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.