Tesco Everyday Value

I don't know if you've noticed but the Tesco Value range has been replaced by Tesco Everyday Value. It's not special any more, that sort of value just comes along every day. There's no sense of panic now. It's not like Sainsbury's Basics. You can't go without the basics can you? It's not like Waitrose Essentials. You can't go without the essentials can you? They're essential aren't they? It's not like the Asda Smart Price range. You wouldn't go without those would you? You'd be an idiot to pay any other price, regardless of whether or not it was more expensive. But Tesco Everyday Value. Well, that sort of value just comes along every day.

“Shall we buy this?”

“What is it?”

“It's a bit of ham. It says it's Tesco Everyday Value.”

“Well... we can just get it another day can't we. It's Tesco Everyday Value. I imagine we could come back any day within a reasonable time frame and we could still buy it for a similar price. It would be a different ham, obviously, but it would basically be the same ham at the same price. It's the sort of value you get every day.”

“But I quite fancy some ham now.”

“Yeah but there's no rush. We can get that sort of value every day.”

“How about today?”

“Well... you don't need to jump the gun do you?”

“What?”

“You don't want to false start.”

“Yeah but-”

“Look, if you were running in the 100 metre sprint final at the Olympics, would you start running before the gun went off?”

“I don't really see how that's relevant.”

“Don't jump the gun, is all I'm saying. Of course you'd like to go before the gun went off because you'd get a head start. You're forty-five and a bit overweight after all; you could probably do with the head start. But you can't jump the gun, you'd get disqualified.”

“But we're just buying some ham, it's got nothing to do with running.”

“Yeah but it's a metaphor isn't it? Don't jump the gun and buy the ham today because, well... it's Tesco Everyday Value isn't it? It's the kind of value that comes along every day.”

“But if you're running a race you can't just start running at a random moment. You don't want to jump the gun, that's a given. But you don't want to run a long time after the gun has gone off, because then everyone else would have started running. In fact there's a very specific time when you need to start running, and that is more or less the exact moment that the gun is fired.”

“Yeah well it's just a metaphor.”

“Yeah but my point is that my craving for this bit of ham is like that gun being fired at the start of the race. Basically, we need to buy the ham now, because the perfect time to buy ham is when you have a craving for a bit of ham.”

“Yeah but it's Tesco Everyday Value though isn't it? It's the sort of value you can get every day.”

“YES BUT MY FUCKING CRAVINGS FOR HAM DON'T COME EVERY FUCKING DAY DO THEY? CAN WE JUST BUY THE FUCKING HAM?”

“Jesus, I never knew you liked ham so much.”

“I DON'T. I JUST WANTED TO EAT A BIT OF HAM, IN A SANDWICH, MAYBE WITH SOME CHEESE, BUT DEFINITELY WITHOUT YOUR FUCKING BULLSHIT.”

“Okay okay. We'll get the ham. Calm down.”

“Thank you.”

“But we could have bought it any day at all.”

“...”

“Do you know why?”

“No.”

“BECAUSE IT'S TESCO EVERYDAY VALUE!”

“I hate you.”

Swimming to save us from tedium

As those of you who are white, middle-class and living in predominantly white, middle-class areas of Britain will know, last Saturday there was the Oxford-Cambridge Boat race. The rowers for the boat race trained six hours a day for six days a week. It's exploitation. We've taken muscular men from foreign countries that don't really understand what they're being trained to do, and we've tricked them into thinking it means something. I can just picture the scene now: dozens of men on rowing machines as ageing former-heroes of the rowing world whip them from behind.

“Please sir, you jus' say why you make me does this, ye?”

“No Xavier,” he says as he whips him for his insolence. “I ask the questions here. You're going to have to pull that imaginary oar back and forth for another hour now because of that.”

“But sir, me has wife and childrens back home, six hours a day is too many. I need see my babies, no?”

“Listen Xavier,” he says as he whips him again for bringing his personal life into the gym. “If you win this race, you will earn fame and riches throughout the land. Everybody will remember you, Xavier Mendez, as one of the eight men who won a rowing race. Everyone remembers rowers. Just think of Steve Redgrave, and... well... and Steve Redgrave dammit. Most people know his name.”

“Actually sir, back in Mexico Steve Redgrave not big name in most household.”

“Just be quiet and push the imaginary oar! You don't get a choice in this,” he says as he whips him again for sharing how Steve Redgrave doesn't really fit into the Mexican cultural frame of reference.

That is undoubtedly exactly how rowing works. Why else would anybody train for thirty-six hours a week when they could be taking drugs, having sex with prostitutes, getting drunk, going to the cinema to see a good film, listening to a decent album (or maybe not even a decent one, just one that other people have said “oh my god this album is terrible” and you finally get round to listening to it and yeah, it was terrible, and now you have something to talk about), seeing a friend, lying on the sofa watching T.V. and scratching your balls, sitting on the floor and doing nothing, lying on a patch of soil and doing nothing, eating some unpleasant food, like some rotten fruit or stale bread, being insulted by someone for whom you have a lot of respect, stubbing your toe on a door, eating a shard of glass, getting punched in the face by your childhood hero or rubbing your genitals against a cheese grater for thirty-six hours a week. All would be at least marginally more pleasant and worthwhile.

As you can see, rowing is not really 'my kind of thing,' and hence I find a three mile boat race between two universities which I am not smart enough to go to slightly boring. That's right I said it, I think the Great Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race is slightly boring. I don't know why, but watching two boats run parallel against each other for a quarter of an hour, followed by interviews with rowers about rowing, doesn't really get my blood pumping. Which is why I was delighted when a man in a rubber suit managed to add a bit of controversy to the whole thing. It raised so many questions! Questions like, “I wonder why that man has decided to go swimming on a cold day in April? Why has he chosen to go swimming in the Thames at all? Is he not aware that muscular academics in rowing boats are trying to come through here? Is it a desperate proposal of marriage for Oxford's female cox? Did he see her warming up (for sitting down? Ha!), decide immediately that she was The One, run a couple of miles to get safely ahead of the boats and swim out across to meet her, shouting proclamations of love and promising his eternal devotion?”

Whatever his reasons, it made the race far more exciting, which is an inherently valuable thing. But fans of the Boat Race weren't congratulating the man but condemning him. For the first time ever people actually had something to say about the Boat Race other than “Hey, did you acknowledge the difference in speed between those two boats? Wowzer.” And that's a bad thing apparently.

I don't know, maybe I'm a bit out of touch with the contemporary rowing scene (the 1920s had the most exciting rowing scene if you ask me. Personally, if I was to go on Mastermind, my specialist subject would probably be “Cambridge and Oxford rowers of the 1920s,” but alas I think I'm just not cut out for the newfangled rowing of the 21^st century). All I know is that when the next Boat Race comes along I will be watching just in case a man gets his head cut off with an oar on live television. You don't want to miss out on that sort of thing. 

Like women? Like music? Hate Chris Brown.

Hello. Today I'm trying to become more relevant by blogging about popular culture. I am therefore going to talk about a song that was released almost a year and a half ago. I know what you're thinking: but he only posted that retrospective analysis of Cressida Dick less than two months ago! How does he manage to stay on top of the ephemeral nature of current affairs? Well, the truth is I actually have a team of bloggers and joke writers working around the clock in order to ensure that I have important things to say about very pertinent issues, like an old Chris Brown song (in my defence you still hear it in clubs). Fans of Chris Brown's music may want to stop reading this now, I genuinely don't want to belittle the music tastes of any of my friends.

Although I'm not sure fans of Chris Brown's music are capable of reading (I told you you should have stopped there).

It's easy to dismiss Chris Brown's music as banal, mindless, repetitive, unoriginal, boring and meaningless drivel, but I'm willing to look at Chris Brown's music from a professional, objective perspective. Even if the malicious, woman-beating, mentally ill (come on he must be) 'musician' does not deserve my fair-minded dissection of his popular faecal matter. I am too good to him I know. Chris Brown, if you are reading this: there's no need to thank me; an anonymous cash donation will suffice.

You may have noticed that I have alluded to the fact he beats women. It was subtle but it is there. I'm sure you all know about the fact he physically harmed his ex-girlfriend Rihanna after an argument. Maybe it is unfair of me to use the plural term 'women.' I do not know the exact number of women that he has beaten, and if he has only beaten the one then I'm sorry, but I have no moral or ethical issues with slandering Chris Brown. I think that would be a pretty poor defence to put forward anyway: “yes, we'd like to take David McIver to court because he has misrepresented the number of women that our client Chris Brown has beaten on an online blog that receives about a dozen views per week.”

One could argue that this one incident of domestic abuse alone should rid him of any manufactured success in our pop charts; and one would be right. The argument should end there really, but it doesn't. It turns out that fans of Chris Brown love domestic abuse, and hence he continues to see his name in the UK music charts. I assume these charts are painted on some sort of wall somewhere in London, and teenagers gather round the wall chanting the names of their favourite 'artists' and throwing money at the charts until the person(s) of their choice makes it to the top of the pops, hence becoming 'King of the Charts' and winning Reggie Yates and Ferne Cotton as butlers for the week.

So if we disregard his violence against women as playful antics, (because when has violence ever hurt anyone?) we must instead turn to his music for analysis, which in many ways is far worse than domestic abuse (and worse than many other violent crimes too. I'm unable to pinpoint his exact place on the scale of terrible psychopathic atrocities, but I think his music lies somewhere between paedophilia and genocide.)

One song of his that is particularly fertile ground for analysis is something that goes by the name of “Yeah 3x.” Firstly, the name of this song is problematic. By incorporating a mathematical symbol in place of words he has created a song title with no clear way of saying it. Is it pronounced 'Yeah Three-Ex?' which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Or is it pronounced 'Yeah Three Times?' which is not so much a title so much as a rough guide to the words that will be appearing in the song and their respective frequency, but also begs the question, why not just call the song 'Yeah Three Times?' It gives the exact same message as 'Yeah 3x,' while at the same time being a more aesthetically pleasing song title to read and eliminating all confusion. It's almost as if he has a certain level of self-awareness about himself and is trying to create a song title with ambiguous pronunciation possibilities in order to pose some sort of subversive artistic statement. Except of course he is an idiot, and you can't make art out of shit. Unless of course you are Piero Manzoni, who, despite being an Italian man that made a living out of shitting in a can, still has more self-awareness and artistic credibility than Chris Brown.

Let us delve into the frightening body of this song shall we? Let me present you with a verse or a chorus or something, I don't know I'm not a musician:

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, girl, I wanna

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wanna see you tonight

Yeah, yeah, yeah, girl, I gotta

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

I gotta, I gotta, I gotta see you tonight.”

Now, seeing as Chris Brown has demonstrated such enthusiasm for maths in the naming of his song, I thought I should approach the criticism of his song through mathematical analysis. Not many people these days approach musical criticism from a strictly mathematical perspective. I guess my methods are just to radical for 'The Man.' Maybe that's why I'm not a music journalist. (I can think of no other reasons.)

Anyway, in this chorus there are a total of thirty-two words. Out of these words, the word 'yeah' is used a whopping twelve times. A massive 37.5% of the chorus therefore is just the word 'yeah.' I'm not even totally sure if it is being used as a slang term for a positive affirmation, or if Chris Brown is just treating it as a random syllable in order to give his listeners more sound for their money. But the maths does not stop there. Out of this thirty-two word chorus, only eight unique words are used (yeah, girl, I, wanna, see, you, tonight, and gotta.) The chorus is therefore 25% unique words, and 75% repetition of words. They are shit words too. I'm not even sure I should be validating the existence of the words 'gotta' and 'wanna,' as I am unsure as to whether or not I could find them in the Oxford English Dictionary. When Samuel Johnson completed the first English dictionary in 1755 I am pretty sure he didn't envision the lazy bastardisation of 'want to' into 'wanna' being accepted by future lexicographers. Perhaps Chris Brown hates Samuel Johnson as well as women, and if Samuel Johnson were alive today Chris Brown would endeavour to fight him. Although he probably wouldn't because Samuel Johnson, being a man, poses too much of a danger to Chris Brown, who is timid about entering into fights with less than a 90% (yes more maths!) chance of success.

Also, despite the fact that Chris Brown uses only eight words, (and that's being kind) it is still too many words to portray the message of his chorus. I don't like to extract a single meaning from poetry as I feel this is almost always a reductive method of literary criticism, but I feel that we lose absolutely nothing from the song if we say that the chorus could be summed up with the words “Chris wants to see you tonight” (presumably so he can beat you). Those words, in perfect grammar, adequately sum up what Chris Brown took thirty-two words to say. And look, I've done it in six words, which is two less unique words than his version, and a massive twenty-six less words in total. To think people say mathematically dissecting pop songs is a waste of time!

What can we deduce from Chris Brown inability to use more than eight original words in a thirty-two word chorus? Well firstly, that Chris Brown hates Samuel Johnson, his fans, poets, poetry, all writers, eminent literary scholars, teachers, university professors, lexicographers, people's virginal eardrums, Rihanna, Rihanna's friends and family, all women in general, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Smiths, The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Talking Heads, The Stone Roses, the past hundred years of innovative pop music, choruses that consist of more than 25% unique words and any suggestion of a successful pop song so much as pretending to grasp at any shred of artistic credibility, among many other things that I don't have time to name (I'm obviously a very busy man). You can just make them up yourself if you want to. Think of something nice. Are you thinking of it? Chris Brown hates it. Your thought didn't contain enough domestic abuse for his liking. (Unless of course you are a fan of Chris Brown, in which case you probably were thinking about domestic abuse, and Chris Brown liked it.)

The second thing we can deduce from the song, is that in the attempt to manufacture a commercially successful pop song, terms such as 'innovation,' 'creativity' and 'poetry' are ugly words that get in the way of things like money, profit-margins and money.

And that is my incredibly obvious message for you all today.  

Bus drivers are bastards

Ever since I was about twelve or thirteen, I have always hated bus drivers. Now, there are about three or four separate accounts of things that bus drivers have done that makes me hate them so much, and it's going to take a while to explain. There is a risk that as I relate these stories, and as I try to explain my unadulterated animal hatred for bus drivers, I may get so angry that I have an aneurysm and die, but I'll try not to let that happen.

I think why I am so bitter about bus drivers is because as a rule, they all view anyone under the age of twenty-one as the scum of the earth. There are no exceptions to this rule, I think it must be part of a questionnaire that all bus drivers are given when they sign up for the job.

So, what is your view of people under the age of twenty-one?

a) I quite like them

b) I am ambivalent towards them

c) I think they are the scum of the earth, and I will endeavour to be obnoxious and unhelpful to all of them, regardless of how much politeness and respect they give to me.

Congratulations, if you answered c), then you have passed the only job requirement for becoming a bus driver. It would be helpful if over the next ten years you could become increasingly miserable and condescending, but that is usually a natural result of being a bus driver, and hence it shouldn't be too difficult for you.

One thing that sparked off my disdain for bus drivers was quite a small thing, but it annoyed me nonetheless. I got on a bus once, I think I was about thirteen or so, and very politely (I honestly was a very polite young teenager. These days I brandish my Pleases and Thank yous more sparingly) I asked for a ticket. He printed out a ticket, and before I had the chance to say anything, he said “say thank you.”

This really irritated me, so in reply I said “I find that to be a very patronising comment. You wouldn't say such a thing to an adult. In fact you probably wouldn't even notice if an adult said thank you or not, so it is unfair to target a child out for criticism when you would not do so for an adult. It is mean and predatory; I am obviously of too young an age to retort your comment in an intelligent and articulate manner, and besides, I was about to say thank you, but you rudely interrupted me, now I don't think I'll bother, as you obviously lack the common courtesy that you wish to receive.”

But of course I didn't say any of that. What I really did, was I mumbled a sarcastic “thank you” under my breath, and then when I was safely out of earshot, I called him a dick.

Another incident with a bus driver that really made me angry happened a few years ago, I think I was probably about sixteen. I got on the bus and saw that my bus driver today was an overweight, bald man, who was probably in his forties or fifties. I asked him for a ticket, and in the most apologetic tone I could muster, I revealed to him that I would be paying with a twenty pound note. “Is that okay?” I asked shyly. “Grumble grumble grumble,” he grumbled, obnoxiously, and took my money. And as he gave me my change, he said to me, with nothing but bitterness and disdain in his voice: “get a haircut mate.”

As you can imagine I was slightly taken aback by this comment. I said, “with all due respect Mr. Bus Driver, but I don't really think it's your place to give such advice. Now there are two main reasons why it is not your place to tell me to get a haircut. Reason number one: you are my bus driver, and therefore not one of the select group of people who are allowed to tell me to get a haircut. Those people are my Mother, my Girlfriend and my hairdresser (and even then, when my hairdresser tells me to get a haircut I do usually assume that their comments are motivated by self-interest more than they are motivated by a general desire to see me have nice hair).

“The second reason why it is not your place to tell me to get a haircut,” I said, “is because you have no hair, and as a result, you are not adequately equipped to give hairdressing advice to anyone, unless you are standing in an American military training base, a Buddhist monastery, or a convention for Neo-Nazis.”

But of course I didn't say any of that. What I really did, was I mumbled a sarcastic “thank you” under my breath, and when I was safely out of earshot, I called him a dick.

The most recent incident that made me hate bus drivers even more happened when I came to Warwick University and I got on the number 12 bus for the first time. Now as you may or may not know, the number 12 bus runs between Coventry and Leamington Spa, and you have to put your money in this little box, and you don't receive any change. I didn't know at the time that you don't receive any change, so I got on the bus at Coventry station and asked him how much it was for a single to Warwick campus, and he said it was £1.60, so I foolishly thought I would just put £2 into the box and get 40p change, as thirteen years of studying maths would have me to believe. But no, the box took my change, and the driver dispensed my ticket, and I said “can I have my change please.” He just looked at me straight in the eyes, and shook his head from side to side (the conventionally accepted head gesture for 'negative'). In order to clarify the situation, I said “oh, do I not get any change? I didn't realise that was the case, being new to the area. I don't suppose on this occasion I could have my money back?”And this time he didn't shake his head, but he pointed to a sign above his head that said “our drivers have the right to work in an environment free from intimidation,” and he started the bus and drove on in silence.

Now, I don't know what it was about me that made him feel intimidated. But I took that message as a challenge, so I smashed through the plastic barrier with my face, ripped him head-first through the shattered pane, threw him on the floor and started stamping on his head, shouting “GIVE ME MY 40P CHANGE, YOU CUNT. GIVE ME MY CHANGE. YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE 40P FROM UNWILLING CUSTOMERS THAT ARE NEW TO THE COVENTRY AREA. IT'S NOT FAIR. TWO POUNDS MINUS ONE POUND SIXTY IS 40P. I DID A-LEVEL MATHS, IT'S NOT NOTHING, IT'S 40P. I HATE YOU. I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL KILL YOU, AND THEN I WILL FIND OUT WHERE YOU LIVE, AND THEN I WILL KILL YOUR MOURNING FAMILY, IF YOU DO NOT GIVE ME MY 40P CHANGE.”

But of course I didn't do that. What I really did, was I mumbled a sarcastic “thank you” under my breath, and when I was safely out of earshot, I called him a dick.

Biscuits for breakfast

Ever since I started a comedy blog, everyone has been asking me what I have for breakfast. I thought I would clear up everybody's concerns once and for all today.

Every day in the morning I have Nestle's Cookie Crisp for breakfast, and it is amazing. It tastes so good because it's basically just biscuits. I get to have biscuits every day for breakfast now, because I'm at university now. THAT'S RIGHT MUM. YOU CAN'T CONTROL MY BREAKFAST CHOICES ANY MORE NOW MUM. I'M HAVING BISCUITS FOR BREAKFAST NOW I'M A BIG BOY AT UNIVERSITY. I'VE GONE OFF THE RAILS MUM. I'M USING WHOLE FAT MILK ON MY BISCUITS TOO! NONE OF THAT SKIMMED SHIT. I'M HAVING BISUITS FOR BREAKFAST! WHOLE FAT MILK! EVERY DAY! I'VE GONE OFF THE RAILS MUM. IMAGINE SOME RAILS. GET A CLEAR IMAGE OF SOME RAILS IN YOUR HEAD. DO YOU SEE ME ON THOSE RAILS? NO. NO YOU DON'T. I USED TO BE ON THE RAILS, BUT THEN I STARTED HAVING BISCUITS FOR BREAKFAST, AND NOW I AM NO LONGER ON SAID RAILS. YOU CAN'T HOLD ME BACK ANYMORE MUM. I'LL HAVE WHAT I WANT FOR BREAKFAST NOW AND I WANT COOKIE CRISP. SOMETIMES I HAVE A BOWL BEFORE BED. IT'S SO DETRIMENTAL TO MY HEALTH. I'VE GONE OFF THE RAILS MUM. IT'S A SLIPPERY SLOPE. TODAY I'M HAVING BISCUITS FOR BREAKFAST AND TOMORROW I'M INJECTING HEROIN INTO MY GROIN BENEATH A SLIDE IN A CHILDREN'S PLAY AREA. I'VE GONE OFF THE RAILS.

But I didn't start this blog post in order to imagine a satirical dialogue with my mother. I started this post today because my box of Cookie Crisp cereal challenges me ethically and emotionally. Now, let's take a look at this box:

Only a wolf with two spoons can adequately tackle the sensory onslaught that is Cookie Crisp.

You've got the wolf there, licking his lips. I bet he's licking his lips, they taste fucking good. Perfectly reasonable front of a box here. Then, turn this box around, and look at this ludicrous side of cardboard:

Okay so here's the thing: I don't actually know how to transfer a photo from my phone to my laptop (that's right I did genuinely take a picture of the back of my Cookie Crisp box in order to demonstrate the follow point.) Now I've just had to recreate the image on Paint. Luckily I have a decade of Paint experience, and I feel I have effectively portrayed the essence of Cookie Crisp. Anyway, you should probably have ignored this and just started reading the next paragraph, because now it isn't going to flow, is it?

Here is where the good people of Nestle somehow try to claim that eating biscuits, chocolate chip biscuits, for breakfast, every day, is in some way healthy. You've got the pictures there, of cookie crisp cereal, and other things that you could have breakfast, and you've got the nutritional information, and the claim that the good, child-fattening, artery clogging people at Nestle are making is that they are somehow healthier than your average breakfast choice. But look, look what they are comparing it too. Okay on the one side you've got jam, margarine and white toast. Lots of people have that breakfast every day. Your being a bit liberal there having both margarine AND jam, but hey, your at university now, fuck it, you can have margarine with your jam.

I'll give you that one Nestle, but look. Look at the other common breakfast choice that they choose to use to demonstrate their point. Crumpets with a shit load of margerine. Crumpets and margerine, that common daily breakfast choice. Let's take a closer look at crumpets (because why not, they're delicious):

Hardly the fruit salad of the breakfast world (which is a fruit salad, obviously).

You thought Cookie Crisp was bad for you didn't you? Well, oh no... you idiot, because Cookie Crisp is better for you than crumpets and margarine. So you don't need to feel guilty about having biscuits for breakfast, because if instead, you were going to have crumpets and a shit-load of margarine, like you usually do every day for breakfast, and like other people always do when they aren't busy downing pints of marshmallows, if you had crumpets and margarine, that would have been worse for you according to the arbitrarily selected hierarchy of nutrients that Nestle values. Marginally worse for you.

Forgive me for being facetious, but it feels a bit like MacDonalds saying “our big Macs are healthy. Look, bear with us. If you took the apparatus of a chocolate fountain, and replaced the chocolate with melted lard, pure melted lard, and you used this apparatus to make a lard fountain, and instead of dipping in strawberries, you dip in rashers of bacon, glazed with bull semen, if you had that for lunch, like you normally did, instead of a Big Mac, then that would be, using the arbitrary hierarchy of nutrients that we have selected, that would be less healthy, than one of our big macs. These are the facts. You can't argue with the facts.”

The amount of times I've been outside MacDonalds with a friend, and I've gone, “hey do you want to get a Big Mac, they sure are tasty,” and my friend goes, “I don't know, what about that new place down there that does that thing with the lard fountain, and the rashers of bacon, with the bull semen,” and I go, “oh that does sound equally appetizing, but I wonder which one is more nutritionally beneficial to my diet,” and my friend goes “I don't know. Neither of us knows which one of the two choices of lunch that we usually have all the time is more nutritionally beneficial. If only the company producing the healthier of the two options could put up a sign, with pictures, detailing the arbitrarily selected nutritional values of both lunch choices, then we would have all the information at hand, and we could then choose, with ease, the healthier of the two options.” and I go, “yeah, that would be great, ever since Nestle did that on Cookie Crisp cereal I have stopped eating crumpets and margarine for breakfast every day.

So I got a bit distracted there and I went off on an irrelevant tangent in response to that innocent and imaginary question about my breakfast preferences. I've been thinking about doing angsty, self-referential OUTroductions rather than the conventional introductions, just to mix things up a bit. But I guess the point of the introduction is to act as comedic foreplay for that hilarious sex we just had. Then usually I would end with a joke or a pleasing turn of phrase that puts an end to the blog post in a nice and satisfying manner. By ending on a weak note that rambles into nothingness I'm only really going to evoke dissatisfaction and unease, which really, if we're going to continue that analogy I started earlier about comedy blog posts being like sex, then this may well be the purest, most true self-reference of them all.

Mumble mumble mumble. Mumble mumble mumble. The end.

Save our homosexual alpha-males from severe depression

So this is my first blog post in quite a long time. I seem to have overdone the hilarity when I started blogging a few weeks ago and the Idea Well has hitherto run dry. I actually tried my hand at a bit of stand-up in a café a few days ago, where I essentially verbalised my Cressida Dick material to an audience that was basically just my friends and a Big Issue man (to his disappointment my routine skimmed over the big issues for the sake of dick jokes. He was irate and called me an 'inane philistine,' before pissing in the milk jug).

Anyway, I have noticed that I have somehow developed some sort of fan-base in Russia, oh the wonders of random internet self-promotion. I say fan-base, I've had about six views from there, but for me that's a lot. So, this ones goes out to my homies in Russia. If you aren't Russian, I'm sure you can still manage to derive some sort of enjoyment out of this post that actually has nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.

Okay, so if you don't know me, and you don't spend all day drooling over me/stalking my Facebook pictures, here is a picture of me:

That's me in the middle next to the Asian man, being molested.

I want you to look at me. Specifically my body. I want you to look at my body. Now, I am a man of a petite frame. So much so that saying the word man in relation to myself feels a bit ridiculous. I'm at that awkward stage really where I am technically old enough to call myself a man, and on legal documents, or if I was horrifically murdered and I was on the news, I would be referred to as a nineteen-year-old man. However I tragically have the frail frame of a boy. A starving, pre-pubescent boy. And having the frame of a starving pre-pubescent boy, I hate every man that does not have the frame of a starving pre-pubescent boy. I mean I really, really hate them.

Don't get me wrong, there is definitely no question of jealousy here. No, put those foul thoughts aside.

What I hate most about them is that they go to the gym. Now, I have never been to a gym (as you may be able to tell), but it just seems to me the most despicable place. I mean, people go there, they lift up heavy objects with their stupidly big arms. Then they run on the conveyor belt of solitude and they cycle on the bicycle of loneliness, it's all utterly ridiculous. They don't even go anywhere, they just run or cycle on the same spot until, satisfied with their failure to move anywhere, and exhausted by their lack of progress, they get off and drive home. Why can't they see that if they just get off the conveyor belt and walk around it they can actually beat the machine?

So while I was vociferating these thoughts of mine to anyone that would listen, someone told me that the purpose of these machines is to simulate the process of running or cycling in a confined environment in order to exert oneself physically in a way that can be artificially controlled. Then I said “I know, I was merely feigning idiocy and being satirical in order to belittle your attempts to better yourself.” Then they said that pretending not to know things that are incredibly obvious is one of the lowest and least amusing forms of comedy, and I said “I know, but I was hoping I could get at least a paragraph or two out of it for a comedic blog post on the internet.”

I don't have many friends.

In truth it's not the running or the cycling that angers me about gyms, it is mainly the men lifting heavy things in a repetitive and monotonous fashion. Who does this? Why? So that you can gradually lift heavier and heavier items until you can one day lift up a small boat or a grand piano or something? Or is it about trying to sculpt your body into something that is appealing to women and (more importantly) gay men?

Okay, so I accept that women are attracted to the body shapes that men try to carve themselves into in gyms. But, and call me crazy (as nobody ever has ever; “distinctly average” or “with a reasonably amiable personality, I suppose,” but never crazy), is there not something about muscular men, wearing very few clothes, lifting heavy things and watching other men lift heavy things as they grunt passionately, that resembles the activities of homosexuals? And when they all get changed together, tacitly comparing bodies with the other men, is there not something inherently gay about that?

Now, I'm not saying that every man that ever lifts weights in the gym is gay. No no no no no.

But... that does happen to be exactly what I think.

And I don't say this out of jealousy, but because I think it is simply unfair that these muscular men are forced to have sex with beautiful women all the time. It must be so difficult for them, being gay, but having to sleep with women that are so attractive that they don't even resemble men in the slightest. They are too insecure to accept their sexuality and pursue erotic relationships with other men (which they definitely want to do). Instead they try to go for those women that are a bit on the manly side, maybe with a mono-brow or with a really wide jaw in order to try and imagine that they are men when they have sex with them, but these masculine women are far too intimidated by the flawless physical appearances of the pursuing men that they run a mile when approached like pigeons being chased by a toddler.

Beautiful women: it is just unfair to have sex with these stunningly attractive gay men. Do you have any idea what you are putting them through? You are forcing them to have sex with your despicably feminine and slender bodies, when all the time they are wishing you were a man. They may pretend to like it, but they secretly hate it. I fear a continuation of this demonic and cruel ritual will only lead to depression and possibly (definitely) suicide among these men. So please, stop hurting these poor people, and boycott any sexual practices with muscular men.

And I don't say this out of jealousy. Definitely not. But if, once you have boycotted all sexual activities with muscular men (that are all secretly gay), you find yourself needing to have sex with a man with the body of a starving, pre-pubescent child (that is totally straight)... one that will not despise you for sleeping with him, and that will not suffer bouts of severe depression and excessive self-harm as a result, then I may be able to help.

It's all fun and games until David starts whining

Hey, do you remember when it was snowing a few days ago? Well, in order to give this blog post relevance, you are going to have to. There is actually still some snow about. I saw the shrivelled base of a snowman beneath a tree earlier, so don't call me a liar.

Okay fine I was lying. That was just an example I imagined for artistic purpose. I can do these things okay I'm a writer. You wouldn't understand, you don't have a blog WITH OVER ONE HUNDRED VIEWS. Anyway, my point...

I'm not sure if this is actually funny, but hey, you don't come here for the jokes, right? You come for my dazzling insight into contemporary issues. In honesty, the chances are you don't come here at all.

Now, if you think snow is fun you are severely misinformed. Snow is not fun. Snow is cold. And no good has ever come from that which is cold.

I can hear you're voices now, "but but but snowball fights, and snowmen, and you know, things involving snow. What's nicer than being outside in the lovely snow?"

Well imaginary sir, in rebuttal to this naive rhetorical question that nobody has in fact asked, I have compiled a satirical list of things I find more enjoyable than snow:

I would rather spend a Thursday afternoon trying to teach someone else's grandmother (with whom I have no blood relation to) how to set up a Facebook account. I would rather wait for a bus with an aquaintance with whom I have very little in common. I would rather walk towards someone I sort of know, but I'm not really sure if they know who I am, down a very long, straight path, and face a sustained period of indecision at whether or not I should say hello, just smile, or try not to make eye-contact at all. I would rather unload a dishwasher. I would rather be hugged for a slightly inappropriate length of time. I would rather be picked on in a seminar for which I have not done the required reading. I would rather sit next to a man of questionable personal hygiene on a train. I would rather drink a bad cup of tea. I would rather make a joke, and then no-one laughs so I think that they haven't heard it, so I say it again and everyone is like, 'yeah Dave we heard you the first time, it just wasn't funny.' I would rather accidentally send a text about someone to the person the text was about. I would rather try and read while there are people around talking at an inappropriate volume. I would rather listen to the most recent Black Eyed Peas album.

All these things are far more appealing to me than the concept of frolicking in the snow. So before you ask me if I would like a snowball fight, please bear in mind the fact I like to keep slightly humorous lists of things that are better than other things, and I am prepared to use them.

Having said this, I would probably still join you for a snowball fight though, because hey, who doesn't like snow?