A little background on this post: I decided that writing on two sides of the coin every week or so would be quite fun and prove I do actually like some things instead of being a totally cynical bastard.
So firstly, things I don't get:
Reality TV in England at the moment
Due to a lack of live TV at university most of the viewing I did in the last three years was of TV and films I wanted to watch. The wonder of semi legal downloading meant that any film or show you wanted to watch was at your fingertips. Nights in often consisted of downloading some choice TV, lighting up a fatty, cracking open some whiskey and watching the latest stuff from the states. Having left uni and those ways behind, I've begun to experience for the first time the Hell that is reality TV in Britain due to the inescapable nature of it.I'd been aware of it, but had managed to hide from it thanks to the wonderful world of pot-based escapism that university provided me. I still haven't actually watched any of it by the way - the massive bumwankery of the whole spectacle is available to read in the free papers on the way to and from work. This faceless cretin has a 'secret shocking past'! Shock Horror! One of the little shitweasels likes drugs! But it's alright 'cos he said sorry! PAY ATTENTION, WE MAKE YOUR LIFE WORTH LIVING!! Seriously, pick up any newspaper and they are hawking on about this shit as if it were real news that affected the world. I have to believe that deep down everyone must know it's just a money spinning technique for the papers - everyone's obssessed with the smug wankers for a while, then in a year's time they'll be replaced by the next lot of steaming arsebuckets and forgotten. Repeat ad nauseam. If people can't see this then there are more morons out there than I'd like to believe.
There seem to two distinct versions of these shows: 'talent' contests and 'real life'. I say 'talent' but I haven't actually worked out whether or not any of them have any discernible skills other than all having a severe lack of personality. What gets described as 'amazing' or 'brilliant' on the singing shows is the same bargain-bin-note-hogging wailing that people seem to love, followed by the obligatory charity ballard (seriously, why always a ballard? Yes, the world is a sad place but try injecting some tempo once in a while for christ's sake!) and the winner's song inevitably reaching Christmas number 1. Cut and paste. I'd be surprised if any of the contestants could even spell 'artistic integrity', let alone possess it.
As for the 'real life' ones, well you'd have to be a mindless gurning cretin to honsetly believe that anything about what occurs during the length of an episode is 'real' - it's clearly scripted, albeit very poorly. My first experience of this type of show came the other week, when one of the 'stars' of 'the only way is Essex' was on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and got mercilessly and hilariously destroyed by the professional comedians on the panels. I was trying to figure out why that woman was famous - she wasn't particularly good looking, had a voice that sounded like a managey cat approximating human speech with an Essex accent and seemed particularly unintelligent. Following this, I became aware of footballer Joey Barton having a twitter spat with these so-called 'stars'. Now, I am fully aware that Mr. Barton was in prison at some stage, but the guy has been known to quote George Orwell and Nietsche on his feed, which makes him slightly better than the Essex troglodytes. Plus, when someone uses the old scouse swearwords 'bute', 'helmet' and 'blert' I have to say I'm instantly on their side - time in Liverpool at uni is to blame for that. Watching them reply using words like 'jel' - short for jealous and 'reem' - short for I-have-no-fucking-clue-what was funny yet depressing at the same time. Funny because watching these fully grown children fight is undoutedly hilarious, it makes you feel big as you're not involved but watching and thinking 'ha, ha! Look at the morons!'. Depressing for exactly the same reasons. You have now been dragged into their world. Congratufuckinglations.
Best Things Ever
http://drinkify.org/ - Type in an artist and this website will recommend what to imbibe whilst listening to said artist. Fantastically simple but amazing, without it I wouldn't have discovered the joys of tequila cranberry, or as it now must be known the 'Frank Zappa'.
http://www.isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk/ - simple and self-explanatory, complete witha 'hated by the Daily Mail' badge in the top so you know it's good.
http://rosskemp.co.uk/ - like a British version of Chuck Norris quotes but better due to the added Ross Kemp gurning face at the top of the page. An oldie but a classic.
Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - This is seriously going to take up all of my free time for the foreseeable future. Forget Call of Duty, this game is the real winner. Completely immersive, endless possibilities and totally jawdropping in terms of scale and size - nothing I've ever played has ever come close to the sheer scale of this. There is reportedly over 300 hours of gameplay - if I didn't have work people would not see me for months.
Monday, 14 November 2011
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
The first of (hopefully) many - Intro and why old people need to pipe down.
Welcome to the first post on this blog. In the title I said that it's the first of hopefully many - it's likely to be, but like most people, I am incredibly lazy at times so I haven't figured out if this will be a regular thing or whether I'll give up after a few weeks. Only time will tell I guess.
For those of you who don't know (which at this stage I reckon is no-one, as I've not published this stuff anywhere but facebook, and even then all I reckon I'll get is a few sympathy/boredom reads) I'm Jack, I'm 21 years old and I live in London. I'm writing this mainly out of a mix of boredom and catharsis, as I'm trying to cut back on a lot of the fun substances (alcohol) that always used to solve those problems. I'm a bit of a cult culture junkie, which is a polite way of saying a bit of a geek at times. I like my sports, mainly rugby and cricket but I'm not adverse to a bit of football. Basically I'm an average guy with a bit of time on his hands who's decided to write down his thoughts for his own amusement.
The first of these thoughts ties in with a recent re-watching of a classic cult film: Logan's run. For those of you not aware of the film, the basic premise is that in the future no one lives past the age of 30. A bit nightmarish, but it got me thinking, 'at least it'd solve one problem: old people moaning'. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that I myself am having a moan about other people moaning, the irony is not lost on me in the slightest but there's something intrinsically annoying about the way that anyone over the age of 60 feels the need to harp on about every minor fucking detail that might not go how they want it to. Kids today are out of control, the NHS is usless, the country's going to the dogs, blah blah fucking blah.
Why do we listen? Is it out of some intrinsic need to 'respect our elders'? Collective guilt that we left granny in some run down nursing home on the coast? With Remeberance Day on Friday, I'd like to think that it's because of a common held belief: we respect them because they fought in the Second World War and therefore saved the world from Hitler. Well, for the majority, that is bollocks. Why? For the simple fact that it's 2011, which means that at the minimum you'd have to be 85 now to have even been old enough to fight in WW2. The majority of the over 60 population lived after the War, in a period of (relative) comfort and advancement. Technology grew in leaps and bounds and society grew to understand racism was not OK. Broad generalisations I know, but hey ho.
It's the people who were supposedly at the forefront of this progression that seem so against it now. Society is progressing in a lot of ways, for example people are actually getting more intelligent - it's evolutionary fact. The only thing that's 'going to the dogs' is the demise of Little England views - with its curtain-twitching racism, reliance on archaic beliefs and refusal to change. However, most people - out of 'respect' or some other bullshit reason indulge the geriatric population in their beliefs. For example, an elderly member of my family expressed the view (quite seriously) that all black people were bank robbers. Whilst I reacted with shock and expressed my dislike of the remark, the rest of my family shrugged it off. 'he's old, and set in his ways' one family member said. So? we feel the need to correct a child when they do something wrong, why not someone older than us? The concept of different races and heirachies of races within human biology was proven wrong in the 1930s, so why is it wrong for me to correct someone older than me when they say something blatantly not based in fact?
There could be more on this topic in the future when I think of other things to add, but right now I can't particularly be arsed. Hope it's been a bit more structed than a rant. Stick with these posts and you never know - they might actually be a few that are one day worth reading.
For those of you who don't know (which at this stage I reckon is no-one, as I've not published this stuff anywhere but facebook, and even then all I reckon I'll get is a few sympathy/boredom reads) I'm Jack, I'm 21 years old and I live in London. I'm writing this mainly out of a mix of boredom and catharsis, as I'm trying to cut back on a lot of the fun substances (alcohol) that always used to solve those problems. I'm a bit of a cult culture junkie, which is a polite way of saying a bit of a geek at times. I like my sports, mainly rugby and cricket but I'm not adverse to a bit of football. Basically I'm an average guy with a bit of time on his hands who's decided to write down his thoughts for his own amusement.
The first of these thoughts ties in with a recent re-watching of a classic cult film: Logan's run. For those of you not aware of the film, the basic premise is that in the future no one lives past the age of 30. A bit nightmarish, but it got me thinking, 'at least it'd solve one problem: old people moaning'. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that I myself am having a moan about other people moaning, the irony is not lost on me in the slightest but there's something intrinsically annoying about the way that anyone over the age of 60 feels the need to harp on about every minor fucking detail that might not go how they want it to. Kids today are out of control, the NHS is usless, the country's going to the dogs, blah blah fucking blah.
Why do we listen? Is it out of some intrinsic need to 'respect our elders'? Collective guilt that we left granny in some run down nursing home on the coast? With Remeberance Day on Friday, I'd like to think that it's because of a common held belief: we respect them because they fought in the Second World War and therefore saved the world from Hitler. Well, for the majority, that is bollocks. Why? For the simple fact that it's 2011, which means that at the minimum you'd have to be 85 now to have even been old enough to fight in WW2. The majority of the over 60 population lived after the War, in a period of (relative) comfort and advancement. Technology grew in leaps and bounds and society grew to understand racism was not OK. Broad generalisations I know, but hey ho.
It's the people who were supposedly at the forefront of this progression that seem so against it now. Society is progressing in a lot of ways, for example people are actually getting more intelligent - it's evolutionary fact. The only thing that's 'going to the dogs' is the demise of Little England views - with its curtain-twitching racism, reliance on archaic beliefs and refusal to change. However, most people - out of 'respect' or some other bullshit reason indulge the geriatric population in their beliefs. For example, an elderly member of my family expressed the view (quite seriously) that all black people were bank robbers. Whilst I reacted with shock and expressed my dislike of the remark, the rest of my family shrugged it off. 'he's old, and set in his ways' one family member said. So? we feel the need to correct a child when they do something wrong, why not someone older than us? The concept of different races and heirachies of races within human biology was proven wrong in the 1930s, so why is it wrong for me to correct someone older than me when they say something blatantly not based in fact?
There could be more on this topic in the future when I think of other things to add, but right now I can't particularly be arsed. Hope it's been a bit more structed than a rant. Stick with these posts and you never know - they might actually be a few that are one day worth reading.
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