it was cool but it was all pretend

wtf. oh plz. srsly.  Ok then BRING IT.  Like I care.  كس أمك

Pah.

there’s a tower in the heart of London, with a radio station right at the top, but they don’t make the city beat, they’re making all the action stop.

I may be a little slow in addressing this issue, I just read about it and then let it slip my mind, but earlier this week/last week Richey Edwards was finally pronounced legally dead.  I would argue that it would argue that when he went missing it was the beginning of the end of the Manics with the odd exception; Design for Life.

Also.  And rightly so.  Normally I have my opinion and am all yeah cool yeah your opinion is cool too, yeah mm right.  Well in this case no.  My opinion is the diktat.  London Calling by The Clash is the best album ever recorded.  No ifs no buts.  End of discussion and anyone that says differently is a f.cking cretin.  If my London Calling T-shirt hadn’t disintegrated into holes I’d still be wearing it to this day.  So when it only gets 4.5 stars on iTunes and people say negative things about it using the most horrendous grammar I.  Get.  P.ssed.  To the point I might even turn into the incredible hulk.

What can I say, I’m hitting the ‘ol Kanji hard.  I will not be defeated by some squiggles.  Arabic script is way easier.

On a random note, I love looking at peoples tattoos of bands logos.  Yes I love looking at tattoos in general but especially band logos.  I don’t want to be lol about this because it’s not nice but in so so so many cases it will end up as a whoopsie.  If you end up not liking the band but the logo looks cool still then what the hell, but the problem with human beings is that they f.ck up.  What if the band you love randomly one day… denies the Holocaust and you have a really obvious logo in a really obvious place… oopsie.  It’s not as if people will differentiate you from that comment.  If people had the common sense to do this and think for little while the world might be some what different.  

And finally Davey Havok has gone back to being hot again after going, well..  A bit too feminine.  Which there’s nothing wrong with but he just moved out of the realm of what I find attractive, but now he’s back in.   There is so much to be said for guys who wear eyeliner.  Not all of them can pull it off, but those that do.  Sweet.

OK, this is getting too personal.

Yey free Persian lessons.  I really need to get back to grips with my Arabic before I forget it all because I keep having moments where I think, oh I used to know that word but now I can’t remember…  Also in Government and Politics of the Middle East it seems to be the done thing to show off that you know political terms in Arabic and I actually do know.  If there’s academic showing off to be done then I want in.  Obviously.

I feel like I own my Macbook again (after it came back from Apple) now I’ve put my music on it.  

I think alot about a poster on the London Underground that just says (close enough) “If you don’t like your life then you can change it.”  I think in alot of cases this is true, especially if you are in my situation in life.  As in; you have had many opportunities, you will probably get alot more, you are not badly off and have had a (very) good education.  If you want to study then you have all the time and the resources to do so, if you want a good job there have been plenty of opportunities to build a good C.V. and you know when deadlines are, if you want to travel then get saving, volunteer or both.  The list goes on into infinity almost.  

A very good friend of mine sent me this, I think it rings true:

“Going to India isn’t an act of rebellion these days, it’s actually a form of conformity for ambitious middle-class kids who want to be able to put something on their CV that shows a bit of initiative …. Your kind of travel is all about low horizons dressed up as open-mindedness. You have no interest in India, and no sensitivity for the problems this country is trying to face up to. You also treat Indians with a mixture of contempt and suspicion which is reminiscent of the Victorian colonials. Your presence here, in my opinion, is offensive. (Sutcliffe 1999:140)

But hey, if it’s what you want go for it.

none but ourselves can free our minds

A new kind of correlation occurred to me on the 277 the other morning.  People that wear Elizabeth Duke-esque jewelry be it a sovereign ring, charm bracelet or necklace that gives the implication that they are a parent seem to be shit at the aforementioned natural-ish role.  (i.e. DAD soverign rings…) They’re the ones who are yanking their kids everywhere, ignoring them then yelling at them at 1000 decibels.  I’m sure there are exceptions but I have yet to see them.  

And yes I think anyone can comment on parenting when it is THIS bad.

Cut young Levi Mercedes a break ffs.  Give them time to play Grand Theft Auto and be a normal toddler.  

My black and white pocket game boy is just immense.  So addictive.  Why did I ever discard mine when there was nothing wrong with it.  I fell victim to the marketing must buy the latest model cycle, when really, the oldest games are always the most addictive; pong, tetris.  Case closed.  (+ nokia snake ORIGINAL.)

I’ve had some brilliant chats in Starbucks of late.  Always good fun and appreciated.  Caramel waffles nom nom nom nomz.

Christmas cake nom nom nomz.  Home rocks.

BRB.

We hit the ground running on empty

I knew that my plan to take out all of the books I needed would be genius.  Lots of them have now been reserved but as they’re only due back on the 1st of December and some the 8th some people have got a long wait ahead.  Suck on that Library B.stards.

I’ve been feeling quite mischievous and devilish of late.  As in I want to come out with provocative things just because.  Also to enjoy the reactions. It’s just like an ongoing mood these past few days.  Sorry if you get mixed up in this.  

Me and Daniel, we’re like this yeah.  Crosses fingers.  

 He doesn’t look like Putin at all.  Gawd, come people.  I think it’s obvious how much that comment hurt my feelings and then my own mother agreeing in part.  So so hurtful.  When you feel like the whole world is ganging up against you and the one you love.  lulz. o plz srsly.

Madame Tussords was alot of fun but still as over priced as ever.  I guess they just get away with it because so many people go there regardless.  I voted for the next model they make to be Barack Obama, but that’s probably what they’ve already chosen anyway.  It’s like logical yeah.  

London eye was fun too.  It’s so long since I went for a ‘flight’ that there was quite alot of novelty involved.  

I’m sure that Kanji is just the bain of my life.  It’s just so irritating.

Meh the Christmas Holidays just can’t come soon enough for me.

My camera has a panorama mode.

Oh yeah.

The London Eye capsule has a massive smear on it.

Oh yeah.

Probably created by some God awful snot ridden child.

Yeah.

And so it becomes clear that I found my memory card reader.  Under my mattress.  Along with; a tshirt, (terrorist) scarf, pen, pencil case and a heap of nose studs.  THE MATTRESS DEMANDS A NEW SACRIFICE.

I know what the world is thinking.  Why won’t this guy just hurry up and die so the world can be a better place and Zimbabwe can get its shit together.  But alas, like every irritating figure head he lingers.

the first sign of the apocalypse

more updates when I find my memory card read in my pit

Gladiators, are you ready?!

The last few days have been nice, just hanging out, getting home at times that are not conducive to being on time to a 9am lesson and so on.  I really can’t go to the top floors of the library without getting uncontrollable urges to throw something at the people about 4 floors down from me.  It’s literally all I can think about.  It consumes me!  Oh the malice.

Sadly, yet productively, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in the library.  Most of the time.

Political nom nom nomz…

Real life biblio-sustenance nom nom nomz…

It amazes me how much trouble there is to be had in such a sterile, somewhat boring environment.  Ok, incredibly boring environment.  Maybe because it is so easy to winde King Fan up so he does one of his cute little squeals.  This was after the temporary disappearance of his keyboard cover.  I’m sure there are Dinosaur bones that have been handled more brutally than Mao Noir.

…or some random wanker that aggressively asserts “I’m finding it difficult to concentrate” at the vague hint of whispering.  Maybe academia isn’t for you then.  Bless Annabel for being so care worker-y and saying sorry whilst I just gave the look of death.

And please.  Health and safety people!  Health and safety!  For the love of god health and safety?!!!!

I’ve been reading in quite an erratic way, as in reading lots of things that I don’t have to read per se.  However when you get little gems like these it makes it all just seem so worthwhile.

Everyone enjoys a good bit of CUMmunity.  This is an academic article on the economics of the Middle East.

His death intervened, damn.  This is one of those times that we all have from now and again were we get carried away trying to make our essay English sound super – de – duper.  FAIL.

Strangled you say?

And finally, we have the legendary double act who literally re-wrote the map.  They came in and went out with a bang.  They f.cked more people than a prostitute with a crack habit, it is…

(Francois Georges-Picot & Sir Mark Sykes.)

If you have to google the names to know who they are then don’t bother you won’t get the joke.  It’s a low brow almost below the belt intellectual joke for low brow almost below the belt intellectual people.

I missed the lecture I wanted to go to because I got so engrossed in the LOL-tastic circus of hilarious pointlessness that is a certain student unions UGM.  It is also alleged that a certain guy who holds a position within the SU has said in a lesson that he believes that in classes regarding culture/history of Africa black students and white students should be split into separate classes as white people can’t understand African history.  Nor should a white person teach it.  It was a black guy that said this.  I must say if someone else had said it there would have been a nuclear explosion.  I don’t really think alot of people even cared that this had been said and the implications of this.  Strange.  Though I must say a friend gave a fantastic and I thought very thought provoking speech on the subject.  Especially as what they were saying was going against the mainstream view.  Afterall we are talking about a place were when you disagree with the immensely unhinged majority you tend to get lynched.  Metaphorically speaking.  Of course.  Some of the insults hurled around that night were really not cool.

But hey, it’s probably true.  Good old scientology.  Back in the day I think they may have been dunked in a river as witches.  There’s such a franchising opportunity these days in making up and random religion and then proceeding to talk out of your arse.

nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nomzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Playing catch up

Yes I am guilty of not updating of late, but once more essays are back.  King Fan suggested that maybe this was my epiphany but I’m not entirely sure that it is/was haha.  Anyway, I had a ‘realization’ that essays are really quite easy when you’ve been to all of the classes and done all of the readings in the year so far.  I wish I had realized this some what earlier.  I guess I had just spent all of my life doing no work and yet simultaneously doing really well…

I’m not being caught out by Christmas this year either.  I’ve done about half of my Christmas shopping already so there’s not going to be any last minute dashes.  As people who have ever received an xmas and/or birthday present from me, I strive to get the most hilarious present possible.  Of course this year is no exception and all current and ongoing jokes are taken into consideration when selecting presents.  Mewwwwwwwww.

Mac is so beautiful now he’s been to Apple spa and been loved.  So white and wonderful.  (nb.  This is not a racist comment…  I have a white macbook. k.)  It’s like having a brand new computer just with the same spec as the one I purchased in the beginning.  I love Apple and their 3 year warranty.  Without this I would be super pissed.  But having said that they did all the repair work in a day and a bit, and of course all the staff were as lovely as ever!

A political interlude…

Firstly, LOL.  What is even better is that as I was in the middle of taking this picture some guy walks passed and goes “No, f.cking common sense is the barrier.”  HAHA, what can I say other than I concur.

Brilliant social stratification by London Transport.  Stay down C2!  Back to your tower block!  I wonder if it is a bus purely for C2s or whether it is a bus that C2s are not allowed to use.  Hilarious.  

To say I’m addicted to guitar hero DS would be the under statement of the year.  It is the best thing to happen to me all year.  Fall out boy, Paramore…..!  I need a life but this gimmick is just so damn cool.  In related news, thankfully the credit crunch/ liquidity crisis has finally hit Virgin Megastore (Zavvi.)  Fantastic deals…. mmmmm.  In some cases cheaper than Amazon, which is kind of a strange phenomenon.  Oh the joys of passing by the flagship store everyday.

LOL.  queer things goo-in on in Yorkshiyre.

Now obviously I didn’t encourage the behavior depicted in the following images.  But that does not mean to say that my some what warped sense of humor doesn’t find it hilarious.  

Go on my girl!  Sorry Maureen.

Meh and don’t even get me started on SOAS library at the moment.  Obviously as per usual 99% of the staff are pig-ignorant with the exception of one guy that told me where something was the other day but this is not the gripe.  The horrendous staff are an ongoing misery.  No, I need 6 books out of the library and I check that they were all there an hour before I went to the library.  However when I got there I managed to get one book from this list of 6.  One book.  Now ok, a couple could have been taken out in the hour before I got there, but come on 5…  Very unlikely.  So now it looks like they’ve been moved/re-shelved in the wrong place which means in a library that size they will never be seen again.  And this is not to mention the around 99 books I currently have on reserve.  For so long I didn’t reserve books because I thought it was mean, especially when people did it to me, but no more.  Needs must.  

Go me, I found one of the more publicized Banksy works by the Royal Mail depot behind Oxford Street.  Go me.  The third Banksy work I’ve randomly found about the town.  Sweet.

 

I actually dread to think what HILARIOUS motions will be brought about at the SOAS UGM tomorrow.  It f.cks me off that they spend whatever on a smoking area complete with two garden marque things so the smoker don’t get wet and haven’t even bothered to repaint the bar and the jcr which is something that everyone would benefit from.  I suppose I could hazard a quite reasonable guess that the people that the minority of people that make decisions are smokers…  Of course not, that wouldn’t be very democratic now would it.

On the up side though I am really looking forward to Charles Tripp’s inaugural lecture tomorrow night.  I love the guy in the non fancy way of course.  He’s so clever and witty at the same time and his book on Iraq is amazingly readable for a serious kind of book.  

I finally invested in some new cds after ages and ages.  The new found emptiness of my hard drive really motivated me.  Css, Pigeon Detectives, Snow Patrol, Linkin Park, Paramore, Bullet for my valentine, Arcade Fire and Maroon five.  Annabel donated a load of new music to my empty hard drive too which was really nice.  I’d forgotten that I’d like Skunk Anansie and discovered that I like Beirut and Architecture in Helsinki amongst lots of other coooooooool songs.  Mmmmm Cut Copy.

I’ve lost count of the number of people that fancy coming to Morocco now too.  Hehe, that will/should be so much fun.

And finally, just to prove that the North can look all nice an picturesque, some belated fuzzy phone shots from reading week…

 

Volume 8

‘Women think I’m gay, feel safe around me. Then bang! Pregnant!’

Russell Brand <3

Other than an ongoing mini saga that’s giving me a headache the last few days have been hilarious.  I should never really have stayed awake until 3am talking to King Fan but I really have not laughed so hard in ages.  Re-living all the long lost lols of 6th form in one huge politically incorrect doseage.

Cursed Giraffe at the Brunswick, the staff are so awful there these days.  Whatever happened to the very hot South African manager?

I vowed not to even be considering a masters after degree number 1 next year.  But.  I have stumbled across an MPhil that is so perfect it might as well have be written especially for me.  Ugh, I don’t know.  I’d have to click into genius mode and do stacks of work and I don’t know if I can… To put it frankly be arsed.  Again the fear of trying my hardest and failing.  Making little effort and failing is ok, because, well, I didn’t try anyway in the first place did I?

I’m very pleased the lomo fish eye shots turned out well, unlike the film from another camera that didn’t turn out at all, to the point I got a refund…

Well, must dash, there’s a noise under the bed, the tv’s on volume 8 and the microwave is just about to finish…  Think of it as a dot to dot puzzle…  resulting in a joke that’s not for the feint hearted….

So many FAILs…

…such little time.

Oh what a cruel but equally hillarious world we live in.

I can be such a retard at times, I’ve been waiting for ages wondering why the wireless is broken, forgetting that on this notebook it has to be switched on…  oops.  But this little thing has saved my life on a number of occasions.  I would reccommend it to anyone that wants a light (1.2kg) laptop but doesn’t want to compromise on quality.  I got it in the duty free before a flight to Dubai and it was £100 cheaper than high street price.

All I have to listen to until Mac is fixed is an old Fall Out Boy album and the newer Panic at the Disco! album.  Sigh.

Last night was the first and last time that I sleep in a sleeping bag whilst not doing some kind of insane outdoor activity.  Not only did I get stuck in it by having it zipped all the way up and then the label getting stuck in the zip but my core temperature must have reached about 100 degrees at one point.

There are so many fun things I’ve seen on Flickr that I want to try out, like the collage of passport stamps and the whole what’s in your bag thing.

There was a sign in the University library stating that they would be observing a 2 minutes silence for the 11th November rememberence day…  Er…  It’s a library…  Every day is silence… FAIL.

Meh I really want an Xbox 360 but I don’t have a tv.  I’m morally against having a tv.  So I can never get an Xbox, or rather I can get one and just sit and look at it.

Closing thought:  Daniel Craig does not look like Valdimir Putin!  Humpf.

Overtly sentimental

So, come on, spot the HILARIOUS mistake.