Brucie

A short story about Bruce Forsyth. I think it's brilliant but then again, I am the idiot who wrote it:

Tom’s boots clattered across the tiled floor, the tapetty-tap of tap shoes following him hurriedly. He couldn’t shake off Sir Brucie despite his best efforts; Brucie was surprisingly lithe for an 84 year old. Tom knew this place like the back of his hand, but so did Sir Brucie – this had been his school too. As Tom entered the hall he recoiled in horror and thudded to a halt. A silver plated 16 foot statue rose towered above him, it was a statue of Brucie in his trademark “thinker” pose, the plaque below it read “Sir Bruce Forsyth: our inspiration and leader. Nice to see a statue of him, to see a statue of him nice.” Tom shuddered; this had never been there before the Forsyth Putsch. The click of metal tap shoes against oak floorboards grew louder – damn that old bastard was fast. Tom leapt onto the stage in the hall and hid behind the curtains.

The clicking grew louder and slower, then stopped. “I know you’re in here little boy. Don’t think I won’t find you.” Tom disliked being called little boy, admittedly he had always looked young for his age but he could grow a beard now for Christ’s sake! Bruce (and the clicks) grew nearer, he walked up the stairs leading to the backstage area and slowly crept towards Tom’s hiding place. Tom had never wanted to die like this, at Brucie’s hands, it was so shaming. Brucie ripped the curtain open and grinned at Tom. That moustached grin would haunt Tom for years to come, it was the stuff of nightmares. Tom bolted out onto the stage and started to run for it, but he was sure Brucie would catch him. Da-da-da-da-duh-da-da-duh-da-da-da-dah; the Strictly theme tune started to blast out through the speaker system. Tom looked up at the sound box, Anna was making frantic gestures at him. Tom span round, Brucie was dancing behind him. Bruce had no control over his bones, he was a born dancer, and this song had more power over him than most. Tom sprinted away as Brucie hurled obscenities at him. Anna and Tom collided in the corridor and started to run towards the exit, they heard the speakers stop – “Keeeeeep dancing!” Brucie started to pursue them, but it was in vain, they were already outside the school grounds and had slipped into the back alleys.

Cartoons

This is what happens when I'm given pencils.

Sorry. I don't know why I did this.

For fuck's sake Pete. 

Inspired by an injury claim advert.

Boris

This post will be a bit of an anomaly, because for once, I’m not going to moan. Instead I am going to praise my subject matter: Boris Johnson. No, I have not lost my mind, and I am definitely not a Tory. As a politician Boris is a failure and an idiot. But as a public figure he is fucking hilarious.

I could focus on Boris’ complete ineptitude as a mayor and my shock at how London could repeatedly vote for him. However, that would probably be quite dull and letting me talk about politics is generally a bad idea; I’m opinionated and not very well informed, much like the Daily Mail – ooh, satire! (Sorry, I’ve been watching Miranda). No, this blog post will celebrate the many side-splitting incidents involving Boris.

1) Beijing Handover Party 2008 (the Wiff-Waff speech): Boris celebrated the handover of the Olympics by discussing the origins of ping-pong. I cannot describe the ingenious of the speech so I’ll let you see it yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7utI_jdRfZw&feature=related

2) Super Boris: Boris saves a woman from being mugged by calling her attackers “oiks”. Only Boris…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8340865.stm

3) Football: Boris momentarily forgets what sport he’s playing. Maybe they don’t play football at Eton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOivzoRc0I8

These are only the highlights of Boris’ hilarity, he has made countless gaffs and is generally mental. I can’t help but wonder if he’s not secretly just parodying the party he belongs to. But, genuine or not, Boris is a delight to have in the news.

I’ll leave you with one final gift: Boris’ full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. You’re welcome.

Fucking Olympics

The Olympics are looming and I’ve decided to join the horde of Olympic-haters. I tried to remain indifferent and ignore the whole shebang but after constant discussions in the media, I decided to form an opinion. Unsurprisingly, I chose to join the naysayers.

The debate surrounding the benefits of the Olympics mainly consists of two conflicting armies: the cheerful, patriotic lot grinning menacingly and thrusting a flag into your face while yelling “National Pride! Community Spirit!” repeatedly, and us – the grumpy, moaning ones who snap the plastic flag sticks in half and snarl through gritted teeth as we watch the Olympics unfold.

I have many reasons for hating the Olympics; some of them logical and understandable, some of them stupid and personal – for example, I don’t like watching sport because I’m pathetic at it and watching other people do it brilliantly depresses me. But I’ll try to avoid the personal reasons and stick with the mainstream ones.

Firstly, it’s ridiculously expensive. Stupidly expensive. I don’t even want to know the figure, it may give me an aneurism. Not only is it a lot of money, it’s a waste of money. Because what are we actually paying for? A stadium that will probably be ignored for a few years post-Olympics before being sold at a fraction of its original cost to some giant corporation who will proceed to make millions out of it. A giant tower that looks like the architect stepped on some Meccano and thought “That’ll do.” And a few weeks of sport, including a lovely opening ceremony, which I’m sure will be brilliant because sheep, rain and nurses are always the key components in large-scale public celebrations.

Aggravation number two: it’s happening in London. That’s obvious, but what I mean is that it’s happening where I live, so will therefore fuck up MY summer. Some people may point out that it won’t really affect me and that I should stop moaning. To those people I say: 1) Fuck off. 2) Actually it will affect me. Even if we put aside the possible terrorist attacks (THEY’RE POSSIBLE, I’M NOT PARANOID, HONEST), it’s still irritating. I don’t particularly want extra tourists swanning around London; it’s busy enough as it is. And I don’t really appreciate the fact that public transport will be painfully busy (it’s already like playing a dangerously large game of sardines on the tube as it is) and that the roads are going to be hell; Olympic lanes, who’s genius idea was that?

Finally, it appears to be being organised by children. The kind of children who need safety scissors and have gloves sewn into their coats. This is clearly the driving cause behind most of my complaints but I will treat it as a separate paragraph. They have made some of the most idiotic decisions possible, I can’t figure out if they are deliberately sabotaging the Olympics so we never have to host it again, or if they are actual fuckwits. It’s probably the latter, which is actually more depressing if I’m honest. The TV programme “2012” is a disturbingly plausible portrayal of the Olympic organisers, if you haven’t seen it I suggest you do, as it feels like it could easily be a documentary.

I know my last paragraph said “Finally”, that was misleading, sorry. This is the last paragraph, I promise. In conclusion, I can’t see many upsides to the Olympics. And ultimately, the Olympics are just a few weeks of people running about, jumping over things. How does that warrant a worldwide festival every 4 years? Does anyone actually know? I don’t really have that big of a problem with the Olympics. Except for when it’s where I live. So fuck you Olympics.


Note added on 28/07/12:
My view on the Olympics has changed somewhat. I managed to continue hating it for a while, I even managed to detest it when I saw the Olympic torch. If anything, seeing the torch made me hate it more; a parade of corporate coaches and cheerleaders isn't really my thing. But a combination of Mitt Romney doubting the Olympics and the bloody weirdest thing I have ever seen (the opening ceremony) has installed a strange sense of patriotic pride within me. It feels odd and I'm not entirely sure how it's moved me from anti- to pro-Olympics but it has. So, woo! Go Olympics!


Note added on 30/07/12:
I am now very much behind the Olympics. Team GB just won bronze in the men's team gymnastics and I currently feel disturbingly patriotic and proud. My new enthusiasm may be partially down to Kristian Thomas being very attractive, but the rest of it I cannot explain. (And yes, as well as being hot he is also a very talented gymnast, I do realise that, I'm not a superficial weirdo...) Anyway, I am now a firm Olympic supporter. What I said in my original post is still mainly true but it is now outweighed by unexplainable pride. Go Olympics, go Team GB!

O-levels

Well it seems that Michael Gove is bringing back O-levels. Or at least their structure. 

Which is great. Really great. I'm being bitter and sarcastic if you can't tell.

I've just done my GCSEs, I haven't got the results but the exams are pretty much done. Hopefully I'll do well, and that'll be an achievement that is recognised as "Look! I'm clever. I CAN do things!" Except not everyone sees it like that.

Just as I approach my exams it seems the media is full of people telling "Back in my day..." stories where they tell us just how hard exams were back in their day, how difficult O-levels were, and how exams just keep on getting easier.

I could argue with them but fine, let them have that. Maybe the exams were harder. Taking them all in one go at the end of 2 years of studying does seem harder than doing half in year 10 and half in year 11.

But I have always counted on the fact that exams were getting easier. My GCSEs might mean less than the previous generation's O-levels but at least I knew the next generation's academic accomplishment's would stand for even less; my GCSEs would make me look like a genius in comparison and I could smugly gloat over them and tell them "Back in my day..." stories.

However with Mr Gove's lovely new reforms future students' exams will be harder. And their exams will mean more. And I will be one of the unlucky few who have GCSEs and who are condescended on by both the older and younger generation.

And I'll never get to tell my "Back in my day..." story.

Poetry

This entry would probably be best read in the voice of Frankie Boyle as it's going to be quite angry and probably very sweary.
Poetry is shit. Most of it is pretentious bollocks that doesn't rhyme, with multiple layers of idiotic meaning. Some poetry is bearable: children's poetry and funny poetry that rhymes. But the rest is shite. Poetry is basically the shitty middle ground between songs and stories. I don't really see its purpose in society. You could say that it's a form of self-expression but so is abstract art, and that's fucking shit as well. The reason behind my bitter contempt for poetry (apart from the fact that it's shit) is that I have spent far too long analysing bloody awful poems for my English GCSE. They were all utter bollocks, using similes and imagery and other shit to convey some pretentious poety twat's opinion on war or peace or cheese. The few poems that weren't contrived and multi-layered, were dismissed as bad by my teacher or she proceeded to inject many layers of bollocky meaning into the poem.
Anyway, here is my shitty, hypocritical and hopefully ironic poem:

This is a poem
No it's fucking not
Yes it is, look it has lines and everything
But it doesn't rhyme
It's still a poem
But it's utter shite
No, it's about self-expression
Well you're definitely expressing that you're a prententious twat
I'm not, I have many layers of deep meaning and opinion
Knob.

Now I've finished assaulting poetry I would like to highlight the delights of English language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBBhdgb5eE

Have a nice day.

You probably won't enjoy reading this.

There, I warned you. You probably won't enjoy reading this. This is going to be a blog of my thoughts, with some fanatic praise of things I like thrown in. This blog is probably going to be shit and I doubt anyone will read this but oh well. I'll trudge on anyway.