"It's Just a Game" (Arngh)

Since I began gaming, during the mid-nineties, the entire experience has evolved in quite a spectacular way.  I remember when the graphics of Final Fantasy VII were acceptable.  I remember when loading screens were acceptable.  I remember being tricked into believing the Sonic was a multiplayer game, which wasn’t acceptable.  I still have a fondness for Tails however, though I was never actually controlling him.

Though I started out with a Megadrive and SNES, my love of gaming was set in concrete via Sony.  I have owned all incarnations of the Playstation, and I have noticed a trend in what is modified with each +1 that gets added to the name.  They get a lot bigger every time, which is odd as other consoles try to avoid this, or go the other way completely.  The colossal Xbox shrunk for its 360 evolution, and all of Nintendo’s consoles have been roughly the same size; small.  The Playstation’s desire to swell and grow makes it seem like the gaming world’s equivalent of Akira from off’ve Akira, or The Blob that Ate Everyone from off’ve The Blob that Ate Everyone.  I fear that upon reaching the PS12, alongside having a console which sounds like a sniper rifle, we’ll have a console which is the size of a wardrobe, and you’ll have to actually go inside the Wardrobestation in order to play any games.  I just hope that by this point I have enough room for it.

The main emotion that I remember accompanying the gaming process is pure, unadulterated fury.  There is nothing quite like the caustic incandescent wrath incurred by a ‘Game Over’ screen which represents hours worth of effort, now lost.  No other human emotion can match the feeling of heartbreak that occurs when a console is switched off when you haven’t saved for hours.  If this has never happened to you, consider yourself lucky.  You are the primordial perfect human being, unsoiled by the torturous loss of data that this process causes.  The faeries help anyone responsible for turning off a console when I haven’t saved.  Such a termination causes a reaction of Elfen Lied proportions.  I’m talking proverbial entrails.  There is only one situation that is worse than having the console turned off purposefully by a human being, as when this happens you have a target for your fury, the other possibility is so hurtful, I can only convey it through haiku.

Up, Down, Down, Right, Left,

A power cut, my game; reft,

I am left, bereft.

In the oldie, olden times, there was a way of having some measure of conclusion after having your game inequitably wrenched from you, and this was to furiously slam the off button or switch.  This process went some way to alleviating the sense of loss that was suffered due to the loss of game, giving a sense of finality and closure to the event.  Developments in consoles, however, have now rendered even this shallow revenge impossible.

After losing several hours of gameplay recently, whilst playing the PS3, I was left irate, and in an attempt to take out my rage on the console, without breaking it or damaging it (that is important – they are expensive), I reached to vehemently switch the ‘Off’ button.  I then remembered that the ‘Off’ button on the PS3 is a touch activated LED device, and so was left feeling like a prat as I held my finger impotently over the device.  I had originally thought that the touch activated business was nifty, but now I am obstinately in favour of big fat plastic buttons which I can give a pounding to when furious.

Another aspect of technology that seems to have been designed in order to obstruct game induced fury is screen thickness.  Back when I was a furious youth, televisions and computer screens were ponderous hulking behemoths, the screens were tough glass, with enough plastic on the back to ensure that it could successfully earn a second income as a wrecking ball.  What this thickness and hardiness ensures was that it was able to easily withstand retribution, be it from a punch or a headbutt, such as might be warranted after having a third player sent off on Championship Manager 01/02 or being beaten for the billionth time by Strife on Soul Calibur 3.  The flimsy screens that parade their cool-dudedness nowadays, I am sick of them even though I purposefully bought one and they are better than the old ones I take it all back.

Every controller is now wireless, which is a double-edged, albeit wireless, blade.  I remember well the tyranny of the wired controller, keeping the gamer constrained in its despotic circumference, perched too close the screen, truly a dystopian way to game.  Now however it is possible to bowl cyber-strikes from out in the passage, or shoryuken Dhalsim from in the kitchen.  The trouble with this is that where the controller used to be an extension of the console, it is now an auxiliary standalone aerial retribution delivery system.  Which is not a very cost-effective way of sating anger.

Of course, the true satisfaction for an obsessive (compulsive) gamer was to have not only clocked a game, but to have truly completed it.  The evolution of gaming into the internetosphere now dictates that it is near impossible to complete anything, with online multiplayer becoming the focus, rather than the bonus, and with the purely online games designed with no story or conclusion, so as to maximise the moneyz it can vampire out of your stupid gaming face.  The gaming fury of the naughties comes not from having to wait hours for loading screens, or having your save data corrupted (argh), but from being slowly ground into the dust by 11 year old little Brett’s on the internet who, presumably, don’t receive formal education as they must spend all of their time honing the angulature of a tossed grenade on any given game to perfection.  The universally accepted reaction to this occurrence is to stare dead-eyed at the monitor, ignoring any friends that may be present, as the Brett then proceeds to banshee-wail cacophonously into the headset which, for some reason, you have put on your head.

Some people believe that for every Ying (Brett) there is a counterbalancing Yang.  In the case of online gaming, the Yang is John.  John comes from Birmingham, usually, and is able to function as part of a team, not as a lone and crazed maverick, looking to be killed, and costing you serious points.  John is also agrees that Peep Show is amazing, and is more than happy to join in with an a cappella rendition of ‘Soda Pop’.  It is wailings of this kind that I prefer.

I was recently ground into the dust whilst playing Super Duper Supersonic Rocket-Powered Car Football Extreme on the internet, but thankfully I wasn’t subjected to pre-pubescent jeerings from my opponents, as the PS3 doesn’t include free headsets as does the 360.

And I was glad.

Och Aye Player

The iplayer is an intriguing beast.  I have been using it this evening to view HIGNFY and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, in the absence of what I actually wanted to watch.  I had originally intended on viewing Flight of the Conchords’ second season which is meant to have started on BBC Four, but for some reason isn’t on the player.  Making do with twin wizened visages of Mr Merton and Mr Ross I came to learn a valuable lesson: people in the music business are, often, not a pleasure to view.  This came from the observation of Eminem, who did grow on me even though he seemed to be a tool, and Rolf ‘Rofl’ Harris, who certainly didn’t inspire that reaction in me.

The most interesting view of my rather bland night however occurred as I perused the “More Like This” section underneath the Jonathan Ross program.  There were links to a number of episodes of “The Apprentice: You’re Fired” which I wasn’t going to click as I was afraid this was a trick where a foolish individual who clicked on the link would be subsequently send computer plague into their face leaving them with a garish and sizable hole in the base of their skull, with their emulsified brain matter slowly dribbling out.  I dislike the Apprentice.

I was, however, drawn to a link for the show Fonn mo Bheatha, and, like greased lightning noting a potential topic for a blog, I clicked on the link to abate my raging interest.  What struck me first about Fonn mo Bheatha was its incredibly abrasive opening theme music.  When I first heard it I thought: waw, this is horrible.  And I was right.  The theme seems to be the bastard son of the sort of hollow music that you get in novelty Christmas cards mixed with vocal stylings that could be described as verbal Morris dancing.  As this unthinkable blend of madness reaches its conclusion we are greeted by a troll.

I have since found out that this troll’s name is Cathy Ann MacPhee, and I am struck by how difficult it is for me to be horrible to people when I have a name for them.  If I didn’t know her name, however, I would probably note that the most striking thing about her is her hair.  It is from the past.  I had to be sure just how far back in the past it was from so I went and asked my mother.  1980s apparently.  Similarly, her clothes seem to share their historic dating with her super-perm, although her trollishness suggests a far more medieval origin for the woman herself.

Having been an absolute prig about the way she looks, I will temper this by informing you that she is famous in Gaelic singing circles, and she also has somewhat of an acting career.  During the course of the show she also displays a talent for interviewing that is coloured by her pleasant manner.  She also has a Wikipedia page, which is more than can be said of me.  She does however, look like she has been superimposed on the show using stock footage of her from the 80s, which is, again, more than can be said of me.

It makes sense that the presenter’s field of expertise is Gaelic song, as this is the focus of the show.  Why a show based completely on Gaelic song should be in the “More Like This” section of Jonathan Ross’ show I have no idea, though I am, overall, glad that it was.  I wasn’t aware beforehand what the topic of the show was, as I cannot speak Gaelic, and thus the program blurb left much to the imagination.  The only piece of information I was able to glean from the brief description was that I could safely assume that a woman named Jenny Cummings was involved.  And in terms of that, I wasn’t disappointed.

The guest being interviewed by 1980’s Gaelic Not-Going-to-Call-Her-a-Troll-Again Cathy Ann was none other than Jenny Cummings (exclamation mark).  Jenny is famous for, you guessed it, Gaelic singing, as was her mother.  We are treated to a number of her songs throughout the show, although in order for this sentence to be honest it is necessary to stretch the definition of treated.  I do not wish to be disparaging of Gaelic music as I understand very well the difficulty of protecting and re-nurturing age old traditional Celtic art forms, but it is safe to say that Gaelic song is not for me.

To take another superficial tangent for a moment, it was notable that the strange visual blend of Cathy Ann’s 1980s bland-chic and the more modern Primark-chic being sported by Jenny gave me a feeling of lightheadedness, as though I had stood up too quickly, and also a very weak headache.  A lesser man would make a joke either about the headache being the result of the the Gaelic singing and/or the Gaelic language but I am not such a man.

Surprisingly, it was possible to follow the program with ease even with no prior knowledge of Gaelic.  It was subtitled.  My fondness for Gaelic song was in no way improved by having a five-minute question and answer about how sad it was to leave Harris on the ferry, and a subsequent song on the same topic.  I have no idea where Harris is.  I also do not know what a ferry is.  I don’t even know what “sad” is.  Although I have a slight inkling that writing a disparaging blog about Fonn mo Bheatha fits that category.

I did wonder whether I didn’t enjoy the program, at least not for the reasons that the producers would have wanted me to, because of the language gap.  I decided this probably wasn’t the case, as I watch a lot of Asian film and television, specifically Japanese.  Even though I am, over time, getting a basic grip of the language there is still a formidable amount of language gap there.  It must just be the case then that the content of the show wasn’t for me, which isn’t surprising really as it contained only three things: Gaelic song, of which I am not a fan, a Gaelic singer, or which I am not a fan, and another Gaelic singer, which I game more time to since she was younger and better dressed than the other, which I chided myself for and decided that I wouldn’t be a fan of her either.  Strangely, if Cathy Ann MacPhee was animated and given a show of her own it might be interesting viewing, as she sort of looks like a grogg brought to life already.

So my conclusion is thus: if BBC Alba want me to watch their shows, and they do, definitely, then they need to change their scheduling so that their Gaelic-specific channel has more to offer people of my demographic; 21 year old Welsh people who enjoy English language comedy and Japanese animation.  If they can’t do that then I am very sorry but I am not prepared to meet them halfway.  Having said that I did watch most of Fonn mo Bheatha (this blog will win the award for “Most Times ‘Fonn mo Bheatha’ appeared in a blog”) and then subsequently watched Charlie and Lola in Gaelic.  It was translated to “Charlie in Lola”, and I am well aware that is not what it means in Gaelic but still…

It must be difficult if the word ‘and’ is always the word ‘in’ in Gaelic.  Although it would be very easy to write titles for Gaelic porn parodies.

Butch Cassidy in The Sundance Kid.

Thelma in Louise.

Starsky in Hutch.

Angels in Demons.

It is very easy to write titles for gay Gaelic porn parodies.

(insert gay-lic joke of choice here and prove that you are a bad person).

Matter-land

The process of buying clothes is largely designed to strip the customer of any dignity.  This is especially true when the customer in question is a larger individual, like what I am.  This isn’t helped by the inconsistent classification of clothes sizes, where a large in one size is too small, and a medium in another too big.  That doesn’t make sense.  It aggravates me.  Also, the design of changing cubicles is ludicrous, with the tiny sliver of material that passes for a door not reaching either side of the gap, leaving ample space for people to look in, even if they don’t want to.  Since every aspect of design, in relation to corporate businesses, seems to be meticulously planned, I can only assume that this strip of curtain design is purposeful, though what the shop in question hoped to achieve through designing their cubicles in such a manner I cannot hope to fathom.  Perhaps causing discomfort and frustration in customers is good business.  It certainly worked for Ricky Gervais.  Though he, of course, isn’t a clothes shop.

 

Doesn’t Matalan sound like the name of an Aztec god?  To me it sounds like a creature of the skies, which shoots shrinking beams from its single clothes-hanger shaped horn in the centre of its forehead.  It uses the beam wantonly; shrinking clothes, doors and curtains to expose small amounts of flesh which it then picks at like giant corporate vulture, feeding on the coquettishly exposed flesh of the walking dead.  I hope they use this as a quote in order to re-brand themselves as the Aztec Vulture of the bargain clothes shop world.

 

 

The only saving grace of this trip was hearing the phrase “Cashier Number 4 Please”, which I heard as “Casshern Number 4 Please”.  Having Japanese superheroes from the 70s working at the checkouts is possibly the only way they could hope to stop me from hating the entire experience.  Unfortunately this wasn’t the case, and a shop where the tills are manned by Casshern only exists in a world where my tenuous puns are brought to life, possibly through the magic of an Aztec Vulture god.

 

I left a comment slip with the floor manager indicating that I would only return to continue commerce with the shop if the till-zombies that currently operated there were replaced with Japanese pop-culture characters from the 70s.  Suddenly, as if by magic, Casshern (1973) appeared at till 4.  My eyes locked onto his, and at once my good humour was secured.  In the instant that it had taken for me to glance at the new super-cashier, the drones at the other tills had all been replaced by retro anime legends.  Till 1 was ‘manned’ by the original Gundam (1979) mobile suit, although if my flights of fancy were to be less ridiculous it would be more realistically manned by Ray Amuro, as he is a human, and as such more suited to till-work.  Violence Jack (1973) appeared at Till 2, which, while amusing for me personally, would have been less than productive in terms of the overall running of the shop.  Violence Jack is a legitimate choice as, though his run in animation only occurred in the late 80s and early 90s, his original incarnation in print is from far earlier.  The appearance of the battleship from Uchuu Senkan Yamato (1974) would cause similar problems to those that arose due to the Gundam, arguably more, as a giant battleship in the middle of the store would only cause inconvenience.  The other tills were manned by Lupin III (Green Jacket)(1971), Doraemon (ran all through the 70s) and the cast of Gatchaman (1972)(Battle of the Planets).

 

And that was exciting for me. 

Eurovision Wrong Contest

I dislike the Eurovision song contest in a very big way.  It is currently in the middle of the voting, so I will be able to dive you the results at the end of this blog.  Chances are you’ve either seen the results by now, or you don’t care.  I don’t care, but I have been trapped in the living room and I am being subjected to this rubbish, so I am going to share the pain.

 

I think what I am most disappointed with is the lack of Bill Bailey.  I doubt he would have even wanted to participate, but from a completely selfish point of view it would have made it more enjoyable for me to have a little nugget of Bailey in the middle.

 

I have just finished watching the bit where they lowered a giant plastic pool filled with bellyflopping women into the crowd, and I really don’t know what to say about that.  I mean that was really boggling.  Just weird.  At times it looked like some sordid sex-pool-burlesque-psychadelia business, and at other times, most notably the bellyflopping times, it looked like some wet, scantily clad women bellyflopping.  Because that is what it was.

 

Here are some things which I disliked about the Eurovision Song Contest this year:

 

1. Dita Von Teese’s presence in Germany’s song.  Is that really allowed?  She is hugely famous, although at this point in the points giving, it seems not to have done Germany well to be affiliated with a burlesque act, it may only have served to further emphasize Germany’s black-leather, eurotrash image.  Is that libellous?  Possibly.
2. My mother got freaked out by the fully blue sequin-faced man in the Albanian act.  That was strange.  They were also joined onstage by a hellish Thing 1 and Thing 2 act, which scared me to my core.
3. The growing old screen in the Russian act was a terrifying thing, filmed straight on to the poor woman’s face.  The recording utilised a cut that I imagine would be used in a recording of a suicide message.  Seeing a woman looking directly into the camera and singing in a faux-sincere manner makes me wish that it was actually a suicide message.  Or at the very least a trigger recording that would set some hitmen in motion to take out the key people involved in broadcast of this rubbish.
4. Malta were awesome.  Cheese & Energy is what I want from the Eurovision, not hateful pop-ballads sung in horrific American accents.  No-one in the Eurovision song contest should speak with that accent.  As the participants are all European.  It is in the name.
5. UK.  UK?  No I am not.  Seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s twitching Peter Pettigrew face convulsing softly on my screen is not an enjoyable thing.  Just like Dita Von Teese, I don’t know whether Master Pettigrew should be allowed to play on stage, because he is a world famous musical talent, and also because he is vermin.  Sorry Andrew, your music is nice, but I don’t like you.
6. The Ibiza rave that that Finland made was hypnotic.  But horrible.

 

It’s not quite the end now though but it’s fairly obvious already that Norway are going to win, which is good because the singer actually played an instrument aswell, which wins him some actual musician points.  I grudgingly accept his talent, even though he has a High School Musical face, which I think fits him into Charlie Brooker’s “made in a Petri dish” category of human beings.

 

What I dislike the most about this Eurovision, even more than Graham Norton’s presence, is the way in which the fact that our act, Jade, was prostituted out across the Europe to tour extensively and be interviewed and appear on TV generally.  In recent years people have disliked the Eurovision because they believe that the voting system is based on politics rather than quality of song, which is probably true.  But this year our presence quite high up in terms of points is not reliant on the quality of the song, which I accept is good even though it isn’t to my personal test.  The song is nice enough, though the lyrics are lazy rubbish, which is ‘necessary’ so that other countries can learn the song in what is not their first language.  However the reason we have received more points this year (more than none) is largely down to the fact that the song has been widely advertised all over the continent, and to be completely honest I don’t think that that would have been a good way to have won, and makes me hate the coverage of this event, where succeeding because we smeared our shitepop all up in peoples faces is a good thing.  It isn’t.

 

There’s also something to be said of the fact that people are picked to give points based on their physical looks, as though this one individual can be held up as a sexy advert for the country.

 

“Ooh bloody hell I should go to Armenia, they have some sexy people there!”

 

What a load of rubbish.  But what is more rubbish?  The rubbish or the rubbish that watched it?  Or the rubbish that watched it and then wrote a blog about it?  Or the rubbish that subsequently read the blog?  Yeah~.  Think about it.

 

It’s the original rubbish.  Eurovision.  Rubbish*.

 

*Apart from the sexy Israeli woman on the bongos.  Nice.

Shipping Up to Bristol

The roads are a dangerous place, as I found out, secondhand (luckily for me, not the people involved), on a trip to Bristol.  Only a few short minutes after the trip had begun, we noticed that a car was stuck blocking a junction, as it had been unceremoniously shunted all up its behind.  A police car was further blocking the road, lights akimbo, presumably dealing with the situation.  Having passed this makeshift accidental blockade we realised that in fact the situation was not as we had presumed, as the police car was in fact playing the role of the shunter in this particular scenario, sporting heavy damage to its headlights.

I have been told, in regards to matters of the road, that the vehicle that does the rear-ending is always in the wrong.  Always. ALWAYS.  Unfortunately I doubt I will ever know whether or not the police vehicle was in the wrong in this situation, as there are a number of ways this accident could have come to pass.  The police car could have been reacting to an emergency, and the speed of this could have caused the collision, however the likelihood that the police were reacting to anything with haste is unlikely (satire, ba-zing).  The other option is that the driver of the police vehicle was careless and caused the accident out of his own ineptness, and having been the victim of a crime myself and subsequently having dealt with the police first hand I am in no position to comment on whether or not I found the police to be inept.  Another, and less libellous, stance to take is that accidents happen so deal with it, which also allows me to move on nicely to the next section.

Another accident we noticed, this time returning from Bristol, was between a car and a motorcycle.  This one had occurred on the motorway, and as such the accident was of a far worse scale.  Not for this accident was the small braking of the headlights and the bumpers, no, this accident was the harrowing scene of a crumpled windscreen, and a Suzuki rent asunder.  Several meters in front of the remains of the vehicles, which had been moved onto the hard shoulder, was the exploded, inside-out carcass of what must have been the motorcycle driver.  If the motorcycle driver was a hedgehog.  And frankly, if a hedgehog had become so filled with ideas of bipedal grandeur and had commandeered a motorbike then I think he got what he deserved, the reckless knock-off porcupine.  I apologise in advance if any of the family of those involved in the accident are reading this, I know full well that RTA’s are no laughing matter, especially when there are hedgehogs involved.

 

We were shipping up to Bristol in order to acquire some tickets that we had purchased over the internet, from a venue which didn’t post them out which was very inconvenient thanks.  However the resulting day trip we had in order to pick up the tickets was enjoyable, so I suppose I do forgive you (especially bearing in mind we could have picked up the tickets from the box office on the night of the performance, it was almost as though we were looking for an excuse to go on a road trip).  We had very little trouble getting into the city, which was good because having a troublesome journey would have been troubling.  Having parked up all nice, we alighted from the vehicle (a car) and set out in search of the Tobacco Factory.  The main issue I have with the Tobacco Factory as a venue (having never been inside) is that it has situated itself very near to a building which houses Imperial Tobacco, an organisation which does function as a venue for theatre and live comedy, which means that had I actually gone through the second set of doors and asked the employee at reception about the Richard Herring gig she would have been extremely confused and I would have been all embarrassed up.  I appreciate that the Tobacco Factory probably takes its name from what it functioned as before it become a stellar home for live arts events, and it is likely that the presence of a Tobacco company near to this workplace is related to that, but I think they should be shipped apart so that I don’t get into situations of minor inconvenience and embarrassment.  If you could move Imperial Tobacco rather than the Tobacco Factory that would be awesome, as I would then not have to rediscover the location of the venue for which I am looking for, thanks.

 

One of the objectives outlined for me and my chauffeur as we journeyed to Bristol was to get a better grasp of the accent displayed therein, as we righteously enjoy turning our hands, or mouths / vocal folds, to the imitation of other accents.  We were, therefore, slightly surprised, though not in a negative way, to discover very few accents that we could pin down as Bristolean.  In fact, the only two utterances (bar ours) that we heard during our time in Bristol proper were one of a besuited man loudly declaring “Lunch!” as he oozed into his supercool car in what I would describe as 1960s received pronunciation.  Similarly the lady who worked at the box office, where we received our tickets with no problems, spoke with an over-polite RP and an air of incredible enthusiasm.  I cannot be sure whether this is how she always talks (probably not) or whether she realised from my opening gambit that I was from Wales, decided that I was thus a member of Britain’s special needs class and adjusted her tone accordingly.  Either that or she once had an awful run-in with a Richard Herring fan in her past, and ever since she has treated all of his fanbase with a degree of zealous pomp.  The way I just described her sounds pejorative, but I am sure she is a wonderful person really, and I certainly found her train-station-announcement stylings very amusing.

 

Bristol seems to enjoy more than its fair share of joggers, either that or escaping from muggings are taken far more casually there.  I was most struck by the contrast between the people jogging on the side of the road, and the people who could be seen in the parking lot of Cribbs Causeway.  I found myself exclaiming: “Look, there’s Onslow from off’ve the Keeping Up Appearances!” many times, to which my chauffeur eventually took exception to, even though I wasn’t talking about him.

 

Overall, I quite enjoyed Bristol, though I think perhaps I should point out that I do not have a chauffeur - I have a friend who drives, which is essentially the same thing, and neither am I as old as using ‘Onslow’ as a pop-culture reference would suggest.  Also when I first said it out loud I declared that the man in question looked like ‘Oslo’, which is far more of an insult, as while Onslow is a large man, Oslo is (I discovered after some research) the biggest and the Capital city of Norway.  I didn’t mean to describe the unsuspecting shopper as the “fastest-growing Scandinavian capital” (Wikipedia, 2009).  At the very most he was as big as Norrköping.

Conceptual Correspondence

Dear The Education System,

                                                I am writing to you in regards to the recent alteration in the nature of our professional relationship.

 

As I am sure that you aware, we have been connected by a social and/or professional contract for the vast majority of my life, as I have participated in all of the socially prescribed incarnations of your existence, which include, but are not restricted to, the following types of school; Playschool (not the TV show), Primary, Secondary / Comprehensive and, most recently, University.

 

If I was forced to choose my favourite type of school, using mostly introspective factors, it would be incredibly difficult for me to select one individually.  This is because during much of my time in Playschool and Primary I was incredibly young, which was the correct age for those particular contexts.  This youth however renders memories of this time few and far between, which means that it is incredibly difficult for me to speculate on whether my time in these institutions were enjoyable.  I can only imagine that sitting in a nappy playing with sand and paints (separately) could only have been an enjoyable thing, however that occurred during my time in University, and as such cannot highlight whether or not my formative years in education were enjoyable.  The only anecdote I have been told of my time as a small child involves urination is Penscynor Wildlife Park, which, while amusing, does not help in my inquiries. (I have just been told that this weeing incident in fact occurred in Butlins, but I will leave it as Penscynor, as that location is more inherently humorous to my tastes.  Possibly because, Jordi be praised, I have no actual memories of ever being in Butlins.)

 

I have more concrete memories of my time in Comp, however my time there was a veritable pick ‘n’ mix of experience.  If the pick ‘n’ mix in question was situated in the bombed-out stalactite-filled remnants of what used to be a Woolworths.  You could probably find one of them somewhere, possibly in Buntingford or Chipping Ongar. (I found these places by typing “Random British Towns into Google, and therefore the use of these random towns to flesh out a silly joke about pick ‘n’ mix is in no way meant to reflect negatively on the towns stated.)  (Chipping Ongar sounds wicked-cool).

 

Having fully discussed the experiences I had in comp, I will now address University based experiences.

 

At the start of University the work was quite easy, after that it got steadily more difficult.  From what I gather this is the usual progression for most University courses, and does not reflect a cruel construction of my particular course.

Interestingly, the steep curve of work getting more difficult in University was paralleled only by my aggravation to said work.  A graph of this would look like this:

  

 In this graph Y = difficulty of University work (measured in blood pressure), and X = how much University work does my head in (in Kilojoules).  The red represents danger and fury in equal measure.

 

I suppose the point of this letter, apart from assaulting education, is a round-about declaration of my departure from the education system.  I have listened to what you want me to know and I have parroted it back to you for roughly 18 years.

 

I thank you greatly for the education I have received, for the ability to think, and the drive to understand.  I cannot be certain that this would have been present to such a degree had I not been subjected to your enlightening (in aim) regime.

 

However, I am through with you now, I want to do what I want to do, so give me some good marks that I can get an awesome job with, thanks.

 

Love and Fury (in fairly equal measure)

 

AyJayGee. (academia imps willing) B.A.

Noah

I have recently found solace and enjoyment in the tale of Noah. I imagine anyone reading this will have, at least, a passing familiarity with the idea of Noah’s Amazing Flood-Surviving Circus-Titanic (also known less flippantly as the Ark).

Stripped down to its core components the story flows thus:

· god is miffed at humankind.
· sends his judgement in the form of aquaticatastrophy
· tips off Noah
· Noah builds ludicrous zoo-frigate
· Saves all animals
· Oceanageddon dies down
· Everyone is happy (Most are dead).

Now, in my opinion, god comes across as a massive petulant twat in this story. I would like to say; "for a number of reasons", but to be honest, there is just the one reason: the delivery of a worldwide hydrocaust. Now I don’t know why the twattishness of god isn’t emphasized more when this story is told, and I believe a rebranding is in order. When told, the story shouldn’t be called ‘Noah’s Ark’, it would be better represented by the title "What a Twat".
How does this god character not get judged more harshly for performing what is essentially an almighty ctrl-alt-delete?

Whatever god’s spurious justification for the deluge, it is now Noah’s challenge to build a giant ship and save all life on the entire planet, which, of course, he manages. He was awesome, was Noah.

I think that life on a ship with loads of animals would be hugely unpleasant and dangerous, both in terms of in-fighting among the different types of life on the ship, and also in terms of diseases. If horror-mongering news stories are to be believed today, (they aren’t), then I, along with everyone, will soon die of swine flu, and I haven’t even seen a pig in years. Not even on the telly. I shudder to imagine how easy it would be to catch diseases in the Ark environment, and how much worse those diseases would have been. I’m sure pig pestilence would be rife within a couple of days, if not hours. And what other horrors awaited the intrepid rescuers on this Ark of Filth?

Lemur Plague?

Of course Noah didn’t save all kinds of animals, he left the dinosaurs to drown, which is fair enough – they didn’t gel well with the other animals – they would have been a very negative influence on the morale of the Ark, and the last thing you’d want is an Ark with an air of fractured bonhomie.

I’m sure Noah also didn’t save any sea-creatures, which is again fair enough, as that would have been a redundant gesture. There was more sea than usual at that time you see, and that’s where sea-creatures thrive. In the sea. In many ways the sea is their natural habitat, you could almost call them sea-creatures of the sea.

I am quite like god, in a number of ways that I am not prepared to extrapolate upon at this time, but one particular opinion I share with god is this: there are a lot of things in the sea that I dislike. These include, but are not restricted to; sharks, jellyfish, crabs, David Hasselhoff and salt.

I also really dislike dogfish, mostly due to linguistic pedantry. For one, I am a huge fan of the hyphen, and ‘dogfish’ is a compound word which doesn’t utilise one. Mainly, however, this is down to the fact that a dogfish is neither a dog, nor a fish. It’s a shark. It doesn’t even look like a dog. I can understand that manatees would be nicknamed "sea-cows", although I would enjoy actually hoisting a cow into the sea to judge just how well the two species intermingle (not very well I suspect). What annoys me the most however is that through this comparison dogs then become, in contrast, the sharks of the land, which simply isn’t the case. The land equivalent of a shark is surely Carlos Tevez.

I enjoy imagining Noah’s gurning face trying to haul all sea life into an aquarium that he’d custom built into the bottom of his Ark, with exasperated onlookers sighing "Oh Noah, you idiot." Because they are sea-creatures. They live in the sea, you see. So they do not need to be saved from the appearance of more sea. Although they are likely to be put out by the appearance of a lot more sea in a short space of time.

So Noah saved all the world, hurrah, and, rightfully, this is what he is remembered for. However, Noah lived to be 950, and that’s not all he managed during his outrageously long life. He also read all of ‘A Brief History of Time’, ran the London Marathon for four hundred and sixty-nine consecutive years and solved a Rubik’s cube. Three times!

Considering that he lived to this age, this also means that Noah was at some point aged six hundred and sixty-six years old. I would like to hear more stories of what Noah did that year please. Here are three of my suggestions:

Noah urinated into an ant-farm in order to recreate his glory days via a miniature wee-deluge.
Noah punched a dogfish in the nose and pushed it backwards through water until it died, screaming "Your name is ill-representative!"
Noah pimped out his Ark to be a fully functioning casino and it soon became a hotbed of debauchery (de-boat-chery). The ruins of the boat now make up the core structure of Brighton.

The other thing Noah is known for is inventing wine, which is an aspect of Noah that isn’t publicised enough I feel. Noah ensured the continuation of (most) life on the planet, an amazing feat made more amazing by the fact that he was off his tits on moonshine, the crazy biblical bastard.

He probably invented wine when he was 666 years old, as the story that accompanies it is that he got well and truly microwaved, fell asleep naked in his tent, and "inadvertently" exposed himself to his sons. The exhibitionist paedo.

Let us take this moment to remember Noah; the boat-building, life-saving, long-living, shark-punching, Ark-pimping, plague-surviving, wine-inventing, penis-exposing fictional idiot, dreamt up by ancient idiots, to make other ancient idiots fearful of an idiotic ancient god, who is also fictional.

Of course, Noah is present in all of the Abrahamic religions, and is meant to be a heroic figure and role model. He isn’t.

Any number of better role models spring instantly to mind; Boris Ignatievich, Great Uncle Bulgaria, Bruce Dickinson, Professor Oak (to name but a few).

You can shove your biblical role models up your swine flu.

I’ll stick with Tuxedo Mask.