David Tries New Things

Decanters of Wine and Chateramas or 'David Tries Fighting the News'

2015-02-21T13:48:00.000+00:00

I’m often asked to consider – more often than not by myself – why I write. Why do I want to be an author?

I read something yesterday responding to something George Orwell once wrote. This being that successful authors don’t write for pleasure, or for love of the craft, but they are driven by some inescapable demon that keeps their mind focussed in divine purpose levels of concentration to see an idea and be compelled to commit it to paper.

Orwell may be one of my favourite writers; I was blessed with excellent English teachers so I was raised on Animal Farm followed by 1984. I can’t profess to say I’ve read the passage of essay or speech where Orwell actually gave this view on writing. If I am to believe in the man who wrote some of my favourite books then I’m inclined to say that these are merely the words of a columnist who doesn't love his job the way I would if I were lucky enough to have it. Having said that, I don’t need to love the man to love his work – look at Liam Gallagher.

I write because I love it. The simple moment of having an idea can make my day. The completion of another chapter, another scene, blog, article or even a tweet perfectly balanced with sarcasm and humour; ideally fit without a character to spare. However, I would never say I’d be completely satisfied if everything I’ve ever written stayed on my computer. Almost, but still. That’s why I read.

When I read the news, just taking today as an example, I can list the things going on the world that scare me, sadden me and offend me. We have the Oscars, 97% of films written and produced by men this year. We have ISIS, 3 more women abandoning radiology degrees and lives here off to join them. We have the imminent threat of war from the East. Russia seems poised to cause some sort of international incident. The term ‘end of the world’ gets bandied about in something other than a dystopian novel, and it’s not something I want to be reading when I’m watching Mary Berry make scones on BBC1. The oceans are full of plastic, children are increasingly becoming depressed and killing themselves because of the pressure heaped on them during exams. Let’s widen that, the education system in this country is under threat from people who don’t believe books – the things I live by - are important. The NHS is buggered. All the while we have a bunch of toffs and shadow-toffs engaged in childish arguments shouting ‘pick-me, pick-me’ when I’m sat wondering why they don’t just set their decanters of wine and chateramas aside and do something to fix the world depicted in the news every morning.

The list goes on. So I turn to books. Books warn us of dystopia and evidence continually surfaces to suggest we’re travelling at breakneck speed towards one. Some might say we live in one already.

But fear not, I don’t wish to spread the doom the news media shoves down our throats. If we examine books, we see new, exciting debut authors every day. Books stare at the man-laden film world and hold up the big two fingers. We have women heroines in abundance. We have even more women writers and we, the readers who think them wonderful for their minds, not – E! Entertainment - for how pedicured their feet are.

Books offer ideas that have us believe a better world, either by showing us that world or holding up a mirror on our own, so we might change our paths and create one that doesn't look quite so bad. They offer us solutions to war, cures to terror, visions of a world where innocents aren't murdered and people far cleverer than you or me be the change they want to see.

So I turn to these. These fragments I have shored against my ruins, as TS Eliot famously, if not a little melodramatically, once wrote. When modern life attempts to bring you down in the guise of a newspaper, you can look away; peel open the pages of an old favourite, listen to a fantastic song or flick on the best on screen and realise that things aren't quite so bad.

So I would ask Mr Farage when he disregards the arts because he might not be intelligent enough to put down his pint and pick up Animal Farm instead, I’d hope that he’d feel the guilt shared by thousands that their reflection has a snout.

You've Added 'Final Frontier' to Basket. Proceed to Checkout? or 'David Tries Space Journalism'

2014-11-16T14:40:00.001+00:00

And so readers, once again I find myself compelled to voice an opinion. This cloudy Sunday afternoon I look to the skies and can’t make out the cosmos spread above me. Regardless, recent weeks have been full to bursting with exciting news from space.

Let's examine the evidence. Chris Nolan, a writing idol of mine, releases Interstellar, a film I’m yet to see but am told is ‘amazing’ ‘a clever blockbuster’ ‘too full of science.’ Scratch that last one. But still, whatever you think of Nolan’s work, Interstellar is released with its finger on the pulse. On the big red button that I’m absolutely certain is all you need to launch a rocket.

And here we have the crux of my argument. We have the pioneer: ‘Philae the Bouncing Robot’ – beautifully christened by The Sunday Times, and the entrepreneur– beardy Branson and his space tourism disaster.

First of all, can I just give my own congratulations to every man, woman, child, dog, cat, amoeba involved with the Rosetta project. Too often these days we’re lambasted with what I like to call ‘non-news.’ I don’t like Ed Milliband this and Kardashian’s arse is photoshopped that. We watch endless repeats of the same 5 episodes of The Big Bang Theory on E4 and spend our evenings deciding which social media site is best suited to wile away the hours.

Philae is a beacon of hope in all that pointless sludge. This is not an attack on the pointless sludge. I’m a member of all these sites, can do a fairly good impression of Howard’s mum and will be tuning in to a reality triple bill tonight with ‘The X-Come Dancing Factor–Get Me Out of Here!’ We have this stuff to get through the day. To laugh, chat, complain at Louis Walsh and just for a second forget the stress of modern life. Stress used very lightly here – first world and all.

But the first world landed a robot on a comet. With the precision of ‘throwing a dart at North America from 19 miles up in the atmosphere and balancing it on the pin point of the Empire State Building,’ to once again quote The Sunday Times.

We can do amazing things, and it was a travesty that the landing wasn’t televised in some way. We could have had our ‘one giant leap for mankind’ moment to tell the grandkids.

And then you have space tourism. I read an article by Caitlin Moran yesterday who said Manhattan was great for the reason that we built it simply because we could. Not for the need, or the beauty, or by decree, but because we had the money, the talent and the desire. So we built a metropolis on an island. And it’s for this reason that part of me respects Branson and Virgin Galactic. Because why not?

Then I thought of a reason. How many of us will go on Branson’s version of Thunderbird 2 when it’s up and running? Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Brand and Stephen Hawking were three names on a list of current ticket holders. And who deserves to see that view of earth in all its majesty? Well I don’t think it’s the dandy anarchist and I don’t think he was in Titanic either. 1 out of 3 is probably the ratio of the deserved/rich on that plane.

Call me a curmudgeon, but I believe space should be earned. Astronauts train for years, decades for the privilege. They push themselves to the limits of human capability to accomplish world-defining experiments. We make baby steps in exploring and understanding our universe. Philae and the European Space Agency could prove that life on Earth was spawned from space - when a comet hit millions of years ago, gave a dry planet water and the amino acids that make up the building blocks of life.
And then we have Russell Brand seeing the same view because someone at a desk thinks he’s good to put on TV for the same reason that Kim Kardashian showed us her nipples. Because people will look, people will fork out their money. I feel a slight injustice there.

If I might, I will make a metaphor.

I want a Times Atlas of the World. I love maps, I always have. There are few things that I enjoy more than sitting, reading, learning capital cities, seeing the shape of our earth recorded by men and women smarter than I. I could buy the book but it’s inordinately expensive and that defeats the object. The Times awards an atlas to the winner of its cryptic crossword competition, so I’ll earn the atlas. If I bought it, I’d be no better than Russell Brand.
Sure, we can buy our place on a spaceship if we're rich enough, but should we really be part of plans like Branson's? Trying to commercialise the universe? Could this inordinate sum of money being used to paint a red Virgin stamp onto the vacuum of space not be used to support real space exploration? Or how about used to help people from below the first world join us in the privilege of the pointless sludge? Together with footballers wages and the long list of benefactors of misplaced wealth we could end this 1st, 2nd, 3rd world system and simply have a world. Too utopian? Probably, but if they can land on a comet...

As a conclusion, I’ll give you two headlines, one real and one for the future:

One Giant Step: Philae’s landing on a comet is the space era’s most astounding feat of navigation. Forget the critics – this is a positive leap for mankind.*

Poodle haired comedian does insensitive impression of scientist on space plane. Andrew Sachs sympathises.

Who deserves space?

*Fantastic articles by Bryan Appleyard and Caitlin Moran, who I hope won't mind me using quotes

A Space In-between or 'David Tries a Short Story'

2014-10-18T18:49:00.001+01:00

An exciting new turn for 'David Tries New Things'. Throughout my education I've been asked to write short stories. I've never been great at limiting myself to about 2000 words. As Charlotte said to me only a couple of hours ago: 'You're like me, you think in novels.' And this is true to a great extent.

But I love the idea of writing short stories. To write 2000 words or thereabouts and tell a story of characters you only have a short amount of time with and tell as much as a novel can. I think it enhances your skills as a writer. Also, I have new ideas every day that I think could one day be novels. Why not get them down on paper as short stories first? Then I can extend. If I don't then I have the accomplishment of a finished story in an hour.

I could have written a blog about this, but sometimes my blog writing becomes angsty and grumpy. I don't like this. In a story I can turn angst to humour. I can extend my talents and explore an idea for myself in the process. So that's what I'll do.

Just a little background. I've recently started a subscription to The Times. I know, I'm officially old now. But this means I'm taking a far greater interest in what's going on in the world. I wanted to write a blog about Cameron, Milliband and the rest of them. Who votes, why we vote, why young people sometimes don't. But realistically, who's going to want to read that? You might as well by the paper. So a story sounded like a better idea. Secondly, I've recently come to face with one person's opinions. These opinions grated on me a great deal. A little game for you: spot the opinions that grind my gears. Also, a warning - piss off a writer, you end up in a story. So here we are. I present - 'A Space In-between':

The lift ground to a halt with an ungodly sound. Jonas found himself cringing as though someone had slid their hand across some cellophane, or scratched their nails down a blackboard. He stumbled backwards and grabbed the rail behind him. Two things occurred to him. One, that of course the lift had broken and he was now stuck somewhere between the fourth and fifth floors of the civic centre in the middle of town. And two, that he would be spending an extended period of time with a complete stranger.

After that, more things started to make themselves apparent. He shut off the old Blur track he'd been bopping along to while it pumped its way, without register into his ears via random shuffle. He sighed and slumped the huge bag of newspapers, which were giving his shoulder stiffness issues every single morning, on the floor. They're probably all bent now, he moaned in his head. Another telling off from Mr Barnes tomorrow then.

'God that sounded like a car crash,' said the other man in the lift car, Jonas assumed more to break the silence than anything.

He turned. Jonas looked into the eyes showing the first sign of wrinkles. The salt and pepper hair and the salt and pepper from breakfast sprinkled on his left lapel. He wondered if there was enough time to get his sketchpad out. Would that be rude? To just slide down on the floor and start drawing? Not much inspiration in a stuck lift though.

'I've never seen one,' Jonas grunted. He didn't mean to, he just hadn't spoken that morning yet. Even so, he noticed the doubt in the man's eyes. The question over whether following this path down to conversation town was a brilliant idea or an ill-conceived fancy.

'Bloody awful,' the man replied. He laughed. 'I crashed my first car when I was your age. I'd just seen this girl. I...erm...' He faltered and his words faded to silence.

Jonas felt his hackles rise. I'm seventeen not seven.

The silence in the car became thick. Jonas shuffled. He glanced at the alarm button on the wall. Aren't we supposed to push that now? Or do they know already? He cursed his paper round. He'd be late for college now. What seventeen year old still has a paper round anyway?

'Guess we should give this a little old push then,' the man ventured. I bet he's a dad. Jonas thought Only dads talk like that.

The man reached over and pushed the button. There was a loud ringing on the speakers. Then silence again.

He rose to his tiptoes and let himself fall. His suit looked old and well worn. He must work here.

'Oh come on,' he said and jabbed the button again.

There was a crackle this time, then a quiet grumbling voice. 'Yeah alright we heard you the first time.'

'Erm...what's happening?' asked the man. 'I have a place to be you know.'

At his words Jonas began to wonder whether he was high up in the council. He clearly thought a bit of himself.

Jonas heard the end of a sigh as the repair man clearly pressed the speak button too early. 'Don't worry, you shouldn't be in there too long.'

Silence again. Jonas decided that sitting on the floor was the best plan of action. He slid down the wall and stretched out his feet next to the bag. Then, without even thinking about it, he slid his hand in his pocket and extracted a smartphone with a large crack down the middle of the screen. No signal. Great.

'So, erm... you going to go and vote later?' said the man. 'I'm Terry by the way. Terry Grisham.'

'Jonas,' Jonas replied. 'And no, I'm eighteen tomorrow.'

'Sod's law,' Terry tutted and rolled his eyes like he belonged in a sitcom from the eighties. His eyes flickered to the small noticeboard next to the alarm button. 'Can't escape his smarmy mug.'

Jonas followed his eyes and noticed a picture of Henry Bayes, the Tory candidate. Dad loved him. Strict on immigration, strict on criminals, strict on everything. Jonas looked forward to the days when conversations at the dinner table didn't revolve around Henry bloody Bayes.

'My dad likes him,' Jonas said for no reason other than to continue talking. The threat of the awkward silence was approaching again.

'A lot of people do,' Terry replied as if that was a reason to condemn them.

'He has some good ideas doesn't he?' Jonas asked. Terry would know. Terry was politically involved. All adults seemed to be. Jonas wondered if you reached a certain age and it all became interesting. Like he'd wake up tomorrow morning and would know what 'deficit' meant.

'You could say that,' Terry said. 'The NHS stuff might be good, but he only said that because our guy did. Never trust a Tory.'

Jonas laughed. 'Sounds like football.'

Terry bristled. Clearly not a fan. 'What do you mean?'

'Well, you can't trust a gooner. Dad says that too.' He met Terry's blank stare. 'A gooner's an Arsenal fan. Dunno why. I don't really like it as much as Dad does. But he doesn't like anyone if they support Arsenal. It's the rivalry. I just thought it sounded the same.'

'I'd hardly say that,' replied Terry. 'Bunch of hooligans don't have much on the people who keep their country from falling down.'

'I dunno about that,' Jonas said. This is like debating at college, he thought. If only Miss Peters could see me now. 'I've seen... what's it called. That House of Lords place when Mum turns it on before Eastenders. You know? The one with the green chairs they just use to shout at each other?'

'The House of Commons, actually,' Terry corrected with his eyebrows raised. What are they teaching kids these days, his eyebrows said. 'And sometimes people like Mr Bayes over there need to be put in their place.'

'But I thought the other lot, the Labour guys had messed everything up? We've been at war for about ten years haven't we?'

Terry sighed. 'It's a little more complicated than that.'

Jonas picked at a loose thread on his jeans. He'd met people like Terry before; teachers who thought they were doing children a great service by imparting their great pool of knowledge. Of course they'd never actually give you the answer quickly.

'Rick Yeoman did great things for this country this past term,' Terry said. 'Of course the papers never report that do they. I don't suppose you watch the news?'

'Well it's not like they make it appealing,' Jonas retorted quickly. 'Why would I want to watch an hour of how terrible the world it. You should watch YouTube, there's only funny, cool stuff.'

'Oh I don't go in for all that rubbish,' Terry replied, crinkling his nose like YouTube smelled funny. 'YouFace and TweetGram and the rest of them.'

'I see both of them on Twitter all the time,' Jonas informed Terry. 'Both Dick and Bayes always tweet stuff. It's quite interesting to get their opinions actually. Like, to see what they're actually like as blokes.'

'I don't think Rick would do that,' Terry snorted. 'He probably gets some intern to do it.'

'I saw it on the news actually, now you mention it. Dad put it on. I think he does it himself.'

'Don't believe everything you see on the news,' Terry scoffed.

One minute I don't watch it enough, next minute I should ignore it.

The speaker crackled again. 'Er...sorry guys, you might be in there a little longer.'

'Oh for Christ's sake,' Terry said before sliding down to the floor opposite Jonas and removing his tie with a jerking motion. It was getting stuffy in there.

Jonas fished in his pocket and pulled out a KitKat. He sliced his finger down the foil and split it in half. It was a bit melted but that just made it better. He offered the other half to Terry who shook his head.

'I like Twixes better,' Jonas said, trying to change the subject. 'Do you know you can drink tea through them? Melts it all inside.' He put the whole wafery biscuit in his mouth and crunched. 'So good.'

Terry raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Does this man have any fun?

'Say what you like about Bayes,' he plowed on. God I've made a monster. 'He's thinking of doing great things, building all those homeless shelters for example, but you just can trust a Tory.' He repeated the words like he lived by the mantra.

'Why does it matter?' Jonas replied through a mouthful of mushy wafer and chocolate. 'How do you know he's going to be bad because he's a Tory?'

'History is a brilliant teacher,' Terry said, raising his eyebrows. Jonas was beginning to get sick of his patronising eyebrows.

'I just think everyone's different,' Jonas shrugged. 'I don't think you can judge someone just because they belong to one party. They might start with the same idea but in the end we all like and think different things. What's the difference between saying 'I don't like Tories' and 'I don't like Asian people' or 'I don't like women?' I just think it's silly.'

'It's nothing like that,' he said. 'Bayes is an Eton boy, same as the rest of them.'

'Didn't Dick go to some posh boarding school too?'

'No...I...'

'Yeah, Dad told me, he went to private school in Wimbledon.'

'Yeah but he didn't go Oxford like Bayes? He went straight into a job like a normal bloke. S'why I like him.'

Jonas shrugged. There was no arguing with a man like Terry. He should get 'set in my ways' tattooed across his forehead.

'If I was going to vote tomorrow, I'd vote for Bayes,' Jonas said. 'I just think he's stronger, more genuine and he wants to do good stuff even if he can be a bit harder.'

'Your vote's your vote,' Terry stretched, then quieter at the peak of his stretch. 'Doesn't mean its the right one.'

'You think I can't have an opinion just because I'm younger than you, don't you?' Jonas felt his voice raise a little. He fought to control himself. 'What, exactly, does one night make in my opinion? Just because I'm eighteen tomorrow doesn't mean I know any better than today.'

'Well, it's like that young girl last week? The one from that film. Talking about human rights like she knows what she's talking about. She hasn't lived a life yet, had kids, had a real job? How old is she, 19? You know, whatsername?'

'Emily Brady?' Jonas replied. 'I think she had brilliant opinions. And she's 24 actually. And if you ask me, having kids can narrow some people's opinion.'

'All I ask is that next vote, you be careful. We're trusting you, you know, the next generation, with this great country.'

'Oh thanks,' Jonas replied. 'Passing on great big mess to us. If you ask me there's a lot wrong with the people up at the top. Who do you see in Lords...'

'Commons.'

'Whatever, Commons, you see old posh blokes. You don't see women, or anyone darker than an Essex boy. I bet there's no transexuals, or pansexuals...'

'What on earth's that?'

'Maybe you should go in the internet, there's this wonderful thing called Google.'

'Oh very funny,' Terry said. 'I have the internet, I just think all this social bollocks is stupid.'

'So you think Emily Brady's YesForWomen hashtag is bollocks?'

'Well what's it going to do on Twotter?'

'Make people aware,' Jonas answered. 'A lot of people my age see it and think it's brilliant. Maybe you shouldn't be so terrified of handing over your great nation to us. We might make it better.'

Terry shrugged.

The lift beneath them jerked and then there was another horrible grinding sound. Both of them cringed and then the lift moved.

'There you go lads, and lovely conversation by the way.' Jonas heard the repair man snort. 'You should have a TV show.'

There was the familiar bing and the lift doors slid open.

Terry jumped up and exited the lift faster than he would usually. 'Nice to meet you,' he mumbled.

Jonas stood up and watched the older man walk down the threadbare carpeted corridor. It was like time had frozen for the twenty minutes they'd been stuck. Their debate was stuck in an in-between place and now, normalcy resumed.

'Terry,' he called. He had to say one last thing. He didn't know why. To win? Old versus young. Labour versus the undecided. To make Terry see sense? Terry faltered a step and cocked his ear. Jonas took that to mean he was listening. 'It's not football, Terry.'

He didn't reply, only walked on, through the council doors and into the street. Later that day he would make his vote. Jonas picked up his bag and swung it over his aching shoulders, already thinking about a distant lunchtime.

Niall Whatshisname or 'David Tries Being Young and Hip'

2014-07-16T15:53:00.000+01:00

Checking the Twitter trends each morning has become a bit of a habit for me. Usually I'm in search of that day's hot topic. Sometimes Twitter delivers. Yesterday for example, I discovered that Michael Gove had been reshuffled in Cameron's cabinet and is no longer Education Secretary (rejoice!). The trend was #GoneGove. Though I was disappointed this was not the eagerly awaited sequel to a Gillian Flynn novel, Twitter did its job. I, with my lazy, first world brain had gotten hold of some news.

Today however I check Twitter and what do I see? One, it is someone called Theo's birthday. Equally enrapturing I find that the trend #NiallTakeASelfieWithTheo is keeping Tweeters occupied across the land. Now I'm a light-hearted chappy when I want to be, but I want to pose the question: is this country in dire need of going outside?

I know the weather here's drizzly at best the vast majority of the time, but really? Niall Whatshisname from One Direction's nephew is one today. Why does seeing them in an image together beat everything else to become today's most talked about thing? A child in the world is a joyous thing, and I have no problem with Niall from One Direction. However the sheer volume of demands from Tweeters to desperately see a child they don't know is a peculiar site to behold.

I think I'm getting old before my years. I'm approaching 24 and I believe I'm entering the window of my life where I'm often confused by some things young people (and some slightly worrying older people) do. I don't really want this to happen. On the one hand I love being young. The full use of my hips, the hope for a long and illustrious career, the so-far lack of wrinkles. These things are wonderful. However, some days I wonder if celebrity culture has gone a little too far. This is how I know I'm beginning to settle into my slippers and find myself powerless to prevent it.

I feel sorry for the celebrities. They are in fact just blokes and lasses, regular joes and janes who we decide are better than us and deserve to be lauded to the point that a nation cries out for an image of them on Snapchat or Instagram or Twitter or Tumblr or Pinterest or a combination of the above.

I worry I'm becoming an old grumpus. Maybe I should join the masses and wait, eagerly for the immenent iPhone image of Whatshisname and Theo. Then I look out of my window. It's sunny outside. We are a nation of cheese rollers and black-pudding throwers and May Day festival dancers.

In the words of Hugh Grant in Love, Actually - the only PM I'm likely to listen to: 'we're the country of William Shakespeare, Churchill, The Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot, David Beckham's left foot for that matter.' Maybe if we weren't so concerned with images of these pretty people and aspired to do great things with our days, we would have some national pride. We should. Get out into the world, read a book, write a book, bake a cake, hold a large and ridiculous event for charity. Invite a friend over and watch that classic film you've always wondered about. Go on a long road trip with no destination and find some corner of the country where brilliant things happen. We're a great country, but only when we want it to be.

I hate to add gloom to happiness but togetherness is a tremendous thing. So maybe if we were all as like-minded as Tweeters are in wanting to see pictures of 1D, on things such as equal rights for all, ending poverty and doing something about the stupid wages of footballers, the world would be a better place to live in.

This Sunday I attend the Hastings Pirate Day and dress up as a pirate along with an entire town for the third year running. I'll see family and friends and drink drinks and enjoy the sun and the beach (hopefully). I'd urge people to do the same. Maybe that dangerous, scary, doom ridden outside is a little more interesting than what One Direction did today.

Maybe I'll take a selfie.

What is Facebook for? or 'David Tries Being Socially Savvy'

2014-06-27T13:49:00.000+01:00

Seriously though. I'm not questioning the existence of Facebook or any social media site. Checking Facebook is one of the first things I do in the morning. Because I'm bored? Because I'm nosy? Because I'm a fidgeter and I don't smoke?

I do ask myself the question a lot: what is Facebook for? As in - what are we supposed to put on Facebook and do different social media sites require different types of content from their users?

We get asked that same question every day. Several times for most of us. 'What's on your mind?' For those of us who don't really pay attention (me included) that's what Facebook asks in it's status bar. A lot of people will look at this and think it's a rant about what people put on Facebook. And I could. I probably will. But my argument isn't exactly what people put on there. My qualm is with Facebook itself.

It annoys me in a lot of ways. I don't think anyone who owns Facebook isn't annoyed by some of what their friends put on it. I bet I'm a huge culprit of this. Sometimes, as I put up my latest status, a photo, my latest page of my Page a Day project - does anyone really care?

But then what is it for? Who am I to say what someone decides to put on their personal Facebook page. I do believe there are some limits though. I am strongly against internet bullying. I've fallen out with people because I didn't agree what they put on their Facebook because some things are just offensive. I stick by my guns to this day, because as strong (and right) as freedom of speech is, sometimes I think you have to wonder. Will what I'm putting out their for the internet to see be offensive to someone? If the answer is yes, then maybe think about what you're writing.

Very few people actually want to cause offense. And if you want to put your opinion as your status that's absolutely fine, just construct it in a way that sounds like a debate, not an outright accusation or insult. And that's something I see every day. Not a lot on Facebook, but on Twitter and especially Tumblr, that wonderful land where everyone has an opinion and everyone is always right so help them God.

So I'd never say people shouldn't put their opinions on Facebook. That's censorship, against human rights and just a little bit Nazi. But thinking about the words that come out of our mouth should extend to our typing fingers. We grow up being told to think about what we're saying. I do think some people need to consider what they put on the internet.

So what is it for? Debate? Showing off is a big one. Sometimes we use Facebook to show our wares, our latest holiday, shiny new car or purchase. Sometimes I think the world was better without it. Because sometimes I sit there, look at someone showing off and Peter Griffin jumps into my head. 'Who the hell cares?'

But of course some people do. Family and friends who actually want to see people do well. Facebook's wonderful for that. So the fault there might lie with me. Am I bitter for seeing someone with a better day than mine? The answer, usually is yes. So who's in the wrong? Nobody really other than Facebook itself. But then wouldn't small updates about your day be more suited to Twitter? That stream of snippets of our thoughts, days and whims?

Is anything that breeds jealousy a good thing? But then is that our own faults as jealous people. More often than not I'm just inclined to side with Peter Griffin. But it's an interesting debate. One I'm sure that will kick off on Facebook. Most likely in capital letters.

Facebook is the land of the misconstrued. The place where we discover that sarcasm really doesn't translate online. Everyone's looking for an argument and everyone has an opinion to give. Do we have a right to? Yes. Is it tiring sometimes. Yes. Should I stop thinking about it? Probably.

A lot of people who know me will smell a double standard. I met my girlfriend of 2 years because of the internet. Through YouTube video blogs and then Tumblr. We spent a year living 80 miles apart and Facebook made that a lot easier. Facebook has a thousand plus points to balance the negatives. The internet is a wonderful place. Here is an infinite land where everyone is connected and you can create content: videos, films, books, blogs, art, plays, anything you desire and most of it is completely free. Like most things on earth you can always find a flip side. The half of the glass that's full. So I am enternally grateful for the internet.

So what is Facebook for? Procrastinating? Showing off? Taking away the necessity for conversation and actually having friends? What's the point when there's a handy like button to show that you're still hanging around. I like to think a big reason me and Charlotte celebrate our 2 year anniversary in just under two weeks is that our relationship wasn't exclusively on Facebook. We made the time for each other in spite of those 80 miles.

We're all culprits of the Facebook downsides, that's the annoying thing. Some days, when I look at Facebook and consider all these things I do wonder. We were probably better off without.

Will that stop me going on it every 5 minutes?

The internet has us. There is no escape.

Don't get me started on Tumblr.

Every 4 Years or 'David Tries Taking Stock'

2014-06-11T09:34:00.000+01:00

And World Cup fever grips the nation.

I love the World Cup. The wall chart is at the ready. The excitement held in the minds of millions is palpable. We've even got some nice Brazillian weather to accompany it. Of all its accomplishments, so far the tournement has made me think. Taking place every 4 years, World Cups are far apart but close together. If you look back to last World Cup, South Africa 2010 and consider where you were, what you were doing and who you were with, I bet you'll be surprised at what you've done in a short space of time.

I for one was standing in Hyde Park with my mum. We were watching England play Germany on the big screen put up to entertain concert goers before Paul McCartney took to the stage with 38 hits loved by millions. Unfortunately, England entertained fans a great deal more than Elvis Costello who came on, played 4 songs and then (understandably) left as the oohs and aahs were directed at England's efforts to topple the European giants. We didn't even get 'Oliver's Army' or 'She'.

The setting is important as, for me, that day marked a turning point in my life. I like to call Summer 2010 the summer of gigs. I saw Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Green Day in a very quick succession. This summer also marked the run up to me starting my degree in English at St Mary's University. It's strange looking back. At that day, in the sweltering sun, pulling up the grass-turned-hay, I was on a gap year, I had no job, I was single. I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit that I didn't have a great gap year. I wasn't productive enough or proactive enough to get myself moving.

Now, looking back, I can happily say that me and Charlotte: the missus, partner, girlfriend, will be moving in together in a couple of months and we celebrate our 2 year anniversary very soon. I am coming to the end of my Master's degree in Children's Literature after proudly graduating with a 2.1 and honours from that English BA. On top of this I have two jobs. One at my university library gaining a backbone of experience that will hopefully carry me into a career. The other as an intern at the Wimbledon BookFest. Also today I attend a meeting as a judge of the BookFest's Young Writer's Competition; a position awarded to me on account of my writing, my MA and my knowledge of literature. I'm proud to have been a film journalist for 11 months with The Hollywood News, interviewing the likes of Jason Statham, Dara O'Briain, Helen Mirren and Steve Coogan. I also had my first ever published work there. I've made great friends, I've lived in halls, I've lived in a house. I've explored London and found a list of favourite places that have become part of me. I was even longlisted for a short story anthology. I've read books, I've written, I got a tattoo, I've started projects, completed a few and generally had the best four years of my life. I have a feeling I've done more than that, but off the top of my head that's pretty damn great.

And all this in the space of 4 years. It makes me excited for the future, to know that by the time the next World Cup grips the nation, I may have a new list of accomplishments to be proud of.

So I'd urge you to do the same. Have a real think and consider where you've come from and where you're going. And if this proves anything, as television and advert breaks seem to be telling us: the World Cup really does relate to everything.

Immediate Education Reform or 'David Tries Being the Education Secretary'

2014-05-25T12:53:00.000+01:00

Michael Gove is an idiot.

This is a fact. He's out of touch and quite frankly a dangerous influence to have so high up the pyramid of power.

This morning it has been revealed that his new curriculum for GCSE students omits To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Two of the best and most important novels ever written. They're novels that appear on scores of lists of favourite books, and communicate important messages to the reader. Yet the fact that Of Mice and Men being in the reading lists of 90% of GCSE students is seen as 'worrying' by Mr Gove.

I'm sorry, but why. A novel about two men who share a dream. It shows that life is difficult and sometimes you don't get what you want. It's a sad novel, but an important novel. It's a 20th Century novel.

Gove believes that anything post-1800 is unimportant. His curriculum is composed of Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens and romantic poets. I'm not saying that these aren't important. But the point is they're not more important than anything else. They're authors, not gods. They're highly acclaimed because people like Gove sit in their ivory towers and deem it so. If I had a lot of money, I could get myself into a position of power. I could buy myself a great deal of land, get myself into the circles of the high and mighty and forge myself a career in politics. And then I could say We're Going on a Bear Hunt is the finest novel in the English language. And it is one of them. What kid hasn't heard it? What child doesn't have 'we're not scared' as part of their personal identity? And if they don't then that's fine too because no one person should measure importance in literature. What if a Twilight fanatic became education secretary, or a 50 Shades desperado? We'd be taught that male-centric relationships and lack of consent bondage sessions are the most important things in literature.

But that's the point, anyone with power and money can say anything's great. And whatever Gove's reasoning, he's saying that a collection of authors who are a) all dead and b) all English, are the most important things our children should be reading.

But lets look at the children in the class for a second. How many people are 100% English these days. I'm not, I'm Irish/Scottish/Italian and I'm not seeing my nationality represented on the curriculum. That's just an example. What about middle eastern children? Wouldn't they benefit from seeing something like The Kite Runner on the curriculum? How about Noughts and Crosses? Malorie Blackman's groundbreaking novel that shows us that race and labels should not be an issue. Michael Gove's message is if you're not English then you're not important. Congratulations, you've just alienated the vast majority of English classrooms.

Diversity is so important in modern Great Britain. We are a multicultural nation and this should be celebrated, not locked in a cupboard and deemed 'unimportant' and 'worrying'. What's next? Only British artists in galleries? Only British musicians on the radio?

In my opinion, the curriculum of all subjects, not just English, should be decided by a council of teachers, authors, students, politicians, parents and whoever else has a say on the subject in question. Not by one man with the world's most elite view on literature believing that every child will relate to someone who's been dead 400 years.

Ask any teenager these days what literature they think is important and a lot of them won't say Shakespeare. They'll say The Perks of Being a Wallflower. They'll say The Fault in Our Stars. They'll say Divergent. Why do we disgregard these novels purely because a) the authors are alive and well, b) they sit in the Young Adult section not Classics, and c) if you're Michael Gove, they're American? I could write an essay each on these novels and a thousand others why they deserve just as much right on the syllabus as Hamlet.

All novels have equal importance because they can mean something to someone. I disgregarded Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey earlier in this blog. Just because I have a personal dislike for them doesn't mean they should be disregarded either. They mean something to a lot of people. No one person, myself included should have the final say on matters as important as literature.

I urge you, whatever party Michael Gove sits with in next year's general elections, vote the opposite. He's a dangerous man.

We need an immediate education reform. Basically, boot grandad out.

26 Simple Changes or 'David Tries Being the Head of FIFA'

2014-04-22T09:53:00.000+01:00

After this morning's sacking of David Moyes, I've decided that the news in football has become repetetive and boring and things need to change. How many times do we wake up and find that yet another manager has been sacked, or that a player has dived, cheated on their wife or just been paid the combined wages of a small country?

In reaction to this, I've decided to take over the job as the head of FIFA and compile a list of things that I believe would improve the beautiful game. Enjoy.

There should be a season where fans are hired as managers. Just for a laugh.
All players should be fitted with those electric shock buzzers, to be used at the opposition manager's discretion. Once per game.
There should be an option to make the game more interesting after 3 goals are conceded depending on which manager presses a big red button first. This should include swapping the ball either for an exercise-ball, or a ping pong ball. Hilarity ensues.
Once per game, a manager can initiate a rule that gets rid of offside for 3 minutes. Problem is, this works for both teams...
Players who feign injury should be shot. If it works for horses it can work for them.
Performance pay decided by fans. If they play well, we can give them a thumbs up and they earn a pound. Let's end world poverty and put the money in sport to better use. (This goes for all sports not just football)
Draws should be settled by either Pub Quiz, or alternatively to add a bit of showbiz, and to get more of Philip Schofield on television, a round of The Cube.
We invent a Golden Snitch and rules work the same as Quidditch.
Come to think of it, why don't we just invent Quidditch?
If that doesn't work, I think Bludgers are an excellent idea.
0-0 after 85 minutes? Release the lions.
Bit strong? Release those monkeys that pull windscreen wipers off cars at Longleat.
Bring back Gladiators. Complete with Ulrika and the Fash. Not really related to football, this should just happen. Classic Gladiators, not that rubbish copy they spat out a couple of years back.
Come to think of it, why not combine rule number 13 with rule number 3? Managers have to complete the Eliminator and can win the game for their team.
Players who sneak up the touchline on a throw in should be punished by having a person following them around the pitch for the remainder of the game, flicking them on the back of the ears.
Women's football should be put on TV. High time for equality.
Red Card? Why not Bush Tucker Trial?
A football player cheats on their partner? Must play remainder of the season wearing a tutu.
All players and managers must honour their contracts, if they or the board want to break it, see rule 14.
Still a draw after 90 minutes and The Cube? Dance off. Everybody wins.
Commentators should be fans of the two teams playing.
On one seat in the stadium is a golden ticket. That lucky person can replace any player on the pitch and cannot be substituted.
All seats in the stadium should be replaced with sofas. We pay enough for tickets.
Man of the match gets a little crown to wear next game. On the other hand, the worst player of the match must play their following fixture in their pants. Old school PE style.
FIFA apology rules apply. Everything from: 5-0 defeat? Grovelling apology on Facebook to 20-0 defeat? Letter of apology to the Queen for awful play.
And last but by no means least. The referee should be armed with a cattle prod, mainly to keep John Terry quiet.

Naturally all suggestions are welcome. I believe these are 26 simple steps by which we can fix the game we all know and love.

This is why I shouldn't be left alone in the mornings.

28th Best in the World or 'David Tries Writing for an Anthology'

2014-03-23T12:34:00.000+00:00

The real short story is - I didn't get published in an anthology. This is how I tried, and the story, for those who want to read it.

Roehampton University have just started Fincham Press to match themselves with the big guns over at Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, along with all the other big universities out there who publish their own work. Every year (for 2 years now) they've run and will be running a competition for the students of Creative Writing, English and Children's Literature to be published in an anthology of short stories. So - published, no agent, my name in a book - sold.

I entered the competition with my short story 'If I Were a Blackbird'. I'm very pleased to announce that while I didn't make the 21 winners who will be published, I've just been emailed and told that I made the longlist of 28 out of 171 entries. So basically I was somewhere among the seven runners up. Now published I'm not, but that's pretty damn good in my opinion.

As the speaker, Dr Bernadine Evaristo said at the Fincham Press launch event I attended with the missus, failure is part of an author's life.

I'm not taking this as a failure. If I was the 28th best author in the world (whoever decides that), I'd be the happiest person on earth (well...apart from numbers 1 through 27...). Still, a group of judges read my work and said it was good enough to be published. So I'm taking this as a success - I'm getting warmer.

So for those of you who are interested, here's my short story, and a congratulations to the 21 entries who were published and everyone else in the competition who was brave enough to enter. Roll on next year…

If I Were a Blackbird

‘If I were a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing.’

The song drowns out my other thoughts, my granddad’s voice still fresh. I’d give all my pencils and paints just to have him here. But I can’t, so I sing his songs to myself. One of infinite fragments of Patrick Busby I wish I’d recorded on my phone, just to listen to when I need him. A fourteen-year-old boy who still needs his granddad, I bet I’m the only one.

‘Am I weird-looking, Eve?’ I ask across the picnic blanket. ‘Be honest.’

Eve Quinn stares back at me, a half chewed ball of melon puffing her cheek like a hamster.

‘When you ask questions like that, yeah,’ she states, taking a big swallow.

I begin to reply but my head jerks to the side with a wet slap.

‘You get radio on those things, Busby?’ The shout comes from across wet field by the pond that divides the boy’s and girl’s schools. I came to St George’s to escape people like this.

I wipe the side of my face with the handkerchief Eve hands me, and catch her looking down at her sandwich.

‘Ignore them,’ she mumbles. She never acknowledges them, but she doesn’t stand up for me either. I watch them move towards the woods at the east end of the pond, laughing. I gaze over at the sunflower field in the west: a yellow line in the distance tracing the outline of my favourite place to draw.

‘I don’t know why they ever thought a lake would stop boys and girls slipping through the hedges to meet up,’ Eve says, changing the subject like always. ‘There’s all sorts of ways across.’

I nod, taking another sandwich.

‘I mean there’s the boats?’

I imagine I’m a pirate, sailing away. I know they’re meant for rowing practice, and I’d never voice my fantasies to anyone, not Eve, definitely not Dad. Mum had listened, before she died too.

‘Why don’t you tell someone?’ Eve’s looking at me and I can tell I’ve been staring into nothing. ‘And stop that!’ she snaps, batting my hand from the eyebrow where I’ve begun to pluck the brown hairs from the end. I’ve tried everything; plastering my fingers, wearing gloves, but still I pull.

Her blue-streaked, black hair stands up at funny angles, her nose too long and pointed. Why isn’t she picked on for that?

She reaches across the blanket for another jam sandwich. That’s why I like her. Not many girls still pack a chequered blanket when they go for picnics, or go for picnics full stop in November.

‘Because it’s hard over here.’ I always say the same thing. Those five easy words that make my life seem more difficult than everyone else’s.

‘But that’s the point, Callum,’ she pleads, pushing the plate of bready triangles closer to my toes. ‘Do you think it’s not hard for us? Everyone has struggles. We all find ourselves targets sometimes. You either learn to dodge or throw something back. We come here because it’s different, because there’s something particular in the romance of the two opposing manors lost in the woods.’

She looks so suddenly embarrassed. My bald brow crinkles and my usually affectionless hand goes out to comfort her. Touching her purple-tighted knee I panic and consider pulling away, but decide to leave it there and she lets me.

‘You don’t talk like real people.’ Before I can stop myself, I add: ‘You’d be interesting to draw.’ My cheeks flare and I’m quick to avert my eyes.

‘We are weird, Busby,’ she says, laughing. My hand slips onto the blanket. ‘And the truth is I came here because my mum and dad did. They met over the lake just like us. They’d go crazy if they knew we were meeting like this though.’

I think of my parents, just for a second, the mother who died long ago, the father who forgets my birthday: the reason why I miss my granddad so much, sitting at home with his stacks of Irish records and dusty old draught board. My rock after Mum died, singing me Irish songs about blackbirds when I needed comfort; now a constant reminder that my excuse for a father is all I have left.

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘You’re a boy, and boys are dangerous and are only interested in getting me pregnant.’

‘I don’t really think I’d ever do that,’ I reassure, laughing and scratching my earlobe. My hand unconsciously creeps along my brow and tugs on the sparse hairs.

‘Stop it!’ Eve bats my hand away again. ‘You do it for everything!’

‘I can’t help it,’ I snap. I fall silent, guilty. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t say sorry,’ she says. ‘I just don’t want to be the one who makes you do that.’

‘I always do it,’ I say. ‘When I’m nervous, happy or when I’m drawing or reading, I find my hand pulling and I know I can’t stop. It’s become comfortable and I hate it.’

She has such a pitying expression on her face I want to pull again.

‘Except…’ I say, hesitant.

‘Except what?’ she pushes.

‘When I read about art,’ I admit. ‘Or when I sit in the sunflower field and get caught up in the life and death in a living thing.’ I always bring my sketchbook in my bag, even when I’m not going to art. I aim to join great men, unappreciated in their times. ‘That’s when my hands stop twitching. If I could take a tent and set up camp there, away from the school, away from Dad, then I would. I came here because he’s fed up of me. I thought I could escape, but all I’ve found is a trap; a lie.’

Eve is smiling and I don’t know why.

‘You don’t talk like real people either,’ she says. ‘Come on then.’ She jumps up, taking the hamper and the blanket from underneath me. ‘We’re going to the sunflower field; you can draw a masterpiece and I can draw stick-men.’

I love art on Thursday mornings. I always get the seat by the window and take to my work with fresh vigour with the beautiful expanse of Norfolk spread before me. Maybe Eve is right, maybe it is beautiful here.

I smile. I filled about six pages in my sketchbook sitting with her in the sunflower field, concealed by the tall stalks. She didn’t draw but danced around instead, leaping from stones and fiddled with yellow petals.

But it’s the separation from her, locked in my dorm room at night where my hand starts to twitch. The silent, ever present urge to fix the stabbing pain in my brow.

I wish my window opened more than two inches. If it did, I’d want to creep along the ledge that runs around this old country house like a spider. Maybe I’d sneak into their rooms and bite them as they sleep.

But even as a spider I know I’d be gutless.

I think of Mrs Turner’s last words that day:

‘All great artists have their troubles. Sometimes great art is born in response to great pain and terrible sadness.’

And those three terrible boys just sit at the back, sticking two fingers in their mouths.

But Mrs Turner’s words speak to me. My world is a picture, and if I stop and appreciate it every now and again, the struggles beauty is born under isn’t wasted.

I swing my canvas bag onto my shoulder. But I turn into a wall. A cigarette-breathed wall named James Spade.

‘Why you smiling Sput-dick?’ he spits. I assume that penis puns on satellites are the height of sophisticated, ear-related humour.

I wish I could articulate the thoughts in my head, the long list of scathing retorts I’ve been building for months.

‘I don’t know,’ I murmur instead.

‘I thought Turner said you had to experience pain to do good stuff.’ He smirks. ‘I thought I’d help her little artist.’

I realise his friends are behind him, like hyenas to his prowling predator.

James seizes a clump of my t-shirt and pushes me back onto the desk. I try to scream but he clamps a reeking hand over my mouth. I kick but I’m weak and he’s well trained in torture.

‘You want to be like that guy who cut off his ear?’ he sneers. ‘It’d be an improvement.’ One of the others passes him the scissors.

I’m sweating, and crying, and struggling but it’s pointless. I can’t move under the bigger boy’s weight. Maybe I deserve this.

He’s still laughing as he places the blunt blades to my ear. I hear the slide of metal on metal and it’s so intimately close I think I’m going to throw up.

I’m shouting ‘please’ and ‘no’ but his hand is a gag. My tears are rivers down the sides of my face and the table is paper for him to draw in my blood.

He clamps the blades down, laughing. The pain is immeasurable, intense, spreading out from the point with overpowering force. The cold of metal and the air on my exposed, bloody flesh is painful and horrific and disgusting and I do throw up this time.

He’s repulsed; blood and vomit all over him as he draws back and I scream, scream, scream. My voice fills the room, the school and the moor and I wish I would die.

It’s been two weeks. James got kicked out of school. Of course he did. I’m due to give evidence at his court hearing.

I have no eyebrows left to speak of. The helplessness of it all keeps me in my hospital bed for a week, and now in the solitude of my dorm bed a week later. Dad doesn’t want to know. ‘Should have fought back,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I teach you nothing?’

I can’t sleep because my ear still hurts so much. Mrs Chudleigh in the sick room said: ‘You just have to sleep on your right side’. As if I can control how I sleep. I end up sprawled out most nights and sometimes on the floor.

This means I’m awake, like usual when the rapping comes at the misty window above my bed; a square of starry night covered by leaden criss-cross panes.

I jump up and throw open the moth-eaten old curtains.

She looks like a pixie in the moonlight, like Tinkerbell coming to take me back to Neverland after I decided growing up wasn’t worth it. Her blue hair is tied back and she’s wearing a Ramones t-shirt.

Clearly she’s taken to desperate measures to reach me. She braces herself, seizes the frame of the window and pulls. The supposedly ‘suicide-proof’ locks break easily with her touch.

‘How did you do that?’ I ask, shocked.

‘Grow a pair, Busby!’ she challenges. ‘You’ve got to put your back into it.’

Instead of climbing in, she stays perched there, looking at me.

‘Come on,’ she commands. ‘This place is so much cooler at night.’

I pick at the hem of my pyjama top.

‘Callum Busby,’ she states. ‘You’ve ignored me for two weeks and I’m willing to forgive you. Now have you ever wondered why I bothered staying friends with you?’

I stare back, scared of the answer.

‘It’s because you impress me.’ She smiles. ‘You take sticks of graphite and tubes of paint and you create the most beautiful things. You’re picked on because you’re amazing. And you know what? I like you because I can relate to you. You think it’s not bullying when every bloody person in this school, bullies or not, sees right through me because I’m different, because I have weird hair.’ She pauses, like the words are a struggle. ‘Because I’m not beautiful. I like you because you are the only one here who actually sees me as a person. Now let me try and do the same.’

I move towards the windowsill.

‘Really, Busby?’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘You think you can scale the walls in your jammies? Get dressed!’

I redden and turn my back so she can’t see anything. When I turn back round, fully dressed, she seems curious, even smiling a little.

We edge along the building and I tremble. I didn’t think I was afraid of heights, but tiptoeing along a ledge, five stories above the hard, November ground is either wildly brave or mindlessly stupid.

‘You alright, Callum?’ Eve asks, as if she is walking through a field with miles of space either side of her.

‘Fine,’ I snap.

‘Is it the fun you’re afraid of?’

‘There’s fun and there’s having a death-wish,’ I hiss.

‘What was that?’

‘Nothing,’ I mumble.

‘Better. Now it’s not much further and it’s worth it.’

We walk past window after window, with arches far too fancy for boy’s dorms. Sometimes we pause and dart across, one at a time, because the curtains are open.

There’s a window ajar and Eve ducks inside. I follow cautiously, grateful to move away from the scary Ledge of Doom.

I hear a scratch and hiss and Eve’s face bursts into orange by the flame of a match. Her eyes are shadowed as if she’s about to start telling a ghost story.

There’s a door beside a narrow staircase, apparently winding up into nothing.

I look to the door, then to Eve, no-brows raised.

‘It’s locked, Sherlock,’ she says. ‘Come on, it’s amazing.’

She grabs my hand and pulls, her fingers sliding down my palm. I shiver.

I follow her up the stairs and pray my palms don’t start to sweat.

It’s narrow and I think I’m going to get stuck as we weave our way higher. Eve slips through easily with her small, boyish frame.

I collapse through the hole and flump to the floor. I straighten up, cough and gasp all at once.

We’re in an attic, but it’s unlike any attic I’ve ever seen. The ceilings are vaulted, with beams as thick as a car and heights too dizzying and dark to make out. All along the sides are windows; arched like the dorms, though these are glassless and skinny. I imagine I’m an archer, firing my bow against the horde of oncoming foes.

In the middle of the room there’s a little camp stove and two sleeping bags.

‘We’re making s’mores,’ Eve states, as though that’s a normal thing to do at 2 o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday. ‘And you’re going to tell me which of those pricks did that to your ear.’

I’m silent.

‘Stop it.’ She grabs my arm.

I look down and there they are, the eyebrow hairs between my thumb and forefinger; staring up at me with accusing looks on their follicles.

‘I heard what happened, Callum, everyone across the pond is talking about it. So there’s no point lying to me. Sit and talk. I’ll cook.’

‘They cornered me,’ I begin, my voice cracking a little.

I think it’s better to just start. My hand aches from the effort. I want to pull. I want to deface my features because they made me feel insignificant.

The smell of marshmallows and chocolate fills the cavernous space. Eve cooks and listens.

‘There were three of them, like always. I started to cry.’

Eve doesn’t well up for me. She only keeps eye contact, not sad or happy. Neutral: a blank canvas ready for my expression.

‘You know what they usually do; hit me where I can’t show people, dunk my head in the toilet, draw penises on my paintings. But this time it was different. I don’t know why, it just is sometimes I guess. Maybe it was because I cried. Maybe I looked weak. Maybe it looked like I deserved it.’

My hand is up again and Eve doesn’t move, just looks and I see her. I lower it.

The s’more is on the plate now, gooey and chocolaty. She crosses the space between us and holds my hand.

‘God it hurt so much Eve. I felt the steel beneath my skin and I wanted to move it but I couldn’t. I thought I was going to die in the one room I feel like a person. And there was so much blood. That’s why James ran away. That’s how they caught him and expelled him in the end. But you know what? I’m glad I stayed here.’

Eve smiled and came and hugged me, squeezed me on the dusty floor.

‘You know what I want you to do?’ she says. ‘I want you to paint and trap that day forever in the paper. Then you take it to the art room and hang it on the wall to show it doesn’t scare you any more. Because, to be quite honest, Busby, I think you’d look better with eyebrows.’

I nod slowly, face buried in her neck. I always love the curve of her collarbone.

‘I’m sorry I ignored your problems,’ I whisper. ‘I see you, I see you all the time.’

She snuggles her face into my hair; her warm breath prickling the nerves that never thought they’d be touched.

I know that in Eve I’ve found the person who grabs my hand in the middle of the night and takes me on an adventure when I’m supposed to have grown out of them. She smiles when I’m stupid and doesn’t mind when I’m naked.

In the end, I need Eve because I love her and she loves me in one way or another.

In the end, she makes me feel at home.

The sun rises bright and true the very next morning, and I wake with a determination I’m unaccustomed to. Eve looks completely at peace where she lies in her sleeping bag and I leave her there. I don’t even know if I’ll tell her it was me when she sees what I’ve done. She’ll know.

I cross the open space and travel back down the staircase, the cool warmth of the morning sun giving me the strength I need to travel forward.

Late last night, lying awake in my sleeping bag, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Eve has shown me that sometimes a leap of faith is needed. You need to do things for yourself if you’re ever going to pull yourself from a rut. Eve deals with her loneliness through exploring this old place, and now she has me. She’ll always have me.

I have to make a statement. And now, in the early hours of the morning when everything seems like a good idea, I move with purpose.

In a few minutes I’m along the ledge outside, travelling back to my room and grabbing my bag. It has everything I need.

Creeping through the school at this hour makes me feel powerful, like the old house is mine along with everything in it.

I exit the building and the wall of ice-cold air hits me and fails to knock me down. I don’t shiver as I round the building, the dew on the long grass wetting the hems of my trousers.

Setting my bag down on the grass I survey my canvas. The image I’ve had in my mind for so long, the painting screaming to escape me finally has an exit.

I unzip the rucksack and tip everything to the ground.

I work with a feverish grace that only finds me when I have a brush in my hand.

My arms move as though possessed, creating great sweeps and swathes of colour. I work for an hour at least, deeply in my artist’s trance.

The wet of cold acrylic sprays my face with every brushstroke. A rainbow of colour washes over my hand, making me a mix of every painting I’ve ever created. The colour finds my bed hair, sticking out at odd angles, now coloured with the black of feathers and blue of clear sky and shimmering white of softest clouds.

Eventually I step back, happy with my work. I’m out of breath, quite proud of my own daring.

It’s graffiti of the highest order.

I stand, my brush in one hand. Soaked by the grass, sweat, paint and the morning.

On the wall is my blackbird. Swooping through the air with cold wind in its feathers. Eve told me to hang a painting in the art room for everyone to see. I did one better.

I’ll do as she does and look at the eternal black smudge on my hand, and the paint under my fingernails as badges of honour. I relax, knowing that I’ve found someone who sees the world in colour, not just black and white. I turn it outwards and feel the spread of warmth and thrill in my chest.

The blackbird on the wall is my moment of daring, my guide and my inspiration.

I am free.

I am the blackbird. I whistle and sing.

Maybe I Will, Maybe I Won't or 'David Tries Being Employed.'

2014-03-13T15:37:00.001+00:00

It has always bothered me that in this society, we are confined to one dream and one career path. Nowadays, you have to select your vocation from primary school age and follow it through adolescence into adulthood. For me, this has always been just about as possible as swimming on Jupiter and living to tell the tale. I cannot remember all the jobs I have wanted to do in my life, because that would take far too much time, probably bore you, and ultimately give me a headache; none of which I have a particular desire to do.

I have recently achieved a 3 month position as an intern with the Wimbledon BookFest. This is a job that I now hope will lead me into a career into publishing. At the same time, I hope it will improve my personal writing. The arrival at 'publicity assistant' was never my intended career path. Who sticks with their intended career path for 20 years? Lucky so-and-sos, that's who.

The Wimbledon BookFest is currently run from the mezzanine of one of their sponsors: Marcus Beale architects. When I walked in for my interview, past a small ocean of iMacs, clean white desks, maquette models of buildings and towns, watercolour paintings and those cool slanty desks architects use, I was reminded of a career dream I had in year 8. I remember year 8 because I recall asking my year 8 RE teacher, a brilliant gent called Mr Linnane (spelled correctly, he hopes): how long you have to go to school/university for to become an architect? The reply: 7 years.

Now, at the time this was an insurmountable amount of time for me to spend at university. This is rich, considering that only a few months ago I had my heart set on doing a Ph. D in English Literature; a profession I now realise I do not have the money or time to take on. I'll be honest, parts of English criticism annoy me. Another blog for another day, but I believe that 3 more years of that was not the right path for me. Nevertheless, quite by accident I was more than prepared to do my 7 years of university.

So I could have been an architect I hear you say. However, I gave up on that dream for another reason. I love art. I always loved it at school, I still love drawing and painting and anything of the sort, but at AS Level I did Art with 3 essay subjects and almost drowned under the workload. Needless to say I gave up Art, and with it that dream.

Then there's the other problem. I don't like to be told what to do. Watchers of Lost may imagine John Locke screaming: 'don't tell me what I can't do!', but I assure you, my story is quite a bit less dramatic.

So I have always written. I have always dreamed of being published, making a lot of money and being rescued from the rat race. Hence my also spending amounts of money I never had on the lottery throughout the 7 years subsequent to my turning 16.

A fear of work maybe? I'd agree with you, but I currently study on a Master's course in Children's Literature, write a book, work as a receptionist in a library and also work at Wimbledon every Thursday and at author events, so that's not it. It's not a fear of work, it's a fear of being stuck. Stuck in a place I don't want to be.

It took me a while, but I soon realised at some point in the last two years that I needed a good job, a realistic job that will give me money and time to do what I liked to do most with my life. Read books, write books, watch films, watch plays, paint paintings, bake cakes and spend days in London in assorted Caffe Neros with the missus. With all of these things, things that I'll never lose or give up, no matter what my job is, I'll never feel stuck. But with that thought in mind lay the question: what am I good at doing?

I arrived at this point after deciding to become a teacher because everyone else was (returning to this idea recently as it appeared I couldn't do anything else). I don't want to be a teacher. The teaching profession is one I respect hugely, yet I know it's not for me. It's like knowing I'm not gay. I have zero problem with homosexuality. I believe, wholeheartedly, and pray the day will come soon when freedom has reached a certain level where the world is not narrow-minded enough to disapprove of things like this. I would do anything to fight for this cause. However, in my heart, I know that isn't me. I respect teachers, but I could never work in such a pressurised, authoritative environment, controlled by the controlling forces *cough* Gove *cough* who make the job damn near impossible.

I was once going to apply for graduate schemes, only to find that they may send me to the far ends of the earth. I love holidays, but I'm not a traveller. I never will be. I am one of the folk of our not so green and pleasant land who is quite happy to stay here, and finds an odd sort of beauty in the oily sheen of a rainsoaked M23.

I arrived at publicity assistant because of luck. Because I found an MA at a lovely London university with a temping office, and was lucky enough to have gathered adequate experience to lead me to Wimbledon. I love meeting authors and thinking about book festivals, and talking to people in the business I have craved since I was 6 years old. Being in the business is good no matter what your entry point, and this is a wonderful dream for me. In the meantime, I very much enjoy my job as a receptionist. To paraphrase Transformers (stay with me), I want the job after this job, but you still have to do the first job first. There's no point in whining about that simple fact of life.

I will never be an architect. I will never be an artist. I will never be a photographer. I will never work in a zoo, learning about fantastic creatures and making friends with elephants. I'll never be a high flying film journalist as I was lucky enough to experience for 11 months last year. Maybe I will experience these things in small ways throughout my life, but my life has told me that writing is my calling. Maybe I'll teach creative writing at a university one day? Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be published? Maybe I won't. The fact of the matter is I write and continue to write. That's enough for me.

Mr Barthes can Suck It or 'David Tries Credulousness'

2013-11-22T09:23:00.000+00:00

There are moments in your life where you really have to decide what you want to do with your years on the earth. It sounds scary, but at the age of 23, having a million ambitions really wasn't sensible. It's all very well saying 'I want to write, I want to be a literary agent, and I want to be a lecturer' but lets be realistic, who has the time for all that after you take eating, breathing and browsing Waterstones into account. I certainly don't.

Unfortunately, this stark, scary moment of realisation meant a cutting of one of my three dreams. Needless to say, writing always has and always will be here to stay. I can't bear giving up the simple thing of putting black marks on a piece of paper and imagining a million others reading it.

Lecturers inspire me, I think they always have and they always will too. I'm going to hit you with a bit of theory. Last week, in a lecture on my MA course, we discussed an idea known as the Credulous Reader. I have varying opinions on the subject. The idea behind the title is that authors (supposedly) sometimes write a type of fiction where they dictate and shape the reader they want, a reader who can only immerse himself in the world of the book. Critics take a very poncy view on this kind of reader, naturally thinking readers should only think critically, and always have an echo of neo-modernism or similar, reverberating through their skulls whenever they open a book. This side of criticism annoys me, I wholly disagree with Roland Barthes' 'the author is dead' baloney. I would say that there are more ways to read books than ever before, and more can be gleaned from the reading of anything than ever before, but never would I say the author as a concept is dead. The authorial meaning is always important, even if it's not concentrated on. Personally I think ignoring author intention can lead you to dangerous over-reading of texts but that's a whole other blog/essay. Basically Mr Barthes, respectfully shhh.

The point of my foray into scholarly bits is that I consider myself both credulous and critical in my readings of books/poems/songs/most of everything. I read Jane Eyre from every possible critical perspective in my second year, and though I can tell you what the text means, I could never really say what it's about. I think the high extent of critical reading I performed (though necessary for the exercise of the module) means I was left with something missing at the end. I now plan on re-reading Ms Bronte's novel in a credulous manner, and Mr Barthes can suck it.

In this way, I think I can easily combine writing novels with lecturing. These are the two things that I cannot possibly leave behind, and despite what some people may think, there is not a yawning gap between scholars and pleasure-readers, there are ways where the two can be brought together. Sometimes there is beauty in a line which means something to you and you alone, rather than meaing something to Marxism, Modernism or anything else.

As a one day author, I naturally hope that my work is picked to pieces for whatever meaning scholars can squeeze from it. On the whole I'll feel clever and this, ultimately leads to happiness. However, if I write and someone writes to me and tells me that they absorbed what I'd written in a day and I'd helped them in someway due to their credulous reading and immersion in my world, then in many ways that's better.

This, however means that I will have to say goodbye to my dreams of literary-agentdom. A recent failed interview told me that I just don't have the passion for the career, and it's true, I have a passion for writing, be it for pleasure, for publication, for blog, for article, for scholar or for all of the above, and that is a life I can lead happily and with all the passion I've carried around with me since my single digits.

Maybe it's Just Entertainment? or 'David Tries Having a Panic'

2013-08-24T11:47:00.000+01:00

Not a big panic, don't worry readers. But I do worry sometimes. I worry that as a writer, the characters I create are going to be misconstrued, cause offence and anger or upset someone.

I am currently writing a book. A book I am extremely proud of and I can say, for the first time in my life, with 100% certainty, that it is completely original. Everything I've written before, maybe not known to me at the time, but looking back, were just copies of other things. I think all us writer types do that. I think even them there published writer types do that. I hark back to the spy stories which were 24 in disguise. The Spy School story which, I'll be honest, was Harry Potter with guns and helicopters. Then there was the fantasy story, which, I now admit was all too close to a cross between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Then, my crowning annoyances, the ideas I had (I don't know about 'had first') but have since been replicated in Doctor Who and The Mortal Instruments. I wrote a book about a group of holy warriors who found demons in the name of a higher purpose, and I had a character who the main character met backwards. Hardly fair really.

In my experience, the most important lesson for any budding author is that you must take the small victories as something huge. You must rejoice when you receive the tiniest line of feedback from any agent, thank the Gods of writing when you manage to whack out 1000 more words than is usual on your average day, and when, on the rare or frequent occasion that curly haired plot twisters (the Moff), or planet-sized-imagination YA Queens (the Clare) write ideas which you may have written yourself, you look at it and realise you have ideas that are getting published and turned into TV shows, you're just not being quick enough, not savvy enough with your cover letters. Also, sometimes, and this is the most annoying thing for a prospective writer: sometimes people have the same ideas at the same time. That's how we got Armageddon and Deep Impact, Bugs Life and Antz, White House Down and the other one.

Which is why I write with trepidation. Has someone got my idea out there? Are they, at this moment writing a book, sitting in a Caffe Nero and dreaming about going on Graham Norton or any one of those booky shows on Sky Arts? I really hope not, because original ideas are difficult to come by these days.

These days, writing a book can be a panic driven experience. Maybe it's just me, but I watch people comment and pass judgement on TV Shows, books and films and worry because I imagine the criticism directed at me. I read an interview with Stephanie Meyer the other day and just thought that however good a writer she may or may not be (and who decides that anyway), maybe she was a woman who wanted to write a story about a girl who fell in love with a vampire. Maybe she did the best she could with the talent she had? Isn't that what we're all supposed to do with our lives? Also, and this is the important part, maybe it's just entertainment.

Which leads me onto my next point. Which again, panics me. A lot of people complain about Doctor Who these days. Every episode that comes out, I scroll through Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube and I see complaint after complaint. 'Moffat's writing's terrible.' 'He'll never be as good as Russell T. Davies' and the big one. 'He's a sexist'.

Here's my fear. I've read Divergent. Apologies for people who don't get the reference, but in the book (read it, it's amazing), the main characters are subjected to a simulation known as a 'fear landscape'. In the fear landscape you are asked to confront your greatest fears, each initiate having a different number and ability to cope with them. I always think what would be in mine and so far I have the following:

moths and other such creatures that fly in your face.
being eaten alive.
things like Alien or parasites that burrow inside you.
being shouted at/in trouble.
people not trusting me/thinking I'm inept.
being called sexist/racist/homophobic, or indeed any of the 'ists' or 'phobes'.

I try, each and every day, to think fairly and give things chances, not moan when I could, be patient with people and most importantly, not offend people. I hate offending people. The reason I am writing my current WIP (work in progress for people not up on the lingo like wot I is), is I want to promote fairness and freedoms. Without saying too much, I am doing it in such a way which (to the casual reader, or the reader who won't read to the end), may well cause offence. I can deal with these criticisms because I can easily say 'go read the book, cover to cover and see if you have the same issue'. What does worry me is being called a sexist.

I think about this a lot these days, mainly because I think Steven Moffat is the victim of a lot of unjust overreading. Who must be the most overanalysed piece of entertainment in history. I've heard things like 'I prefer the old companions, where the Doctor travelled with a normal person who was wonderful, now Amy and Clara have mysteries surrounding them, they need the Doctor because there's something wrong with them. Since Moffat wrote the show, the problem has become woman'.

While on some level I can see how this makes sense, I also worry that Moffat just tried to write something that was new and entertaining i.e., not write the same storylines as had been done with all the previous assistants. Write the show with a new and fresh impetus and put his own stamp on things, not carbon copy Russell T. Davies' Who universe. This is what writers do and always will do. Call me a male chauvinist pig, but I look at Moffat's episodes as woman empowering. I always see Amy and Clara saving the day, especially at the close of the episodes. Who saved the Doctor's life every day for a thousand years? A woman: Clara? What is that if not pro-feminist? Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but that's the way I see things. There's so many levels to any argument and especially with this argument I do end up thinking - 'is there the tiniest possibility that you're reading into this too much?' In any case, I wish it would stop, because it does scare me, and I'd be willing to bet that, just like me, a lot of these people who are complained about and even hated on all over the internet, did not mean to cause the slightest bit of harm, and actually thought they were writing something entertaining, empowering, powerful and poignant.

Whether the writing of Doctor Who is sexist or not, I don't want to be this. I don't want to inadvertently offend half the planet. I want to be Joss Whedon. A man who writes incredibly strong, awesome female characters and recognised for it. John Green is the same. Which is why I aspire to be like them. But then you have the no. 1 enemy of every writer. A single terrifying line: 'What if I can't?'

I think the biggest thing a prospective author has to learn is to believe that you can. That other people have done so in the past, so you'll be one who continues to in the future. When my book is on the shelves, I shall direct people to this blog post. To say that whatever the outcome, I tried to write a book that was fair, equal and championed all the best things on our planet. Love, fairness, equality and fighting against the worst kind of adversities. I tried to create a message, not a world, where any man, woman, child; whatever sex, religion, sexuality or nationality can read marks on a piece of paper and find something that makes their personal struggle a little easier.

That's my dream.

In the words of Mr Jones, in the immortal words emblazoned in large, friendly letters on the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Don't panic.

Project Distinction or 'David Tries Being A Postgraduate'

2013-07-20T13:15:00.002+01:00

A quick updatey blog today!

Well, it's been a while Blogger, but I'm here to stay, and I'm going to launch straight into this. I now know that to be a writer, you have to write, so write I shall. Seeing my work up for everyone who's interested to read for The Hollywood News has been a dream come true for me, and now I want more, so to do that you need practise. So I've organised myself, I currently have 2 novels in the works and I shall conduct an experiment; it shall go thus:

Book number 1 will be written as though I'm aiming for the final draft, writing as well as I can the first time so as to minimise editing time at the end.
Book number 2 will be written following the likes of Veronica Roth and John Green. I'm going to get the plot down on paper, in say 40 pages single line spaced, and then work at adding scenes and rewriting the parts I want to be the best.

In this way I'll have two novels to send off to agents. I also have ideas I'm very excited about for a 4-part series in the future. To do this I've downloaded the 'A Novel Idea' app for my assorted IOS devices. I advise doing so, it organises your writers brain.

I am also very pleased to announce that two days ago, I graduated with a 2:1 in English from St Mary's University College. I am also even more pleased to announce that I have an unconditional place to begin studying an MA in Children's Literature at Roehampton University from September. And so I launch 'Project Distinction'. I think 2:1 was fair for my 3 year's work, but achieving that has pushed me to do one better, and be the best I can be. I love writing in any way shape or form, and that includes essays. And I know I can be better.

I think graduating with all my friends at Westminster Cathedral (posh, I know) and then enjoying the sun and drinks with them afterwards was one of the top highlights of my life so far. It's something I discover about myself, I experience, I like, I want more. Walking out with my mortarboard and gown and degree trailing behind the Doctors and the Master's students I know I want to do that again, I look forward to writing a blog November next year having graduated with a Master's, and aiming for a PhD. I am excited for life, and I'm doing what I've always dreamed of doing.

I will be a writer, I am a writer.

An Ode to Earl Grey or 'David Tries Being a Published Writer'

2013-03-28T13:42:00.000+00:00

As of 12 o'clock today, 28th March 2013, I can call myself a published writer. My first ever published piece of work, a film review of the Frenchiest of French films 'In the House' or 'Dans La Maison' for the more European among us, can be read here on the movie website 'The Hollywood News' which I now write for. http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/2013/03/28/in-the-house-review/

I apologise as I didn't talk about my trip to the screening, in a very plush little cinema near Charlotte Street in London. This very much constituted my criteria as a 'new thing' I tried, and it was my greatest success to date. After obtaining the email address of the editor of The Hollywood News from Matt Dennis, my friend and another writer for the website (further cementing the mantra of 'it's who you know') I wrote a sample piece and soon found myself invited to the screening. On arriving, slightly nervous and donning an embarrassingly large bag of uni books, the mini library I find myself carting round in this final semester, I was greeted by a cheery lady who ticked my name on a guestlist and invited me to enjoy a beer, a glass of wine and some posh crisps. Naturally being the discerning gentleman I am I chose the beer and commenced to enjoy the delights of being a VIP.

On entering the screening, past a heavy metal door which wouldn't have looked out of place at NASA I soon found myself enjoying the piece of high culture Film Festival beating movie which you can read about above. I found the whole experience one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done and the very fact that people do this for a living and get paid set in me the very same feeling I had when I was 9 and I read Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz and decided I wanted to write books. Yes it's difficult to make notes in a dark film theatre but I loved it, and I want to return next time dressed slightly better and not carrying my library with me. I have the attitude to things like getting into writing that 'if others can do it, so can I.'

I think it's an important point for any writer to learn early is that no writer merely writes in one style, in one means, and in particular, no writer writes occasionally. For example, no one just writes books. I'd dare anyone to find me an author these days who doesn't write articles, or keep a blog, or write poems on the side. It's just something you have to do to keep your hand in, and it's taken me quite a while to fully realise that. And it's good, because lets face it, writing's boring.

Shock horror I hear you say, but it is, if you just sit writing one thing forever you'll always get bored with it, same as if you watch 3 films for the rest of your life. There is nothing better than the thrill of completion and it's very hard to complete a novel, so why not aim smaller, there are so many freelance and free writing opportunities out there that people would be silly to pass them up.

And go do a degree! My god go do a degree. If you like to write go study English or Creative Writing or anything heavily essay based, or if your talents and interests lie in video production or similar, go study media or Film. These degrees, from a writing perspective do what all the little pieces of writing do, you keep your hand in. Yes you just wrote an essay on the Postmodern Condition in Kurt Vonnegut, or whether or not Kanzi the monkey can talk. Yes you'll never read them again, but you wrote it. You wrote it and got a good mark for it and it's almost the same as being published. It's that validation which says 'see those words you just wrote on that bit of paper? They're damn good, I'd like to see more of your words on bits of paper.' And for god's sake if you want to write read. Read lots, read anything. Read newspapers (The Times has really good writing in it) read magazines, read poems written on the inside of tube trains. And read books. Read every book you can get your hands on and if you do all that, look back on the things you wrote a year ago and you'll shock yourself with how bad you used to be and how good you are now.

So keep a blog, write poems, do a degree and just write. And talk about writing. The mantra of 'it's who you know' exists for a reason. For a calling in life which is quite solitary, through wonderful places like Twitter and Tumblr and creative commons websites like Ideastap and Figment, you can network with other writers and before you know it you can say 'it's who you know' in a disgruntled tone and then realise you know someone who could help. And then ask for help, because on the whole people are lovely and want to help. That's what I did and I'm not saying I've arrived because that'd be near sighted of me. But I have something I wrote, published on a website for the world to see. And one day I hope a lot more people read these too, because I write for people. My aim is for lots.

And do you want to know the real secret to success in writing and university? Earl Grey tea. The stuff's better than crack I swear.

Moneygrabbing Bastards! or 'David Tries Being Annoyed'

2013-03-07T18:05:00.000+00:00

Moneygrabbing bastards!

Is a phrase I'd rather escaped my lips a lot less, but sometimes you can't help it. In the Times only this morning for example, I started to think about writing this blog, and then suddenly on page three (for in The Times, there is journalistic material on page three instead of Rhian's huge chesticles accompanied by a speech bubble containing Rhian's opinions on the middle east) ...I digress. On page three of The Times there were two examples of moneygrabbing.

First of all the Sherlock Holmes museum. Recently, the owner of the museum died, and its assets were to be divided between two people who worked there. The owner of the museum had trusted both of them and all of his staff and not run the museum as tightly and efficiently (in a financial sense) as they probably should have. But it doesn't matter right? Friends would never screw each other out of money. But low and behold, as the will gets examined, it turns out one of the two staff members had embezzled hundreds of thousands of pounds of profit from the little museum on 221B Baker Street. This saddened me more than anything.

Then directly under this heartwarming story lay a piece about how David Cameron's home constituency of Witney couldn't afford him to turn on their Christmas lights last year. They couldn't afford him because his security costs too much. If only we lived in a world where political figures aren't fatally targeted by a completely different sort of bastard, but unfortunately we do. Nevertheless, the security charge so much.

And who can blame them really? We have to get by in these troubled times - is a favourite phrase of television types nowadays. And I know, I'm one of those studenty people. The people of Pot Noodles and Sainsbury's basics. And that's what lead me to this tale of pennies and woe. I'm realising that this isn't the cheeriest of topics. However I aim to meet the needs of readers and I'm willing to bet only a small portion of readers in general don't think about problems like these on a regular basis.

The good people of student finance give me £2000 a semester, which is more than most people get I grant you, but I live in Richmond, the most expensive borough in the country. And I don't even live there all the time now. I'm forced to now trek home to north London after lectures every Thursday to save a bit of money. Or go to my girlfriend's house, which makes me very happy. But I live in 3 places. I'm constantly in a state of inbetweenness, my belongings scattered rather haphazardly across south-east England. I don't enjoy this feeling. I'm a person who likes everything in one place, tidy in a room so I can relax and do the large amount of work I have to do. I never get down about this because I appreciate what I have more than I can describe. A wonderful girlfriend with a wonderful family who accepts me. I write this sitting in their living room while Charlotte's at work. I've allowed myself a break because I wrote 2000 words of dissertation this morning! 4800 to go! And 1000 of my personal study yesterday. And my first two essays for this semester are done. I am exactly halfway through my last semester and this both scares and satisfies me.

I am decided now. I absolutely love uni, I love what I study and all my friends. But the best thing about brilliant friends and studying a masters in Children's Literature next year is I get to keep both those things despite the fact my degree is coming to an end. I want money, I want to be someone who can support himself and others. I want all my stuff in one place and I want to be able to get a chinese without bankrupting myself.

Which brings me back to my monetary requirements. Living in the most expensive borough in the country, I have to pay 4 rents a time out of this £2000 the government kindly lends me. That leaves me with £400. £400 for four months of living. Lets take bills out of that, that's another £100+ gone. So £300. Hold on I do English. I have a vast amount of books to buy because all libraries have become as money grabbing as the rest of the world. Places like Senate House - which holds every book I need - charges non University of London students £193 a year for membership. And you can't even go search among the books yourself! These books should be public domain, they should belong to each and every person in the country free of charge. That, is it not, the point of a library? But no, more money.

Ebooks! I hear you say! I say find me an ebook on the internet that doesn't have pages missing, asking you for a charge to buy the whole thing. I wish I wasn't so annoyed about this. I wish I wasn't using my blog meant to spread happiness to vent, but worry not. I'm getting to the positive bit. This is the most therapeutic thing I do. I'm so much better at articulating myself with my words. That's why I am certain I will make some sort of career with my writing. Determination isn't the word. With the right support and belief, I can do anything.

Basically the government wants me to get a job. I understand this, but I see injustice in that. The degree isn't enough these days. So many people come out of uni and can't use their degrees to get what they want. I don't see the fairness in asking a student such as me and thousands of others to write long extended pieces of work, putting their whole effort into them, and work as well. People say it prepares you for the real world, but I don't see people out of uni having to do uni work on top of jobs. But I don't mind, because that's the way of the world. You have to do things you don't like sometimes. But getting a job? Saying 'I do a degree' (in my experience) to an employer, is like saying 'please don't hire me I'm putting something else first.' But I'll carry on trying, and trying and trying until I either get something part time, or I get a proper job after my degree, which I'm now doing as well. What I hate most of all is when people act like I don't try, that I'm not doing everything in my power to do all this.

In my personal opinion, the government spends vast amounts of money on pointless things - I'm reminded of a story saying the government spend £300,000 a year on tea and biscuits for NHS staff and visitors. Now these people work hard, they need to be fed and kept happy, but a part of me screams injustice. Especially when I hear stories of my loved ones going to these people and being bounced around departments because no one can do their job properly. Maybe put down the Jammie Dodger and open Gray's Anatomy? (That's right, I watch Grey's Anatomy, and I love wordplay) And I ask maybe if more thought was put into government spending by these moneygrabbing bastards sitting at the top of the pyramid, maybe this country's money could be more evenly distributed.

Back to money. I want to do pleasurable things! I find myself under a lot of pressure because of all this on a regular basis. And lets mention for a second my 4 month struggle with Richmond council. Where I had to tell them again and again, giving bit after bit of proof to prove that me and my housemates are exempt from council tax. Every answer made them give me another demand. They were determined to charge someone for council tax. They're determined to squeeze someone for a few pennies. That is hopefully over now so one less stress.

And I want money to do nice things. I want books and DVDs and music and go nice places with my girlfriend, and sit and drink earl grey tea eating crisps with my friends and go to the pub with them. But I haven't got the money to do that. I'm studying Bob Dylan at the moment and I need his albums. But how much are they? £8.99 each some of them! I can't afford that! And that's a whole other story, why is music so expensive? Why are gigs so expensive? Why are Kindle books, which have no production value whatsoever, the same price as print books? Do they want me to illegally download? I quite like the fact that I buy all my music. I like to give people money when they make something that I like and want in my life, but when they start charging the earth for 12 songs I start wondering do I owe them that? I wonder where all this money goes. The pessimist in me says 'someone's pocket.'

Now, this blog has been depressing, and I apologise sincerely, but I hope at the very least if you are in a similar position to me I've helped you in the way that you're not alone. But I'm reached the good bit.

People are good, people are funny and lovely and free. I'm not saying throw off the shackles of materialism, because Shakeaway's also lovely and nice, but Shakeaways are expensive. So when this all gets to me I think of all the lovely things I experience because of people. My lovely friends, my lovely family and my lovely girlfriend. I am supported and I have a smile on my face despite all this monetary strife. I don't treat anyone badly and the good times are coming. The good times are already here. Just know (and I know some people are far worse off than me) but just know that one day you'll be able to walk into a Shakeaway and buy a 'Steve' or a 'Rupert' or a 'Clive' and reap the benefits of your hard work, of the uni work you do, or the non-uni work, the hard work out there in the world. There are always good things which balance out all the crap.

I'm thinking of starting to write down all the little nice things that happen to me and putting them in a jar and then every now and again upending the jar and let the smiles arrive.

The morals of this blog:

1) Work during your gap year
2) Do not under any circumstances read newspapers. They have the news and you look jolly-well intelligent but they are the nation's doombringer. Buy an OK magazine, buy the Sun and find out what Rhian's said today and watch the X Factor. Sit with someone you love or like a bloomin great deal and watch a film or go out and have a nice walk somewhere. Sit by yourself and write a blog or a poem or a novel or a screenplay or a list of some nice things. Listen to your favourite song. Do whatever makes you happy. Don't let the moneygrabbing bastards get you down.

Good luck.

Stately Plump Buck Mulligan... or 'David Tries Relaxing'

2012-11-13T19:13:00.002+00:00

I have had two things stuck in my head all day. Firstly the words 'Stately plump Buck Mulligan.' This is the opening few words from Ulysses, a novel by James Joyce a topic which has featured in a previous blog. It is without a doubt the best book I have ever read, and I hate it.

This might confuse some readers, in my head the terms 'best' and 'my favourite' don't usually constitute the same set of books/films/music etc. I think the Godfather's amazing, I love watching it and I could write a considerably long essay about how I think it's the best film I've ever seen. It doesn't come anywhere near my top five though. It just doesn't have the rewatchability of Die Hard or Sleepless in Seattle for me. (Also through that statement you can see my strange range of film tastes)

Ulysses is the book form of the Godfather for me, quite long, quite complicated and brilliant. It took James Joyce 20 years to write and it is taking up most of my time to read. It amazes me how a man can write a 900 page book where every single sentence means something. There is nothing incidental, nothing pointless in this book. And it is amazing.

It is driving me insane.

I mean pretentious much? Needless to say I will not be revisiting this book like I've revisited Harry Potter. No Harry Potter probably doesn't have as much 'literary value' but to hell with literary value I like being relaxed and Ulysses does not do that for me. To read something so confusing and so heavy (in terms of what is in it and just general grams) is really taking it out of me, and I look forward to Christmas so I can say goodbye to it. I can confine it to my shelf and look at it occasionally thinking 'yeah, I read that' and feel jolly well proud of myself.

But I don't think it'll end there. I have a feeling this book won't leave me. Like the Odyssey (the book which it is set around) which I have studied at GCSE, A-Level, and now apparently university level. As my friend Ryan said to me earlier, it's come back to haunt me in Modernist form. Worryingly I not only think that it won't leave me, but that I won't want to leave it. I love finding stuff out and learning things and here is a book that no one has ever found everything from. No one likes it, no one would take the fucking thing on holiday, but people read it, people have talked about it and taken it to pieces for exactly 90 years. I think if I ever get into lecturing, as is one of my dreams, I will be teaching a module on the bloody thing. Because I think it's important to literature, I just can't bloody stand it.

Most things I come across nowadays, I quietly think to myself 'this requires study'. I moan about it like no one else, but I love studying literature. I am in the process of applying for an MA in children's literature. I'm loving my dissertation and I'm taking on another personal study next semester. Which brings me to the second thing which has been stuck in my head all day. The Oasis lyric 'if there's a God won't he give another chancer, an hour to sing for his soul.'

If Ulysses has been contested for 90 years, nothing has been contested like God. I don't know what I think about religion. I won't say anything for or against it because I want to study it. I find modernism almost forces me to think about these things, doing an essay on Nietzsche and statements like 'God is dead' is what should be held accountable for this blog. I find it so interesting and I do believe in something afterwards. I can't get my head around the fact that I'll stop being me. However this blind belief in some form of afterlife does not necessarily support a belief in the almighty. I don't like organised religion, personally I don't like how you have to pick one (for the time it takes up). Why are there so many? Why does there have to be a right one? Are any of them right? I don't know, so I'll be looking into that. My lecturers; scholars and logical minds, go to church and believe. I like to know people's beliefs, I like to know why, so I'll look into it. I don't like being told what to believe, by either side, I like to make my own decisions, so one day I'll take a look at that.

Human beings seem to have a habit of writing on things and people looking at these things a thousand years later and thinking they must have significance. This may have been what happened with the guy who thought up religion on a cave wall or the side of a pyramid. And this may have happened with Ulysses. I would love to have a time machine, visit James Joyce and discover that Ulysses is actually a 900 page book about a man farting, pooing, picking his nose and masturbating his way through a day, eating kidneys, going to funerals and nothing else. And all the literary references and everything else that has been picked apart from it is purely incidental. Until then however...

Stately plump Buck Mulligan...for fuck's sake.

It is because of these thoughts that Ulysses has given me, and doing essays on things like 'God is dead' and an endless stream of modernism travelling my way, I joined a snooker club. It's free for students and it relaxes me. I think it's the clack of the balls? Probably weird but hey, I'm a weird guy. So if you'd like to join me for a game and a chat about Nietzsche or James Joyce, find me at assorted Riley's snooker clubs drinking Guinness and having a lovely relax.

Sex and the City in No Way Influenced This Post or 'David Tries Being a Modern Man'

2012-10-28T01:11:00.000+01:00

I guess I'm a modern man, I'm currently sitting up at 1.30 in the morning watching Sex and the City and I'm actually in a loving, extremely straight relationship. So sue me, it's funny! I suppose it's also inspired me to start writing this blog again, I love blogging, writing every day is something I plan on enforcing from now on as I realise it's the one thing I want to do with my life so I will always do it, whether I get paid pittance or total zilch, or (hopefully) the big bucks.

So it's been a while, and I guess I'd better mention the big change in my life, as will be the theme of this first blog back after my little summer break. I have a girlfriend. An extremely wonderful one called Charlotte, so when I mention a Charlotte in future blogs you'll know who she is.

I'd better start at the beginning. I warn you, only read on if you want to read about a relationship, if not, I'm afraid there's nothing for you here! I say modern man in my title because I happened to meet my girlfriend through Youtube of all places. That place where people, more often than not slightly mental people like myself post videos for a variety of reasons, music, to make people laugh, the joy of instant creation to be seen by possible millions, or - often - because they own a cat that can perform an amusing trick. I'd decided to read out a passage of 50 Shades of Grey for comedy value, Charlotte saw it when someone she was already subscribed to liked it. She followed me on Tumblr through a link I had in my description box, I saw she looked cute in her profile pic on there, plus liked The Fault in Our Stars, one of the greatest books ever written, so I messaged her. We spoke for a week straight without pause and then we met, and we kissed and four months on the conversation's still going.

Now I'm quite proud of myself. I'm not the luckiest with ladies, and finding the girl of my dreams through Youtube was certainly not how I envisioned meeting said girl of my dreams, but I did, and perfectly so. Truth is we live in a modern world, a world where it's easier than ever to meet people we would never usually meet. I'm sure a lot of people would here 'I met my girlfriend on Youtube' and think 'what?! Shock! Horror! Interrobang!*' or something of the sort. And in a way I whole-heartedly agree, there are a lot of weirdos on the internet so I in no way condone the random meeting of any old person. But if you're safe, i.e. as safe as you would be in real life, you'll be fine. I met Charlotte's family on that first meeting. And some of her friends and mutual loveliness was seen on both sides. I'd recommend anyone in a similar situation as Charlotte's parents do the same with any prospective weirdo from the internet! But of course I am not a weirdo...in that sense at least, hence the four month relationship (and counting). People on the internet, more often than not are just that, people. You're on the internet right now, and I believe we live in a changing world where stories like mine and Charlotte's are becoming more common. It's just a new way to meet people, friends or otherwise.

So I recommend taking the risk, I knew I liked Charlotte instantly, I think you do just know sometimes and it's something I had never experienced up to that point. People have told me in the past that I should be this and I should be that, but the truth is when you meet the right person you are exactly yourself and everything goes according to plan. I had watched a video by the youtuber Carrie Fletcher earlier in the day. I highly recommend watching her, she has this project called the things we never say project. The impetus in it's creation is for people to say the things they want to say that they never usually would. And with Charlotte I did, I know people would tell me not to say the things I said in that first conversation, but I did, and now we're in love. So my advice to anyone is if you really like someone it really is that simple, say what you want to say, if they don't respond well then they're not the right person, move on. Moving on was something I had failed to do to an extremely high degree up until that point in my life. But it worked and I'm happier than I could have ever possibly imagined.

To be honest, if I sit and think about the things and the tiny decisions which led me to Charlotte, I really can't believe it. Just one tiniest decision going the other way could have meant me never meeting her. If my friend Jocy had never introduced me to youtubing or John Green I would not be on youtube and in love with the writing which led me to her. If I'd never joined Tumblr she'd never have followed me on there, if any one of the girls I'd pursued in the past had said yes to me I'd maybe be with them. If I'd never subscribed to GQ I wouldn't have had the passage of 50 Shades of Grey to read out for that person to like on youtube. That person may not have ever started youtubing either, and that they might not have subscribed to me. The fact that out of the billion videos on that site Charlotte stumbled across mine is something that even now I fail to comprehend. And if I'd never started this blog I wouldn't have tried youtubing in the first place.

I'd like to say that our situation is unique, that it's special and magic and wonderful and it is; infinitely so, but every story like this is special and unique and magic to the couple and I think that's wonderful. Relationships are wonderful and the way they happen is wonderful.

The truth is internet, Charlotte is wonderful and I had to tell you our story as this is my favourite new thing and my most successful. Having a girlfriend and being in love is just about the best new thing I've rather wonderfully stumbled across.

* For those not in the know an Interrobang is the greatest of all punctuation marks, the combination of a question mark and an exclamation mark. I will be making a petition to have it included on all computer keyboards.

A Fancy Way of Saying Not Much or 'David Tries Being a Third Year'

2012-07-16T15:58:00.000+01:00

Well internet, I'm annoyed.

And I'll tell you for why. I'd call him JJ, but that unfortunately makes him sound cool, and in my opinion, so far, he is not. I am talking about the so-called master wordsmith James Joyce.

I'll be honest, I'm 40 pages into the 900 page leviathan confuse-athon and so far I am just that. Confused isn't the word, I may be confuzzled to say the least. My lecturer said to me in a meeting with him, that it was his personal opinion that Modernism (and James Joyce is the main flag-bearer for that particular critical theory) was a fancy way of saying not much at all. And I'm inclined to agree.

I understand modernism, I understand the movement to create new ways to tell stories. Without modernism we wouldn't have Catcher in the Rye, or Dracula, two stories told in ways which were previously unheard of. Catcher in the Rye, like Ulysses, the book I am struggling through, written in a stream of consciousness way, Dracula written as a series of letters and diary entries. A style which I found gripping and interesting, and it's why these are two of my favourite books.

Ulysses though. It makes me angry! Joyce makes so many claims as though they're gospel truth. And I understand why he writes, as in to get people to think about things, namely irish home rule and British imperialism at its time of writing, but this is hidden amongst so many other subplots and asides it's almost impossible to keep up with. In the first page alone I was confronted with three different ideals and preachy statements concerning religion, a quest for paternity and something else which my brain can't even start to remember. The only way these themes were brought to my attention was by consulting the notes.

'Stately, plumb Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: - Introibo ad altare Dei'

Would anyone like to guess what you're supposed to get from those opening lines to this book? Just a man having a leisurely stroll down the stairs to have a shave. Why he's so lazy he hasn't even done up his dressing gown? That crazy mo-fo.

While this is happening in the story, I am suppose to ignore this point, i.e. what is actually happening. Instead I'm supposed to remark on the crossed mirror and razor which makes a mockery of the Catholic church and the catholic mass as he creates a mock worship in his shaving routine. Therefore there's a distinct anti-religion theme. I'm supposed to take his ungirdled dressing down as to meaning that he's walking down the stairs naked, as in, displaying his penis. His ease with which he displays his penis is mean to represent his affinity with Neitzsche's Superman, the übermensch. The ideal representation of how a man should be. This is meant to lead me to the two main character's quest for their paternity, though Stephen Dedalus has not even been introduced to us yet. Then there's something else of importance about the fact that he used Latin frivilously. I can't remember because I can't fit anything else in my head.

That was six lines!

And sure, you can say 'but David, you're an English student, you're supposed to do this to any book.' And I'd agree, and I love doing it, but not to every single line, to a series of completely unrelated preachy points. I disagree with preachiness on all levels. My dissertation is centred mainly around this point. I dislike being told what to believe and what is good literature. I don't think this is good literature. I don't think good literature should include a vital notes section without which you miss the point of the book. And the notes are extensive. As in about 300 pages worth. 300 pages explaining the incomprehensible words in this stupid book!

I like finding the meaning in things, and I think it's impressive that so much can be put into a book. But is any of it necessary? Did I need to have all of this shoved down my throat by James Joyce? I don't think so. I think you get much much more from books written by John Green. I mention John Green a lot in my blogs and in life in general and there's a reason for that. His skill is to create a fantastic story with gripping characters which you can read in a day because you literally can't put his books down. You feel like any moment you're not reading his book is a moment wasted. When I pick up Ulysses, with a veritable groan I feel my heart sinking as I know that in about half an hour's time I'm going to have a headache and then find that I've only progressed 3 pages.

Interesting characters are vitally important to literature. I personally find it interesting to see the author through his characters. And what I see through the high and mighty, douchebag that is Buck Mulligan, and the reserved 'perfect man' that is Stephen Dedalus is the two sides of James Joyce, neither of which I like. Both of them preaching in their own ways.

It's an interesting story that books used to be sealed, and you had to break each new page as you progressed through the book. The vast majority of copies of Ulysses which have been found from it's time of publication were not broken in beyond page 50. As in no one could get through it. Did they miss out? I don't think so. They probably went and read Dracula, had a thumping good read, and then if they wanted they learnt some really interesting and vital points about feminism and other things contained importantly within pages, which, insultingly at the time was seen as 'Tesco's Top Ten' literature. The 50 Shades of Grey of its day. And yes, times change, but really, 50 Shades of Grey is a steaming pile of horse manure. Dracula is a really good book. And yes that's my opinion. However I wouldn't be high and mighty enough to say without doubt that every person in the world must read Dracula. I highly recommend you give it a try but I don't think anything is vital literature. Least of all Ulysses.

So now I struggle on, because I must read about why James Joyce believes that boys playing sports and learning Classics in England led to World War One.

I shit you not. Page 41, here I come. *waves flag of sarcasm*

My Skinny Leg Attire is At the Ready or 'David Tries Being an Actual Author Person'

2012-07-01T16:12:00.002+01:00

Well, I've arrived.

Authortown, Writer's Junction, Wordsmith Boulevard. No Green Day, my boulevard is one of intact dreams.

Alright I've not yet but I will be very very soon. I spoke a bit last time about my dislike of the Amazon conglomerate. I am a huge hypocrite because I use Amazon, a great deal in fact. So much that I'm even a member of Amazon Prime. So if you need anything delivered tomorrow for free I'm your man.

However, while I do use the shopping cart of evil, I purchase some things elsewhere. Books for instance I buy in bookshops because, as a writer I feel a personal affiliation to the writers of the books and the booksellers themselves. I would much rather give Waterstones and John Green my money than Amazon and Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon (and John Green still) my money.

That's the sickening thing though. If I go on the Amazon marketplace to buy The Fault in Our Stars, for a cut price, which I can easily do, John Green; writer one of the best books I have ever read, gets none of my money. Only the seller does. It's like someone buying a concert ticket and selling it on. It just doesn't sit right with me. Alright, there's only one book, so there's only one percentage of money up for grabs, so in a round about way John Green has been paid for his excellent work, and I get my book. But so does the money spinning giant with the monopoly on everything.

That's why I don't like Amazon, it doesn't care about what's on it. It's only out for money. I would like to think, the owner of a chain of bookshops, by definition cares a little bit about books, therefore I would rather purchase my words scribbled on delightful scented paper from them.

On another note when are Yankee Candles going to do a 'new book' scent? Get your finger out Yankee Candles.

The reason why I'm talking about this again is that this morning, on watching an Alex Day (Nerimon) video, I was inspired to go it alone in the publishing world. Gradually over the past few months, I've grown to appreciate Youtube for what it actually is. The perfect site for creation. It is built on user created content. Yes there are clips of films and music and other things, but the basis of it is a place where a person, say you or me, can get hold of a camera, be it a cheap webcam or a camera worth many monies, can click record and create whatever we like. Alex Day makes music, and got to number 4 in the UK charts at Christmas last year. No record label, nothing like that.

I am convinced independent is the future. I do agree with John Green on the book side of things, self-published books can go wrong. If a book has been looked over by a large number of people, and the authors themselves though, I think self-publishing a book is just the same as Alex Day self-producing excellent music for people's ears. I want to create stories for people's eyes.

I have become disheartened and annoyed with the publishing industry. I have been told by two separate publishing institutions (an agency and a publisher) more or less that my book is fantastic. However, for the most ridiculous reasons my book is not sat on a shelf in Waterstones. The publisher said I was two young and the agency basically (I think) couldn't be bothered. They said that my book is a thriller/sci-fi/ humour. First of all I disagree with the humour. My book has humour in it, it's not of the humour genre. This was her reasoning for not wanting to take it on.

Therefore I thought, why should I listen to these people when there exists on the internet, this wonderful land of sharing and creation, the tools to self publish my work. So I give you ibooks and the Kindle Store.

Ah the Amazon link, see I was going somewhere.

I had a dialemma. If I put my book on the Kindle Store for money, Mr Bezos gets a slice of my pie. My pie is tasty and I don't share it with people I don't like. Mr Bezos is on my list. However he has the sharing platform for books, and to ignore it would be foolish of me. Therefore I came up with a plan. I have a vlog on Youtube, I hope to get a following on the site. And I believe in the community. I believe that as a group of creative people, the Youtubers can accomplish anything they set their minds to. It's beating the system in a wonderfully poetic and fist-pumpingly awesome way. That's why my book will be available for nothing on the Kindle Store. You can get my 300 pages of story, for free. And I really hope you'll like it.

I hate to be big-headed, to assume that my work should be one of those things. I'm not saying it will be, all I want to do is try. And try again with something better if something fails. But then what is failure? If one person buys my book, and it helps them in whatever small way, I would call my words on their computer screen a 100% roaring success. Who says that number of sales = success? Alright loads of people. But not me, that's not important to me. Ok it's my dream of making a living out of this, which is why I'll be putting my book on sale for money on ibooks.

But David! I hear you cry. Apple are as big a company as Amazon, if not bigger! Why are you giving them money. And the answer, first and foremost is my self-professed Apple-whore status. I own every Apple product save for the ipad and imac. Although I do have plans to own them in the future. I love Apple products. I love itunes, I love everything about them. That's my preference, and it might seem narrow-minded of me to chose them over personal preference but is it? Apple, in my opinion monopolise electronic items and sale. But that's their right as an electronics company. Amazon on the other hands, like Tescos are trying to monopolise everything. From books, to music, to paddling pools, to sweets, to clothes to everything else ever created by man. I do not want to walk down a street singularly composed of these two signs. However having one Apple store every now and again just shows a bloomin' successful company who are good at what they do. Which is why my book will be for sale for actual money on the ibooks store. Not for a full book price because I'm nice, but for sale nevertheless.

But David!

You again? What now?

Why would people buy your book when they can get it for free?

Well, I would like to think, that people like to contribute to the creator's work. Thousands of people download for music for free and buy the albums they actually like or believe in. I therefore am offering my work for free, so people can then, if they so desire, and only if they desire, go and buy my book and give me a little bit of money for my trouble. Maybe it's a hippy way to do this but I believe in people, and I would! I download nothing for free, I don't believe in it at all, and I love the idea of giving something away in one place and asking people to contribute if they like.

I very much hope it works. Maybe it's pie in the sky and I don't know if it'll work for me. I just want to find out if people like my work. If they do there will be a sequel, and another after that, and then several standalone novels I have plans for. I want people to read the words I've written so why not give it to them? If they go and buy it too, then wehey! Top notch, my thanks can never be expressed in words thankful enough. So I'll express my thanks with another book you can get for free if you so choose. Hopefully you'll like that one too and come back for more.

I would like to also make the point that because profit margins are better for authors when you self-publish. Whatever 'extra' money I'd receive by self-publishing would go to the 'This Star Won't Go Out' foundation. I think definitely the most worthy cause I can think of. http://tswgo.org/

This is my plan, to be an indie author. My skinny leg attire is at the ready.

I Have a Dream or 'David Tries Being an Important Black Rights Spokesman'

2012-06-26T15:33:00.000+01:00

I shall call this the sentence of disappointment. Or the sentence of broken promises. It goes thus:

I am not Martin Luther King, nor am I in the position to campaign for black rights. Mainly because a lot of people already did that a long time ago to great effect. I sometimes wonder who will be the Martin Luther King of the gay rights movement. I hope it's Neil Patrick Harris personally; my current favourite homosexual.

Anyway, while I will not be talking today at any length about rights, I do have a dream.

Smooth David, onto the point.

My dream is quite simple, and it's an idea I've had for a few months now and not really shared. Mainly because it only formed properly in my head about 45 seconds ago.

My idea for my blog in the first place, as I'm sure you know - if you don't, then have a click on those links over there --> where've you been? But anyway my idea for this blog came from a sudden fear I had that I wasn't trying everything I should be trying, in all areas of my life. I'm a 21 year old man living in London, a city which screams 'come here! Experience me!' That sounds sordid and I don't even care, I experience the hell out of this place.

I love trying things because I love discovering new places and new things to interest me and benefit my life. It's an incredibly positive way to live to be willing to give anything a try and I can only recommend it, it's up to you whether you want to follow it too.

The tricky thing is though, how to find things? Most of the time I go on a random adventure somewhere, say London, and while there something will catch my eye and I'll give it a go. The other day it was seeing One Man, Two Guv'nors. I had no plans to see it but I was walking past it, there was a friendly sign saying 'tickets for tonight!' and I walked in. I flashed my National Theatre pass and saw one of the best, funniest plays I'd ever seen for £5. On another note I want to get an FBI style flippy wallet for my NT pass. Or maybe I'll wear it as a badge on the inside of my outerwear.

My point is, on my spontaneous adventure I experienced many things, this play for instance. In the play there was a band playing between scenes. They're called 'The Craze' and they're my new favourite band and my soundtrack to writing this blog. I think it would be silly to merely go to the NT website, click on the shop and purchase their album there. I suggest instead scooting over a couple of tabs, getting yourself an entry pass. Skipping over to the tab next to it and using that badboy to see One Man, Two Guv'nors and then buy their album at home. They're amazing, they're a skiffle band with a punky, indie twang to their voices. They're like the Beatles meets Alex Day, the Youtuber formerly known as Nerimon, who I also suggest you check out.

This is my point though, not everyone has the time or the patience to go on spontaneous trips to London. As much as I think everybody should because I have a lot of fun doing that, but it would be good if there was another place I could visit, here on the internet which pointed me in the direction of The Craze, or Alex Day, or One Man, Two Guv'nors, or indeed the quirky shop I discovered the day after on a second trip to London called 'The Vintage Magazine Shop.' A place which doesn't actually provide magazines disappointingly, but instead a whole host of retro merchandise that I really wanted to spend money I don't have on. It's awesome and on Brewer Street near Leicester Square...What are you still doing here, go now! I'll wait for you to get back...

...Hiya! It's amazing isn't it? What? You went and saw a bit of spontaneous theatre too? A reader after my own heart. As I was saying though, I'd like to see a website which promoted the indie. I think indie is a vastly misunderstood term. I think a lot of people hear the word 'indie' and go 'ugh idiots in skinny jeans.' And yes, we may like our jeans slender, but they make our legs look sexy! Indie means independent, and so much is made of the fear that nowadays independent things are dying out. I have a contrary opinion. What people like Alex Day show us, is that independent people are thriving, there is just not the general worldwide advertising they require. This is a crying shame. Not that these independent people should advertise themselves, by paying people to do so, that kind of defeats the point of being independent. However, there needs to be a platform for these people, led by the people who love listening to them, reading their work, visiting their shops.

It's always a huge shame when an independent shop goes under. I direct you to the film 'You've Got Mail.' It's very sad when Meg Ryan's children's bookshop gets closed in lieu of the arrival of Tom Hank's book megastore down the street. And it's a situation only two relatable to the situation we find ourselves in. Especially for artists of all disciplines. Amazon is not only putting independent shops out of business with their cheap books/cheap dvds/cheap everything. They are putting entire chains of shops out of business. I direct you to Borders, murdered by the Amazon giant. Waterstones and Barnes and Noble are also on shakey ground because of the online superstore giant.

I'm not going to say I don't use Amazon, of course I use Amazon, it's unavoidable, especially as a student with limited funds. But do you really want a high street that only has the word Amazon above every shop? It would be so boring, and more importantly it makes only the one person any richer, the person sitting at the top of the Amazon pyramid. And it's not fair. Why should the Rupert Murdoch type people of this world own the monopoly on everything? Money should be spread evenly amongst all the people who create the work that they produce. This opens up the avenue of self publishing. You can now upload any old writing you do on the side to the Amazon Kindle Store, and give Amazon a share of the profits. What about the publishers who make writing publishable? I can sit here and complain about my book being published all I like but the fact of the matter is I haven't produced something good enough to be published which is why I always strive to make what I write better. Editors and publishers deserve their place in the business, and Amazon is trying to put them out of the business in supposed 'fairness' to get everyone's work out into the public. But it's not about that. The people who become big through self publishing. The EL James type people in this world (the author who penned Fifty Shades of Grey) are only out for the money, not for the work. As are Amazon who helped her self publish the work in the first place.

I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself. EL James was of course an independent person at first. However she is now published by a bona fide publishing house, and the fact of the matter is, her work is not up to the standard of other books published generally. The point of being independent, like Alex Day is that the work he produces would get signed, I have no doubt, there will be record labels snapping at his converse. And I'm sure they are. I don't fully understand Alex's position, all I know is that he's not signed, and from what I am aware happy to stay that way, under the independent producer DFTBA records, a vlogbrothers production. The point is that being independent can work. I'm not lauding book publishers, they are a business, and if you believe your work is good enough, then self publish, but you could start by doing so for free. There's a difference in wanting to get the work out there and selling out *cough* EL James *cough*

I've gone off on one, but the point remains, companies like Amazon are out to kill the independent people, not support them. They're trying to monopolise independence! And sneakily. And I think it's wrong. It's dog eat dog you might say, and I agree, which is where my dream comes in, and I really hope I can achieve it.

I want to set up a website, or a web magazine that promotes the new things you can all go out and experience in the world. It would have new music, new books, new theatre shows, new clothes, new art exhibitions, new vlog channels, new absolutely everything so people can click on them, and then go and experience what they want to experience. The problem with good art, I often find is that there is no platform for everyone to see it, or not as big a platform as there should be. I only found out about Alex Day by word of mouth. To be honest he doesn't need my help, that guy's going places, but I doubt anyone would disagree with a little bit more publicity from a fan who would just like to help. The same goes for The Craze who I really hope get places. And I'm not completely against self-publishing per-say, there are good self-published novels out there, and I would promote them too, along with all the new theatre shows you should go to as a theatre goer, along with everything else which people need to experience.

I'd also have on it a book club and a platform for people to talk, get to know each other, exchange ideas. If you have a band, and you need a bassist, then you could go to the website and there would be a section for people who wanted to promote their musical talents and new and exciting bands would be formed to be out there and in the public's ears. I'm excited, I hope you can tell, I have a lot of ideas, some of them rubbish, but I think this one has legs. The best thing about this website, if you want your stuff on there, it's free. A social networking site for stuff as well as people if you like, like MySpace but not rubbish.

I'd hope a website such as this would encourage people to go out and give their money to the independent people. The ones who create amazing stuff which gets overshadowed by the giants. The Twilights and the Fifty Shades of Grey of this world. The monopolised money spinning doommongers who suck the life out of anything vaguely creative. Don't go to Amazon go to a bookshop you found in a backstreet in Soho. It's the same book, and you keep them afloat and the person who wrote it gets more of your money. Don't give your money to the people who have too much of it already.

NewThings.co.uk. Watch this space.

Alex Day: http://www.youtube.com/user/nerimon

Blogging...With Style! or 'David Tries Applying for a Job He'll Never Get'

2012-06-20T15:49:00.000+01:00

The other day I realised something interesting. I won't go into it again, I made a vlog about it on Youtube so if you'd like the full story of the following idea then here's the link: http://youtu.be/zB162UxEpCY. The idea being that I'd like to think that every so often, people like Walt Disney come along, and they come to rival the likes of Shakespeare with ideas and storytelling capabilities.

I've gone a bit Disney mad in the past few days. I do think that collectively, they are some of the best films ever made. They appeal to mostly everyone and, just like Shakespeare, they are timeless stories which will be enjoyed by viewers, I believe, forever.

What I'd like to blog about today though is Disney's sister company Pixar. The interesting story behind Pixar is that when it was first owned by Steve Jobs, it was rapidly losing money due to the fact that no one truly believed it could go anywhere as a film company. It's work included only small time advertising work and it's revenue barely covered the means. As a result of this Steve Jobs considered selling it. The company may well have faded into nothingness!

Imagine that! No Toy Story! No Bug's Life! No Incredibles! They have only made 13 feature films to date, and compared to the amount of films out there that's a microscopically tiny number, but just think the gap in our lives that would have been left if we didn't know who Woody and Buzz Lightyear were.

Because Toy Story made Pixar, thanks to Disney investing in the company and promising to distribute Toy Story (which went on to gross $350 million) we have these characters and this wonderful team of filmmakers in our lives. I only re-watched 'The Incredibles' for the first time today and I'd forgotten quite how good it was. What Disney and Pixar have always been good at, and the reason why I believe they surpass every film company out there is that they manage to do this with every single one of their films:

Accurately represented by this amusing GIF...

What does GIF stand for?...

A Graphics Interchange Format! Who knew? I find this interesting sometimes, how the acronyms sound amazing and catchy yet what they actually stand for is instantly forgettable. See I've already forgotten what GIF stands for. Like DVD, Digital Versatile Disc? Yawn. Or even Laser! Bet you didn't even know that was an acronym. It stands for 'Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.' Imagine how different Austin Powers would be without acronyms! 'Frickin' sharks with frickin' light-amplification-by-stimulated-emission-of-radiation beams attached to their frickin' heads!'

I apologise if you don't understand the reference. But anyway, as I was saying. Disney and Pixar have the capability, through their story telling, both in writing and visually, to get us right where we weren't expecting. Or 'right in the feels' as the internet says nowadays. Interestingly enough, the Avengers, from which that GIF is taken from, was written by Joss Whedon, the selfsame screenwriter who jointly with others, penned Toy Story. So it's no wonder that 'Avengers Assemble' is sitting pretty at 3rd in the all time gross list.

It appears as though everything Disney touches turns to gold. And I think this is a well earned trait for such an incredible bunch of storytellers. Everyone's got their favourites, and I think Pixar in particular have that extra spark of genius. The only downside to Disney proper, if you can call it a downside, is they are a re-teller of stories. And could even be described as an adaptation company. Jungle Book, Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Hercules, Tarzan. All stories which already existed in some form. Though I would say, their skill is to take a story, like The Jungle Book which is notoriously difficult to read and more than likely a story otherwise destined for insignificance, if it weren't for Disney's re-telling. With expert voices, catchy songs, and characters you really don't want to die. I mean when Baloo the bear almost dies I cry every time! I even shed a tear for the Incredibles a couple of hours ago! Disney just capture the feelings that humans feel and give them back to us in ways we don't see coming as an audience. That is their genius I think.

What makes Pixar particularly special for me, however, and it's why I'd go as far to say - horror of horrors - I think they're better than Disney, *Ducks and hides from a barrage or insults and complaints*, is that their ideas and their stories are 100% original. I mean Toy Story. That's a dream we all have and we all believe when we're little. That our toys come to life when we're not looking, and even when we are looking. A child's mind can create the most amazing stories which are never heard by anyone else, and I bet you've all forgotten the ones you came up with. None of our toys match but as a child you make them match, you give them reasons to exist in the same world and that's incredible! That's why the team of Woody and Buzz against the evil Doctor Porkchop works. We all had an evil Doctor Porkchop as a child. Me and my brother used to (this is embarrassing but I care not) have so many toys and they lived in a world we created when we shared a room when we were really little. We had David's bed and Peter's bed and my teddy bear I've had since I was born was the King of David's bed and all our toys had adventures in the world we could see because we'd invented it. And you'll laugh but I'd bet everything I own that you did the same thing!

But that's why Toy Story is such a genius idea. That's why Bug's Life is amazing for the same reason, and Finding Nemo. Original stories which do everything that Disney does, but with that expert level of creativity, and they are, in my opinion, the only company around who create original stories anymore. I mean I loved the Avengers more than I could ever love any film, but that's a story that exists already. In comic book form but still, the ideas are already there for someone to make money out of. I hate to be cynical about something I really love but it's true. But Wall-E? And Up? Find me a film which tells those stories and I will buy you a house. The bit at the start of Up? It's been said by many people, but that was more romance and story-telling than Twilight did in 6 films or whatever the hell that money making racket is onto to now. Did we really need another vampire story?

Off the point. This is why, to be involved even slightly with a company like Pixar would be something beyond my wildest dreams. To be among the people who create these incredible films would be like David heaven. Therefore one day, when I'm qualified enough I will apply for a job at Pixar. I won't do it now, because I tried once before and I go so far in filling out the application and I realised I couldn't fill it out. They only want the best! And rightfully. So I'm afraid I've lied to you dear reader, I've not tried anything new today.

Ok I did.

And I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'd never seen the Incredibles before today. And I've never seen Finding Nemo or Ratatouille or Cars either. But within the next few days I will have. I've always told that little white lie before now because I really felt as though I should have! I always said 'I've seen it, but only once.' The ultimate deception. But I'm out there now, I've said it. And I feel like I've been rude to Pixar for not watching these films. But I did try something new today then. I tried the Incredibles and it's now among my favourites. I can't make a top 3 Pixar films because they're all my top Pixar films.

And that is why I cannot wait for Brave, or The Good Dinosaur, or their other, as yet unnamed film.

Ooooor, last but not least I can't wait for Monster's University where we find out how Mike and Sully became friends! I literally only just found this trailer now. It's 8 hours old! You heard it here first people!

In short well done Mr Lasseter.

The Church of Do What You Like or 'David Tries Being Ordained'

2012-06-14T18:50:00.000+01:00

That's right folks it's happened, two blogs in one day.

I just became a minister in the Universal Life Church Monastery.

So...yeah.

Basically I just wanted to know how easy it was to become a minister. Turns out very! Literally took less than a minute and I'll receive my certificate of authenticity in a minute via email. I had a few reasons for doing this really. The first and most obvious being that this was a very easy new thing for me to try. I suppose I can call it a success! The second reason is that I do think it would be quite nice if anyone I know gets married, they could have me if they wanted! Just like Monica and Chandler did with Joey in Friends. Maybe that's just nice in my head. Probably wouldn't feel very official.

What got me thinking though is this is more than enough for some people. Of course actual reverends go on pilgrimages and do holy orders and get official documents and licenses. But then I can get all that, it says, on my confirmation email that I can marry people, absolve them of their sins and perform baptisms and last rites. I can also, if I really want to, set up my own religion. Why then is this any different to other religions?

Getting into controversial territory here but I'm keen for the debate. What makes my religion so fake? I so far have two possible titles:

The Church of Sexy
The Church of DWYL (Do What You Like)

To be honest I think my religion would be quite popular. You don't go to hell if you step on a snail and you can pretty much do as you please as long as you don't treat other people badly, if you do, you get reincarnated as a slug, or a sweaty codpiece for a fat wrestler. Or maybe just Phil Neville. Don't defy my religion I have the power! And anyway, Jedi's a religion! If they can have a religion and swing around toy lightsabers then I can have mine!

But jokes aside, technically my religion, save from having a holy text, has all the credentials of other religions. It says, on my email, that I can now officially use the title 'Reverend'. David Tries New Things has led me to a whole new box I can tick on forms. And I will! Next time I get a newspaper subscription or something, I'm definitely getting it sent to Rev. D. Steedman.

Now I'm not saying people should follow me, I don't want them to, unless it's on Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/DaveSteed24) See what I did there? See that's divine intervention promoting my social networking sites.

But I'm really not saying people should follow me. It is strange though, how with just a tiny little form, using a password in which I used the word sexy (don't try and crack it, there's numbers in there too, foolproof) I became a minister of a religion, able to perform religious rights in the eyes of the law. It doesn't cost me anything, it was really quick and if I get a special placard printed out I can get free parking!

Personally I can't really see why what I just did is any different to what ministers in other religions have to do, it was just a lot easier. And you could say I was being insulting, but if I was being serious about this I could say you were being insulting to my new religion. What if I really believed in the Universal Church of Holy Life Monastery Thingy or whatever it was called. (I'm a really good minister) And I bet some people do. Why do they have any less right to believe they're married in the eyes of their God than the eyes of the Christian God, or Muslim God. To be honest, I liked the ethos of this universal church a lot more. It pretty much says, everyone's the same so treat each other good and you'll be alright. It's a lot like the Church of Sexy. Except in my church you get free biscuits, and we have beanbags not pews. And there's a live band at the alter every week. Next week's Red Hot Chili Peppers, I wanted Foo Fighters but they were double booked.

But this Universal Church seems to have a much more relaxed and in my opinion, better outlook on life. This will spawn outrage I'm sure. I really hope not, I'd like to debate about this with people. So comment and tell me what you think!

Oh God did I just join a cult? Expect the next blog to be titled 'David Tries Biting a Chicken's Head Off'. But to be honest, and this will bring more controversy. I can't really see the difference between a religion and a cult, a religion, in my opinion is a sort of approved cult. Obviously you get really weird cults, but a lot of people would consider a lot of things in religions weird too! It's just weird from different bits of the weird spectrum!

All in all I feel like I've accomplished a lot today. So if you need any sins absolved or anything, I'm your man! If I pay $26 I can even get some badges and candles to make the whole thing a lot more official!

Go now and live under the eyes of the Lord Sexy. He's cool, he has sunglasses.

Next Stop Shellfish of 'David Tries New Tasty Tasty Foods'

2012-06-14T15:18:00.000+01:00

Before and now after my holiday I've felt like I needed one. You all know the feeling. Especially with the pressures and annoyances of living in this island we call Great Britain. The ultimate marmite nation. The drama of day to day life at uni in particular however, was a bit too much for me and my everyone needs to get along world view. Rudeness gets to me on a level that it really shouldn't. I won't go into things because that's what my blog is about. I just feel as though the last few blogs may have been affected in some way because of this. And for that I apologise.

Therefore, as of now, normal service is resumed.

So my Good Food magazine came this morning and my god, the taste sensations it teased me with. Over the past few months I've come to consider myself a huge foodie. Oh that's actually a word! I was expecting the red zigzag of doom. Or the green zigzag of doom even. What even is that? So I've made a mistake which is not quite as bad as my gross spelling error but the internet and word processing and general computerised spellchecking deems it necessary to bring to my attention. At least it's better than the paperclip. Although not quite as bad as the macbook beach-ball of doom.

Anyway being a foodie has, in many ways added a whole new level of happy experiences to my life. As a child I felt I was a fussy eater, I didn't like beans, or marzipan, or even pasta at a point! When you're from the family of pasta lovers that I am though I can sympathise with my younger self. I find it strange that as a child we tend to conflict the general thinking of adults around you until you start seeing their way. It's why everyone will probably end up voting conservative.

Foodie! Concentrate David. Since I came to uni, I pretty much subconsciously came to the decision that disliking such foods was a silly idea. Some stuck, it took me a long while to start liking baked beans for instance. I just always found the texture a bit strange, or squiffy, my word of the moment. But ever since I got that tasty full english breakfast at standsted and bravely decided to have it as it comes, beans and all, I haven't gone back. That first dip of toast into the beany goodness showed me what I've been missing out on! Next stop, boiled eggs, because then I can have soldiers and they're cool.

Being a foodie is a lot of fun I've found. Not being scared of new tastes is a new thing that I can try on a daily basis and it means that when I go to a new restaurant for instance, one of David's favourite past-times, I can try something new and exciting. Previous to this, in restaurants I'd always go for the steak or grill. Which is always tasty but a bit boring.

On another note, when I think the word 'grill' I'm always reminded of the Homer Simpson quote 'le grille? What the hell is that?!' Naturally the big bald buffoon is holding up a grill as he attempted to put together a barbecue using the french instructions. Classic 90s comedy.

But as I was saying, this means that recently, when I've been sat in a new restaurant I've been adventurous enough to try new foods. I'd always steered clear of ravioli for instance, because the David of old would have been scared of what was inside. However when I took the plunge on my recent trip to Rome I found out ricotta cheese is amazing and now among my favourite cheeses.

This meant therefore that when I was at Jamie Oliver's restaurant in Reading the other week for my brother's birthday (we're very posh my family) I was not in the least bit put off by Jamie's Ricotta cheesecake. Neither was I perturbed by the spaghetti fritters (deep fried spaghetti!) or the Italian nachos (deep fried ravioli) Therefore, once I'd been to Jamie's Italian and discovered that Mr Oliver really likes deep frying things, I also discovered that I had a whole host of new foods to add to my favourites list.

Also in Spain recently, I found a taste for green olives and I once again confirmed my love of swordfish. I found it delightfully meaty but soft and fishy at the same time. I can thank my university refectory for that. Which is surprising because that place was usually dire straits for foodies.

This means that I now stop to read menus wherever I can in restaurants when walking around. I can only dream of the monetary requirements necessary to stop and eat at them all. Therefore a nice moral to the end of this particular blog. Never be afraid of new foods. Precious few actually make you vomit on the spot. You need to go to I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here for those kind of delicacies, and I don't care how many stars it'll get me, putting a Kangaroo testicle in my mouth isn't what I want to be doing with my Saturday afternoons. Most foods however, surprisingly, are actually quite tasty. Especially in restaurants when you can more often than not trust the restauranteur in question that the tastes they've cobbled together on their menus do actually work! Trust me, be adventurous with food, you'll love it.

Although don't do what Johnny English does at the sushi bar and try something strange to impress a girl, you'll get your tie stuck in the conveyor belt and yes that's hilarious, but the girl gets away!

For me the next stop is shellfish. That mountain of strange yet obviously tasty food I have get to conquer! Wish me luck New Things fans!

P.S. If you've got a strange yet wonderfully tasty food you can recommend please leave a comment!

Yes! Boom! Satire! or 'David Tries Understanding the Universe'

2012-06-08T14:00:00.000+01:00

You know who sucks? The Flash!

I mean what a completely pointless superhero. What kind of superpower is moving really fast? Sure, in the burning building scenario superspeed might be a bit helpful, and as superhero films have been showing us for years, superheroes often come into contact with the burning building scenario. It's like a right of passage for most. DC do tend to make some sucky superheroes though. I mean Aquaman? Really? A hero who can only be super in water. And even Superman. I would like to get in on the Superman hype, but I just think it's too easy for him! He's indestructible!

What about Kryptonite I hear you say! Oh you mean that element that doesn't naturally occur on earth? Do me a flavour! That's like saying I'm going to stay inside because I'm allergic to Koala Bears. I sincerely hope I'm not because those mother fuggers are cute. But visiting the other side of the world (though I want to) is a particularly long distance to travel, and coming into contact with a Koala Bear in my day to day life is slim to none. Therefore to call it my weakness would be a bit scaredycat-like of me. So there Superman, debunked by the Koala Bear theory. I'm going to get that put on a t-shirt.

I spend a vast amount of time thinking about superheroes. Too much time really, and watching a 'Charlieissocoollike' video on youtube yesterday (link at the end, watch, superfunny!) My thinking about stuff got put into perspective a bit. Basically, my thought about the Flash, though it took a good two paragraphs to explain, is insignificant in comparison to the size of the universe.

And the world's most obvious statement of the year goes to...

Bear with me, because I found this incredibly interesting. If you ignore my superheroic rant for a minute and just think of me as a person, or indeed you as a person. Think how small you are compared to the amount of people in your country. Tiny! In Great Britain alone there are 60 million people! But then comprehend exactly how tiny you are in relation to the world's population. That's over 7 billion people!

7 billion people! All having their own independent thoughts about superheroes or otherwise. And everyone's thoughts are important! Well, I say important, Nick Clegg is a member of the planet earth fan club whether we like it or not.

Yes! Boom! Satire!

Anyway, think how many thoughts are happening right now, because we are all thinking, it's the one thing you can't stop doing no matter how hard you try. If you try all you do is think about not thinking which, surprise surprise, is still thinking. We even think when we sleep, that's why we dream. But any one person's individual thoughts, compared to the amount of people on planet earth, are tiny to the point of a microscopic bit of fluff on the back of an amoeba. But think of the variety of thoughts! It's scary to think that while I think about superheroes, someone in a third world country is thinking about how they haven't got a piece of rice to their name. In a cave in the middle east somewhere a terrorist might be plotting to kill me with thousands of others. It's scary to think of the range of thoughts occurring at any one time. And I'm a little ashamed, when I think who would win in a fight between the Flash and Thor (Thor obviously) that there are much more important things going on in the world.

And how we treat our world too. I read in the Sunday Times the other day that a conservative MP in Lincolnshire has banned the building of windfarms in his county. I mean, really? On what basis? That they're ugly. First of all, I think windfarms are quite beautiful, awe inspiring things, and secondly, does he care about this planet at all? I'm not an eco-mentalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I spend a great deal of time thinking about the future and killing our planet is not the way to go about it. So explain that one David Cameron (initials DC, no coincidence that he shares it with the comic company which pedals vast amounts of suck. Metaphor? I think so.)

However, and I am getting to my universe point, worry not! When you consider the problem of building windfarms on the scale of how small that one windfarm is to the size of our solar system, you have to take a step back. Illustrated beautifully by this picture:

Look how small the earth is compared to the sun? I think Charlie said that you can fit the earth in the sun a million times over. And then you think, if the earth's so small compared to something that big, think how many times I could fit in the sun? And think how small my one thought about superheroes is compared to the 7 billion other thoughts in this solar system.

And then you have to take another step back because the universe is infinite. Forever expanding and creating new matter. To think that we were created here by the explosion of another star, that the chunks of rock and earth that were formed in the centre of that star were flung out and one rock settled at this perfect point from the sun so that we could evolve to live and breath naturally is frankly the most awe inspiring, amazing thing I've ever heard.

I can hear the raising of hands of religious folk who would say that this is no coincidence. That this must be divine intervention.

But it is coincidence.

I have no issue with religious people. I have some issue with people, religious or not that they try and impose their beliefs on others. The right to believe is a right that I have no qualm with so please don't call me up on this one sentence.

But if the universe is infinite, then there are an infinite number of solar systems and an infinite number of galaxies for hundreds of thousands of solar systems to swirl around in. It stands to reason that a few of these solar systems, or indeed most of them, would happen to become ideally placed to support life. I don't think it was divined by any higher being that this should happen. I do believe it a 100% certainty therefore that there is life on other planets. How can there possibly not be when you consider the vastness of the universe? That this one planet that can fit a million times into the one star that can fit a billion times in stars elsewhere in the cosmos, is the only one that can support life is frankly a little big-headed of us.

It's like the monkey/Shakespeare allegory. If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters (going to adapt this for modern day) - If you gave an infinite number of monkeys, an infinite number of ipads, then eventually they'd come out with Shakespeare. I think that's a lot less amazing than it sounds. Or if you approach it from another perspective, more interesting than it sounds. I think the word 'infinite' is underestimated. It would really have to be an infinite number of monkeys. It's like Pi. Pi goes on forever so it stands to reason that within Pi every single conceivable combination of numbers will appear. Therefore if an infinite number of monkeys bashed on a touchscreen for long enough they'd come out with 'To be or not to be' because they'd (eventually) luckily stumble upon it. And it's the same with the universe, there are an infinite number of combinations in solar systems in distance from the sun, size of planet, type of atmosphere, that could possibly support life. Therefore it's 100% certain; well maybe not 100%, 99.99recurring% certain that this exact make up of a planet here on earth would occur elsewhere in the universe. And then you consider evolution. On other planets, almost certainly, other organisms would have evolved to suit themselves to the make up of their particular home planet. Suddenly science fiction doesn't seem so ridiculous. It's called science fiction for a reason, it's fiction with a base in science, or fact. When you get vastly different aliens all being able to breathe and survive on other planets, maybe that's a little more ridiculous, but it's not 100% improbable, that's what's amazing about the whole thing.

When I first realised this, the insignificance of my thoughts about superheroes scared me a bit. But then I started to think, and frankly I was inspired that people exist, on this planet, or have existed in the past, who worked this out. And that we, from our insignificant little corner of our galaxy, insignificant itself in the universe, can understand this about the universe, just from the power of thought and the thirst to gain knowledge, well I think that's pretty amazing.

I think thought is an amazing thing, and if there was one reason to be immortal, or to be the Doctor, or something similar would be to see the universe like this, and to understand things that humans probably aren't supposed to understand. But we're annoying like that, we like finding things out. So I'm always inspired when I come across people like Charlie McDonnell, or the Green brothers, or indeed any frighteningly intelligent people on youtube, or in blogs or indeed in real life. It inspires me that there will always be new Einsteins, and new Bachs, and new Shakespeares, because humans are just like that. We like to broaden our intelligence, and though it's insignificant universally, I think if at any one time you have a moment and you realise something that amazes you. Then universal insignificance kind of goes out of the window.

Therefore while insignificant in size compared to the universe, the power with which one tiny man or woman's thought can change the lives of 7 billion people is pretty incredible. That one person can write a book, or discover something that we all know is awe-inspiring to the point that all 7 billion people on planet earth should stand up this minute and give that person, alive or dead, a round of applause. I am! Right now because being grateful is important!

Therefore it also stands to reason that one day, off in the distant (or maybe not too distant) future; there will be men and women, and genuses that we have no names for will say/write/discover/sing/draw/cook things that will change an entire galaxy, or an entire universe even. Therefore the power of thought is an incredible, significant thing.

I mean we brought the Doctor back to life when the Master made him really old, that was pretty cool of us!

And then you have people who are interested in what Tulisa did this week. So tomato tomato really.

That doesn't really work when you write it.

Charlieissocoollike

Vlogbrothers

I Like to Pretend My Dressing Gown is a Cape or 'David Tries Culture'

2012-06-03T13:11:00.001+01:00

As my title proclaims without shame or holding back, I enjoy mornings where I can wear my dressing gown because this means I can use the tassley thingies to hold it behind me as I come down the stairs as though I am wearing a cape. This means for about four seconds I can pretend to be Darth Vader, or preferably Thor from the Avengers. I have this preference for two reasons.

I am a comic book nerd
I dislike baddies

However, that is not what this blog is about. Actually, imagine if it was socially acceptable to wear your dressing gown outside, in the real world where people live. Everyone would use their tassley thingies to wear capes and pretend to be Thor, sure we would get teased by the Iron Mans of this world, but I do believe if we all had a cape the world would be a much happier place. Wars would end, arguments would settle and most importantly we'd all be superheroes.

But as I said, anyway.

I would really love to tell you that these strange asides that occur in my blogs are premeditated and that I'm clever enough to make my funny look spontaneous. Unfortunately I am this weird and these things just occur to me!

It may surprise you to learn that a 21 year old man who pretends he's Thor in the mornings went to the Tate Modern the day before yesterday. Believe it or not, I did, and hilarious moments were captured on film by my good friend Jocy as both me, her, Stu and Amy tried to figure out what any of the paintings hung in the gallery actually meant.

My favourite explanation of a painting was Stu's description of 'Curves and Circles' by Paule Vézelay:

According to Paule, the painting represents floating in an atmospheric space. We didn't even read this off of the placard next to the painting because Stu's description is so accurate. This painting is clearly a depiction of the squiggles in your vision which you can never really focus on. For that I must thank Vézelay, this is what they look like. What they are? Who knows, one of life's many unanswerable questions. If you have any idea what they actually are then please leave a comment! Also what are hiccups? I feel as though if you know what causes random squiggles in my eye you might be able to tell me why I hiccup a lot.

The Tate Modern, aside from having a whole two floors closed, the viewing of which would have totted up to a grand total of £45 each to see the three exhibitions we would have greatly liked to have seen. Has an excess of two things for me. Peculiar nudes and bodily functions.

Yes, great artists see it a great necessity to capture moments such as farting and weeing on canvas for the world to see. Why Picasso? It was not on my bucket list to see any woman fart or wee. Let alone at the same time, let alone a slightly podgy one with her nose in the wrong place! There was also a painting of a man with a champagne glass reclining on a couch with a very smug look on his face as if to say 'yes, this is my penis, enjoy.' What disturbs me is that this was a painting of that particular artist's student! I think he was holding a champagne glass. Maybe my mind slipped that in, just to add a touch of class to that most peculiar painting.

After being informed among other things that a cart represented a goat and that several lumps of what I can only describe as poo were actually representations of primordial animals. I think primordial, primeval maybe? Those animals which became bigger animals because of evolution. Don't say I'm not informative. Anyway after seeing all these things and as our meanings of paintings became better and better, I had an idea. I think that under every painting in any gallery there should be a little notebook, and on that notebook an art-enthusiast can record his or her own meaning of the painting. Then I would collect all this information in a book and I'd get rich. But still, capitalist ideas aside I think this is a good idea. I find it very interesting to hear what other people think of art, be it paintings, books, films or indeed anything created by someone else.

Needless to say our favourite part of the gallery was the giftshop. Me and Amy got pens in the shape of pencils! I kid you not! The rubber is the clicker and a pen nib comes out of the front! Our minds were more than blown. I wanted so many books though, I really wish that the Tate Modern shop was my library and I could just sit in there all day flicking through books on modernism getting increasingly more confused yet intelligent.

If I reached any conclusion as I was strolling round having a laugh with my friends about art, it was this:

I think art should be difficult, I don't like paintings which show just a grey blob. Or not even a blob, just a canvas painted the one shade of grey. I think art should show some degree of talent. Not something I can do on microsoft paint *cough* Kandinsky *cough*. People might disagree with me, please do via the comments bit, I just think if there's a message you want to communicate via a painting, fine, just do it in such a way which shows a bit of talent. Look at Picasso! You wouldn't call his work the most difficult looking but I'd defy any unartistic person to replicate a Picasso to the same standard.

I decided though that I have two favourite artists to add to my list which only included Van Gogh up to that moment. The first is Patrick Caulfield who Jocy showed us at the Tate Britain on a previous adventure. I think he just makes art in a very interesting way, half cartoony and half realist. I also like Magritte, no Matisse, no Magritte, the 'Ceci n'est pas un pipe' one. I like confusing myself and to be able to say 'a representation of a representation of a representation' in circles of upper class people before running away twiddling my moustache and cackling as my new identity as 'the Confuser' appeals only too much to me. Oo I could have a cape with a question mark on it.

See the cape did have a point.

Patrick Caulfield - After Lunch:

Rene Magritte - Ceci n'st pas une pipe:

I feel I should explain why I like Magritte's paintings so much. This one in particular, people would say 'it's a pipe' but it's not a pipe, it's a representation of a pipe. I hope this impresses people as much as it impresses me. I think it's a stage of postmodernism. There can be a painting of an easel looking out of a window with a painting of the view through the window. Of course there is no view through the window because it's a representation of a window, therefore the painting in the painting is a representation of a representation, and then the whole painting is actually a representation of this whole confusing extravaganza. I'm going to go and do some painting.

My friends Jocy and Amy are amazing vloggers on youtube, I'd highly recommend giving them a watch:

Jocy - http://www.youtube.com/user/AccioJellyBean

Amy - http://www.youtube.com/user/amzyydoodles