Pizza Box

I got a critique for a short story I wrote

2011-12-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

So I wrote a short story recently called 'A lullaby for Bosco Sweeney' - and submitted for consideration to a big Irish short-story competition. The Fish Short Story Competition is a bit of a hero-thing of mine, so it was great to hear back from them.

One point though - the character of 'Val' is supposed to be a man...just saying haha

"The direct appeal to the reader/listener in the opening paragraph succinctly creates a sense of immediacy and orientates the reader swiftly within the narrative, raising expectations and creating ample space for the unexpected. No explanation about who the narrator might be is necessary as the writer has trusted the reader to find the answer through the language presented which in turn motivates us to ask all the right questions essential to propelling the story forward. The anecdotal and informal voice of Johnny draws us to his story with ease and peppering the prose with unique word choices and syntax works well to render his voice distinct and credible however the repetition of the phrase “I mind” is overly intrusive. Phrases such as these, (I felt, I saw, I remember, it seems) tend to distance the reader from participating imaginatively in the story and notably in this work, fractures the tension in pivotal moments of the plot, in particular in the passage: I mind taking Bosco into the toilet.... where the character of Bosco is revealed both physically and emotionally before the climactic fiddle playing scene. Reducing the frequency of this phrase will mean the prose is stronger and slicker. The author has skilfully guided the reader’s interpretation of Bosco through a compelling and well-observed selection of detail. This is the story’s strength; the creation of this three dimensional and complex character that the reader is compelled to invest in emotionally. This astute attention to detail extends to the setting and the writer has created a vivid living that serves well to engage all the senses and convinces us that we are surrounded by this fictional universe. The narrative arc is crafted and consistent, building in a structured and suspense-sustaining manner and the shift from the “story” to “real time” marked by the inclusion of Val the bar maid propels the plot forward, apart from the interjection beginning “No, he didn’t show up at all, Val...” where its length causes this traction to waver slightly. This aside, the subject matter, structure and narrative perspective work successfully in producing a tender and insightful short story where all the elements of story-telling have been satisfied"

I can tell you, after years of rejection letters, this sorta stuff is like tuna-flavoured crack to a ghetto cat. Huzzah!

The Fatso on the Tube and my broken clownshoes.

2011-10-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

I bought a new pair of red Converse yesterday. Yes, I exist in about 2006.

So I'm coming into work, very hungover, and tapping my heels together like some gangrel Dorothy with the booze-fear, and the train starts to fill up. I make myself as small as possible, and try to read my little book.

Eventually, there are too many people and they start to file into the aisle, to make space.

I'm reading away, trying not to think of the word 'vomit' and my right foot suddenly feels crushed, like mangled.

I look up, and there's a big fat woman repeatedly stepping on my shoes, my big fucking clown shoes, and looking the other way. The pristine white rubber toecap is smudged and blackening.

"Could you stop stepping on my foot please?" I ask, as politely as my broken foot will allow.

Fatso snaps "Can you not pull your big feet in?"

I have size 12 (US 13) so it's a fair question, and I struggle not to point out that her hoofs have the same texture, hue, shape and general appearance of two massive hunks of cowflesh, carved off a Creuztfeldt-Jakob'd bovine bloater, so I return,

'They're back as far as they can go, would you watch where you step please?"

She looks like she wants to slap (or eat) me, and her voice shakes as she says,

"Well...can't you FOLD them in at least?"

I laugh and say "I'm not a PENGUIN!", loud enough for everyone to hear, and with enough rage to allow a little raindrop of spittle to land on her fouracre, sweat-drizzled hamface.

Now my new shoes are desecrated, and I smell like the fury of an obese woman. Winning.

I'm moving flat in 2 days, the commute will be better...ins Allah!

2011-10-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

Would you just look!!

For the love of the (fabricated) Jehovah just look!

Hi, it's me, Con, the guy what owns this blog. That cunt. Yeah.

So, I decided I hate the shit out of blogging because it's terrible, and as a writer, it distracts me from work, but that might be shite.

There was a frog crossing the river, and a scorpion taps him on the shoulder and says 'hey chap, let me on yer back.'

No!

'but of course you should, cos I need to cross'

'but you'll sting me...'

'No, if I stung you we'd both die....'

They swim across and halfway through the scorpion strikes its sting...

'Why?... as he drowned...;

'I'm a scorpion'.

So yeah, I've gone from b logger to actual writer, and sorry if that sounds arrogant. I literally to actual fuck do not care.

But read back, my little cowpokes, read back and try to understand the world through my sodden eyes, and you might.

Defiance is much more fun than acquiescence.

Fuck them all....

I'm losing track of time..

2010-11-23T07:42:00.001-08:00

Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore

The Rules of Writing - Kurt Vonnegut

2010-11-03T06:43:00.001-07:00

One of my favourite pasttimes is reading interviews with writers I love, especially when they impart advice rules or advice on the process of writing. Sometimes they can say ridiculousy pretentious and fucktardly things (eg "you have to be true to the child in your soul" etc) but some of the real heavyweights have fascinating insights into their craft.

At the moment I'm trying to write, but find that I'm lacking the motivation to sit with my notebook and beat my head until something comes out. Watching youtube and reading interviews of my favourite writers is really refreshing and I find it helps get you in the right frame of mind to write

Anway,

I've been a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut since reading 'Cat's Cradle' a few years ago, and he imparted eight rules for writing short fiction:

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

So there you go, thems the rules.

I'm writing non-blog stuff at the moment, so I'll just post a lovely song

2010-11-02T20:43:00.000-07:00

Facebook Arguments - sex slavery.

2010-10-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is a bit of a thorny issue.

I was on, yes, Facebook tonight and noticed that a really good friend of The Lady had posted a link to an excellent article from the NYT. It deals with the endemic rise of sex slavery in the US - as opposed to 'traditional' prostitution - and how law enforcement sometimes struggles to notice the difference between the two. At 11 pages it's perhaps a bit bulkier than most articles we blog-jobs will read, but it's an extremely important piece, and just as relevant now as when it was written.

This friend of The Lady, who we'll name 'Ms AS', is a really lovely person and incredibly intelligent. She does have a tendency to grasp onto an idea and blindly argue it without acknowledging differing arguments. Usually she's right, and everyone else is wrong. By usually of course, I mean always.

The article had made her understandably angry. When I read it myself, I felt physically sick and absolutely drained and depressed at the content therein.

Of course...then there were the comments.

Now, y'all know that I can be less than sympathetic towards people on facebook. Often I can be a complete prick about it, but sometimes I think a little rant is necessary. Ms AS, in her vehemence not only posted the link to every woman's wall she knew, but also deleted comments that she didn't agree with.

Hmm, I love the smell of unfettered discourse in the twilight.

So, I'm making a record of my response in case mine gets the chop.

Here's what was written, note how the sole bloke gets attacked:

Miss AS: Read this; to be aware and for your own protection. SEX SLAVERY IN MODERN TIMES *link*

Mr JSN: Shocking.

Ms AS: Read the whole article though, it really will make you feel sick

Ms JB: "dozens of men came and went". Who are all of these men and what the hell is wrong with them?! Its so sad that this happens, and even sadder that there are so many 'John's' who finance it.

Ms AS: Yeah no exactly I completely agree JB, it is really tragic, if there was no demand for this, there would be no money to make from it and no industry. I don't understand either who these men are and what is in their head, just so sick.

Ms LGC: Horrid horrid horrid, thank you for bringing it to my attention AS. Some of these men are just average people... Around my office there are many "dance shows" and apparently the area turns into a prostitute area in the evening...so... Now I know what "working late" means ;)

"there are 30,000 to 50,000 sex slaves in captivity in the United States at any given time." What an outrageous number. We don't just merely need sympathy for these victims, we need ACTION! Oh but wait, these are merely women and I'm sure they like it.

Mr JSN: Why is my comment gone / deleted?

Ms LGC: your "shocking" comment is still there...

Mr JSN: I had another comment about how this article is rather old and hopefully this is now stopped. That must have been censored for some odd reason...

Ms LGC: hahaha, the article might be old, but still very relevant. Hopefully not that relevant in the US anymore (as action hopefully has been taken) but as a worldwide topic - sadly too painfully relevant...

Mr JSN: I know for a fact that in the UK this issue has been tackled rather well. Obviously we can never stop this sort of things 100% but they seem to have cracked down on alot of them. The British police has had a few joint operations and they go...t rid of quite a few of these gangs.

In Asia, Africa and the Middle East however, it beggars belief.

Ms LGC: I hope you're correct. However, everyone 1 is too many and what we need to start with is targeting the education of our men and their mental health.

Mr JSN: I disagree

It's not a issue of how well educated these men are; you will find that top lawyers, politicians and businessmen often frequent and abuse women. This is also not a mental health issue - these men are often quite sound. It is a case of 'power' or the need to exert 'power' over weak fragile women.

We need to decrease poverty levels (via increased education for women so they have better chances in their countries and also to facilitate the growth of their local economies) and then to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor (so that the poor are not abused).

Ms LGC: I completely agree with your second point. However, with "educate our men" I meant, we should change the way women are being portrayed in our societies (this should also be done by women). Furthermore, I do believe it is a mental health issue, especially when we talk about men who abuse 12 year old girls, this is not solely about increasing economic innitiative and possibilities for the poor.

Mr JSN: Playing devils advocate here but look at how long it has taken women to be emancipated in Europe and for various equality rights to be established. These regions are quite behind when compared to the Western world, it would be near impossib...le for them to 'catch up'. If for hundreds or thousands of years, women has been portrayed in their culture, society or religion as 'to be abused' - what makes you think that 10 - 20 years of lobbying / reforms / globalisation will change things?

But the girls in the articles are not 12 year olds. They are adults, young adults, I take your point.

Yes, abusing 12 year olds is a mental health issue.

Ms LGC: Yes, but they start out at very young ages.. and then grow into it - as also mentioned in the article. Moreover, even IF in these countries the women are not emancipated etc etc - they are trafficked to the West - our countries and our governments. If our men had no desire to abuse these women, the problems would stay in their countries and societies, but sadly enough it doesn't. I condone all sorts of sexual exploitation worldwide, but especially when it happens in my country by my men.

Mr JSN: They don't call it the oldest profession in the world for no reason....

Ms LGC: Because men are in charge ;)

Ms AS: It's not a profession Mr JSN to be a forced sex slave kept in a prison-like environment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did you even read the article???????? The article is about sex slavery where women are abducted and beaten and lured into forced prostitution – they don't get paid or the right to leave at any time. They are not voluntary prostitutes that make money for themselves and have consciously chosen that lifestyle. Maybe you should read the article before you make comments.

Mr JSN: I give up

Ms JB: He obviously didnt read the article. If he did, he would know that some of the children were even younger than 12- toddlers even. And no matter how old they are, it is wrong to keep people against thier will. How can you call rape, torture, and murder a profession? So shameless.

Ms LGC: Most clients are not aware that the women are trafficking victims and believe they are engaged in prostitution of their own free will. In reality, the overwhelming majority of women working in prostitution are victims of sexual slavery."

....... I'm sure the 3 year old boy and 16 year old girl want to have sex with 15 - 20 (even up to 50 sometimes!) different men.

Ms AS: I second that JB. It's not a profession but a crime - and one of the vilest imaginable.

Ms AS: unfortunately LCG i think these men that go to prostitutes are very well aware and they dont care, they just want this ''service'' to be available in case they need it and they dont care about the conditions of the people who supply this even if those conditions are completely inhumane and degrading. The only way to stop this is through the cooperation between police, law enforcers, informants and normal decent citizens -men and women.

Me: Just my two cents worth, but some of the responses here are completely unreasonable, especially some of the ones directed at Mr JSN, so excuse the length of this.

No-one could possibly believe that the crimes mentioned in the article are an...ything other than despicable, but it's totally counter-productive to argue in broad strokes with an issue like this. JSN clearly wasn't calling sex slavery a profession!

The article wasn't talking about the evils of prostitution, it was concerned with the sex-trafficking of vulnerable girls (a large proportion of whom are underage) and the increasing levels of slaves in the US (and elsewhere) as opposed to the 'Pretty Woman' fallacy of prostitution that Hollywood perpetuates.

First of all, if you automatically equate all forms of prostitution with sex-slavery, then you're allowing many more people than the estimated 50,000 annually (in the US alone) to fall through the gaps. If people don't realise the difference between, say, regulated prostitution in Amsterdam or Nevada, quasi-legal escorting in most of Europe and the US and then instances of slavery and pederasty which are reported in this article, then there's a risk of them all being pigeon-holed together. If, as the article states, a lot of officers, lawmakers etc don't understand that there are increasing levels of sex slaves in their vice arrests then the problem will get worse.

JSN wasn't saying the article wasn't about sex slavery, he was merely pointing out the difficulty of overnight change. The phrase 'the oldest profession in the world' is accurate, but not as some apologia arguing that slavery is okay, just pointing out that the sex industry is probably never going to stop. There will always be demand and there will always be supply, and that's the most pressing issue at the moment, how that supply is filled.

Accusing him of not having read the article because he was answering someone's opinion just reads as petulant, and actually shows that maybe y'all haven't understood the point of the article. He clearly wasn't equating sex slavery to prostitution, and yet you all jump down his throat for pointing out the difficulty in defeating the sex industry.

Secondly, and again about broad strokes, if you make a 'men are the problem' statement and blame the attitude of men as the sole reason for this problem then you're missing the point. It's demonstrably not a single gender issue.

This article doesn't do so, but a lot of the peripheral comments veer almost towards misandry in blaming 'mankind' for sex slavery. Saying 'men are in charge' and 'I'm sure they (the slaves) like it', even if joking/sarcastic just obscures the actual problems raised.

Yeah, some men are fucking sick and think sex can be bought and that women are commodities, but the VAST MAJORITY don't, and to suggest otherwise is completely false. If you demonise men then some of the more prevalent, and solvable, factors (eg: the cyclical nature of abuse, lack of inter-agency cooperation, corruption, lack of exposure of victim reports, lack of rehabilitation, funding cuts etc etc) just get overlooked more easily.

I agree that there needs to be a vast overhaul in attitudes towards women, but it's not only men who need to do so. It's as important that women change their attitudes too because it's a societal issue, not just an affront towards woman. Just as important is that governments make firm commitments against sex slavery (as has occurred in UK and Ireland in the last decade with some success) or that institutions like the catholic church take a firm stance against abuse in its ranks.

"How can you call rape, torture, and murder a profession? So shameless." - again, that's not what JSN said AT ALL. By hurling your misdirected anger at a man for raising legitimate questions and giving opinions on this seriously important matter, you're being counterproductive. This article seriously pissed me off too, it made me feel physically sick in fact, but there are different levels to the sex industry, and it's important to discuss it in specifics and dissect the problem, not just start leveling hysterical accusations.

So this is basically just an argument that I copy and pasted from Facebook. I'm sorry it's so long, but it's a subject that needs to be discussed and I think it's worth reading about and arguing about. I'd love to hear some opinions from any of the dear readers if possible. I hope I didn't sound like I was justifying anything, but I really got annoyed at the way they swarmed against him. What do you think?

Anyway, that'll learn me for getting into a scrap on facebook eh?

When I grow up and become a gunslinger in the old west...

2010-10-08T04:40:00.001-07:00

I want to dress like Lee Van Cleef.

In the meantime, can someone get me a pocket watch that plays this tune and a mariachi band to create a tense 'duel theme' wherever I go?

Shut your fucking wordhole!! It's Ear Time.

2010-09-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

I was reading a new blog today, something I haven't done in a while, and the writer was talking about how he knows there is no god, as opposed to 'timid' atheists or rationalists, who merely disbelieve, or who know they don't know. I think based on his rather black and white definition, I was one of those timid ones, that amused me.

It was a very well written piece though, the law student in me liking the source-quoting, the 'close the gate' method of returning to his original point, and he even gave a half-hearted attempt to understand why people would have opinions contrary to his own.

Then the comments...

Now, ~~I'm as open-minded as the next guy~~ I hate the rest of the world as much as the next guy, and I always have something to say when people make massively broad statements such as 'I know there is no god'...even if I agree with 90% of what he said.

I was thinking that maybe I'd point out that his assertion that evolution was fact and not theory was erroneous, as the 'theory of evolution' is merely more plausible than sky-wizards and thus has greater scientific credence. I might also have pointed out that atheism isn't timid, it's more precise in scientific terms, science 'being aware' of the fact that it doesn't know the answer as opposed to religious fundies who accept creation theory as explaining a 'truth' how the world came about, and this writer being paradoxically as incorrect as them in proclaiming a universal truth about the creation of the universe.

(Yes, I do find it hard to fill the hours when I'm away from my girlfriend.)

I was considering how best to word this (I thought) rather eloquent riposte, when I scrolled down the comments page and saw that the nuts had got there first.

Anonymous wrote: YOU ATHEISTS ARE ALL MAD!!! If there's no God, HOW DOES THE SUN ORBIT THE EARTH??

I sat back, absolutely dumbfounded. No....no fucking way, this can't....please no...

Then I saw that it was sarcasm, and nearly wept with relief. Life was good again. It was a blogger linking to his online store of atheist t-shirts. I threw a crust of bread at the unconscious hooker on my floor and smiled as my fear dissipated.

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It got me thinking though...mind-thinking. Why is it nowadays that people will discourse on a topic about which they know nothing?

When did it become okay to just 'have a go'? When did the world become so arrogant as to believe that everyone is an expert on a topic and has a valid point to make?

Post your comment:
Anonymous says: I attended a one week crash course on the ethics of biochemistry so I can talk with exclusive domain about a topic that people have endlessly debated for sixty years.

Anonymous 2 says: No WAY man!! You're crasy, My bibel tutor told me that biochemistry is what makes hommosexualls and asians, don't mess with God's plan!!!

Anonymous 3 says: Yeah, I half-read an online article about stem-cell research on a right-wing newspaper's website. YOU PEOPLE ARE SICK!!

Anonymous 4 says: I went to an obscure liberal arts college that none of you could afford and we had a very productive coffee-and-humous round table discussion of the moral consequences of stem-cell research. We agreed it's necessary for scientific development. I took philosophy for a semester so I know what I'm talking about. Lol.

Anonymous 5 says: Whats stencil research???

God Lover says: Bless you all, I pity you.

Anonymous 6 says: You know who else used stem cell research? Hitler!!!!!

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I mean, when did it become the norm for people to fool themselves that they had an expert opinion on something they've overheard in a pub?

I used to watch a lot of medical dramas (before I pawned my TV to buy chloroform and a handkerchief) but I'd never assume I could perform a tracheotomy.

I COMPLETELY agree with the concept of freedom of speech by the way, please don't think I'm advocating some restriction on people's right to voice opinions. I just wish people didn't kid themselves into believing they were an expert on everything they've read, seen or heard.

It happened to me the other day, and I literally didn't know how to respond. My girlfriend is moving house soon, and she and her flatmates are looking at houses in Northwest London. In fact, one of the places they're considering is Maida Vale, about a mile from where I used to live and somewhere I used to go running. It's one of the most expensive parts of London for property and I mentioned this, along with the fact that the Tube gets really slow in the mornings.

"No it doesn't"

What?

"I've been on that line before, it's really quick."

I was trying to point out that the two lines which service the entire area get extremely clogged in the mornings, as opposed to the east of London where there are more rail lines. Also, I mentioned that one of the lines gets closed every third weekend, thus increasing the pressure.

No, no listening there.

Now, I had lived there, knew the area well and could offer some practical advice, but the Flatmate knew better because she had heard otherwise from a friend. So what's the point?

In the Law, there is a tight control on what constitutes an expert witness. It's true for the Irish, UK and US legal systems. Not just anyone can come and give expert evidence. The court will insist on scrutinising qualifications, looking a practical experience (for say a fire officer in an arson case) scholarly articles and a whole panoply of other factors to to determine whether a purported witness knows what the fuck they're talking about...I'd love something similar in Real Life, like those regulators that stop a moped using above 150cc, or those machines that won't let the car start without a clean breathalyser test.

Because really, what's the fucking point of asking a question if you're not going to listen? Why does that whole fucking world close their ears until it's their time to speak and what the fuck has happened to our generation for us to believe that everything we read, see, hear or hear-from-a-friend-who-heard-it-from-some-bloke-who-overheard-it-down-the-fucking-pub?

So in future, if anyone asks me a question, I'm going to be really 100% accurate in my answer, or just not answer. Because when the entire world is so eager to talk, and no-one will listen to anything which is contrary to what they think they know, why fucking bother?

*end rant*

So, I'm trying to break into radio...

2010-09-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

So, following the train-wreck that is my legal career, I've decided that I want to pursue a career in radio. My parents, and their incessant desire for a 'plan' for my life, have been badgering me more than a pesky badger trying to convince a fisherman to give him his fishin' worms. In other words, very badgery indeed, and rather depressing.

Parents have that great ability to summarise what you do in negative terms. It's a skill that comes with being a teacher and trying to promote constructive criticism. Sometimes though, it's just fucking annoying.

"What's the plan, son?"

"Well, I want to work for a year, maybe try and get a part-time job and try and get some work placements or experience with a radio station before enrolling in a masters next year."

"So, you plan to bum about for a year?"

(Grrrrr THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID!!!)

I won't even tell you what they say when I tell them that I'd love to someday write for a career.

Anyway, I'm trying my bestest, and I'm ploughing my way through work experience applications. The stations that I applied for today are....

BBC Radio
ClassicFM
XFM
NME Radio
Capital FM
Chill
Fun Kids Radio
Heart Radio
LBC FM

...and that's just the London ones.

I also tried Jazz FM and Heat FM but unfortunately they don't take work experience folks. Smooth, non-job-giving bastards.

So, if I'm trying to get a job in radio and I'm not employable with any of these guys, then I might be slightly screwed.

Slightly? Totally.

In the pushing-Marlon-Brandon-up-a-potholed-hill-during-a-mudslide way.

Anybody have any hints or suggestions? Cos Marlon's looking hungry, and I smell of fried chicken...

From my notebook - Thursday 23rd September 2010

2010-09-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am in an overheated Aer Lingus tube-with-wings watching a trickle of early morning fliers file past, as tinny Tchaikovsky is tannoyed from, it seems, every seam of the grimy plastic fuselage. I am in an exit seat, the extra leg room and worst-case-scenario responsibility compensating me for the fact that I am beseiged, three rows deep, by a party of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-English golfing couples.

Hatchet-faced women in pearls and dyed bobs call in cheery stings about the how good the wine was with dinner last night and the men, red faced and all organically yoghurty, unashamedly berate each other with staccatoed guffaws about the sand trap on the twelfth hole and enquire how their egos will ever recover from 'that' double bogie.

They are all wearing pastels, trews, tank tops and sweaters. I'm half-hoping to see a man with plus-fours and a tam o' shanter, but no. They all look like neon fucktards that were bought in the 'special and smug' section of the Early Learning Centre's golf aisle. The men have been dressed by colour co-ordinated wives whose crookedly bleached teeth speak of liquid wealth and a chronic lack of imagination.

I am in Hell.

Happy-Go-Fucking Lucky McPositive and the Fork in the Road...

2010-09-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

KABLAMMO!!

That's the noise of a bad moment, a little percussive volley as my corpus callosum is rent in twain and my head explodes, brainz n' all, like an egg in a microwave.

So about 5 months ago (Monday the 12th April in fact) I wrote a piece about my ill-fated and toe-blistering initial attempt to get back into shape as part of my (woefully inadequately fulfilled) 101 things to do and haven't really written anything since.

A cynic would suggest that my pot bellied attempt to be less dough-like stopped my brain working for almost half a year, but I don't think that's the case.

Basically, I had an exam in June, but thanks to the dual forces of working two jobs, and being a lazy earfucker, I managed to fail...spectacularly. Then, after spending the summer studying...I failed again. And lost my job as a lawyer.

KABLAMMO!

So that was yesterday. Now I'm one of the 99.9999% of the world again. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing with life.

Since 2008 I've been approaching my career as a lawyer who was going to become a writer at the first opportunity. It was comforting; financial security, quite prestigious, challenging and keeping with the 'artist' bullshit scenario that we all paint about ourselves in our minds.

That's the problem. When you spend enough time convincing yourself of a fact, it becomes all too easy to see it as a truth. Now I have to rethink some other things about myself that I though were true, like being a great lover, having the physique of a gladiator, or being an original member of The Sugarhill Gang.

So cut throat corporate law is probably not for me. Small-town Atticus Finchery maybe, but not the Michael Clayton red-braces-and-Porsche-Boxter type. Some cliché is coming to mind about heat and kitchens, but it escapes me.

So what now?

I think the next stage for me is a masters degree of some sort. I've been looking at either an MA in radio production or print journalism. I want to give the writing future an actual attempt.

What do you think? Become a nicotine/adrenaline headline jock or an NPR/Radio 4 type doing radio dramas and producer 'Gardener's Question Time'? Both sound good.

Packing my bags again. How things change!

2010-08-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

Holy Fucking Bloma, Batman!!

So yeah, I haven't really written anything since April, choosing instead to get my head all muddled up and sent off to the abbatoir to get well and truly slaughtered. I sorta just put my head down, and without realising it, a third of 2010 just trickled away and suddenly I was sitting on a park bench, covered in coldsores and wanking off an old man.

(That last bit's not true, but I've not written anything graphic in months and wanted to treat you all.)

Anyway, I'm back.

"What's happened in the past 4 months??" I hear my few remaining followers ask.

Well, where was I 4 months ago?

Then:
-I had 2 jobs.
-I had an important exam fast approaching.
-I lived with my flatmate Sparkleberry
-I was getting ready for Sparkleberry's wedding
-I was single
-I smoked cigarettes like a train.
-I was broke.
-I was depressed.

Now:

I have 0 jobs.
I have an important resit fast approaching (my first ever 'fail')
I have moved out of the flat, made somewhat 'third wheeley' by the arrival of Sparkleberry's new wife.
I've quit smoking cigarettes (but still love the old pipe!!)
I have a proper grown-up relationship thing going with a girlfriend woman.
I'm still broke.
I have CHRONIC writer's block.
I'm happy.

So I lost my jobs, failed my exams, became (voluntarily) homeless and haven't written anything in months.

There's probably too much in the above list of things to go into too much depth about. So this is a mere ripple in the pool before I dive back into blogging again. Let's just draw a line under the last third of the year as being officially UNDER THE RADARRRRRRRRRR.

At the moment, I'm sitting on my girlfriend's bed, looking at the pile of clothes that will soon represent my luggage before I go back to Ireland to study before my exam on the 23rd of August. This week has been mostly study (except for a fucking bonza trip to the zoo with THE LADY) but there has been one big thing.

My friend Ruairí (Rufus) who has been mentioned here before started a hashtag game on Twitter called #badtvpitches. 5 of us started playing yesterday and today....it's gone febrile. We've had celebs endorse it, it was a trending topic in Ireland yesterday and featured today on Ireland's biggest radio station 2FM.

The game is simple, an example of a few of my own being:

PIMP MY RIYADH: Saudi capital invites X-zibit or Tim Westwood to put subwoofers and rhinestones everywhere. #badtvpitches

TOLKEIN OF MY AFFECTION: autistic savant learns Quenya to write romantic sonnets to a librarian. #badtvpitches

PROCTOR & GAMBON: Short-lived detective series with Lance Kinsey (from Police Academy) and @TheGambon Michael Gambon #badtvpitches

LAA-LAA YAKUZA: Yellow Tellytubby decides to leave the Somme and enter the Japanese criminal underworld with her orange ball. #badtvpitches

I'd love it if y'all played. And followed me in the process. And sent me some money or heroin or something.

Lol.

So yeah, I'm back. Lucky you.

x

Try to spot me (when I was 16)

2010-06-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

Blogswap!!

2010-04-15T00:51:00.000-07:00

As part of the 20sbloggers 7th blogswap, I'm really happy that Melissa has come a-visiting and written a little piece for the old pizza box. Her blog is a haven for music lovers everywhere (but mainly Canada) and she's a really great writer...

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Hi everyone! My name is Melissa and this is my very first guest post on someone’s blog. I signed up for a blog swap a couple weeks ago, and after completely forgetting about it, I got a very nice message from Conor telling me we had been paired up. 2 days later and here I am trying to write a reasonably not-too-long, not-too-short post about myself and why I started blogging.

As a disclaimer, you should all know that Conor was nice enough to send me his post first so that I could have a little idea of how this whole blog swap thing works. After reading about our future as an old married couple at dinner parties, I got a bit of a better idea on how to write this out. Oh and by the way Con, I certainly hope our future isn’t so grim?! I promise I at least won’t be smoking, that’s not my thing.

So, how about a little bit about me and why I write. My blog is 85% music and my adventures on the borders of the industry. Now, I’m not some huge musical genius who can quote any song dating back from 1975, but I am in love with music TODAY. There’s something about seeing an artist or band perform that makes me feel like I know myself a little more.

If you’re looking for me, try one of my best friends’ cars, in a random city, or at a local bands’ show. There is NO better place in the world to me. The road is where everything happens. You discover the greatest new songs, you see the most beautiful views, and you spend time with the best people. Every concert I go to is like falling in love with music all over again.

Now all of this is really great and fun, but I can’t say that it’s really a blogging style or a reason that I started my blog in the first place. It is, however, the reason I keep doing it 3 years later.

I originally started blogging way too long ago to even remember the specific date but I must have been 15 or so. I eventually started writing on BlogSpot when I was about 18, and I moved over to WordPress over 3 years later. I’ve always been the kind of person who wears her heart on her sleeve- I always needed an outlet for my thoughts. Maybe that’s a big reason that I can’t live without music. To me, it’s the ultimate way to express your emotions.

I have to admit that sometimes it’s hard to remember why I keep going back to my blog. Why not a good old fashioned journal? Maybe it’s because I’ve relied on it so much over the years; maybe it’s simply through habit. I think everyone has their own reasons to keep their little space on the internet open. Conor pointed out in his post something that really made me laugh because it was just so true. He quoted George Orwell who stated that one of the reasons he writes is the sheer egoism of it all. Everybody wants to be remembered or thought of when they’re not around- has blogging really become the modern day way to do just that?

The more I think of it, the more I realize that it’s become difficult to sift through the thousands of bloggers out there to find the quality ones. Everyone seems to have something to say, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be publishing it online. Every once in a while I’ll come across a really GOOD blog, one that’s worth adding to my very short blog roll. I think that’s my favorite part about the blog swap. I would have never found Conor’s blog among all of them had it not been for our random pairing. Looking through his archives, I found myself laughing at his sarcasm, his humor and his (sometimes) blunt honesty. All qualities that you really do need to keep up a good blog. Hey Con, how’s that for an opening line at our future dinner parties?!

In any case, I write exactly how I speak, if that makes any sense. If I’m feeling sarcastic, I’ll write that way. If I’m feeling angry… you get the point. I don’t know if any of this is considered a ‘blogging style’ but maybe that’s a blogging style on its own. Forgive me, it’s getting late and I feel like I’m not making much sense anymore. I’ll give you an example though. I was looking over Conor’s blog and vlogs earlier, and I noticed that he does the same thing. His posts each have their own writing style, in some funny way. They each reflect a new part of him and who he is on that day.

Writing this post has probably been one of the most difficult things I’ve done all month. It’s nearly impossible to sum myself up, my thoughts on blogging and blogging styles… but there you have it. If you’ve read this far, thanks for not losing interest in my ramblings. And Conor, thanks for letting me take a little space on your blog! I’m really glad that I found your blog among the thousands out there. Keep up those incredibly entertaining vlogs of yours and keep in touch!

Photojournalism Nom Nom Style...

2010-04-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

The weird new implement bought by Spark for potcleaning.

My little fiery amigo, Mr McIlhenny

Biting cutlery, as you do.

Relaxing post meal with my straight-stem.

Where's my Pulitzer, bitch?

Oh yeah, under my belly...

I'll work it off in the morning.

Stumbled across this on youtube....

2010-04-12T23:41:00.001-07:00

This is a recording of a band who I used to go and see when I worked as a music teacher in an Irish language summer school. I was a ceannaire, a sort of student supervisor, and we would go out every night drinking, it was insane.

The band, Blonderbraü, was made up of teachers from the area, and we would hang out in the pubs they played at. I think this night this was recorded, I was sitting right beside the the camera, and we made up about half the pub, it was fucking excellent.

Enjoy!!

Toe Juice and a Fond Farewell to the Guinness Baby

2010-04-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at the table in my kitchen, watching my pasta cook and trying not to cry. Apparently, a watched pot never boils, but as the bubbles dance higher and higher to the lip of the pot, and eventually dribble down with a spitting shriek into the gas hob, I realise that proverbs are over-rated. I can't get off the chair to turn the gas down, so I watch my beloved penne go from al dente to pasta-puddle.

The reason I can't get out of the chair is because my legs have stopped working. They no longer do what ask them because I was mean to them earlier today. So now, I sit, morosely staring at my dinner spoiling. my stomach rumbling mercilessly.

I was back in Ireland last week, spending some time with the family and generally chilling out and at some point getting rejected AGAIN! Anyway, at some point in the week, we all went to the island where I half-grew-up and went swimming. In the Atlantic.

It was fucking freezing.

Because the water was essentially colder than the endothermic version of hell, we had to wear wetsuits. As I zipped mine up, I looked down and realised I looked like a lumpy pillowcase full of tits. Then when my wee bro, sis and I were swimming, I realised I was nowhere near as fit as I used to be. Seeing as the last time I did any exercise was in June 2009, I have come to terms with the fact that I'm now mostly made of molten cheese. So, in the vein of self-improvement, I went for a run this morning.

Here's the route I took...5 miles in total, including a workout at the Kilburn outdoor gym afterwards.

I. nearly. died.

View Larger Map

I returned to the house an hour later, lay on the floor, and tried desperately not to cry. The Guinness Baby is not long for this world, I tell thee.
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That seems quite positive right? Getting up at 5:45 to go for a run. Well it isn't, I came home from work and now find I can't use my legs. They've stopped working...

ALSO, my toes have become all blistery.

Now, if some of you might remember, I have a weird fascination with the 'Cysts and Pus' genre of youtube porn. I decided to film my own. My toes are really long (..ladies) and they're important, so when I went to pop the blisters I thought I'd add to the pantheon of Pus Porn. Yum yum.

Prob best look away if you're easily nauseated.

Foot Surgery from Conor Darrall on Vimeo.

Now I'm lying in bed, in my jammies, trying not to sound like an old man when I move, dreading having to do my pervert shuffle tomorrow on the way to the Tube. Hopefully my legs will be gone when I wake up and I can get Spark to give me a piggy back...

My feet say goodnight!
x

The Positive Side of: Chat Roulette

2010-04-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Derry at the moment visiting the family over easter. 10 days of convivial comfort, heat and laundry, a full fridge and all the cheddar cheese I could ever possibly want.

Work had me really run-down recently, and as such, I'd stopped blogging, was soldered into a god-awful routine, played my usual MIA japes with my friends and did all of the usual things that gets one down in the dumps when they're a bit depressed with life. A wee break is the absolute tonic, and it's really great to see my parents and wee broheim and sister again. This week is rent-free relaxathon.

As you may know, I tend to make strong opinions about things rather quickly, and recently I've been a bit off the mark in terms of judgment. Being negative and cynical is fun most of the time but not if there's no enthusiasm or attempt to take things at face value, then that would make me a bit of a twat.

So in that spirit of infectious enthusiasm, I've diverted my usual boundless energy into finding the bright side of things I've been negative about recently...starting with Chatroulette.

(nb: when I say 'boundless energy'...I am presently pyjama'd, sitting in my bed drinking camomile and spiced apple tea and watching the little broheim play 'Zelda: Ocarina of Time' on the N64 - GUNG HO!!)

Chatroulette

My previous experience of this vidcam-based chat generator involved alcohol, and a seemingly endless supply of perverted fuckwits whacking off for our amusement/mental scalding. It was a bit surreal, and made me want to use a cattle brand to sterilise my eyeballs into scotch egg pub snacks. No matter how many cold ones we threw back, the sight of a sixty year old Belgian man with assless leather chaps and his dick in his hand was oddly sobering. Yuck.

This time, I was sober to begin with, and it was the day time, when only some of the weirdos come out. I finished my coffee, sat upright on the bed and with an ouverture of knuckle-crackery and neck-crickery, I logged in.

The first site that greeted my was a skinny white torso in FUBU boxers, a forlorn dick hanging out. Lovely.

What followed was a detailed lesson on anatomy, specifically that of the serial masturbator. I should have been a fucking urologist, I could have written a thesis on middle-age sag and the likeness between a sixty year old ballsack and free-range scrambled eggs, an epistle on the hiphop-boxer-to-foreskin-ratio of you average internet sexpest. There were more dicks than at a conference of Private Investigators.

Ba Dum Tish.

However, just as I was about to log off, and tell myself to fuck all the way off for setting homework for myself during my holidays, I found myself looking at a purple fringe and a pair of extremely beautiful eyes. Extremely beautiful eyes.

I stalled, this might be a normal human, best not make any sudden movements. Remember, they're more scared of me than I am of them...

I straightened to make my face look as non I-might-whip-my-balls-out-at-any-second as possible and gave a small smile.

Me: Hi
She: Hey!

Okay, all good. We had a conversation afoot.

I'd imagined that we would chat for a few minutes before my new friend would just hit 'next' and I could go and write about how I had done my homework. It lasted a bit longer.

One of the things you learn about yourself from chatroulette is exactly HOW boring you are. I explained that I was studying/training to be a lawyer, was sidetracked in construction recruitment and wanted to be a writer. I bored myself witless writing it, moreso writing it again just now. My conversational partner had manners of steel, if that's even a figure of speech, and didn't stab herself in the hand for distraction once. Not once!

Jule, for she has a name, is a student from Liepzieg, and like I say, she has extremely nice eyes. She studies English studies and loves London, but hates how Londoners can't make eye contact and how they roam through life like insular cattle. She didn't put it like that exactly, but her English was better than mine and I now feel the need to compensate by using overtly florid language. She had a lovely sense of humour, was quick to smile and laugh, and could do that European thing (mainland Europe only I'm afraid) of smoking a cigarette nonchalantly and looking as cool as Lou Reed on a polar ice-cap. When I didn't realise that Liepzeig is in Saxony and not Bavaria as I originally said, she was kind enough to not point out my mistake. She works in a cinema part-time and wants to become a professional film critic. I tried to convice to start blogging, but she said it was too personal, too open. So she was also mysterious.

I was a smidgen away from asking for her hand in wedlock when she had to leave, bloody slightly-younger people with their interesting lives and social circles. We exchanged emails, and I promised I'd send her a link to my blog. This one your reading.

So my verdict?

Chatroulette is a (frankly terrifying) natural development of the way we communicate and interact, a step further in our social evolution to an androgynous species subsisting on the ritualistic one-two of masturbatory reclusion and invasive omniscience. It is a junkie's gallery of quick-fix friendship and instant gratification for some, and a place to show the world how you and your 'boyz' are really adept at drinking low quality lager and being passive aggressive to someone half a world away. It also presents one with an enormous amount of laboured metaphors with which to describe it for future blogs.

The sushi buffet of conversation and friends may be vaccuous and rather soulless, but it IS oddly democratic and like anything in life, if you persist, you can find something that makes the whole experience worthwhile.

So try it out, I urge you. You might just find two beautiful eyes and a new friend, or at least an old Belgian fella wanking himself blind.

Travelling in the snow....

2010-04-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I'm flying back home to good old Ireland to visit the family for a week. The Easter weekend means I only had to book four days off work next week so I can chill out and not do fucking construction recruitment til the 12th April, which is nice.

I remember the last time I attempted to travel back to Derry, a few days after a rather nasty 'fall' I had here in Londontown, in late December. My original flight was cancelled and my parents had to book me an alternative one, which was great because hey, why not spend money on a flight three days before Christmas?

There was a fantastic moment where I had to get a £70 train to Birmingham for my flight from there and I was rather glum about how things were going for me, and a bit self-pitying and generally stupidly emo. Things were seemingly relentless in their general shite-hood (still no job, a 'bad fall', writer's block, depression, finding out Santa's not real etc etc etc) and I sat and scowled as we sped across the heart of England; tired, jaded and listening to Morrisey, because I'm a clichéd twat.

Then the sun burst and this is what I saw as we rocketed along, 'How Soon Is Now?' blaring in my ears and the hair on my neck shivering to attention:

Travelling in the Snow from Conor Darrall on Vimeo.

And for some reason I was completely delighted. The fact that it was shrouded in mist was what did it. I couldn't for the life of me see where I was and didn't give a fuck. I could just imagine those fields going on and on til they reached the sea, without a soul for hundreds of miles. I was completely, truly alone, and sat in the empty carriage, grinning like an idiot.

It's weird, sometimes the tiniest of things can make you smile. Then again, sometimes it takes the coldest winter in decades, an overactive imagination, solitude and Johnny Marr's guitar virtuosity.

We'll see how tomorrow goes then. It's apparently been snowing back home all week...

I'm drunk!

2010-04-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk Drunk

The One-Day Weekend.

2010-03-28T05:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's really been a long time since I've done written anything dagnabbit. I'd love to use the excuse that I've been busy in the weeks since my birthday, and that would be vaguely true, but I've also been very lazy. Very lazy.

Also, there's been very little to write about. Not much has been going on, apart from the usual wok-eat-sleep-gasp at council tax-sleep routine, plus I've been broker than a clay hammer so I've had to curtail any form of crazy lifestyle and keep to a pretty strict budget.

I have been doing a bit of writing though. Not blogging really, but something that I've been chipping away at for a while. My little moleskine has taken a battering and I've got reams of poorly handwritten Irish notes to wade through, but I think I'm quite near to beginning. I've just got to stop myself from either procrastinating or getting evicted too much, and I should be good to go.

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So I was up visiting my friend Bunny on Friday. He's one of my buddys from home and I managed to get him a job at the office I work at, so we've been hanging out more and more. We were up in his flat, drinking very cheap beer, when someone suggested we go on Chat Roulette.
Now, there were about 6 of us there, just chilling out and watching TV, and the last thing I expected to see was a lot of cocks.

We saw a lot of cocks. And naked women. And groups of naked people.

It was a bit weird. Essentially the most action I've got on a recent Friday night is seeing a bunch of perverts jerking off down the blagonet to a group of surprised (and sorta horrified) non-perverts. Good times.

Then, yesterday I went on a date. Yes, a date with a female woman. From Australia.

I had asked her out before my birthday, and we had planned to go out that weekend (to the zoo...) but both ended up ditching the other. It wasn't on purpose, just a load of crossed wires, but I thought I had been stood up, and so did she.

So, on St. Patrick's day (St. Paddy's NOT 'St. Patty's') when I went to have my customary pint of Guinness and she served me, we shouted at each other for a few minutes, then agreed it was quite funny, and arranged to meet up.

We had dinner last week, both got very drunk (hangover at work FTW!) and arranged to make up for our lack of a zoo visit by going to the park. A less-expensive and probably less mental place to take a young lady.

So yesterday, we went to Hyde Park and walked about. I've only been there a few times before, but it's a really cool place, and we spent about 2 hours coming up with the latest new cop show that'll sweep the nation. It's called Davis and Spinner, and has a blaring jazz soundtrack. The first episode is going to be called 'The Jazz-Pasta Conspiracy" but I can say no more.

We ended up in the park by accident, as we were supposed to go to Hampstead Heath instead, and ended up soaked to the skin when the heaviest rain EVER attacked us.

I'm Irish, so walking through mental rain is a bit of a cakewalk, but she's an Ozzie, and doesn't feel comfortable in any temperature less than 'broil'. We made for the Tube, and decided food was necessary, so arrived back in my place, cooked a HUGE dinner of Tacos. Then watched two of my favourite fims; 28 Days Later ('eeeeek, zombies' *hug* nb: even though they're NOT zombies) and The Warriors ('you see what you get when you mess with the Orphaaaaaans!!') so that she wouldn't go home associating spending time with me with rage-infected monsters, but rather would spend the time in the taxi thinking I was cool, and probably in a New York street gang. It was a good day.

Now, I'm watching helplessly as the hours rush forwards mercilessly towards 5, when I'll have to go back to the old man pub and work again. Hopefully no-one will come and wave a rusty saw around tonight, as it's a Sunday, but you never know. Ah well, guess I'll stop being a 'sook' and man up. Yay for the one-day weekend!

It's Monday morning...

2010-03-22T00:15:00.001-07:00

Telegram from the Queen.

2010-03-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

Aaah, my 100th post. Also, my 50th follower. Also, my 23rd birthday.

I am satisfied. Feeling like I've just eaten a big meal that I can still taste, hours after, with every burp. I'm sitting in my bed in my pyjamas and a Law Society t-shirt, smelling like mint after a very long hot bath and listening to my playlist. I just talked to my lady Lopez and I'm contemplating bed.

I imagined getting a tweet or a Follow Friday from the Queen, but alas...

QEtooooo : One wishes @conordarrall congratulations for his 100th blog post and for still being alive after all this time. Pity he's a bloddy Paddy lol :P #FF #Blogs

Plus, I hate her and her stupid punchable face, so I SO would have unfollowed her.

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The last 24 hours have been eventful.

I went out for dinner with an old friend Emma last night. I stayed with her while looking for the Uberflat last summer and we hadn't seen each other since Christmas. She didn't know it was my birthday, so when I told her (after a while) she was mortified and took me drinking.

This bar wouldn't be my favourite in the world, but it does have a barmaid, Chess, who is ridiculously pretty, and who I've never had the courage to ask out. Emma and I chatted and drank, and when she stood up to leave, she looked at the barmaid and said, 'You should totally ask her out' extremely loudly, so that in the wake of her exit, Chess was looking over. We eventually got chatting, and getting quite drunk, I asked her out. It was smooth...

Chess "Oh I don't usually date customers, I'm sorry"

Me "Oh no, it's alright, I never drink here if I can help it"

-awkward silence

Chess "Okay, so where should we go?"

Me "Um.............the zoo?"

So yeah, I asked a beautiful women to go on a date with me to the zoo. Perfect work, maybe next time that happens I'll see if she wants to go visit a recycling depot. The good thing is that I got the date, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was because it was my birthday and I was (technically) drinking on my own so she took pity. We'll see...

She is VERY nice though.

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TODAY, I woke up a bit hungover (read: very hungover) and stumbled into work, bleary eyed and useless. I didn't tell anyone that it was my birthday apart from a few of the guys who I've made friends with and my buddy Sean whom I got a job for. At about 3, the Big Guy came over and stood right next me.

Oh shit, he can smell that badness seeping out of my pores and wants me to clear my desk

"I've got a problem sunshine"

"Um, you do?"

"Yeah, I don't like it.........when people who work here don't tell us it's their birthdays and make us check Facebook!"

"Wha-"

He pulled out a few bags from behind his back, he had bought muffins for everyone in the office to celebrate. It was lovely. I was a bit embarrassed but hell, it was such a nice gesture. It's little rays of sunshine like that that make the place eminently bearable.

Also, another little ray, the Prohibitively Mean Secretary (PMS) got fired today. She's a compulsive liar, and had been causing a lot problems by lying and not doing any work. I'll miss her 8-hour-long monologues that chart her real-time thought process. The absence of that tinnitus buzz of shite that pours out of her mouth will be sorely noted.

ANOTHER little ray of sunshine. My ubercool uncle/godfather/musician Brian called to wish me a happy birthday and tell me he likes this wee blog, was thrilled to hear it. Then Mamo, my granny, called and we spent 20 minutes chatting about blogging.

It was surreal: in the meeting room, stinking of stale booze, the shakes, exhausted, on my birthday, with PMS leaving for good, holding a muffin, chatting to my gran about blogging. She thoroughly approves of it, but I've warned her off reading. My description of things and post titles (think HGFLMcP and the Work Life Skullfuck for example) do tend to have a bit of swearing in them sometimes. She wants me to collate all my posts together and try and make a book out of it. I'd love to do that, but the writing needs to improve I suppose.

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I write a little notebook on the commute to and from work. It's like an old fashion version of a blog that is in a little book made of paper that you type in by using a pen. I keep my notes in Irish so the nosy cunts can't read over my shoulder (and it's also private, and looks vaguely intellectual) and I just found the last thing I wrote, without thinking, as my train pulled up to the station

Is fíorr a rá go dtéim ar strae in ámanna, ach in aineoinn na crúachtáin a thiteann ar an bhóthar anseo agus ansiúd, ag déanamh iarracht mé a bhrú as an slí, tá an t-ádh orm go bfhuil mé in ann léim thart orthú agus leansaint ar aghaidh.

I think that's true, but only a handful of you will ever know how much you've done towards this, or what it means to me. Most of that handful aren't allowed to read this blog, and the others are too polite to stop reading :)

So, not the best of 'Century's and hardly deserving of my lovely 50 followers, but frankly the best you could expect after 23 years of baths and pizza. Maybe age brings wisdom; I know for a fact it brings grey hairs, a beerbelly and obscene levels of rage.

Perhaps the next hundred will see me finally get to punch my beloved racist, let's hope so.

Con
xx

ps - this is what I'm listening to as I try to go to sleep, it's such a beautifully mysterious piece

Drunken tomfoolery as an older man

2010-03-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

So I'm drunk now. Way to go me, except I've got function of my typing and my imagination.

This may be the shortest post I've ever done. But there's one thing I'd like to put forward. Tomorrow is my 100th post and I am soooo happy. Perhaps it's truth that the best of attempts eventually get left by the wayside, but for one I'd rather waste my time than never have spent the time

Anyway - - - now at a mundane age I ponder. What a loser I am. But I'm actually okay, ao it's fine. I'm now 23.

I can't write anymore, I'm too drunk

xxxxxxx

Clockwork Spraytan and my Family Folk

2010-03-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

So I've had this piece of music playing in my head all day.

It's called the Funeral of Queen Mary by Purcell, and is used in the classic Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange, based upon the blood-chilling epnumous novel by Anthony Burgess. The book and film tell the tale of Alex, a psychopathic teenager, and his gang of Droogs as they nightly wander around on drug-laced milkshakes in an orgy of 'ultraviolence', rape and burglary. The book caused a sensation when released because of its violent and sexual language, its graphic depiction of rape and murder, the invented argot (a mixture of slavic, pigdin russian, gypsy and street slang) of the main character, and the perceived strong anti-societal message. It is obviously one of my favourite books. Alex, the charming psychopath, reminds me of a younger (albeit less murder-n-rapey) version of myself.

As I sat in work today, back hunched and sweating towards my targets before the quitting hour, a message popped up on my screen and I was informed that all my work for the day (finding, interviewing, referencing and taking documentation) with a candidate - about 7 hours worth - was now ENTIRELY useless because his safety tickets were expired. I felt a bit like Alex. I wanted to go on a bit of an ultraviolent rampage myself (again, without the old rape part) and kill lots of people. I can see how people go on killing sprees. The problem is though, that my psychopathic side (and it does exist) doesn't have the stamina for relentlessness. It's only good in short bursts or periods of mania. Not always and forever. Therefore it's a fake clockwork orange I am. A clockwork spraytan.

When I got home however, I had received a card from my granny and granddad. They're the best old people in the world, and it cheered me up completely to get it. My granny (Mamo you can read about here) is a wickedly funny and cruelly intelligent person. She once gave a police officer a dressing down when a bomb was suspected to be near her house, just because she hates the Po-lice. My grandfather is a writer, and he's written a lot, over 100 books at this stage (the links only shows some of his publications apparently) in his own name and with psuedonyms. I'm not sure how many, but's it's LOADS! He calls himself a hack, and told me all about the story of Ned Purdon when I was younger, the character of the Oliver Goldsmith poem:

Here lies Ned Purdon, from misery freed, Who long was a bookseller's hack;
He led such a damnable life in this world, I don't think he'll ever come back

He's an amazing man, and a phenomenal writer. Every time we chat we talk about writing and he always tells me that to keep as busy as possible is the key. When he asked me how much I write, I told him that it could alternate from 200 to 2000 words in a day, depending on the day. He told me that the best trick was to polish off 500 words that were almost perfect if you could. It cuts down on the edit, and makes for a speedy process. Of course when I seriously get down to writing, I'll try to do double that, but it probably wont be near as good. He also tells me that no writer worth his salt is published before he has a collection of shoeboxes filled with rejections slips. He's not wrong, I fear.

My grandad - Séanie, we call him (sha-nee) - can also sing a song for almost any word you can ever come up with. When he was a teacher he used to write librettas and musicals for the boys he taught. His office, in my grandparents place, is like a museum. The entire house is full of books, and his study has a huge bureau, with wall to wall bookcases and two huge cabinets stuffed with the pieces he's written. We've all had dedications I think; mine was in a book of childrens verse that he compiled and dedicated to my broheim and I, and it's such a source of pride in the family. Him and I are very similar in ways, and we have this running joke about the books I borrow (he has 1000's of them!) from him and never give back. All books in his house are 'our' books, so I can take them at will.

So now I'm going to go to bed thinking of the many stories and words he's written, and dreaming of those that I'll write myself someday.

Goodnight folks, keep writing.
x

Coming up on a Century and Why Women Feel the Need to Fix Me

2010-03-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

So this is my 97th blog post. I'm going to write a post each day this week until Thursday when, if all goes to plan, I'll have written 100. Huzzah!

I have a favour to ask of you all then. Let me know what you want me to write about please, it would be really cool to hear your ideas. (Also, seeing as there are about three people who actually read this blog anyway, it'll be like a little party).

Until then however, I'll let you in on a little phenomenon that has dogged (or helped) me for the past few years. You see, I come from a city that has a 2:1 ratio of girls to guys, I went to a co-educational school (again full of girls) and my course at uni was about 80% girls, which is a big huzzah for all the sisters out there who claim that the legal profession is sexist. Put simply, I've always had quite a high proportion of female friends, and they've always tried to fix me.

Now, 'fix' implies 'broken', or as some of the ladies would imply, merely sprained. No matter what way you act, dress, romanticise or cook, one of them will come up with suggestions.

The best by far was a girl called Nadia. N is a friend from uni who I haven't seen since graduation. She is a tiny wee thing and used to be able to verbally browbeat me into submission, berating me with kindness until my viewpoint changed or I had adequately acknowledged her displeasure. We would go and drink mint tea, and she would frown, then cringe, then give a helpless laugh as I told her about my misadventures around college.

It still happens today of course, but I have fewer friends in London, so it's not as often. There's TV Girl, of course, who wants me to get into TV writing, and who tries to 'fix' that about me, there's VideoGirl, whom I speak with online, who I think might find me a bit of a downer sometimes, and there's Posh Friend, who recently met me in a bar with big news.

"I have two friends I want you to meet"

I enquired about the two, was told I should only ask out one. That's the way girls fix you. PF has taken up matchmaking recently, and is trying to get me to no longer be single, and doesn't like the type of girls I usually date. I think the combined mixture of years of me being single (or in and out of weird relationships) and her desire to see me mature a bit, coupled with, let's face it, boredom, does the trick.

I'm not complaining of course, because I love my friends dearly, nor am I making fun of anyone. It's just remarkable how girls can make a project of someone. Almost every girl I know tries it to some respect. It's a wonderful trope in the female being.

So, to you ladies out there. Do you ever try to 'fix' guys? I mean, is every guy a project, or are you happy for the men you know to be sad, single, stupid and scruffy?

Guys? I won't ask you the question, because you'll probably only get the answer wrong.

As ever, you can email all questions to radiogael@googlemail.com

From Anger at the Febrile State of a Saturday Evening to Nostalgia.

2010-03-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the living room in my PJs at 01:07 with Spark listening to the radio. I had a bath about two hours ago and my hair's still fluffy. I just had a lovely cup of tea, and my stomach is warm.

All over London now, women in high heels and low cut black dresses are drinking too many vodka-based drinks and dancing to poorly produced music in wannabe nightclubs, more similar to germ-infested Thai sweatshops than bars. They drink as if they're afraid of something and then go home to vomit or fuck strangers, or claw the eyes out of other girls or pass out in doorways.

Men, or boys, in clothes-with-other-people's-names-on-them dance badly to poorly produced music and talk to each other based on arbitary and ill-defined social rules about how much they can drink or what person's name is on their boxers, the waistband of which everyone in the bar can see, or which celebrity they wouldn't have sex with or which gaudy piece-of-shit platinum and diamond-soaked timepiece they would like to buy. They drink as if they have something to prove, and then go home to vomit, to fuck strangers or to get into an argument to the point where there's almost, but not quite, a fist fight.

They are tired. They act like they've got more money than they actually do. They hate all but maybe 20 of the people in the club. They take thousands upon thousands of photos and they will wake up tomorrow and convince themselves that they had a really good night, despite the hangover, the cut lip, the STD, the Facebook photos and the broken relationships.

It's one of those evenings where I realise that the fact that I'm a boring shite is okay. I've been really down recently, and part of that probably has something to do with the fact that I, more often than not, am one of the faceless 'They' to whom I refer. We have all been conned into believing that the only way to live is to spend our money and hard earned free time gravitating towards alcohol, with an accompaniment of shite wannabe-music.

I've just realised the irony of the word 'wannabe'. It's officially a word, as it's in the Oxford English Dictionary, but it shall nonetheless always be a wannabe word in most people's estimation. 'Nonetheless' is good, as are most threesomes of any sort.

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Spark is surprising me tonight. After having known him for almost five years, we've never sat and listened to hip-hop together. I don't mind rap, but I wouldn't be a fan of the newer stuff, and Spark's always hit me as an Acoustic man, but here we are, listening to Jay-Z while S bobs his head and I type. We are breaking ground on new territories in our friendship it seems.

Now he has put on the main song from Civilisation 4, Baba Yetu. This reminds me of that time we both lived in Virginia for a year. Mark sings along and does that thing he does where he sings a song in a different key or adds an impromptu harmony

I tell Mark that I've started writing about him when I had initially intended to have a wee rant about how culture dictates us to go and act like guffawing wankers in shitty nightclubs, "getting the cans into us" as S says. He tells me that my blog has gone downhill in terms of content if I'm using him as subject matter.

We listen to YoYo Ma playing Ecstacy of Gold from his Ennio Morricone album. It's simply beautiful and as the vibrations (from the bitchin' Bose bass amp that S bought last summer) creep across the floor and make the phlegm in my chest vibrate, the hair on my arm rises up and I've suddenly got goose-pimples. This really reminds me of the time we lived in Virginia. It was absolutely the best time of my life.

One of the guys in our apartment in the US had a huge computer screen and ran linux. He was a very good fellow, a scientist turned law-student, who was interested in Goethe, talked to a stuffed mascot of Nietzsche (whom we all called Saddam) had a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost (with the original Gustav Doré wood engravings) and played the cello. His name is John.

My happiest memory of the flat is sitting on a Saturday night, with a Dominos pizza the size of a cartwheel (a thin-crust pepperoni with green peppers) and a bottle of Coke, playing Civ 4 for hours on end and listening to Yo Yo Ma. The pizzas were always cut into a grid of squares instead of the traditional wedges, and we would eat it as if it were fine finger food at a champagne reception. It was great. People always talk about their perfect year, that was mine, a beautiful year.

I'm sitting in the kitchen now, it's 03:09, and I've been typing, listening to music and spotifying. I've collected the music we were listening to before Spark went to bed, and added a few more that'll help lull me off to (if not sleep) rest. Here it is, folks.

I just realised that I've been smiling for the past twenty minutes, even though I've been sitting on my own in the living room, typing my vague and innane thoughts and trying not to yawn. I might not go to bars or clubs for a while, they're starting to annoy me. Sitting with Spark tonight was really cool, perhaps that's something to do more.

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ps - we decided tonight that instead of 'poker night' or other man-things to maintain guy friendships, we're going to have a Pizza and Civ5 night when we're both lawyers.

PPS - this is the first post in almost a year, and almost 100 posts, with the tag 'PIZZA'. How the hell did that happen?

Ask Aunty - 1 - Law Woes.

2010-03-04T11:55:00.001-08:00

So, a young man with whom I am quite friendly, and who is currently a law student, contacted me recently asking me for help about law school.

I had to spend several minutes wiping pesto off my tie after that I'm afraid, as upon reading the letter, the thought that someone thought me as academically advice-worthy caused me such mirth that snorted into my bucket of luncheon pasta.

Anyway, I tried to help the guy out, as he seems to have hit a rocky patch in his newfound educatia, and therefore, I launch my new column, ASK AUNTY:

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Hey Conor, I've run into a few problems this week and was wondering if you could offer me a bit of advice (no contract pun intended). I know you don't need reminding but I'm doing law up here at uni. To be honest, I've run into a few problems this week and was wondering if you could offer me a bit of advice (no contract pun intended).

In first term I did the typical student thing of messing it up a bit- the social/laziness aspect beat the academic side hands down. The January exams were a kick up the backside so my work ethic's been a lot better this term. The only thing is I don't feel I'm getting as much out of the work as I'm putting in. I'm in the library 3-4 hours daily on top of lectures but I'm just not getting the improvement I expected.

So before I get too indulgent in self pity here, it would be great if you had any tips for improving learning/information retention/concentration levels.

Yours (LEGAL GUY)

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Hey man,

First of all, don't beat yourself up. It's the silly bollocks who spend all their time in the library who end up doing badly, if that doesn't sound like an oxymoron. I was never a great shakes at study, but I managed to scrape through.

The key thing is to absolutely ignore a good 75% of what people around you say. Most of what they claim about study is bullshit, and they say things like 'OMG, I spent like 9 hours in the library...is that enough?" They're the sorts who have no lives, who play mind games (like hiding books at exam times wtf?) and who sincerely believe that class rankings matter for more than self aggrandisement.

The big thing about fact retention in Common law is the head notes of a case. Don't spend 3 hours reading some criminal judgment when all you need to know is that there's been a slight change in Judicial practice, or that the Court dynamic has changed a wee bit regarding x, y ,or z. The bare bones of a case is all you need, with maybe a memorable detail to keep it locked in there:

R v. Conor (2010) Ct Crim App.

-killed guy with novelty oversized dildo
-plead insanity
-fact had mentioned owning a dildo "just in case I need to cock that big guy up"
-premeditation
-guilty

Something like that. Then when you've got a list of a few cases per issue, or per aspect of law. Write them over and over so that you develop a free hand. Honestly, my final notes looked like a list of Star Wars robots in a lineup, and I was able, because I had intensely learned them, what they meant.

The old adage of ILAC is best once you have your bare facts down.

Issue (what's the controversy here?)
Law (current law)
Apply (application of law to facts)
Conclusion (what the court did or should do)

So:

I - a) is a rubber cock a weapon?
- b) if so, does owning it = premeditation
L - giant rubber phallus a weapon if the intention was malicious.
A - in this case "for cocking that guy" = malicious
C - was a weapon = premeditation = murder.

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The second big thing is choosing your topics. Try and get a feel for what may come up in the exams. A large percentage of what you study during the year is useless for two reasons.
1) It'll be obsolete or changed by the time you graduate or
2) It won't be examined, and you'll never use it
a) if you practice or,
b) you don't practice, which accounts for about 85% of law grads anyway,

You can prune a lot of stuff out by playing a guessing game based on trends/ the prof/ the size or detail that went into teaching it.

If you cover, sticking with the crime example, Infanticide in one lecture (which btw, from experience, is prob the one Crim Law lecture you should definitely NOT show up to drunk) and spend three weeks doing defences...

Well, it sounds obvious, but it really isn't when the chips are down. Another good way to compress or prune is to base the core of your learning on the Seminars. The lecturers have designated them as either
a) alternative time to teach you new stuff and
b) extra time to make sure you understand important stuff.

Figure out which stuff is 'B' and learn it.

The final thing is this, if you feel that you're fucked, utterly, in the arsepipe, with a rusty genital appendage from a metaphorical Truck driver of exam pain, take a look at the dribbling fuckwits in your class...the one's who can barely tie their shoes or who almost forget not to soil themselves regularly, and breathe deeply. Lavender helps for this.

Hope it helps

Aunty.
xx

ps - you can ask aunt conor yourself by contacting me thru the old blog or by emailing me - radiogael@googlemail.com :)

The Birds are Singing and the Trees are Swaying

2010-02-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

I'm not exactly sure what I got up to last night, but I know that I was very very drunk. If anyone finds either my liver or my self-respect could you please forward them to me.

Hmmmm.

Payday with the Lovebugs

2010-02-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

Pay day, the singlemost appealing couplet in the Western world.

Huzzah.

Work is interesting at the moment; I've been recommending some friends for jobs and have been sent out on errands across London. Although this DID lead to a situation yesterday where I had had a four hour round-trip to Romford in Essex and after walking three miles showed up soaked to the skin at the client's headquarters. That was......fun.

As I've been recently promoted (yahoo!) I have to work a bit more, but I've discovered that the earlier rise is actually pretty cool. The Tube is much less busy, for one. I can walk from my door to the Tube and get a seat within 5 minutes, and withing 40 I'm at my desk; all accompanied by my awesome iPod shuffle playlist, which was totally worth a beating to protect. I sat today, slightly dazed after a great sleep (with weird dreams) listening to a bizarre mixture of Patsy Cline, Rachmaninov, Kate Bush, The Rolling Stones and And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.

I've been reading a bit more recently too. I finished 'Cat's Cradle' by Kurt Vonnegut yesterday, and found it one of the best books I've read in years. It's a terrifying, hilarious, heart-breaking, poignant and most importantly, incredibly intelligent; dealing with the Arms Race, the misapplication of science, religion, lies and writing. Vonnegut has quickly become one of my all time Bad-Ass favourites and I can't wait to read the rest of his stuff. He's my sort of writer; ballsy, interesting and with an imagination that could light a sun. Excellent stuff, and with such a cool life.

So I felt really good about pay day today. Money isn't everything, I'll be quite adamant about that, but holy fucking mackerel it's nice to be able to buy stuff.

After work today there was a pool-pah of a commute home, and I had to meet Spark, my flatmate (and a recently engaged young groom-to-be) to get a suit fitted. I think it looks okay, it's a charcoal-grey three-piece and it's really comfortable.

What do you think? Yay or Nay?

Then, afterwards, Spark (Jude, the fiancée) and I decided to eat in town, and went and had a lovely meal. It was one of those great unplanned evenings that happen now and then where we were all much too tired (and happy to have an impromptu night out) to want to go home and cook, and instead had a great cheap meal, a bottle of good wine, and some kick-ass potent coffee. It's maybe the best espresso in London that I've had yet. It's short, extremely intense, and although bitter, has a nice aftertaste. It was a great meal, and a steal at £20 a head for a two-course with wine.

Spark and Jude. Awwwww

Then walking back to Bond Street to get the Jubilee Line, it was cool to see London at night. I see it all the time, but every so often you realise just how alive and interesting the place was. I think we're going to have more of these sorts of nights (even if I'm a MASSIVE bell-end third wheel for the Lovebugs) and hang out a bit more. The two of them make a perfect couple, and I kinda like being their rough-edge inappropriate friend, and it's cool to hang out with them, even if only to dispel my never-ending cynicism at the world. They're remarkably refreshing.

So, if you're a bit jaded, make friends with an engaged couple. And go for a walk in the City at night. And maybe go out to dinner once in a while. Oh, and try the espresso!

x

In Dreams

2010-02-15T16:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I close me eyes at night and I can't sleep and my mind goes on a little expedition. I get either one of two really mental trains of thought, both of which fascinate and terrify me in equal measure.

One is a weird ethereal sense of having a great deal of pent-up energy, like an atom bomb or a geyser, but being unable to vent it, because everything is in slow motion. I'll lie there, with music pounding in my head and this inner video footage of me trying to run or act as fast as my mind is whirring but being constrained by the slow motion. Then I'll open my eyes and realise I've been clenching my jaw. It's like the seratonin storm that jolted through me when I used to take antidepressants.

The other is another inner piece of video footage. I'll be in a room and, as if with a camera, my focus will zoom into a small part on it, onto something unobtrusive like the leg of a chair or a square of the wall. Very slowly, like Chinese water torture, like my eyes are attached to one of those massive crawler tracked-platforms that NASA use to move the Space Shuttle into position. Then, when I get really freaked out by this, and my mind's eye jerks away from this image, and I relax again, the whole fucking process starts again.

Sometimes the two combine.
They're not exactly dreams, but I think there's probably some lovely Freudian subtext about fear of dying or something.

Hmmmm.

It's kinda like this, but less chirpy:

Sleep Tight.

My Papier Maché F-Buddy, the Cat Orchestra and some 'Za

2010-02-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

Aloha romanticists!!!

I've spent the day working off a hangover and singing the Saving Private Ryan theme in my weird 'Cat Orchestra' Meow Mix voice.

In case you missed it, it's apparently the Feast of Saint Valentine today, so if you missed church, you might want to go to Mass to celebrate, or maybe you're making pilgrimage to Via Flaminia near Rome to celebrate. I'm not too au fait with the mechanics of the day, but that's what it's about, right? Being Christian.

No no, I jest, I'm not going to be cynical and buzzicidal today, you people are young and in love, happy in your cocoons of loving happiness and happy lovingness and about as cute as a kitten with a haberdashery kit sewing a button onto an 'I haz wuv u' cushion to give to an ailing baby badger. Valentine's is no time for cynicisms, big or small.

Actually fuck it, let's be cynical.
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Who know's the only reason we even celebrate Valentine's on the 14th February?

The Church, when they were arbitrarily creating holidays to paste over older pagan festivals after the Council of Nicea, decided to attempt to create a day of celebration to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia. They did the same thing with Christmas, seeing as Christ was born sometime in June, and definitely not December, wanting to copy and paste some religious (Christian) zeal over the previously Pagan Season Festival of Sol Invictus, Saturnalia, and Yule. Geoffrey Chaucer, in his attempt to perpetuate the completely bullshit idea of Courtly Love and the completely made-up Chivalric Code, developed the idea of a martyr who had died for love, which has stuck.

Awwww, he died for love, just like Kevin Costner said he would to Mary-Elizabeth Mastrantonio in an oddly Californian sounding 'Nottingham' accent in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Awwwwwww.

So as we can see, children, the holiday of love is based on absolute bullshit. Then again, seeing as most relationships begin that way anyway, in an intricate Cat's Cradle of lies ("Yeah sure, I love that band/movie/dress/political party/food/friend of yours" "Hi, I'm a kickboxing astronaut who spends his inherited millions on fixing blind children somewhere poor, fancy some sex?" etc etc) maybe we should make like HSM and stick to the status quo.

Traditionally, Valentine's wasn't a big deal at home. I would occasionally get a card (sent by my Granny, Mamo I think, because she's extremely cute like that) but to be honest, I've never actually been in a relationship around the 14th of February, so I've never been stung by it. Call it a subconscious frugality, or a sad romantic history, but I really am no worse off for it.

So, this year, I've really tried to avoid talking about V-day (An abbreviation which reminds me of the excellent 1980's scifi franchise) at the office, and to everyone else because the conversation has fallen into one of three slots. Guys comlaining about how much effort they have to put in, and the girls bitching about how their guys either never put any effort in, or their efforts aren't the right kind.

"What? A meal? I wanted lingerie, don't you know I'm on a diet!"

"What? Lingerie? Don't you think of me as anything other than a sexual plaything?"

"What? You've broken all known laws of physics and logic to rearrange the stars to spell out your love for me? Don't you know I'm not into guys who do that?!"

There is a third slot. The 'I couldn't be bothered' slot. Most people I talked to are just fucking sick of the entire sorry facade.

Yeah, we're all broke and overdrawn and struggling to make rent, but I'd better take her to see Chicago or she'll dump me.

Wow, I better not raise issue as to what it's costing or he'll think I'm not grateful.

I think I fit into this slot. I mean, the fact I'm single has nothing to do with it.

(*Waves face in front of eyes as mascara threatens to run at any point*)

I'm not saying this to be edgy or anything, I just hate how much time it takes up. I'd love to be dancing on the wind in love with some girl right now, but as I'm not, I really don't want to give a fuck about Valentine's day.

Here's something worthwhile:

My good ole buddy Sara over at SpankyLuvsIt switched me on to TWLOHA: To Write Love On Her Arms. It's an movement that aims to present hope for people struggling with self injury, suicide, depression, and addiction that has flourished from a short story. I'm a person who suffers from clinical depression, and I've lost friends to suicide, addiction and self-harm. So when Spanks told me about the project this weekend for people to write 'LOVE' on their arms in solidarity of this movement, I was more than happy to pitch in. Unfortch I'm balls at penmanship but here ya go:

Back to Valentines day, my crazy plans are to have a bath, order a pizza the size of a cartwheel, crack open a bottle of Coke, and watch War Films. Who needs a partner eh?

What my bedroom looks like on Pizza Night. Like 'Date Night' but with less sex and more Pizza.

INCIDENTALLY, while I was in bed this morning I had a crazy thought, What if I made a papier maché mock up of a woman's head and started calling her my wife. It came to me when I was considering going into West Hampstead for a coffee, but then realising that the pitying en masse looks of all the brunching couples would make me want to set fire to stuff. I thought that if I had my PM wife, I could introduce her as 'The Ole Ball n' Chain" and feed her biscotti (by smearing coffee-soaked crumbs across her crafted lips) over lappucinotinis.

Then I realised that would be fucking mental, and I should just go out and meet a real life girl, and stop taking literal ideas from Pinocchio.
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SO
If you are in a relationship, Happy Valentines Day folks, and best of luck, sincerely. If like me, the romantic side of life is about as reassuringly precarious as your bank balance, don't worry, you're just as normal as a load of us out here. You lonios are welcome to join me in having a happy Pizza and Movies Day.

If that doesn't appeal to you, you could always try singing your favourite songs while pretending to be a cat. I promise you it's a lot of fun!

Con
xx

ps, MASSIVE news last night. I've found out that one of my heroes, a person who I have loved since I was like 14, a person described here as a 'National Treasure' and a 'Genius' has a house on my street. He lives here half the time. Can't say his name, but please try to guess :)

pps, apparently someone from Galveston, Texas reads my blog. PLEASE make yourself known to me, it'd be good to hear from someone who lives in a place immortalised by one of my favourite songs.

Voice Work and the pleasure of one's own company.

2010-02-13T09:43:00.000-08:00

The weekend! Huzzah!

End-of-days tiredness aside, this week has been pretty good.

I got promoted at work, which was cool. I'm now a Technical Delivery Consultant for the office stud (read: highest earner), Mack Daddy. MD's actually a really cool bloke, and is the old man (at 40) of the office, so he's a really laid-back guy and is helping me out. My new job is basically resourcing, and I spend most of my time either surfing the web on jobs boards (like Monster or Total Jobs) for candidates in the public sector. MD deals with social housing and social renovation, so the projects are sort of interesting, and vaguely in the 'I don't feel bad about my job cos people are getting jobs and building homes for people with no jobs' job spectrum of jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Steve Jobs.

Also there's a wee bit more money, which will help me buy heroin, and keep the struggling Drug-counsellor-and-methadone-manufacturer Sector afloat.

That's right, I'm saving the economy. Steve Jobs.

I also did some weekend work! Some videogame company had me in doing a bit of voicework (for v/activated software, not an acting role unfortch) so it was nice to be doing some of that without it being in the fuggy realm of soft-core audio erotica. Had breakfast at Borough Market in Southwark (near work) and then went home to spend the rest of the day writing.

So two wee anecdote-ettes about yesterday.
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1) I met a friend of mine in the Market, she's from back home and is training to be an opera singer. She's extremely pretty. Anyway, I was walking along, eating little free samples of everything from ostrich meat to passion fruit muesli, when I passed her in the queue.

Me: "Hi _____"

She: "Hi, Con, what are you doing here?

She: (looking around behind me) "Are you here on your own"

Me: 'Yup, I just came down for a spot of breakfast"

She: (unsure) "Oh...cool"

And soon after went on my way.

My question, is it weird that I like to spend a lot of time on my own? I mean, I go to the pub on my own occasionally, and like to eat at restaurants on my own with a book when I can, but is that one step away from complete loner-dom, or is it natural. What do you guys think?

2) I went in one of my favourite coffee shops, Best Italian, beside the market, because I'm secretly in love with the waitress there. She's French, and of course when I found that out, I spoke French, and made an idiot of myself. I went there with the Polish girl from my office (the Tank Commander one who taken on a big-sister role) and she almost frog-marched me up to the counter to ask the girl out when she saw me looking at her. I didn't go up, and somehow managed to stop her going up too, but when I went back in yesterday and saw her again, I wasn't sure at all, for some reason the entire vibe or athmosphere or whatever of the place and seeing her didn't lend itself to the pervy droolery of the day before. How variable is the old visual attraction these days? Wow. Obviously she's a stone-cold fox and out of my league anyway, so it just became a scientific observation, but it's interesting how a tiny set of variables can affect something like attraction.

ANYWAY:

My lil broheim is over a-visiting with his pixie girlf Beccy, so I've been showing them some of the sites (pubs) in WHamp and Kilburn. It's really good to see him, even if he is the annoyingly good-looking one and much much cooler than his older dearthair (he's studying to become a music producer and sound technician) it's nice to catch up. The three of us got absolutely shitfaced last night, then had a vid-chat convo with my girl Lopez. Good times.

I'm going to write a separate post about Valentines Day now, because I feel like ranting a bit.

Stay classy.

The Little Things

2010-02-06T04:07:00.000-08:00

So after my last little, er...wobble on the board, I decided to try and chill and enjoy my time a bit more. This means getting a bit more sleep and to another, listening to the Jurassic Park overture before I get up in the morning to get all szhuzhed up...

...and ease back on the jittifyingly large intake of caffeine to which I've grown accustomed. I mean, much as I like my Starbucks wake-up juice (a venti white-choc mocha with two extra espresso shots) and enjoy the sensation of needing to pee every three minutes, I think it makes one rather tense. Work now doesn't seem all that bed and stuff. Plus, I've decided to just lean back and go with it, even if that does mean sticking the old head in the sand a bit regarding money and the looming threat of ~~German invasion~~ eviction or Council-tax flogging.

Anyway, I was coming home from work on Thursday night and decided to run and get my hair cut (because that's a mental night out for me) at a wee barbers were Spark and I got our scalps mowed before graduation. I went in, sat down and the (gorgeous...seriously gorgeous, but married to a scary-looking guy) tiny Romanian woman who had cut my hair before started chopping away, occasionally making small talk about the weather. Presently, she asked me whether I wanted my sideburns cut in and when I told her i didn't, she looked at me and asked me 'why'.

I didn't have an answer, I suggested that I might possibly grow out the beard again.

She shrugged, looking doubtful.

I asked her if she didn't agree. She shrugged again, and was silent for a moment before declaring 'your face is too long for a beard, you look strange.'

So the rest of the session was rather marred by the fact that we both dissolved into tears of laughter.

THEN when I was walking home, newly-barbered when I was stopped dead in my tracks. Breathless I stood there, like a fat emo looking at a new shop called 'Sensitive Cheeseburgers' as my eyes took in something that I have searched for in my time here in London but not had the luck to find. Now, as I was walking, a minute's stroll from my bed, I had been touched by the hand of good fortune and stumbled across a shop which dealt specifically in tobaccos, whiskeys and chocolates. Yes, an independent tobacconists, right here in my little niche of the world, West Hampstead, London, England, UK, Europe, World, Space.

Robert Graham (Est 1874) is a Scot outfit that deals in the good stuff in life and when I bolted into the shop and demanded 'How long have you been here?' the poor bemused woman behind the counter was rather nonplussed. We shook hands and chatted for a while, and I left with her card, having offered my services if she wanted any weekend staff.

God that would be sweet, surrounded by cigars and boutique cigarettes and pipes and whiskey and rare chocolates and.....well, I'm getting distracted here. I left, and went to the coffee shop at the end of my street where I had a 'diet' espresso (just the one) and ruminated and scribble in my little notebook. I went home, read and went to bed, all happy and smiley. It's the little things I suppose.

Now, it's Saturday, and I'm sitting in my bed listening to Classic FM and considering a bacon sandwich. I fucking love lazy weekends. I'm about to go and meet a blog-friend for his birthday drinks too. I'm rather excited tbh, as this fella's a top-notch bloke, and a great writer to boot. Should be fun!

Also, at this point, I realise that I have inadvertently completed another of my 101 things to do. Wow, I'm totting them up this week:

55) Find a nice tobacconists in London, with a nice blended pipe-tobacco to rival my favourite – Peterson’s Connoisseur’s Choice.

Not only were there many many different types of beautiful carcinogenic tobaccos to fawn over, but they had it...my favourite, the Connoisseurs Choice.

Yahtze!

Now I just have to find a racist to punch.

Completed 8/101

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Work/Life Skullfuck

2010-02-03T12:07:00.000-08:00

Aloha,

So I've been a bit of a phantom-man around the old blogosphere, popping my head up to bitch and moan about work, or put some innane and useless video up. In short, my posts have gone seriously downhill in terms of quality this past while. There are a few reasons:

1) I have SERIOUS writer's block at the moment. There are a few things that I really want to start working on, drama and comedy, and I can't for the life of me get my thinking hat to stay on my head. I can't even string a sentence together that is not something that I am reading from a page, or as in this case, reporting back.

2) I am tired. I know, I know, I complain about insomnia all the time, but this is fucking ridicularse. It's like I've got a mild concussion or a case of fume-induced delirium. I kinda feel a bit stoned, but in a way that's not cool, or relaxed or appetite-exaggerating in the slightest. It's like a warm cosy feeling mixed with a little scratchy squirrel trying to burrow his way from behind my eyes. Grrr

3) I'm a depressive person. If you spend enough time with me you get to know that, even in spite of the buffoonery. I honestly can't really give a larger-than-small shit about the old cyber world when my own head is so firmly ensconsed up my own arse. I'm also pissed-off more easily these days, like when I want to momentarily shove a barbed-wire dildo up the arse of the smug Corporate type passively aggressively whacking his suitcase into me on the Tube for more space. It's like a little madness.

BUT, most of all...

4)

Work. I used to roll my eyes when people talked about a 'work/life balance' as being something elusive and vaguely whitewhalish. "Who the fuck do you think you are, Ahab?"

Well, keeping with the Moby Dick theme, the only recurring character who I'm honestly representing at the moment is Mr Starbucks. I'm a caffeine-fuelled automaton, obsessed with the next source of a Joey boost at my job.

(NB: As it turns out, I was massively wrong about the people I work with. Again, I've jumped before looking and my first impression (and an uncharacteristic judgmental mood) was completely out of whack. It turns out I just hate working, the people i do it with are actually lovely, it's not their fault I'm a lazy cunt.)

What I'm finding at the moment is a bit of a cliché. I'm like the female protagonist who can't balance her trendy media job, her angst-ridden (less pretty) friends and the relationship with her oh-so-hunky-but-in-revelation-a-bit-of-a-dick boyfriend in a shite RomCom. I need some serious balance. At the moment, I come in from work, eat, drink tea, eat some more and go to bed. Occasionally I might read for 20 mins or halfheartedly chat online to some buddies, or even play some useless flash game. When I do finally get to bed, the atheistic panic streak before I turn the light off of 'Wow, life is seriously short. I need more time!' that would gnaw at me during my more-stress-but-less-miserable unemployed Chest Shaving/Escalator Tumbling days seems to be absent. Crikey bejikey, maybe I've conformed.

("Like, oh no man, what a drag.")

ANYWAY, I had this plan about work. I was thinking I'd go on some really strong dose of anti-depressant (oooh, like, say a 60mg daily dose of Citalopram or something) and just coast through the next while in a bit of a coma. It seems that that might not work (I haven't implemented it anyway) because I have to talk to people a lot at work....but we'll see. And by 'we'll see' I mean, 'Of course I won't do that'.
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A part of me has been wondering about the whole blog idea. When I began, about 10 months ago, I was intending it to be a forum to write about the law and politics, and definitely not use words like 'skullfuck' or 'barbed-wire dildo' to express my thoughts. It's like everything in life, you start with good intentions but before you know it, out come the dildoes.

So, and not in a 'girlfriend test' way, I'm going to think for a while about why I actually have this blog, and whether I want to keep it. I'll keep blogging, and actually try a wee bit more, but I may soon come to the conclusion to shut down the treehouse for a while. We'll see.

HAHA, how ranty and self-obsessed. There have been good developments in my life too, for example...

Dah dah dah daaaaaaaaaaaah!

I've done more of my 101 things to do...
1) Quit smoking cigarettes (that was fucking HARD!)

35) Get tickets to be in the audience for the radio recordings of what will be a TV comedy show (I'm claiming this as done because of the Twitter-based Sarah Millican tickets, that was an awesome night!)

Completed 7/101

So there, it's all relative I guess.
xx

Twitterings

2010-01-25T14:02:00.001-08:00

So I'm a pretty heavy-duty Twitter user, and in the past two weeks it's really started paying off for me. Not only have I really begun to interact with some amazing 20-something bloggers, but I follow some really cool celebs and, best of all, some cool comedians. Twitter is a great way to vent, to try and make your friends laugh, or two circulate rumours that beloved celebrities are dead ("What? Eminem and Johnny Depp? ...Oh wait, they're fine.")

In the last 10 days, I've had two amazing Twitter experiences.

First of all, when Esquire Magazine (UK) whom I follow @esquireuk were looking for suggestions from readers for home-remedies to combat the cold. I tweeted back with my suggestion (gargle salt water for the throat, take a shot of tabasco for the sinuses, then mix warm water w/ honey, lemon and ginger) and forgot about it.

Days later, when they published the results on their webpage, guess who came in at number 1!

I mean, yeah, it's only a little retweet, and it's not even attributed to me, but fuck it, it was so cool!

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Then, today, I was looking through my Tweet-feed when British funny-lady Sarah Millican (@SarahMillican75) tweeted her followers to offer them free tickets for her last ever radio show on Wednesday night. I replied back and within minutes she told me my name was on the guest list.

So yeah, it gets derided all the time, I sometimes drunk tweet celebs and it's probably endemic of some massive shift towards a society of antisocial weirdos who publish every minute thought, but fuck me, it can be fun!

x

Yay! A New Week!

2010-01-24T23:26:00.001-08:00

Have a good one y'all

What my work is like. (with a RANT!!)

2010-01-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

I'm currently sitting at my desk for the first time in weeks. It's clean and tidy.

I realised today that I haven't really explained what I do since I started work. So here we go.

What I do at the office where I go to do work.

At the office where I go to do work the work could be described as a wee bit simples. I work for a construction recruitment firm as a 'database co-cordinator' in their offices in London Bridge.

"Finally," I hear you shout, "He's found a job where he can combine his love of construction with his love of data!", because as you all know, I know LOADS about construction. Yep...loooooooads.

I have NO IDEA what the company does or how they make money.

My particular role?

Well, people who are looking for jobs upload their CVs onto online job-boards (like Monster, Total Jobs, HookerListings etc) and type in key words that describe their skills (e.g. sales negotiating, business management, anilingus etc) and wait.

Then, I go through the boards looking for a certain job (eg, ass-licking sales negotiator) review the potential candidates CVs and then enter their details into the system. In other words I'm a professional copy-and-paste-er. Schweet.

There're some pretty cool characters in the place too. I mean 'cool' is a loose term as only a few of the people fit that CV description. 'People' might be a better word to use for the rest.

The People I Work With in the Office Where I Go to do Work (AKA) The Database Team (AKA) The Losers.

So there's my boss:

BigMan - he's, well a BIG man. A gargantuan man, a four-wheel man. He spends all his time talking about films, and we spent most of Wednesday quoting huge tracts of StarWars at each other. He's very Catholic, and has spent years dissecting spaghetti westerns to unravel the catholic thematic strands. He is a big guy with a big heart, and genuinely seems to care about his little loser minions.

CheekyGuy - He's a Cockney with a heart of gold, a real goldbrick with a disarmingly cheekiy demeanour. CG is one of my immediate colleagues, so he spends most of his time showing me the ropes. Think Michael Caine as Alfie. He's been with the office for about a year and will soon become a Consultant. This will Wraith him unfortunately.

Aspergers Guy - AG is the office junior and when he's not doing his odd wee involuntary things (thanks to his severe Aspergers) he likes to quote huge tracts of the films Heat, The Shawshank Redemption and Goodfellas. He also does the best impression of Peter Griffin I've ever seen. He spent five minutes on my first day doing a Morgan Freeman voice over Shawshank-style, making a joke about how the rest of the team would have me gang-raped "I wish I could tell you Conor put up a fight....". I'm sure you can imagine, I'm incredibly fond of him, he's a really great bloke.

Polish Tank Commander - PTC is one of the few girls in the office and we're all afraid of her. She has the same job title as me, but we all do what she says. I think I've managed to Blarney my way through her cold suspicion so that now only a vague distrust lingers. She's really nice though, just terrifying.

Prohibitively Mean Secretary - PMS is someone who I cannot like. She is a very pretty girl, and she spends all the time she can flirting, but she is very very mean. For example, she'll say things to lower your confidence when she can (ie, "so wow, you took a long time finding a job, didn't you?") and smile sweetly. However, when there's no-one to talk to she'll chat to anyone she can. She's VERY aware of how (meh) pretty she is, and backstabs everyone. She flirts with a guy til someone cooler comes along then completely ignores them. I don't like her much because she has no soul, she doesn't like me because I'm smarter than her (don't mean to sound arrogant, but she says some fucking stupid things) and I'm not attracted to her.

Lovely Secretary - LS is a wee tike of a thing with a wee mouse voice. She's a 21 ex-drama-student who is in charge of front-of-office stuff so we never see her apart from when we're going in and out, but she's nice, and gave me an orange on my first day. She's like Elmo.

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Most of the other people in the office are nice. Most of them are young guys, like me, but who work as recrutiment consultants. I can't fault them for the job they do because I know how hard it is for a 20-something young guy to find work and carve a place in the world. I like them individually because they are mostly very nice guys, and they made me feel really welcome. They are however, en masse, the biggest bunch of yuppies I've ever met.

They are...

The Consultants.

The phrase 'money motivated' is bandied around a lot, so are the words 'target' and 'success'. Some of them are unmitigated arseholes. They call each other 'son' and try to out-Alpha each other, like frat-boys drink Nattie Lite and thinking they're seasoned party monstes. When we go for drinks, they are mysoginistic and and leer at women. They attempt to chat-up girls by talking about 'earning potential' and the need to 'proactively kick-start your own success'.

They strut around the office, spouting off maxims like Gordon Gecko's aborted love-child about how business is a metaphor for life struggle, and how only a cut-throat high-power win-all strategy will conquer.

Most think They are Esquire man-of-the-year business players, an ubermensch evolution of some Nietzschean wet-dream about tall Aryan farmhands with bayonets for penises, fucking and stabbing the lesser ranks before crushing their skulls under a relentless Panzer-track of progress and capitalism.

PMS likes this, of course she does. The phoney power-trip that permeates their side of the office turns her on as these young guys walk around stoned from the fumes of Their own bullshit. I wince as They strut past on their Blackberrys, shouting abuse down the phone, and I wipe the frost-layer of cold sweat off my thank-fucking-Zeus that I am a shit-munching pleb.

They are the maggots that spawned in the bloated corpse of Thatcher's 1980's red-braced, brandy-drinking, Porsche-driving apocalypse of regeneration. They represent the very worst that humanity has to offer, not individually, but as a group.

They are what is wrong.

My team, the ones mentioned above (except PMS) are not like that. We are the Betas...thank fuck. We will never be cool, never be sexy and never get a promotion. We are the bottom of the barrel.

Phew.

So, if you're reading this blog and I ever start talking about how money is simply the be-all and end-all, please send me anthrax in the post and tell me it's cocaine. If I become a consultant I'll probably become a coke-addled wanker. So send me powder and let it kill me.

Now it's Sunday night, and I'm just about to go to bed. I'm going to get back into training tomorrow morning I think, so I'm going to go for a run when I get up, it should be fun. Tomorrow I'm gonna work hard, come home and write.

I can't wait.
x

(have a nice week)

What a week...

2010-01-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a bit of an hectic one, this past seven days, and I for once feel justified in taking such an absence from my wee blogín. The previous video shows what happens when I drink coffee.

I get a wee bit hyper.

I've been hyper quite a lot this week.

So on Wednesday, I suited up again, brushed my hair (AND my teeth) and made for the middle of nowhere, North-of-London satellite of Harrow. WootHollaWootBuzz.

I had an appointment with an AGENCY who were VERY EXCITED to meet me and talk about possible jobs I might be able to finaegle from their haunted boxes of employment (computers) and earn some money to keep my massive heroin habit going and pay the families of those prostitutes I accidentally killed during 'the misunderstanding'. I arrived, fresh faced and bright-eyed (due to the cold) and when the young (NB. a very generous adjective to use there) lady who met me in the reception rushed forward, arm outstretched in greeting, I instantly noticed that she had put her jacket on incorrectly and was immediately distracted.

She seems to have missed her should when she put the blazer on, but only on one side. She looked like someone who had (very narrowly) failed an exam on how to put on a jacket. Dubious suspicion arose.

(Also, my first thought was 'Wow, maybe she's a hunchback, I can rub it for luck!' but that's not PC so don't tell anyone plzz)

I was taken (let's call her...) Jessica's desk, where I promptly knee-capped myself on her Hobbit sized furniture, and she started going through my CV. As we talked about how massively underqualified I was, I got the sneaking suspicion that maybe she WASN'T VERY EXCITED at all, as she seemed to know a disproportionately small amount about my employment history for the sentiments she had previously explained. Soon afterwards, I was given an admin skills exam (95% MOTHER-BITCHES, YEEEEHAAAAAAWWWWW!!! *fires pistols in the air*) with an audience of the other meno-youthful job sorceresses - who all giggled at my red braces - and then...

Nothing.

All that and all she could say was 'We'll keep your details on file'.

Not cool.

Okay, so then, when i was on the way home, my phone rings and one of the million (215) jobs I applied for gets back to me and asks me to come in. Unfortunately the guy at the temping agency couldn't tell the difference between 'Full-time Job' and 'Three Day Temp Position' and just...well...lied. I know, in this day and age. I lasted a day.

So I came back from THAT and

*angel chorus*

I get offered a full-time job.

Not only a full time job, but the full time job I had interviewed for an hour before I made that uber-hyper vlog post last Tuesday. They liked the braces.

So I'm jobbed. Sweet.

With that I took the weekend to heart. I had a five hour vid-chat with a really good friend (Mei Mei) during which time I drank two bottles of wine and spent a great deal of time showing off my ghetto speak -which is atrocious- and having one of the best nights in a looooooooooong time. THEN on Sunday, I met my first blog-friend in RL. SoFloBoJo is a very cool person, and we chatted for seven hours over LOTS of Guinness and Whiskey in a cool little pub in Maida Vale. It was a really cool day and made me eager to meet other London bloggers in the flesh. Although I could probably not drink the same amount again for some time.

Anyway, I hereby resolve to not whine about my job again, or ever foul up this once-beautiful blog with such mediocre shite again (Boohoo, I'm broke etc) for as long as possible.

So, yay, thank fuck.

You are my sunshiiiiiiiine

2010-01-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

So I've had far too much coffee today, and I'm just back from a job interview. Here's what maaaaad insomnia mixed with maaaaaas caffeine addiction looks like. All while dressed in a suit. Huzzah!

You are my sunshine from Conor Darrall on Vimeo.

New Acronym

2010-01-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm really starting to like creating acronyms. This is an addition to the LOL/LMFAO/ROFL/ROFLMFAO/ROFLwafflemcLOLcopter tradition.

Caused by this:

That's right, an Irish culchie rapper. Cooool

Ladies and gentlemen, this video almost made me SMUL.

SMUL?

Shit My Undies Laughing.

Disgusting? Yes. Warranted? Definitely.

ps- I love the comments, especially the 'China's Worst Rapper' one.

Oh no! (a rant of sorts)

2010-01-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

Right, remember when I did my Alice in Wonderland tumble down the rabbit hole?

You do? Oh joy.

Well, apart from the group of beautiful women who saw me fall, a sax player (who was busking in the Station) was kind enough to stop mid-tune to laugh. He was playing one of the greatest tunes ever...

(yeah, so I might have cheapened my ire by using a video with a walrus, but the tune is still amazing, right?)

Unfortunately...

When dickheads are given 'Club Anthems for Idiots'

Literally everything about this video is wrong:
1) Good song destroyed
2) Using the same 8 notes on loop as a dance music hook and a fucking awful drum/bass rhythm
3) Smug cunt in an hotel smiling at his own ability to tie his fucking shoelaces without soiling himself.
4) Dancing sluts
5) Obligatory lesbian kissing
6) Autotune (non-ironic)
7) 'Crazy' party-scene and 'Whacky' hotel antics.

The original song is about the rat race in pre-Thatcherite London, written during a time where there was a huge gap developing between the lower and middle-classes. It chronicles several characters attempts to reach their desired lives, including the narrator, a busker at Baker Street Tube Station, and not be swallowed by the city. It's an indictment on the sort of selfish soulessness that led to the excesses of the 80's and the dark side of life in London. It's an excellent song from an excellent song-writer. It is not suitable for some smug plate of dead skin and his necrophilic euro-skanks!

Fuck sake, sorry Gerry Rafferty...

Rant over.

I got a (slightly feminine) award!!

2010-01-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Aloha!

Hope you're all well. I've been given an award by my Irish-mob lovely Spanky! Apparently my blog is over the top, which is good? Anyway, I'm going to take it as a compliment and name a few blogs that I love.

Thanks a million Spankster! Her blog is excellent, and a little crazy, go check it out!

So, there are some tasks to complete before I can accept this lovely award! Huzzah!

part 1: answer questions:

1. Where is your cell phone? resting on my beergut (my Guinness baby, Arthur)

2. Your hair? Dark Brown

3. Your mother? insane/intelligent/Irish mother syndrome

4. Your father? brave/firefighter/handsome

5. Your favorite food? one guess....(the answer is pizza)

6. Your dream last night? didn't sleep but had a crazy doze-dream about a land where people lived on different levels connected by slides, who passed the time walking around all the time, stepping on coins. The coins went into the feet and would be picked out later, as the main source of income. The world was therefore heavily populated by wishing wells. Bit odd.

7. Your favorite drink? Coke or Red Wine or Whiskey (Jamesons)

8. Your dream/goal? A successful writing career

9. What room are you in? Grandma's living room

10. Your hobby? blogging, writing, smoking my pipe

11. Your fear? many, claustrophobia being one of the biggie

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? qualified lawyer with a published book or produced screenplay

13. Where were you last night? Grandma's living room

14. Something you aren't? narrow-minded

15. Muffins? aye...if only for the bluffin'

16. Wish list item? a car (a Mini Cooper S or an Alvis TE 21)

17. Where did you grow up? Derry, Ireland

18. Last thing you did? drank a cup of tea.

19. What are you wearing? multicoloured socks, jeans, brown canvas belt, blue and white boxers, navy long-sleeve t-shirt, white shirt, aura of awesomeness.

20. Your TV? don't own one

21. Your pets? had a wee terrier called Holly when growing up RIP, and now we all love my aunt's wolf mutt, Bran.

22. Your friends? I have many 'friends'. Some are fake and full of shit and say they're my friends, but they're the bits of dead skin who get designated Facebook Cunts eventually and who I feel nothing for. I'm very very lucky for having the sincere friends I do. They are my second family, and I love them dearly, and they don't judge me, which is the most important thing.

23. Your life? Dull and unfulfilling at the moment, but usually a crazy misadventure that I love

24. Your mood? Antsy, cooped-up and frustrated, but eternally hopeful

25. Missing someone? not really, i don't really do homesick or lonely, just once in a blue moon. I miss my big bro Ruairí and his girlfriend Hannah, but I know he's happy in Vietnam so I'm okay. I always miss my wee bro Shane, and my adorable little sister, but we chat all the time so it's okay

26. Vehicle? Nope

27. Something you're not wearing? Assless leather chaps

28. Your favorite store? Probably one of my obscure bookshops/coffee shops somewhere, I'm not sure.

29. Your favorite color? green or blue

30. When was the last time you laughed? all the time

31. Last time you cried? I tear up all the time, prob about half an hour ago reading Letters of Note, especially this one

32. Your best friend? Ruairí ÓMaolain, Sara Lynn, Sparky (the flatmate) and any of the Derry boys.

33. One place that I go over and over? The Black Lion pub in Kilburn

34. One person who emails me regularly? The Novelista Barista (one of 'The Irish Mob')

35. Favorite place to eat? In the bath.

part 2: pass the award on..

Okay, first of all, here is an award for.....

Laurie at 'Girls are Smarter then You'. It's true, they are

Jenn-Boll at You'll Grow to Love Me. That may or not be true, but she is a very funny madam, with her rampant drug abuse, her work for CIA, and her naked antics at Tufts. We're getting married at some point.

Kerstin B at 'Trouble. Thinks.' - a lovely artistic soul who makes me laugh, think and (sometimes) scares me a little. She's awesome.

Stephen K. This fella's a guy like me. A write-addict insomniac law-guy who lives in London (we actually live comparatively close together) he is a great guy. He's a lot more idealistic than I am, and is a refreshing cynicism-buster if ever there was one. If you read my blog, you should read his too, if only cos it's better :)

Ashley @ Germato. I love this blog, but I'm not exactly sure why. Anyone who describes themselves as 'Living like they were dying' is the sort of phosphorous individual whom I can call a friend.

and finally:

SARA! That's right, Lopez from 8th Continent Soy Milk. This internet-savvy social-media goddess will undoubtedly capture your heart with her boundless happiness, cool cooking vids, her Meow mix personal serenades (which I formally ask permission to publish) and her coooool job. She's moving to cali from ohio in 12 days, so go show some love and luck. She's a darling.

Enjoy your award, winners! x

in words of Spanky:

luvs it*

How to designate a Decade.

2010-01-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

As I've already said, 2009 was a horrible (almost) completely awful year, and I'm rather glad to see the end of it. To you all, I open my arms in beatific serenity and embrace you with an ocean of love as we leave the Noughties and enter....

Wait a minute, what are we gonna call the next Decade?

Some people have come up with suggestions

-the 'Tenties'
-the 'Juvies' (apparently you go to Juvie after you're 'noughtie')
-the Pubies/Zitties (stupid fuckers came up with this)
-the 'Teens'

Now, the 'Teens' is probably the best bet for what we'll call it, but where does that leave 2010-12? We can't call those years the 'Preteens' or the 'Mileys Cyruses' can we? That would be a bit odd.

I believe that I may have found a solution.

Right, so hopefully most of you will agree with me that the Noughties was a pile of shite. I mean:
-9/11
-All the crazy (some of them illegal *cough*Iraq*cough*) wars that followed and are still fucking the world royally up,
-The climate of fear (Thanks, Fox News, you fucking bits of dead skin)
-The dotcom busts,
-Tony Blair/George W. Bush (or Georny Blairsh)
-Windows Vista,
-US comedies (for the most part, they're awful)
-British reality TV and Film (for the most part, they're fucking awful: the Brits should stick to comedy and the Yanks to film...simple)
-Simon Cowell and his evil empire of no-talent mediocrity.
-The Recession (FTR - another ConnyBoy invention)

etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc ad nauseum

To call the next 10 years 'the Teens' would undermine the awful shittiness of the last 10. A teenager is a miserable, awkward mess, just like 2000-2009. The next 10 years is the chance we have to mature a bit, right?

So, we're in a period of transition. Let's take a leaf out of the book of J.R.R Tolkien.

When Tolkien came up with the Hobbit for his children, he envisaged his hairy-footed little fellas as having a life-span as longer than us humans. The time that a Hobbit matures and comes into his own is called his Tweens. The Tweens were a time when the Hobbits could fuck about and slowly come to maturity, the time in between childhood and adulthood (see what he did there?)

Now, I know that a 'tweener' is synonymous with a preteen in the US, but we should take the word back!

So,, we've had the crazy immaturity of the Noughties, and now, as we're getting all redemptive and shit, I think we should call the next ten years...

Ahem...

THE TWEENS!

What do y'all reckon?

ps - a wee update on what I'm up to. I'm in my Granny's house in Chatham (in Kent) eating. She's a feeder. We're watching the first night of Celebrity Big Brother, it's going to be fucking awful. There's stupid, jesus-freak Stephen Baldwin, there's some vacuous slutty nonentity, Jordan's current piece-of-shit boyfriend, Stephanie Beachem, Lady Sovereign and thong-obsessed talent-vaccuum Sisqo. More top-notch celebs to come then o_O

My granny just said 'That Stephen Bolton's a bit of a odd'un'. Classic.

Happy New Years everyone.
xx

Final 20sb Vlog of 2009 - Family Traditions

2009-12-29T04:38:00.000-08:00

Taking the dog for a walk...

My Christmas Tradition - Vlog Post from Conor Darrall on Vimeo.

Here's to 2010...an en masse resolution

2009-12-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, so can I find anyone who actually liked 2009? Actually, can anyone say they actually enjoyed the Noughties?

(btw - i'm gonna swear like a fucking cunt in this post, and because I'm watching American Psycho at the same time, I might also kill a hooker...just saying)

I've realised that this year has been a fucking shit-show of a bollocks-fest, a drawn-out, melodramatic pile of itchy goat testicles. The only relative positive to this putrid, mediocre year is that we can throw a helluva massive hoolie to wake this horrible fucking decade to the Underworld.

There have been a few highlights of course, little things have made the year quite nice at times, and downright hilarious at others. A few classics spring to mind:
-the many happy hours with my partner Dr McQuillan writing, presenting and editing our radio shows ‘The Conor(s) Show’. We were nominated for an award for it, but the best times we had were the off-air moments when we’d stuff our faces with chocolate, wine and crisps.
-visiting my brother in the Czech Republic and hill walking with the boys in France.
-somehow graduating without losing all my hair or killing anyone
I’m sure there are more but I can’t think of them right away. There were a few bad times too, but let’s not go into them, any more whining Fort Boloxi nonsense on this old Pizza Box and things’ll get fucking ridiculous.

There have been a few really cool things that changed my perspective. These life-defining moments have given me a weird insight into how I look at the world and have changed my attitude in their own ways. The ‘Boom Boom Pow’, the crazy tumble-drier fall down the escalator at Waterloo Station both taught me to toughen up and helped give rise to Mr Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive, and his little brother The Pizza Devil. The mad snow and horrible fucking flight schedule have made me realise that I love and miss my family, and the sheer fucking horribleness of October-December have made me want to get a job and start being productive with my time, and make sure that because I have the next 6 months free means that I have to make something of my time.

There was one great thing that happened recently though, which I believe is a hugely good omen for the year to come. My flatmate, Sparky (Mark) recently had a spot of good news. On Christmas Eve, he took his girlfriend for a drive to Navan Fort, a lovely ancient fort in Ireland, covered in snow and looking absolutely beautiful. He got down on the knee and popped the question...and of course, she said yes. I’m absolutely delighted for them both, and I know that 2010 will be a phenomenal year for them both. I’m going to make it a great year for me too, it’ll just take a bit of work.

So now, with one of my best friends getting married (at some wonderful undisclosed future point) and with the crazy humming noise in my head spurring me on, I’m going to make a resolution. Not some vague ‘eat less, work more’ promise to myself, just a promise to say (in the words of Jay) bollocks to the middle and make the year a great one.

So, we're going to have a great year okay? All of us. There'll be low points too, obviously, and we'll feel the normal highs, and lows, but let's make a resolution to actually try and make ourselves happy this year, to live proactively and make a productive difference. Let's take this next decade by the balls, us 20-somethings, and try to make the Tweenies (my name for the next, looming decade) as fucking happy and good as possible...WHO'S WITH ME???

Oh, and here is a great song about what I like about this time of the year, it makes me cry every time...

Here's to 2010, folks...

To all the bloggers out there....

2009-12-25T03:15:00.000-08:00

MERRRRRRRRY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKING CHRISTMAS!

y'filthy animals

x

Michael Caine fucking rocks....

2009-12-24T05:21:00.000-08:00

Black-eyed Freeze - an anecdote within an anecdote within an anecdote...

2009-12-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

So I’m currently sitting in Birmingham International Airport (BHX for you international airport designation fetishists) doing a wee bit of typing, because people keep staring at me. There’s a chance that I may be called away for my flight soon, but unless I say otherwise, assume I wrote this post here, also this post is going to be FUCKING MASSIVE)

-funny fact-ette, I’m at a Costa coffee adding to my future massive heart-attack and people keep staring at me. The place is packed with home-goers, all sharing tables, but I’m the fat girl at the party with icing on her chin that no-one wants to dance with. Awwww.

First of all, why am I in Birmingham when, cor blimey Mary Poppins, I live in London?
Good question reader! Well, yesterday (22nd) I left my little Uberflat in the wee hours, slipping and sliding with my luggage and Lassie as I tried to walk up my little street which was glazed with ice. I somehow made it to the train station, looking like a plum that someone had jizzed on, got the train and after a half-hour journey, found myself in Luton airport.

Now, I was a bit hungover yesterday. On Monday I went to the jobcentre and then found out that my dole application had been rejected. That’s right, I’m so awesome that I can’t even sign on properly. Anyway, I was walking back from the Dole office, feeling somewhat dejected about how the week had been when I passed a joke shop with ‘Help Wanted’ written on it. I bounded in, shaking myself like a dog (it was snowing ridiculously heavily) and met the manager. I gave him my CV, heavily implied I would give him oral sex, and went on my way, somewhat bouyed by how I may have just gotten a job, and choosing to ignore that it was in no way a Law job or that no-one else seemed to be interested in having it.

(Quick question out there: Who thinks I should work in a joke shop?)

I went to the pub to say goodbye to my barfly friends (the cool pub I drink at, not the shit hole I sometimes work at...) and had a few whiskeys (Yes ‘whiskey’ not ‘whisky’, based on the Irish word Uisce Bheatha – Water of Life. Thank god/Darwin for St. Jameson) by the fire. It was lovely, a perfect warm respite from the freezing evening outside.

I had to cancel a date with ‘the girl that I’m seeing’ (which was really annoying cos she’s great) because I was going to have to leave the house at four or five to get the train because of the snow. Therefore the evening became a bit of a nothing-to-do affair so I stayed by the fire and chatted to my friends.

When I say ‘a few whiskeys’, I can’t really quantify how many. I drink doubles, because singles seem lonely, and there were definitely a few. Then people heard the ‘Boom Boom Pow’ story of my black eye and grew to love my sparkling repartee, and a few kind souls started buying me Christmas drinks. At that point I may have gone next door to the shithole and chatted for a while, because I distinctly remember drinking Guinness with a few of the grrrrrr locals and there was definitely more boozing there. I had a pizza at some point, then went back to the cool bar.
Scene deleted (I just called my friend Beatriz who works in the Cool Bar to find out what happened, and she said she’ll find out for me. I was good though, didn’t do anything bad at least)
I woke up at about 4, feeling grand. The birds were singing, the trees were saying and I definitely was not hungover. Yes, there was a distinct taste of vomit, and at least six hours were missing, but I hadn’t been raped and was in my own house, ready to get ready to try and get ready to go home...

CUT TO:
I was in Luton airport with a hangover. The worst snowstorm for the last 15 years was still raging, and quelle fucking surprise, like the sword of Damocles hanging over our holiday ambitions, the world-weary Easyjet crone-in-chief announced the flight was cancelled.
-Rather miffed, as you might imagine, I approaced the desk and asked whether there was any chance of transferring to a later flight.

No.

-I asked was the any point in trying to wait to see if the status changed (cos I imagine airport announcements to be rather like Facebook updates- “Luton Airpost is: So psyched for the snowwwwww!!! lololololo xx <3”)

No.

-I asked could I pay cash-money to buy a ticket on a later flight

Yes, sir (she didn’t say sir)

-I asked when the next available flight was.

January 2nd.

Fuck sake. I waited for about four or five hours and when it was patently clear that NOTHING was gonna happen, I went home.

(N.B. There was ‘an American’ present. ‘An American’ in travel terms for people who live outside the US, is the one American customer who makes a fuss about service. Usually middle-aged women in mountain-climbing boots and clothes woven from hemp, drinking from an unnecessarily large nalgene, her hair streaked liberally with grey. The usual response to ‘There was an American on my flight’ is to say ‘Ugh’. This is not an insult to Americans btw, it’s an inconvenient truth. My ‘American’ jumped up on the counter and sat, shouting at Easyjet Staff about her rights. I didn’t bother pointing out the finer aspects of consumer rights law to her, I couldn’t betray the sisterhood.)

I went to the Uberflat again and freaked out, there may or may not have been a few tears. My parents sprung into action. There were three options.
1) Spend Christmas and New Year with my lovely family in Kent (with whom I spent most of the Summer)
2) Take a 13 journey by train to Scotland, get the ferry to Belfast and teh Bus home. I favoured this because of the clear ‘adventure’ aspect.
3) Get the train tomorrow to Birmingham and get a flight to Derry, my home.
My mum bought the ticket, and this morning I once again got on the train. It cost £66 from London to Birmingham. That is more that the original (cancelled return flight to Belfast) cost.

Anyway, I’m in Birmingham airport:

For some reason people seem to fundamentally change their personalities when they’re about to travel, and not for the better. First of all, they overdress, to the extreme. Dowdy middle-aged women slap enough powder to represent modern art masterpieces (or fake-tan homages to spider web collections) and men, clearly dressed by their wives, adorn themselves with stone-washed denim, brown leather brogues, and whichever middle aged cry-for-help Esquire magazine has tricked them into buying.
(That’s not a swipe at Esquire, but it IS bit offputting to see men as old as my Dad trying to dress trendier than I do...not that the bar is set extremely high)

Also, because they’re about to do the unthinkable and jump on a plane, they think they’re superior to everyone. It’s the same from Forks, Washington to Ulaan Bataar (Twilight AND Mongol Rally ref. Tasty) people leave their manners with their packed liquids at the security queue.

Example!
I was in the queue for security when a little kid tripped over and started crying, his parents were about a foot or so in front and had sorta missed him for a second, as clearly happens when you’re running through an airport with the whole family. I love kids, and stooped down and scooped the wee blighter up, gave him a sorta half smile/half giggle and walked him to his Dad who had noticed. The wee fella grabbed my hand and I walked him over to his dad and did that ‘oh he had a fall’ thing and the Dad smiled his thanks. Then, the Mum, basically shoved the husband aside and wrenched the boy to her, glaring at me.
(I’m sorry, mea culpa, I clearly didn’t get the memo saying that if you help a kid who’s tripped you’ve become a foaming-at-the-mouth paedophile. I’ll just step over him next time)

The dad was mortified and I walked on.

So now I sit, with 20 minutes until my gate opens and the effects of the coffee kicking in. The place has quietened down a little and a feeling like le petit mort has settled in. For one I am glad to be going home, even if the flight is a little delayed.

See y’all on the other side folks.
xx

ps - I'm in Ireland now, after many hours of travel. The flight was diverted, then on arrival at a different airport, the buses were delayed. I'm now finally home, drinking red wine by the fire and watching Bridget Jones 2- The Edge of Reason with my wee sis and mum. They're perturbed by how much of the dialogue I know. I'm gonna sleep for a fucking week (hadn't sworn enough) and then have a fan dabby dozy Christmas. I'm gonna forget the worst week ever
1) The Boom Boom Pow
2) The No Job
3) The dole rejection
4) The missed flight
5) The mammoth journey home.

all that is going to be offset by

AN AMAZING FUCKING CHRISTMAS WITH THE PEOPLE I LOVE.

A Blogger Salute

2009-12-19T09:36:00.001-08:00

Hey y'all,

So I just wanted to put this up, as a means of thanking the people who were so helpful and supportive of me. There are too many to mention but Jay, Jen, Sara, Laurie, Mel and Lopez come to mind immediately, as well as the many others who were so kind, but who I can't remember. I'm incredibly lucky to have such good blog-mates

Here's how I say thanks...

Salute to the Blogging Community from Conor Darrall on Vimeo.

Con
xx

Acting Class

2009-12-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

I saw this today, and it made me laugh so much it hurts. Girls, get ready for an exclamation of "Awwwwww, so cute!"

Self-censorship

2009-12-18T10:19:00.000-08:00

Howdy,

I've decided to delete a certain post that I made early this morning. For obvious reasons, I don't really want to be reminded the entire time, and would rather not get down in the dumps again, when I am inexplicably cheery today.

Thanks to everyone for being really kind and cool, and I might do a wee video post sometime in the future once my mango face has stopped being all gross

Thanks

Con
x

Backstage Silliness

2009-12-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

The next installment of My Video Life, this is a very short video I made with the other guys who were doing the music with me in that play I did during the summer.

Please excuse the rambling and giggling, we were all pretty exhausted.

Still, it was amazing fun.

Backstage Silliness from Conor Darrall on Vimeo.

This has been in my head all day

2009-12-18T07:24:00.000-08:00

Howdy!

I've been walking about the house today (with a rather puffy face) singing this song to myself without realising. Now I hope it sticks in all your heads too.

Still a bit weirded out by last night, and a wee bit embarrassed by the whole ordeal, but I'll leave the post up. I'll laugh about it at some point in the future.

Hope you're all having a good one!
x

Quick Update

2009-12-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

Just to let you know that I had a bath there, something which I've been apprehensive about doing since the 'Razor Incident' and it's aftermath.

It went well...I didn't feel the (conscious or subconscious) need to shave anything off.

Guess I can cancel that therapy course, "So you think you get too bored in the bath?''

Phew

It's very cold here

2009-12-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, very cold.

London had snow today, and I've never been more thankful for central heating, or for thermal socks.

I was going through my video file today, and found this little video I made during my Man Adventures in France over the summer. I watched it and remembered the weather being so hot, us being so drunk, and the days being so long, that it very briefly made me forget how ball-numbingly cold it is here.

The glazed look is due to all the beer and wine that we were drinking. Excuse the beer belly.

Also, my Connect-i-cut galpal Spanky has gone on hiatus from her blog in order to finish off reading Breaking Dawn, so why not go over and catch up on her blog so that you're nice and ready by the time she's finished. Luvs it.

In which I inadvertantly join the sex industry, win an award and pimp a wheelchair.

2009-12-15T08:29:00.000-08:00

Right, so this definitely not a Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive post. The last two days have been rather weird.

As you may (or more like may not, and don't care) be aware. I have been unemployed now for about a month, after the whole boss-getting-me-drunk-and-cheating-money-off-me thing, and I've been a bit...bored. Well, as a tonic to that I went to the jobcentre in Kilburn yesterday to sign on (free money = ka-ching!) and start as a 'jobseeker'. I hadn't slept in like 30 hours when this happened, so yesterday was fun.

Now first of all, the whole dole thing is depressing. Very depressing. They ask you a million questions ("Now Mr D, when was the last time you shat on a toadstool" etc etc) that make you think about how broke you are, then they patronise the fuck out of you. ("Can you read? Oh, you can? Good for you") in a manner that clearly says "Well, I have a job, I'm better than you".

So, after three hours of that, I walked home, and decided to stop in the bank to open an account. The lady who I was dealing with was a beautiful Iranian lady called Shihraz, and she had a wheelchair. I didn't even notice this, as she was busy telling me about the Super Deluxe Multi Omni Hyper Gold-plate Account. I'm not sure how, but we began chatting about how it would be great to be wealthy, and me, trying to be funny, suggested that she could pimp out her wheelchair. That did it, forgetting the account, we went into a fifteen minute conversation talking about how great she could make her wheels, with platinum plating, sub-woofer speakers, bling. The works. It was the best bank-trip ever, and she's my new bff bank buddy. She spent the whole time giggling, and is the best bank person I've ever met, so I'm opening an account there.

Also, I did a shift in the pub last night..while almost crying with tiredness....fun.

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Yesterday was also a great day for me (tiredness and unemployment aside) because, the ever-cool Novelista Barista has given me an award. Ironically called the Coffee Cup Award I'm very honoured for the recognition and would like to thank NB for her words, she's very kind! Also, as a complete coffee addict, it's very gratifying to know that my future massive heart attack will be caused by something that I love so much.

Now, the porn thing. As part of my attempts to find work, I applied to loads of radio stations and voiceover companies; hoping against hope that someone would pluck me out of the ether and give me a prime-time breakfast slot. Well, they didn't. The only people who got back to me were a specialist fiction company.

Here's what happened :

(ps - by looking at the screen, I'm not trying to be intense or anything, the script is on screen at the time of recording)

So yeah, I've accidentally become a sex-worker. The pay's not atrociously bad, and I can dress like an unshaven bum but...here's the question...does that technically make me a form of hooker, or is it okay for me to do that and keep my head on high?? Responses please. Also, my laughably bad attempt to sound sexy is bound to return to haunt me at some point.
We'll see...

Anyway, I hope you're all well, what've y'all been up to?

x

Why Irish Politicians are more fun than most other...

2009-12-12T09:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, so as a nation, the Republic of Ireland is never going to be as internationally powerful as say, the US, or Britain, in any sense other than cultural or from an 'intellectual economy' point of view, thanks to the ridiculous amount of job stealing graduates....Thanks, modern Ireland!

Also, unlike the US and UK, which are (actually for the US, and in practice for the UK) two party nations; Ireland has a much wider variance in it's political spectrum, no doubt due to the proportionate representation method of election. While it is arguably more democratic, it inevitably leads to a mosaic of different parties, and thus, the political landscape becomes quite complex. The five main parties (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, The Green Party, Labour and Sinn Féin) and a number of independents make up the members of the two houses of the Oireachtas; the Dáil and the Seanad. What's more, the government (the Taoiseach -Prime Minister- etc) has traditionally been a coalition, as the votes of one individual party will rarely be enough to make a majority.

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As a result of these two facts, there are two consequences, which are both desireable and often problematic:

1) All the passion and vim that other nations have for international affairs gets compounded down to a national level. Issues like social welfare, healthcare and the Budget become political parodies of dystopic nuclear battlefields. The little things matter, and we'll let you know, dammit!

2) Because of the itty-bitty nature of representation, a largely differing political spectrum and the nature of the coalition government, things can get a little...bitchy. Everyone scrambling to say what they mean, and getting into petty squabbles in the wee hours.

So, when Deputy Paul Gogarty was debating a very small claus-ette to a very small article of a (very important, I'll admit) proposed Bill, he went into a bit of a strop when his sincerity was called into question, and...well....he may have overreacted...

Ooh er, well, okay. Calm down, man.

Apart from seeming like a seven year old who doesn't know how to return smack-talk to some neighbourhood youths, this is pretty funny stuff from the Deputy from Lucan.

Still, at least we're not as bad as the Bolivians....

Grrrrrrrrrrr, passion!

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What really annoys me about this video is the response from...yes, you've guessed it, facebook cunts. These oxygen thiefs were quick to comment when the video of Gogarty was posted:

Niamh H
The funniest thing is that the only thing my ma could say was "yer man sounds exactly like Jedward with that Dub accent". Eh, what?! Jedward sound more like they're from Malibu than Dublin!

18 hours ago

Emily B

what a twat. you'd know he was a green.

17 hours ago

Aaron M.

He should have been booted through the front door.

13 hours ago

Amy D

sounds like something you'd hear in the pub- twat, i second that.
12 hours ago

Megan Mc L

twat

6 hours ago

Jane McG

Whatta plonker! deV would be rolling around in his grave!

5 hours ago

Emma L

and we wonder why we're in the mess we're in...who the hell voted for this man!!

2 hours ago

These people are what is wrong with the country and with politics, not some Deputy who gets a little over excited and swears. These fucking bits of dead skin with nothing valid to add. Fuck me, I mean, I sorta respect the fact that he was passionate and reckless enough to take the risk and lose his temper. How many people are going to know about this man and listen to what he has to say from now on? Everyone.

Fucking Facebook parasites.

Anyway, my rant aside, this is why Irish Politicians are a little more fun than every other country (except Bolivia) If you excuse the manic glint in his eye, this guy is good...even if I don't agree with his politics

Awards!!!

2009-12-10T01:48:00.000-08:00

For the first time ever, I have some awards that I'd like to offer to those bloggers with whom I have developed a connection. This is a humane award, for people who embrace all aspects of what it is that makes us who we are.

In July of this year, my uber-cool NY gal-pal, the Novelista Barista gave me one of these (thanks!!) and now it's time for me to pass on a few myself...

This is for those thoughtful, intelligent people whose blogs make me smile, give me pause for thought, stir up interesting debate, or are just completely honest. I am glad to have met you all, and look forward to more from you in 2010.

(Okay...drumroll.)

Nikki, who apart from being a new friend (and one of the only redeeming features of this year) is also an excellent funny blogger. Her FML quosts and her irrational love of tea and writing make for excellent reading.

Jay, whose thoughts (ranging from poetry and love to the zombie apocalypse) are as scattered as my own, but infinitely more interesting.

Shinay, a writer whose beautiful poetry gives me pause for thought every day.

Melanie, who, for a person who describes herself as 'lost', is a lot more clued-up than most other people and makes me ponder life, and

Mr Apron, whose blog is snarky, opinionated, stubborn, intelligent, and infinitely more commendable than 99% of all the blogs out there. He raises issues of debate, and is one of those enlightened individuals for whom identicality of opinion is not a precursor for friendship, but who values reason.

I've only given 5 out because I think it's better to be selective. There'll be lots more to follow I'm sure.

Congratulations guys, you really make blogging a joy for me.

Con
x

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Law Degree

2009-12-08T16:12:00.001-08:00

SO now, at last, I officially have some vague letters after my name, denoting my learnedness in law (*stifle laughter*). Ladies and Gentlemen, please say hello to Conor B. C. Darrall, LL.B.

Thank you.

The day was the longest in a long long time. I had to get up at 3.30 am in time to get ready and drive from Derry to Dublin. Then after 19 coffees, being dressed in wizard's robes (which felt simultaneously bitchin', thrash, gnarly and awesome to wear) organising photos and saying hi to friends, we were all led into a massive hall, spoken to in Latin for about an hour, then called up to receive our ~~catskins~~ sheepskins. Sparky (Mark) my flatmate was there, and he received the highest mark in the class, I am very proud of him. My folks were there, looking cool and everything, and after the ceremony we got to hang around and chat to each other, and catch up with friends we hadn't seen in a half-year.

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Then the boozing. Wine for breakfast...followed by a day of drinking cosmopolitans and whiskey...for almost 18 hours.

We went on a MONUMENTAL bender, drinking in a few bars until going clubbing (still tux'd) until about 5 or 6 when I stumbled back to my hotel to greet the night. I had to get up at 10 this morning to drive back to Derry with the parents. Needless to say, I'm still feeling quite rough...

I'd been convinced that I didn't miss Trinity, or Dublin, but being back yesterday really made me glad that I'd gone there and met the people and friends I've been lucky enough to know.

So, now I'm happy, and with things going well and having a great time with the someone who I've 'kinda sorta started seeing' (she's great; smart kind and beautiful, but I'm not going to talk about her here at the moment) it's really hard to be in a bad mood.

I'm flying back to London tomorrow, then I'm going to sleep for a month.

Here are a few wee photos of the day:

Maw, Paw and I

Home-Blondie, my best friend.

Me and Spark, the flatmate. Ever increasing the persistent rumours that we're a couple.

Very very drunk at 4am in Envy Nightclub, Dublin.

Oh also, with another friend of mine (Home-Blondie and Sparkie were with me when we lived in the USA for a year, as was --) Cíara, and other friends, we had tapas before we went out. Lady GeeGaw and I (and GG's boyf, Nick, who is a cool ginger guy with dreadlocks) made a video on Grafton Street for my blog, this blog.

They are awesome, such good sports.

My camera skills are not, but here we go:

Anyway, hope you're all well.
x
Con

(ps - interesting fact about Trinity College Dublin. Only women wear mortarboard caps on the day of their graduation, the reason being because it is supposedly symbolic of the degree being a 'cap on their education', meaning they could traditionally rise no higher than an undergraduate degree. Problem with this theory is that our class was 85% female, and of the 14 people who got First class honours degrees, the was only one male amongst them -Sparky...take that chauvinism!!)

Coffee Cup Giveaway...

2009-12-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

My uber-cool galpal over at the Novelista Barista is having a giveaway!

Go leave a comment, and you could win some free cups!

x

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Curse of the Hairy Man-Bra Part 2

2009-12-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

So, yeah, I made a video right after accidentally shaving my chest...

I must warn you, I have paaaaaaale skin, so if there's any chance that the glare may damage your eyes, please put on some sunglasses and sun-lotion.

Also, yeah, my hair looks like Christopher Walken's.

So yeah, seriously...never have a razor in the bath when you're bored.

In other news, I've flown back to my parents' place, getting ready for graduation on Monday. I know it's a big solemn ceremony and we all have to act lawerly etc, but I just know that at some point I'm going to have to do a little sprint, just to feel my robes swoosh about. I'll be like a wizard.

"Arigh Harry?" I'll get one of my bigger, hairier friends to say.

"Hello Hagrid" I'll reply.

Then we'll laugh, and get drunk.

Oh, oh, also, I've been idiot baiting this week, seeing as it's frowned upon when you do it to bears. Some absolutely fucking feeble-minded lady-face (I shall dub her Bonkers McFucking-Idiot-who-overcompensates-for-her-dull-life-and-lack-of-imagination-by-loving-god-a-bit-too-much) has written this post about Twilight (the series of teen vampiric romance novels - don't worry if you haven't heard of them, they're quite obscure..) and how it is evil and a tool of the devil. She claims that the books possessed her and other completely logical things. Totally has nothing to do with the faint whiff of erotica that clearly was too much for her. Anyway, her family burned the books.

Bookburning's not really kosher with me.

Anyway, read the blog, actually read it from front to end, and try not to say 'what the fuck?' loudly as you go through.

Then the comments section...it's just...it's too much fun. Some guy called Pizza Devil keeps adding more and more silly comments, obviously having far too much fun haha. I think he might be a friend of Happy-go-fucking-lucky - perhaps.

(Ps - I totally have nothing against people with any sort of faith, it's something which I probably envy at some level. People are free to worship whatever they like, be it Yahweh, RPatz or East-German Olympic female shot put champion Margitta Gummel-Helmboldt, and there's no call to judge them for that...BUT...read the article, and the comments, and see for yourself.)

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Curse of the Hairy Man-Bra

2009-11-30T04:29:00.000-08:00

The Devil makes work...

Being the 70-year-old retired widow that I am, I’ve begun to have a bath a few days a week instead of a shower. Basically, I read in some important man’s magazine (like Elle or Cosmo or ~~Gaghappy Cumdumpster Cheerleaders~~ something) that if you have trouble sleeping, you should have a bath.
Apparently, your body relaxes in the hour following a bath; your heartbeat slows, your blood pressure drops and you become sleepy. As I have pretty heavy-duty insomnia, I desperately try most old wives’ remedies and have started having a regular radox hour…plus, baths are fucking thrash!
(ps, when I say I’ve started having baths, I mean that I’ve started having a bath in lieu of my usual shower. I’ve not just learned how to clean myself or anything, it’s okay… also, when I say I try everything to sleep, that may or may not include using an lavender linen spray for my pillow – surely that’s worthy of a TMIT)

So tonight was no different. After my penultimate (37th) cup of tea of the day, I drew a ridiculously over-hot bath, brought in my laptop to listen to music (it sits on the toilet-I have a system, critics) and sang ‘I am what I am’ as the mirrors steamed up.

It. Was. Awesome.

Overheated Conor, listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast, drinking soda. Fucking bliss.
Anyway, there I was, listening away, soaking in the steaming water, and letting my mind wander when I realised that I was holding my razor. They say that ‘the Devil makes work for idle hands’, and that’s definitely true because, without realizing it, as I listened and chuckled away, I had sorta begun to shave my belly. Why? I have no idea, but for some reason I had subconsciously begun to shear my happy trail.

(happy trail = the little desire line of hair from a guy’s belly button to his man-candy)

“Okay, my right hand has, without recourse to conscious thought, begun the process of de-hairing my body. That’s a bit odd.” I thought, but I let it run.

Before long I was hooked. Maybe it’s a guy thing, but I can get absolutely obsessed with little simple things. Give me a tap and an empty bottle, and I can spend ages refilling and emptying it, like I was a six year old doing science. Within ten minutes, the Trail was gone, and the area where well-toned people have abs (what I call my ‘Guinness Baby’) was hairless, pale and looking somewhat forlorn.

I panicked. WTF? Grown-ups don’t do this do they? They don’t experiment with shaving themselves. I mean, all guys do it to some extent when they’re drunk, giving themselves handlebar moustaches and falling asleep to wake and realise they look like daft pricks, but I was sober. Perhaps the hours and hours of free time I have, the empty hours of insomnia and the listless days of unemployment, those 165 free hours a week have gotten to me? I mean, instead of working on writing, or practicing music, here I was…shaving my belly in the bath. What if my Mother called tomorrow?

[‘Hello Con?’

‘Hi Mum!’

‘How’s the job hunt going?’

‘Not the best Mum, it’s harder to find work than I thought’

‘Oh well, just keep at it..’

‘Okay, I will’

‘So, how are you spending your days, are you volunteering? Studying? Writing?’

‘No, Mum, I spend my days waiting for free internet and eating cherry bakewell tart then I buy the paper, have a bath, and shave my torso’

‘Oh, good lad, we’re so proud son.’

‘Thanks mum, I do try.’]

So I had a bald pink belly…what next?

Even as the thought manifested itself, my hand had begun to inch up my sternum (is that the word? Maybe thorax?) and was shaving shapes and patterns into the trail of hair leading to my tits.

So far so cool.

Before long, I had a white belly, a pink sternum and a sorta man-boob bra, made of hair.

Single file,ladies…single file. No pushing, please.

Anyway, by that stage I was legitimately fucked. Seriously. How could I ever risk anyone, anywhere, ever seeing the hair-bra? Not that I imagine I’ll ever be taking my top off (despite the obvious sex-appeal of the hair-bra) but on the off chance of one of the following two potential scenarios happening:

1) Being caught in a nuclear explosion and in the millisecond between the shockwave from the blast ripping my clothes off and my skin catching on fire, someone seeing the wispy, underwired home for my bosom, distinctive only because of the Casper whiteness of the rest of my torso. Even a nuclear holocaust deserves to be as non-socially-awkward as possible, right?

And,

2) A horse eating my shirt because, as I suspect, horses have a vendetta for something I did when I was young but can’t remember.
The hair-bra had to go.

Now, the razor was (as all guys out there will understand) near the end of the several-shave razor cycle; that very finite, but unwritten, time period during which a razor blade will go from Gillette to ruthless Guillotine, from multi-blade face-smoothation system to bona fide nipple remover. Anyway, it was fucking awful. It was pain dot com forwardslash holy fuck forward slash ouch.

I had my chest waxed for charity last year. There wasn’t a helluva lot to remove I’ll admit, but the process was made bearable and fun by the fact that I was being toughish in public, and that it was for cancer research (and also because it was in the ‘nice’ spectrum of pain, like when I got my tattoo or used to get punched in boxing, that I’ll admit to actually liking – btw, no, I’m not a perv, you know what I mean). After the waxing, I had gone home to shave the remaining wax tears out of my chest and wash off the fake tan that the girl had rubbed over me (we really know how to raise money for charity the fun way in Ireland!)

This bath shave required a steel jaw, it was like strolling merrily towards the German trenches during the Somme. Dragging an ever-blunter razor across my chest and willing the hair to disappear, all the while waiting for that little slice that meant that I had cut off a nipple, and trying desperately not to clog the little balde-ettes with hair or dead skin. At the very least, it was a fucking great way to exfoliate…by removing a layer of skin.

So now, I sit, at 3 am, having just recorded a video. I’m trying to sleep but my belly and chest feel wrong. My only consolation is this: I’ve maybe potentially kinda sorta started seeing someone, and she’s great. I really don’t ever want to take my top off for at least two months now because of the pale stubbly itchy blotchy meringue of a mess that it will be, so I think I might as well strap the chastity belt on til February. I'll take it slowly, and hope to Christ that no horses come anywhere near me.

So yeah, tomorrow/today is Monday, and I’ve GOT to find work, and maybe hide the razor when I’m in the bath. Otherwise, who knows…maybe next time I’ll end up with Venus ‘oh baby you’ve got it’ silky legs, or a DIY bris.

To all my friends in the U.S.....

2009-11-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, Yankees (and Dixies)!

Hope you have a helluva Turkey Day, and that all you gorge yourselves on the meat of slain fowl.

Now, what are all thankful for? (and don't say porn)

x
Con

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Facebook JobApp Smile

2009-11-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

So my friend John from school is a prospective lawyer like me, but I haven't seen him since I was 18, apart from chatting to him once on the phone to make plans for a meeting in a pub that inevitably didn't happen.

Thanks to the glories of Facebook however, we're both able to somewhat keep up to date, occasionally making fleeting contact on status updates, with the odd wall post, and by the overly-gratuitous invitation of ultimately meaningless applications that we both sorta hate ourselves for sending.

As I've talked about before, FB can sometimes throw up a rare gem, a myriad times more amazing than '__________ is totally all about the weekend woot! lololo xxx babeeeeezzzzz'

The other day (very late at night), I came perilously close to fulfilling one of my 101 things to do, by getting into a two-inches-between-the-face blazing argument with a racist. This task (#39 of 101- punch a racist in the kisser) is the only one which could ever prevent me from becoming a lawyer (cos legal chaps in Britain/Ireland cannot ever have a crim-rec) but which I believe I'll have to only talk about in the abstract if ever if happens.......
Anyway, he voted for the BNP, and we spent a few hours yelling. It was about 5am, and I was at a lock-in the bar I used to work in (and occasionally still do). The landlady: Senorina Menopause sat nervously as a skinny drunk arrogant young prick with a long coat(me) yelled into the equally shouty face of a skinny drunk arrogant middle-aged prick with dyed red hair (Mr BNP) about politics. We were within a kittens hiccup of exchanging blows when a one-armed man asked loudly whether men could get thrush. That sorta diffused the situation, as it's hard to throw a punch when you're laughing so hard you feel you might vomit.

I drunkenly returned to my house, found some free wifi, watched a nature documentary on insects, and cried at the beauty of butterflies. Then I emailed a friend to tell them I loved them and passed out.

Sometime during that drunken haze I updated my status on Facebook. It was awful, a self-aggrandising, arrogant warning to all my friends. When I woke, I had to change it.

My new status says: 'I just simultaneously filled in 13 applications to recruitment agencies, if I get no responses I'm gonna go postal with the molotovs...' was a venting of my frustration.

John, said something of glory

'the Dear John letter has been replaced by the ignored applications of recruiters,'

thus making me smile, as the truth, humour and comfort of his words were welcome.

Now, I like facebook. I think that for someone like me who, up until a few months ago travelled around a lot, it's important to have a forum to keep in touch with my displaced friends and family. Most of the content on it is awful, vacuous and inane, but sometimes...and I mean once in a blue moon, people can say things to make you smile.

As ever, I pose a questions to the three people who read my blog...

What facebook posts, status updates or comments have lodged in your memory and
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duh duh duuuuuuuuuuh....
why?

x
Con

101 Update.

2009-11-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

Aloha,

Just a quick update. In my unemployed state, I have still managed to finish three more of my 101 Things to Do. Huzzah!

No. 11: Submit a completed script for review by a production company.
No. 41: Begin, and maintain a letter-writing correspondence with GO'M and J-AS.
No. 64: Find a ‘local’ in London that does a good Guinness and a good pint of bitter.

Completed 5/101

Slow and steady etc etc...

Quost with Lassie

2009-11-17T07:59:00.001-08:00

Aloha,

I thought I'd post with Lasairfhiona, so y'all could get introduced...

(this is quite late, and I was very tired, hence the manic glint in my eye)

Enjoy.

Lasairfhíona, my one true love.

2009-11-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've made it abundantly clear in some of my posts that I'm a single gentleman. More than just single, I have to be honest and admit that the longest relationship I've ever been in is about 3 months. Wow, I'm clearly a successful boyfriend. Single file, ladies, single file, no pushing in the queue...

Despite that confession, I've been fairly obsessed since I was 11 and I fell in love when I was 18 and have been in a committed relationship since I was 18. Her name is Lasairfhíona, the flame of the wine. To tell her story, I have to tell the story of a man called Séamus O'Kane.

When I was nearly 12, I went to the Frankie Kennedy winter school in the Ionad Cois Locha and met Seamus O'Kane, who introduced me to one of my obsessions - the bodhrán.

A bit about Seamus: He's a tough sonamabitch (having lived through illness for years and triumphed) who revolutionised how the bodhrán was made and played in Irish traditional music. His drums are played by the most successful players in the world, and they are generally considered to be the best of the best of drums. Imagine the reputation that Stradivarius has for stringed instruments. In the smaller, more intimate and expanding world of Irish trad, a Seamus O'Kane bodhrán has that reputation. His website is here, and you can see a documentary that was made about him for Irish television. He is a humble, incredibly talented man, and his reputation is such that it is a surprise for people who meet him to learn that he is so down-to-earth. The videos on his site hardly do justive to the hypnotic, compelling nature of his playing. The word which I would use to describe him as a musician is mealltach. Being a Gaelgeoir, I've always know this word to roughly mean 'enticing', something that draws you in. The trendy kids now use this word as synonymous with 'sexy' so I'll have to abandon that. Anyway, he's the best, and as a 12 year old, to see him playing, eyes closed, as if head and hand where not connected, I was blown away.

(Actually, if you watch the youtube video on his site, the programme has him travelling to Inis Oírr for the bodhrán festival. I am very briefly in those scenes in the pub and at the summit, but it was YEARS ago, maybe 5 or 6, so I'm rather young)

I had received a bodhrán for Christmas (I usually just call it a drum) a beginner's drum that I christened Áine. When I had my first lesson with Séamus (in a 19th century cottage in the mountains at the Ionad Cois Locha) he took the drum, which was overly taut because of the the roaring fire and trudged outside. Grabbing a handful of snow, he rubbed the inside of the skin with it, and then taped the outside of the rim to reduce too much dissonance. He taught me how to play and after a week, I had it. Over the next few years, I began to play more and more, and by the time I was 17, I had bought a new drum (Clár) , had attended a few more of his Winter classes, and was playing in national competitions. Séamus and I had met many times since then at sessions, and he would always make a big deal out of seating me right in the circle, beside world-renowned players, so that I could get my confidence up and learn how to play live. His reputation is such that he can seat a skinny little git like me (when I was even underage in the pub) and the other players would oblige him by letting me play. It still happens to this day, when I get the odd chance to play, that some of those same players will let me join in, thanks to his help when I was younger.

Anyway, that summer, when I was 17, he went to the bodhrán festival (where the documentary was made) and we spent a lot of time together. Other people played his drum, and it was amazing to see how many excellent players where using his drums. I had been bugging him for years to make me a drum, or to let me buy one off him, but he always deftly avoided the question and changed the subject. There was a singer at one of the all-night sessions once, a woman called Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola (who also went to TCD) was there. The festival, in Inis Oírr (an island so small there are no police) consists of classes, then real learning in one of three pubs. Lasairfhíona is a seán-nós singer (the 'old style') and an incredibly beautiful vocalist, she sang this song, at 4am, the lot of us drunk and exhausted, a strange magic of timelessness surrounding us:

I was 17, and I instantly fell in love with her voice.

A few months later, when it was coming up to my 18th birthday, my father told me we were going for a drive. We drove about half and hour out of Derry, into the hills, and came to a house. Séamous came out to greet us, and brought us into the workshop in the videos. He had three drums laying on a benchtop, and told me to play them. It felt like an interview with Mr Ollivander, and as I sampled the three exquisite drums, I was practically shaking. They were all excellent, but the middle drum felt right. I'm not religious or very spiritual, but it felt comfortable and welcoming to the touch, and I fell in love. When my Dad asked him how much it would cost, Séamus just shook his head, unconcerned.

You see, he hadn't thought I was ready. That's why he made me wait, and he was right. It was a gift to me, and it was priceless. When it came to naming her, I didn't really have a choice, I wanted a drum that could sing, and having found one, she became Lasairfhíona.

Since then, Lassie and I have been through the wars together. She's come with me from Ireland to Spain, France (when I was still a chinless wonder, the outfit is a bit weird, not my idea), the Czech Republic and the US. We've played with orchestras and in shacks, for presidents and for the homeless, and she's always been perfect. Sadly, at Uni, I didn't play as much as I should and sometimes I neglected her somewhat.

Now, I have started to play more, and this summer I had one of my first professional gigs. This is me and Lassie back stage rehearsing for the play that I helped do the music for. Since then I've made plans to form a band and do some touring during the summer. Last night, I played my first session in months and felt exhilirated. It was excellent fun. Walking home, the pounding rain soaking me to the skin in seconds, I laughed my head off like a lunatic, remembering how many times we'd walked home together in the wee hours, and how I was the one who was ageing and changing. I haven't felt so alive in what seems like years, and even though I had a hangover today and I went to sleep with wet hair, I can't help but smile at the thought of the thousands of times that I've tottered home, Lassie safely by my side in the darkness.

She's still as beautiful and perfect as the first day I got her, I'm incredibly lucky.

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People aside, what are your true loves?

Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Chink in the Armour

2009-11-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I can totally sell as many of these as the Harry Potter books. Here's some sample titles

-Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Cloak of Positivity
-Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Cancelled Credit Card
-Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Revenge of the Moving Stair
-Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Raging Tertiary Syphillis
-Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Balding Hobbit Pervert

NY Times Bestseller List here I fucking come! Oh, and the raging tertiary syphillis thing is a joke. I'm clean....ladies.

Well today's been a hard one for old Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and his cloak of positivity, the chink in the armour being that sometimes it's just a wee bit too hard to be so fucking cheery all the time. The job front is, like the Western front, as desireable to walk in as a pair of Crocs made of acid and rusty nails. Yep, unemployment is still being a houseguest who doesn't understand that he's overstayed his welcome and doesn't seem to be in any rush to take the hint.

Apart from that though, today was okay. I panicked a bit about not having booked my flights home for graduation (December 7th) or for Christmas (December 25th) and also about the usual big three (money/career/love life) but I had the radio on in the kitchen and that cheered me up. I also had a ridiculously long bath and listened to Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughn Williams, which calmed me down a bit. Lovely piece (forgive the cheesy video, just turn off your screen and listen to it)

Now, I'm still a bit down, and it's raining outside, a fierce gale blowing in accompaniment. So, keeping true to the promise of Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive, I'm going to go out an walk in the rain for a bit - something that always cheers me up.

Ciaooooooo

xx

Venting My Spleen on a Bald Hobbit or Why I’m Currently Unemployed

2009-11-10T12:35:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I know that this week is Mr Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive Week here in the Uberflat, but something has recently been building in stress terms for some time, and it finally Krakatoa’d last night. I think that it’s because I’ve been making myself be in a good mood that this event happened and I’m actually very cheerful!

Background:
Recently, I was working in a rather grim office, a modelling agency in Farringdon in central London. I recently quit and am now unemployed. Here’s why:
When I learned that I was going to be working all day with models in chixy (a mixture of chic and sexy) Farringdon, I was agreeable to the prospect of employment, and my happiness was compounded when I arrived at work to be greeted by a flock of statuesque eye-poppers all waiting nonchalantly in the stylish and airy reception area, made-up and dressed provocatively.
‘Yes,’ I thought ‘this is a good job’.
Then a side door opened and a little bald hobbit scruffled up to me, putting out his hand, and introduced himself as Neel, my new boss. He led my through the side-door and down some steps, to the basement (or the dungeons) where the admin team worked. With each step my heart sank, as I knew that the absolutely impractical nature of the models’ heels, erection-inspiring though they may be were unlikely to ever try and pick their way downstairs for a pow-wow with us shitheels.

The ‘office’ was a 15x20’ sweatbox with no windows and sweat’n’breath covered red paint over the walls. I was shown to my (tbh lovely) chair and desk and given six sheets of paper, all of which were lists of names, phone-numbers, emails address and post-codes.

“Bit creepy, but let’s just roll with it.” I thought.

My job was not exactly as secretarial or administrative as I’d thought. I had to call every number on the list and read from a script
“Hi, is that _______? Hi, _____, my name is Conor and I’m calling you from XXXXXX Studios here in Farringdon in Central London. How are you today?
Good to hear (chuckle)
Well, the reason that I’m calling is that we recently ran a huge promotion online in conjunction with ______, _________ and __________ .com and you clicked on one of our online banners indicating that you might be interested in coming in for a complimentary VIP make-over and fashion photoshoot, do you remember?
You do? Oh good, well, I’m very pleased to announce...”

You get the idea. I had to seduce the person on the other line before telling them the terms and conditions, and had to try and convince them to give me their credit card details.

About 15 minutes into the first day, I had a moment of clarity and thought “Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t a secretary job....this is fucking TELESALES!”

Now, if truth be told, I wasn’t very good at it. I could never really muster the enthusiasm to try and make my pitch when I was calling people at midday with ‘Loose Women’ on in the background and a screaming child beside them. Most of the people I called couldn’t afford the (refundable) deposit, and some were downright hostile, which I can understand. I was encouraged to ‘make friends’ with the customer. The only problem being that I don’t usually try to fuck my friends right in the financial arsehole within seconds of making their acquaintance...it’s just not kosher is it?
I did have some lovely phonecalls, chatting to genuinely fascinating people. Some people I flirted with, some people I was frankly intimidated by (always women incidentally, male callers are usually cool) and others were just lonely and eager for a chat.

What made the job unbearable was the athmosphere on my side of the line. As I’ve said, the room was (lovely chair and iMac aside) less-than-perfect. The Bald Hobbit was used to warm weather, as was the rest of the staff. Being Irish, anything above 0.5 degrees C is considered frankly tropical, and so I spent most of my working day sweating like a priest in a primary school. Moreover, in an attempt for the customer to hear how cool and happening we were, there was always some blaring Ministry of Sound Ibiza dance track playing in the background (which although kinda cool, eventually became irksome). The combination of thumping beats, high caffiene, booking targets (which had to be reached) and the heat made the room into some hysterical down-ward plummeting carnival.

More than anything though...the boss. Neel the fucking Bald Hobbit. This guy is about 20 cms high and still thinks he’s hard as nails. He would smile and be really happy, then start shouting abuse at you. He once came over to me, and standing about an inch from my face started to yell. I just sat there politely bemused by this tanked-up little shit screaming about targets, trying desperately not to laugh.

Anyway, Neel spends/spent most of his time fighting with his girlfriend A---- who sat beside me. Oh btw, he’s 38 and she’s 22. Ew. He would take us all out after work (there were a staff of 4, all girls apart from me, none older than 23) and try to fit in with the youth. He told me on the first night he thought I was his ‘brother’ and that he loved me. He spent half the time yelling at A---- and the rest telling me and my friend Bouf (her name is Shona, but is a ‘BOUF’ apparently and a really great friend from Klburn) anecdotes about how well connected he was before attempting (and failing) to get us into every nightclub.

Now, whilst drunk one night he borrowed some money off me, and that’s were the trouble started. Apparently Neel has had a LOT of ‘bad luck’ the past while and needed a sub til payday. Me being drunk gave him some. This being a time when I was INCREDIBLY drunk.
This occurred a few times until it came to be that he owed me a good ole whack of cash. He chatted to me one day and told me, over a beer, that he had been in jail and that he was making a new life with his girlf and that he would get the bosses of the studio to pay me directly on payday. I told him he was okay to wait a few days to get his head together, and (rather hypocritically) suggested he cut-down on the booze.

Yesterday:
I left my job soon after that. Neel’s oppressive “You’re my best pal and I love/Make some fucking bookings” swings got the better of me and I walked out mid conversation. I told him some lie about the Firm only wanting me to have a legal-based job, but that was a crock of it.

Anyway, he’s been promising to give me my money back, and always having a problem. The cheque didn’t clear. His pay hadn’t come through. He needed more time. Then, he promised me that he’d meet me on Friday. That turned into Sunday, which turned into yesterday evening (Monday 9th November 2009) Then I got a text yesterday. His new boss handed him a cheque to cahs, he had no money on him til tomorrow. Could he see me then.

Now, ever since my Waterloo Fail, I’ve been a bit strapped for cash. As my new ATM card has yet to reach my folks’ place in Derry, it’ll be a few days til I have access to cash, and I can’t exactly sponge off Spark (my flatmate) for the rest of my life.
I fucking exploded. I text him telling him what a pathetic SOB he was, how I was gonna call the Firm if he didn’t pay me back in 24 hours. He phoned, calling me ‘Buddy’. I spent about 15 minutes flat out shouting at him down the phone, and by the end he sounded on the verge of tears. In retrospect, I should be guilty for losing my temper, but to be honest it was great. I love exploding every so often and I think that it was perfectly warranted in this situation. Not everyday do I have the opportunity to make a 38 year old man cry, less often the opportunity to feel justified.

So now, Tuesday 10th of November Anno Domini 2009, I’m walking to my local tube station to pick up an envelope. I got a call from Neel today, all smiles and ‘Buddy’ talk, but maybe it’s time for a Neelectomy. In one hour I’m walking to meet him, then I’m going to my local to use the wifi and drink (soda water) and blog. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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20:40

Okay so it turns out he was reliable this time. Brought the money and the apology and knew that I was still furious with him. Somehow he knew that I knew that he had been drinking every night that he owed me the money and somehow he didn't really feel like having too much of an argument about how his 'hands had been tied'. I got the money and strode off into the night, coat flapping and trying hard not to a) swagger or b) feel guilty.

Either way, I'm glad that it's over and that I'll now be able to move on, a wee touch wiser.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED: Never lend money to someone. Ever. Unless you trust them, and especially not when you're drunk.

Oh, despite this post I’ve been very positive today and had some good leads for jobs. Hope you’ve all had a good one !
x

Positivity!!

2009-11-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've made a few wee resolutions about this week

Basically, I've been looking over my posts from the past while and they've all been a bit...well, whiney. Whingeing and moaning is fun, but I've been rather self-indulgent with it, and should maybe man up a little and repress those little (and large) negative feelings down, only allowing them to re-emerge in later life as a massive stroke or a shooting spree with an automatic weapon.

So from now on, well, for this week anyway, I'm going to be known as Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive, my new name for the week starting Monday 9th of November. I'm going to make a physical effort to smile, to be happy and to make light of stressful situations.When something bad happens (like falling down an escalator and losing my wallet, or being mugged by a flock of pigeons or something) I'll laugh it off, it's all going to be a massively hilarious joke.

I'm also going to see if I can refrain from drinking and smoking for the week. I probably have had more than enough chemicals in my body for the last couple of months for my liver to have earned a week's respite. If I manage to get a job and actually seem to have kept it by Friday, then I'll reward myself with a pint, but not before that.

I've been watching The Thick of It quite a lot recently, and have to admit that I massively admire Malcolm Tucker; the absolutely apoplectic Scottish 'Enforcer to the PM' who goes around telling the entire political world what a cunt they are. Other than being a huge fan of Peter Capaldi thanks to the amazing 'Local Hero', I think that he's one of the greatest comic creations in the last decade, and defintely Armando Iannucci's greatest since Alan Partridge. I'm going to be like him for the week; infallible, but slightly less crazy-angry.

So, to begin the week, I've got a really random quote from a conversation I had earlier today. I was chatting to a friend (with whom I had gotten apocalyptically drunk with on Hallowe'en) who had laughed at my 'Waterloo Fail' story and invited me to a party. She had mentions it before and this was my response:

"What, the farmyard theatre with the he-she stripper and the dwarf pole dancer who spits piss at people?"

So yeah, I didn't go, but that sentence reminds me that life is bizarre and potentially amazing, even if it's just to sit back and wonder who wants to have dwarf-piss spat at them.

Maybe the week will answer the question...who knows?

Have a good 'un :)

ps - Actually I do know, at no point this week will I have any interaction with dwarf piss. If my internet arrives, as it should do on the 12th, I will celebrate by watching a dwarf-piss porn vid, or maybe by just pretending to watch it while closing my eyes tightly and trying to remember the contents of section 2 of the Irish Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.

Smiling Again

2009-11-07T08:50:00.001-08:00

Okay, so more bad stuff happened, but it's so funny that I've been chuckling about it for a while, and it's put things in perspective and made me happy.

So yesterday, I was in Waterloo Station, just from a meeting with the future co-lawyers. I went down the escalator and, somewhat merry and listening to King Crimson's epic In the Wake of Poseidon (another example of their genius) I was not really paying attention.

This song is obviously amazing. When I, being far too involved in the sheer awesomeness of the song, suddenly found myself tumbling down the bottom of the escalator, it was most sincerely not amazing. I've been a semi-professional walkist since about the age of 2 (is that what age kids learn to walk??) but for some reason my calf muscle in the right leg just spasmed and suddenly I was doing the tumble-dryer act in front of what seemed like half of London.

Then in my suddenly leg-pain/pride-pain scramble to get upright (which failed because of my continually cramping calf-muscle) a flock of pretty ladies walked past, and a busker stopped playing. I tried to laugh it off, but shaking harder than a paint mixer, it wasn't very convincing.

Anyway, I found my way home without either crying or laughing too loudly, and went to the burger-joint by the top of my street. Feeling that a half-pound of dead cow-flesh would cheer me up, I reached for my wallet in my inside pocket and...nope, it wasn't there.

So, apart from falling like a dick and making a tool of myself, I also lost my wallet. Nice one.

Today though, when I woke up, I was greeted with a mad feeling of hilarity. Every time I think of what happened I burst out laughing. I was chatting to my mum and we had a giggle about it.

So I'm sitting now, without a wallet, a girlfriend, a job or legs that aren't killing me, and for some reason I'm unexpectedly bouyant and happy. Life is strange no?

Maybe I hit my head haha.
:)

Down in the Dumps

2009-11-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

Holy Shit!

Okay, so usually a little bit of being down and self-pitying is okay, but this week has been ridiculous. I guess it has something to do with the fact that I left my job AND I'm totally broke. I've been looking for proper work all week, and have yet to have any success. Perhaps the funniest moment was hearing that I was OVER qualified to work in one office. What? Overqualified? WTF?

I'm trying everything I can think of not to have to go back to the barwork, because it really depresses me. Apart from becoming a big ole prostitute, I'm sort of at a loss as to what else I can do. The 60 CVs I printed last week are almost done, and I'm no nearer to having an interim law-ish job than I am being voted Milf of the Month.

Fucking hell.

How are you all?
x

What I did last night

2009-11-02T05:16:00.000-08:00

Just a short note from an internet cafe about what happened last night.
-i woke up with a hangover
-stumbled around the house looking for the bathroom and had to sit in the shower cos my legs felt like they were going to shatter like sugar-glass
-went into town to meet my amazing friend TV-Girl (not her real name) and her mates
-spent 2 hours on the Underground because of line closures
-arrived at the pub (2.30pm)
-had a glass of Coke and chatted to TV-Girl and her cool friend, Indian-Guy.
-had a pint of Guinness
-had another pint of Guinness
-scene deleted
-scene deleted
-TV-G's boyfriend arrives
-we drink Guinness.
-TV-G and Boyf leave
-Indian Guy and I drink Guinness - turns out he works in special effects.
-Indian Guy and I discuss geopolitics, we decide that by the time we're 75 years old India and China will be the Kings of the World because China makes goods and India 'makes people'. Europe will guide and the East will drive. South America will be a huge force under Brazil and North America will lose its 'I'm in charge' attitude. We both like Obama.
-I decide that Cuba will become a one of the more significant countries. 'The Switzerland of the Caribbean' (me circa 8.30pm)
-CuteTherapist Lady and her 'date' sit beside us at the table
-Indian-guy and I instantly start flirting with her, we discuss a ring she's wearing, her grandmother, Judaism in the UK and Vienna 1928.
-'Date' (who looks like an Asian Severus Snape) leaves in a huff, turns out he's a film-maker, but a massive bell-end who sponges off people. We all toast his departure.
-We drink Guinness
-CTL, IG and I discuss death, mortality, Catholicism, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, Karma, religion and literature.
-CTL, IG and I drink Guinness (we seem to have forgotten that before this we'd never met)
-Turns out both CTL and I both went to Trinity and both speak French. She displays surprise that I'm only 22 and she's a bit older. We speak French some more.
-CTL, IG and I practice psychotherapy on a drunk woman, it works.
-CTL's friend, Kennedy (actually his name) arrives, he is too cool for school. He wears blue spectacles.
-CTL, IG, Kennedy and I talk about death and music. We show each other our tattoos.
-CTL likes that I have a tattoo of a Yew tree on my arm, tells me she has planned to get a tatoo of a yew on her arm. I offer to share the design.
-The bar closes.
-CTL (who is part-Irish and interested in trad music) exchanges numbers and goes on with Kennedy. Tells me to ring her.
-IG and I find another, later bar.
-CTL and Blue Specs show up too. We laugh at this.
-We drink Guinness.
-I dance the Twist with a 60 year old lady.
-Blue Specs gives me a title for my script (Masquerade) which I like.
-We go out to smoke and chat to old gangsters.
-We come in and CTL does the Twist with a 60 year old lady.
-CTL and I go out for a smoke and chat about life. She is definitely not Blue Specs' girlf (thanks to my subtle question of 'Is he your boyfriend then?' and her response of 'No.' We beging to dance in the street. Then we kiss. It's very nice.
-I go back inside and find IG almost passed out, he decides it's time to go home.
-Blue Specs and CTL leave, she kisses me and tells me to call her.
-I stay and drink until the bar closes, it is 2.30 am.
-It takes me hours to get home by bus.
-I can't find any change but the bus driver lets me on anyway because he doesn't want to break a note. We talk about prog-rock.
-I take the street chariot home in style.
-I try to grant a wish for the driver (not in a sexual way, I think more in a Genie/Casting a Spell way)
-The driver laughs and stops right at the top of my street.
-I stumble home listening to King Crimson.
-I watch 'The Good The Bad and the Ugly' until I fall asleep at 5.

Today I woke up and I'm afraid. Also got a text from CTL. She's really cool, but I think the age thing worries her, so I'm not sure if she really wants to go out.

So now, with rivulets of boozy sweat lashing off my back, I can only smile at what was a freaking amazing weekend. I've drunk too much, quit my job, met a few nice girls and made some new friends. Also Halloween happened. More to come on that.

I think I'm still a little drunk. Probably should leave the bank trip til tomorrow. I'm going to walk home and go back to bed.

Lots of love.
xx

Announcing my Triumphant return to the Internet!! (sort of)

2009-10-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Greetings, strangers. Time for a big long blog-post. Following my bloma (blog coma - thanks SpankyLuvsIt!!) I have a lot of news...

Well, it was a bit hit-or-miss there as to whether or not I’d ever be allowed to return to the joys of the blogosphere, but yes, after much wrangling, internet caféing and free wifi-ing, the cool cats from TalkTalk Internet have come into the Über Flat, drilled a shitload of little holes, had some fibre-optic fun and viola, the miracle of (second) life continues.

Well, sorta. I’m still obliged to steal wifi from my neighbour, because, well, the hyper-efficient technicians won’t be ready til THE 12TH OF NOVEMBER to finish the job (!!!!!!) which is a rather poor show. Apparently it's thanks to the postal strike which is currently ravaging Britain. I don't really understand how slow letter delivery stops me ~~watching porn~~ studying online.

So how the bally heck have I been? Well, thanks for asking Mum, but basically since I’ve moved to facking Landin my life has taken a turn for the hectic. I made the move, bad back and all, got settled, and lay on my bed, relishing the fact that I had an apartment. Being the crazy son-of-a-gun that I am, my flat-mate Sparky and I decided to have a ‘crazy housewarming party' a video from which I will put up soon :)

Then, London life began. To begin with, let me just inform you that my post-grad course takes up an oppressive six hours...every other Saturday. That’s right, I’m so hardcore my course can’t even be on a weekly basis. Using the power of mathematics that this means I (theoretically) have, on average, 165 hours free every week.

Things I’ve learned #1: Con + 165 hours of free time = Con the Weird Sociopathic Caveman.

For a week I lived a weird sorta-unemployed/sorta-kept man existence, tottering about, unshaven and feral, trying to capture urban foxes and rogue pigeons in my nocturnal haze. Too much time in a city where I really have very few friends meant that I was alone, with my thoughts, all the time. Not good.

I did actually go on a date (as mentioned below) with a lovely young lady who I drunkenly met on the bus (see story above) but after a rather eventful evening, she turned the gender table round and played the ‘That Bastard who never called me” card that I have previously played in my life, allowing Karma to amble up to me, laugh coldly, then kick me square in the bollocks.

Ugh, women are pigs.

Anyway, yeah, so I had tonnes of free time (I had so much free time, I weighed how much free time I had: 178.64 metric tonnes of time, to be precise) and had turned into nocturnal savage (or rather reverted to my truer, nocturnal savagey self) big deal. Sparky, with infinite patience took me to Ikea, and tried firmly to nail the final hetero man-love nail into our tiny gay coffin and I became a housewife. Now my house is filled with flat-pack furniture that all has a name. My desk is called Kistrud, the soft furnishings in the living room all have names like Scandanavian popstars and there was once a famous tennis star called Bjorn Borg.

So yeah, following the advice of the man-wife, the mother, several ex-girlfriends (who still ‘look out for me’) and my thrash NY gal-pal, the Novelista Barista, I decided to get a job.

Job #1: BARWORK

Okay, so I tended bar all through college. It’s a perfectly good job, and I'd never for one second look down my nose at anyone who decided to do it for a living. It’s pretty tough, and despite all the hype, it’s not glamourous in the slightest. On the plus side; there’s always work for a trained bartender, and the induction to a new job doesn’t tend to take longer than inspecting the beer cellar to see which pump system works with the kegs, and becoming acclimatised with the Cash Register. However, picking WHERE to work is often the most important thing. I’m Irish, and I live beside an area called Kilburn. 20 years ago that would have been the start of a joke, but now thankfully the area’s a little more diverse. The remaining Irish community are typically a little older, the majority in their 40’s-50’s, and I went to work in their pub.

Yep, not some trendy gastro-pub, or an understated favela, I choose one of the only proper Irish pubs in Kilburn; a dark, sordid grief hole that caters to the local expat community. Three things about the expat community in Kilburn:

1) They’re tough, very tough. Most of them came over as construction workers in the 60’s and 70’s and spent the years since working 15 hours days, drinking themselves blind and spending the rest of the time getting arrested by the charming not-at-all-anti-Irish constables of the Metropolitan Police during an era when the Irish in Britain were viewed the same way that ANYONE Arabic/Middle Eastern is viewed by the gun-toting chaps in US airport security – with deep suspicion. These expats are of a slightly more sturdy breed.
2) They drink. A lot. Most are what we would now call ‘functioning alcoholics’. I did a few of the not-at-all-depressing morning shifts, and for a while I was convinced that some of the customers were suffering from severe Parkinson’s disease, they shook so much. These same people would drink a few pints and after a while be as eloquent and witty as an Oscar Wilde/Charles Bukowski smoothie. Most of the punters would come in straight after work and sit, drinking with an assembly-belt efficiency before tottering home hours later.
3) They don’t like change. I was the youngest of the barstaff, a little sprat of a thing, and I was also a very obvious interloper. Being professionally not-very-tough and also coming as a graduate with a weird hybrid accent meant that I was very obviously not ‘one of the lads’. When people asked what I did, and I said either ‘Trainee Lawyer’ or ‘Writer’ I’d either be called a bastard or a queer, before getting a cuff on the shoulder and having something growled at me to the effect that I ‘was alright for a Northerner’.

Anyway, I liked working there, but the hours weren’t enough to financially sustain me and I kinda spent two weeks in the habit of drinking every day after work, which is something I’d rather avoid if I don’t want the old ‘drunken Irish’ stereotype thrown in with the rest. Also, in a bizarre twist, a man calling me a 'cunt' came in one day waving a saw around because I had apparently refused to serve him...live is made up of the little spontaneous moments though eh? The boss also was a bit unpredictable, a 51 year old hormone-grenade preoccupied with The Change. She’d either be incredibly sweet or yell at me for nothing at all (eg – shouting at me for the amount of overspill caused by too much pressure from the gas system. Seeing as I’m not really qualified to tamper with an elaborate underground gas system, I was at a bit of a loss to respond.). When I told her I was quitting, she sulked with me for 6 hours, then gave me a hug and told me I was welcome to drink there any time. Crazy Menopause.

Job #2 TELESALES.
Do you have a soul? Feel like it’s a little too much of a burden? Fancy having little pieces chipped away on a daily basis? Then you should try telesales. Ugh. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoy spending 8 hours a day in an overheated underground office calling strangers, so to get paid for it is a treat.
---
--
-

Ps – unsurprisingly, I quit this job too. That’s right, yesterday I left the place, and I don’t ever think I’m likely to cold-call an unsuspecting member of the public to persuade them to do ____________.

So here I am, right back where started, a bum. I still have my soul though, and there’s a really cool girl I met recently at a party. We’ve texted a bit, and I’m gonna be loosey goosey and keep it cool.

So, how are y’all?

Ps – I know this is a helluva long post, but I’ve been away for too long . I’ve missed you so much, faceless void of hyperspace...let’s never spend so much time apart again, okay?

I'm still alive.

2009-10-14T10:34:00.001-07:00

Quost about London so far.

2009-10-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

Yes, quost! My internet is so precarious that I barely have time to write full words, so they run into each other. This is a quick post.

So, the last time I blogged, I was a pathetic cripple. Now my back is all fine, and I have a lovely apartment. The only problem is that my internet is not yet set up and I have to rely on the unintentional altruism of 'homa', the only wifi that my computer can freely pick up on. Homa is only available from about 6pm - 9pm, so I wait, all day, eagerly trying not to refresh the useless Firefox startpage, counting down the seconds til I can productively procrastinate. Homa also does not allow me to upload photos or videos...so any 80's doing-up-the-house montages will have to wait til we're set with our own hub.

I've been job-hunting. Like flat-hunting, but with less self-esteem. So far, the only luck with the search has been for some really random ones. An example of the type of mental jobs that I only seem to be fit for:
-Lollipop man,
-Shop Assistant at a military surplus store.
-Doorman at an experimental theatre.
-Male escort (disn't really look into that one, just saw lots of ads...)

I was told that I couldn't be hired at one place (despite the ad saying 'Help Wanted') because I wasn't "a hot girl innit?" which was rather a blow to the old self-image.

Damn body fascists.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day, and I can go print off a million CV's and be a bloody job-hunt fairy.

As soon as I get the internet for true, I'll definitely put up some videos (or vlog posts, as the kids call them) for all to enjoy.

ps - I had a date last night. It went well. Possibly more to come.

Brokeback Luggage...bested by a sock!

2009-10-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, no, before you ask, I haven't been having sex with my suitcase. Whilst my bags and I are good close friends and often go into the mountains at the weekend, I've never had a night-time fumble with any of them.

On the contrary, today I fucking hate my all my luggage. To paraphrase the great Popeye,

'I can't stands (it) no more!!"

As I've made it abundantly clear, the whole 'moving into the new flat' event is something that I'm rather looking forward to. I've spent so much of the last four years moving about, that I've never had a chance to put down any roots. Although I've loved the slightly nomadic life I've led, it has been a bit hard to have any longterm relationships as there's always been a very finite amount of time that I'd been around. Now, I'll be living in London for at least five years, and have a chance to settle down an little bit. Call it some inkling of maturity, but a slightly slower pace will be welcome.

What I don't like, hate actually, and find frankly horrifying, is the process of packing. To paraphrase the great Perry Cox, I megaloathe it. First of all, clothes folding is tedious, and somehow I've failed to learn the male knack of packing light. No matter how cleverly I plan and scheme, or how deviously I try to fold and compress, I nearly always overpack.

This time was no exception.

My suitcase and rucksack weigh more than I do, and yep, right in the middle of packing, my back went. Not in the comical 'oh crumbs, I seem to have nonced my back' but rather in the 'oh crumbs, I think I'm dying' way.

How it happened: The room (which until my arrival at S&D's house had belonged to my little cousin, Mollie) resembled Dresden after the bombing, and I had to collect all the socks and clothes on the floor. I was just out of the shower, in a fetching 70's-avocado-esque towel and staring round the room at the work to be done.

My itunes on random, Venus in Furs was blaring and I set about nakedly picking up my socks. I bent over to fetch a particularly comfortable stocking and with a (shamelessly feminine) gasp of pain, the Lumbar God stabbed me in the back. Lou Reed singing about sado-masochism and me paralysed on the bed, forced to sit bolt upright, it was terrifying and hilarious in equal measures. There I was; beer-bellied, pale and still more-or-less in the buck, gasping with pain and trying my hardest not to laugh. A wall-length mirror gave me a nice view of my own suffering and it was very hard not to point and snigger at the skinny, pale victim: half-scarecrow, half-jellyfish who grimaced back at me.

It got almost hysterical. Several songs passed by and I literally had no idea what I was gonna do. I couldn't even shift my weight or raise my arms enough so that when I slipped off the edge of the bed and landed on the floor, seemingly in slow motion, it was with an almost obscene thud.

Okay, so finally I got up, managed to find some Western Medicine and manned up to the extent that I could get dressed, finish packing, shave (!!) and carry my stuff out to the car. I'm staying in my Nan's again, close to the train station, and I'm getting the 7.30 train in the morning.

So now, as I sit here, a cocoon of pillows around my lower back, I'm still excited about the move, but I'm less than eager to have to deal with the Tube and buses tomorrow with my eight tonnes of junk. I'll be offline for a few days (unless the flat has wireless which it blatantly won't) and will take a few photos when I get settled.

Until then, adieu, I'll post soon.
x

Naughty Step Democracy and the Death of a Reckless Liver

2009-10-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

I don't sleep well, it's a fact.

In the old brain, there's a weird chemical mix-up caused by Nature that dictates that no matter how long I stay in bed, I'll only ever get two or three hours sleep a night. I hate it, but I'm well used to it (as I've been like this for the last seven years) and it doesn't mean that I never rest. In fact, I'm such a lazy bastard that I will lie in until I absolutely have to get out of bed and (grumpily) greet the day.

Usually, the process of waking up is a phase-by-phase affair, with much swearing, rolling over and double-checking the clock. Then, when either my (often ignored) conscience or my (piece of shit Soviet-era) phone goes off, I eventually pad downstairs to s/s/s and have a cup of tea or an espresso. It's a routine that I know well, a certain comfort existing for me in the familiarity and daily annoyance of it.

Today was not one of those day. This is how I woke up. Obviously that's another metaphor, but this morning's hangover was so fucking awful that I yelped.

Yesterday, when I was uptown with my aunt, we decided to celebrate a successful trip to the bank with a pint. Well, two pints. Then, when we returned to the house, we had to celebrate getting home safely...by drinking a load of budweiser. Somehow dinner was prepared and eaten and we settled down to watch a RomZomCom with S&D and their friend Ola. Victorious at having beaten Death and lived for another day, we drank and made merry. Then Uncle D brought out Sambuca, and the evening took a turn for the worst.

The film over, I was sitting on S&D's lovely gargantuan sofa and suddenly I realised that we were all talking bullshit. Lots of shit. We moved to the kitchen and S and I smoked a lot, whilst continuing to promise myself that I was successfully quitting. As the two of us sat, smoked and talked shit, the conversation took a turn for the 'air family laundry' and 'talk about things that bring up waaaay too many emotions' and we both turned into tawdry, teary-eyed puddles of chemical imbalance and borderline alcohol poisoning. Then I made out with the toilet for a while, good bye curry.

Then, I got on the phone and texted AND called a certain young lady. I don't usually drink and dial (apart from an occasion where I called a girl to tell her she had "lovely, shiny hair and a pretty smile" that I don't need to discuss here) but last night I went ahead and did it. Smooooooooth.

Right, I can see you shaking your head in disappointment. Give me a break okay? Everyone's allowed to drop the ball every so often.

So this morning, I woke up feeling like a concrete pigeon had taken a crap on my head, and then the world of Facebook annoyed the fuck out of me. I saw lots of status updates from people I usually think are rational and fair-minded, people I love and respect immensely. Here's why I was annoyed: The Lisbon Treaty

Last summer, on the 12th June 2008, Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty. For months beforehand, the different political parties, interest groups, worker's unions and people of note had raped every signpost and spare inch of wall across the whole of the country with posters, clouded up the very finite amount of radiospace and television airtime and clogged up social networking sites, new sites and newspapers with their positions, whether pro- or anti-Treaty. Short films were made with cliché attempts at political satire, and the entire nation was bored fucking senseless with the entire deal. As with most politics, the general public were more-or-less oblivious to the vast majority of the proposed legislation. Most people got their opinions from the hysterics of the 'No' campaign, or the vague uncertainty of the 'Yes' campaign, using the misleading bias of the print media as a sort of ignorance grout, holding together vague notions of what the Treaty could mean. 'No' supporters decried the imminent loss of Irish neutrality (not at all possible under the Treaty without the Irish people ratifying that) and culture while 'Yes' supporters vaguely promised that everyone would become massively wealthy and that we'd all get to have sex with nubile Italian women with loose morals.

Now, personally, I would be in favour of the Treaty. I am a pro-EU guy and think that the streamlining of all the old Treaties by amendment and the coming into force of the Charter of Rights (which for example bans capital punishment) are things which should be embraced. I also wouldn't mind having sex with a lot of nubile Italian girls.

Here's the problem though: the Irish people already voted No, way back in the times of ancient history (last summer) that have gone from memory and passed into fable.

Legally, thanks to the 1987 case of Crotty v. An Taoiseach, any serious amendments to the European Union treaties have to be ratified by the government AND the Irish people at referendum. In 2008 we had a referendum, the people voted no.

Ireland is recognised as being one of the most democratic countries in the world but this seems to be highly undemocratic practice. It was a political embarrassment that Ireland said no, after it's politicians being some of the architects for this new European law, and there was a hell of a lot of pressure on the Irish government because of the reaction of the Irish people. Now another referendum has been organised for tomorrow, the 2nd October.

I ask you, how democratic is that? It seems like the Irish have been sat on the naughty step for the last year, and now will be expected to be good little children and vote as they're expected.What if the 'No' camp win again? Will there be a 2010 referendum? It seems that the silly Irish didn't get it right the first....silly Irish electorate.

It is widely considered that if the 'No' camp win out tomorrow, then the Treaty of Lisbon will die. I sincerely hope this is not the case, as I am a 'Yes' chap. However, the sheep of facebook who say "John Smith: voting YES! and if you say no yur a reetard" are really getting on my nerves. This naughty step democracy is contrary to the political freedom we Irish deserve and hopefully this is only a minor blip. What's more, those who try to beguile and mislead to sway people's opinion are scumbags, simple as.

I think my friend Helen has the most rehreshing insight into this situation, and I urge anyone bored enough to read my blog to follow it:

Helen C has read the Lisbon Treaty in full and come to a decision- you should do the same!

Damn straight Helen, way to go sista!

So in conclusion, I'm hungover and pissed off with politics. Quelle fucking surprise...

Hospitality

2009-09-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

Since Friday I've been staying with my grandmother, the English one. Before this summer I hadn't seen her in about six years, thanks to my galavanting around Ireland and the US, so it's nice to have the chance to catch up with her in her dust-free, granny-pad, drinking pots of tea and talking about all the weird ad whacky things on tv.

The weekend has been lovely; the sun is shining, my bed is unbelievably comfortable and I've even managed to hijack the wireless from the people next door, so I can write on my blog. The house is such a grandma house; as I type, there are little porcelain statuettes and collector plates staring at me from the mantelpiece while china dogs look dolefully out across the photo populated/tea-collection-storing cabinet set and the abundance of cushions and sofas that litter the living room. There are spindly little tables that don't seem to have a purpose, and a gargantuan tv with approximately seven billion channels.

This all sounds ideal, right? But there is a problem, I am on death's door.

The reason? My grandmother likes to feed me.

That's a good thing, I know. I'm also aware that it's a little bit silly to be complaining about being fed, but the sheer amount of food is awe inspiring.

It's a bit of a joke that I don't eat or sleep that much, and that I'm a bit pale and skinny. Now I'm staying in the 'land of perpetual sun' for a short time, I'm red and skinny. Enter the grandmother. If there's a lull in the conversation, or if the tv goes to commercials, inevitably the question will come, "do you want something to eat?".

Usually I try to say no as politely as possible, but today I thought I'd be a bit daring and call her bluff. So whenever any food was offered I accepted, like a culinary 'Yes Man'. Big mistake.

Between 2 and 9pm I had the following
1 - Bacon sandwich and tea.
2 - Another bacon sandwich and tea.
3 - Cheese roll with bottle of beer.
4 - Cup of tea and scone (and some biscuits)
4 - Several bottles of beer.
5 - Steak and Kidney Pie, with peas, roast potatoes, carrots, cauliflowers, gravy and bread.
6 - Bread and butter and tea.
7 - Several more bottles of beer.

Now, I'm absolutely stuffed to the gills. I feel like my weird innie/outie bellybutton is going to turn into an outie. As I sit hear watching 'Doc Martin' on television, I'm getting foodsweats and my feet are numb. That is scary, but I'm still drinking the beer.

My gran just offered me some pilchards on toast, I'm fucked.

Arthur's Day

2009-09-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since my last post. I'm currently back with the aunt/unc combo of S&D in their lovely country house. Life has been pretty hectic this last while, so I'll just fill you in with what's been going on.

So I spent about 9 days lodging with Em and her landlady n' daughter, and had a really nice time. They all made me feel really really welcome, and it was a lot of fun to hang out with them in the house, watching tv or a movie and swapping gossip and scandal. As the only guy in the house, I even managed to earn some Guy Points by fixing some fuses and the oven. Huzzah!

As I said in my last post, the flat-hunting wasn't going very well. It's an horrendously boring, expensive and soul-destroying task, and requires a horrible mixture of intruding on people's lives (if they haven't moved out yet) and dealing with (sometimes less-than-ethical) estate agents. One of these guys, we'll call him 'Gordon', was so sleazy and cocky (and looked about 12) that all of the shitty grief-holes he showed us were unappealing. Another guy, whilst very nice, took us to places that my hetero life-partner (Mark, but we'll call him Sparky) had already been shown around before I came over.

Then...we found it. The Über-Flat.
Nestled half-way between the paradise of West Hampstead and the bustle of Kilburn, in a small quiet street called Netherwood, the flat is great. A split-level two bedroom, it's got a large living room, a nice kitchen and dining room, and loads of storage. Upstairs, two big bedrooms and a bathroom. It's in a really safe area and has a big heavy gate for security. I love it. It's even the upper flat in the building, so it covers the 'Zombie Invasion' criteria. The best aspect is a small balcony with a corner table for eating breakfast, and a load of space for planting a few plants/herbs/vegetables.

The only problem is the move-in day. The flat came onto the market because of a family crisis for the current tenant (which is sad) which means he has to go home to Portugal. We were supposed to be moving in on the 28th of September, but it looks like we'll be waiting another week.

I'm not really complaining though. Hell, at least I've found somewhere, and have a nice place to stay in the meantime. I feel a bit bad about the guy who we're moving in after, but there's nothing that can be done, and it's good to know that the new landlord let him quit his lease without taking his deposit or trying to squeeze money out of him. It seems like an omen that he'll be a nice guy.

For the rest of my time in London, I went to a few museums, and tried to soak up a bit of what London's about. The Imperial War Museum in Lambeth had fascinated me since I was brought there at the age of 9, and it's still magnificent. I also had the below-mentioned meeting with the Firm, for which I had to shave off the fuzz, and saw the people with whom I'll be doing my training contract and working for a few years. They all seem lovely.

We went out for drinks a few times, and they all seem like a good laugh.

All in all, I'm very happy with how the flathunt went, and when I move in, I'll post some photos.

--------------------------

I'm currently in Kent, and every day I'm taking the kids on the two mile walk to school, across fields and through woods, it's very beautiful. Again, more photos to follow.

Finally, today (Thursday 24th September 2009) is a very special day, as it marks the 250th anniversary of one of Ireland's most famous exports (after Riverdance, music and Colin Farrell's libido), the black velvet; Guinness Stout.

So, to honour this beautiful day, I'm walking up to the local pub The Bull, and ordering a pint of the black stuff to be drunk at the exact time 17:59.

Happy Arthur's Day y'all, and sláinte!

xx

ps - I've completed another of my 101 things to do. Number 38 - Find a flat in London.
Completed - 2/101

In London

2009-09-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

So, I'm in London now. It's really exciting, but rather tiring.

I came over on Saturday (12th) doing the whole 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' dancing-down-the-street thing (except without the racist newspapers) and really loving the crazy buzzing vibe of London. I'm staying with my friend Em as a lodger, up in the Zone 4 Essex wilderness of Woodford. Her landlady is a lovely woman, and the house is really nice and comfortable, so it's a great base from which to launch my flat-finding expedition. Woodford is in the extreme North East of the town, and the area where we're looking for an apartment is on the Jubilee Line, to the North West of town...so there's lots of commuting going on.

Flat hunting isn't a lot of fun. We saw six properties today and only one stood out, but what a flat it was. It's a multi-level two bedroom apartment wedged between W. Hampstead and Kilburn, about 6 minutes walk from the W. Hampstead tube station, and it's perfect. So if you're reading this, then think happy thoughts that tomorrow the lovely guy from the estate agency will tell us that we've got it.

Apart from that, it's going well here. I have a meeting tomorrow with the Firm at lunchtime, so I've been forced to complete one of my 101 Things to Do without much conscience thought. As I can't really walk into the uber-slick corporate law environment looking like a member of ZZ-Top, I've had to shave the beard.

So to conclude:

- Please think happy thoughts for the hella cool apartment later in the week.
- I've completed 1/101 tasks. Huzzah!!!

x

Off to the London!!

2009-09-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

So World War Three. Whilst I love my family dearly, the arguments have been getting more frequent, the silences a bit frosty and a slight misunderstanding (caused last night where i got my brother drunk and then, this morning had a blazing row with my dad) today. Luckily, the little apocalyptic argument that occurred vented the 'stration and now all's kosher again.

However, now on to the big news. I'm leaving. It's not you it's me. I'm getting up at 6, getting a coach to Belfast City George Best Airport, getting an aeroplane to Heathrow and officially going 'over the water'...again. Moving away has me excited.

So, although this is a small post, and quite non-descript, it's actually a massive turning point for me.

I'll be offline for a few days while I settle on a flat, but I'll try to take lots of photos, and may be needing some commenting advice on flats.

Wish me luck!
Con
x

Very short Repost

2009-09-09T09:59:00.001-07:00

My good buddy the Novelista Barista is having a BONANZA this week. To celebrate the (admirable and enviable) feat of attaining 200+ followers, she's decided to give away rather spiffing bracelet. All you have to do is be a follower and post a comment here.

Best of luck!!

101 THINGS TO DO IN 1001 DAYS

2009-09-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

I got this idea from the lovely hostess of Live in Imagination who in turn got it from the Day Zero Project.

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of work on my part).

Italics - haven't started
Bold - In progress
Strikethrough – Completed

START DATE: Tuesday 8th September 2009
END DATE: Tuesday 5th June 2012

1. ~~Quit Smoking Cigarettes~~
2. Run a marathon, preferably the London Marathon.
3. Enter the Mongol Rally
4. Complete the Mongol Rally…or failing that; get as far as physically possible without dying.
5. Raise £3000+ for charity
6. Get my driving license (before January 2010)
7. Get my first car. (Not the Mongol Rally one, that one will be held on trust for the person who’ll take possession of it when I finally reach Ulan Baatar)
8. Buy a fitted suit from a Saville Row tailor (this one is a bit ambitious, as the average SR suit costs about £5000)
9. Play, and win a game of vingt et un at the Monte Carlo Casino
10. Have a piece published in a big newspaper/magazine
11. ~~Submit a completed script for review by a production company~~.
12. Submit a completed manuscript for a novel for review by a publishing house.
13. Begin either salsa or swing dancing classes.
14. Compose three new tunes that can be played by an Irish trad band.
15. Write and perform a 10-minute stand-up routine at the Comedy Store.
16. Have at least 1 more boxing match, for charity.
17. Read Wuthering Heights (and try not to root for Heathcliff.)
18. Shave my head.
19. Travel to Lexington VA, to visit my friends there (must be completed before March 2010)
20. See New York in winter.
21. Travel to Africa.
22. Try Speed Dating.
23. Begin to learn another language, and have made some progress in fluency by the end-date.
24. Learn how to play ‘Pink Moon’ by Nick Drake on guitar.
25. See Yann Tiersen in concert again.
26. See King Crimson perform ‘Court of the Crimson King’ live. Somehow.
27. Make peace with RK, for Karma reasons.
28. Return the books I borrowed from my friend John Lamont in May 2008 – that are sitting on a bookshelf right in front of me.
29. Have a conversation with either Stephen Fry or Will Self.
30. See 10 live stand-up gigs
31. Live nocturnally for a week.
32. Find the exact pub in which I helped my uncle install AV equipment this summer (when I was in England that’s what I did sometimes) It’s called ‘The Aviator” and it’s in some part of SW London.
33. Take a flying lesson.
34. Read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books again.
35. Get tickets to be in the audience for the radio recordings of what will be a TV comedy show. e.g. – That Mitchell and Webb Sound OR Get tickets to be in the audience for an episode of QI.
36. Meet Charlie Brooker.
37. Go vegetarian for a month.
38. ~~Find a flat in London~~.
39. Punch a racist. Right in the kisser. Preferably a card-carrying member of the BNP.
40. Go to a normal mass (not a wedding/funeral etc) once again just to make sure I’m 100% about the atheism thing.
41. ~~Begin and maintain a letter-writing correspondence with GO’M and J-AS~~.
42. Read War and Peace
43. Visit Edinburgh for a weekend.
44. Grow my hair long, just to see if I have to patience for it.
45. Get another tattoo.
46. Learn the Czech Song ‘Jozin z Bazin’.
47. Watch every film John Candy made.
48. Drive on highway 66.
49. See the original copydex scroll that ‘On the Road’ is written on.
50. Read Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
51. Learn how to cook an haute cuisine three course meal
52. Visit a Turkish bath.
53. Find out how a car engine works, and get a basic knowledge of how to fix it when it cocks up.
54. Buy a hammock.
55. ~~Find a nice tobacconists shop in London, with a nice blended pipe-tobacco to rival my favourite – Peterson’s Connoisseur’s Choice.~~
56. Visit Cuba and have a proper mojito.
57. Along with my Rally partner – Ruairí Ó Maolain – come up with a spec. outline for a television comedy.
58. ~~Shave the beard…at some point~~.
59. Buy an overcoat, one that will last for years.
60. Watch the entire Stanley Kubrick back catalogue.
61. Fire a crossbow at a scarecrow, or some other equally alluring target.
62. Arrive at an airport and have someone waiting with a sign bearing my name.
63. Get thrown out of a posh restaurant.
64. ~~.Find a ‘local’ in London that does a good Guinness and a good pint of bitter.~~.
65. Celebrate my 25th birthday in style. (Not too sure how to do this, but it can only be judged after the event.)
66. Attend a symphony performance of the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst. Must be accompanied by a date/friend.
67. Play a session with a bluegrass band.
68. Learn to play one song on the mandolin.
69. Watch every episode of The Wire
70. Read either Milton’s Paradise Lost or Dante’s Inferno
71. Shoot a Lee Enfield Mk3 .303 rifle, or a Thompson .45 SMG.
72. Have a reunion with two of the best friends I ever had: Gabrielle DeCourcy and Theresa Dougherty.
73. Plant and grow a lavender bush.
74. Try to blag my way into a gentleman’s Club to see what the fuss is all about.
75. Find a small, reasonably priced Italian restaurant in London that does delicious food.
76. Attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, just to make sure she’s dead.
77. See/Hear Itzhak Perlman perform live in concert.
78. Drive along the Blue Ridge Mountains, just once more. Preferably while listening to Fleet Foxes.
79. Buy a set of Christmas presents that have been 100% thought out, and bought at least a month before Christmas. OR, make a present.
80. Meet two of my online heroes: The Novelista Barista and Nik from Serendipi-tea.
81. Do ‘Morning pages’ for a whole month, to try and develop the habit of writing.
82. Sleep in a coffin, just for a few hours.
83. ‘Get in shape’, whatever that may mean (basically get back into the shape I was in around January/February when I was boxing except about 1 stone heavier and not as skinny)
84. Try to appear as ‘the man in the street’ on the news, but with a pirate voice and a previously unnoticed limp.
85. Teach a Minah Bird how to say a phrase in Irish, or make the noise of an extending lightsaber.
86. Attend a Ray Mears survival weekend.
87. Do something incredibly stupid but cool: skydive/bungee jump etc
88. Show something that I’ve written to my grandfather, great uncle Brian or ‘uncle’ Stephen for their professional opinion.
89. Qualify as an Attorney for the State of New York by passing the bar exam.
90. Meet Alexa Chung, Rosamund Pike or Gemma Arterton and try not to trip over my tongue. (The ‘stretch’ here is maintaining a conversation and not automatically hyperventilating or asking them to marry me.)
91. Drive an Aston Martin DB6.
92. Have my wee sis over to London to see a show for her 16th birthday.
93. Eat a fish that I’ve caught, cleaned and cooked. (Not a huge stretch, but must be a cod or mackerel, caught off Cruit Island in Co. Donegal, which is the greatest place in the world, but a place that I never see as often as I’d like.)
94. Win a pub quiz – in first place.
95. Become proficient with cryptic crosswords and be able to complete the Times crossword alone.
96. Start a vegetable patch or a herb garden.
97. Enter a Texas Hold’Em Competition
98. Read Ulysses again (now that I’m old enough to understand it)
99. Save 12.5% of what I earn for a year.
100. Qualify as a solicitor.

101. Write another list.

Quick post

2009-09-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

I'm just after waking up with a beam of sunlight directly in my eyes. Then when, I tried to reach out to stop my mobile from screaming at me, the whole left side of my body was numb from where I'd been lying on it...I thought I was having a fucking stroke or something.

Anyway, I'm for the dentist today to have my first proper filling. NOT looking forward to it, although the dentist is very pretty. That's probably a bad thing though. The last thing I wanna worry about is getting too comfortable on her chair...that would be a classy move.

Also, had the first night of the play last night, playing accompaniment with the band. The theatre's sound guy, who had spent roughly 3/4 of the tech rehearsal and nearly all the dressed rehearsal lecturing us on certain dead-obvious things for the past few days (quote to nervous actor: "make sure you speak into the mike and try not to sound like you're remembering lines.") missed THREE of my cues, so that the organ drone came in late at the very beginning and very end and in one piece my percussion wasn't even heard (yeah, I've somehow been roped into playing keyboard/organ...I'll explain later). The poor guy has his head so far us his own arse he mustn't be able to properly hear the dialogue...

Yeah, this is rambling and incoherent as fuck, but remember the whole 'thought-I-was-having-a-stroke' thing.

Late Night Thoughts - reversion

2009-08-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight, as usual, I'm lying in my bed, exhausted, trying to relax and allow my mind to unwind. I can't sleep. My silly brain is doing its usual trick of zapping around like a bee that's high on E-numbers from drinking too much orange squash and so I'm reading and thinking of things that I will write tomorrow. Instead of working today (on the idea I have been developing for a few weeks) and actually putting some effort into the craft that I want to spend the rest of my life doing, I've been fucking around, surfing the net and looking for 'obscure porn' on youtube. While this might be vaguely interesting or funny, I'm feeling what I often feel on these late nights when I can't sleep, that I've squandered a large portion of my life that I'll never get back.

The rain is hitting against the skylight in my room with such force that it's almost offensive, beating a tattoo as I lie here, cursing myself for wasting my life. Usually, I love the sound of the rain on that window, it's incredibly relaxing and reminds me of when I was younger, but tonight, it seems almost mocking. When I was about seven, I would lie awake listening to the rain and try to see if I could keep my eyes open for longer than the downpour lasted, playing chicken with the night outside. Needless to say I always lost.

Somehow the years fell away quickly, and now this bedroom is only a place I stay when I return home during the holidays. It's no longer 'my room', but rather the 'spare room'. In fact, the only thing that connects this room to my childhood is the view outside. The back gardens and roof-tops of all the houses of the neighbours around me, and the view of the river leading towards the sloping beauty of the city walls and the valley. It's weird, I vaguely miss the place when I'm away from home, and I love to be back, but there's always a huge part of me that wants to keep moving, an inability to rest.

I've noticed as well that when I'm back home I revert to who I was as a child. Most of my friends are the same, something for which I feel blessed, with (thank fuck) a few exceptions, and I feel that I am self-confident enough to relax in almost any social situation. Somehow, however, when I meet some of the people I knew in school, people I've known for years, I clam up. Me, who usually never knows when to stop nattering on, stands on the fringe of the 'chatting outside the pub' group trying to think of something to say, and realising that I've got next to nothing to say. Maybe I've become really boring, or maybe I've just grown apart from some of these people. The reversion is that feeling of being on the fringe of a large group that I've always felt, like being right back in my old school uniform. I know that it's reversion because it's a million times different to how I normally feel when I'm out and it proves to me that I must have changed, that I AM changed, irrevocably. I dunno whether that's for the better or the worst.

Anyway, as I'm writing this, trying to find words to describe what's jolting through my mind, I've suddenly noticed that the rain outside has stopped, and that by being awake, I've won the game I was playing with the night sky all those years ago. I'd give anything to have lost it though, it seems like a pyhrric victory.

I hope it rains again.

Obscure Porn #2 - Bacne Porn and Exploding Sebaceous Cysts

2009-08-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

If you thought gun porn was a bit odd, this will maybe freak you out a little bit. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you BACNE PORN.

People love squeezing stuff out of themselves, it's like a basic instinct. Even I, who can't watch those awful 'swan'-like makeover shows (which I'll go into later - basically the idea of voluntary self-mutilation freaks the fucking shit outta me) love to squeeze the shit out of all those little black heads and spots that I get. It's unbelievably satisfying.

This is a slight step above that...

Am I the only one finds this oddly compelling?

This one, however, is slightly nauseating. My mother loves this sort of stuff, but THIS one brgins about a physical reaction in me, when I watch it it makes me taste blood.

So, I'm pretty sure that this is an illness of some sort, the obsession that some people have with watching cysts, spots and boils explode. If you follow the links, however, you'll see that there are thousands upon thousands of these small videos to be found.

There is, like most genres of entertainment, a subgenre of 'insect bite pus' porn. Here's a prime example

Fucking awful!

I WOULD open a box of kleenex, but maybe only to dab away the blood in my mouth. Sometimes I just don't get it.

Disgusting times.