Tick Tick Boom!

I just pulled off the second tick in as many weeks from my poor cat. If you have ever experienced these vile creatures before, you’ll have some idea about how slightly ill I’m feeling at the moment.

Is there a single more disgusting, parasitic and useless creature in existence? Why, of all the organisms inhabiting our fair planet, did evolution deign to allow these things to survive? A world where beautiful, dignifed mammals like Barbary lions and pandas are essentially extinct in the wild while ticks are seemingly flourishing in their blood-sucking, disease-spreading ways is not a fair one, surely?

Before flushing it down the toilet, morbid curiosity got the better of me and I snapped some pictures of it with my camera phone through a magnifying glass. Unfortunately they are a little too blurry to post here. But I’m sure kitty will bring home another friend soon, and like the boy scout I never was, I’ll be prepared.

To compensate, I’ll post a video of a different, Canadian tick. It looks EXACTLY like mine, even down to the little markings. Same colour, size, everything. I’m serious, it’s uncanny. In my previous post I postulated that every human being on this planet has his or her own doppelgänger. Well I now extend this theory to include ticks. In fact what happens in this video is pretty much what happened with me 20 minutes ago, even down to the nervous use of tweezers and the execution-by-toilet. But this person has a better camera.

Charming, no?

I detect a cruel yet delicious irony in the fact that these two arachnids, twins in all but birth (or egg-sack); separated by an ocean and destined to always be apart; went to their respective fates in exactly the same way. It’s almost poetic.

Anyway that’s all this post was about. I felt the need to inform you that my skin is literally crawling. OK, not literally, but if Jamie Redknapp can repeatedly misuse the term on national television (”Evra’s literally left Johnson for dead there!” No he didn’t, you stupid twat. He ran past him with a football), then so can I! On my blog! Which nobody reads anyway!

Fuck you, non-existent readers!

I jest of course. I love you all really, but I’d like you even more if you started reading…

Keep it foolish (yes that’s a Nathan Barley (watch it here) reference. Bathe in my post-post-post-irony)

x

Like in that film wot I saw…

So I’m sitting by a window on the top deck of a bus, it’s doing its thang somewhere in North London, while I’m minding me own business reading a magazine. Said bus comes to a halt at a request stop (these things happen). From my vantage point I see two figures waiting to climb aboard.

Imagine my astonishment when I realise that one of those figures is me.

Had this doppelgänger inter-dimensionally crossed into my plane of existence? Was he from a parallel world? Was this a future version of me? A past version of me? Was he here to give me instructions to create a better tomorrow? To warn me? To save me? To kill me? Was he in the midst of a fundamental paradox? If we touched each other, would the universe implode? Was he a clone? Was he created secretly by a nefarious corporation? By the government? Did he escape? Was he now being hunted by them to cover their tracks and keep their dangerous secret? Were we both in danger? Did he have something Earth-shattering to tell me? Was he my long-lost identical twin? Were we serparated at birth? Was he looking for me? Was this fate? Was he an hallucination?

Or was it I who was all those things?

When he came up the stairs and sat two rows behind, the devastating reality hit me.

He just looked a lot like me.

Same tall, thin, lanky frame. Same broad shoulders. Same short-ish, messy blonde/brown hair. Same almost-Greek profile with a similar nose and same squarish jawline. Same narrow mouth with quite plump lips. Even the same coloured t-shirt. It was almost uncanny.

As he got closer, disappointing little differences between us began to emerge. His eyes were a bit smaller than mine. His hairline was slightly receding. His teeth were nicer. He had a mole.

Still, he could easily pass for my brother, if I wanted or needed one.

The point of this post? Well, those initial, ludicrous ideas I mentioned earlier were not actually embellishments I made to spice this little blog up. Those thoughts actually occurred at the time. Seriously. I did wander, even if it was only for a moment or two, whether that was me from another time, dimension or universe and I became slightly unnerved. Most would say it was a pervasive indicator of impending insanity (and they would possibly be correct), but I have a theory. Fuck yeah, I do.

I watch a lot of sci-fi and fantasy films, and when something fantastical happens to “the normal guy”, he/she seems to spend half the movie not believing it. We as the audience already know it’s true, so when the hero questions it, even though it’s realistic that they would, we just want them to get with the program and fucking accept it so the adventures can get started. Imagine if something like that happened to you. Put yourself in Sarah Connor’s position from the original Terminator. An Austrian bodybuilder with limited acting ability has just tried to decorate your innards with bullets and you were saved by a scruffy American dude wearing a long overcoat usually favoured by perverts. This guy who just saved your life proceeds to inform you that he is a soldier serving under your as-yet-unborn son 40 years in the future, and is fighting a post-apocalyptic war against malevolent robots. He was sent back through time to protect you, ‘cos your little boy is the saviour of mankind and all that. Monosyllabic Austrian bodybuilder happens to be one of those eponymous robots, covered in human skin to blend in (well, blend in as much as a Teutonic brick shithouse wearing leather possibly could). He was sent back to kill you and consequently, your unborn child. How long would it take for you to accept it? Especially when your survival depends on your complete trust of scruffy yank dude? I have wondered to myself how I would react if such an eventuality came my way. Not specifically that of The Terminator, of course, but something similar.

As I type I sit and ponder just how much this sort of thinking may have permeated my day-to-day existence, so when something only slightly out of the ordinary happens (like seeing my lookalike) my brain races towards the stupendous. What’s wrong with me?

Anyway, you get the idea. I’m not explaining this very well (as ever), but I suppose such films (and books) have left an indelible imprint upon my sub-conscious. Is my reaction a sign of an over-active imagination (which as an aspiring writer is a positive thing, I assume)? Or does it suggest that I’m an easily-impressionable dolt who watches too many ridiculous films? Or is it both? Or neither?

I have always kept an open mind about most things. Although having no reason to believe in God or divinity, I would class myself as agnostic rather than atheist. I do lean towards the latter, but how can anyone claim to be certain about these things? Even those who absolutely believe in God still only call it “faith”. I accept evolutionary theory more than I do creationism, but who am I to say which is right or wrong? Is there even a right or wrong? Whatever, that’s a whole other subject for a whole other time.

I digress. There’s having an open mind, and then there’s entertaining science-fiction plot-devices as if they could be real. I’ll say it again, those bizarre notions really did enter my head. Nothing remotely like that has ever happened to me before, and when I told my girlfriend about it she laughed. I would too in her place. A most disquieting experience took place on that bus and I’m not at all sure what it says about me.

Whatever. That’s enough of that.

On a related note, they say that everyone on Earth has an exact double of themselves somewhere. The man on the bus was not quite mine, so I’m wondering where he is, and what he’s doing right now. I’d like to shake his hand and commiserate with him on his bad fortune. I can totally empathise with the poor guy. I only hope he’d do the same for me.

That’s your lot. Like Paris Hilton’s undercrackers, I’m off x

Who’s watching the Watchmen?

*Geeky Post Alert*

If you are familiar with Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen, you’ll be as excited yet apprehensive as I am about the forthcoming film adaptation. Seeing that world and those characters on the big screen could be something special, no doubt about it. But can one film do such a labyrinth and epic piece of work justice? Is it even filmable in the first place? It stumped the likes of Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass.

So Zach “300″ Snyder being appointed to the task of adapting it didn’t exactly fill me with hope (although I’m actually pretty fond of 300, it’s only really worth viewing for the cool visuals). I anticipated Watchmen like I would a car accident.

Until I saw the trailer, that is.

The hilarious inclusion of “the visionary director of 300″ notwithstanding, my expectations have now risen exponentially. Those expectations now reside at the level of “they might not actually fuck this up too badly”. Trust me, at this point in time, that’s a pretty glowing endorsement from a Watchmen fan.

Don’t get me wrong, this could still end up like a car accident, but at least it’ll be a very pretty car accident.

Also, I showed the trailer to a mate of mine who hasn’t even heard of Watchmen. His critique?

It looks like a crap X-Men.

Make of that what you will.

See you in the funny papers x

Anonymity

An issue I lightly touched upon in my previous (only) post was that of internet/blog anonymity. For my own situation, I used the expression “semi-anonymous”, which I believe sums it up quite well. Unlike Belle, I don’t plan on posting information about myself that could potentially damage me or my family. Beyond your usual, bog-standard youthful indulgences and bouts of immaturity, I don’t think I have anything too severe to hide anyway. Nothing comes to mind at least, and the evidence linking me to those murders is circumstantial at best, so no worries there.

While there is nothing which can damage my family per se, there certainly is enough that could upset them. Who wants to know that their little blue-eyed boy has taken quite a few drugs, smokes, drinks too much, has slept around, almost got thrown out of university twice, looks at internet porn and experimented with bisexuality (long story short: it’s not for me)? I’d like to think that if such escapades came to light my parents, who seem a pretty liberal bunch on most issues, would not react with too much disdain. I have certainly heard enough stories about them from their youth. Stuff you don’t particularly want to hear about your own parents, but at least it means that if my naughty deeds were discovered, they wouldn’t be able to take any sort of moral high ground without being complete hypocrites. Although I imagine they would try their best.

No, it’s my grandmother I’m worried about. Since her husband died last year, she’s the only grandparent I have left and she’s in a precarious state, both physically and mentally. She has an unnaturally high opinion of me and it makes me feel very guilty that I can’t or don’t live up to it. So when I see or speak to her, I keep up the pretense, for both our sakes. She’s very old-fashioned and a Catholic, and still believes I’m a virgin. I can’t even begin to imagine what she’d do if she found out what an irresponsible and nasty little shit I can be. I’m assuming most of you have a very similar relationship with your own grandparents, so I needn’t bother spelling it out any further.

Of course it’s not only family I have to worry about. We’re in an age where companies will check potential employees’ facebook accounts for lewd photos or comments. Hell, they will even check current employees and if they don’t like what they see, they’re ahhht (that is supposed to “out”, but in comedy-cockney). There was “an incident” at my hall of residence last year that I was somewhat involved in, nothing too serious, but enough to really piss off the warden. Said warden then went through everyone’s (who didn’t make it private) facebook page until he stumbled across an innocuous comment left by someone on a friend’s page mentioning my name. Cut to a week later and I’m saved at the last second from getting thrown out of uni by someone else’s impromptu confession. It was a VERY close call, let me tell thee.

Part of me understands fully well that the warden was only doing his job, and that trawling through residents’ facebooks was actually a very good idea that came to fruition with finding (most of) the culprits. In his place, I dare say I would have done the same. But a bigger part of me just felt completely violated. I’m aware that this is quite irrational and self-pitying, since I was at the scene of the “crime” (although if guilt is quantifiable, then I was among the least guilty there). Something about our warden, in a position of “authority”, knowing the ins and outs of our lives just fucking angered me. It struck me as a flagrant abuse of power. It also scared me how easy it is to get people’s information off a site like facebook (and any other of these “social networking” places) if they don’t configure their privacy settings properly. It wasn’t even my mistake that landed me in hot water, just two sentences on someone else’s wall talking about how “funny last night was” and mentioning a couple of names.

Anyway, must dash in a minute. I do have more to say about the subject but for the moment this’ll do I suppose. To sum up what I’m getting at, semi-anonymity works for me. I say semi because, if by chance a friend, relative or someone who knows me well enough stumbles upon this blog, it wouldn’t take a genius to determine the identity of your humble author. In these first two posts alone and elsewhere on the site I have already given up some substantial facts about myself. Let’s not even mention the big fucking photo of the back of my head, which, delicious as it is, I shall probably deleting sooner rather than later. Oh well.

If such an eventuality as my identification should occur, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. The gap between public and anonymous is a (dubious analogy alert!) mine-strewn one I have yet to negotiate fully. I’m still making up my mind about what to do with this blog, and how to do it. Since I’ve already been burned once by the interweb, what’s to stop it happening again? Admittedly that first time was relatively minor, and no permanent damage was caused, but would I have been found out if facebook didn’t exist? I think not. Either way I certainly don’t want to lose any jobs, friends or opportunities over this, so I must tread carefully. Or perhaps no one will give a shit and I’m just being paranoid.

But as my friend Sean’s t-shirt says:

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you

Wiser words by an item of clothing have seldom been uttered.

Ciao x

So it begins…

For some semblance of an opener, I feel compelled to admit that up until a few months ago the concept of a “blog” was an alien one to me. Well obviously I was aware of them, it was rather impossible to not be aware of them, such was their ubiquity on almost all forms of media. But actually writing one? No chance mate! Even the word “blog” has a slightly unpleasant ring to it, don’t you think?

Then on telly last year we had Billie Piper gamely letting it all hang out on “The Secret Diary of a Call Girl”, based on the book based on the blog based on the rather saucy life of the eponymous, anonymous (two words destined to be used consecutively), very talented now-former (I believe) call girl “Belle de Jour”. The current recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (for Juno) made her name on the (quite superb) Pussy Ranch, a blog detailing Diablo Cody’s former life as a stripper. Our media made much noise about them, as they tend to do, and I was intrigued. While there are plenty (millions, in fact) of blogs to choose from, I mention the above two because they, and I apologise in advance for this, inspired me to unleash my verbosity onto an unsuspecting cyberspace.

The cynical voice in my head (and yours to, I imagine) cynically snides “yeah, that’s it, choose two of the most famous and widely-read blogs in their respective countries, why don’t ya? Especially two that have gone on to make their authors exceedingly rich with lucrative writing careers! Shocking one, that is mate. True devotee to the art, you are! You’re a sell-out motherfucker and you ain’t even started yet!”. And Mr Cynic has a point! Not about me doing this for the fame, admiration and money (although perhaps I might not refuse such indulgences. Maybe. We’ll see. If you’re curious you have my permission to offer such to me and await my response), but because I simply want to be as good as them. They really are fucking good! That they are among the most famous blogs around, and the first two I ever read is of course no coincidence, if only because my virginal state in the blogsphere results in me being familiar with the only the most, erm, familiar…

Anyway. I’m rambling. I will say that I have recently gone through both blogs almost in their entirety (including Diablo’s new stuff in her Myspace page) and felt a most disquieting compound-twinge of admiration, envy and curiosity. Admiration for their writing, wit, candidacy and humour. Envy for the same reasons. Curiosity regarding my ability to possibly “compete” at their level. See, sitting right next to Mr Cynic in my brain is Mr Ego, and he can be louder than Brian Blessed.

Now, having just read back the 400-odd words I have written so far, I accept I have a long way to go. It is slothfulness alone that prevents me from deleting all of this and starting from scratch, so let us press on, shall we?

There is one MASSIVE factor in those blogs becoming so popular that I will never have on my side - unfortunately I am neither a prostitute nor a stripper. Not for the want of trying though. I don’t use these terms to cheapen either of their blogs, but they’re the ones which comes to mind - they have a certain niche or novelty factor in their favour, don’t they? Once you start reading them, these factors of course evaporate and are replaced by superb writing, but the fact that they were written by two women in the sex-industry would attract many who normally wouldn’t bother. It attracted me. Oh and there was the small thing about having a slight crush on Diablo Cody when I saw here being interviewed, but I will have plenty of time to reveal my shallow nature in the future, now is not the time. Don’t give too much too soon. You gotta drip-feed that shit to ‘em. But yeah, I suppose I have no real “hook” for this blog, it will simply be the (hopefully) regular musings of a regular guy in his 20s. So I guess I’ll have to play a blinder.

OK, if you have read this far: a) thanks and b) what’s wrong with you? Slow day?

You’d rightfully be mistaken at this point for thinking that my only aim for this blog was to emulate the likes of Belle and Cody and their ongoing success, but that’s not the whole story. I’m doing an English degree (please don’t consider the sub par grammar and syntax of this blog to be representative of my general linguistic abilities. It’s usually much worse), a vociferous reader and can talk for England (and depending on my mood, other sovereign nations). I can also write for said nations when in the mood, and I’m hoping this little account of my lives, loves and fears will provide me with ample motivation to do so. I used to keep diaries, but my narcissistic leanings seemingly couldn’t accept their associated privacy. I WANT TO BE HEARD, GODDAMMIT! Making them public should makes me raise my game at least a little bit, right? On the other hand, as we are in the summer months, away from the rigours of higher education, I have little reason to do any writing. I’m fed up of going back to school/university every September/October and pretty much having to teach myself how to hold a pen again. Practice makes perfect, they say. So this blog is me practicing. In that sense it’s more for me than for you, but the more the merrier. One final reason for this blog’s existence is, well, someone told me to do it. So here I is.

Anyway, the time for signing off is at at hand. If you actually liked this post, or maybe could see some smidgen of potential in it, then do not fret! I shall take a course in blogese and future posts will actually enlighten you about your dear author. At the moment I will keep this semi-anonymous, simply because I intend to elaborate on subjects that may not paint me in the most wholesome light. You never know who is reading. Nothing is definite yet, though, so who knows? Also, I do intend future posts to actually be funny.

Some completely inconsequential info to get ya started:

Last film seen - Wanted (liked it!).

Music I’ve been listening to recently: Air, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, early Flaming Lips, Sigur Rós, a disappointing fourth effort from Coldplay.

On TV: My life would not be complete with LOST and Dexter. Expect future posts devoted to both! And if you are not a fan of Chris Morris, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry or Charlie Brooker then become so, fast. Or never darken my door again!

Adieu x