Parents and some Disney Magic

My parents came to visit this morning and I was really excited about this fact. We went to a small village called Stockbridge (a proper small village with butchers, greengrocers and a hunting/fishing shop) and found a small restaurant to eat in there. I had a chicken tikka masala (not the best ever but not the worst either) but the weird thing was you couldn’t actually pay by credit card- I don’t they’ve made it to those remote parts of Hampshire yet! We then returned to Winchester where I showed my mum and dad the house we are living in next year and we did a little shopping.

Throughout the morning we talked about the rubbish mood I’ve been in lately and this made things a bit better. I’m still rubbish at actually talking my problems through with people, even my parents. I can eloquently write down thoughts and feelings but actually turning them into speech seems impossible. But my parents are always willing to listen to whatever I do manage to blurt out. It’s odd how the relationship with your parents changes. Whilst it was nice to be with them when I lived with them, it’s especially nice to be with them now when I no longer do. I guess though I don’t really think about it consciously that much, I really do miss them when I am away.

Armed with a new parcel of food dropped in by helicopter (given to me by mum and dad really but I like the idea of being a charity case), I had a fairly lazy afternoon around the house until it was time for me to accompany a few friends to the weekly uni quiz. We came in a respectable place and won £1.50 for our efforts. Then this evening we watched three Disney classics that I haven't seen before. Of course I have seen most of the Disney films in my childhood but these three I seen because they are more girly ones. As a kid I loved the animal ones especially The Jungle Book, the video of which I nearly ran out.

First up was Beauty and the Beast, the restored version with the occasional 3D update by Pixar. This is a proper musical Disney film and I liked it. You can’t really go wrong with a romantic story, especially with the horrible rival that is Gaston and talking furniture makes the film. The music is lovely, especially the song based on the title. Would I have liked it as a child? Probably a bit but I would have found the few sections with wolves in terrifying thanks to a recurring dream I used to have.

Next was Cinderella which was definitely the worst of the three. The story of Cinderella is fairly simple and so it had to be dragged out a fair bit with the use of mice which spoke very much like Alvin and the Chipmunks but slightly more annoying if that’s possible and a grumpy cat called Lucifer. Also I thought Prince Charming was quite dull in this one and hardly someone who every woman wanted to be married to. Would I have liked it as a child? No, I would have got bored. If you want the story of Cinderella stick with a pantomime.

Finally it was The Little Mermaid which I really enjoyed. The fact that it’s a bit different to other Disney princess films with it being under the sea and everything made it enjoyable and unlike most how the story takes you to the final outcome is unpredictable. Ursula is a proper evil villain and the idea of having a crab with a French accent, for no particular reason, is brilliant. Plus “Under the Sea” has got to be one of the best Disney songs EVER!

You can now see what living in a university that is mainly girls is doing to me. I doubt I would have sat through three such films before starting uni. Still, it’s nice to sit and have a laugh other silly things with the housemates and actually all Disney films have a happy ending and that also adds a cheery factor to life. You may be able to tell I’m quite chirpy tonight. Fingers crossed this will continue for some time. And I now only need three followers before I post my drunk singing video so click that “Follow” button now!

Responding

Hiya. Today has been another miserable day. Most of them are at the moment. But that’s the way things go. It would be pretty good to talk to a counsellor right now actually. It’s free at uni so might be worth a try. I’ve always wanted to have a counsellor and be able to talk to them once a week. I’m sure it would help. This blog makes a massive difference to the way I feel though and good comments always put a smile on my face. HINT HINT. Anyway, I thought seeing as though I have little else to say I would respond to a few recent comments.

i went back to uni as well, we all went out and chose to have jagermeister served in a disco ball, yeah we thought it was gonna be fantastic. it wasn't. it was like half a disco ball, so really i disco bowl, least to say we were very disappointed! by LauRen That is an excellent story. I really want to have jagermeister in a disco ball, even a disco bowl would suffice. Mind you I’m attempting to take a break from drinking large volumes of alcohol seeing as though I’ve done it a lot since I’ve been back at Uni and am sort of turning into an alcoholic.

Hope you check out mine [blog] - mancalazonk.blogspot.com - its a video game review site but i'm finding it hard to get people to follow it. I suppose i'l just have to be patient :) Blatant attempt to get more followers. I had a look and after seeing several posts which were biased against Nintendo I decided I would not be following. I am a Nintendo guy, always have been and always will be.

awesome! i've actually been meaning to watch this film [The King’s Speech] for some time now since i am studying to be a speech therapist as well. hopefully i'll be able to watch it sometime this week. glad you enjoyed it. nice review. haha. :D- From Ishashime Wow, being a speech therapist would be an excellent job. I can imagine how satisfying it could be when someone’s speech improves. I also imagine that it will take a lot of effort to become one but I wish you all the best in it. And thanks for saying it was a nice review.

I don't believe that this was your best day. We are at the beginning of 2011 and still have so many days, which could become "the best" :)  This was on my post about my day in London where I said that it was the best day of 2011 so far. I never said it would stay the best day of 2011! I highly expect to have a better day- if I don’t 2011 will be a bloody awful year.

Hey, I'm new to blogging and need some help. You seem to know what you're doing. I'm following your blog in hopes of picking up a few pointers. Feel free to check mine out, although it's pretty plain right now :( http://interested-graphik.blogspot.com Another blatant attempt to get more followers though I did like the fact that they said I seem to know what I’m doing. I like to think so anyway. They’re right about it being a bit plain, the posts are actually OK but there are few of them. This is one I will come back to in the hope of it becoming a good blog.

[On Formspring] Your blog is brilliant :D It’s a bit weird when I get an anonymous comment like that ‘cos I feel like the person is hiding something. But when the comment is as lovely as that I don’t care too much.

There you go, thanks to all those lovely commenters. Keep ‘em coming. The highlight of today have been Josh drying his crotch with a hairdryer after spilling water all down it when washing up and our attempt to play the final game of classic TV gameshow The Crystal Maze with the hairdryer as a fan and little bits of paper as the tokens. It was fantastic fun but the most anyone got was four bits of paper. I also discovered the delights of fish finger sandwiches for the first time. They are so flipping nice!

Tomorrow brings perhaps a slightly better day as my parents are coming to visit. It will be lovely to see them, when you’re in such a bad mood it’s nice to have your parents around to make things feel better. Some of my friends are quite concerned about my recent mood I gather which is nice of them. Sorry for being such a grumpy sod lately but while the world continues to pour various negative things on me it’s difficult not to be. Hopefully things will get better soon…

A Day at the Zoo

Seeing as though we don’t have much to do, a large chunk of my friendship group went to the local zoo, Marwell Wildlife, for the day. Ten of us went in total but getting there wasn’t exactly easy. First we had to get on a bus but unfortunately a couple of the group were running a bit late so we missed the first one and had to hang around the town for nearly an hour. We eventually got on the bus and the bus driver kindly informed us which stop we needed to get off at. The bus stop though was a considerable walk from the entrance to the zoo. Being a local lad I have been to Marwell many a time and even consider it one of my special places. The experience was not quite so good this time. It’s January and was very cold, both for us and the animals, many of which were sheltered inside. And because it’s the quietest time of the year a lot of maintenance work was being done so quite a few bits were closed. Apart from the tropical house, I got to see all my favourites. Cue the pictures (all taken by yours truly):

 

Penguins (of the Humbolt variety). Gotta love ‘em.

Obviously that’s a tiger. And a big one too.

One tired looking lemur.

A pair of Laughing Kookaburras.

That’s the group walking back home in the sunset.

 

Perhaps the best thing about Marwell, and why I love it so much, is that unlike many zoos it doesn’t and never had just put animals on display for people to see. They are there for the conservation of the animals  and the reason most of them are there is because they are better off in the zoo than where they came from either because they were being kept as a pet or occasionally because putting the animal in the zoo is the only option to ensure the species does not become extinct. All the animals have suitable enclosures rather than just cages and animals that usually can’t be kept properly in a zoo like elephants, pandas and polar bears aren’t here (incidentally Chester Zoo has a fantastic elephant enclosure that is massive and perfect for them, but takes a hell of a lot of space). So yeah. It’s an amazing place.

This evening my mood had been reduced back to the usual depression that it has been in over the past week. For once though it went away fairly quickly thanks to my brilliant friend Josh. We went to the pub together, had a pint and chatted for flipping ages. This cheered us both up and tomorrow we are making plans so that the next week in both of our lives is flipping awesome. Thanks Josh for cheering me up, you are an amazing friend.

Significantly Weak Areas

Today is one of those occasions where I have started writing the blog early in annoyance. I have just got back the assignment that I handed in just before Christmas and am not particularly pleased with the result. It came with a special sheet that says is was “awarded a pass mark, but has some significant areas of weakness”. Considering how much time and effort I put into it I am pretty annoyed to say the least. Whilst I can except that I needed to have done more reading and could have explained things better, I am rather frustrated at other reasons I was marked down for. One of these things was written English! My written English is flipping good and I got marked down because I wrote it how I speak rather than the contrived essay talk I was supposed to use. Marked down for “shouldn’t” rather than “should not” and the like. Also I got marked down on my referencing, partly for not capitalizing the author “de Veillers”. You’re not supposed to capitalize it. The word “de” is French for of and therefore you don’t capitalize it, even in a name.

Still, a pass is a pass. But it’s a massive knock to my already dwindling confidence and makes me wonder if I can really survive my course. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have made good friends and generally enjoy uni life (though not so much at the moment), I would be out of here.

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Many hours later and my mood is a lot better. My parents have convinced me over the phone that I wasn’t that bad and I’ve booked an appointment with my personal tutor to try and help me. A bit of work and I can turn this around.

I had the first lecture of the year on managing behaviour this afternoon which, over than a bit of admin, I found quite interesting. Behaviour has got to be one of the most important issues to address in order to become a good teacher so I paid special attention. And I also got to write notes in my new little pad which was nice.

Tonight was the first session of rock ‘n’ roll bingo at the local pub and despite the low turn out it was a good night. On the first game I got a row and won a pitcher of Cherry sourz/coke which I then proceeded to drink most of. Fortunately this didn’t really make me drunk, just a little tipsy and therefore happier. A moderate amount of alcohol really can make a night better. I’m in the best mood I have been in for perhaps a week and a trip to the zoo tomorrow, with a small possibility of something amazing happening, only makes things better. I can’t wait!

 

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and it’s quite difficult to know what to say to mark that occasion. Click this next link to read a piece I co-wrote for my school and local newspaper about my trip to the most infamous concentration camp of the Holocaust, Auschwitz. Hope it makes you think a little.

The King’s Speech

After another rubbish day which contained more grumpiness and a wild goose chase to find a colour printer, I decided to accompany Jaz, Alice and Tiffany to the cinema to see The King’s Speech.

Unless you have just escaped from being in a deep hole for several months you will know that said film see Colin Firth play King George VI (Bertie), a king who struggled with a speech impediment and how to sought the help of Lionel Logue, a speech therapist, played by Geoffrey Rush. It’s very rare that I go to see a film based on a true story as most over dramatize an event or a person’s life. The King’s Speech doesn’t do this. It’s a simple film and actually focuses on a lesser story of the history at the time: the speech impediment rather than Edward VIII forced to abdicate in order to marry the woman he loved or the impending war coming from Hitler’s Germany.

Colin Firth has received all sorts of awards for his role in this film and has been nominated as Best Male Actor at the Oscars. And he properly deserves it. His part is so much more than an important man who stammers (though he does that very well) as he successfully portrays shyness, anger, relief as well as a bunch of other emotions incredibly believably. Geoffrey Rush plays the part of the speech therapist really well too, providing most of the comic bits of the film (there’s quite a few actually which I was surprised about). It was also nice to see Helena Bonham-Carter play a normal character (Bertie’s Wife).

I swear half the cast of Harry Potter were in the film. Obviously there was Bellatrix Le Strange (Bonham-Carter) but there was also Wormtail (Timothy Spall as Churchill) and Dumbledore (Michael Gambon as Bertie’s father). Also popping up were the Master (Derek Jacobi), Karen from TV sitcom Outnumbered (I don’t actually know her name) and of course Geoffrey Rush is Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean. What a brilliant cast! (Though my Doctor Who brain couldn’t quite cope with the Master (Jacobi) reading out a prayer to the dead Kazran Sardick (Gambon)).

All in all, amazing. I doubted that a film about a speech impediment could be that good but I was wrong. The cast is all superb, it’s pretty much historically accurate, the scenery looks very Edwardian, the camera angles are perfect and it’s just brilliant. I genuinely can’t think of any improvement I would want from the film and I can’t see how anyone could fail to like it. Go see it.

Scarily I have a 9AM lecture for the first time. The earliest I’ve been up for weeks is 9AM and the thought of actually being somewhere by then is quite daunting. Bed it is then. After all, tomorrow could be the best day of my life. It probably won’t be, but it could be.

I Watch Some Stand-Up

Right then. Time for a blog. I had four hours sleep last night and for someone who delights in spending whole days in bed on a regular basis this was not a good thing at all.Still, life must go on.

The highlight of the day was another Comedy Central Stand Up night at the Student Union. It was hilarious.

Host of the night was a guy called Tom Allen who was very obviously gay and reminded me a lot of Josh (though Josh isn’t actually gay- more on that shortly). Allen was brilliant with audience interaction and told some hilarious stories. I would have quite happily sat,listened and laughed to just him for the whole time. He’s the funniest comedian I’ve seen at one of these stand-up events so far and I heartily recommend seeing him.

The first act was Matt Osborn. He seems a lovely man and was very an excellent speaker but the only trouble was he just wasn’t that funny. I feel bad saying things like this but I’m a sort of journalist so I kind of have to say what I really think. There were some good jokes though, he wasn’t completely dull, just could have been significantly better.

The headline act was Ivan Brackenbury (though his real name is Tom Binns). Basically Ivan Brackenbury is a hospital radio DJ and did a “live” broadcast to a hospital called Disease Hour. The main laughs are from the fact he plays the most inappropriate songs for patients in the hospital, like “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes” for a patient with serious gout. It’s clever comedy that is actually simple but hilarious. There are almost limitless jokes and songs he could use so this is an act that could go on forever. It’s certainly good enough to!

Onto more serious matters now though. Firstly I would like to congratulate my good friends Josh and Katie on embarking on a relationship (told you he wasn’t gay). I feel I ought to claim at least a small part in this one: if I hadn’t spoken to Katie on Facebook before uni and introduced her to my housemates they would probably never have met. I seem to have a knack for introducing people who eventually end up together, it’s at least the third time to my knowledge. But anyway, congrats guys, it’s certainly about time!

And onto myself. My general mood is not good at all. I’ve got a serious case of January Blues as a cliché might claim. Basically nothing is going particularly well right now. The only thing I have to look forward to is a trip to the zoo on Friday and then it’s another empty week followed by full time lectures again. I need something good to happen to me really. Oh well. Here’s my friends attempt at cheering me up on Facebook, and it at least put a smile on my face.

Super Noodles and Cheap Pasties

Bonjour mes amis! Hope everything is going swimmingly in the outside world. It really does feel like an enclosed world here at uni. With a lack of lectures I only see a few people and don’t really go very far. It’s rather odd. I’m in a much better mood today, partly because all the issues I discussed in the last post appear to have been solved with the help of the odd Facebook message and the hope I mentioned continues to grow ever stronger.

Every day I seem to grow a little closer to becoming fully nocturnal. Bed times are now some time after 3AM and I don’t emerge from my room ‘til sometime after midday. I write this at 12:22AM and I’m not really tired at all. This isn’t too much of a problem when I have free time like I do at the moment but when I have lectures again and have to be in places at 9AM I will become a bit of a mess until I get used to normal sleeping hours again.

The highlight of today has got to be the amazing shopping trip I went on with lovely housemate Dani. We are the quickest shoppers in the house and we did a massive food shop and were done within half an hour, considerably less time than when we are with the others. It was also a successful shopping trip as I bought large amounts of food. 3 packets of cous-cous (love the stuff), 2 packets of pasta, some chicken strips, some fish fingers, some snacks and an incredible 9 packets of Super Noodles. I have discovered I love them and am going to virtually live on them for the next term (plus they were on offer). Check out my cupboard:

I won’t need to buy food for meals for a good few weeks. Mind you, getting all that stuff up the monstrosity of a hill that is Mount Winchester was a bit of a nightmare. But I made it in the end and now have a fantastically full cupboard.

On the way back I was fortunate to pass the pasty shop near closing time when they sell off all the remaining pasties for only £1 each. I of course could not resist this opportunity of a free meal and bought a traditional Cornish pasty. It was absolutely delicious and I may plan shopping trips to be outside said pasty shop just before closing time.

My Christmas DVD’s have helped me keep the boredom at bay as I re-watch some of my favourite sketch shows: Series 3 of The Armstrong and Miller Show and Series 4 of That Mitchell and Webb Look. Both are good but Mitchell and Webb has some of the funniest sketches I have ever seen. It really is a superb comedy show.

No doubt I shall be awake for many hours to come and chance are I will fail to see anything at all of the morning’s daylight but there you go. Tomorrow I’m going to see some stand-up comedy, make sure you come take a look at that!

Amateur Dramatics

Well. Hello. The last few days have been eventful to say the least. But then what’s life without a bit of drama? And it’s about time I shared this minor drama with you. When I first started this blog I always planned to share such things but people I know actually read this so it’s a bit difficult. I would advise that if you know me, especially if you are at uni with me and saw me on Saturday night to not read any further. Might be for the best.

So, let’s delve into this then. On Friday night I had a tiny bit of drama where my friend asked me if I had a problem with her after I announced I was going to bed rather than returning to her house with her. This episode followed a walk together up the hill back home (Mount Winchester as we have christened it) which involved little conversation between us. This wasn’t because I have a problem with said friend but because I was eating a McFlurry and also because I have a lot on my mind right now re:girls and stuff. But yes. My supposed dislike was nothing more than a mouthful of ice cream and an overflow of male hormones.

After a rather dull Saturday myself, Josh and Jaz decided to have a “lad’s night out” at the pub whilst the girls watched films. Alice decided she was more in the mood for the pub then girly films and became a man for the night (no she didn’t have a temporary sex change operation, she was just pretending for the night lol). We sat in the pub generally complaining about the opposite gender as all three of us have had bad experiences with them in recent times. Josh and I decided we may as well drink a fair bit though I had a fair bit more than him.

So by the time I arrived home I was fairly sploshed. This would have ordinarily been fine but someone decided to start videoing me. Last time this happened I had to spend the next few days watching the thing and was full of embarrassment so this time I refused to let it happen and walked off, not even picking up my shoes on the way out. I found some steps and sat on them and my slight annoyance as well as the previous thoughts on girls and stuff were amplified by alcohol and my mood quickly declined. I was eventually found looking miserable by the friend involved in yesterday’s dislike predicament (that’s an important detail, remember it for later).

Let’s get things straight, I wasn’t that drunk. I’ve been much worse and done much more stupid things. I was relatively sensible last night, just a little emotional with a top-up of alcohol making me a bit of a nightmare. It’s fine being drunk, I’ve got used to being able to control that but emotions are still difficult.

The arrival of someone I know meant I was no longer alone so I returned home. My mixed up head decided I could do with a nice walk to cool off and have a little think so I grabbed some shoes and snuck out, making sure the door closed very quietly behind me.On the way out of the student village I met a friend who managed to cheer me up a fair bit and perhaps saved my emotions from taking further self-battering.  I walked down Mount Winchester and into town and was rather enjoying myself until the point I came across a whole host of drunk people as it was chucking out time. That was not a pleasant experience and I had to swiftly return home whilst attempting to avoid the drunken masses on the way. This experience was the worst I have had in a fair while.

I made it home and was given reassuring hugs from Josh and Alice. Apparently during the time I was out something happened/someone revealed/said something which caused a small schism in the house. For some reason there someone decided they were not liked and this upset others or something along those lines. Quite why this happened as the five of us get on really well and there is no one who is not liked. It’s like a little family and I appreciate everyone for the wonderful people they are.

I had managed to relax and realise the evening had been completely awful but I eventually found out that the dislike predicament friend, the one who had found me, had rushed off in a flood of tears after my return. I assume this is because I walked off after she found me and she assumed I walked off because of her. This is of course not the case, I have explained why went walkies. I realised by actions of the past two days had somehow managed to build up to a whole collection of things that looked like I hated someone when in actual fact weren’t really connected at all.

So all in all, it’s been an eventful few days. Things get out of hand really easily and human beings are complicated. But amongst all this chaos I am lucky enough to have a little hope. Hope is such a brilliant thing. It keeps me going!

January Q&A

Hello and welcome to my January Question and Answer, where I gather the best questions from my Formspring and blog comments and answer them! A few Christmas/New Year one’s have snuck in here too!

It’s fun being a stalker isn’t it? by Smilelikewoe: I’m sure there was a reason for this questions but goodness knows what it was. But it is fun to follow round someone you fancy a bit or keep looking at their Facebook profile. There’s a fine line though between liking them and being creepily into them that shouldn’t ever be crossed.

Vanilla or chocolate?: Chocolate every time, I love me some chocolate. I actually am a chocoholic.

How do I get the bad smell off my retainer?: I have no idea, I know virtually nothing about retainers having not had one myself. I don't like to ask where the bad smell came from. I prescribe several extra-strong mints.

What is your favourite movie? As usual I shall say “The Muppet’s Christmas Carol”.

What is your favourite colour? Blue. I love blue stuff. A fair majority of my clothing is blue.

One thing you are really good at? Looking after/teaching children. I am going to be a teacher in a few year’s after all.

One embarrassing thing nobody knows about you? Since this questions was posted I actually wrote an entire blog post revealing some embarrassing things.

Your New Year’s Resolution (if any)? I wrote about this on my blog too, see here.

Good Christmas? What did you get and was there anything you wish you’d gotten? Reasonable Christmas. I didn't get much that was very exciting, mostly DVDs and a bit of money which I have spent on more DVDs. Boosting the collection. I'm pretty much happy with what I got.

What have been your favourite moments of 2010? by Dani, housemate. I wrote a review of my 2010 on the blog!

Do you have Bieber Fever? Good God no. This is literally the only time those words will ever appear on this page. The majority of guys his age could have been as successful. And he’s really stupid.

2008;2009;2010; and expectations for 2011; good years or bad years? 2008: Amazing, 2009: Good, 2010: Bad. I expect things to pick up again in 2011 and be amazing once again.

Your date, who you liked for ages and likes you back, kisses someone else in front of you when she/he’s drunk. Do you forgive? Though I usually answer questions like these I struggle with this one. That would kill me. I guess you do forgive, because you like them. The brain might say no but the heart probably says yes.

Has your binman come yet (first time after Christmas?): Yes.

Do you think facial hair is attractive? No. Never has a woman with a beard turned me on.

Straight, bi, lesbian or gay? What do you think of sexists? Racists? Have you ever been sexually or racially profiled? Straight (though I am tempted to answer “lesbian”). I think both sexists and racists are twats, we all people and all essentially the same. And no, I havn’t been.

Do you think you have to be a certain age to love someone truly? I would say yes but it depends on the individual. Some are capable of true love at 14, some not til well into their twenties.

Is it true you once killed a man? LOL, no.

What colour are your eyes? Brown, very brown.

Do you enjoy cupcakes? Is that supposed by so some silly innuendo for something? I like real cupcakes as in little cakes in little paper. Especially chocolate ones.

What is the most played song on your iPod? Sexy Bitch by David Guetta Feat Akon. Love it!

Well, what a brilliant set of questions I’ve had this month. Keep them coming and I’ll answer the next set in about February!

Tidying and Stuff

OK, so I thought I should at least attempt to write something like a normal blog entry today, discussing the usual random things I’ve been getting up to. It’s been relatively little really but I do have a few typically absurd tales to tell.

First of all has to be the amusing time I had last night. Yesterday had been a boring day what with everyone either being busy or asleep and even the usual Thursday night rock and roll bingo not being on but the four hours spent in Josh’s room made up for it. It was me, Josh and Alice sat in there having a laugh over a wide variety of things but a large period of that time involved me and Josh being in bed together. It was basically because Alice had suggested we share a room next year so we can have a living room so we were jokingly testing out sleeping together. I realise that this sounds incredibly homosexual but I think you’ll find that all best friends spend some time in bed together at some point. And Alice was there the whole time anyway.

There is an element of drama and gossip going through the friendship group at the moment. I’m not quite sure why but things that have past been known but not talked about have been openly discussed. Perhaps it’s something to do with Valentine’s Day coming up in only a few weeks. What a depressing day that usually turns out to be. Still, with no real hope for anything happening I can’t really be disappointed. It will be interesting to see if any new relationships begin over the next few weeks though.

Boredom has led me to tidying up a lot of stuff. This is most unlike me actually but hey, I’ve been bored. First I tidied a load of crap of my shelf, including a load of stuff about becoming a fresher and starting uni which I clearly don’t need anymore. Then this morning I was rearranged by cupboard and did so really effectively.What was once an overflowing cupboard now looks half full.

I then moved some stuff around in my room in order to create some more space. Rooms in university halls are usually quite small so it’s always good to create extra space where possible. I moved the spare chair out the room and gave it to Alice and tidied stuff in my wardrobe so I could put my laundry basket in there.It’s feels nice to have everything really tidy and organised.

I bought some new things today. It’s lovely to have new things. First were some sexy new boxer shorts, mostly in blue. Quite why I felt the need to share that with you I don’t know. It’s been a dull few days. I have also purchased my first ever electronic toothbrush. It’s exciting to upgrade from the manual and for possibly the first time ever I’m looking forward to brushing my teeth tonight.

This evening we played some Monopoly in the kitchen. I did fairly well now that I have discovered the excellent tactic of “buy everything”. Works well in Monopoly, not so good in real life though.

Apologies if this entry was slightly on the dull side but if it is it pretty much sums up the pre-timetable dullness I am experiencing right now. Hopefully some fun things will happen soon.

Dan the Superhero

Seeing as though this week is fairly dull thanks to a lack of work and general things to do I have few things to blog about. So I’ve decided to write about myself as a superhero. So this is what I would be like if I was a superhero and as I spent much of my childhood thinking about this I may go into some detail.

- First of all I would be fitter and stronger than I am now. If you’re beating up baddies you’ve got to be properly buff.

- I would have been fully trained in physical combat. I would know several martial arts and be able to fight with swords.

- I would also have had extensive weapon training. If handed any kind of weapon I would easily be able to use it with great speed and accuracy.

- Outfit is one of the more difficult decisions. A massive part of a superhero’s identity is their costume. I wouldn’t have a mask, it would just impair vision and I wouldn’t really need to be in disguise because no-one knows who I am anyway. The costume itself would be a dark blue colour and couldn't be too tight as would have a bullet-proof vest under it. Trousers would have to be pretty flexible, I’m sure classic superhero outfits rip all the time. And the idea of having underwear above your trousers is absolutely ridiculous.

- I would have loads of high-tech equipment thanks to my inventor-sidekick (more on him shortly). This includes a car with built in weapons, 4x4 drive, options to turn into a boat as well as champagne in the dashboard. It’s also really quick. But unlike people like James Bond the car is not converted from an actual car, it’s entirely original. Oh and it would be a similar dark blue to my costume.

- My sidekick is a super-intelligent talking rat that’s really good at inventing things. He’s called Basil.

- I can fly. That’s my only power though.

- I’m really brave. This is the most likely one for me to already have. My adventures with zombies in London the other day must be a slight indication there’s a bit of bravery in me somewhere.

There you go, that’s what I would be like if I was a superhero. I quite like the fact that I started off saying “would” but by the end in became more real in my head and I used “is”. I’ll be back tomorrow with my January Question and Answer, so ask some questions as a comment or on my Formspring.

A Trip to London

After a rather spontaneous decision last tonight I ended up going to out good country’s capital, London, for the day. Everyone was busy so I went off by myself and the first port of call was the Natural History Museum. I love this museum but I’ve never really had a proper chance to go around the whole thing. But today I could and it was a cheap way to spend a few hours seeing as though British museum are free nowadays. As a former geology A-level student I really enjoyed all the dinosaurs and other fossils as well as the Earth galleries. I love that sort of thing. I also enjoyed all the various animal bits. Here are a small collection of photos from the museum:

I also got to visit the relatively new “Darwin Centre” which teaches visitors about all the things the museum does and how they do it. This section is really interactive and has loads of touch screen activities which are quite fun. On one, with a bit of DNA sequencing, I helped come up with ways to stop the spread of malaria. On another I helped plan for a trip to Scotland to collect robber flies, and created a postcard too:

Whilst I was at the museum I discovered my friends Beth, Tiffany and Louise weren’t so busy and were actually coming to meet me. We eventually met up in Waterloo station and decided to head to Westminster where the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye are. This is us there, taken by a friendly stranger:

The British TV and Film museum is located there so we decided to give it a visit. It wasn’t brilliant but did have a few cool things in:

 

Me as “King Daniel I”. The throne was with some “Queen Elizabeth” items.

A model dinosaur from “Night at the Museum 2”. It scared the life out of us because it moves and we didn’t realise that!

Daleks from the 1965 film “Dr. Who and the Daleks”, starring Peter Cushing as the Doctor.

Our ticket for this also included entry into the “London Death Trap”, a live horror show. Basically we were led round this dark building and loads of zombies jumped out at us. I normally hate things that made me jump but this was actually brilliant fun. There was the four of us and a couple in are little group. The doctor was saying us two guys had to lead the way but the other guy was having none of it so it was up to me to lead the way down the dark corridors. Amazingly I didn’t scream once though the same can’t be said of the girls. Tiffany was screaming the whole way round pretty much whilst Beth and Louise weren’t that much better, both grabbing my arms on various occasions.

Leading a group of girls through a zombie-ridden laboratory made me feel unusually manly. I got called a “hero” on one occasion briefly and was generally praised for my bravery. And now I know if zombies ever become real I may well be OK.

After some time visiting random parts of London via the underground at rush hour (that’s certainly an experience) and then managing to miss a train, we eventually made it back to Winchester. The day was certainly a good one and I may even go as far as to say it was the best day of 2011 so far!

The Grumpy IT Man

YAY! I’ve finally got internet access on my own laptop. It was a bit of a pain getting it but that story is for later in the entry. First I need to catch up on a few cool things I have recently required.

I got this amazing Doctor Who T-shirt (based on the outfit of the Fourth Doctor) free thanks to HMV’s marvellous points scheme. It’s so amazing!

It’s tough to say whether this is cooler than the T-shirt or not. A Toy Story duvet cover for my uni bed. It’s is epic.

And now onto the mostly horrendous events of today. It began rather oddly. I left my room in my dressing gown having just got up in order to go for the usual morning toilet visit, only to be surprised by the presence of a man outside my room. He was part of the maintenance team and doing something to the boiler, which happens to be opposite my room.

Man: Morning

Me (in camp voice): Oh!

Not the best start ever but fortunately the man had vanished once I had left the toilet.

I then had my first uni session of the year and it was a rescheduled P.E. session from back when we had snow. Unfortunately someone, somewhere had cocked up and there was an overlap with the session before. Our original two hour session ended up being only an hour long though during this session we did learn how to catch and how to jump (and more importantly how to teach kids to do those things!) There was also a brief stint of skipping. This wasn’t good. I’m a man and like the majority of our gender I cannot skip very well at all. Fortunately the tutor picked on the rubbish skipping guy in the group. Phew!

After trekking up the massive hill back to my room, I took my laptop to IT support so they could work out how to set it up on the internet. The technician was really grumpy and had no patience with my frankly ancient laptop, mentioning several times that my machine is terrible. After an hour of stood in this stuffy room whilst a grumpy man dealt with my laptop and the flood of other people with similar problem. When I had left my room it was sunny and I was in just a T-shirt but by the time I left the IT office it was raining so I got quite wet.

This meant I was in a terrible mood when I finally arrived back at our kitchen. This was improved when myself and Alice worked out we could move the fridge back to where it had been when we first arrived, as long as we moved the fire extinguisher across the room. Eventually the fridge was back in place and I had even managed to score a minor victory against my fear of fire extinguishers as I successfully moved it across the room (the fear comes from one fell on my foot, long story!).

I spent a fair bit of time “giving my machine some TLC” as the engineer had put it as I tried to speed it up by deleting the many obsolete programs and defragging the disk. This seems to have made a small improvement. Then it was off into Winchester for a spot of shopping where I decided to purchase some oven gloves and the new album by White Lies, “Ritual”. I really liked White Lies’ first album and love the single “Bigger Than Us” so am hoping this album is even better!

I was very fortunate with my timing as we were just leaving town as most of the shops were beginning to consider closing for the day. This meant that we were passing the Cornish pasty shop just as they were selling off the last few pasties for only a £1 each. This was a really cheap dinner so many thanks to the wonderful Pasty Pesto. Not only was it cheap but it was really, really tasty.

I am now just five followers away from the magical 100 so keep on following people. The moment I get my 100th follower I shall post a video of me drunkenly singing to Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much” onto this blog. So follow. Follow. Follow…

Back to Uni

So here I am back at uni. Annoyingly thanks to the university's frustrating new IT system I can't seem to get on the internet right now so I'm having to steal Josh's laptop. He's busy tidying all the crap off his floor and the bed so it's fine.

Anyway, it is good to be back. I was somewhat shocked by the reception I got when I arrive though. I had always planned to come back on Sunday but instead came back today so I could see Josh a day earlier. I wandered into Josh's room to find him, Dani and Alice there and between them they produced a noise which was similar to a flock of birds being scared away. Josh also delighted in nearly squeezing me to death in a ridicuous hug. It's nice to actually feel wanted :)

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon organising my stuff and I have several things to show you put they're on my laptop so you'll have to wait 'til I have internet access again. I'm going to have to pay what could be a long and infuriating visit to the uni's IT support. I'll let you know how that goes.

Seeing as though it was the first night where most of us are back we decided to go the pub and myself and Josh decided to get very drunk. It began with a bottle of cider at home, followed my quite a few vodka's and coke at the pub, as well as a pitcher (between me and Josh) of a cocktail called "On the beach". No, not sex on the beach, just on the beach. No sex for us. By the time myself and Josh returned home (having visited another pub just to go to the toilet there) we were quite drink to say the least. It seemed a good idea to have some of the whiskey that Josh won in the pub's Christmas raffle. Perhaps not.

I can't quite remember all the events of last night but it was fun to say the least. I remember diving on the floor after a motorised hamster and also having a shot of milk but I have been informed there was also a hilarious moment when I was in the recycle bin and it fell over thanks to Josh's assitance as well as one where I did a booming rendition of Shania Twain's "That Don't Impress Me Much". The precense of video cameras in mobile phones means there is a video of that incident somewhere and I may well be able to bring that to you at some point- that will probaly be the treat for when I reach 100 followers!

So I'm glad to be back and look forward to many more hilarious events this term. Bring it on!

January Blogs of Note

Hello and welcome to my first blogs of note feature of 2011. Every now and then I like to share some new blogs I’ve discovered that I think are brilliant in the hope it puts a smile on the bloggers face and gets them a few more followers. So let’s see what brilliant blogs I have in line for you today!

The Blues, the blahs and the blarghs by Ishashime: “The ramblings of someone stuck in a perpetual childhood” is this blog’s tagline and it fits the blog well. The posts are a mixture of random things and it all looks lovely. One to watch. Oh and the link to a game on one of the posts made this post take much longer to write!

Bodacious Confessions by Rumana: “The everyday happenings of an 18 year-old (soon-to-be-19) teenage girl”. This is a new blog but so far it’s been pretty good. It also has a fantastically colourful background.

Meme Diary by Weissy: Best blog of this bunch. Unlike any other blog I’ve ever shared for this feature, this one displays bits of the author’s life through amusing little cartoon strips. Unbelievably she only has two followers right now so sort it out people!

Natti’s Cupcakes by Natti: The premise of this blog is pretty simple: Natti is very good at making cupcakes and indeed ordinary cakes and on her blog she shows us one’s she’s made and writes a little about how she made them. They are amazing cakes and are well worth a look!

Smile Like Woe: It’s another one of those blogs where the posts vary a lot on subjects by “a slightly insane, day-dreaming kind of sixteen year-old girl from Sri Lanka. As well as this she has commented quite a few times on this blog recently so I had to give her a shout out for that!

Penned by Taylor: A fantastically well-written blog by Taylor, a student in high school whose passion is writing. The posts vary on subject but all are brilliant.

So there you go, another set of fantastic bloggers for you all to visit. I sometimes feel that my followers and regular readers are like my minions and really have to resist the urge to end a post like this by saying “So minions, your mission is go and explore these blogs and report back here with your progress. I expect good results this time”. But yeah, check them out. And maybe you would like to be called minions. Let me know on that front with a comment

Friends and Forbidden Planet

Wow. What a day. Today was one of those few days that you realise will be embedded into your memory for a fair while.

Myself and my mate Chris had planned to go to the city of Southampton today but getting there was no easy matter when you live in a town with no train station and few bus routes. To get to Southampton we had to take two buses and change in Salisbury, which is a ridiculously out of the way route. We also had to wait in Salisbury for a bit and decided to go and get a coffee. Eventually we found a coffee shop we could get a seat in, just in time to see one of the barista's get coffee foam all over herself. I ordered what I thought was an chocolate ice dessert but turned out to be a cup full of cream with coffee in it. It was absolutely foul.

The bus between Salisbury and Southampton was quite an experience as some wise person at the bus company had decided to send out a single-decker bus to do a busy route. Myself and Chris had to stand for the first part of the journey, a difficult task on most occasions but going down the country lanes of Wiltshire, full of potholes, is even worse. We did however eventually make it into Southampton where we wandered around for a bit and browsed some shops. Chris was very excited by the fact HMV actually have the dance compilation CD his track is on whilst I was massively excited about all the Toy Story merchandise in the Disney store.

Eventually the time came to once again re-unite the infamous trio as we met up with Mike, who is actually at uni in Southampton. We decided it was time for some lunch and we chose to visit Nando’s. I was surprised to learn that neither Chris nor Mike had ever been into the amazing spicy chicken restaurant before. It was a lovely dinner for all of us though significantly more expensive than the Subway or McDonald’s we would usually get. But you can’t go wrong with a bit of Peri-Peri chicken!

I knew there was a shop called Forbidden Planet in Southampton (a shop that sells loads of amazing geeky stuff) but it took a search on the internet on my blackberry and Mike’s local knowledge to find it. Actually I am loving my blackberry more and more as it gets more use. The ability to “check-in” at places on Facebook (basically telling your FB where you are) has become something of an addiction to me at the moment and the ability to surf the web on the go is fantastic. Anyway, we eventually found Forbidden Planet and I had another nerdgasm, which I haven't had in quite a while (nerdgasm, n, the emotional sensation experienced when a nerd sees something they really like).  There was shelf after shelf of Doctor Who stuff. Loads and loads of figurines, including a box set with all Eleven Doctor’s in it, loads of other Doctor Who merchandise, T-shirts, books, DVDs and even a life-size cardboard cut-out of Karen Gillan. There was loads and loads of other stuff in the store that I was really excited by that wasn’t to do with Doctor Who too. As tempted I was to buy the cardboard cut-out of Karen Gillan, it was £25 and I’m a poor student. Of course there was also the problem with transportation. It would have been quite a sight to see me get on the bus and sit cardboard Karen on the seat next to me. In the end I bought the following:

 

An Adipose stress toy (Adipose are little aliens from Doctor Who). It’s amazing and looks just like the ones on screen. I’m calling mine Adrian the Adipose.

A plush Toad toy (off of the Mario games). I have wanted one of these for literally years and when the chance came I had to buy it.

I know, I’m sad. But if I was much richer I would have actually bought every Doctor Who figurine, every Doctor Who book and DVD, other Doctor Who merch AND a whole load of non-Doctor Who stuff from the store. If I ever become a millionaire that’s what I’m spending it on: a massive shopping spree at Forbidden Planet. Mike was also rather excited by the shop and bought a Scott Pilgrim and a Doctor Who poster. Forbidden Planet is literally the best shop EVER. Shortly after this visit, a now very excitable Mike and me, as well as an apathetic Chris, found ourselves in a games arcade. Queue us using one of the racing simulators and racing each other. Annoyingly I had that occasional arcade racer problem where the steering wheel doesn’t work properly meaning I came third by quite a long way. Disappointing.

Soon after this we finally managed to meet up with our female friends Sammy and Cassie. They were originally supposed to meet us at lunchtime but the fact they didn’t get up ‘til 12AM meant they were much later. Unfortunately us three guys found ourselves in that horrible position of being with girls shopping. We kept disappearing off and rejoicing them until a stop for a coffee, when Mike had to leave. The conversations we had around the coffee table reminded me that people I know do actually read this blog and so I should be careful what I write. Isn’t that right Cassie? Somehow Chris and I found ourselves following the girls into a few more shops. We somehow managed to spend half an hour in a bag shop whilst Sammy looked at purses. I was giving helpful fashion advice on which one I thought was best, but generally making the decision by price and which ones had protective foam in. It demonstrated a major difference between male and female shopping. Whilst most girls will spend ages looking for that one item, most guys will go into a shop, find one, buy it, simple as that. After some time in a clothes shop, where I gave Sammy more helpful style advice, it was time for me and Chris to begin the long journey home.

An hour on a bus, dinner in Salisbury’s McDonalds, another forty-five minute bus journey and then a short walk finally saw us arriving back home. Weirdly that’s all I’m going to be seeing of my mates this holiday as the holiday is nearly over and I return to Uni in a few days. Yes I know, most people have returned to school/uni/work after there Christmas break already, but I’m really lucky. I’ve had several fantastic days out and new experiences with my friends from 6th Form over this holiday and it’s properly made me realise that they are amazing friends and that we won’t drift apart, one of my worst fears about going to uni in the first place. Now I have to sort a few things out as I continue to get more and more excited for the prospect of returning to the lovely Winchester and going back to uni!

Comedy Gold

After less than five hours sleep I was dragged out of bed in order to go and see my grandfather with my father. Still, it has to be better than sitting in the house all day and it’s always nice to spend a bit of time with the granddad. Especially today as he was on top form. Don’t get me wrong, I love my granddad, but he is an old man. One of the symptoms of this is not being able to remember names. I feel they ought to put my granddad onto a TV show called “What Are Those Old People On About?” where contestants have to work out what/who my granddad is talking about. The clues were, in order, Winger for Manchester United, no actually Manchester City, Used to play for Tottenham but then moved back, he’s black, he plays for England and finally, he has a double-barrelled name. Amazingly, despite my lack of football knowledge and the fact that some of the facts are wrong anyway, I managed to guess that it was Shaun Wright-Phillips my granddad was talking about. By the time we had worked this out my granddad had forgotten why he was talking about Wright-Phillips in the first place. Still, this incident put myself and my father into hysterics in a department store coffee shop.

And that leads me nicely onto the subject of coffee, tea and hot drinks in general. The majority of people, adults anyway (of which I am now one), drink either coffee or tea a fair bit. But I don’t really like either. Tea is hideous. Worst invention ever. I know, I’m English, I shouldn’t be saying that. But that’s what I think. Coffee is marginally better but I only every drink it for the caffeine content and/or when I’m really hungover. It’s not that I have a weak tongue and can’t stand the heat, I drink cuppa soup’s and hot chocolate’s occasionally but I can never be sociable along with everyone else having a tea or coffee. I’m an outcast due to tea. Who’d have thought?

Anyways, back to today. I wandered round the streets of Poole (dullest town in Britain, FACT) with my granddad and father in my new shoes for some time. I was going to post a picture of my new shoes but it’s not really worth it. They are a browny sort of colour and have Velcro straps, perfect for a lazy sod like me. I imagine they will last until the middle of April judging my how quickly I wear through shoes combined with the thickness of the heel (pretty thick, hence why it’s April not March). Back to the story then. Blimey I’m easily distracted today. So, yes, we went round Poole going into the occasional interesting shop but mostly visiting charity shops to enhance my grandfather’s paperweight collection and for my dad to look at random crap he wants to buy but knows my mum would get mad over. I was however treated to some cheese by my grandfather and he provided us with another moment of comedy gold. My granddad had gone off to the toilet and said he would meet me and my dad in the bookshop. By the time he returned we were both looking at stuff near the front door and watched as my granddad’s lack of direction took him wandering straight past the store. Shortly after this there was some amusement when an old woman kept trying to leave the store but every time she did the alarm went off. Eventually the staff let her go but we reckon she is on a massive robbing spree and gets away with it because she’s only a little old lady.

As mornings spent with your grandfather go, that was a pretty eventful one. The afternoon was spent relaxing, it’s still my holidays after all and I spent nearly all day yesterday working on my next assignment (They never stop sadly). I decided to take a look at the Doctor Who figurines that my brother found when he emptied his room out at the weekend. They were from when he was a bit younger and used them as toys and he has left them to be thrown out but being the Doctor Who fanatic I am I picked them up and claimed them as my own. Their is one of the Doctor (tenth, David Tennant), one of the Sycorax Leader (from the 2005 Christmas special) and a version of the robotic dog K9 which is supposed to be remote controlled but I couldn’t get it to work. Shall have to have a play around with it and my screwdriver when I get back to Uni. I love these figurines though and they are going to look awesome on my shelf at uni.

(This is the Doctor standing over the body of the Sycorax leader by the way)

Before I go I must get very excited about the fact that Emily over at Ramblings of a Lonely Girl awarded me the “Stylish Blogger Award”. First time I’ve been called stylish in my life.

I’m supposed to pass it on to other people and whatnot but I’m not really a fan of doing that. Plus most of my fave blogs have already received this award so not this time. I shall be highlighting some excellent blogs I’ve discovered fairly recently in an upcoming post, look out for January Blogs of Note, coming to a computer screen near you soon.

And I am thrilled to announce I am only nine people away from reaching ONE HUNDRED followers. This is amazing news. If you’re new here and like it please follow and if you’re old then feel free to tell everyone how great I am and follow too. When the day where I reach a hundred followers comes I am going to have such a celebration where I will get drunk and drunkenly say an emotional thank you. That’s got to be worth a follow…

Results of the Cheese Survey

I thought it was about time I finally announced, and completely over analysed with the help of graphs, the recent survey I did about cheese. Basically I wanted to find out what the world’s favourite cheese is as I’m something of a cheese connoisseur. My results are as follows:

 

That’s right Mozzarella is officially, according to my cheese survey anyway, the world’s most popular cheese. Cheddar came in a close second followed by brie, which was also chosen as favourite by rapper Example. That is genuine, I asked him. OK, not in person, on Twitter but still that counts. This survey includes famous people! Anyway, here is a handy graph of the top five cheeses and it shows you how close the results actually were:

There were various other nominations for favourite cheese including: boursin, gorgonzola, jarlsberg, American, manchego, morbier, Havarti, Danish blue, camembert, Wensleydale, parmesan, Monterey jack and mizithura. A wide range of cheeses mentioned there and several I haven't heard of but I shall be keeping a look out for them during my next cheese shopping trip. Someone also wrote “easy cheese” (that’s cheese in a can, aerosol cheese). That person has no taste.

One of my most surprising finds was the number of people who don’t like/eat cheese. Trying to gather the exact number of people is tricky as clearly people who don’t like cheese aren’t going to do a survey about it. From the results I did manage to gather and a bit of guesswork it seems that slightly more people don’t like cheese than the number of people that like mozzarella, top of the list. This number includes comedian and writer Mark Watson. I am slightly offended that this many people don’t like cheese. It goes against everything I stand for. (Actually I stand for a lot more than “cheese is good” but you get the idea).

Oh and my favourite answer to “What is your favourite cheese”:

“anything directed by Roger Corman”.

Whoever wrote that is a genius.

Well that was a fun entry wasn’t it? I don’t know about you but I enjoyed myself. There will be more nonsense tomorrow probably including some or all of the following: new shoes, toastie bags, Doctor Who figurines and my thoughts on hot drinks. See you then!

By the way, the majority of this is not exactly accurate so may not be entirely correct. Ssh!

Salisbury

Hello and welcome to Monday, a new week! I’m full of happiness, energy and vitality today. Which cannot be said for the rest of the household as both my brother and father were sat in the living the this morning having caught the mysterious illness I had last Tuesday. Except it’s not so much mysterious any more thanks to the in house doctor a.k.a my mother with the sense to use Google. We have all been infected with a nasty norovirus, which could have been passed on from anywhere as it can spread in all sorts of ways. I’m blaming IKEA for making me ill. I reckon it came from there. Swedish bastards!

Anyway, in what proved to be an effective decision in order to avoid spending the day in something that resembled a very small hospital, I went into Salisbury with my good mate Chris. We normally go into Bournemouth but decided instead to take the bus in the opposite direction and go into Salisbury, a little city in Wiltshire which is actually the place I was born. There’s not exactly a whole lot there but it was a change of scenery and that’s always nice.

On arrival in the city we headed for lunch. Well we headed to Subway but then, realising it was full of school kids, went to find McDonalds (seriously I feel like an old man avoiding places because of a bunch of rowdy kids!). After some time we decided we didn’t have the skills between us to actually find McDonalds and found a fish and chips shop called Scoby’s. I had a chicken burger as I inevitably always do and it wasn’t brilliant but the chips we pretty good. Not as good as either of the two in Ringwood though so I doubt I will ever pay that fish and chip shop another visit.

Once our lunch has been eaten we wandered around the city, visiting various retail outlets such as Game, HMV and a toy shop. Nothing really leapt out which was disappointing as I was in the mood to buy something. I did however buy some new shoes. I need a new pair of shoes about every three months as they always wear through (quite why remains a mystery). The experience of buying these shoes was not particularly brilliant. There was only one member of staff in the shop and she was busy attempting to juggle customers. I kept asking her if she could get a pair of shoes in size 11 (that’s size 45 in European sizes and 11 and a half in US/Canada- in other words fairly big) and she kept informing me they didn’t have any that big. Several pairs of shoes later and I finally found a pair I wanted that could be got in my size. Having big feet is quite a pain but you know what they say about people with big feet…well they have big shoes of course.

I enjoyed wandering round the streets of Salisbury and also popping into Costa Coffee with my good friend. We had a right laugh at all sorts of things and were borderline-stalking one group of girls. We walked past them several times as they enjoyed a coffee on the street. This was cause for much amusement between us. In fact Salisbury was full of quite a few attractive young women. It’s about time I found one really but their seems little prospect of that happening any time soon (sad violin music plays over top♫).

A pretty decent little day then and I shall leave you with an awesome quote from Scott Pilgrim:

“We are sex bob-omb and we’re here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff”

Legendary!

January Miscellany

There are exciting weekend, there are quiet weekends, there are boring weekend and then there was this weekend. So empty. Never before has a period of time been quite so dull. I’m a little fed up with being back at home to say the least. Anyway, thought I’d bring you a blog and it’s going to be the biggest and most random collection of stuff I’ve ever done. Let’s do it.

The other day when my father and I spent hours waiting for his car to be serviced I couldn’t help thinking it was like taking an elderly relative for a check-up at the Doctor’s. Whilst you are pretty sure everything is in order there is that slight worry that they mind find something seriously wrong with it and you might have to prepare yourself for a parting.Especially with my father’s car. The Houghmobile as it has become known by several of my friends has been in my dad’s ownership for very nearly six years and he drives a lot. It’s heading to the scrap heap in the near future and it will be a sad time. It’s weird how you can become attached to cars…

My one trip out of the house this weekend was for my usual walk but it’s wasn’t really very pleasant seeing as though it was really muddy. It became more like a trip across the somme during a ceasefire than a walk as I attempted to follow the path and not completely ruin my trainers. Of course my walking shoes, along with anything else that I could have needed or wanted during the Christmas holidays, are still at Uni.

The illness I had earlier in the week is gradually being spread around the family as first my mother and today my brother suddenly felt it. This illness has done nothing for my sleep patterns either. First it kept me awake when I had it cos I couldn’t sleep due to feeling sick. Then my mother’s periodic vomiting woke me up quite a few times on Friday night. Now that my brother has joined the illness club it seems likely he will wake me up being sick too. Being awoken by the sound of someone ejecting part of the contents of their stomach in an involuntary spasmic movement is not pleasant.

This quote has become quite popular on my Facebook so I thought I’d share it with you here:

“Life is like riding a bicycle- in order to keep you balance, you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein

I get the sense that my uni friends are also keen to be going back. Jaz has decided he wants to purchase a small pool table for the kitchen. Quite how he is going to fit it in if he does get one I don’t know. Josh and I have conversations most days at the moment and he is becoming worryingly obsessed with old BBC sitcoms (even more than he used to be). This will only mean constant inappropriate innuendos which will need to be stopped ASAP. Still, I’m really missing all these guys, especially Josh and even Alice. I joke…I don’t miss Alice at all. But, no, seriously I do miss her as much as I miss anyone else, they’re all part of a lovely family-like dynamic.

I’m considering how long I can go on with this post. Possibly forever. I shall start to round things off soon, promise. It’s difficult to concentrate what with my brother being sick in the background. And my room is right next to the bathroom. Not nice.

Let’s end with a bit of talk about this very blog. This is a comment on the last post:

“Hey, thanks for following my blog. It's pretty empty at the moment, but it'll grow. :P I love you layout and header...very cool. :)”

I love comments like that. Well I love all comments really. But this is especially nice because it compliments my layout and header. I wanted to change these recently but I seriously struggled to make them any better. I love them. And I am so pleased that I now have 88 followers. 88! That’s ridiculous. When I eventually reach 100 followers I think I will have a small party. I look forward to that! Anyway, enough of the random chat, thanks so much for continuing to read this notice and keep your comments coming. Adieu!

Small Things Go Wrong

Today was one of those days where everything went wrong yet somehow the day was quite enjoyable. Let me explain…

It began with my Father taking his car in for a service. The usual plan for this is for him to meet my grandfather whilst the car is being looked at and seeing as though I have little else to do I went too. We headed into the nearest town to the Hyundai garage (yes, my dad owns a Hyundai Matrix, not exactly what you would call “good” or “cool”) which was Christchurch.

Here’s a fun fact for you: there is very little to do in Christchurch. They do however have a good bookshop which is independent and actually has books you want in it. There is also the usual range of coffee shops most towns offer nowadays and we visited Costa as that is my grandfather’s fave.

This managed to waste around four hours and we returned to the garage expecting the car to be nearly ready. Well I say garage but the garage bit is round the back but it’s actually a big Vauxhall and Hyundai showroom and you have to go to a desk in the far corner for stuff about the garage. We arrived at 12PM and after forty minutes of waiting were informed that the service had been delayed due to an emergency. Quite what constitutes an emergency in a garage I have no idea. We decided to have lunch at a local pub and returned around the time they said the car would be ready. In the end we did not get the car back ‘til 3:30PM. This meant we had spent several hours sat in a showroom, a very dull experience indeed. My dad and I resorted to spotting things that were blue, which kept us entertained for a short while.

Eventually we made it home and on the doormat discovered that the postman had finally turned up with the books I’d ordered off Amazon (two days late). Except we hadn’t been there so had to visit the local sorting office to pick it up. This was rather annoying and also resulted in me having to take a small trips round the town with my dad as he did a few things.

By the time I arrived home once again I hoped that nothing else would go wrong. I took my new pile of books up to my room, flicking the light-switch on the way in. Unfortunately the bulb blue and the fuse went, meaning all the upstairs lights were off until my dad had gone into the garage and reset the fuse switch. This pretty much topped the whole day off.

But hey, it’s all done and reflecting on the day I can say it was an interesting experience and instead of stuck in my house bored I was stuck in a car showroom bored so at least I had a change of scenery!

Evening at the Pub

Today seemed to catch me by surprise, what with it flying through quickly but all of a sudden becoming absolutely fantastic.

I spent much of the day sat in my room doing very little. Scarily I realised I have not been out of this house since Sunday. This isn’t me being lazy really. I’ve been ill and anyway, I’ve got no-where to go. I would go for walks but it’s been so flipping miserable all week that it hasn’t really been an option either. I have been waiting for an Amazon order that should have come yesterday but will now be two days late. It’s a whole load of books which I want so start reading them! But at least my cheque came from selling my phone to one of those companies that are always advertised. It was Mazuma who I sold it to and they were pretty efficient, would fully recommend them to anyone.

I received a telephone call from my good friend Josh sometime after lunch. At first I was confused as he spoke in the voice of Victor Meldrew from 90s sitcom One Foot in the Grave. After a moment’s confusion I realised who I must have been speaking to but I have to congratulate Josh on such an excellent impersonation. Our half an hour phone call basically decided that we were both extremely bored at home and are looking forward to returning to Winchester. We also spent a while informing each other what was happening outside our windows though the streets of Norfolk were far more exciting than those of Hampshire.

This evening I met my mate Chris and we went down the pub. This always meant the evening was likely to be quite enjoyable but next thing we knew we were sat with a group of friends I haven't seen in some considerable time, like six months. It was nice to catch up and we had a good laugh together. One of my more, shall we say, eccentric friends ended up wearing a mankini (like of off Borat) for most of the evening (though fortunately he wore it above his clothes!).

In terms of drink, I didn’t actually have that much. I probably would have done but what with my stomach being a bit dodgy I decided not to have too much (well I was ill two days ago). But I did have a shot of tequila, and for the first time did the whole salt and lemon thing: you lick a bit of salt off your wrist, down the shot then suck on a lemon. Quite frankly this is hideous. It’s not something I plan to do ever again. I probably will though…

All in all I had a lovely evening and most other people did too, despite a little bit of social tension going on. You know how it is a whole boy/girl thing with their friends dragged into the matter. I quite enjoyed this, not because I’m enjoy watching people get hurt. For one thing it was nice to have sort of glimpse at normality after a rather dull holiday period, another was that it didn’t involve me and these things always used to and thirdly the unhappy guy involved is a total twat and deserves ever bit of misery that life brings him. I’m quite surprised I managed to sit in the pub with him after all the pain he caused me in the past without punching him in the face. Guess it shows that I’m beyond that now, there was a time when that might have happened.

I’m not religious and don’t pretend to be but there are occasions like this where I feel that things happen for a reason. I almost feel that the whole coincidence when I was there with the guy I don’t like was set up for me to see him get at least some of the punishment he deserves. Anyway, I’ve kind of gone of on one here. But maybe there is a reason for things…

Dirty Little Secrets

Seeing as though I have spent all day sat on my bottom whilst my immune system finished dealing with whatever nasty pathogen I had caught, today’s blog had to be something a little different. Somehow a part of my brain decided to write about a few secrets it has. They are all embarrassing and few people know about them. So let’s get it over with then!

1) For the majority of my life I imagined I ran a TV channel. It was based on me being a Superhero called Super Daniel, which then changed to SD and then Fluffy as I grew up. There was the drama about me being a superhero, the TV shows I liked from real channels and the odd other show I would create like the breakfast show “Morning Coffee”. This isn’t too bad as something a little kids would do but I still imagined this ‘til I was fifteen. I used to write schedules down for what would be one, sometimes a whole week at a time.

2) I was a properly hormonal teenage boy. So I’m nearly nineteen now and I’m more grown up but when I was about fourteen/fifteen I would get properly obsessed with a girl for a while then suddenly move on to someone else. There was a time when the majority of girls on my Facebook were ones I had fancied. And a lot of the choices weren’t even good. One of them is now going out with another girl and another has a son! What the hell was wrong with me? I’m glad I moved on from then.

3) I nearly cheated on my ex. Not my last ex, but one of them. I was considerably younger and I was stupid. Fortunately the girl I wanted to cheat with had more sense than I did and it didn’t happen. What was worse that I pretended nothing had happened and stayed with my ex for several more months. Even to this day I don’t think she knows. This one staggers me more than any of the others. I couldn’t possibly do that now and feel so guilty that I could have back then. Cringe.

4) Some of my music tastes are really embarrassing. For example, I own the first three McFly albums and even bought a lot of the singles on CD. I’m not so much a fan of McFly’s new stuff my I still kind of like the old stuff. I just do OK? And then there’s Take That. I’m an eighteen year-old teenage guy, I’m not supposed to like Take That. But I do. They are awesome.

5) I have terrible problems when it comes to eating. This is the main thing I am going to try and stop this year. My uni friends have seen a bit of it but no-where near the full extent. If there’s no one around, I just eat and eat. Whether it’s crisps or chocolate or biscuits or cake I will keep eating either til I feel sick or there’s none left. Some of the things I have gorged on include: whole tube of pringles, packet of Jaffa Cakes, prism of Toblerone…the list could go on. Must improve.

6) There are some famous women I am quite attracted to. The most recent of these was Apprentice candidate Liz though she’s too old for me (like I’m ever gonna have a chance with these people anyway, regardless of age!). She was lovely and pretty and should have won. Longer celebrity crushed include Taylor Swift (actually add her to embarrassing music tastes as well!) and former X-Factor contestant and now singer Diana Vickers. Both are very pretty and are near my age (Swift is 21, Vickers is 19) and I love Diana’s Lancashire accent.

So yeah. I am feeling embarrassed already and I haven't even posted this yet. Feel free to mock me in the comments or perhaps tell me not to feel too embarrassed. Why did I ever think this was a good idea?