And a good-morning bow-wow to you gentlemen

I have been getting a lot of - I belive the technical term for it is "Spam" - in my - I believe the technical term for it is "E-Mail" - depositary box. The majority of these "Spam" "E-Mails" have been from people whom I do not know selling me things that I do not wish to own. Well, I suppose that I would like to own a very long penis or an imitation gold Rolex, but I feel that if I was in any mood to purchase those things I would go to a licensed retailer or surgeon. I would most certainly not requisition them from my dear friends 'Deniz Brinn' or 'Thibult Greir', no matter how quaint and unusual their names might be.

However, in recent days I have started receiving "E-Mails" from fellows who, instead of filling my inbox with a series of photographs of naked young girls or strings of random digits, send me a fragment of a short story, accompanied by the following image:



This image appears to be offering me a series of narcotics for what I can only assume are bargain, bargain, knock down prices. However, the short-story fragments often have very little to do with the cheap, cheap, bargain knock-down priced pills and in fact seem to be - I hesitate to make value judgements on the writing of people whom I do not know - the ramblings of a mental. Or possibly a retard. Or possible one of those little primeval dwarf fellows I saw on that television program the other day. Funny little fellows; I would like to own one and then sell him on "E-Bay", but the joke would be that I would sell him inside a wooden box without the buyer knowing that he was inside and then suddenly he would open the box and BAM a little dwarf fellow would hop out. That would personally make me laugh, I do not know about you.

Perhaps I am being too harsh; perhaps these short stories are being taken out of context. Maybe they make perfect sense, if only one had the end of each line (I think that the ends of the lines have been cut off). I do not know, I will see what you think. Here are a few examples of "E-Mail" Short stories that I have received in the past few days:

Title: re: Toolroo
From: Beatrice Perry
To be frank this was a kind of a low point, made even lower when the
Always good to meet a true fan. We all bowed now since this was not
microseconds before the explosion that destroyed the equipment I was
of Liokukae will not be surprised at all when you arrive there.
what? Im betting on women. Either that or an awful lot of cloning is
was. And now I know who you are.
I did not drop as instructed because I was possessed by a
once again by the lake.
And a good-morning bow-wow to you gentlemen. Your new friend has
A group of armed men has emerged from some kind of opening in the

Do you see what I mean when I say 'Stories'. There definitely appears to be something exciting going on in this tale. Armed men. Equipment being destroyed by explosions. Cloning. Lionkukae, who I assume is either a wise old man or some form of very disgusting bestiality-related African pornography. Being possessed by a lake. Quite how a lake - which is only water and possible a bit of mud at the bottom - has the abilities to possess somebody is not explained in this story, but in the small fragment that I have read here, I would certainly like to know more. I would also like to know what "toolroo" means, as it is possibly the best word I have ever heard. I am also going to greet everybody I come into contact with tomorrow with the words "And a good-morning bow-bow to you, gentlemen!". They will be confused but I will laugh inside because I will be the only one who understands the reference!

Title: My weatherin
From: Shazi Culley
planet was hip-deep in TV sets?
from your records in the future. But I will cease my mind reading now.
these dreadful compositions yet another time. He plugged in the cubes
Well how do you think I got these electronic eyeballs? It will be
tachyons-or we reach the north pole and freeze to death.
Hold him! Svinjar shouted and I was grabbed tightly, struggled to
same time. If you cant think of anything else to do crook your arm
to existence in this world-wide spittoon.
artifact of possible interest.
jawbone.
No big loss, Floyd muttered. Steengo nodded.

It is actually painful. I would love to know what is going on. Nothing would please me more than to find out where he got the electronic eyeballs, or the meaning of the phrase 'world-wide spittoon', or the relevance of the word "Jawbone", or the back stories of the characters Svinjar, Floyd and Steengo. That is such a joy to type and say. Svinjar, Floyd and Steengo. It kills me that this is a mystery that I will never, ever be able to solve. I will lie awake at night wondering whether our heroes managed to do something involving tachyons, or froze to death at the North Pole.
What is especially annoying about these stories is that none of the lines seem to make any sense or relate to each other in any way. Then at least I could imagine that the viagra people just copied chunks of a sci-fi novel and pasted them into their "E-Mails". But no. For all I know they could be simply lines written by a computer somewhere. I simply do not know. Alright, here is one more:

Title: To Evette
From: Kelly Bainbridge
her, hands out and ready to strike.
purely male. Just think about it. I am not making a value judgment,
dark pond. There he dipped the bucket into the water and hurled its
level. Remains of an optical finder there. Note the four automatic
Seems obvious, Madonette said undoubtedly miffed by my surly
Keep on going round the galaxy-no place is home
resisting my movement, growing firm, then more solid until it was like
treatments?
slumworld. Think quickly, Jim, before things get any worse.
financially overburdened academics can afford it and not even notice

I would like to cry. I am one of those people who is fascinated and repelled by unsolvable mysteries. I would love - absolutely love - to know the origins of these stories. I would love to trace them backwards, through the infinite and glowing strands of cyberspace. I would love to surf on the untouchable series of zeroes and ones that flow backwards through the copper wires and strands of my internet connection, into the huge, infinitely quantum recesses of the blackness of the internet. There I will glide to the very top, survey the dark pit of cyberspace, a vast mass of twirling strands and interconnecting ribbons, before plunging back, following the lines of Madonette and the financially overburdened academics, back in time and space and reality to the computer screen where, at some point in the history of time, somebody has sat down and pressed a series of buttons on a keyboard to form the sentence "Think quickly, Jim, before things get any worse". I would love to do that. I would love to find the writers of these stories and ask them if they know that fragments of them are being used to accompany viagra adverts. I would love to know how the viagra sellers came to the conclusion that the best way to sell their product was to copy half a sentence from these stories. I would love to know the answers to all of these questions, and yet, I doubt that I will ever know. It will be a mystery forever unsolved. I am crushed. My soul have been ripped asunder by the craftiness of the viagra merchants.

But on the other hand: Miffed.

What a word.

Wait. I just realised that perhaps there will be an explanation of some sort if I actually follow the link onto the viagra website. Perhaps the point of those stories was to intrigue you enough to buy some viagra. Cover me, I am going in. Well that was not very good, I typed the adress in and it did not even open! The website does not even exist! This has only served the deepen the mystery of The Viagra Stories. Oh well I am bored of this topic now I will go and buy myself a new Rolex.

Today's really clever and really hard Craptic Crossword Clue:
Shout an expression of pain, coward! (6)

It did snow today

Yes I am aware that I have blogged about the snow in an excited manner without fail for the past three years. However snow is an exciting event and I am sure that I can put a 'cool' (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) spin on events. Anyway the snow is what I am going to blog about today - not the advanced state of exhaustion that I am in, not the unfortunate plight of bottle-faced pig-woman Jade Goody, not the email that I just received from my dear friend Peregrine Cohen offering me cut-price Viagra along with the enigmatic message "rmo from him. He never saw the artifact. It must have been taken by". Although that would be an interesting thing to blog about. I wonder what that means? What artifact? Why did he not see it? I feel that there is more to this than meets the eye.

However, forget about that as today I am going to blog about the sight that did meet my eye when I woke up this morning. Yes it was snow! The roads and the floors and the trees and the streets were all covered in snow! It was exciting and I had a good mind to dance about in the snow. However I did not as I am a sensible young man and I know that such behaviour is foolish. In many ways I have grown up and become much more mature in the past year. However in others (most of the ways) I am still essentially a three year old, and thus the fact that the floor is covered with lots of white frozen water is still enough to send me into paroxyms of joy. I do love snow - there is something about it that makes me giggle. If there was a machine to generate real snow - perhaps in the freezer - then I would definitely buy one and if it turned out to be good I would probably buy two so that I could have twice as much snow as everyone else. I have no idea how such an invention would work, though, as snow is formed of millions of tiny snowflakes that are all different. Perhaps some sort of ice-cube tray but with really small snowflake-sized indentations? I do not know and that is why I am not a scientist. I am an ideas man.

Anyway today was different from all the other snow days as today I had to drive to school in my car, and as we know, driving in snow is the most dangerous thing in the world to do. Many thousands of people are killed every year in snow-related accidents (for example, their cars skidding off roads and exploding or sliding off of flyovers and crashing into planes and exploding or pulling into parking spaces but then colliding into carelessly-constructed snowmen and exploding). Therefore I decided that I would be a really careful driver and, after chasing my dogs around in the garden a few times and then feeding them handfuls of snow (silly animals they thought that the snow was food! How amusing I made them eat about four snowballs each and they didn't even realise they could just eat the snow off the floor!), I carefully eased the car out of our house.

Luckily there was no crashing into snowmen and I got into school fairly successfuly; however there was a big traffic jam (probably due to the snow which I think I have mentioned at some point in this post so far) and I missed the pre-school snowball fight. Let me explain: my school has some huge fields at the back and every time it snows, we all descend down upon them to hurl snow at each other to our hearts' content. Unfortunately I missed the first happening of this which was a bit frustrating, however, I had a free period on lesson three (which handily precedes morning break or as it is known in America, "Recess"). Therefore I had a good forty minutes to mess about on the field with a few lucky chums before the rest of the school - all the little ones - appeared and ruined the fun. So yes I did have some jokes on the field. I threw some balls and I actually hit a few people on the head from a not-inconsiderate distance! I was very proud and I promptly gave myself the nickname of "Sniper Fox" as I am slinky like a fox but I can also hit people in the head with projectiles from a long distance away, like a sniper. This is thus a simile and not a metaphor.

However at some point during the aforementioned fun on the field, disaster struck and my portable telephone slipped out of my pocket and was lost on the ground without me noticing! How worrisome, especially as our field is huge. But as I have no short-term memory whatsoever, I thought to myself "Perhaps I have left it in my bag, or my jacket, or my car" and all three items were in different places. For some reason I did not think to bring these three things together but instead visited each in turn about three times as I kept thinking to myself 'Perhaps I forgot to check the car properly or something'. It was frustrating, but eventually I decided that I had indeed dropped my phone on the field, so I set about scouring the field to find it. This was not successful and I was starting to rue the day that I had chosen to meddle with the snow.
However I did find a wallet lying in the snow. I picked it up and checked the bus pass inside and it belonged to a brown person with a silly name. I was confused so I turned to the nearest brown person and asked him if he knew the brown person on the bus-pass, as it it my theory that all brown people are connected by some sort of psychic bond which would explain that red dot that you see on the heads of some brown people. I am not racist I have to confirm as I did not even call the brown person 'Sanjay' without asking his name first. Unfortunately the second brown person did not know the first brown person so I decided to walk to the edge of the field and leave the wallet on the bench for safekeeping. Already on the bench was a pair of spectacles that somebody had placed there for somebody else to find, and this set off bells in my mind. Perhaps, just perhaps, somebody had come across my phone and left it on another bench next to the field! So I walked along the edge of the field to the next bench and what do you know my phone was actually there! I knew it was my phone because the wallpaper on the front screen was a picture of my water-bottle and to be honest who else is likely to have that as their screen-saver? So I was happy and I decided to re-join the snowball fight which at this point was a huge meleé as the rest of the school - all 900 of them - had come out of lessons.

The snowball fight was quite violent today. Usually all of our energies have been directed at the poor-people scum school next door and we end up having a huge war with them over the fence and then somebody from our school ends up getting stabbed or something but this year the teachers had planned ahead for this possibility and had roped off the bit of the field near to their fence which was good. However it also meant that we had to direct our energies inwards upon each other.

Because of the phone debacle I was unable to locate my comrades amongst the blur of flying snowballs and dodging bodies so I decided to go it alone. Being the big strong man I am I chose to hurl a load of snow at a tiny wee bespectacled member of the 1st year who appeared to be standing by himself. I actually hit him! It was really good however he turned round and saw me and I realised that he was with about six of his friends and he said "Hey get the boy in the pink shirt" (this was me I was wearing a pink shirt). Unfortunately when it comes to snowball fights, your age and relative strength does not matter when compared to the massed forces of a load of 11 year olds and to be honest it was a slaughtering. It was like a prequel to that poem Ozymandias except instead of a huge statue (representing the arrogance of man) being destroyed by the march of time and civilisation it was me having loads of snow thrown at my head. Oh it was horrible there was snow everywhere it was not meant to be. I kind of ran in circles around them hollering as they all threw snow at me, then I ran away. Then I half heartedly threw some more snow at them and they chased me and I just fled for my life.

It was good.

Today's Craptic Crossword Clue:
Points around a circle bring winter fun (4)

I am so sorry

I have not blogged for many hours. Or days. I am sorry for this. However I have an excuse which is that I am exhausted. However I will have to continue to break your collective hearts by not blogging today either. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or the day after. Or who knows? How exciting.

However, to tide you over in the meantime I have created a fifteen-panel cartoon featuring Emo-boy and Tie-man and Maddox and Ian Huntley and all of our favourite cartoon chracters and I have uploaded it for your viewing discresction I cannot spell that word. Enjoy it:


Oh wait I forgot to draw it. I think that this means that you are even more disappointed than you would have been had I not mentioned it at all.

Ta-dah!

Today's Made-Up-On-The-Spot Craptic Crossword Clue:
Spin a hobbit for attraction (5-2-5)

Bzzzzzzzz

Today I would like to blog about the fact that I went to the dentist on Friday to have my teethicles drilled up. Now as a rule I do not like going to the dentist as when I was a wee lad I had strange teeth, which meant that I had to go to a specialistic dentistic hospital in London. At this institute I had several teeth ripped out from the gums, many a filling done, and even a brace inserted into my mouth. At one point I nearly passed out due to the unpleasant nature of having a filling. This was while I was being watched by a gaggle of interested-looking medical students and I suspect that the operation itself was actually performed by an under-qualified spotty indian teenager. After that somewhat bad experience I am somewhat desensitised to the unpleasantness of fillings; however, I still dislike attending the dentist for check-ups. There is something somehow ominous about having the dentist go through each and every one of your teeth one by one, calling out strange technical terms.

"Oclusar one two three, ok, dental four is inclusively intracted, dental five is sub-linear, dental five has a slight corrective misfunction. Second molar features an m-dimensional linear submanifold of R, signifying a Euclidean space of m dimensions".
(did you like all the fake dental terms that I just made up I think that they are quite clever and gives this blog an added and much-needed layer of biological science)

It is like having a spelling test where one mistake means that you have to have an uncomfortable and time-consuming medical procedure; and even worse, all of the correct spellings in the test are like mixed up versions of the real words. I know that this analogy makes no sense but luckily I am doing English at Oxford University so I can get away with whatever mixed metaphors I want, and just ascribe their logical disfunctions down to your lack of understanding/intelligence. But at the end of the day, it is very unnerving to have all these medical terms yelled out about your mouth with no knowledge of what they mean. I feel that it is a relief when at the end of the check-up the doctor says "I am sorry but I have to give you a filling" I mean at least then I have something definite. It is the waiting on the edge of my seat that I do not like. Although in this case I am lying firmly in a medical seat and am nowhere near the edge - I admit that that metaphor has weaknesses.

I am also aware that I could reduce the chances of needing medical procedures by brushing my teeth three times a day and not eating raw sugar when I am waiting for the kettle to boil in the morning. You could raise that argument; however, that simply necessitates the need for me to call in my omnipresent counter-argument of "I got into Oxford and thus everything that I do is correct and if I want to eat raw sugar and half-heartedly rub my teeth with a toothbrush twice a day than that is good enough for me". Equally, in this case the problem with my mouth was not down to me eating sugar but because a filling that had been done by the aforementioend clinic in London had cracked a bit and needed to be replaced. I am sorry but how I am I supposed to predict and prevent that? I no longer carry a full-scale smelting plant in my pocket and I have long ago stopped eating raw diamonds and Fabergé eggs. I consider myself an innocent bystander in all of this; however that point is moot as at the end of the day I found myself slumped in fear in a dentists chair being poked with needles by my nice lady dentist.

Oh yes did I mention that my dentist was a young thin scottish lady? Well my dentist was a young thin scottish lady, and her sidekick was from Brazil or Sweden or Poland or one of those loser countries far far away. Thinking about it perhaps she was Romanian; she spoke in a funny accent, she smoked a long pipe and when the scottish lady turned her back she tried to sell me beads and crucifixes to ward off evil mouth spirits. I am sorry the previous statement was probably racist and in many ways untrue; there are a huge minority of Romanian women are not vampire-fearing gypsies and in this case I was lucky. While I am on the subject of racism, I do not want to appear racist or sexist but if I think about it I reckon that every medical professional I have ever been to in the last decade has either been a woman, very young, or foreign. Or a combination of the above. I am sure that they all did a superb job (except obvious the fellow who put in my previous crackable filling), but sometimes I wish that I could be operated upon by an ageing white male with salt and pepper hair and a reassuring world-weary bedside manner; the sort of learned chap who has photographss of his grandchilden on his shelf along with golfing medals and who says "Now let's see what we've got here" as he checks out my mouth/wrist/other part of the body. Somebody like Carl Kennedy from Neighbours or maybe Lou. Except English, obviously. That would be swell. I feel that the world has moved on and we no longer get such sterling aged medical professionals working at the NHS. Equally, I feel that all of our doctor's assistants are now fat unattrative foreigners, which is a sad change from the previous "Misshapen Lisping Midgets Called Igor", which used to be the industry standard.
On the other hand, I have just recalled that such a wise aged doctor did have a look at my wrist when I suspected I had tendonitis and he was both rubbish and spaced - I fear that he had been huffing dope or whatever it is that these doctor people do in their spare time and was too mashed off his noggin to make a decent diagnosis. He just looked confused, then gave me some pills and sent me on my way.

So perhaps it was good that I had the young scot looking after my filling. After all, she did seem to do a very good job at things; I have no complaints whatsoever about the filling or the manner in which it was carried out. Actually yes I do; she missed the nerve with the first injection that she gave me and so had to dope me up with double the amount of anaesthetic so that I did not feel the pain of the work-tools mashing into my flesh. If you have not had your mouth numbed, you have missed a treat; it is a highly fun feeling. Like having a huge balloon of warm flesh tied to the side of your mouth. You spend the rest of the day poking it and saying "I know that this lip belongs to me, but... but... but... I just can't feel it!". It is a mightily fun feeling. A word of warning though: you can also quite easily bite through a huge hunk of your mouth-flesh by accident, as I did on one occasion when returning from the aforementioned clinic. I must have removed a good square centimetre of flesh from my entire lips (if you were to put all the chewed off flesh together in a little pile) through a combination of careless chomping and the "Let's see how deeply I can bite into my lip without it hurting" game. Unfortunately it started to hurt very hardcore when the anaesthetic wore off and I started to drip blood all over the Horrible Histories book that I was reading. My lip was swollen and ulcerated for about eight weeks after that incident.

Fortunately no such thing occurred today and I am now fighting fit again. However my jaw aches. I do not know if it is connected.

This is the full story of me going to the dentist. I hope that you enjoyed it. I certainly enjoyed writing it!

Today's Craptic Crossword Clue:
Break the sound barrier before the end of the fete for jungle-cutting instrument (7)

Back to school

And I am doing what I do best... sitting in the library, doing the Telegraph cryptic crossword and alternatively writing a blog about how I am sitting in the library doing the Telegraph cryptic crossword. The answer to 11 across (Trying porridge before fish - [9]) is "Gruelling". Gruelling. Gruel (synonym of porridge) added to ling (type of fish) to make "Gruelling", which means "Trying". That is the answer. Fact.

I am also listening to the chillout playlist on my iPod. This consists of the CDs "The Classic Chillout Album Disk 1", "The Classic Chillout Album Disk 2", "Classic Chillout 2 Disk 1", "Classic Chillout 2 Disk 2", "The New Classic Chillout Album: From Dusk 'til Dawn Disk 1 (Dawn)", "The New Classic Chillout Album: From Dusk 'til Dawn Disk 2 (Dusk)", and two CDs of Buddha Lounge, which features lots of chinky chanting and asian pipework. The song that is currently playing on the iPod is "One Fine Day" by a group known as the "Opera Babes". One fine day? It sure will be when these lovely ladies are singing. A very talented group, they should go far.

I hope to increase my repertoire of quasi-classical oriental ambiant chillout choons with the addition of "Punjabi Lounge" and "Arabic Chillout", two three-cd albums which I bought for my father for Christmas. I am especially looking forward to seeing how the compilers of "Arabic Chillout" managed to compress the entire Middle-Eastern chillout scene (after all, it is generally a very cool and laid-back part of the world) into just three disks. Having had a little sneak listen to the featured music, it appears that the answer is "Rhythmic Chanting" and "Wind Chime Sounds". So I think that is something for us all to look forward to.

in other news, the song that is currently playing on myPod is "Gymnopedie No.1" by Joolz Gianni & Ty Unwin. Nonwithstanding their obviously made-up names, it is a delightful combination of the two seemingly-contradictory genres of tooty clarinet and singy female voice that really makes the hairs on my arms just stand up on end. Also, despite what the title of the song might imply, there is very little reference to child molesters urinating on small children inside an indoor exercise arena.

Do you get it? Gymno - pedie - No.1? That is my interpretation of the "cryptic clue" format. I could totally be a crossword compiler. After all, all you have to do is think of a word that sounds a bit like another word, then re-write it in such a way that it is possible to misinterpret the resulting sentence. For example in the case of this crossword I am doing now "Acquit former copper with large head", "former" means "ex", "copper" can be shortened to "cu", "large" can be shortened to "l", and apparently another word for head is "pate" (I know how strange I had not heard of it either but there you go we've all learnt something today). Stick them together to get the word "exculpate" meaning "to vindicate or acquit", which is the first word of the thing. Hurray!

Now see if you can solve any of my fiendishly hard clues that I am making up as I type this on the spot. The first one to solve every clue gets a kiss if you are my girlfriend or any comprably attractive female. Be aware: most of these clues are not real words. I will start on an easy one.

Southern former gender - (3)
Link noisy tender for weapon - (8)
Fecal pea and double oxygen - (3)

Did you get them? They were not very difficult and I basically got bored and hungry after the first one. Still I will not tell you the answers lets see if you can guess.

Ooh I just got a text message on my phone. According to the phone "Message Memory is Almost Full". But that does not matter because I am getting a new free phone upgrade today. It should arrive in the post and then I will be able to finally put down my current model, which to be honest is approaching the end of its working life. I wonder who sent me this text message. I bet it was Lucia who is my girlfriend. I was making fun of her because she is not Italian but she thinks that because she spent about two years in Italy as a fat baby she has earnt the right to adopt every good thing about Italy as her own when clearly she has no biological affinity with those crazy eye-ties.

Oh wait the text was from Steve, who is actually a girl even though she has a boy's name. It does not matter though because her adam's apple flat chest and hairy chin make her look like a boy. Her text says "haha, dickhead. i heard that's a symptom of autism. why were people running into him? it's a great idea but why?"
I think that it is interesting that she chose to use apostrophes in her "it's" but ignored the far more basic rule of English which is to start every sentence with a capital letter. This text concerns my original text to her concerning my good friend Oliver (who is her ex-boyfriend) who got run into and then his lung collapsed. I am not sure of the exact details but that's plenty good enough of a story for me. As you can see Steve is still basically in love with Oliver and after they broke up she tried to fill the hole he left behind with a series of flings with a guy called Tim, Noel from Hearsay, a pink trampolining jelly-baby and a dashingly handsome young blacksmith from Germany. Yet nobody can fill the hole that Oliver left behind. I am now laughing because I wrote 'hole'.

I will text Steve back now. Here is what I texted to her:

I am using that text in my blog and by sending it you have surrendered all copywrite to me. Good day sir.

Notice my polite but firm sign-off and my impeccable grammar. I am quite the wag. Now to sit back and let the fireworks roll in.

Well this has been a worthwhile spending of a double free period. I do have literally nothing better to do with my time other than read books, and I feel that this probably stretches me more intellecually.

The current song on my iPod is "Street Tattoo" by 'Unknown Artist'. He may be unknown now, but someone find him quick, he's a devil on the sax!

Happy 2007!

Cheers to all of you (excluding, as I have already said, people I don't like... AIDS and rusty needles to you. You know who you are, you weird-faced girl-eyed Noel-from-Hearsay lookin' freaks). And thank the Jesus that 2006 is over! Seriously, I am so glad that we got that year out of the way. Not that it was a particularly BAD year, so to speak... I mean, I spent the first half in a kind of grouchy semi-sad mostly-amblivilent mood, the middle happy, and I've pretty much coasted the last. I am aware that I have managed to include three halves in my description of 2006 but hey - don't worry - I'm an english student at Oxford University (AKA the best place in the world), I don't need no stinkin' maths. Chaucer will see me through.

So yes, 2006 is done. Thank God for that. I mean, I didn't have any real problems with it (in fact as years go it was pretty successful OXFORDOXFORDOXFORD), except for the fact that at no point in the entire space of time did I think of it as a year. I know that sounds weird, but I pretty much thought that we were in 2005 the entire time. I think every single time I was required to write a date on anything I wrote 2005 and it was only when somebody else pointed out my mistake did I say 'Oh yeah... what year is it?' and make the necessary amendments. I literally cannot tell the difference between 2005 and 2006. Those two years just seem to blur into one. But 2007... I like the sound of that year. I like the shape of the letters. While I associate 2005/6 with a kind of angora-sweater-wearing nerd, 2007 has a much more dangerous edge. I can imagine 2007 with a bit of stubble, leaning against a beat-up classic car in a leather jacket, smoking a cigarette in a dusty carpark somewhere in the desert before driving off on some -illegal no doubt- adventure. 2006 and 5 just didn't cut it. Neither will 2008. I'll be so fucked off when 2008 rolls around and kills 2007's awesome buzz. It won't be until 2009 that the years gain any sort of respectability. And then after that 2013. Don't even talk to me about 2012. 2011 will barely pass muster. Maybe year names are like the Star Trek films. Only the odd ones are any good. Although I have never seen a Star Trek film (except for that one with the robots that were all gay and flew around in a big lameo square... it was rubbish).

I'm sorry, I have to type 2007 a few more times. 2007. 2007. 2007. 2007. DJ Fritzy back in the mix 2007, I wanna see your palms motherfuckers. 2007. I just love the way it looks. It gives me shortness of breath and makes my heart beat at double pace. I know that it's impossible to fall in love with a number (although I could refute that claim by showing you THE ENTIRE PHYSICS DEPARTMENT OF MY SCHOOL) but god dammnit, if 2007 drove up on its motorcycle and told me to hop aboard, I'm sorry Lucia but I would be out of there like a shot. I know that you are my girlfriend and all, but 2007 can offer me so many things that you cannot. Don't make this any harder than it already is (for you... I'm riding away on 2007's motorbike! I'm sorted for joy!)

So yes. 2005/6 has fucked off, leaving 2007 as the year of possibilities. After all, I have a gap year to plan, exams to pass, a mainstream writing career to continue to kick off, a girlfriend to continue to swindle into going out with me, and a 2nd VIII to get into. I also have a laptop to buy as I have decided that my current computer is just not equipped to deal with the vast amount of sexiness coming from me. So, with no further ado, here's a rundown of my New Year's Resolutions from last year (with addendums to see how well I did):

I will get a new girlfriend. A new and shinier one, possibly equipped with special features (like rocket launchers or laser eye vision) (I got about five months into the year attempting this before saying to myself 'Screw that, I'll just go for the same old model. Lucia may not have rocket launchers or fancy technological features or, you know, anything to recommend her whatsoever to anybody with non-minority tastes, but goddamnit I have a fetish for weird big-nosed elf-eared cold-dressed neurotic dear quirks and so she'll do for me until Liv Tyler drops the restrainment order')

I'll go to the cinema more. No wait, I'll get a student card first, THEN I'll go to the cinema more, thus saving me TWO POUNDS FIFTY. And I'll watch art-house films and look really interlekchual. (Holy crap... going to the cinema was one of my major life changing resolutions for last year? Man I'm lame. I did get a student card. But I probably went to the cinema less. And as for watching art-house films... the last film I saw was 'It's A Boy/Girl Thing' AKA The Hot Chick AKA She's The Man AKA Freaky Friday AKA Just My Luck AKA EVERY TEEN FILM MADE FOR THE LAST MILLION YEARS. No comment.)

I'll get into the Rowing Second Eight. And perhaps I'll win something this year. (I got into the Second VIII last year! Then I was thrown out of it in what I can only describe as the most rigged set of seat-racing ever. Seriously, if you have ever watched True Blue - and to be honest I pity the fool who has not viewed that particular work of cinematic masterclassness - you'll remember the scene in which our brave Oxford hero Donald McDonald is cheated out of a place in the Blue Boat by the evil Americans. It was like that. I was not happy after being chucked out. But my new boat did go on to win School's Head - the major event of the year - while our 2nd VIII was battered senseless. So I guess it evens out.)

I'll be nicer to people (You can't really measure niceness against the whole spectrum of interesting people that I come across. I suppose I had better pick a specific example... I know, Lucia's sister and best friend, who started off last year hating my guts because for some reason some person who may or may not have been me might have made some sort of comment pertaining to the weight of one of the aforementioned girls. They are a good subject for comparison because the only way I could really go was up. At this point last year they hated me... so, after re-capturing Lucia, I tried my hardest to please and amuse them for the entire past half year by being a model boyfriend, human and spectral being. I was just about winning them round, despite the heavy amounts of hatred being poured my way, when I blew the entire load of amassed love by desecrating a gingerbread in the shape of my friend that that they had made. Come on how was I supposed to know that it was an object of abject worship and love? It didn't even look like Mike.. And I maintain that it was already decapitated when I planted it upside down. In the chocolate cake. It really was. There's just no pleasing some people. So I guess that... yeah, I failed this task.)

I'll blog more. And in return, everyone else will comment loads and make me feel validated (Following the aforementioned fat-calling incident, I got a post that had 164 comments which must be some kind of record for the blog world. But on the other hand I have blogged like three times a month for the past three months.)

I'll get a job? Work experience, maybe. (DONE AND DONE. NOT ONLY DO I HAVE A QUITE WELL PAYING JOB AS A WAITER, I ALSO GOT WORK EXPERIENCE IN THE BEST ROWING MAGAZINE IN THE COUNTRY OF BRITAIN AND AND AND I HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED TWICE AND HAVE PISSED OFF MY ENTIRE SCHOOL WITH MY ACIDIC WIT. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. END OF MESSAGES.)

I actually did quite well last year with the resolutions. I am such a resolution slut. Ok here are some more so that I can basically rip off this exact post format next year, and the year after that, ad nauseum. :D

1: I suppose get the grades necessary to be allowed into Oxford and thus take my rightful place of Being Better Than All Of You Put Together. It should not be hard as I managed to scrape the French scores... I think I have to get about 40% in every one of my modules to get the necessary A grades. Not that I am over-confident, cocky or coasting or anything. Oh noooo.
2: Uh, pay attention to what my friends are doing? To be honest I have no idea if any of them have girlfriends or if they have got into University or even if they are clinically depressed. I don't really think that this is a good resolution but Lucia says that I have to be nicer to people and she seems to know what she is talking about. Frankly, I have enough on my plate worrying about the current health of my mobile phone, which to be honest is not doing so good. Every time I switch it off the screen breaks and requires me to bang it repeatedly against a wall to fix it. This banging has dislodged the microphone or something because now I swear the tone when you press any button has gone down a key. Don't ask me how this happened, it just did. Thinking about it, the same is pretty much true for my iPod - it kept freezing and the only way to fix it was to bang it against a wall. And now there is a loose piece of metal or something shaking about inside it. Hmm.
3: Be kinder to technology.
4: Do something OUTRAGEOUS. Like kiss a sheep or court a sausage.
5: Listen to bare techno music and really rave out like a total rave pig.
6: OK FINE I'LL BLOG MORE.
7: Endeavour to figure out one poem by TS Eliot. I heart TS Eliot like a bitch but most of the time I have no idea what the fuck the man is chattin about. After like a term of intensively studying "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" the most I have been able to figure out about the poem is that It Is Not Really A Love Song. Well thank fuck for that.
8: Try to fight the urges to actively wind up Lucia's best friend and sister. I'M SORRY PEOPLE BUT THEY HATE ME IRRATIONALLY AND WITH NO SENSE OF LOGIC OR PURPOSE. As Shakespeare said, 'Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned" so I reckon that they both secretly fancy me and are just upset that I'm going out with my double-barrelled girl instead. Heh.
I am not really that bothered by the full force of their female hate as it usually manifests itself in kind of irate glares in my direction and a couple of sarcastic comments about my clothing. So really the only reason that I have included this resolution is that their endless hate of me just depresses the gf and as we all know, a depressed girlfriend is an unresponsive girlfriend. If she's sad I'll have to talk to her and emphathise with her and cheer her up and shiz instead of getting down to the real point of the relationship - dressing her up in little hats and making her dance a jig around the room playing an irish lute for my amusement. Hehehe. Of course, if 2007 comes a-knockin', she's dumped anyway so I suppose that it could be a moot point.
9: Get my MySpace up to above 100,000 friends. So far I am on 14. And that is a surprise because I thought that it was 11. I know that this is a sad request but Jesus christ I am now addicted to MySpace. So sue me. PLEASE BE MY MYSPACE FRIEND I WILL BE YOUR MYSPACE WHORE. Click here to find the Switchblade Zombie! It follows my new tradition of naming my internet accounts according to the formula "Random Evocative Sounding Weapon" + "Zombie". So I name all my internet things according to a stringent system. Wanna fight about it? I am also aware that this link is about three lines long. I'll see you in court.
10: This is my tenth New Year's Resolution. It completes this list in a satisfactory way so that I do not end my list of New Year's Resolutions on nine, which is not a good number to end any list on. Um. I KNOW I should stop being so worried about fashion. As anyone who has ever met me knows, I am constantly worried about wearing the latest labels and dressing in the trendiest threads. I resolve to really just relax on the clothing. I don't always need to wear brand new out-of-the-box trainers and to have my hair dry-cleaned every third day. Perhaps I could, I don't know, wear old t-shirts out on the town? Maybe I could go out in my school uniform? Perhaps I could go for a date with Lucia dressed in two-year-old-mud-splattered-falling-apart-trainers, a free XXL tshirt that I got at a rowing venue, a tatty Vespoli Hoodie and some three-year old camo trousers covered in paint from when I did work experience on a film in Romania two years ago? Actually, nah, I am not an animal.