The 'My Pictures' Top 20

In my seemingly unending vanity, I have decided to to a top twenty of the pictures in my 'My Pictures' folder. I've been toying with this idea for ages, and it's only now, as Blogger has improved its user-friendliness when uploading images, that I have resolved to quit jibber-jabbering and get on with it like a good little boy. There will be a lot of images of me; this is because I'm the only readily-available model I have when I get some of these photo ideas, and because many of these were made so that I could have a cool Facebook profile picture. You should learn a lot about me. Expect weirdness.

20. Where's Will?

This picture was made for this blog, quite literally. I placed myself into this picture using a dated piece of photo-editing software called Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home Edition 4.0. I like it because it's hard to find me in, but when you do, you're unable to ignore my grinning face leering at you. Hee hee hee.

19. A downright creepy picture.

I must have been a bit down when I did this; sometimes, when I'm feeling depressed, I like my internet accounts to reflect that. It's a bit unnerving to look at, to be honest - I think I was genuinely miserable when this picture was taken, because there's nothing staged about that expression. The bleakness of the image. The shadow obscuring the eyes, sucking any possible emotion from the face like two black holes. Sorry, I got a bit carried away there.

A lot of these pictures might be slightly grainy, by the way; my webcam is responsible for that. I personally like the effect, which is why I haven't binned it yet.

18. Another weird 'self-portrait'.

This picture has a bit more of a sense of humour. That crazed look in my eyes isn't real (that I can recall). I just felt like doing a funny picture for Facebook. Check out the little beard, though! Now that's real. I have grown a bit of a moustache since, just so's you know. I doubt you care, but to blazes with what you care about.

17. Fraser Kerr.

(NOTE) If, like this picture, there's too much wasted space on either side of this picture by giving it its own line, I'll just bung it to the side, and type next to it.

Fraser Kerr. The one chap I knew from Year 7-Year 11 that I couldn't find a fault with. By this, I don't mean to say that I'm a nitpicky old critic of a pessimist - you know how nearly everyone, even the nicest people you know, has some sort of flaw, some unimportant chink in their armour, that you usually ignore? Fraser didn't. Well, not to my knowledge. An all round nice bloke. Everyone I know, who knew Fraser, misses him.

He's not dead, by the way. Sorry - the last paragraph sounded like an obituary. He just didn't join us in Sixth Form. But he was an all-round nice chap, and I think it's about time he was given the recognition he deserves. Hence this article, in a blog that hardly anybody reads. Ahem.

If you look closely, you'll see that his face is ever so slightly weird-looking. I was trying to trace over the photo in Paint, but thankfully gave up while that ludicrous project was still in its infancy. Unfortunately, I forgot to save a backup copy of the original picture. It still looks like him, though, so I used it for this.

If you miss Fraser, comment on this post, and I'll try and pass them all on to him somehow. As a sort of Christmas present.

16. Dance, Monkey Boy.

The only reason this isn't nearer the #1 spot is that my head was superimposed somewhat haphazardly, so the man's hat doesn't seem to be sitting on my head properly. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these things, and that got on my nerves. I absolutely adore the picture this is based on, though, so that's here too, at the #8 slot. The original organ grinder was my Facebook profile pic for a while, even though I wasn't in it, I loved it so much. I think that's what made me do this.

I actually did this one today, on Adobe PhotoDeluxe, but the age of the program meant that it was difficult to save the cropped head for future editing. Possible, but difficult. Too difficult for me to waste my time doing. Not wasting time, says the blogger. Hah!

15. Here comes Ross!

Oh, he's going to hate me for doing this. But I do it nonetheless, and laugh heartily whilst doing so.

Ross Milnes is as much of a friend as a colleague - through working together, in and out of school, we have both developed our comedy and our collective sense of humour to impressive levels. I will work with Ross in the future. That's a dead cert.

I made this on Microsoft Word, believe it or not. Cue the completely uncalled for 'photo editing made easy' tutorial... 

I took his photo, put it into Paint, coloured over the whole picture in bright blue except his face, saved the image as a BMP (bitmap) image - that's very important - and imported the image into Word, where I used the 'set transparent colour' tool to make the blue area transparent. I then made a body with the 'AutoShapes' tool, copied and pasted it all back into Paint, and saved it as a JPEG image. I uploaded this image onto an amazing photo-editing website called Picnik, where I tweaked the contrast, added a vignette and slightly caricatured the face, and hey presto!

I'd better add a disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: Ross is better-looking than this picture portrays him. But only slightly.

14. Aw, bless.

The smile in this picture is contagious. I can't help smiling whenever I see this - it's a proper Stan Laurel smile. This is deliberate, because I love Laurel & Hardy and I wanted the picture to have an essence of them in it. This is not the reason for its black and white, Picnik-vignetted nature. I'm just old-fashioned like that. The slightly-too-small hat probably inspired me to pull this face, as Stan's hat never fit properly.

13. My first 3D render.

You'll have probably seen this before - I posted it up not long ago. I made this on a glorious little gem of a 3D program called Blender (I can't be arsed to create a link - find it yourself), using a tutorial I found on the internet (again, sod the link). However, I did deviate from the tutorial at one stage, denting the spherical head slightly to give the man some sort of face. Well, it makes my hat-wearing stick man with his arms up unique from all the other hundreds of hat-wearing stick men with their arms up that that tutorial has spawned, doesn't it?

12. The General and I.

Usually, I would correct the grammatical incorrectness of the title and change it to 'The General and Me', but it's actually a subtle reference to 'The King and I'. Well, not very subtle any more.

The little yellow chap on my shoulder is General Bertram B. Brunswick, a close friend of mine. Want to know more about Bertie? Check out his Facebook profile, and ask him anything. I can't be bothered to write about him here (sorry Bertie, but this blog post is long enough as it is).

Tweaked in Picnik.

11. Distinctly arty.

Literally all of this was done in Picnik. That's how awesome that website is. Check it out.

By 'arty', I mean that the picture seems to have a point, a message that its trying to convey. Well, I say 'seems' - I know it does, 'cos I did it. It's a very frank portrayal of how I see myself - a clown, forcing a mask of jollity to hide the darker aspects of my personality. I wanted to make it look like a black and white picture, possibly on a wall, with the colours, the clown elements, spray-painted on like graffiti. It makes the picture look defaced, as if it's not entirely self-inflicted.

There's a lot going on with this picture and I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs, but I won't bore you. I won't bore you, says the blogger. Hah!

10. Sweet, yet slightly sinister.

I love my gormless, child-like expression here - this was my Facebook profile picture for ages. However, it does look like a police mug-shot; once viewed from this angle, this picture doesn't seem so friendly any more. The concealed evil the picture implies is really rather disconcerting, in a 'Hannibal Lecter' sort of way (see #6).

9. Monochrome me.

I really like this picture, because it was taken with a really good camera, which meant that during the editing process, details such as the eyes and the hair suddenly took on a harsh but beautiful clarity. It almost looks like it was drawn with a pen. I achieved this effect using - yes, you guessed it - Picnik.

8. The Organ Grinder.

You'd be forgiven for thinking, based on the last twelve images, that this 'top 20' is for images that have been created by me. Well, that isn't the case - well, it wasn't the case before my self-obsessed narcissism got in the way - for the only parameter for the nominations is that they are in the 'My Pictures' folder of my computer. This lovely little picture escaped my selfish discrimination by being such a wonderful image. An organ grinder, complete with a little monkey, complete with a little hat. Just... glorious.

7. A 'professional' photo.

I believe it was Miss Emma Bowles who said to me on Facebook, regarding this picture, albeit the colour version, 'you look rather earnest in it'. I like that description. 'Earnest' is a word that I don't use nearly as much as I should, and it sums up this picture nicely.

This was not done professionally. I got a digital camera, put the timer on, and sat against my blank bedroom wall. Et voila, as I believe they say in France.

The initial detail and definition was so professional-looking, I popped the pic onto Picnik and played around with it, removing the colour (I looked very pink) and upping the contrast, until I got a really nice-looking portrait photo. Earnesty is the best policy!

Except that joke doesn't work because it's actually 'earnestness'. Yes, I tend to piss on my own bonfires, as it were.

6. Hello, Clarice...

It was a creepy photo before I altered it, but this is still the product of one of the longest Picniking sessions I have ever put myself through. I wanted to get the oil painting effect of that iconic Hannibal Lecter picture (right). However, I didn't want the similarities to be too obvious, so I resisted adding little simulated paint cracks and the crimson eyes. Instead, I went with faint, irregular vertical stripes, with very slight changes in tone in these areas. I'm not entirely sure what the stripes are meant to resemble, but they make the picture look more old-fashioned and less like a photograph (let alone one done on a crappy webcam).

Picnik, you've done it again!

5. And you thought 6 was scary.

Now, this one wasn't done in Picnik. It was created using a fun interactive promotional tool for the film 'Zombieland'. I usually detest the thought of doing something creative on something as vulgar as that (I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to think of an alternative word to 'vulgar', but couldn't, so sorry for sounding like a pompous tit), but the 'zombify-yourself' tool is actually rather good. I spent a good couple of hours on this, honing and perfecting my zombie double, putting far too much thought into aspects like 'how did that injury occur?' and 'which part of the face would be the most vulnerable to grazing?' Overall, a cracking picture.

My only query is this - how are the remains of my glasses staying on?

4. The Boy Who Quotes.

Not a real book. Just thought I'd clear that up first and foremost.

I strive for an authentic look with most of my art, and this is no exception. I had a creepy picture of a certain John P. Mahon, made it even more frightening on Picnik, and then decided that it looked like the cover of a horror novel. Hence this.

The text was just added on in Word, using WordArt. I often use Word for simple photo editing - it's surprisingly good at it, considering it's not its primary function and providing you know what buttons to press.

3. Ross & Will.

Not so much a picture in its own right as a screen-capture of a video, this nonetheless deserves a place in this line up because I love it. This one image single-handedly and effortlessly demonstrates why I believe Ross and I show so much potential as a comedy double-act. There's so much expression and character in this picture.

2. The Gang.

I'm the one on the far right.

Yes, that really is me. I went to great lengths to make the superimposed version of my good self look in-keeping with the style of the rest of the picture. My attire was suitable anyway (I tend to dress like that), and there happened to be a person where I ended up placing my cropped Will, in a similar pose to mine. This helped make me look like a natural inclusion to the picture, not disrupting the composition or looking at all out of place. Therefore, I decided to merge myself with the original chap somewhat - the trousers, from the knee down, belong to the fellow I usurped, as does the right hand (blackened to match my gloved left hand).

A bit of tweaking in Picnik later, and I look as though I was in the picture all along. Except I'm wearing a coat, scarf and bowler indoors. Maybe I walked in just as the picture was being done, and decided to hang around for a bit - I don't know.

1. Will Laurel.

Just look at it. As far as superimpositions go, it's magnificent.

I went to extra-special lengths to achieve a realistic image with this one. I examined how Stan Laurel was lit in the original photograph and took a photo of myself from exactly the same angle, with exactly the same lighting. That was the trick, really - everything else was just the routine crop-and-stick. But there is just something so unsettlingly realistic about this one. It requires you to zoom in on the picture to see the join - the resolution of my face is slightly higher than that of Mr Laurel's head.

Jesus Christ, is that the time? I'll be wrapping this up now, then.

Yes, I actually bought gifts for other people this year.

Snow, ladies and gentlemen, there has been snow.
Snow, I say. Snow, fellows. There's snow! It has been snowing!
It's only the 21st, but I'm excited at the potential for a white Crimbo. That Bing Crosby song is playing on a constant loop in my head, and I'm all giddy, like.
Furthermore, I haven't slipped yet, which is good for me. I'm a fairly clumsy sort of chap, and ice is never a good surface for a person like myself to walk upon. Funny as f**k, but not good. Not good at all!

Anyhow, I took this opportunity to cram in a bit of late Christmas shopping. I'll keep it vague, to insure against the possibility of my gift-receivers reading this: among other things, I got for my father a suitably ironic present; for my sister, I got a daft, annoying present (it suits her, you see); and for my aunt and uncle, I'm giving them a gift of my own creation. Yes, it's a drawing. Of sorts. I'm sure they'll love it - it just needs a frame. Fortunately, they're away during Christmas, so I have until New Year to get a frame. It's an A3 canvas, and finding a frame for it is really hard. But to obtain one I shall endeavour!

I wore my trademark long grey coat, a pinstripe suit, and my trusty old bowler hat. I looked very festive. I liked how the snow collected in the brim of my hat - it really did accumulate. There was an inch-thick layer of snow around my hat when I caught sight of myself in the window of Ruddock's. I did chortle, I don't mind telling you.


Ah, Christmas. Looking forward to it already.
So should you. Forward.... look!

At ease.

This is just wonderful.

Have a look.

Why wait? Let the goodwill commence immediately!

Hey chaps and not-chaps!
Hello, that is to say. I greet you, and shake you warmly by the cyber-hand.
I bet you're thinking 'why all the bonhomie, homie?', except you probably don't say 'homie' because my blog tends not to attract 'gangstas' and the like. Probably more along the lines of 'I wonder why Mr Wivell is acting so genial?'

Anyway, I digress, with a rapidity and blind disregard for audience that few can successfully pull off. The reason for my jolly joviality is because Christmas is here at last. Yes it is. It is, I tell you.
I live in Lincoln. This, rather appropriately, is the setting for the Lincoln Christmas Market, and it started tonight. So I have spent the evening in a great big Christmassy wonderland. That's why Christmas has arrived.

I don't like the attitude people adopt towards Christmas, even during the market. We get really hyped up about it in, like, August, and spend the whole ruddy time anticipating the 'big day', which inevitably fails to live up to the pant-wetting excitement the nation spends waiting for it. Our problem is that we narrow Christmas down to the one day. Sure, we shop 'til we're literally blue in the face (it's winter, after all) and put up the decorations, but deep down, but we don't really adopt that Christmassy mindset, that loving, jolly mindset of goodwill and appreciation. For some reason, we save our goodwill up, for that one day; that one, poor Christmas Day that has so much to live up to. And it never does - we're British, after all. The very nature of a British Christmas is sprinkled very lightly with melancholy, the generally ignored but constantly nagging knowledge that it's nearly over, that the clock on the mantelpiece above the roaring fire is ticking away, and we will soon have to go back to whatever dreary, tinsel-less activities we do for the rest of the year.

What we need to do, what I am going to do, is consider the entire month of December as Christmas. The twenty-fifth is still the big day, Christmas Day, the climax of it all, but that shouldn't limit the lovely Christmas spirit to there and then. I said 'Merry Christmas' to a random stranger during the market, and he looked at me as if I had wiped my nose on his scarf. He gave me that look that seemed to express the message: 'What the hell are you talking about - it's the third of December, you dipstick.' Well, sir, I say you are the dipstick. The dippiest stick in the... stick box, because the third of December is Christmas. As is the first, the second, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth, the fourteenth, the fifteenth, the sixteenth, the seventeenth, the eighteenth, the nineteenth, the twentieth, the twenty-first, the twenty-second, the twenty-third, the twenty-fourth, the twenty-sixth, the twenty-seventh, the twenty-eighth, the twenty-ninth, the thirtieth, the thirty-first and the good old twenty-fifth of this twelfth month of this year Two Thousand and Nine.

Merry Christmas, one and all. Have a wonderful month.

Sofa, so good (I am so sorry)

Blogger has only gone and made itself awesome. Good show.

It's made the post-creating element a lot more user-friendly. It looks like Microsoft bloody Word! I'm loving this rather muchly. But you know me - any old excuse to waffle on about everything and nothing on here, and I'm typing away, going like the clappers to entertain you lot.

You know what really grinds my gears? Sofa adverts. They frustrate me quite a bit, you know. How is it that these sofa-selling companies and whatnot have so much cash to blow on slick, special effects-saturated cheese fests? I can't imagine the sofa business being that lucrative. How many people buy sofas more than once every three or four years? Now, I'm no domestic-sittables expert (as you can probably tell), but it seems to me that in order for them to have the money that they seem to have, they need to sell the few sofas they do sell at astronomical prices.

And it's not as if they even appear to be trying to boost profits! You turn on the telly and find me a furniture advert that doesn't brag about some sort of sale. It's probably not going to happen, because they are always having sales. I've often been tempted, when seeing an advert that says 'ENDS THIS SUNDAY' to go on a Monday, just to see what it's like then. But maybe leaving it 'til Monday would be too late. Maybe by then, they'll be having yet another sale, twice as punchy and unusual-sounding as the last. It has reached the very zenith of its potential ludicrousness: it's actually a more interesting experience to witness the goings on of these places when there isn't a sale. Instead of it being the traditional 'sell at normal price for ages and ages, and then have a brief, cut-price period' it seems to be 'sell everything dirt-cheap for ages and ages and ages, and then have a brief period of consequently unsettling normality.'
Well, that's what it seems like. The truth of the matter, in my humble opinion, is that they're selling the sofas at insane prices in the first place, palming them off as 'cut-price sales' to pull the wool over our eyes, and then they spend a couple of minutes a year with the prices increased twofold, shrugging it off as the 'normal price'.

The reason they get away with this being that the average human being, with opposable thumbs and a digestive tract, does not have a sofa-price database in their head and is therefore unaware of a rip-off if they are handed one, leather-upholstered. If you are ever in the sordid position of needing a sofa, it's probably because the old one's broken, so you're going to be pretty grief-stricken and desperate when you stagger into DFS the following day to replace 'old Sophie'. You see the word 'SALE' on a poster, and your panic-bludgeoned, fragmented mind can only assume that something good can come of this.
As a result, you end up re-mortgaging your house for a 'stylish white leather three-piece suite' that is freezing cold to sit on in the morning and that makes tremendous farting noises as soon as flesh touches it.

And then Christmas comes along. You know what? The one thing that really frustrates me about Christmas is the collective amnesia of the world when planning the festive celebrations. The precise number of chairs in the house becomes lost in the glee-addled vortex of tinselly euphoria that is the average homeowner when preparing to have the family over, and someone ends up potentially chair-less. If only, I scream on occasion, if only there was something that could be done to remedy this pandemic!

Well fear not. Those jolly old furniture companies are on the case. Every year. Selling us sofas. Deep joy.

Well no, actually! There are many things that really frustrate me about Christmas, but chair quantity is never one of them! I'm hardly at an age to care, but as far as I know, there has never been a moment in my life where, at Christmas, someone has had to sit on a beanbag, or a computer chair wheeled out of the other room. And the people I'm related to/affiliated with are most certainly not the most reliable or organised people in the world.
If I concentrate really hard, shut out all background noise, and enter a meditative trance, I can, after about an hour, begin to slightly appreciate their angle. Okay, so it seems like the rest of the world does have this problem (if they do, there should really be some psychological tests conducted to pinpoint the cause of this) and they need seats. Right. Okay, I can just about appreciate that. But beds?

I'm sorry, is it just me, or is buying a bed the least appropriate thing to do at Christmas? You can't wrap a bed up in paper and pop it under the tree, you can't really reveal it to the person receiving it during a party, and nobody, as far as I know, eats Christmas dinner whilst sat on a bed. Mental, that's what it is.

Well, I have literally exhausted the hate-filled portion of my brain for one night. So go away.

Bwn pkk iqyd bnaa peia.

Oooh, this is interesting. My blog entry rate is increasing a bit. I've caught the blogger bug again, and you know what that means.
More pointless blogging! I know you like it really.

Right, on with the talking about things and such. I have just realised that the latest episode of the 'Simpsons Comics', which I have had for a couple of weeks now, has a super-cool decoder watch with a little rotatable wheel with letters on, and a little piece of rolled-up paper and a pencil in special compartments. It may very well be the coolest thing I have ever obtained without paying. Well, apart from that lump of plasticine from the Science Museum, of course. Excuse me while I reminisce...

Okay, I'm back.
Anyhoo, yeah. It's a great watch, and I love it. It doesn't actually tell the time though, so I have to wear my normal watch as well, and that just looks silly. Well, you can't have everything now, can you?

Also, I have appeared as a guest in a collaborative vlog with my dear pal Ross Milnes. I did this a while back, but I forgot to mention it here. I'm remedying that now. So quit your whining. See it.

Three dimensions now. I kid thee not.

This is my very first 3D render. Ever.
Taking that into consideration, the fact that I have never done this before in my life, I'm jolly well impressed with the fruits of my labour.
Feedback, if it's not too much trouble, would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, and if you're reading this on Facebook and the picture isn't here, just click 'view original post' and look at the actual blog, you lazy sods!

Winter is surely here, ladies and gentlemans

I wish I had more things to talk about when I get round to blogging. It must get jolly well repetitive for you lot, constantly reading blog posts where I natter on and on about not having anything to say. I promise to put a bit more effort into these blogs in the distant future. Possibly.

But for now, you're just going to have to settle for the fact that I have provided you with another blog post, and surely that's enough. Surely that should assuage your raging impatience.

I am so very tired at the moment. I've been at home for about an hour (I get home at half four - yes, that is stupidly late time to get home at) and I am absolutely cream-crackered, not half, cor blimey guv'nor. Positively pooped. To use the word exhausted would be a job half done. I am absolutely, irrefutably, one hundred percent dead on my legs.
...And yet, I can blog. I must have gotten a calculation wrong somewhere along the lines, because I'm clearly not as tired as I'm making out. Oh, what a moaning Michael I am. Ignore me. Ignore me and my moaning whingeables.

My cats have gotten colds. Yes, you heard me. They're sniffling and sneezing and wheezing and burning up, and it's quite sad to see them suffering. Two are on the mend, but the third, who caught it a bit later than the rest, is still tucked up in a blanket, by the fire. Bless her little cotton socks.
I'll keep you lot updated on their progress. Well, I've little else to do. Apart from sleep.
Actually, that sounds like a nice idea. Sod this, I'm off for a kip.

Cheerio.

Speaking of which...

I... haven't a clue what to write about.
Tonight being Tuesday night, and tomorrow being Wednesday, and Wednesday being a good day, and a good day being one where I have only one proper lesson, I don't have any homework that needs doing for tomorrow. So when I got this sudden urge to write, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
Aaaaaaand... that's the story leading up to this post. Now I'm here, I don't actually know what to write about, and I don't want to do what I sometimes do, and waffle about my inability to write anything (creating a good paragraph or two of crap-filled padding).

...Oh, balls. I just did, didn't I?
Ah, well. It's kick-started me somewhat. I've been typing for long enough now; an idea has popped into my noggin.
I am currently reading a wonderful book called 'Joined-Up Thinking' by Stevyn Colgan. It's a book full of interesting facts, split into thirty short chapters, or 'rounds'. Within each round, the facts are linked to each other, so instead of having sub-headings and little boxes of info, it's all in one big, fasciniating piece of text. But the best bit is that at the end of each round, the facts manage to link themselves back round to the first fact, creating a literal 'round' circuit of trivia. Most of the rounds are linked to each other by a certain name, place, fact, etcetera.
Most amusing. I liked 'QI: The Book of General Ignorance', and this book is in a similar vein, right down to the quirky style of the cover. It even has a glowing review from Stephen Fry and John Mitchinson on the front (respective QIMaster and Co-Creator of QI).

Anyhoo, I have decided to have a go at this myself. I will create a trivia chain. Tight here, right now. I won't go into as much detail as Stevyn, but I'll provide you with enough.

-Ahem-

Cats can only see blue and green.
Blue and green are the background colours of the national flag of Easter Island.
The natives of Easter Island worshipped a god called Makemake.
Makemake is also the name of a dwarf planet, the third largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System. It is three-quarters the size of Pluto.
Pluto, Mickey Mouse's pet dog, first appears in the 1930 Disney cartoon 'The Chain Gang' as a watchdog.
The world's largest prison is the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, California.
In 2001, two hours after being convicted of attempted murder, Twin Towers inmate Kevin Pullem walked out of the prison through an employee exit, using a cut out newspaper photograph of Eddie Murphy to alter an identification badge he used to escape.
Eddie Murphy got into comedy because of his father, an amateur comedian, and through being influenced by stand-ups Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby.
Bill Cosby spent four years as a Hospital Corpsman in the United States Navy.
In the years following the Cold War, the United States Navy's F-4 Phantom II and the F-14 Tomcat became military icons.
Tom or tomcat is the name given to an un-neutered male cat.
Cats can only see blue and green.

...and so on.

Well, that took far longer than I wanted it to. I'm going to end this blog entry now. Hope you enjoyed that little educational journey. I most certainly did. I may do it more often.

The important thing to take away from this lecture is that I now have four hats.

Afternoon, guv'nor.

I've been a bit lazy as of late, regarding my blogging duties, and for that I apologise. It's the same for my vlog and my webcomic. The thing is, I don't get paid for any of it. So yeah.

Anyhow, a lot has happened to me since my last entry, nearly a month ago. I went to London (twice), and have purchased two hats. I have started a new series of comics, and I've got some new pyjamas. I have befriended two bulldogs, and have lost a game of football with an eight-year-old girl.

But first things first.
Right. London.
London was, as ever, magnificent. The first time I went this month was for an Art school trip, so it only lasted for a day, and most of that time was spent wandering around galleries. Now, don't get me wrong, I like art, and I appreciate all types of art, but I could not help feeling a little bored, wandering around the National Gallery. Each painting was a masterpiece, a truly wonderful work of art, but there were simply too many paintings. I couldn't help adopting the 'seen one, seen them all' attitude as I ambled down the massive rooms, lined with Van Goghs and Rembrandts and Holbeins. I would pass one painting, a truly fantastic masterpiece, that the artist probably spent most of his life perfecting, and would go "mm, that's nice," as if I was browsing carpet samples at Floors To Go. You just can't appreciate the paintings when there are so many of them. You feel obliged to look at every single painting, and it stops you from really enjoying the visit. This was made worse by the fact that we walked everywhere, even though we were given a daycard for the London bloody Underground, and the weather was incredibly humid, so we were knackered by the time we reached the National Gallery. We'd walked from the Tate Modern, two miles away, and we'd enjoyed the Tate. It was quirky, it was interactive, and we weren't sweating buckets and breathless at that time.
Well, I gave up trying to see the whole of the National Gallery. I found that painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, with the French Ambassador and the Bishop (the one with the stretched skull), and sat on a nice, comfy leather bench, 'analysing' that for the whole half an hour I had before we had to meet up again at the entrance.

After that, though, we got to go off on our own, and I had a lovely milkshake in a cafe with my pal Owen. So the day wasn't too bad. And no trip to London can be regarded as anything other than magical.
I took some nice photos, and found a hat stall selling trilbys for a tenner, so I got a trilby. A jolly nice time.

The second trip to London was a birthday present from my aunt and uncle, but I had to bring my sister along. Nevertheless, we had all weekend to explore London, and the weather was nicer than last time, and we didn't have to go to any galleries, so it was certainly the better visit of the two.

On the first night, we went to the Royal Albert Hall to see the London Philharmonic Orchestra play Verdi's Requiem, which was wonderful. My sister spent the whole evening on her mobile, chatting to her friends on Facebook. Tut.
Turns out that the night after we were there, Robbie Williams was performing as part of the Electric Proms, which really helped hit home where we were. This was freakin' London!

Day Two found us at the Science Museum, exploring that 'Wallace and Gromit's A World of Cracking Ideas' Exhibition. I did enjoy that; most of it was for small kids, but they had some of the actual sets from the Wallace and Gromit films, so I got a few pictures of those. There was a section of the exhibition with benches and shelves, with lots and lots of lumps of plasticine for people to mould and sculpt and leave on the shelves. Being a bit of a plasticine connoisseur (I kid you not), I noticed how good their plasticine was, and asked a man if it was the same type of plasticine Aardman Animations uses (the company that make the W&G films). The man said yes, and so we sneakily pocketed the biggest lump we could find. I treasure that lump.

After the exhibition, we took a train down to Camden Market. This was on a Saturday, so it was absolutely packed. We spent pretty much the rest of the day there, but I found exactly what I wanted in the very first shop we went in. A bowler hat. In my size. And I haggled it down from £45 to £20. And the market itself! Bloody hell! It goes on forever! We went under a bridge, the underside of which was covered with stalls and food stands and eccentrics. It was hard to find the exit. You couldn't see sunlight in some areas. These places seem to be a law unto themselves - the market is like an abandoned garden, everything growing to extraordinary sizes and consuming the entire area. What a great day. A great day, punctuated by a slap-up Chinese meal in Chinatown. Yum.

Day Three was going home day. We had to leave our rented apartment early in the morning, so the only interesting thing we did was stop at a diner on the way home. It was fantastic - it was like stepping into America, in the 1950s. They had everything: Fifties music playing on a jukebox, antique attractions in the entrance, old posters promoting Elvis gigs, and unlimited coffee refills. When I first heard about this phenomenon a few years back, it was met with the response: 'Yeah, but the coffee's awful.' Well, I must say, the coffee was lovely. Proper, Douwe Egberts coffee. And I could have as much as I wanted. I had three cups, and I still feel thoroughly disappointed that I didn't exploit this wonder further.
And the pancakes! Wow! I had a breakfast that consisted of bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast and pancakes covered in syrup. On one plate. I nearly fainted from excitement, but that may have been due to my immense hunger at the time.

LONDON STORY OVER

Linking back to what I said earlier about not getting paid for any of this, I am doing requests for money. You tell me what you want drawing (within the realms of decency), and I draw it for you. I work in a variety of mediums: pencil, pen, digitally,... no, wait, that's about it. I work in three mediums, and it's up to you which medium you want me to employ when doing your picture.
I charge £5 for fairly basic stuff, like portraits or one-picture cartoons, but I charge more as the level of complexity increases. Quite reasonable, I'm sure you'll agree. I'm sure my prices will skyrocket once I actually need money in my pocket, so grasp this opportunity while it's still affordable!

In a similar vein to that last shameless self-promotion, I have started a new series of comic strips. By this, I'm not referring to the webcomics; those are public domain, and I demand no cash for them. I'm referring to a series of cartoon strips that I intend to publish in a book at some point. I have only showed them to friends, for feedback - they are not on the internet. The only place most people will be able to see it will be in this book when it comes out, whenever that'll be. So when you see it in the shops, buy it. It won't be for a long time - I'm still adding to it, and I haven't thought of a title for the series yet, so it's still in its early stages. I'll keep you posted on that.

The other things about getting new pyjamas, dog-sitting two bulldogs and losing a game of football to an eight-year-old aren't worth elaborating on. I'll just let the thought of me, in my pyjamas, being slide-tackled by a little girl and mauled by dogs, entertain you as I bid you adieu.

Who let the vlogs out?

'Sup there, my dearest peeps.

I have literally spent the last ten minutes with my cursor hovering over the 'New Post' button, waiting for inspiration to hit me. That's how dedicated I am to providing you lot with something to read every now and again - I have taken to sitting motionless for literally minutes at a time. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Anyhoo, I decided to write this blog post to inform you dear readers as to why I haven't posted a vlog up in a while. I haven't given up on the idea, if that's what you were thinking - the last episode, 'Photographs, Chipolatas and Housewives', got overall positive reviews - but I haven't really been busy, either. It's just that what with school and such, rare is the occasion when I can sit at home and do a vlog, safe in the knowledge that my dad isn't peering 'round the corner of the living room door with a stupid grin on his face. And nothing unnerves me more than people watching me as I work. I simply cannot function in that situation. Except for when I'm at school, obviously. That would be a disaster, if the presence of teachers made me incapable of working.

But I digress. The point is, I will be doing a vlog soon. I've had some splendid responses for Word of the Day, so that's staying as a running... thing... in the episodes. It's funny - I've had loads and loads of potential Words of the Day suggested to me, whereas for the second episode I had about three suggestions, all from people I knew personally. It just shows how quickly you can attract attention on something like YouTube.
The trouble is, I'm a terrible decision-maker. Faced with all these words, all of which are top-notch, I simply cease to be able to pick a favourite. There's also the small factor of my insufferable niceness. I feel really awful, having to reject lots of perfectly good suggestions for one fairly random choice for Word of the Day. It's probably going to be random because I find every nomination not without its own unique quirks, and I'm far too spineless to pick one that is superior to any other. I might choose a word that is easy to base a section of the vlog around - we shall see.

So farewell for now, blog-gogglers. I part with this quote from Barry Goldwater:
'If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.'
I'll let you mull over that one.

Oh, how creative I am

I have invented a new word. I've been using it quite a lot recently without realising it, and I think it's time the word got a bit of recognition.

GIGGLESOME

Isn't that a heart-warming word? It sounds gigglesome as a word, which makes it all the more appropriate if you're trying to describe something that makes you giggle; something that makes you laugh, but in a lovely, harmless way.


Dear whoever edits the Oxford English Dictionary

Please can you add the word gigglesome to the English language? I promise that loads of people use it, and it's a really good word and I don't think you've got it in your dictionary, although I hear it is massive. The dictionary, that is, not the word, although gigglesome is a quite long word. But that's besides the point. Please can you add it in please? To help, I think it goes between the words giggle goo and giggly.

Yours sincerely,
William Wivell

P.S. I love your work.

Ah, chess. How I have missed you.

Today at school we were forced into doing recreational activities. This was a little unnerving at first, but the concept grew on me. Especially when a friend of mine devised a board game club.

Now, I had already signed up for an activity - creative writing. But here's the thing. The recreation wotsit took place during the last two periods, so that those people with a lesson during one recreational period could sign up for the other. This is a good idea. I, incidentally, have two free periods on Wednesday afternoon, so I could pick when to do the creative writing. I chose the last period, period 5, because the not inconsiderable distance between my school and my home means that I can't really leave early as my school bus is the only way home for me, and I could use period 4, which would still be occupied by loads of people, as a free period.

Creative writing, by the way, was splendid. It was lovely and laid back, but without the distractions that are all too common at home. This meant that I got a lot of writing done. My fellow creative writers are all splendid people, too. There's the lovely Ling, who is a wonderful person to have on any team; the mildly insane but oddly endearing John, who didn't do a lot of writing but chose to help me with my writing (which was nice of him); Eleanor, who I don't really know too well but seems intellectual enough to be an excellent colleague; and Rory, for whom any attempt at a successful description would be futile (in a good way). Quite the motley crew, I'm sure you'll agree.

I expected no less, and was duly distraught when I realised there was a board game club. Will I have to turn down creative writing, or turn down Mr Ross Milnes, who wanted to play chess with me? Fortunately, I didn't have to do either - I just used my free period 4 to play board games, before embarking down the corridor to do a spot of writing. Lovely.

Now, I go back to the point of this blog entry now. I used to love playing chess. I still do, but I used to both love it and actively participate in games. As of late, the active element has drifted away from my routine, and I'm a lesser person for it. No activity stimulates my mental processes quite like a good game of chess, and it turns out that Ross is an excellent player.
I didn't end up playing him, by the way. Somehow, we ended up teaming together and taking on two other friends of ours in a chess game. Now, this didn't work all the time, as we tried to take it in turns, and it meant that any drawn-out strategy could be swiftly undone by a rash manoeuvre by your colleague. But we got into the swing of things eventually, and it all became rather competitive. I was really rather elated by the whole experience, as this was what I used to love about chess - the levels of intensity it can reach - and that hour of semi-compulsory recreation re-kindled that passion.

I will certainly be playing chess more often. It really sets you up for a good long writing session.

Deep joy.

Can't concentrate enough to think of a suitable title

Well, ladies and gentlemen. It appears that I have swine flu.

It has its pros and cons...

PRO - My immune system will be a little better prepared for the predicted mutation of the strain come winter.

CON - I'm missing a lot of school.

PRO - I'm missing a lot of school.

CON - I feel like s**t.

Now, I haven't seen a doctor as of yet, but I compared my symptoms over facebook with a past sufferer of the virus, Miss Harriet Foyster, and they're virtually identical. Which means that if it is the same illness, I will also be unwell for another week or so. Ho hum.

I'll probably try to justify my unproductive week of convalescing by contributing to either this blog or my webcomic blog. So that's a fairly good side effect of my illness.

I won't be doing many vlogs, if any, because you lot don't want to see me struggle through five minutes of video when I feel about eighty years old.

Well, that's about all I have to say on that matter.

Cheerio!

I want to add to my blog.

...



Nope. I got nothing. -sigh-

Another internet peculiarity to waste your time perusing

Hey there, gang!

I have decided to harness all the strange and surreal ideas, floating around in my noggin, and transfer them into comic strips that I will post up on the internet. I have created a new blog for the comics (gasp!) to stop this one getting too full, and it already has a comic strip posted up, to give you an idea of what's in store in the future. It's a rather funny cartoon about Jesus (hardcore Christians are going to love me for this). I politely but firmly insist that you check it out.

Go on.

Would you like fries with that?

Hello there!
Having woken up early today (that is, before midday), I have decided to add to my blog.
The thing is, though, I haven't really planned anything for this blog entry. No notes, no topics, nothing. But then again, that's never stopped me from blogging.
Well, once it did.
Anyway, the improvisational nature of this here post means that it falls, reluctantly, under the category of 'ramble'. I don't really want to ramble today, as they tend to go off in strange directions and leave a trail of bewilderment in their wake. What I really want to do is think of something intresting, and write about it.
But here's the thing. It's now 11.48, and I still haven't thought of anything.
...
Aha! The time is now 12:06 in the afternoon, and after two hours of pondering, I have a topic!
In the news, there have been reports about South Korean scientists 'claim[ing] to be the first in the world to have successfully cloned a pet dog for commercial purposes.'
Now, I would never be patronising towards my readers. You're a clever bunch; after all, you read my blog. I therefore assume you understand the humorous side to this story. A humorous side that I expect many people would have picked up on.
Just in case you don't get it, imagine if France claimed to have cloned 'pet' frogs with extra-long legs.
Pets? Don't make me laugh.

Anyway, I'm going to have to cut this blog entry short, 'cos I'm going into town! If anything interesting happens, I'll report back with the info.

Over and out.

Good old Graham!

He may look like Brian Blessed crossed with a Proclaimer, but he's smart.

Hyello there, blog-gogglers.
Is 'blog-goggler' like my catchphrase now? I'm using it quite a lot.
Today being Thursday (well, for another ten minutes), I was watching the wonderful 'Mock the Week' earlier. What a funny, funny television show that television show is. Funny, that is to say.

Of course, MTW would only be another moderately funny attempt at a panel show without frightening Frankie Boyle and the delightful Dara O'Briain. Their instinctive wit and phenomenal improvisational abilities allowed MTW to develop into one of the funniest programmes- if not the funniest programme - on telly at the moment.

No, wait. I just remembered 'You Have Been Watching'. That's absolutely brilliant, faultless comedy, and it's certainly a worthy competitor against 'Mock the Week' for the title of funniest thing on the box since the most recent series of 'TV Burp' finished.
Anyway, you know what I mean. 'Mock the Week' = bloody funny stuff. Laughter echoes throughout my house when it's on. So yeah.

I have made an interesting observation whilst watching this current series of MTW - at the end of every episode, there is a round called 'Scenes We'd Like to See', and Frankie Boyle always manages to get the last joke in before the round, and the show, ends. I'm not sure how he does this - I suppose it's all down to clever timing - but it means that his last joke is the one freshest in the viewers' minds after the show has finished, which is very clever. People, when asked about what happened on 'Mock the Week', are more likely to immediately mention the comedic antics of Mr Boyle. Tonight's episode certified my theory that this is deliberate - for the last three episodes at least, he has managed to fit in his best joke of that episode at the end. Good on him.

Last week, his ending joke, based on 'things you don't want to hear from your flatmate' was:
"Well, there's one way to find out who ate my 'yoghurt'. An AIDS test."

This week, his ending joke, based on 'things you wouldn't hear on a TV talent show' was:
"That was a beautiful song... until you fucking sang it."

No wonder he's become so popular, so quickly!

I'm still not sure about his beard, though.

Tally-ho.

Great Minds Think Alike

I was watching 'You Have Been Watching' on Channel 4 earlier, with the brilliant Charlie Brooker (please note that the italics I employed just then were for emphasis rather than sarcasm, believe it or not - I genuinely think that Mr Brooker is nothing short of a comedy genius), when my jaw almost dropped in happy surprise.
They were slagging off Deal or No Deal. Almost exactly as I had done a short while ago. Right down to the comparison I made between Noel Edmonds and a lion. Remarkable.
I was tempted to stick to an outlandish claim that 'they stole my bit!', but I desisted, because they did a much better job at it than I did. Besides, it was only a matter of time until the merciless critical eye of Charlton Brooker cast its gaze over the 'Dream Factory' (shudder). Again.
Well, I say 'again'. Did he take the piss out of DoND on 'Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe' as well? Oh, I don't know. Bah.

...

Sorry, I lost my place.
Right. So Edmonds, with his stupid hair, stratospheric trousers and shirts that look like they could pick up freeview with a few nob adjustments (oh, dear God! What am I talking about? Aargh! Abort!) was more than likely to appear on this television programme.

Oh, and Frankie Boyle, whose facial hair I noticed gradually increasing in length every episode of the new series of 'Mock the Week', was on 'YHBW' (that's an abbreviation for 'You Have Been Watching' - although the added bracketed explanation means that it would have been easier to have just typed 'You Have Been Watching' in the first place) and has a full-blown beard now. As it's quite a ginger beard, I'm not sure what to make of it. There's only so much Scottish a man can take.

Nevertheless, I have grown a little beard of my own. Nothing as extravagant as Mr Boyle, oh no, but just a little goatee. It's barely visible, to be honest. It's only just past the 'very long stubble' stage, and I don't intend to grow it much longer. As I said on Facebook (and am saying again on Facebook, I suppose), I just want something to stroke during moments of deep contemplation. I usually like to stroke a cat, but they are damned temperamental beings and have the rather annoying habit of going out when I need them. Furthermore, a goatee can be taken anywhere without it complaining or hissing or needing to be put in a special carrier, and be put to good use whenever and wherever a moment of deep thought hits me.

I am actually surprised at how long this blog post has become. I only really wanted to talk about 'Deal or No Deal' on 'You Have Been Watching', and briefly mention Frankie Boyle from 'Mock the Week' (what is this, an article for the bloody TV Times?), but I drifted onto the subject of beards.
Well, I suppose this makes up for the fact that I have been neglecting my blogging duties as of late.

I hope you're happy.
Seriously. I mean that.
No sarcasm here, no sirree bob.
Nope.
Honest to Darwin, I am being sincere when I say that I want you blog-gogglers to be happy. It's just that I tend to sound incredibly sarcastic. But then again, I do get a bizarre amount of pleasure in pretending to be sarcastic whilst simultaneously trying to prove I'm being serious, so all all that 'no sarcasm here' malarkey was a teensy-weensy bit deliberate.
Why? Because I love to screw with your heads. And I mean that in every possible definition of that phrase. Mwah, hah, hah.

Oh, and anyway, thanks for voting on my poll, those of you who voted. I think by the end, the poll received well over five votes overall!
By that, I mean I got six votes.

-Cough-

But you, the six members of the General Public, decided, in a landslide victory of five to one, that I should purchase for myself a bowler hat. So thank you. My dear old mother likes the idea (I'm lucky to have someone like her, I really am), but my cautious old father, who prefers to stick to the norm (or his radio-obsessed, checked-shirt-wearing vision of the norm), isn't particularly fond of the whole bowler hat notion. Hopefully, the results of this poll might make him see the light.

Ta, you six superb people!

ENDING

Faceblogging

This blog is now available through my Facebook profile. Every time I post something up here, Facebook turns it into a note. This means that by clicking a few buttons until you get a full list of my notes on Facebook, you essentially have my blog. Rather nifty, I expect you'll concur.

I did this the other day, but as I needed an excuse to post something up on this blog o'mine, I looked back over the past week's events. The only two vaguely interesting things that happened of late were the blog/Facebook team-up (that sounds so cool; 'Faceblog... UNITE!') and the phenomenally persistent spell of rain that Lincolnshire has been experiencing (along with the rest of England, I'd wager), and as I didn't want to fall into that British stereotype and drone on about the weather (as much as I really want to), I decided to resort to the Faceblog approach (I like that word now).

Sorry, I just realised that I kept cutting my sentences up with bracketed interruptions.

Too many brackets spoil the... er... broth. No, wait. Too many soups spoil the br... breakfast... no.... Too many sentences spoil the cooks... Hang on, I'll get this in a moment.
Too many... brackets... spoil the... sentence? That'll do.

My worst fears are coming into fruition: this blog post is disintegrating into gibberish at an alarming rate.

Abort! Abort!

NOTE: This blog post has been prematurely terminated due to a psychological implosion on the part of the blogger. Normal service will resume in due course.

Noel flaming Edmonds!

The more astute of you blog-gogglers may have made some assumptions about this blog post, based upon the title. You assume that just because I entitle the post with an angry exclamation directed at Noel Edmonds, this blog post is going to be a continuation of the earlier rant about Deal or No Deal. You and your bloody assumptions.

Well, you're right. I am going to continue to slag off Deal or No Deal.
Part two of this rant comes two blog posts after part one because I couldn't think of anything to complain about. I had effectively exhausted my ammunition on the first rant.
But then, like some Arsenal shirt-wearing angel, Mister Josh Shaw did descend from the heavenly clouds of Facebook, and he did provide me with a shiny new reason to despise DoND. Thanks, Josh!

The Deal or No Deal: Seaside Specials.

What was THAT all about? I kind of understand the thinking behind having a seaside special, what with the seaside being synonymous with summer, but did they have to dress up all the contestants in stupid costumes? There were sailor suits, straw hats, stripy swimming costumes and inflatable armbands all over the ruddy place.
...I think Noel was wearing a stupid costume as well, but you can never be sure with him...
Furthermore, the one person with the most embarrassing costume, a chap wearing a swimming vest, swimming shorts/trousers and the aforementioned armbands, was 'randomly' chosen to play the game! He seemed like an enthusiastic fellow, but I bet he wished that he was chosen a few weeks later, when he could have negotiated life-changing sums of money in slightly less ridiculous attire. I felt sorry for him, even if he didn't feel sorry for himself.
The sight of all these people, people who look like captive vaudevillians forced to play this insane game and pretend to like it, is truly something that will never leave me until the day I die. They stand there, staring at the player with such intensity and concentration. They're just doing that because they're on the telly, and they want to look like they give a toss about the financial future of Bernard from Basingstoke.

Furthermore, they use this as an excuse to get a little extra money from a company that provides them with holidays to give away as prizes to certain contestants. But these contestants aren't just given the holidays, oh no. They have to pick between two flavours of ice cream, one of which will give them the holiday, the other of which will enable the Banker to see what the player has in their box, potentially shifting the nature of the offers. This is hardly a game of skill. It's just more guesswork. The whole game is guesswork.
Guess which boxes have the small money in!
Guess what stage you should accept the Banker's offer before the offers drop!
Guess what flavour of ice cream will get you a holiday in Costa Rica!
There is no skill involved in Deal or No Deal, and these Seaside Specials, instead of taking this opportunity to inject a bit of actual skill into the game, just slap on another few dollops of guesswork and put the kids of the people running the costume department through college!

Pitiful.
I still watched it, though. And furthermore, I've come up with a better metaphor to describe why I watch Deal or No Deal. It's like a freak show. Simple as that. "Roll up! Roll up! See Noel, the Man-Lion, as he tricks simpletons with boxes into thinking they're making complex business negotiations!"

At ease.

Ramble Time!

I haven't posted up a good ramble in donkey's years. So here's one.
Just to explain the term 'ramble' based on its application in this blog, a 'ramble' is a blog post that is one hundred percent improvised. I have to rely on my writing abilities to keep the blog post going for as long as I can without it descending into unimaginative drivel.
I explain this because quite a few people have started to follow my blog since I last rambled. I think it's about time that these newbies were introduced to this wonder.

Right, so off we go. Well, I suppose I could start by referring back to the beginning of this post, where I used the phrase 'donkey's years'. Now, what is meant by that phrase? I know it means a long time, but when inventing this phrase, why did they pick on the donkey? To my knowledge, they aren't that slow - disgruntled donkeys have been known to lash out with lightning-fast rapidity. Is it something to do with the speed at which they age? Do donkeys age particularly quickly? I know that people refer to a dog year as one seventh of a human year (which, by the way, is a method founded on bullshit), but is a donkey year any shorter? I assume that is what they were getting at with the phrase, that there are more donkey years in a human year and this allows for some clever-sounding hyperbolic time-based exaggerations.

You know what? I'm going to look it up. Right now. I'll look the phrase up, and get back to you.

...

Well, it turns out that the phrase may have originated from rhyming slang, as one alternative to the phrase was 'donkey's ears', which rhymes, of course, with years. This could have been the original pronounciation. So it would appear that at some point, people just couldn't be arsed to rhyme any more, so they went for the more direct approach (defeating the objective of rhyming slang...) and just used the word 'years'.
Oh, those lazy olden-days people!
Then, when people started to say 'donkey's years', they may have thought it to be an allusion to the lifespan of a donkey (which, in direct contrast to my theory and more logically, is quite long). The source from where I obtained this information mentions a Blackpool donkey by the jolly old name of Lively Laddie, who died aged 62.

Heh. You learn something new every day. Now you can't say you don't learn something from this blog! Nyah!

Anyway, must be toddling off now. Auf Wiedersehen, etc.

Great Grimsby, Summer Holidays! What are you doing to me?

It's now officially the Summer Holidays. Not just the extra-early holidays that we post-GCSE students got this year, but for everyone. The Holiday has officially begun.

And that just seems to make everything duller.

It shouldn't really have any effect on me, as I've already been off school for weeks and weeks. But the knowledge that the six-week slog has only just really started hit me as hard as any four-to-fifteen-year-old. Time just seems to slow to the pace of a sloth with sciatica, and the days never seem to end. Ever. I have only just come to accept that all previous days actually ended at some point, but am still coming to terms with the fact that this very day will also reach an end eventually. Apparently, the clock says it's half eight in the evening, so things look hopeful for the arrival of tomorrow. Roll on Sunday, I say, and don't spare the horses!

Anyway, I'm dilly-dallying to an extent, so I apologise, and grab myself by the shirt collar and drag myself back onto the road, again to tentatively venture forth to a valid point to ever making this blog post.
With the the Holidays bludgeoning me with the boredom stick every 20 minutes, I have to find something to do. So I started to do two things. ...No, not including that.
The first thing I started to do was read books. This is a nice change, as I really like reading. Unfortunately, reading falls under the category of activities that are very easily, and unfairly, dismissed as boring by even the most loyal of book-readers, given enough time away from them. In this sense, they are a bit like Pringles or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (I have fallen in love with that show all over again).

Speaking of gameshows hosted by blond people with strange voices who needlessly terrify their contestants and engulf their audiences in darkness, I have also taken to watching Deal Or No Deal. Less because I admire the quality of the show, more because it's a trumped-up pile of exaggerated guesswork and is absolutely hilarious.
Noel friggin' Edmonds is a wonder, that chap. Honestly. He baffles me. Here is a man, a very successful man, who not only rivals Simon Cowell in trouser altitude, but has hair like a lion, wears shirts that could trigger epilepsy in Stevie Wonder himself, and also - here's the kicker - he seems to genuinely believe that Deal or No Deal is a game of skill. I mean, I ask you. I bet the contestants who are chosen to appear on that show are initially intelligent, level-headed people that know that they are going to go home with more than when they arrived, and don't care if they have £250,000 box and except a 'paltry' £24,000 or whatever. They have to appear on every episode until they're chosen to play, opening boxes over and over and over again, and I think this softens their brains. By the time they are picked to have a go at 'beating the Banker' (or, as they've started to say, 'spanking the Banker' - blech), they're nothing short of clinically insane, and are easily moulded by Mr Edmonds into thinking that there's a lot of skill involved in playing the game.
Noel says things like "This game is taking a turn for the worse," or "Yesterday, Suzie left the game with 50p. The day before, Nigel from Ipswitch diddled the Banker out of £63,000. Before Nigel, old Gwen unfortunately won £50. I like the pattern that's emerging. See you tomorrow." What the hell is he blathering on about? He himself tells us at the beginning that the quantities of money (or should I say 'signs with numbers on') are randomly assigned to the inside of the lids of the boxes, and yet he has the idiotic audacity to claim that patterns emerge in the gameplay, and that any coincidence that happens to occur in a gameshow that is broadcast every day is suddenly an almighty sign, a method by which we can predict the future!

...bugger off, Edmonds.
Saying that, I do like to watch DoND. In the same way that I like to watch when a car is hit by a van over the road from where I am standing.

I will continue my rant about Deal or No Deal another time. For now, it's 8 out of 10 Cats, and I'm missing it.

Ciao.

Good Golly.

see more Fail Blog

God, I need to grow up.

But until then, look at these freakin' dogs! They think they're people!