Angelina Jolie, chasing cheese and skin-conditioning as a cover for world domination

I haven't really achieved much in my life yet. Of course achievement is relative and it would be silly to try and measure myself to standards set by the likes of Alexander the Great who had conquered most of the known world before he was 30. My idea of achievement at this stage in my life doesn't extend beyond remembering to put the toilet seat down after I pee.
What I certainly have not done is virtually shut down an entire country as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have managed to do with Namibia. Not only do they have their very own private no-free zone, but they have convinced the government to ban any foreign journalists from entering the country and have got a sizeable percentage of the Namibian security forces ensuring that no one is going to come anywhere near them unless they wish to be parted with vital organs. In effect, Jolie and Pitt have reached that stage in their lives when they can get a country to hand over its national security arrangements to them to cater to their every whim. How cool is that? Mind you, most men would do yoga on burning coals if it would make Angelina Jolie happy. In any case, when she is 80, she can look back and think that she did something with her life- she had an entire country at her beck and call. Oh yeah, Brad can look back with some satisfaction as well but let's face it, he wasnt the one charming the ass off middle-aged Namibian ministers.
You know at one point when Tom Cruise somehow managed to get Katie Holmes pregnant and Jolie and Pitt were on the way to doing the same, I had a theory that the Cruise baby was going to be the anti-Christ and the Jolie baby was going to be the force for good and they would have a huge battle for the very soul of the human race. Seeing as both turned out to be girls, something tells me they might have other issues to deal with by the time they are 30. It's men who always end up screwing the world.
Women are too busy trying to figure out-among other things- exactly which skin-care is going to do wonders for their skin. I am sick to death of the number of skin-care adverts on TV and a special fuck-you goes to L'Oreal which has succeeded in hijacking just about every program to tell us time and time again that women- YOU ARE WORTH IT and have you ever wanted a smooth clear skin and glowing hair..etc. The thing is they have Charlize Theron advertising it- is this fair? How many women can ever hope to look like Charlize Theron? Surely this kind of advertising will just backfire? No wonder women will never be happy. Neither will men of course, but we are much simpler creatures and a pursuit of happiness is often far down our list of priorities.
But anyway I'm wondering- Does L'Oreal have plans for world domination? This is not an idle question. Those ads are just everywhere all the time, it's almost sinister. Soon you fear they will beam it directly into our brains. Even men are going to start buying the dammn thing. I fear that L'Oreal's plans extend much further than just making sure that all women have clear skin 'because you are worth it'. Something else is going on there. Maybe they are going to form an alliance of evil with the Tom Cruise child. Unless, as I mentioned before she finds something better to do. Seriously if we fought poverty the way we fight bad skin, it would be over by now.

Things that have intrigued me recently: An event in England where dozens of people chase a giant cheese down a steep slope. The target is to beat the cheese to the bottom, but if there is one thing humanity has learned since we first came into being it is that it is impossible to beat a giant piece of cheese in a downhill race. Still they try, and 25 people were injured by the time it was over. They are all fine now- not mentally obviously- and probably training for next year. To be honest it did look like fun, but I like my cheese on a plate not rolling down a hill in the mud. That is technically a nightmare.

Which brings me somehow to something else that caught my eye recently and which is espcially relevant in this world cup season- a fatwa by a Saudi Arabian cleric on football which was passed about 3 years ago but was only translated and brought to international attention about a year ago. Reading it is like stepping back in time. It's very amusing but a bit creepy to think that we have people like this out there. You can be sure that this guy has-to use the technical term- 'issues'. Thankfully Saudi Arabia-or any of its neighbours- did not follow up on this madness and he was told to piss off. Here are some of the highlights which I swear I am absolutely not making up- Im putting them here word for word:
-Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries.
-Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Add to this number or decrease it.
-Play in your regular clothes or your pyjamas or something like that, but not coloured shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing. Rather, they are heretical and western clothing, so beware of imitating their fashion.
-If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order better to struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad. Soccer is not for passing time or the thrill of so-called victory.
-Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should make them join your physical fitness and jihad preparation, or you should say: "Go proselytise and seek out morally reprehensible acts in the markets and the press and leave us to our physical fitness."
-You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practising?
-You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system's despotic international rules.
The mind boggles. What can you say?

Reading: Kingdom of Fear By Hunter.S.Thompson. A man I would have liked to meet despite the fact that he was as mad as a sack of frogs. This book is essentially his memoir and it is not often that you get to see George.W.Bush called 'a whore-beast' in print. Thompson has never been a man to mince his words, but what a brilliant writer he was. He was so gifted that he could spend half his day doing all the drink and drugs under the sun and still bang out a top-notch essay afterwards. His comic and observational talents are almost scary. I was genuinely sad when he killed himself last year.

What kind of sad and twisted world do we live in when Futurama gets cancelled (three years now) but Big Brother is a perfectly acceptable thing to put on Television?

England v Hungary: post-match stream of consciousness

Good win for England today- 3-1 was just about right although I worry that Stevie.G-legend that he is- has resorted to diving. I'm beginning to feel a bit optimistic about their chances at the World cup and I'll be cheering them as if I'm English. Should create a bit of a dilemma when they run into any African team especially Ghana who I quite like. But why is Sven so reluctant to play Michael Carrick? You cant bring in Carragher just because Carrick had one bad game. Keep Carrick in there, play Gerrard upfront with Owen like he did today and save Crouchie, Lennon and Walcott for the last 20 minutes. With Gerrard and Lampard both giving their attacking instincts full rein, it can only do England good. And please, PLEASE dont bring on Jenas and/or Hargreaves unless England is cruising 5-0 with 10 minutes to go. Why didnt Sven take Nolan and Ashton? Argggh. And its a sad world when a defender as incredible as Carragher cant start in central defence. Could he play with Terry and Rio gets pushed into the holding role?
Christ, I cant wait for the World cup.
And Joe Cole- fucking hell, that guy is brilliant on the ball. He's got some silky skills, surely he's half-Brazilian? I think England's problems on the left may be well and truly solved.
Crouch may become the first striker to become a cult figure on the basis of a silly dance on TV, but that was a good goal and a cheeky celebration as well. Something like that makes me wonder if maybe he should partner Owen upfront after all. Would it work? If only he could bloody head the ball! How can you be 6 foot 7 and not be absolutely deadly in the air? Hope he kicks ass though, there's been too many mean comments about the poor guy.

The police could hardly believe their luck (with Rama my slightly nuttier brother)

With my patient sisters Teta and Tona. I wont make any smart-ass comments since we live in the same hall....

Saturday: Good samaritans and the moral dilemma of stolen ice cream

Tomorrow will mark one full week since I finished my exams. I have rediscovered the joys of being lazy, but I am yet to achieve my full potential in this area. It is going to take a bit more work to make me even more lazy, but I'm absolutely up for it. I am also finally engaging with the outside world again (that might be the vaguest sentence I will ever write)and I was back in the union on Saturday- Another night out. Nash came down and I caught up with him and Tommy.B in club. Tommy.B incidentally holds the record for the fastest ejection from a club- He was once kicked out of a club in less than sixty seconds from the moment of his entry. "I was a bit rowdy" was his cryptic explanation. Last night he vanished for about thirty minutes while Nash was telling me more about his adventures in South America. Did you know that if you get tear-gassed your boogers remain black for a week? Yep, dont pick your nose if you get hit by tear gas. It will freak you out. Then again, just don't put yourself in a situation where someone thinks that tear gas is a great way to defuse a situation.
But anyway back to Tommy.B- I run into him later on and he looked 'out of it' so to speak. Where have you been? I asked him
He looked a bit sheepish "I fell asleep in the toilets" He said. Turns out he was in one of the unisex bathrooms and just decided to catch fourty winks in the cubicle- not the brightest thing he has ever done by any means. Luckily the door was open because this girl found him in there and woke him up and then she got him a glass of water telling him it would 'sort him out.' I like that phrase- there's something warm and comforting about it and it's so vague. It can sound different as well- my brother once told me about his friend shouting "Fucking sort yourself out, darling!" to a drunk woman he saw staggering out of a club and that just made me really laugh- there's the harsh bit at the start with the F word, then a sort of concession with the 'sort yourself out' bit and then the tenderness of 'darling'. My sisters thought I was some kind of retard for finding something like that funny.
Anyway I've wandered off again- we were still dealing with Tommy.B. The water did the trick and the good samaritan disappeared. Tommy.B then joined the land of the drunk-but-awake. All he had to do was look around the packed dance floor and realize that virtually no one in this place was in a right state of mind. We were all zombies, but zombies who had made a conscious effort not to curl up and go to sleep in a public toilet unlike poor Tommy. I wondered a few times what I was doing in this place, but I was there and it was alright. Still, it's not really my scene.
We got back much later. The others were starving. "Let's get something from the kitchen" Nash suggested. He and James disappeared and got back with a big tub of ice cream- someone else's ice cream. It hadn't yet been touched.
I thought- oh, they're just going to have a few spoons and take it back, but it just kept going round and round. It came to me and I was a bit too tipsy to fully analyze the moral complexities of eating someone else's ice cream. I helped myself. The ice cream went round the room again and again until it was all gone. I stopped philosophising about it completely.
"That was fantastic" Tommy.B said.
I had to agree.

Sometimes I reflect on the order and stability in my life and I'm grateful for it. I thought of this when I met a guy sometime ago who was a friend of a friend- there was something immediately weird about him. Later on I found out that he's been a squatter the entire time he's been at university. he has never paid a single rent bill- he just lives in abandoned houses and when he gets kicked out he just finds another one. He washes up at McDonalds and those guys are almost certainly unaware that they are providing a great way for a uni student to avoid paying a water bill. That's a strange life to lead- cheap as hell, but strange. He is also a very smart guy by all accounts. But when you have the money- he's got his student overdraft after all- but decide to live in an abandoned house with no water or electricity, and knowingly staying on the wrong side of the law for years, that must be a very insecure feeling. Another friend-of-a friend is currently living in a van. He got kicked out by the person he was living with after trashing the house during a bizzare bout of exam stress. Word on the street is that after the exams, he is planning to go on a month-long drug binge. I'm not talking soft drugs like weed but the real heavy stuff- magic mushrooms, ketamine...you name it, he's going for it.
Such is life at an institution of higher learning.

I am not lost- I am merely emulating the great explorers

Interestingly, it turns out that this wasn't all a bad dream: Big brother IS definitely back on our screens. Like a child returning to the scene of an unsuccesful attempt to steal cookies from the kitchen and staring at the broken cutlery and overall mess when he knows that he must instead run for dear life, I keep returning. I catch a few minutes of it everyday to assure myself that this is the worst show on television. It is with great pleasure that I realize I was right all along. This isn't even a guilty pleasure- its just a collection of freaks and idiots and cry-babies most of whom should have their membership card for the human race reviewed as soon as possible.
And then the thing is Channel 4 actually have a discussion show afterwards. They have this thing with a panel of 'experts' and a host and random jobless people and they sit around and discuss the show. They analyse it and try and predict what will happen and say things like 'The dynamic of the set-up right now means that X is being frozen out and if things continue the way they are, Y and Z have a good chance of forming a good team to make sure that P and Q get evicted' or some rubbish like that. As if the show isnt stupid enough, you actually need a separate show to explain it? Is there someone watching 'Big Brother' and thinking- "whats going on? Whats this show about? I need a few people to lead me through it." Bloody hell! They also read out text messages from viewers and some woman wrote in tonight and said "Bonnie has taken all this with more grace than Nelson mandela" Who the hell wrote this and is she actually allowed to reproduce? Since when do you compare a 27 year jail term for fighting apartheid to a couple of idiots sitting around on their ass all day and moaning because they can only get tap water? I did get a suprise once though- I switched on and this woman who was one of the contestants was calmly explaining that everyone needed to calm down and work together and cut out the drama. My mouth was literally hanging open- an outbreak of common sense! On Big brother! I didnt see that coming, not in a million years.
I should rant more often- I feel so much better already! Ciro once told me "Do you ever get angry?"
I asked him why.
He said "Because you are always too calm. I think when you go back to your room you break some stuff or something! You can't possibly be like this all day"
Anyway the sun was out today and it definitely feels like summer. The effect it has on people can be a bit suprising. I was walking with John and Quena heading towards campus and Quena stopped and snatched a purple pretty-looking flower.
"Look at this!" She said "Isnt it beautiful? And it smells so good!" her eyes were shinning with delight. Yep, there are flowers everywhere and it's been a while. You can be forgiven for treating the appearance of flowers with so much enthusiasm.
And much as I like flowers and gardens-more on gardens later if I can squeeze that in- I cant see how the BBC think this is a fit way to occupy a prime time TV slot. yes between 8 and 9 everyday this week we get 'The Chelsea flower show' which is...well, a flower show as you might have cleverly guessed. This means endless shots of beautiful gardens and flowers and talk and more talk which approaches the whole thing with the kind of seriousness most of us attach to things like National security. Only the English could pull this off.
As for staying in bed all day watching TV and reading, this has proven to be a very easy promise to keep. I did go out last night after 'German Ben' stopped by and said he was in town for only a few days so we should party like it was 1969 minus the dodgy costumes and the psychedelic drugs. It was as always an interesting night but I wont get into it right now. In the morning my head was aching accusingly as if to say YOU BASTARD, WAS THAT REALLY NECESSARY? WELL I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY NOW! Mez and Nash might come down this weekend which would be great. I haven't seen Mez in nearly a year now but I did see Nash before he went to South America and got involved in all sorts of shenanigans including accidentally getting involved in a riot and taking part in a very dodgy bungee jumping experiment. You meet the most interesting people at University. Mez for instance was a larger-than-life character who like Tommy.B was very bright but almost allergic to things like assignments. We were very similar in the sense that both of us looked at the world with the childish wonder of an eight-year old kid. I remember last year when summer had just started and she was telling me with astonishment about listening to the birds sing outside her window which she hadn't noticed throughout the year and how happy that made her. I thought- I completely understand that. A man who often sleeps after 4.am knows the sound of the birds outside.
Unfortunately Chris will probably not make it so we won't be able to have a full reunion. Quena told me something that made me laugh the other day.
"Chris thinks we are a fraternity" She said "He sends me emails that finish with 'I miss you and the rest of the members!'" That thought gave me a serious bout of laughter. We all miss Chris, fraternity or not.
Meanwhile shit is still hitting the fan down at the Home Office- as if foreign criminals not being deported is not enough of a mess-up, turns out that they actually had illegal immigrants cleaning the home office! What a splendidly comical turn of events. Some things you just can't make up- better to stand aside and wait for real life to step in. It rarely dissappoints. Still there is a lot of hysteria about foreigners right now thanks to this '1000 criminals not deported after release' affair and I sometimes wish I had a shirt with the words 'I am not one of the 1,023' just to put everybody's mind at ease when they meet me.
Terry Pratchett- absolute genius.

the end of the line: how a ray of sunshine nearly made me understand

I'm done.
Am I delighted? Absofuckinglutely.
When I came out of that exam, I just felt completely numb. It's a bit hard to do cartwheels when its raining outside and today was one of the gloomiest days weather-wise. Anyway I just stood there, trying to take it all in and wondering why I just felt completely numb and relieved. I've been doing this whole revision thing for so long that I was just completely drained at the end of it. There was just a blur of people walking past me and strangely enough Under the bridge by Red Hot Chilli Peppers was playing in my head. I would have been a lot happier not having a song about heroin addiction in my head even though it is a lovely song. I remember in my first year it was clarity by John Mayer and it was so fitting but then again the sun was out that day unlike today which was as wet as it is going to get.
It was all over. I didnt have to pick up another law book. The implications of this are staggering. Like Medusa's head, I dont think I can look directly at this at the risk of being paralyzed.
Jade comes bounding out. I've never seen anyone as constantly happy as Jade- eternally sunny and as a consequence very likeable. Like me, it hadn't quite sunk in for her but she was dreaming up plans of dinners with her friends and nights out and novels and TV. Looking all around, there were people like us all trying to take it in. You could see almost see them thinking feverishly about how much drinking and shagging and lazying they were going to cram in this summer. We all have plans.
Even much later when I went to campus I couldnt feel the euphoria I thought I would- just that happy numbness. I was walking through the field on my way back and it was drizzling slightly. Then it suddenly stopped and for a few brief seconds against all odds the sun peeked out of the clouds. At that moment I got a sudden flash of what this all meant and then the sun vanished and the feeling was gone. I was happy, but I hadn't yet taken it all in and I still haven't.
"Don't you dare start gloating" Quena says as soon as she sees me at lunch. Tommy.B is there as well and he's making jokes about his predicament-"I got all of the costs and none of the benefits of University!"- and is in a suprisingly good mood. Thankfully today's conversation doesn't pick off from yesterday's which was about transsexuals. Vid is done as well but he's got a flu and he's feeling down. He's been sleeping literally all day after his exam and looked a bit embarassed when Quena had one of those mad moments of hers and jumped into bed with him and started cuddling up. I haven't got that much sleep recently- this morning I was up at five minutes to six because I was so paranoid about waking up late.
I was lying in bed all day. Aside from that moment in the field, the only other time it hit me was when I had just put Gorillaz in the CD player and I was walking around the room looking for something. I then suddenly-almost against my will- broke out into a mad dance saying "I'm done, I'm fucking done...." (thats the short version- the long version contains more swearing than I want to put on this blog)then when I was done I calmly got into bed and started reading some stuff I had saved up.
I've got weeks of chilling coming up.
I'm as ready as I'm going to be.

Rational, always rational....

I'm finding it so hard to motivate myself for my final exam. Its two days away and just sitting down to revise it is turning out to be an uphill task. This is because all the hard exams are behind me and this is one that I'm not really worried about. History of English law was just about as bad as I thought it would be although it was at least 'doable'. A bad sign was seeing Louisa panicking. I went to see her the other day and as soon as she started talking I knew she had reached that panic point-she sounded like she was about to cry there and then. When someone who is usually as well prepared as Louisa starts feeling the heat, then you wonder why you are so calm but then again, it was for a module I wasnt doing. Meanwhile Geoff believes he is going to re-sit at least two modules. He was telling me this the day he finished his exams. I found him sitting outside the library in the sun drinking wine straight out of the bottle and grinning happily (he was drunk and this was 3pm)Everyone around me has a few exam horror stories to tell. Today I managed only about two hours in the library, and then wandered off to ASDA with Rich and Quena to get some dinner and then eventually found myself watching eurovision.
Eurovision is awful- the music is so bad that words fail me. But this is what makes it so watchable- most of Europe takes this very seriously and yet its like pop idol gone horribly, horribly wrong. There's a lot of hot women and Terry Wogan's hilarious commentary, but the only real reason to watch it is to marvel at the bad music. Dear me, there is bad music. I also found myself getting a little cynical when the guy from Ireland started singing one of those 'love is all we need, seriously people' kind of songs. I think the chorus was 'Every song is a cry for love' which of course is bollocks. I'm not a cynical person but sometimes you hear love songs that are just too cheesy and cliched that you find yourself looking for a place to hide. Love is all well and good, but dont copy and paste all the dodgiest love songs to do that. Sometimes I find the idea of romantic love a bit dodgy- the idea that there is a woman out there who is supposed to completely understand me and make everything cool is a bit far-fetched when I think long and hard about it.
Ok, I've strayed off-topic. Yeah, Eurovision is great, cant motivate myself for final exam, getting ready to finish, had pasta for dinner blah blah...Oh yeah, one more thing- I am getting absolutely sick and tired of the Da Vinci Code. The day all the posters and the adverts are out of my life will not be a day too soon. The book itself is dodgy- entertaining at times, but poorly written and aside from the central ideas, it follows almost every single thriller cliche. Wild horses would not drag me to a cinema to watch the film and I confess to a bit of pleasure when film reviewers gave it a serious kicking. The Times film critic put it best "The story is so far-fetched it brings tears of pure joy to the eyes"
Actually why am I blogging, I really dont have time for this. Got to get some reading done...

"We are all grateful for our iron lungs"

I am privileged to live in a world that constantly seeks to amuse me and often succeeds. My favourite story of the week was one of those things that make me laugh out loud while lying in bed in the middle of the night.
So this Congolese guy is at the BBC studio looking for a job and he's waiting for an interview. Then a producer comes down looking for an expert due to give his professional opinion on a recent court case between apple corporation and the apple recording label which the former won. Unfortunately the Congolese guy shared the same first name and before you could say 'mama nangaye' he somehow found himself live on TV thinking he was doing his interview. The expression on his face was totally priceless when the woman asked him the implications of the case- he looked first like he was about to scream and then as if he had swallowed a fishbone all in the space of less than a second. I can't remember the last time I saw so many confused and terrified facial expressions crammed on the same face in such a tiny space of time.
So the guy is trapped on air, but credit to him he didn't just run away screaming. He answered three questions before the cameras cut away, but what he said was comic gold and I will put it up here for future generations. Here was his reaction word for word:
(asked if he was suprised by the verdict)
"I am very suprised to see this verdict to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came they told me something else and I am coming"
(then he was asked if more people would now be downloading online)
"Actually if you can walk everywhere you are going to see a lot of people downloading the internet and the website and everything they want. But I think it is much better for development to inform people what they want and to get the easy way and so faster if they are looking for it"
Fantastic- this might be the first time I have considered nonsense to be poetry. It was such a wonderful piece of nothingness and complete rubbish that it was almost beautiful. I would love to meet this Guy Goma chap. He's already become something of a star and I wish him all the best.

Meanwhile relief with my jurisprudence exam- the three questions I had been dreading did not even make an appearance and to say I was relieved was an understatement. After tomorrow's legal history- which is a guaranteed nightmare and I would rather undergo a tooth extraction without anaesthetic than face that exam- I will feel as if I'm done even if I've got International law on Monday. Should I immediately get drunk or should I stay in with the Terry Pratchett and just curl up in bed with tea, biscuits and my novel? Better yet I could read the novel while downing some alchohol thereby achieving a nice balance. I've been sober for more than two months and I'm beginning to see the world a bit too clearly for my liking. There is such a thing as too much sanity. Mind you I'm not there yet, as my recent conversation with Leo can testify.

Champions Legaue final: Great game, Barcelona deserved to win. What was Henry moaning about? This is the first time I've seen him being less of a gentleman in either victory or defeat. Ronaldinho was a bit poor in the game and I remembered what he said when someone once asked him why he smiled so much.
"Do you think I've got a choice with this many teeth?" He replied.

Miracle #12

Conversation with Leo on Sunday- started out with him telling me I should buy a PC and then somehow ended up in the two of us having a flight of fancy involving me shooting at President Bush with a T-shirt gun, going on the run, starting a new world war and then jumping into a specially built escape pod with Jessica Alba and heading for the moon. Honestly some people are just a bad influence.

Meanwhile Quena becomes more and more like a fictional character everyday and soon she will just disappear into a fictional world. She did have a good line the other day-"Even my conscience is a bitch"- and Vid is supposed to be her conscience, but he is often found wanting. The bad news of the week was discovering that Tommy.B is not going to be able to graduate- he just fell so far behind his work, things piled up and he just threw in the towel. Didn't even do his exams. It's a real pity. I like Tommy.B and I had no idea things had got to the level where he basically just gave up. The thing is he is a very smart guy, but is just not academically oriented at all much like Mez last year. He doesn't quite know what to do and I feel a bit guilty in a way- if me and Quena had kept an eye on him and maybe done some strategic pushing, we might have got him on track.

Adam- told me a very disturbing story that I will not repeat here. However the lesson I took from it was that sex can be a very very dangerous activity indeed.

Biscuits:
Chocolate Hobnobs- these are the kings of the biscuit world. There are many chocolate coated biscuits out there, but there is only one like the hobnob. Leo doesn't agree with me, but the chocolate hobnob is the big kahuna. We could probably achieve world peace with the chocolate hobnob and plenty of tea. Disarming Iran would also help, but chocolate hobnobs are even more crucial.
Maryland cookies: The packaging is poor and the biscuits are small, but cookies-bless them-are cookies. If that sounds profound, that's because it is. The fact that cookies are cookies is a deep philosophical statement which could revolutionize philosophy...anyway, that's a story for another time. Maryland cookies are worth it, but buying one packet is just not enough. You need another for back-up because they run out so quickly. Plus they are chocolate cookies- it doesn't take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion I've come to. Eat, and then eat some more.
Chocolate Digestive: Another chocolate contender and a good one- good substitute for the hobnob although they aren't quite the same thing. It's like Rooney and Owen- they are both strikers, but different types of strikers. Anyway the digestive itself whether chocolate or not is usually a mark of down-to-earth quality and the chocolate version delivers. If a biscuit can be your friend, then the chocolate digestive is a pretty dammn good one.
Plain digestive: Once you take the chocolate out it's not quite the same thing, but a nice, solid dependable biscuit. One day mankind will look back and say 'yes, we ate the digestive biscuit and it was good' although they may say this while hiding underground trying to take shelter from radioation from the nuclear war that starts world war 3 so memories of the digestive will be extra special.
And of course you will need tea, but you don't need me to tell you that.

May 13th 2006- An F.A Cup final to remember

YES! YES! Dear God that strike by Gerrard at the end was just unbelievable. How many wonder strikes does Stevie G. have in him? And has this man sold his soul to the devil? This was probably the greatest F.A Cup final of all time and one of the greatest games I've ever-and will ever-see. Kudos to West ham- they were fantastic, but it wasn't to be for them.


I'm so proud to be a Liverpool fan today and Stevie.G is an absolute legend.

Liverpool FC- FA Cup Final winners 2005-2006

the things you think are precious*

I don't like cars.
Really I don't- and I'm a guy. What does that make me? yes, a guy who doesn't like cars, I know but what else? It makes me part of a very small club. I just don't see the point really. Sure when I get a decent job, I'll try and get a nice car but talk car models and all that just goes way over my head. For me the difference between two nice cars is like the difference between Ant and Dec. I might be the only person on earth who watches 'top Gear' not to look at the cars, but because I think Jeremy Carkson is witty and also on the off-chance that Charlotte Church will be invited. All this talk of latest models and all the car lingo does absolutely nothing for me. I was thinking about this the other day because I was reading the 'motors' section of a newspaper and realized how disconnected I was from that world. Mind you I was left cold by the fashion section as well so maybe that is not saying much.
Things you never thought you would see: A 40 foot mechanical elephant walking through central London. Where do you start? Apparently it's some kind of interractive work of art and entertainment. It's slightly creepy, but I like it. That's thinking outside the box. Can you imagine pitching that idea to the relevant London council? They must have thought there was an asylum somewhere with an inconclusive rollcall. They probably unleased the men in white coats on him before he was allowed to do his thing.
And another story that really grabbed my attention this week was the tribe in the Amazon called the Piraha that had a unique language- no numbers, no words for colour or past tense and absolutely no oral or written history. Imagine how hard it must be to get a scrabble game going- not to mention a pub quiz- but seriously, that makes you wonder. Think of how much you attach to language and what a core part of you it is and now phase out all those things missing from the piraha language.
I had a random memory come into my head the other day- I'm about 11 or 12 and I'm lying in bed half-asleep. Then the light comes on and my mum tip-toes into the room. She's whispering because she doesn't want my dad to know she's woken me up but she has a suprise for me. It's a book and I can still remember what it looked like as clear as day- thick and purple with 'Captain Bunker's ghost and other stories' written on the cover and a guy with a large white beard and a pipe- one of those books with a lot of different stories, poems and odds and ends. I can barely go back to sleep now- could I stay up and read just a little bit? My mum says no, it's too late but it will be waiting for you in the morning. She kisses me goodnight and switches off the light. I lie in bed and think happily of 'Captain Bunker's ghost' and also that what my mum has done is really sweet. Tomorrow promises to be an adventure and I'm looking forward to it.

Hey brain- I've figured you out

I just came out of my criminology exam and it went well. Walking out of the room, the sun was out and everyone was lounging in the grass and it felt like I had already finished my exams. It is amazing how a change of weather can really lift your mood, I felt really good today. Certainly it helped that Criminology turned out to be much better than the EU one of yesterday which was technically an ambush. No EC supremacy? No direct effect? I can't remember the last time I saw so many people looking so bewildered. I've been suprisingly calm throughout the entire exam period, and this is probably the calmest I have ever been before exams although I don't quite know why.
But it has been a strange week generally- a week in which Theo Walcott has been picked for the world cup despite not having played a single premiership game and only slightly older than my brother Manzi. Eriksson- Mr Cautious himself- picking an untested 17 year old? What is the world coming to? Nothing in the world makes sense now. I'm excited, but I'm confused.
Oh yeah- confused and happy. And optimistic. It's me vs these exams and only one of us can win. Well it could be a draw, but let's not get into that. Am I actually typing up all this? Well, that's cool because I'm not actually going to put it up on the blog. That would just be stupid....

Boris you legend!

This was what gave me the biggest laugh of the week- Boris Johnson conservative Party Member of Parliament coming on for the last 10 minutes of a friendly game between a lot of middle-aged celebrities representing England and Germany. He ran around (rather,he tried to) like a headless chicken having no clue what was going on and then performed that wonderful rugby tackle on the poor German guy who never saw it coming (and incredibly enough he actually got the ball although completely accidentally). I was laughing so hard my sides hurt. About an hour later when I was reading, I thought of it and just started laughing again for at least five minutes. There is no doubt in my mind who is the hero of the week.
Boris- you, sir are an absolute legend.

indeed.

place right its in everything

A good week ended quite badly when I watched match of the day and watched in utter horror as Wayne Rooney was stretchered off with a broken bone in his foot. He is likely to miss the world cup. Without Rooney there is no chance in hell that England will even reach the semi-finals. It's a terrible blow. Owen isn't really match-fit either, so the ultimate nightmare scenario is seeing both Owen and Rooney unfit to play. The horror!

Meanwhile there is a revolution you may not have heard about- I found out about it while watching an ad on TV for a new toothbrush that I think is called 'oral B'. The ad itself is so over-the-top you have to keep reminding yourself they are only talking about a toothbrush but these guys make it look as if NASA and Stephen Hawking joined forces to create it. The best bit is its tagline at the end-
"Changing the way you brush forever"
What? How on earth can you revolutionize the way I brush my teeth? What the hell kind of toothbrush is that? There is no toothbrush on God's green earth that is even going to make me go 'hmm' unless I can send emails on it and I'm not sure I would feel comfortable sending emails on a toothbrush anyway-it just wouldnt feel right. Although I could be wrong, I hope there's not going to be a stampede for this superbrush which would go some way to proving that as consumers, most of us are now officially stupid. Say what you want, but a toothbrush is a toothbrush and that's a cold hard fact of life that no amount of fancy talk and supposed 'technology' can ever change.
It's a bit like Gillette's new five-blade razor which took a team of about fifty scientists, millions of pounds and about 5 years to unveil to the world. Yes, thats exactly what the world needed- that massive step from four blades to five. Thanks a lot guys, now everything is just fine.

My brother won this weekend's scrabble game which means he is now leading 41-47. I was putting the letters away and he said "My wrist is hurting"
He was trying hard to suppress what was obviously an evil smile.
I didn't want to ask because I had the distinct feeling the answer was not going to be a boost to my dignity which was already wounded. But I had to.
"Why?"
He was laughing as he answered "Because of the bitchslapping I just handed out to you!"
I walked right into that one I have to say.