 11: Forevolution in the CD place. NO BONKERS.
So in conclusion, Budgens = British Sense of Acceptance of Place and the Essential Misery of Life.
Best Buy = American Fake Piped Optimism In A Jar.
I mean, seriously, would you be able to trust a country that produced THIS as a serious NON-IRONIC piece of art?


Ok I can't be bothered to write any more that's it for part 1 of the Ameriblog. In the next installment, I'll probably discuss how shit America is some more, featuring a hockey match, a terminally ill young boy, America's complete lack of grasp of the concept of irony, and my face going like :o. Hope to see you there!!!!!!!!!

OH FUCK THE FLAGS ARE ATTACKING



we will exterminate you








all hail bezalaroth, king of the flag people




noooooooooo

Back from America

I didn't sleep a wink on the plane last night. Fecken airline food. God I'm tired. Updates soon. Ish.


zzzzz

Brrrrrup

I am going away to the USA
Tomorrow, tomorrow!
Where I am goin', I'll be rowin'
Tomorrow, tomorrow!
Five days here and five days there
I am always gonna use the same two pair
...s of underwear!
Tomorrow, tomorrow!
So hand my my lycra and sling my hook
I'll be in the country where only the minorities haaaaaveeeee toooo cooooooooooooooooooook!
TOMORROW, TOMORROW!

Good eh, I just wrote that entire poem in one orgy of poetic skill. TS Elliot eat your heart out. I am soooo much better than you. What's that, TS Elliot? The sky's like a patient etherized on a table? What... what the fuck are you retarded or something? Get back in your cage TS Elliot. Call back when you learn how to use similes you coffee-spoon life measuring out twat. To be honest the rhyme scheme (Iambic pentameter my ass) of my poem is a bit off - AKA WRONG - but fuck it, I'm a published writer which gives me infinitely more literary credo than the rest of the ENTIRE INTERNET. But I digress.

I have to get up at SIXish tomorrow to go to the AIRPORT to fly to AMERICA to ROW in THE HEAD OF THE CHARLES (a race) and THE HEAD OF THE SKULLIKILIAHALALSKJDLASJDAL (a race that I can't remember the name of). It'll be bare awesome blud, I'll get to chat up all the american laydies (don't read that if your name is Lucia) and like, use my powers of an english accent on them. Plus our coach has a weird sense of humour and has ordered us to wear cream chinos, boating blazers, blue shirts, yachting shoes and boat-club ties in the airport and when we get off the plane to meet our American exchange families (I'M IN A HOUSE WITH A 16 YEAR OLD GIRL don't tell Lucia AND POSSIBLY TWO OTHER 16 YEAR OLD GIRLS, depending if "Brent" and "Ryan" are girls or boys names). I think this is funny because this is basically what American people think us Brits go about wearing at home all the time anyway so we will be fullfilling their stereotypes 100000%. We might as well step off the plane wearing bowler hats, dancing about with broomsticks, and talking cockney. We also get to go to a 'basketball' match, which is apparently an American sport when they watch negroes fight each other in a ring for an hour and drink beer.

We are not allowed to drink beer.

I have also decided that I'll do that thing where I take a little action figure around the world and take photographs with him. I would obv have taken Mr Gay (AKA the gheyest action figure I own AKA Zanzibar from GI Joe), but his legs fell off one day and now I can't even find his upper-body. Which is a shame because I would have quite liked to have done a "Follow Mr Gay's torso across the world" series. Maybe it should just be "Follow the Sparkly Von Dutch Hat across the world" that'd be equally awesome. Or not wait a second let me have a look on my desk (which is basically one big pile of paper) if I can find Mr Gay's body. Wow awesome look his crotch oh fuck a load of papers fell on the floor. Well what do I care I won't be here and someone might tidy them up in the next ten days. Or not. I could take my Gollywog doll but would that go down well in USA? I don't think so, Joe. Oh well fuck that I give up on Mr Gay. But I did find a kazoo in the box. Heh cool

I can't really be bothered to blog, so here's just a list of things that I would quite like to do during this trip:

Smuggle my sweet sparkly yellow Von Dutch hat in with my hand luggage, then as soon as we get through checkin I'll put it on then I'll be wearing like yachting gear and then a crazy Von Dutch hat and all the people in the airport will be like look at him he's mental

Make ripping, tearing, explosion sounds and like BAMBAMBAM enemy gunfire sounds when we take off and land

Play the kazoo on the plane FOR SEVEN HOURS

When I arrive in America, greet every American I meet with a different stereotypical British accent - "BRRRRRRUP" "Why hello there" "Top of the evening Guvna" "Ooch Aye the Noo" "Typical Welsh Greeting", "ALROIGHT MISTA SHINE YA SHOES."

Refuse to drink anything except tea

Ask everyone to stand and sing the English national anthem before and after every meal

At the basketball match, cheer "THE TEAM THAT HAS FEWER NEGROES!"

Impress all the American kids with my tales of my wild drink-abusing party days. Like the day that I - AS AN EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD - had a beer ordered for my by my father in a restaurant, and I drank that fucking beer down I didn't care WHO was watching

Correct all the American spelling. Humor? NO, HUMOUR. I will do this even in speech - "Excuse me, Shalea, I am interested in your point about labour, but, you know, I KNOW that you spelt it in your head without the U. Sort it the fuck out." That'll get em

Tell the Americans stories about life back in Blighty. I'm thinking of telling them about the wolves that ate my little sister and dragged her away into Sherwood Forest. Or the time that the Queen personally bicycled to our bungalow high in the hills to buy buns. Or when I walked on the street without wearing a top hat and got thrown in the Tower for THREE MOONS

Act really backward - like really excitedly tell them about Britney Spears as though they are a new band and look really impressed at the pane glass in the windows

I'll use my dry sense of British humour (notice the 'U' in there), but it'll be SO DRY that it SUCKS ALL THE MOISTURE OUT OF THEIR BODIES AND LEAVES THEM SHRIVELLED UP LITTLE PILES OF AMERICAN DUST MWAAWHAHAWASHASL

To be honest I'm not going to do any of those things I actually started to feel less intelligent as I typed them. Fucking morons. So yeah, I'll be gone for the next ten or so days. If I can get hold of a computer... to be honest I still won't blog much. There might be the odd Americablog on Hatchetzombie (which will soon be given the coveted award of "Least Successful or Interesting Website of the Year" by me). So it's going to be quiet on the chainsawzombie outlook for the next week and a half. You won't notice really, that's the usual length of 'thinking time' (read: Can't be bothered to blog time you idiots just enjoy the one you have and comment lots) that usually occurs between each post anyway.

PS: I downloaded one low-quality song by Sonic Youth and I think that qualifies me to state that they are and always will be a C- band and THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO OR SAY THAT WILL CHANGE MY MIND

Little effort went into this blog. Laters people

I'm a published writer! And in trouble.

(For legal reasons, names of all people, locations, sports, publications and corporations have been changed)

Picture the scene. I'm walking along the corridor of my school, Grange Hill (NB: not the real name of my school), heading to a soccer (NB: not my actual sport) practice. I start to get changed then I get bored and wander into the room that has all the soccer machines, whistling a jaunty tune (NB: the tune was not actually jaunty; in reality it more 'merry' or 'dandyful'). Two of my soccer coaches, Mr Smith and Mr Jones (NB: not their actual names) are setting out bags of clothing for our Soccer Trip to Brazil (NB: we are not actually going to Brazil) on the floor.

"Sup," I say chirpily and poke a bag with my toe (NB: not what I actually said). Mr Smith looks up at me.
"Hi..." he begins to say before even registering who I am. Then he sees me. His eyes narrow. "Wait, I want to talk to you."
What about? A few possible answers (none too terrible) flit across my brain. Perhaps he wants to tell me that I'm in the Second Team. Or he wants to ask me something about my mum. Or about my little brother. I don't know at this point. I just don't know. So I decide to register my lack of knowledge by asking the obvious question.
"What about?"
He glares at me balefully. "You know what I'm talking about."
"No I don't," I say.
"Yes you do." An incredibly unimpressed look stamped on his face, he holds up the latest just-hot-off-the-press issue of Soccer and Soccer Matches (NB: quite obviously not the actual name of the publication), the national 'soccer magazine' that all us 'soccer players' get delivered to our doorsteps every two months. It falls open to a particular double page spread.
Ohhh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. That. A tiny little LED dings on above my head and my internal monologuer (I love that guy) starts simultaneously sniggering and panicking. But let me explain further.

Back in da day (ie. last Summer) I went to do some work experience at Soccer and Soccer Matches, the (and the coach took pains to point this out as he went over the list of laws that I had managed to inadvertently break) Number One 'Soccer' Magazine In The Entire Country. This magazine gets delivered to EVERY MEMBER of the A'S'A (Amateur 'Soccer' Association), and considering that you need to be a member to enter any official 'soccer match', this means that pretty much every soccer-player in the country is getting a copy. I was asked, by the very nice editor-lady of this fine publication, to write an article on the subject of "An average week of 'soccer' training for a Junior Athlete, explaining how you manage to fit your hours of 'soccer' training around schoolwork, social life and other teenage activities".
(Ok fuck it I'm bored of typing 'soccer' I mean "rowing")

Well I was pretty chuffed at being given the opportunity to touch to SO MANY PEOPLE with my words. I mean, this blog is great, and boy I really value the opinion and readership of the losers, perverts, crackheads and mysaddos that hang around here, but I had an opportunity here to adress the ENTIRE ROWING CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. This meant that I would be writing to all echelons, all societies and subdivisons, the whole social spectrum of society. I mean... people from the lower middle class to, I don't know, the UPPER CLASS. From the ex-public schoolboys in Kensington to the current-public schoolboys in Eton, literally everyone would be reading my fine work! Steve Redgrave, Rowing God Himself, might clap eyes upon my scriptures and be directly influenced and oh my God I just realised how many people have read the thing that I finally produced and I think I'm going to throw up

I mean, I tried. I really really tried to write a 100% serious, sensible mature piece of writing that in no way featured irony, sarcasm, in-jokes, hidden references, sly digs or obvious sarcasm. I tried so hard. I blame this blog to be honest. After all the writing I do on here, slaving away to amuse you cretins (and by 'cretins', I mean 'the whole internet') I now have built myself a mental 'witticism filter' so strong that it could rival the Death Star's; every single sentence I write has to have some sort of literary or subtle point. I always have to be taking the piss out of some nigga - my literary tomfoolery has reached the limits that I'm physically unable to not try to make some clever point. I'm like King Midas, except instead of turning everything I touch into gold (a handy superpower if I ever saw one), I just turn everything I write into bitter sarcasm. I even did this on my CV - my 'Educational Qualifications' contained "100m Backstroke Swimming Badge" WHAT WAS I THINKING.

So really, I could ask myself WHY I chose to insinuate that our entire rowing team was a bunch of undernourished drug-taking layabouts. I could question the critical thinking behind my decision to hint that my Head Coach was "crazy" (yes I used that word). I could even try to examine my motives for claiming that I consider school as "sleeping time between rowing training sessions". But I don't. Because I know that, at the end of the day, I am physically unable to have my name attached to a bland and forgettable piece of writing (especially in such a national magazine). They tell me they want a good article and Goddamnit I'm going to give them a balls-to-the-wall full-out attack on the senses. I mean, sure it might have been a bit edgy, but everyone'll remember it and not the other 'Article from a Junior' on the next page (the editor seems to agree with me; my rival only got a half a page whereas I got a double-page spread with FOUR PICTURES loser). I mean there is literally no comparison between the two; my magnum opus beats her crap down HARDCORE. "Its hard to put all my effort into both school and rowing as they are both so separate yet both very important to me" MY ARSE. What tosh. Plus she had a spelling mistake at the bottom. "Defiantly worth it" eh? Loser.

Yes, I was probably aware, deep down, that the words "mind-bending narcotics", whatever the context, really have no place in a fitness article in a rowing magazine, particularly one THAT IS DIRECTLY LINKED TO MY EXCLUSIVE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL. Yes I knew that at some point along the line somebody was going to get pissed off with me. But I'm a hero, people; willing to risk life and limb to be able to write whatever the fuck I want and have people waste gallons of ink printing it up for me. This is what I want to do with my life and I'll be fucked if I'm going to censor myself just to please some school governors who think that diatribes about the shitness of our school lunches are somehow damaging to the school's overall reputation. Which they are.

Man look at me all passionate and stuff I should be a communist leader. And think about it - if I can write this much about a (fairly sarcastic, probably quite mean-spirited) article in a crappy sports magazine, imagine my passion when I'm writing about stuff that really matters! Like AIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!

Man they're just lucky I didn't simply say 'fuck it' and send in the first draft of the article (the one when I conclude that rowing is too much fucking work and I can't be bothered). I think I'm even luckier that nobody was sharp enough to pick up the hints at institutionalised prejudice and bullying by staff and teachers alike.
Actually, I don't think that my school/coach was that pissed off with the fact that I'd written a fairly bitchy report about their institution and boat club. I think they were more annoyed by the fact that that literally nobody knew that such an article was being written UNTIL IT ARRIVED, FULLY PRINTED UP, IN THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE. I would pay good money (ok, £3) to be a fly on the wall at the moment when the management first opened up the mag and noticed the name of their Boat Club next to such an OUTRAGEOUS article (by the way, the manner in which I have described it makes it sound like fecken Lady Chatterly's Lover; I am being hyperbolic to be honest - by the standard of this blog it's pretty tame - but compard to the usual tepidness of rowing articles, it's fucking Danté). It would have been equally amusing to be privvy to all the meetings - YES, MY POISONED PEN WAS THE CAUSE OF MEETINGS - and frantic scurrying that went on to solve the legal problems that I caused. Because yes, apparently there's some law or something that says you can't just write long articles about a school (featuring pictures of the schoolboys) without asking or even informing the school. Psshaw, just a technicality I say. But to put it another way, here is - as far as I can tell - the usual procession of events in the writing of an article about a school.

1: Editor has an idea/hears a story and sends a journalist to investigate
2: Journalist collects information (with permission of school)
3: Journalist takes information and runs though his/her mental censor. Writes article
4: Article is vetted by like FOUR DIFFERENT MEMBERS OF OUR STAFF (I did not know this) to make sure it is appropriate and gives the 'right' impression of our school
5: Journalist re-writes
6: Repeat steps 4-5 as many times as is necessary
7: Journalist sends article to editor
8: Editor edits the piece to defiantly make sure that it is perfect
9: Piece published in paper

Right. Now here's what happened with me:
1: Editor has idea for article, asks me to write it
2: I say yes, do not bother asking the school's permission (they're gonna love it, right?), bypass mental censor, write article, send it off
3: Piece appears (unedited) in the magazine.

Perfick. Apparently it broke something called 'data protection' and was 'detrimental to the image of the school'. I was told this by the two Deputy Headmasters who interviewed me in a fairly nerve-wracking (but somewhat exciting) room. I was shivering. This was because I'd just done a 1 x 40 minute Commando Circuit and I was sweaty. But it was still a bit scary. I was especially scared then they screamed at me that they were going to shut me down and stitch me up for wrecking our school's beautiful reputation. But don't worry - I stood up for my rights as an author. I quoted the constitution, I threw free speech at them, I wanged in a bit of TS Elliot for good measure, I told them that they could do whatever they wanted to me but they could never dull my voice as an author, I informed them that all the great writers and artists were rejected and tortured in their time - Van Gough was never appreciated, Shakespeare was beaten up at school by the strong kids, Beckett's lunch money was stolen, Roald Dahl was kept in a japanese POW camp for 15 years and castrated with meat-hooks - and I finished by throwing the article at their feet and screaming "YOU CAN LOCK ME AWAY BUT YOU CAN NEVER MY SHUT ME UP!"

Ok I didn't actually I more or less agreed with everything they said as they were very nice and didn't even yell at me. We concluded that the editor of the publication in question is a shit and that I was not going to get in any trouble for my apparently misdeeds. I bet I will tomorrow though. I deserve it, to be honest, I did basically write that article to wind up my rowing coach (who has become really nice over the summer it turns out). In the meantime, that's the end of that story.

Now I just hope nobody reads that article I wrote in the Sunday Times Sports Section in which I call our Headmaster a knob.

My review of our school's production of "Carmen" for the school newspaper

Yes, I can quite clearly not be arsed to blog properly. So here, thanks to the miracles of copy/paste is my review of our school's joint production of 'Carmen' with LEH, the girl's school/kennel next door, for the school magazine. For some reason I have ended up writing most of this year's magazine; I've already scribed a theatre review and a rowing report and am signed on to do an opinion piece about our environmental policy AND a short story. Anyway here is my review:

A review of Carmen
After watching most of the major Hampton/LEH productions in the past few years and even having a starring role in the Junior Christmas Play four years ago, I consider myself a connoisseur of Hampton Drama. Indeed, I happened to actually enter the Garrick Building the other day to borrow a cassette/iPod adaptor for my car, so I’m basically one of the foremost thespian experts in the school. This allows me to write with frankness about the LEH/Hampton production of Carmen that I had the fortune of watching on Thursday 20th October 2005. In order to mentally prepare myself for the show, I did some research; apparently it’s about some gypsy woman who sings a lot and not, as I had first assumed, robot superheroes who transform into cars at will and zoom about solving crimes.
But onto the show itself. I was meant to be getting free tickets to the performance to write this review, but nobody at the door knew I was coming and I was glared at by the ticket woman, so the production immediately lost points for that. I was eventually placed up on a balcony surrounded by proud parents gushing about how talented their little darlings were. This set off warning bells in my brain; I think I was literally the only non-affiliated member of the audience. After the first ten minutes of stompy dancing and drawn-out solos, the essential difference between us became clear: the eyes of my fellow audience-members were shiny and brimming with tears of pride. Mine were glazed and staring into the middle distance. I mean, there is only so much posturing, stamping of feet and weird stop-motion dancing that one production can handle, and this version exceeded its budget in the first five minutes. I realised that I was in for a long evening when, hoping we were near to the interval, I checked the programme and realised that we were only six songs into the fifteen-song first act.
Perhaps this is just an inherent fault in the opera itself. The essential problem with Carmen, or at least the version I saw, is that none of the main characters seem to be sympathetic. Escamillo is a posturing arrogant twat. Don José is a pathetic whining loser. Carmen is a selfish whinging hussy who randomnly changes her mind every three minutes. While this may have been the point (the opera was originally damned by critics for being “superficial”), it just made the characters seem like distant cypers who floated about the stage following random personal compulsions. For example, at no point in the production do we understand how or why the Don José likes Carmen so much – the depths of his passionate and fiery love seemed stem from one song and manifested themselves in the actor looking a bit sad and occasionally holding his head. This was the essential problem; the performances of the leads, although incredibly impressive and tone-perfect, were also over-rehearsed, soulless, totally lacking in passion, and filled with that ‘ohmygosh look at us we are just so talented’ smugness that plagues the Senior productions at Hampton and LEH.
Of course, it’s very easy to criticise unjustly (fun too), but the production wasn’t a complete disaster by any means. I mean, the wall hangings, which had seemed to have been painted by LEH first years, were very nice. And there was no faulting the individual performances – there was some serious talent on display. The orchestra was (as usual) brilliant. Marios lived up to his reputation with some awesome dancing, very revealing cream tights and a weird postmodern interpretation of a bull costume that indicated that the wardrobe designer had probably been drinking. Currry as the smuggler Dancairo was a highlight. Even the LEH girls were alright. And as I have already said, the leads put on superb technical performances; it was just a pity that they lacked the essential passion and fire that the story demanded. I think that the most indicative fact about this production is that they managed to compress Bizet’s original four act epic opéra comique into two hours, making it seem almost incomplete (at the exclusion of, perhaps… characer development? Just a guess), and yet it STILL felt drawn out, far too long, and had me checking my watch repeatedly as the cast launched into yet ANOTHER repetition of that bloody toreador song. We get it, he’s a toreador, very good, hurry up and get on with the plot.
The latest production – My Fair Lady – is on in the coming week. All signs point to it as a return to form. We’ll see. In the meantime, if some pushy LEH drama mother offers to sell you a memorabilia DVD of Carmen as a memento, I advise you not to buy it.

What do you think? Too harsh? I think it's too harsh. Of course, that's not going to stop me from sending it in. I wonder if I can say the word 'twat' in a school publication. Probably not. What am I saying there's no chance this piece is going to be published at all I might as well have given in a picture of myself naked and riding a rocking horse in lieu of this review. Oh well, at least it's nice to be mean to some drama students every now and again. And I didn't even mention that the girl who played Carmen was really FAT. I'm basically awesome.

It was my driving test on Wednesday

First things first, let's have no comments on the fact that it took me over a year to get to the point of actually having a driving test. Yes, I know that it took an obscenely long length of time and the combined cost of all my lessons was probably equal to half the cost of our car BUT LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT THAT. I do have a few excuses, I mean:

• For the first half of the year we didn't have a car I could drive so I was running off 45 minutes of driving A WEEK which is hardly an effective learning strategy. As soon as we got Nora (I named our car Nora) I immediately became the king of the road and zoomed about everywhere drive-buying things.
  
• My driving instructor was a woman. A WOMAN. Everyone knows that woman are intrinsically inferior to men in every way (except for breasts) and thus if I'd had an instructor with a beard I would have got to this point a lot earlier.
  
• I was too busy listening to my favorite bands Linkin Park and Green Day while conjuring up lightning bolts and Arab sheiks to bother about driving.

So let's have no more discussion about the pitifully long time it took me to actually book a test. Although thinking about it, if I'd passed my LAST test it would have taken me less than a year which is a respectable time. I have already spoken about why I failed the previous test (instructor was a paedophile, there were quotas, everyone is biased against me, there was NO CHANCE I was gonna rear-end that car, what a twat). Totally not my fault. But that taught me some important lessons about driving tests: Mainly, you have to hope that you get a nice instructor, and then you have to realise that even if you get a really kind one he'll still probably fail you in the first three minutes for the tiniest of mistakes. It's basically like walking along a knife-edge on a huge steak knife, and if you slip one leg will slip down one side of the knife and the other will slip down the other and you'll fall heavily on a sharp fucking blade and cut off your scrotum and probably shear through your pelvis and then you'll have to book another driving test.

So it is fair to say that I was basically shitting myself on the morning before the test. It's strange; I can do exams and that will determine how the rest of my life (education etc) goes and I just breeze through playing Metroid, but a short-term driving test that can be rebooked at any time which virtually everyone in the country is capable of passing at some point or another? Total wig-out. I was literally feeling like throwing up. I sat through my first few lessons @school.com pale faced, shivering, sweating, staring into the middle distance. I think that the teachers thought I was coming down from a toasty heroin buzz, like I was some sort of disgusting junky fuck. Hah - the joke's on them, I only shoot up once or twice a month, and on a purely recreational basis - fine.

Finally I staggered out of school and made my way to the test centre with my teacher. For those of you who do not know, my teacher is a WOMAN. For those of you who also don't know, the driving test basically takes the form of sitting in a car driving it about doing awesome stunts. Such stunts involve the hardcore wheelspinning mashup of "Reversing round a left corner", or the adrenaline-chugging nitro-whoompage of "Three Point Turn" (although you can choose to take it to the XXXtreme by failing to get all the way round the road and turning it into the super-hardcore "Five Point Turn"). You are rated not by how well you drive, but by how many mistakes you make, which I think is pretty pessimistic. You should get bonus points for doing nifty manoeuvres or wheelspinning or driving down a high street at 40mph and not hitting a single thing. But that is not to be.
Every time you make a little mistake (say, not looking properly before pulling out or going a little too fast towards a junction), you get a 'minor' error AKA a little tick on the sheet. You are allowed 15 of these motherfuckers, but get 16 and BLAM you've failed your mofoin drivin test. However, every time you make a bad mistake (skipping a red light, going 70mph down a 30mph road or, say, I don't know, according to my first driving instructor LURCHING SLIGHTLY WHEN CHANGING GEARS twat) you get a dreaded 'major'. One major counts as 16 minors. They could have just said "One Major is a Fail" but NO they had to fecken turn it into a qualitative amount. This means that I can work out just how badly I failed my last test. Out of a total maximum possibility of 16 points lost, I managed to lose forty. FORTY. I FAILED BY MORE THAN TWICE. If I was to just scrape through, I would have required more than TWO driving tests to fail by the amount that I failed last time.

Man that's depressing.

So as you can see I was eager not to repeat my performance and was thus rightly nerve-filled as I sat in the waiting room and looked at the posters on the wall. One of them had a picture of a car wreck with something like "90% of road accidents happen to young drivers". This was hardly reassuring, and I was quite relieved when my instructor came in to take me up up up and awaaaaaaaaaaaay. The initial relief of realising that I hadn't managed to draw last time's paedo-moustache instructor quickly faded when I realised that I was to be invigilated by a scotsman who had one of those lips that look like it sported a moustache until recently when it was accidentally shaved off in the shower. This sense of dread was cancelled when he accused me of skiving off school and I realised that he was actually pretty safe. So that was good.
My first failure of the test came with my inability to unlock the car. I stuck the key in the lock and turned it. I attempted to open the door. It didn't open. I twisted the key again and the car alarm went off. I panicked and twisted it AGAIN and the door opened. Thank fuck. I got in and hit my head on the rear view mirror. I sat down. Instructor sat down in the seat and got out his sheet of paper. I looked at the rear view mirror and saw a reflection of his crotch. After adjusting it a bit, I started up and off we went!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We had gone literally no more than forty seconds before he make a tick on his bit of paper. Oh holy shit, I thought to myself, I have already failed this test before I have even had a chance to crash at high speed into a pram. This is so bad. I spent the rest of the test taking surreptitious glances at his clipboard. Unfortunately I could only get in half-second glances each time, and for some reason every time I always just looked at the top right hand corner, which featured one minor for observations or something. So at least I knew that my observations were only slightly fucked.
So we kept on driving. After doing a surprise emergency stop (Which was a bit of a failure; Scotty shouted STOP and I drove half a second before responding... to be honest I would have killed the invisible kid that invisibly ran across the road; When we were stationary Wallace said "Well I won't ask you to repeat THAT... let's go" which didn't add to my already-mounting paranoia), an utterly UTTERLY buff reverse park and a fucking orgasmic reverse round a corner (no, seriously, as we were slowly going round the corner my instructor started groaning, squealing "YES, YES, DO IT TOM, DO THAT CORNER GOOD" and spanking the dashboard), we started zooming down a Dual Carriageway.
At this point my nerves were SLIGHTLY more settled because of the goodness of my previous manoeuvres. Plus when we'd stopped following the reverse park I'd taken a sneaky peek at his clipboard and confirmed that I still only had one minor for observations. My nerves became re-unsettled again when, in my attempt to change gear, the gearstick somehow LEAPT out of my hand and disappeared into the ether that is known as 'Neutral'. The car started roaring. A thin bead of sweat tricked down my temple. I desperately tried to get it back in gear before the instructor kicked my face in with a 'SERIOUS'. Because even I would say 'Losing all control of the car while going at 40mph down a busy Dual Carriageway' counts as Dangerous driving. Fortunately I managed to get it back into gear without blowing up the engine. I glanced at Hamish briefly. Well, he wasn't writing anything down on the sheet; perhaps he had failed to notice that I had nearly killed him and totalled the car. I breathed a sigh of relief, then sucked in a sigh of horror as the examiner immediately told me to take the next turning, then pull up behind a car (about a car's length away). Was he going to tell me to get the fuck out of the car and drive me back to the center in disgrace? Fortunately he didn't have a chance to do so because I managed to screw up the parking.
"Thomas, pull up about a car's length away. Don't worry about the driveways."
"Okily dokily" said I chirpily. (NB: I did not actually say that)
I drive forward a few feet.
"Still not a car's length away."
I go forward a bit more.
"A car's length."
At this point I realise that I could fail the test for not being able to stop the car a set distance away from another parked car, going at 2mph in a totally abandoned street. I panic and slowly idle it forward.
"Stop!"
I stopped. He nodded and told me to drive off. I do not like it when driving instructors tell me to do this. I get worried that I have somehow committed some grave error and that he has thought to himself 'Well I was going to tell him he's passed, but due to the utter ineptitude of that park I am going to make him drive and possibly fail for another 25 minutes'.
We drove on. He told me to turn left. I'm not gonna lie, I went right. At this point I was having a 'mare, and there was a little monologuer in my head screaming YOU MORON at me repeatedly. Fortunately, there was a louder voice in my head singing that song "Gold Digga", except it was changing the lyrics to make them more politically correct, ie:
I ain't saying she's a gold degro
But she aint messin' wit no broke negro
Over and over and over again. This slightly calmed me down and made me not actually start crying when Haggisymchaggis told me to make a particularly sharp right turn and I didn't quite make it and I had to reverse down the road in a kind of impromptu "3 Point Turn" dealie... TWICE. THIS HAPPEND TWICE. I nearly cried. I actually did. Finally, we came out into the road that would lead back to the test center eventually (I think I cut up a Citroen by accident in pulling out, but fuck the french; at this point I was so sure I'd failed I didn't really care).

"Ok Thomas, take the next road on the left."
So I took the left turn he advised, the one that would take me safely home.
Well I would have done, had I not taken the left turn directly before it which led into what looked like the car park of a Church Youth group. I stopped the car. I looked at him. He looked at me.
"Well, this isn't a road, is it Tom?".
My internal monologuer tied a piece of rope to the top of my skull and hanged himself by the neck until dead. I nearly slammed my head against the wheel in horror. I can't even remember HOW I got out of that car park but I managed it, and I slowly dragged myself and the car to the test centre again. I slumped in my seat, a defeated and nervously exhausted shell of a man. Tears rolled from my pearly eyes. My chin itched.
"I am pleased to say that you have passed your test!" said the Scotsman.

wft

I felt like grabbing him by the shoulders and asking him if he had even been present for the last half of the test (you know, the half when I lost control on a dual carriageway, failed to steer enough to turn a corner TWICE, was unable to judge distances whatsoever, accidentally trespassed on private land and WENT THE WRONG WAY THREE TIMES). But I didn't. I just assumed that he'd just found his long-lost son or was on acid or something and took my pass with good grace and happiness. I thanked God for His kindness in giving me the one crackhead happy scottish driving instructor on the planet and promised to give some money to charity or something. I didn't.
Later that night I saw Waiting for Godot at the theatre (For some reason the sequels, 'Oh, there's Godot' and 'Hey, where did Godot get to?' weren't on, which was a bit of a let-down) It was a really deep piece of surrealistic minimalistic philosophical no I can't pretend that I understood any of it. I thought it was so boring. AND I'M MEANT TO BE APPLYING TO DO ENGLISH LITERATURE AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY
ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM