Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything.

Over the past month or so I have taken the decision and put into force the motions for my joining the Army. I've always wanted to join up and in 2009, I nearly did, falling short when I received the news that I was going to become a father. At the time I couldn't, in good conscience just fuck off and leave the mother to go through it without my support; or even risk missing some of the most important parts of a child's life; so I stayed and decided that maybe in the future I would try again.

Since the start of the year the idea of giving it a second chance has been bouncing around my head and I just put it down as a pipe dream and tried not to think about it too much, but then I got in one day and turned on the telly to the last 15minutes of a documentary that Jeremy Kyle was doing called Jeremy Kyle's: Military Driving School. It seriously put a strong, and sweet, taste in my mouth that made me decide that the Army is what I wanted.

The next day I had free I found myself sitting in the Armed Forces Careers Office in Newcastle, sat in the exact same spot as I had 2 years previous twisting my thumbs, looking around at the separate forces' desks, reading the posters and watching the same montage of clips repeat themselves over and over on the plasma in the corner of the room whilst I waited for my turn with the Army cadre. There was a surprising amount of other applicants in with me that day too, mostly young lasses; a couple had even brought their toddlers with them. I wasn't quite sure what their stories were, and I did my best not to find out. I was there for me, and for me only.

When the Staff Sergeant on duty that day finally got round to seeing me he asked me what the score was and I replied along the lines of, "well, I kind of want to join the Army...sir." Probably not the best work of articulation that's left my mouth, and he obviously thought the same with the retort of, "you wouldn't be sitting here if you didn't".

I explained to him that I wanted to join the RLC (Royal Logistics Corps) as a Driver and that I had applied a couple of years ago but decided not todue to the issues already explained above. From this he found me on the system and told me that I hadn't explained this to them at the time and they just assumed I had chickened out (which is understandable, there was a lot going on at that point in my life - perhaps notifying the Army that I wasn't joining after all may have slipped my mind). I apologised and explained that I thought I had and tried to make it look like I wasn't some silly boy who couldn't make up his mind.

The SSG told me that as a result of my past application and the current state of affairs within the Armed Forces that if I flunked this time around, unless it was for a 'fucking good reason', that would be it and I would be kicked out the door if I tried to apply again in the future. I told him that I understood and gathered up the application forms that he issued me with and left.

Filling out the forms didn't take too long, and the next opportunity I got, I returned them back the the Recruitment Office, where I found the same SSG that dealt with my application originally in 2009 - thankfully he didn't remember me, and didn't hold it against me that I'd dropped out before as much as the first SSG did. He told me that I was too smart to be a driver and should seriously consider doing something else. Copies of my ID and qualifications were taken and we had a little chat about how my father was once a signaller (which was what he was). He queried as to why I didn't want to follow in Dad's footsteps to which I replied that it just didn't sound very interesting (I think this offended him a little). Either way, he gave me a date to return to do my BARB test (British Army Recruitment Battery), shook my hand and sent me on my way.

The BARB test is a 30 minute basic aptitude test that generates a result from the answers provided to questions relating to basic logic. Said questions include: "If this shape looks like this now, what would it look like when flipped 90°?" Easy? You would think so, and so would I, but I somehow managed to fuck it up big time and came out with a result around 20 points lower than I had got in 2009. Thankfully it meant that I could still be a driver; but my personal pride did take a little bit of a dent. After this I had another word with my SSG about my options and with a firm handshake, yet more paperwork (this time medical) to fill in, a list of Army Jobs I am eligible for (mostly infantry) sent me on my way to chew over my list of choices.

Since then, I have decided on my job role that I would like to do (Driver/Communications Specialist) and as of earlier today, got my medical paperwork sorted out with my new doctor. Apparently my normal doctor retired in November and I didn't even realise - shows how often I go to see him. Anyway, my new doctor (whom has an equally Indian name) seemed very nice and eager to see my ambition to join up successful and promised to get the forms filled out and sent away as soon as he could.

Another thing I have been doing since the BARB test is a fitness work. I've researched the selection requirements for the RLC selection and found out that I have to be able to run 1.5miles in a maximum of 13 minutes 15 seconds. It may sound difficult, but believe me, 1.5 miles really isn't all that great a distance, and my times for it have steadily been getting better and better up until the focal point last night when I managed it in a time of 13.05. Which is my best time by far. I am going to keep training and aim for around 10minutes at least to ensure that I'm not passing by the skin of my teeth when it comes to doing it for real - and plus it's handy to have that extra piece of stamina available if and when I need it. I've also been doing a lot of cycling to raise my stamina levels and been getting the sit up and press up tally steadily counting upward.

That is it so far, and I'm just waiting to hear back from my SSG when he receives my medical paperwork from my doc. When that happens I'll be booked onto a pre ADSC course (basically a selection, selection course) where my fitness will be tested for a day to ensure that I am physically git enough to even join the Army.

I know this has been a long one, but bear with me for just a couple more paragraphs, please!

This is like a dream for me, and although I am seriously excited to finally be doing this and having all these events set into motion, I am also still ridiculously nervous. I'm worried about how much I'll miss my 2 year old son, and my family and friends. I'm worried about how much I'll miss my current job; as much as I hate the job itself, the people make it so much worth while.

But I know that on this path I'm taking, I'll make new friends, and I'll still be able to see my son, and I'll still be able to keep in contact with the friends I leave behind - and with all the money I'll be earning, I'll be able to spoil the sprog rotten and party 'til the cows come home when I'm on leave.

Until the next development, or event that causes me to have the urge to write satirically about...

ADIOS!

Obama bin Landen has had his fate seal'd.

This Monday, it would appear that the menace at the top of America's most wanted list was finally killed. But is this a good thing?

Monday morning saw a raid carried out by the crème de la crème of American Special Forces, the US Navy Seals [Seal's official site]. They carried out a meticulously planned raid on Osama's $1m compound, located less than a mile away from the main military institute in Pakistan, with the intelligence aid from the CIA. The result of which saw bin Laden shot above his left eye in a 'precision shot' (whoever said that is an idiot), his youngest wife and five more of his guards killed; with 2 taken prisoner. None of the soldiers taking part in the raid were killed or injured, but it would seem that even after this remarkable feat, the Americans couldn't help but put their trademark fuck up to the operation - but crashing one of their helicopters into the wall of the compound.

Nice one: Apparently caused by a mechanical malfunction.

After the raid, bin Laden's body was flown to a US carrier floating to the south of Afghanistan where he was 'cleansed' and given a traditional Islamic funeral before being buried at sea to stop his grave becoming a shrine to extremists.

When I woke up at 5.30 Monday morning for work, I turned the telly on and through my bleary eyes could've of sworn that I read, "Michelle Obama has been killed". I thought 'Oh my goodness!', blinked a few times and realised that what it actually said was "Osama bin Laden has been killed". I must say, there was some relief, swiftly followed by my mumbling, 'well, that's alrigh' then'. And since then the story has pretty much blanketed the news - with journalists and anchormen and women cursing their bad luck at having to get up extra early to practice the pronunciation of bin Laden's closest mates.  

But for me, there wasn't a feeling of joy. There wasn't a feeling of a chapter in history being finished, and this surprised me. I felt very neutral. I didn't feel the urge to tell everyone and I didn't feel the need to jump up and down and throw my arms in the air. 

I think this was to do with the fact that Osama wasn't really anybody who (contrary to popular belief) was actually dangerous. Yes, he had quite a ridiculous mindset and preached about it - it's the prats that believe what he had to say that are dangerous. Killing Osama has changed nothing, somebody will have replaced him, and when they die, somebody will replace them too. It's like the hype in Chelsea's £50m deal for Torres, only for him to make no difference and be an utter let down. The only thing 'good' about this is that it has pretty much super-glued Obama's re-election. 

If anything, it has caused a martyr. However, this remains to be seen, but if it turns out to be true, then it would justify Bush's decision to let bin Laden escape certain death in 2001. Either way, life will go on. People will still go to work, take their children to the park and go on holiday; no differently than before. 

No matter how you look at it, not very many people are particularly saddened by his death, not in Europe, America or even the Middle-East. 

This week sees a pretty major political domestic event too, the AV referendum. After a strong belief in the FPTP system, I have slowly been swayed away from it and come to the point that I don't really have a bias towards either First Past The Post or Alternative Vote systems - for this reason, I probably won't be placing my vote on it since I'm willing to be carried along either path that the country decided to go down on this (I would rather a form of PR). If you are unsure about what I am talking about, or still don't quite understand either voting system, this guy pretty much does a good job of summing it up. It is quite lengthy, but worth the read and pretty much sums up everything I have to say on the matter.

I would also like to congratulate Prince William and (now) Princess Kate on their marriage on Friday, 29th. For all those who watched it you can't deny at least some sense of patriotism for the whole affair, no matter how much you took the piss out of it all before hand; and for all you whom missed it - unlucky. But here's a brief sum up: a typical English royal get together with a very to-do execution of events including, but not limited to; horses, expensive cars, a huge abbey, extravagant clothes, the Queen and sand. Unfortunately I couldn't watch the whole thing since my draconian employer wanted me to earn them yet more money, but from what I hear, it all went rather smoothly in that very English way. 

I would also like to thank this same employer for letting me celebrate my Easter 'holidays' and get on with the college work that I had a lot of to do (which I should be, but haven't been doing, now) and thus my long spate of blogging silence. I love my job.

Heroes

I heard a story the other day. I don't know if it was true, but I do know that it holds a lot of meaning.

Anyway, there was a army photographer tagged to a GI unit in Vietnam for 6 months. Everyday for 6 months he went out with this unit on patrol, and everyday this photographer took pictures. Eventually it came to the day before his 6 months were up and he and the unit went out on patrol - just like everyday. 

The platoon were picking their way through the jungle until suddenly, the LT pushed over the photographer to the ground. From the ground, the photographer saw that same LT get shot in the head. What also happened was something that happened by pure chance. Pure luck. As the photographer hit the ground, he hit the ground, the camera went off as a result of the jolt from the impact with the ground and snapped the exact moment that the lieutenant was shot.

For 25 years, this photographer didn't show anybody this picture and didn't tell anybody of this story. He was racked with guilt, thinking that that LT had died instead of him, that he thought it should have been him that was killed. But one day this photographer looked at this photo at realised that this wasn't a man dying because of him, instead of him - but a man saving his life. It was a person dying whilst saving another persons life. 

From that moment, the photographer showed this picture, and he told the story, and he made sure people knew of this hero. I think that this just goes to show, it doesn't matter what happens, there is always two ways you can look at something. It's just up to you to decide which.

Define: Blog.

"1.) blatantly uninteresting online diary that gives the author the illusion that people are interested in their stupid, pathetic life. Consists of such riveting entries as "homework sucks" and "I slept until noon today." 

2.) a place where people whine  about their daily activities which nobody is interested in. topics like why they argue with boyfriend and how they end up together at last, daily anorexic activities like drinking blended organic fruits and vegetable for breakfast, lunch and dinner, talking about cutting themselves with a razor blade and how good they felt, whine  about their shopping activities and what they got."

No, I didn't write this, but I wish I had. I do think that the person who did write this definition may have just sat and trawled Tumblr for 10 minutes and came to the conclusion that this is what blogging is. I feel that there are a few other points that needed to be added. Like the following for Blogspot:

3) a place where traditional Christian American families can pose with their perfect prosperous lives with the persona of simple perfection posting pictures of mommy and daddy and their children on lovely days out together whilst seemingly clueless to the significant levels of risk associated with carelessly posting this information to the world.

Five out of 10 on the Blogspot blogs that I viewed at random came up with blogs matching my above description. That's HALF. Obviously this isn't a fair representation on the content of Blogspot, but it is definitely a large proportion of it's server space.

Obviously not all blogs fall within these 3 confines; there are a lot that are dedicated to cooking, faith, politics, music, film, games, cars, computers, blah-blah-blah-blah. There are blogs about literally everything. However, the above points are just a satirical generalisation to the blogesphere as a whole; much like the stereotype that all teenagers are lazy, skint, anti-social hoodies. 

Religion in society, that, and we're all going to die.

Earlier this week I saw a young Muslim chap in Sunderland with a young lady under his arm and a jacket that had the word 'Allah' on his back in Arabic. Aside from the girl, of which I'm sure there's somewhere in Islam that says that's naughty, I want to focus on the jacket.

I was fortunate enough to take advantage of my compulsory state education and during my dull Religious Education classes I was taught how the word God, or Allah, was written in Arabic. It's been a couple of years since I was at school, but after some thought about what I saw, I eventually recognised the Arabic word as God. When I realised this, I didn't look down on him, I didn't think he was a prat, I just accepted it as who he was and let him get on with it.

But this would not have been the case if I'd seen a young Christian chap with a jacket on that said God, or had the Christian fish on the back of it. I'd have given him a wide birth and came to the conclusion that he was a nutter.



Why would I have thought this? Isn't Christianity the national religion of Britain? Why do we collectively view anybody who chooses to openly advertise their religion with such scorn? I believe the leading role of this is the media tabloids (yes, them again.) They are so quick to jump up and publish stories such as "Islamic extremism creating 'no-go' areas for non-Muslims in Britain" [Mail Online] and then jumping to "Christian faces court over 'offensive' gay festival leaflets" [Mail Online].

From the outside (which is how the vast majority of people take their news) this would make it look like faith is narrow-minded, non-dynamic and all the same. The first article's headline even makes it seem like Britain is suffering an invasion! It probably doesn't help that extremist Islamics are blowing themselves up everyday in the name of a god - if there was a god, why does he allow people to so heinously commit these acts in his name?

I think another aspect that cannot be overlooked is the massive advances in social opinion towards many things that religions are against; homosexuality, marriage, abortion, euthanasia and science. As the everyday person is evolving their opinions on these matters, religion seems to steadfastly oppose it. Issues such as euthanasia and abortion could be argued to be matters of morality, but others such as homosexuality are not.

In every advancement in science, religion would seem to appear more and more false. For example, pictures such as the one of the one above that shows the residual aftermath of radiation that was left over from The Big Bang. The term 'I'll believe it when I see it' jumps to mind, and to this date, there is no modern evidence that proves the existence of a greater being.

Just because religion may be based around mythical beings, fictional stories and in some areas, backwards ideologies, it can't be denied that people that believe in a faith tend to live lives of charity. Without Christianity, many western organisations such as the YMCA and Salvation Army wouldn't exist and far many people would be far worse off.



Now on to my next point today, we're all going to die. Could you imagine living in a time without penicillin and other basic anti-infection drugs? That time could be returning soon thanks to the evolution of new super-bugs such as MRSI and C-Difficile and their tolerance to our main weapons against them. Not very many things like this worry me since reports such as this are released all the time, but this does. I find it chilling to the bone due to it being so believable. We are already in the opening rounds of the fight against these bugs; it's ever so slowly becoming harder and harder to find ways of treating them. 


Is this just a medical phenomena caused by humanity and it's overzealous use of antibiotics, or is it Mother Nature's answer to culling the human population that is plaguing the planet? 

How do you define the purpose of something that has NO purpose?

I have to do a specification for the game that I am programming at college. As you may have already learnt, I am appalling at programming, so this is quite a challenge. The following specification is the one that I would love to be able to submit. I really have no idea how I'm supposed to write a purpose for a game, since the reason why people play games is because they have no purpose.
I've written the actual specification which includes massive straw grasping, but here is the one that I would love to have submitted in its place.




Purpose (~100)

I have made this game because I have to. I don't especially want to, and I'm not especially good at it. That doesn't exactly explain the purpose, but I do kind of hope that this game is such a solid choice that it would survive a nuclear apocalypse and provide extreme and prolonged entertainment of the survived and mutilated humanity that remains. Perhaps in a similar circumstance to Fallout 3, by Bethesda.

Description (~400)

The game [Breakout] was originally developed by Atari in 1976. It was influenced by the earlier game, Pong, also by Atari, which is fitting, because I own an Atari t-shirt. I nearly wore it today, but instead settled for my high collar polo.
The game itself consists of rows of ‘bricks’ that occupy the majority of the players screen that must be ‘broken’ by a square that can be bounced from a paddle to keep the square in motion.

If the square was to miss the paddle then the player would lose a ‘life’ but they would generally have already lost their lives by playing this game in the first place.
I know right? Seriously advanced for its time.

User Requirements (~300)

A single finger and an eye-ball. Could the user be stretched to a basic computer use ability? It's okay if they can't, we can always get somebody else to turn it on.

Target Audience (~200)
Anybody that can be bothered to be killed via boredom and extreme monotony.

Sit down, shut up, and listen to my weekend.

I have been uncharacteristically detached from the news this week, despite reading the papers and watching some news, I haven't really absorbed any of it to really take any notice or even have anything news worthy to tangibly speak about. Apparently Libyan rebels have 'captured' Gaddafi's home town [The Guardian], and 250,000 people had a march in London about cuts or something [The Telegraph]. The latter resulted in a minority of people predictably shooting themselves up to the eyeballs on testosterone and break a few windows. And again, for some reason, the Star thinks that a front page headline about Jordan is more important for people to know about than what is the domestic news  headlines this weekend; if anybody can be bothered to look up today's Star headline you would probably reel in disbelief. I hope poor Alex doesn't read it. Most papers have a political orientation, the Star has a celebrity orientation.

Oh, and apparently Michael Barrymore was booed off stage in a comedy comeback attempt [Mail Online]. The highly talented and respected individual, Daily Mail Reporter, publised this. Of course backed up with the usual onslaught of degrading and embarrasing photographs. Like this:



Did I do that properly?

Anyway, due to me presenting the absorbtion qualites of a wet sponge last week regarding the news, I find myself with nothing important to face you will other than to attempt to make you jealous at how packed full of jam that my weekend was.

Thursday and Friday night was punctuated with lovely midnight adventure walks with a friend who I spoken to properly for a while with her new dog. I use the word 'dog' lightly, it's an Old English Sheepdog puppy; that shows every bit of intellegence of your average Essex bimbo. Was still  nice to just blabber the toss about nothing in particular in the darkness of the night.

Saturday's dull starchy sustinance was work. But it was polite to fly over and with the one bliddy time that I actually arranged to meet somebody outside the doors after my shift, is the one time where management decided to keep us all back 30 minutes to tidy the mess that was left by lazy, ignorant and stupid customers whom seemingly fail to possess the simply ability to hang something back up properly. So yeah, me and The Persistance of Memory eventually met, and under the false pretence of having a pint at the pub, the deceptive shit brought another one of our mates along and we ended up going to see a Faith No More tribute band, Faith No Man. Apparently this was what was planned all along, she did well to keep it from me. But then I have been mincing around in my own little bubble of late, so that probably is more my fault.

Faith No More were a pretty damn decent band back in the day, and this tribute band went a long way to doing them justice. Despite only knowing 'Epic' and vaguely recognising 'Falling to Pieces' from Black Hawk Down (I told you that it was in that film, guys)  I was severly impressed at how well they played. Good vocal work, and some pretty nifty finger work from the bassest and guitarist brought through the vibes of the classic rock band nicely. Furthermore, the drummer managed to flawlessly beat out the puccussion with enough politeness to vibrate the bones you stood with. One thing I would like to point out, would be that the keyboard player seemed to be there just for show half the time.

Bumped into a couple of people of whom I hadn't seen for a while, one of which I was really hoping I hadn't, but fortunately, it was only in passing. But the night was remembered by the absolute legend of a DJ that put on a whole host of songs so old-school my Gran would've been happy pulling some shapes to them - Jackson 5, that's right.

Didn't actually get around to going to sleep until 4.30am- I mean, 5.30am. The clocks went forward, did I mention that? I didn't know for sure until the Taxi driver confirmed it.

Sunday was easily one of the worst days of work in my life (so far), but I did buy a funky new shirt and a banging Thomas The Tank Engine cap for the bairn because he's suddenly developed a well placed love for the little blue engine, just like his daddy when I was his age.

So that's my blog about the key news events of the past week. You know when you've been informed. Thank you and until next time.

Waging a crusading war of Hitlerism!




Loyalist tanks attacked

Watching eagerly how the events are unfolding in Libya, it would seem that last Friday, the UN finally made the decision to sanction the No-Fly-Zone over Gaddafi's plot of North African sand. This all came together on Saturday when the French for once actually took some military action and lead the assault on the country by launching an air mission against Gaddafi loyalists whom were carrying out an assault on the rebel held city of Benghazi - which, it would seem, has perturbed the Americans because an attack on ground forced themselves apparently lacked international approval. This opening hand was then followed up by a huge salvo of 112 cruise missiles from US warships and a British submarine on Libyan anti-air and command infrastructure. These opening attacks were then chased by a 3000 mile round trip from Norfolk by British Tornados on a sortie on yet more of Gaddafi's anti-air network. Needless to say, despite being at work, I don't think I have watched rolling news this avidly since the Coalition invation of Iraq in 2001.

It would seem that the UN backed No-Fly-Zone is already facing small amounts of criticism from the Arab League, and it would appear that China and Russia are beginning to regret their decision to not veto on Friday. This however this is drowned out by the sound of the bombs and the thankful voice of all the anti-Gaddafi supporters in Libya and around the world.

Muammar Gaddafi

What is perhaps the most curious aspect of this whole situation is the propaganda campaign that is being waged by the Libyan government. The vast majority of it really is so bad, it is just comical to believe that anybody would be indoctrinated by it; but when twined with the air missions from the coalition, Gaddafi loyalists do seem to be influenced by it. I mean, it is understandable for the government to be trying to keep Libyans onside, but when he's piping up with crap like "this is an unjustified aggression" and calling the UN coalition "terrorists", I honestly don't understand how he is going to be able to keep up his rhetoric for much longer. Gaddafi, do us all a favour, ressurect Goebbels and ask him to teach you how to do propaganda properly. Oh, accutually, forget that. It's us that are waging a "crusading" campaign of "Hitlerism" - you can't have him.

I know it may sound a little arrogant to scoff at the propaganda being spread, but does Gaddafi seriously think that he stands even an iota of a chance against two of the most experienced and biggest military mights in the world? He has even called us the "Coalition of the devil".

America and the UK haven't yet ruled out the possibility of a deployment of ground forces onto Libyan soil, and Cameron is discussing the whole situation in parliament as we speak. How that and the rest of this 'conflict' turns out will be firmly in the hands of the powers that be, and how they are willing to react to each others actions.

Now this is need-to-know world news.

Yeah, forget the tragedy that is unravelling in Japan right now, a Gypsy 'war' in Manchester is what the Daily Star thinks that the British public are far more interested in right now. This quite frankly disgusting piece of journalism is well on par with the Daily Mail's spectacle of a few days ago. Does the Star's questionable PR department (if it even has one) even think about how its paper would look when displayed with the other papers of the day? Because to be frank, when I saw this lined up with the other tabloids such as The Sun and the Daily Mail, it just looked so ignorant to have a small subline regarding to the Japan tragedy, that doesn't even refer to Japan; only mentioning that 4,000 Brits have apparently died in a quake. Which one? New Zealand? Haiti?

Funnily enough, low and behold, in the matter of seconds I spent stewing and contemplating my annoyance, your typical Daily Star reader stereotype picked up a copy and bought it. The sort of person you expect to see in the Black Garter in Newcastle's Granger Market - Grunting for communication whilst hydrating and sustaining himself on pork scratchings, peanuts and Special Brew. 

Honestly, I didn't bother actually reading past the front page; the idea of physical contact with the disappointing tree by-product wasn't appealing to me.

It isn't like this is something that this tabloid looks at occasionally, the past half month's front pages have been literally plagued by 'news' such as this, and Jordan - oh, and that Muslim's are a disgrace. 

I'm a fan of the free press, but it has to have its boundaries when aspects of the media are publishing hate educing and racist stories? It only leads to increased ignorance, increased intolerance and increased fear throughout its uneducated, easily influenced reader base. To say that readers of the Star have the intelligence of a slug, is disrespectful to the slug.

And now for something completely different.

They get up at the same time.
Carry out their well oiled - well worn routine.
Partake the same wait for the same bus.
The bus comes. The train comes. The same fare. The same faces.
Same route.
The same journey. Only thing that changes is the air.

Occasionally something is different; snow perhaps. But that only grips them briefly.
They still arrive at the office in the same suits. Through the same door. To the same desks.
To the same job.

They carry out their tasks over the low murmur of the ambience; spiking with a burst of laughter.
Minds dare to wonder to more exotic jobs, full of excitement:
Playing with lions, studying volcanoes, racing driver.
Where did they go wrong?

Lunch comes. Same sandwich shop, same menu. They know what they want, but they still glance over the menu,
Full of interesting flavours: Tikka, Corination, Prawn.
"Ham sandwich, please." "Anything else?"
"A bottle of wine too."
But they dare not say it, and stick with Diet Cola.

Back to the desk. Same as the morning.

They carry out their tasks over the low murmur of the ambience; spiking with a burst of laughter.

Minds dare to wonder to more exotic jobs, full of excitement:

Playing with lions, studying volcanoes, racing driver. 

Where did they go wrong?

Home time.

From the same job. From the same desks. Back through the same door. In a creased suit.

Occasionally something is different; rain, perhaps. But it only grips them briefly.

Partake the same wait for the same bus. 

The bus comes. The train comes. The same fare. The same faces. 

Same route. 

The same journey. Only thing that changes is the air.

What happened to life? It used to be full of joy. Excitement.
Anticipation for the future.
Now they're in the future.
And they wish for the past.

William Hague: A blundering buffoon, cleverly disguised as a responsible person.

The beginning of this week saw the media headlines filled with articles titled with news of our SAS heroes' 'failure' and 'humiliation' in Libya. Here are just a few of these said headlines:

"SAS rounded up and booted out as Libyan mission turns to farce" - Daily Mail
"SAS-backed Libyan diplomatic mission ends in humiliation" - The Guardian
"Libya: SAS mission that began and ended in error" - The Telegraph

William Hague

From the outset, it would appear that it was our Special Forces that were solely to be put to blame here. Wrong. If one would invest a little time into reading a little further into the stories, it would turn out to be painstakingly obvious that it wasn't. It was in fact our superbly fantastical Foreign Secertary, William Hague. 
Yes, the SAS went in with weapons, fake passports and currency by method of a secret landing in the middle of the desert. But this is the SAS - their primary overseas roles are normally to win 'Hearts and Minds' of the locals. But they're in a potentially hostile environment,  you think they are going to just walk in with umbrellas, bowler hats and wearing pin-striped suits after asking for a letter of invitation?

So it would appear that the Conservative government have not only thrown away our telephones, gas, electric and train tracks, but our national pride in our special forces too. Granted, the planning of the mission could have been better, it was planned by the SAS; but this doesn't shy away from the fact that the Libyan rebels had openly stated that they didn't want western help at all. Therefore, Hague shouldn't have sanctioned the mission in the first place. Hague's ridiculous excuse was that it was a 'serious misunderstanding'. How can you misunderstand it when somebody clearly says, "We don't want your help." This was a mission that was clearly going to go south from the outset, no matter how it was planned. Mercifully, Hague had the sense to  admit that it was his stupid idea. But then said something about more plans being made for more 'diplomatic' missions into Eastern Libya. If they are any where near as diplomatic as the latest incident; I'm taking a trip to Downing Street myself and introducing some diplomacy to his stupid face, wrapped up in the parcel of my shoe.


Obviously, opposition MPs literally broke world high-jump records at the chance to slate this man who is so bold, that when he wears a Turtle Neck, he looks like Roll on Deodorant. Douglas Alexander, Shadow Foreign Secretary, asked if he would introduce himself to new neighbours 'by ringing the doorbell or instead choose to climb over the fence in the middle of the night'. Former Liberal - Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said that it was 'ill concieved' and that Britain would have to 'restore' its reputation abroad. But by all means my favourite backlash that the Foreign Secretary received was the statement that British troops are being led by 'Tory ministers who have overdosed on James Bond'. There have been calls for William Hague to step down and resign - damn right should he, along with the rest of his blithering government. 

The late HMS Ark Royal

Do you remember a few months ago, back to when parliament were arguing about selling all our Harriers and our only Aircraft Carrier? Do you remember when they said that we don't need them anymore? The ironic thing here is that Iron Woman Thatcher said pretty much the same thing about our whole navy and decommissioned a lot of it back during her deluded and ideological reign of power - and then Argentina thought it would be funny to invade the Falklands. Now relate that to now; how handy would a carrier be right now to be able to sanction a No-Fly Zone over Libya if the UN give the go ahead.  Imagine if we had an offshore bit of kit that offers the sort of logistical support to quickly send aircraft in and out of an area where we don't have any military or civilian airport infrastructure so that we could extract vunerable British nationals with. 


It would seem that our Foreign Secretary is vastly incapable of his task of keeping up good relations with foreign states, and protecting our British nationals abroad. If this is the case, why the hell is he even in this position? How hard can it possibly be to approach British Airways and say "Here, guys, we've got a bunch of people who are stuck in a country that is falling to shit, we'll pay for you to send a few planes over to pick them up." Strewth, even I could do that, and I'm a stupid, lazy student. But at least on the plus side, Hague managed to get the most recent group of British Nationals out nice and speedily. 


I honestly have no idea what Hague was thinking. I mean, he's obviously as deluded as the rest of the Tory ministers that are proposing on moving May Day to October. This is because apparently in doing this, it would make the British tourism season longer, thus creating more revenue for the treasury. Bit of background info for you, May Day is "a day of political demonstrations and celebrations organised by the unions, communists, anarchists, and socialist groups". Of course the silly blue brained twits want to move it - change it's name and try and move it away from its modern meaning.


To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not exactly sure how doing this would accomplish this goal, since I seriously don't think the French or Spanish or Germans look at our calender and think, "Oh look! There's a bank holiday in England in October! Let's all fuck off over there for a couple of weeks and get rained on!". Furthermore, how does this counter the loss of the foreign tourism advertising budget? You know them nice, sunny, perfect looking adverts on telly yabbering on about how awesome New Zealand is (I mean was, it fell over recently), how stereotypical California is (until it falls over again) and how hot it is in Australia (coupled with the HUGE outdoor swimming pool they now have)? WE used to have them for other countries. Well, we did until Cameron said they cost too much and stopped their pocket money. 

Israel

Canada

Thailand

Something else that made some major news today was the issue of 'Sat-Nav Terrorism'. Well done free media. You've pulled a right doozie there. In an attempt to scare the masses into more of a sheltered existance away from technology, you've just told any potential terrorist that didn't know already all about how they can cause yet more havok. Spot on journalism righ' there. 


In more personal news, I am delighted to announce that I am up to Day 11 of being smoke free! I feel great, and I emplore anybody else who is thinking about quitting to do so. It's No Smoking Day tomorrow too (9/3/11) - What better excuse to kerb the habit?


I've also added some contact details on the bottom of this site if you have anything that you would like to contact me about; whether it's ideas on future rant- er, posts, or just want some advice on how to quit smoking - I'll be happy to hear from you. Unless you gonna' troll. Trolls can stay under their bridges, and Youtube. I also have an art blog! Just updated with some more work! 


NOTE: My sister blog has just written a review about the My Chemical Romance gig she attended the other week. It's a fantastic read if you're into that kind of music! 

Day 5 towards a smoke free life

This is day 5 of the latest one of my countless attempts to kick the habit of smoking. I have to say that this really isn't as hard as I thought it would be, nor how hard I remembered it to be. It may possibly be something to do with the sheer determination that I'm showing this time; even though I know deep down, I don't really want to quit.

Over the past 5 days it has given my brain time to think about how I can describe what it is like to a none smoker. Imagine breaking you leg or arm, it hurts like burning shit being smeared on the soles of your feet while having your eyes poked out with a blunt, but very hot pallet knife. It's not exactly how it feels to break a bone, but it's a similar pain level. Obviously, it doesn't physically hurt to have nicotine cravings, but for the sake of argument, just go along with it.
Anyway, imagine breaking your leg. It hurts loads to begin with, and then you go to the hospital and they strap it up and it doesn't hurt any more, it just aches. This is the same with quitting smoking. The first day or two are hell, the cravings come in their troves and you do all you can to stay sane. But after this first stage, the whole thing just retreats to the back of your mind, and like an annoying little child, will sit and repeat "IwannasmokeIwannasmokeIwannasmoke" all day. And just like with an annoying child, you learn to put up with it and not think about it. Of course this leads me to the major cravings that will breach every now and then - like a giant Sperm Whale does to breathe. These are like knocking your broken bone. It'll go from an inconsequential annoyance to a MASSIVE PAIN then back down to the former sensation again after a small (ish) wait.

Day 1 was utter hell. Me being stupid decided to smoke my last ciggy just moments before I started work. But with the knowledge of not being able to smoke when I finished my shift, all my stress levels rocketed the instant a customer showed any stupidity towards me.

"Where are the jeans?"
"Turn around, twat."

Of course, I didn't actually say that, but I thought it, and it showed with my stern and nippy responses to any query directed to me.

Day 2 was slightly better: work was much more relaxing than the day before. I'd managed the monumental effort of preparing myself mentally for the day ahead without my vice. But it ended with a mammoth craving that night that lasted about 2 or 3 hours, I actually came close to chewing off my face.

Day 3 was just a nightmare. First day back to college after half term, and poor poor Lewis took the whole lot of my angst straight in the face. Funny from an outside perspective, not so much for me. Or Lewis. But to his credit, he just took it. Like a boss.

Day 4 was lengthy. Because I was off college I spent the duration in my room waiting for Siobhan to finish university so I could go for a drink. I decided to try and make this wait as short as possible by literally laying in until 1.30 and then trying to keep myself busy. When the cravings did hit, they felt endless. Meeting up with Siobhan and putting the world to rights over a pint strangely didn't come with the by product of nicotine want, thankfully. Until upon exiting the staple institution of the English socialising medium (pub) I was full on walloped in the face by smoke fumes from those that were smoking on the doorstep. I found myself fighting the urge to drop to my knees and grovel for a cigarette from them. Of course I didn't do this. I have dignity.

Day 5. Well this is day 5, and rather peculiarly, I haven't had any major, MAJOR cravings - except from the odd one when I've seen another person indulging their habit. My mindset has also started to change towards smokers. I look at them differently, but I think this may just be bitterness because I want what they have in their hands and mouths (no, that was not an innuendo).

As of yet, I'm still not feeling the supposed health benefits that I should be, or the financial gains either. What ever I used to spend on sirs Lambert and Butler, just gets spent on other, equally pointless crap.

It matters not. Quitting is my goal, and quitting is what I'm going to do. Cold Turkey.

Labour under Ed Miliband.

Okay Ladies and Gentlemen, here it is at long last. The results of the poll dictated to me that you wanted to read my waffle about the Labour party under their new (ish) leader, Ed Miliband.

Although this man was not my particular choice to win the internal leadership battle, he won, and by the looks of things, he's going to be Prime Minister after the next general election.

Publicly, David Miliband was the better candidate to lead the party, and my personal choice, but as is the case with the Labour party and its heavy Union support, Ed was the favourite for them, and consequently won the leadership battle. 

Ed doesn't really have the charisma or looks that can match that of Cameron. He does have that air of nerd about him; with his nasal voice and that worried scowl on his face when in an uneasy situation. To be honest, his older brother, David doesn't really have all that much going for him when it comes to looks either. However, I am a firmly oppose this new era of politics that were started by JFK - a politics all about how the lead candidates presented themselves and how they spoke, not a politics necessarily about the values, actual policies and parties behind their leader. Which the British found out to their own peril in the 2010 elections, where 36.1% of Britain decided to ignore everything history had taught them about a Conservative government, not even bother to do any degree of research into the blue manifesto and subsequently vote for the man with the nice hair and pleasing face.

Whoops, swerved out of my lane there, back to Labour under Ed Miliband.

Ever since the dawn of democracy, the opposition party's sole job is to basically tell the current government that they are wrong, and to try and convince the public that they can do the job better. Every now and then however, on the rare occasions where the nation is united about certain things normally regarding ridiculous EU regulations, the government and opposition parties will agree in opinion - and that's when you know that we mean business. Take note, Brussels, if ever you dare attempt to pass something upon our great nation that both Tories and Labourists both hate so much that we would unite with one another to fight it, beware.

The first job that Ed undertook once he took the crown of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition Leader was to reshuffle the Shadow Cabinet. The Shadow Cabinet is basically Ed Miliband's fantasy government (like fantasy football, only infinitely more enthralling). He was in a difficult place. He had so much proven talent to pick from, such as ex-Foreign Secretary David Miliband. But he was his brother, and he didn't want to risk turning the Labour party into a domestic every time they didn't agree. He also had to make a decision between Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, the husband and wife, for the same reasons. As a result of this, he made Yvette Shadow Secretary of state and controversially, Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor, despite openly admitting that he really had no idea what on Earth the economy actually was. In the end, thankfully, Alan resigned because his wife was having scandalous steamy romps elsewhere (did you like my attempt to make that sound tabloidy?). This left a rather important hole to be filled, and who better than with Ed Balls, former Education Minister. Quite the promotion for him there. It's better than having George Osbourne. Alan Johnson was better than George Osbourne. You can't grow a tree without water; you can't grow an economy without money. No brainer really? Apparently not for wor Georgie.

Rather annoyingly, Ed and the gang still haven't seemed to have put together a viable set of policies to go in line with the new path that they are going down by scrapping the 'New' out of the title and being known as the plain old Labour party again. However, I severely doubt that this will affect their chances of winning the next general election in 3 years time because the public are going to respond to the Tories pig headedness and ham fisted approach to everything by voting in the only way they know to get rid of them; Labour. Let's face it, Liberal Democrat are hardly in for a chance after the spectacular show they put on over the last few months and the 'Other' parties may earn a few extra votes, but Labour is still the only viable opposition vote to take. Even if the voters are blind to the red manifesto and ignore all the good things they've done for this country. But it's still a step in the righ- I mean, left direction. The correct direction. A vote for normalcy- I mean, er...normality.


As a footnote, I decided at the weekend that I was going to quit smoking. I'm going to do this totally Cold Turkey, that means no patched, no nothing. It's personal between me and the fags; using patches would be like Cameron asking Obama to back him up in an argument with Sarkozy.
It's day 3 so far, and it's absolute hell. I have a 3 hour long craving last night that kept me up until about 2am. I know it's amazingly beneficial to me, but it is so tempting to give in.

I'm back on Deviant Art!

This is just a quite blog to keep you keen.

Used to be quite active on this art blogging site. And then my life took a turn away from my artistic hobby.
I then consequently forgot my login details to my that old account, so I decided to make a new one. Which I find quite sad, (impending arrogance) because there was some really good work on there.

You can still see that dusty old profile here.

But my new one is here. This is the one I'm going to start using from now on. Activity will be low, but I'll give you guys a nudge when something new gets posted on there from me. In the mean time, enjoy what's on there at the moment. :)

Enjoy. Also; DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR VOTE IN FOR NEXT WEEK'S BLOG! Tell all your friends, and get my name out there in the blogging world!

Peace out guys!

Better late than never - Tucson

It is absolutely fantastic news to hear about democratic US Senator Gabrielle Giffords' speedy and down right miraculous recovery after being shot at point-blank range in the head on the 8th January during a public meeting in Tucson, Arizona. Unfortunately there were some people that weren't so lucky (if you would call being shot in the forehead lucky). Six people were murdered, including on nine-year-old girl.

Since the shootings, there has been much speculation about the motives of the attack. It's quite clear that Senator Giffords was the intended target, which suggests political motivation. Which points the finger towards the far right Republican Tea Party, headed by Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

Gabrielle Giffords wasn't a stranger to assassination or hate crime directed towards her. In the past it has been alleged that she has had her office building shot at, and during a similar meeting to the one being held on the 8th in 2009, a plundering gunman dropped his gun on the floor before being arrested by police.

Gabrielle Giffords - Courtesy of The Guardian

This hostility towards her has been because of her strong support towards many of the Democratic policies such as Obama's new health plan, abortion, immigration and stem-cell research. Which is barbaric. Our health service is state owned; look how well it's doing! Why would anybody not want this? And the fact that she narrowly beat the Tea-Baggers in the recent elections last year - so essentially, Tucson has is as close as makes no difference to a 50/50 split between Democrats and far right Republicans.

Nutter + Gun x Palin's OTT bullshit = Tucson Shooting

This deranged looking chap was the person who shot Giffords. It cannot really be disputed that he was influenced in some way by Palin's ridiculous and hate inducing political campaign against the Democrats. Just take a look at this map showing key election 'battle grounds' that Palin intends to target.

One of the Tea Party's campaign maps.

It cannot be argued that these points of interest looked suspiciously like crosshairs, or target markers. The red ones being key seats that Palin aims to fight for. They are in fact surveyor symbols that are used to map out an area. Either way, they look like crosshairs. And to colour some in red emphasises this 10-fold. There are so many other symbols that could've been used, such as *s, plain circles and arrows. That said, there has been a couple of similar 'target maps' that have been used by the Democratic party on the past.

I feel that it is totally unnecessary for there to be campaign maps to look like this! The top one can even be accused of looking like a war campaign map used by generals to control armies! I'm outraged by the caption under the second map! I'm not sure what party the bottom one was published by, but I suspect it was Republican. It can only be hoped that British politics don't follow this trend in political election campaigns.  

The sooner that they realise that they need to stop treating their opposition like assassination targets and acting like it's a military campaign, the sooner that people are going to stop feeling pressured into making extremist actions, such as executing Senators. It was going to happen sooner or later, will this be a lesson learned? Apparently not judging by Sarah Palin's response to the tragic incident with her use of intense and hostile rhetoric and misunderstanding of the phrase 'blood libel'. Moreover, it would seem that Obama managed to rise above the political blame game to give a heart-felt and genuine speech on how much of a tragedy it was - hoping Gabrielle Giffords a speedy recovery and not once placing any political accusation anywhere. 

You can find both the videos here.

Need I say  more? 

Some things are better not being known.

Let's just get this out the way first. I am a firm believer of freedom of speech. But all this malarkey that Julian Assange is doing is just ridiculous and in light of the start of his court trial, I thought I'd type a blog up about it and how I feel about this whole affair. If you can't access this blog in the future, it's because 4chan have found me and killed me with an email bomb.

Granted, perhaps the Swedish government probably didn't handle the whole alleged rape claims very well. But I believe that this was purely because of the amount of pressure they were getting from the US to get Assange in a place where they could get to him.

Did the founder of Wikileaks rape these women as alleged? We won't know until the judge makes his decision. But either way, he does look like a seedy and grimy sort of fellow, with a little bit of the banker breed thrown in for good measure.

Julian Assange

There have been calls from fair right American's for him to be executed. Which is frankly barbaric, however it doesn't excuse the fact that some of the leaks that he has been responsible for have been totally and unjustifiably unwarrantable, and dangerous for the national security of America. 

Leaks such private conversations between members of the American government about their opinions of certain countries and War Logs of both Afghanistan and Iraq. It's not just America that he's attacking either with these publications, but other countries that approach him with illegally gotten information. It's all on the same par with treason, and anybody who is caught doing it should be treat in the same way as somebody who is caught selling information to a foreign state. There is always talk of somebody being a traitor and posing serious risk to the country every time a somebody is caught selling secrets to the Chinese, Russians, Koreans. So how is this any different? 

There is a reason why governments don't publish this information. Granted some of it is because of self preservation; nobody wants bad PR, no matter how honest the government is. However, some is genuinely for the  public's best interests and safety, and to upkeep sometimes fragile relationships with other countries to keep the peace and maintain the best interests of their country at heart. Who doesn't want their country's best interests put first?

To callously put all this information up for world wide viewing is completely wrong. Some of it can be justified - SOME OF IT. And Julian and his crew at Wikileaks need to be able to strike the balance between what the public have a right to know, and what the world DOESN'T need to, and has no business knowing. 

Half the people up in arms about this probably never even heard about Wikileaks before August last year. And probably never even bothered their arsed to read through the 400,000 files in the Iraq war log. I know I sure as hell didn't, I have better things to do then stick my nose into things that don't concern me, and be safe in the assumption that if there was anything that the media thought the public ought to know, it would be published.

The argument of free speech is a ridiculous excuse for the justification of the use of offensive comments. The boundary lines of this is pushed to the absolute limits by the likes of the Daily Mail and the Star - the latter of which published an anti-Muslim front page headline, and then manage to misspell the word heroes whilst printing the story right next a flesh abundant picture of a woman. And they wonder why Muslims can be so hostile toward us. Anyway, here's the online article. At least the Star had the decency to disable the comments section on this page. Impending racism thwarted. 

[Insert a picture of this front page here....anyone?]

It would appear that I can't in fact find a picture of this. But whilst I was searching through the archives of the Daily Star, I was absolutely flabbergasted by how much space Katie Price has taken up on their front pages in recent weeks! All space wasted for actual real news. 

Until next time, folks.

BREAKING NEWS! A celebrity wears clothes!

Bit short of things to write about today. Perhaps I should turn this publication into a less frequent occurrence. I decided to have a looksie on the great provider of accurate and frightfully important knowledge, MailOnline.

Apparently some woman called Mischa Barton has put on a pair of tight trousers and knelt down. Yes, that's right. The Mail has literally written a story about a celebrity wearing clothes. Barton isn't exactly a big house-hold name either, unless you watched The OC. And let's face it. Who did? 

So here, not only has the Mail reported on this woman doing the shocking and unusual thing of covering herself, but they've also called her fat because what can only be described as the tiniest bit of skin has overspilled over the waistband of her trousers. Only the caption to this rather unfortunate picture claimed she was "bursting" out of her trousers. 

I also found this about Mark Zuckerberg being stalked. The founder of Facebook has become a victim of real life stalking by an avid admirer who bombarded him with many emails and even sent him and his sister hand written notes and on one occasion, some flowers. Zuckerberg has since filed a restraining order on his stalker's arse after the man was arrested whilst approaching Zuckerberg's house. 

Once I had finished reading the article, my attention promptly found some of the comments that the readers had posted in response to this publication. Comments such as:

Clever people don't never go on facebook though Im on it a bit, I admit but Im unusual.

I beg to differ. I use Facebook quite a bit - and I would perhaps dare to call myself clever; at least cleverer than the average Mail reader. See, I even used a semi-colon correctly. I digress, anybody who puts the words "don't" and "never" next to each other is clearly on their way to be a budding Neurosurgeon.

Caught in his own net. Now he knows what other people have to put up with.

Or perhaps don't never have to put up with if they set their privacy setting properly and only have real friends on their immediate network. Then you don't have to worry about your privacy.

What comes around goes hundreds hundreds of people every year get stalk on face book mm not a good adverticement

Ouch. Clearly not a fan of punctuation, suffixes, conjunctions or even the concept of quantity. 500million people use Facebook. It's an absolute relief that only (what I'm assuming he meant) hundreds and hundreds of users become victims of stalking in any degree through this site.

And my personal favourite:

"What comes around goes hundreds hundreds of people every year get stalk on face book mm not a good adverticement" - karl wood, southampton With all possible respect, if you can't even spell "facebook", what makes you think you have anything of value to contribute to a discussion about it? People get stalked in the street, not a great "adverticement" for town planning, but we still have towns... "Maybe it will help Mark Z to consider more carefully the effect that Facebook has on lives..." - Dave, Leeds Why should he care less? If you don't like it, don't use it, or build your own (that's what I'm doing). It wasn't built especially for you, and nobody ordered you to use it, did they?

 A man who thinks that he is higher on the horse than the two other people he is quoting, then makes himself look stupid by forgetting silly little things like readability - and saying he spelt "facebook" wrong, when it's a proper noun, and therefore spelt Facebook. Or perhaps some other method of breaking the quotes from the comment he has made about it. Like a hyphen, or a full stop. Or maybe the use of the 'return' key. Happily, however, he does understand how to use an apostrophe. But with more rhetoric coming from this man than Sarah Palin, I don't think he has knowledge about any other ways of writing critique. Try sarcasm. Or making jokes. Maybe add suggestions? Or taking a look at this blog.


Whilst reading a quality paper, I must say I am sick of reading about the woman who is suing a Plastic Surgeon for £54million because he left her with a 'monster eye' and a facial twitch. Read the full story here. She should get fuck all. Granted the surgeon himself may have been a bit dodgy, but is this a good enough reason, if there was one, as why vanity surgery is stupid - and it serves her right to be afflicted with this problem. I have absolutely no doubt that she looked totally normal before the surgery. And I have absolutely no sympathy for this idiot who clearly had too much money to spend.

Another thing I heard on the news this morning was that Clegeron (or Camegg) is going to start charging parents who use the Child Support Agency a £300 fee per year. Critics have called it child tax. I call it punishment for not having a traditional Conservative family. Westminster claim that it will cause parents to stop using it and will encourage them to sort out child support privately. Which is fair enough, but those that rely on this service the most are those that are generally the worst off in society. Am I missing the point when I say that the whole idea of a government service is for it to be free? Clearly the Tories skipped over this memo because it helps the disadvantaged.

Fucking draconian philistines.

Also, I will leave you with these two articles concerning junk food. One is from a half decent newspaper, the other from the Mail. Can you guess which is which?

Junk food diet could damage your child's IQ.

Junk food beneficial for your diet.

Mr. Copy and Mr. Paste

Hokay, so I've just literally just finished turfing all of my blog posts from Tumblr to Blogspot. I honestly didn't realise quite how much I had written! Thank God for Mr. Copy and Mr. Paste! Eternal gratifications to them two! Not only have they made my life so much easier in this instance, but the Daily Mail wouldn't actually exist if it wasn't for them. Well, it probably would, but it would be reduced to the truly dismal task of quality journalism. Wouldn't that be just terrible.


Anyway, here's my new and future blog. This is what I'll be using to allow an insight into my life from now on as it is just so much better. 
I do know that as a result of my transferring actions, some of the pictures are smaller then what they  were, and that some are missing all together. But I challenge you you find me an archive on this planet that's fully complete. At least you got all the words. Be happy for that. 


Speaking of the Daily Mail, it would appear that they have advertised a job vacancy in the Guardian (anybody who has ever been confused by the definition of 'irony'? Well, this is it.)

Daily Mail

•Britain’s most successful newspaper group is offering would-be reporters and writers an exciting and challenging yearlong training course, plus the chance to work at the Daily Mail and Mail Online

•We are looking for bright, sharp, intelligent writers who believe they can be fast-tracked to the very top

•You’ll be on the best journalism course in the business – and be paid a competitive salary while you train

•Successful applicants will probably have completed post-graduate journalism training or had experience working in newspapers

Apply by February 21, with your CV, 200 words on why you think you could be a Mail journalist, a 200-word news story and a selection of up to six cuttings and send to Sue Ryan, Trainee Reporters’ Scheme, Daily Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry St, London W8 5TT. 
Please send queries to sue.ryan@dailymail.co.uk

Somebody who blogs under Consume Conform Obey has even gone as far as to bash up a letter of application to Sue Ryan and urged that anybody with any degree of competence with a keyboard do the same - ie. Has knowledge of where the Ctrl + C and V buttons are located and possess the ability to use them.


Anyway, I thought that I would no doubt give it a go too. 

Dear Sue, 

I am writing in response to the job advertisement that you published in the Guardian. I like how you've tried to expand into employing actual talent there, but I honestly don't think that the type of people that read the Guardian would really be too interested in writing for the Daily Mail; below them, perhaps?  

I digress, I would be very interested in the opportunity to be able to write quality journalism for your much respected and sourced tabloid as I am incredibly interested, as a student and lover of the everything English, to be able to consequently throw away all my morals and dignity to be the author of literature, of a level which is nearly matched by a children's story book, that causes public outrage with speculation and lies. 

I feel that this would be the perfect job for me and that I would be able to integrate myself neatly with your current staff as I would consider myself a very politically savvy left-winger who is willing to do whatever it takes to get a scoop; even if it means phone hacking. Unfortunately I do not possess any degree of journalism experience, but my English teacher once said to me that I would make a good journalist one day if I ever chose to take a route down that career path. Gracefully, this is a route that may have possibly come open to me with this vacancy! I look forward to hear back from you.

 Yours sincerely,

A person with intelligence and a functioning moral compass. 

Time to copy and paste this into and email to send it to the lovely Sue Ryan. I feel that I have put myself on excellent standing with this application. I really have high hopes for this going well for me!
I would suggest that you do the same, but I don't want my chances scupper'd by your superior letters of application!