Oi you! Yes you with the piss stains on your beige flannel trousers! Wanna make some money?
Wanna use your skills and help with a massive enviable national iconic cultural event that will be heralded down through the ages as the true beginning of the end of civilisation? Sorry, what's that? You do? Oh good! Step this way then and simply do what you do best and urinate into this tiny cup for me, write your name and number on the outside and then PISS off!
NEXT!
Okay, i am not re-creating some filthy golden shower scene from Pantwetters 2 - the search for Olympic Gold (wee!), but merely writing about a new 'attraction' at Thorpe Park.
The organisers are holding wee auditions there on Friday. They are looking for the smelliest urine to accompany the decomposing meat and burning hair smell, thereby really topping off the senses available on SAW the ride, because having just your sense of direction and vision assaulted is apparently now not enough.
We need to know what it feels like to actually be openly tortured like a Guantanamo Bay terrorist cast down to the sewers with the sodomites for one final test of resolve. Add to this the fact that you are vibrated and electrocuted along the way and why else would you want to leave the country this summer. Just head on down to Thorpe Park (or should I say South Park). Maybe after you've been on Saw the ride and smelt the burning hair and smelt the piss, you could eat a turdburger for dinner and go sleep under a damp canal bridge for dessert.
So there we have it - the UK's recession summer holiday 2010. If you are sad to be missing events at Thorpe Park, try not to get too jealous. Just wait until 2011 when Drunken Rape the mini-cab ride and the horrifying corridor of Youf Nyph Cryme, where you actually feel the tickle of 1000 stabbing instruments on your gentle walk accompanied by crazy mirrors which show all your wounds in a funny way will be well and truly unleashed on the public.
See you there Friday then - well actually you won't as I'm saving my shits up for the inevitable Chessington World of Adventures backlash or stashing my most violent animal porn for the UK's Most Depraved helter-skelter at Alton Towers.
PS The winner of the piss competition not only gets the honour of getting up the public's nose, but also nets a cool £500, so if you're really broke get yourself down to Thorpe Park this Friday (11am-2pm) and donate to your fellow humankind the best way you know how. Actually you better get down there for 9am - the queues are expected to be huge. And rightly so - when was the last time someone gave you half a grand for anything, let alone a ruddy bladder-relieving slash just off the soul-crushing M25? Huh? Exactly!
Fuck it, maybe I will see you there! Better still, maybe I can get a second job as a judge, considering how much piss I've smelt in my time. Now where did I put that Salty Beer-Asparagus pickle? I got half a grand to win!
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Murj & the End of Live Music
Despite okaying a merger between Live Nation (who run the majority of live gigs in the UK) and Ticketmaster (who have about a 70% Ticket market share) in December, thankfully (and its not often I thank the Germans for anything except Rammstein, beer and sausages) it has been shelved for who knows how long by the complaints of by CTS Eventim, a German-based ticket seller contracted by Live Nation to handle their UK ticketing.
Sean Micheals in The Guardian of 12 FEb 2010 wrote:
If this evokes some deja vu, it is because in October 2009, the Competition Commission ruled against the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger, citing its impact on CTS Eventim, which is Europe's largest ticket broker. "[The merged company] will have every incentive to inhibit a significant potential rival from entering the UK market," an official explained at the time. "[This would put] CTS's future prospects in the UK in considerable doubt."
What is the world coming to? This is not okay in the slightest, because there are idiots out there that will pay £80 or whatever they want to charge to see Liza Minelli in some soul-less arena gig and again ruin music for everyone. Its bad enough that when I do find a gig I want to go to at a decent venue in London it sells out in 7 minutes. With most tickets being purchased through Ticketmaster my chances of going are increased possibly but at what cost to the consumer and other smaller ticket agencies that rely on phone sales and walk in geek customers who don't own nor could operate a PC, ones that have done us proud over the years like Stargreen box Office in Oxford Circus? What about them? - Ah fuck it, build a mini-Tesco there and let Ticketmaster do everything online with their phones re-routed via Bangalore and the Phillipines. Who cares, its only music after all! What did live music ever do for us! Viva la Resistance!
Sean Micheals in The Guardian of 12 FEb 2010 wrote:
If this evokes some deja vu, it is because in October 2009, the Competition Commission ruled against the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger, citing its impact on CTS Eventim, which is Europe's largest ticket broker. "[The merged company] will have every incentive to inhibit a significant potential rival from entering the UK market," an official explained at the time. "[This would put] CTS's future prospects in the UK in considerable doubt."
What is the world coming to? This is not okay in the slightest, because there are idiots out there that will pay £80 or whatever they want to charge to see Liza Minelli in some soul-less arena gig and again ruin music for everyone. Its bad enough that when I do find a gig I want to go to at a decent venue in London it sells out in 7 minutes. With most tickets being purchased through Ticketmaster my chances of going are increased possibly but at what cost to the consumer and other smaller ticket agencies that rely on phone sales and walk in geek customers who don't own nor could operate a PC, ones that have done us proud over the years like Stargreen box Office in Oxford Circus? What about them? - Ah fuck it, build a mini-Tesco there and let Ticketmaster do everything online with their phones re-routed via Bangalore and the Phillipines. Who cares, its only music after all! What did live music ever do for us! Viva la Resistance!
The X-ecution Factor
It seems one can't turn the TV on these days without being bombarded by some massive twat who used to be in Brookside ice-skating the foxtrot or an ex-sportsman doing pirouettes in shiny chaps and a frilly chimmon yellow shirt. I am, of course, talking about the spate of reality/talent competitions that spawned from Big Brother 10 years ago and changed a generation of fashion-conscience teens in to a nation of untalented pop idolising dickheads.
With the odd exception - Diversity, Su-Bo, John Sargeant, Evander Holyfield it all seems such a massive waste of time. Why do people enjoy watching other people failing, I suppose its the same with soap operas and trashy magazines. They make you feel better about yourself and you're own life because you're the outsider looking into the goldfish bowl and they are the ones trapped inside begging to be set free, which just unleashes a further tidal wave of press interest. No no please don't photograph me topless on a foreign beach praticing cellulite-busting lunges with a guy I just met of the set of Emmerdale two weeks ago. I normally do this all by myself in my lounge with the curtains drawn. Oh the indecency!
It is a sad time we are living in when teenagers really do believe that Simon Cowell is not in fact the anti-christ, but a pop genius who knows all about what 'real' music is! A colleague's 15 year old step-son is so enthused about the show he apparently sky plusses it even though he watches every episode, presumably so he can go back over it and enjoy the David Lynch-esque mis-en-scene whenever he begins to reach for his step-dad's Joy Division albums without ever really knowing why! His sub-conscience has been so infused with adverts and manufactured crap that he truly believes he is a part of the 'musical genius' he is withnessing, when really he is helping to plot the downfall of Western Civilisation by not getting up on a cold January saturday morning, running around a frozen park with ten of his teammates and then going home to have a fantasy wank about Billy the winger's MILF of a mum, like we all used to do at his age. He should be ashamed of himself!
Rage Against The Machine's Killing in the Name Of which got to Xmas number 1 ahead of one of Cowell's winning X Factor pricks (which was and will be the best thing to come from Facebook ever!) was a significant slap in the face to this kind of 'entertainment', but wait, what's this - Simon Cowell has a high percentage stake in Rage's record label and benefits anyway? What a win/win wanker! Where's the fun in that? As Jarvis Cocker so fondly says: Cunts are still running the world - and it ain't gonna change any time (while there are still people who queue to go see Gareth Gates in p...in p...p...panto!) soon, so get used to it.
There is one way I would start watching these shows is that the contestants be sent out to former Soviet Siberian Gulag camps and be locked away in solitary confinement for 6 months with rival professionals (for example - Nancy Kerrigan's trainee Vs Tonya Harding's appraentice a la Rocky IV) to practice whatever competition it is they want to win. They are only allowed an hour of sunlight a day.
They will then be flown by private jet straight to a London studio as psychologically-vulnerable yet fine physical specimens ready to do battle to the death. Once they have performed the judges vote (50%) and then the public (50%). The loser (for example Paul Danan) has to work in ASDA, Milton Keynes for a year with no pay, or he's sent back to the gulag, while the winner (for example Dean Gaffney) goes on to the next stage (say a Wrestling competition with Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior as trainers).
But here is the twist, the winning coach (ie Kerrigan) gets to X-ecute the losing coach (ie Harding) before the credits roll LIVE on TV. Think of the ratings - and the audience, the crowd will be like a Rugby one all sitting together and having a beer and enjoying the spectacle because (unlike woofter modern football) all the violence happens on the pitch and thus everyone goes home happy, rather than meeting outside for a good old rumble!
Just think what Blind-er Date would be like if the public voted for the couple they least liked out of say three who went on televised dates and that couple was then actually BLINDED on live TV. The people who are more likely to commit crimes and thus like this kind of show would never go out again, which would keep the government happy as crime and depravity drops on their city's streets a la 1984, while the good folk who are abhorred by what they see will all go out for fear of going insane with depression and buy stuff to keep the economy going! Now talk about an idyll! Until this becomes reality I will shun reality/talent shows in favour of a good old five knuckle shuffle, just like when I was fifteen and enjoying my life, rather than sordidly revelling in someone else's!
Right I'm off to meet Toni Terry for a pint and maybe more, so until next week take care of yourself...and each other, as we're all we have left!
With the odd exception - Diversity, Su-Bo, John Sargeant, Evander Holyfield it all seems such a massive waste of time. Why do people enjoy watching other people failing, I suppose its the same with soap operas and trashy magazines. They make you feel better about yourself and you're own life because you're the outsider looking into the goldfish bowl and they are the ones trapped inside begging to be set free, which just unleashes a further tidal wave of press interest. No no please don't photograph me topless on a foreign beach praticing cellulite-busting lunges with a guy I just met of the set of Emmerdale two weeks ago. I normally do this all by myself in my lounge with the curtains drawn. Oh the indecency!
It is a sad time we are living in when teenagers really do believe that Simon Cowell is not in fact the anti-christ, but a pop genius who knows all about what 'real' music is! A colleague's 15 year old step-son is so enthused about the show he apparently sky plusses it even though he watches every episode, presumably so he can go back over it and enjoy the David Lynch-esque mis-en-scene whenever he begins to reach for his step-dad's Joy Division albums without ever really knowing why! His sub-conscience has been so infused with adverts and manufactured crap that he truly believes he is a part of the 'musical genius' he is withnessing, when really he is helping to plot the downfall of Western Civilisation by not getting up on a cold January saturday morning, running around a frozen park with ten of his teammates and then going home to have a fantasy wank about Billy the winger's MILF of a mum, like we all used to do at his age. He should be ashamed of himself!
Rage Against The Machine's Killing in the Name Of which got to Xmas number 1 ahead of one of Cowell's winning X Factor pricks (which was and will be the best thing to come from Facebook ever!) was a significant slap in the face to this kind of 'entertainment', but wait, what's this - Simon Cowell has a high percentage stake in Rage's record label and benefits anyway? What a win/win wanker! Where's the fun in that? As Jarvis Cocker so fondly says: Cunts are still running the world - and it ain't gonna change any time (while there are still people who queue to go see Gareth Gates in p...in p...p...panto!) soon, so get used to it.
There is one way I would start watching these shows is that the contestants be sent out to former Soviet Siberian Gulag camps and be locked away in solitary confinement for 6 months with rival professionals (for example - Nancy Kerrigan's trainee Vs Tonya Harding's appraentice a la Rocky IV) to practice whatever competition it is they want to win. They are only allowed an hour of sunlight a day.
They will then be flown by private jet straight to a London studio as psychologically-vulnerable yet fine physical specimens ready to do battle to the death. Once they have performed the judges vote (50%) and then the public (50%). The loser (for example Paul Danan) has to work in ASDA, Milton Keynes for a year with no pay, or he's sent back to the gulag, while the winner (for example Dean Gaffney) goes on to the next stage (say a Wrestling competition with Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior as trainers).
But here is the twist, the winning coach (ie Kerrigan) gets to X-ecute the losing coach (ie Harding) before the credits roll LIVE on TV. Think of the ratings - and the audience, the crowd will be like a Rugby one all sitting together and having a beer and enjoying the spectacle because (unlike woofter modern football) all the violence happens on the pitch and thus everyone goes home happy, rather than meeting outside for a good old rumble!
Just think what Blind-er Date would be like if the public voted for the couple they least liked out of say three who went on televised dates and that couple was then actually BLINDED on live TV. The people who are more likely to commit crimes and thus like this kind of show would never go out again, which would keep the government happy as crime and depravity drops on their city's streets a la 1984, while the good folk who are abhorred by what they see will all go out for fear of going insane with depression and buy stuff to keep the economy going! Now talk about an idyll! Until this becomes reality I will shun reality/talent shows in favour of a good old five knuckle shuffle, just like when I was fifteen and enjoying my life, rather than sordidly revelling in someone else's!
Right I'm off to meet Toni Terry for a pint and maybe more, so until next week take care of yourself...and each other, as we're all we have left!
Thursday, 4 February 2010
The North / South Divide
Although geographically infinite and politically and socially at least traceable to the Industrial Revolution, it has been said that the North / South divide in England was truly and modernly exacerbated by the miner's strikes under Thatcher's Tory government of the 1970's and 80's. This is when the hard working masses north of the Watford Gap became known as Northern Monkeys (or on roadsigns as simply THE NORTH) and the gentrified class system of the south became Southern Shandy Warriors or Cockneys if they were from London (even if this shows a gap in the education - as this only apllies to people born within a mile of Bow Church in East London or post-modernly conceived at half-time at Upton park perhaps?). As i near my 30th birthday, I feel like my life is changing - gone are the serious drug-taking clubbing days and the cold beans from a can for dinner a week before pay day, replaced with a feeling of wanting to settle down, possibly get on the property ladder and being baking my own olive bread! Ok, so not exactly, but things have changed in the lat ten years and I want to figure out whether the next ten will be spent in London or is my future elsewhere, oop narth perhaps!?
That's right, this week i'm going to talk about London vs Manchester (South vs North) in terms of lifestyle, living conditions, culture etc and this could be a battle to the death. At this point, although born in London I did live in Manchester for 2 years and will try to be as unbiased as possible as I had a great time there.
Ok so first place to start would be rent/house prices and jobs:
In a decent part of London (and I'm not talking about wankers on holiday who tell you they are 'born and bred mate!' in ek-hem Orpington or Croydon) and by that I mean anywhere inside Zone 3 (and possibly Richmond) - nowhere north of Kilburn, east of Stratford, south of Balham or west of Ealing - a two bed flat would cost you £250,000+ to buy or £1000+ a month to rent. My parent's London house (although extended and renovated through the years) is now worth 8 times what they paid for it in 1983! But i'm more worried about being able to pay the bills than buying for the first time and getting my foot on the property ladder which I think is more viable in Manchester.
The National Housing Federation representing 1,200 housing associations, puts the average house price in London at £362,000, meaning as a single buyer I would require £93,000 to get a 90% mortgage at over 3.5 times my salary. The average London wage is only £4000 more than the average in Manchester, yet the 2 up-2 down terraced house in Manchester's Rusholme was worth £50k in 2005 and my rent was £225 a month including bills (a third of what you'd pay for a similar room in a Shepherd's Bush flat!) for a double room in a share house with 2 funny Welsh chefs. It was far from ideal - a few streets away from Man City's old Maine Road ground on the border with Moss Side, a 30 minute walk to the city centre. Now I live half an hour's walk to Notting Hill Gate or Paddington so pretty similar there. The problem is I don't earn 5 times what I was earning in Manchester, and I am pretty sure an administrator in manchester in 2010 isn't earning a fifth of what I earn and because of this and the fact I could rent 2 properties for the price of one oop narth, its...1-0 Manchester!
Travel and location:
Ok this is a tight one. You can get a weekly bus pass in Manchester from £5 - that's almost what it can cost you a day in London. This will get you to 70% of the places you need to go in and around the city centre and South Manchester, so not a huge outgoing. Also taxis seem cheaper too and the banter is usually better.
Manchester is within 90 mins of Birmingham, Wales, Lake District, Peak District, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and Blackpool which have some outstanding natural areas of beauty. Has good transport links including a tram. It is probably cheaper to get to Scotland too and Manchester Airport is not nearly as rammed as the London airports and is expanding all the time to serve further destinations. Also there must be less parking wardens which gives it the edge.
London is within 90 minutes of Wembley, Richmond Park, Brighton, Dover, Cotswolds, New Forest, Essex, Kent, Surrey Stamford and also some outstanding areas of natural beauty too and undoubtedly the location of Europe for low cost flights to europe and the world - however it has the dreaded M25 and can often take 90 minutes just to get in or out, especially during a bank holiday. As of now, despite constant threat Manchester has not invoked a congestion charge which I feel is just a tax on London's poorest, as congestion is as bad as ever in my opinion - thanks god for my push-bike and although expensive Public transport!
2-0 Manchester (just over the line - using a interactive and long awaited fourth official's replay!)
Sport:
Ok, so Manchester has City and United (one of the best and biggest in t'world) but London has about 15 league teams, including the regime-driven QPR, the world's finest football team. Also, London has Wembley and Twickenham and Rugby Union is bigger than Rugby League (which can only be a good thing!) although this again shows the class divide! Also London has the Oval (where i was for Ashes 2005 win) and Lord's and numerous other stadia and choice which brings it out on top!
2-1
Weather:
Considering that the longest it didn't rain continously for in the two years I was in Manchester was 4 days, this is a no brainer! It also once rained for 4 days straight from the Sunday evening to a Wednesday evening and I nearly got trenchfoot! London's weather can also be infuriating but it is a few degrees warmer (thanks to all the congregated bodies) than oop narth!
2-2
Culture - Ray Winstone vs Brian Potter:
Manchester has a great music scene that you feel a part of (it tranfuses the whole city) and going out is cheaper, easier and less pretentious (half of people don't even remove their parkas when they go clubbing, just like Liam and Ian Brown!). My favourite club is Sankey Soaps in Ancoats and the beer (real ale) and lyrical banter is better for what comes out of your wallet I feel! The sheer poetry of the Manchester accent does it for me. Go on Ironside you can take Winstone, ya dickhead!
However this is where it all changes and depends on your social/class viewpoint. Some would vote for London because it has unrivalled clubbing, opera, musicals, theatre, dance, ballet, comedy, gastro-pubs, concerts, museums.
You may be able to get a better and cheaper pint (3 for £4.80 in Sinclair's Oyster Bar) up north, but it's down south that you can truly do almost anything you like (money permitting) 7 days a week. In London it seems I have to put up or keep up with people's fads more - fashion, technology, dog-eat-dog, but in Manchester I feel its easier to be who you are without going out and buying the latest gadget to prove what a great guy you are - there is more a sense of community and not a keeping up with the Lord Farthrington-Joneses. Of course this is only an opinion and experience and London is a massive and diverse city so its hard to pigeon-hole. A person addicted to facebook is as sad as the next person addicted, i just feel one in London is sadder as there are literally so many other things one can spend their time more constructively on. Whether you can afford it is another thing and like most things this debate comes down to money and how you view its importance. It also comes down to whether you find having drugs delivered to your door disgusting or fantastic or whether you enjoy the smell of a stranger's armpit on a sweltering packed London tube carriage more than the smell of weed emanating from the top of the Wythenshawe to Piccadilly Finglands bus on your daily commute.
Full time whistle: 2-2 (Extra Time to be played after this commercial break)
Ok, so in conclusion then, however much you ham it up each city, each compass direction (North and South) has its pros and cons and its down to individual tastes and wallets making this exercise as pointless as our very existence in the universe!
One last thing before I go mind and regardless of where I live I ordered a CD online for my brother in law's birthday on the 28th Jan from Play.com and it arrived today, 3 days after his actual birthday. Now I know they are based in Jersey (an island of the United Queendom of course), but come on...if it's in stock, how long does it take to pluck from the warehouse, cover in cardboard and send? Certainly not a week anyway! To top it all off, they sent the wrong CD and after an arduous 10 minute phone call in the rain - partly to do with her poor spoken English and shocking reception on my/O2's behalf - it turns out I have to wait 2 weeks for another copy.
Now that's customer service...wherever you live in the UK!
When (the less of two evils) i decided to get a refund, despite todays new fangled technology etc, I received an email with a return address but no return postage. I will not receive my refund until I pay for the postage to get Biffy sodding Clyro (a band I detest and ironically wouldn't pay the price of a stamp to go see!) back to play.com and my refund. Serve me right for being a lazy twat and not going to the shops like normal people and purchasing a copy with my bare hands I hear you cry and touche! But what has the world come to when you have to pay for other people's mistakes that you've already paid once for!
I'm such a sucker, like the number of 'last chances' I have given to Satan... sorry RyanAir because of their stupidly low fares. My point is it doesn't matter where you live in the UK, you are still going to get rode and get shoddy customer service where you are expected to bend over and take it in the arse just for wanting to be nice abn dbuy someone deserving a gift, but not wanting to go down Westfield as its full of pretentious or pyjama infested yoofs and sad orange fashonista wannabe types hanging around the Bulgari shops with their John Terry look-a-like footballer HABS (Husbands and Boyfs innit!) updating their facebook mobile pages to their celebrity doppelgangers. Play.com - you have a lot to answer for.
And as for the rest of you sorry people, leave now, go live your life (wherever that may be) and stop bothering me!
Until next time Dear reader:-)
That's right, this week i'm going to talk about London vs Manchester (South vs North) in terms of lifestyle, living conditions, culture etc and this could be a battle to the death. At this point, although born in London I did live in Manchester for 2 years and will try to be as unbiased as possible as I had a great time there.
Ok so first place to start would be rent/house prices and jobs:
In a decent part of London (and I'm not talking about wankers on holiday who tell you they are 'born and bred mate!' in ek-hem Orpington or Croydon) and by that I mean anywhere inside Zone 3 (and possibly Richmond) - nowhere north of Kilburn, east of Stratford, south of Balham or west of Ealing - a two bed flat would cost you £250,000+ to buy or £1000+ a month to rent. My parent's London house (although extended and renovated through the years) is now worth 8 times what they paid for it in 1983! But i'm more worried about being able to pay the bills than buying for the first time and getting my foot on the property ladder which I think is more viable in Manchester.
The National Housing Federation representing 1,200 housing associations, puts the average house price in London at £362,000, meaning as a single buyer I would require £93,000 to get a 90% mortgage at over 3.5 times my salary. The average London wage is only £4000 more than the average in Manchester, yet the 2 up-2 down terraced house in Manchester's Rusholme was worth £50k in 2005 and my rent was £225 a month including bills (a third of what you'd pay for a similar room in a Shepherd's Bush flat!) for a double room in a share house with 2 funny Welsh chefs. It was far from ideal - a few streets away from Man City's old Maine Road ground on the border with Moss Side, a 30 minute walk to the city centre. Now I live half an hour's walk to Notting Hill Gate or Paddington so pretty similar there. The problem is I don't earn 5 times what I was earning in Manchester, and I am pretty sure an administrator in manchester in 2010 isn't earning a fifth of what I earn and because of this and the fact I could rent 2 properties for the price of one oop narth, its...1-0 Manchester!
Travel and location:
Ok this is a tight one. You can get a weekly bus pass in Manchester from £5 - that's almost what it can cost you a day in London. This will get you to 70% of the places you need to go in and around the city centre and South Manchester, so not a huge outgoing. Also taxis seem cheaper too and the banter is usually better.
Manchester is within 90 mins of Birmingham, Wales, Lake District, Peak District, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and Blackpool which have some outstanding natural areas of beauty. Has good transport links including a tram. It is probably cheaper to get to Scotland too and Manchester Airport is not nearly as rammed as the London airports and is expanding all the time to serve further destinations. Also there must be less parking wardens which gives it the edge.
London is within 90 minutes of Wembley, Richmond Park, Brighton, Dover, Cotswolds, New Forest, Essex, Kent, Surrey Stamford and also some outstanding areas of natural beauty too and undoubtedly the location of Europe for low cost flights to europe and the world - however it has the dreaded M25 and can often take 90 minutes just to get in or out, especially during a bank holiday. As of now, despite constant threat Manchester has not invoked a congestion charge which I feel is just a tax on London's poorest, as congestion is as bad as ever in my opinion - thanks god for my push-bike and although expensive Public transport!
2-0 Manchester (just over the line - using a interactive and long awaited fourth official's replay!)
Sport:
Ok, so Manchester has City and United (one of the best and biggest in t'world) but London has about 15 league teams, including the regime-driven QPR, the world's finest football team. Also, London has Wembley and Twickenham and Rugby Union is bigger than Rugby League (which can only be a good thing!) although this again shows the class divide! Also London has the Oval (where i was for Ashes 2005 win) and Lord's and numerous other stadia and choice which brings it out on top!
2-1
Weather:
Considering that the longest it didn't rain continously for in the two years I was in Manchester was 4 days, this is a no brainer! It also once rained for 4 days straight from the Sunday evening to a Wednesday evening and I nearly got trenchfoot! London's weather can also be infuriating but it is a few degrees warmer (thanks to all the congregated bodies) than oop narth!
2-2
Culture - Ray Winstone vs Brian Potter:
Manchester has a great music scene that you feel a part of (it tranfuses the whole city) and going out is cheaper, easier and less pretentious (half of people don't even remove their parkas when they go clubbing, just like Liam and Ian Brown!). My favourite club is Sankey Soaps in Ancoats and the beer (real ale) and lyrical banter is better for what comes out of your wallet I feel! The sheer poetry of the Manchester accent does it for me. Go on Ironside you can take Winstone, ya dickhead!
However this is where it all changes and depends on your social/class viewpoint. Some would vote for London because it has unrivalled clubbing, opera, musicals, theatre, dance, ballet, comedy, gastro-pubs, concerts, museums.
You may be able to get a better and cheaper pint (3 for £4.80 in Sinclair's Oyster Bar) up north, but it's down south that you can truly do almost anything you like (money permitting) 7 days a week. In London it seems I have to put up or keep up with people's fads more - fashion, technology, dog-eat-dog, but in Manchester I feel its easier to be who you are without going out and buying the latest gadget to prove what a great guy you are - there is more a sense of community and not a keeping up with the Lord Farthrington-Joneses. Of course this is only an opinion and experience and London is a massive and diverse city so its hard to pigeon-hole. A person addicted to facebook is as sad as the next person addicted, i just feel one in London is sadder as there are literally so many other things one can spend their time more constructively on. Whether you can afford it is another thing and like most things this debate comes down to money and how you view its importance. It also comes down to whether you find having drugs delivered to your door disgusting or fantastic or whether you enjoy the smell of a stranger's armpit on a sweltering packed London tube carriage more than the smell of weed emanating from the top of the Wythenshawe to Piccadilly Finglands bus on your daily commute.
Full time whistle: 2-2 (Extra Time to be played after this commercial break)
Ok, so in conclusion then, however much you ham it up each city, each compass direction (North and South) has its pros and cons and its down to individual tastes and wallets making this exercise as pointless as our very existence in the universe!
One last thing before I go mind and regardless of where I live I ordered a CD online for my brother in law's birthday on the 28th Jan from Play.com and it arrived today, 3 days after his actual birthday. Now I know they are based in Jersey (an island of the United Queendom of course), but come on...if it's in stock, how long does it take to pluck from the warehouse, cover in cardboard and send? Certainly not a week anyway! To top it all off, they sent the wrong CD and after an arduous 10 minute phone call in the rain - partly to do with her poor spoken English and shocking reception on my/O2's behalf - it turns out I have to wait 2 weeks for another copy.
Now that's customer service...wherever you live in the UK!
When (the less of two evils) i decided to get a refund, despite todays new fangled technology etc, I received an email with a return address but no return postage. I will not receive my refund until I pay for the postage to get Biffy sodding Clyro (a band I detest and ironically wouldn't pay the price of a stamp to go see!) back to play.com and my refund. Serve me right for being a lazy twat and not going to the shops like normal people and purchasing a copy with my bare hands I hear you cry and touche! But what has the world come to when you have to pay for other people's mistakes that you've already paid once for!
I'm such a sucker, like the number of 'last chances' I have given to Satan... sorry RyanAir because of their stupidly low fares. My point is it doesn't matter where you live in the UK, you are still going to get rode and get shoddy customer service where you are expected to bend over and take it in the arse just for wanting to be nice abn dbuy someone deserving a gift, but not wanting to go down Westfield as its full of pretentious or pyjama infested yoofs and sad orange fashonista wannabe types hanging around the Bulgari shops with their John Terry look-a-like footballer HABS (Husbands and Boyfs innit!) updating their facebook mobile pages to their celebrity doppelgangers. Play.com - you have a lot to answer for.
And as for the rest of you sorry people, leave now, go live your life (wherever that may be) and stop bothering me!
Until next time Dear reader:-)
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
The futility of a schizophrenic cyclist's indecisive mind
Let me just start by saying I'm not a real schizophrenic...and neither am I! Ha ha - great start!
Right, cyclists.
God they are like marmite aren't they? You either hate them or love them. Usually, unless you are one, it's hate of course (as they break through red lights and zebra crossings narrowly avoiding pregnant women and Cruft's dogs and your wing mirrors). It's easy to hate someone who cycles, not only because they usually wear stupid clothing but also because (in London) they frequently go faster than cars and buses. No one is immune! Oh but when it is lashing rain, how smug we feel trapped in our metal polluting little cocoons with D'Angelo blasting out the stereo and some yogic breathing dissolving the overall stress of the commute.
Now this is where the schizophrenia comes in. I am both a driver and a cyclist (although not a skin-tight leotard wearing one), so I'm very much on the fence when it comes to this debate. I don't own a car, but when i borrow my sisters I find it both liberating, expensive and frustrating all in equal measure, especially when it comes to London and parking zones and crap White Van drivers and dickhead Volvo driving MILFs from Notting Hill or Chelsea, non-indicating bus drivers on the Uxbridge Road and dillusional mini-cabs. The only advantageous liberating thing about a car is getting it out of London on a long haul trip (well anywhere over 10 miles), but only if you have 4 of you sharing petrol and you can avoid all the traffic hotspots, caravans driving in the middle lane of the motorway and the senior Sunday drivers!
But i have to say, considering I cycle every day (taking my life into my hands) that if I had to vote for or against the mass cull of the above people I would vote definitely for. Yes, I admit when I'm driving and the lane is narrow and some cyclist creeps up my inside, avoiding my wing mirror by inches I do get annoyed. But because of my own near scrapes on the bike, I have to assume that everyone on the road is a 16 year old retarded moron (and generally they are) and have in my mind pre-emptive choices on road safety. This has made me a better driver and a more cautious cyclist - all the better I hear you cry!
It is worth pointing out at this point, that since I purchased the third part in the cyclist's trilogy of safety items - the helmet (to add to bike-lights and sexy hi-vis vest!), I have found life far more dangerous on the roads. Now I'm not saying they don't do a good job of saving head injury victims (they do and are advisable), but it is crazy how much more the average driver risks near me since I got the helmet. Before, they used to linger on my shoulder for what seemed hours as I laboured up a hill in the wrong gear, inwardly swearing and sweating out my ringpiece.
Now I have a flimsy plastic helmet, said average driver thinks it's an invincibility cloak, a magical forcefield that allows them to overtake me and take the first immediate left hand turn across my path at seemingly any speed they like without any dangers whatsoever. Or like the mini cab driver the other day, overtake far too quickly then screech to a halt about 7 inches in front of me before honking for his fat and mentally challenged ten-strong family to emerge from the hovel they call a house and slowly labour in single file into the clapped out Mitsubishi Delica with the forged MOT and emissions certificate, the wife clutching her Benefits folder like a newborn.
Granted, bikers probably bend the rules of the road a bit, but usually for the benefit of others (for example pushing an amber / red light, so that when they turn green again the first car doesn't have to wait ten seconds to get going behind the hunched exahling quasi modo ahead and thus enduring the frenzied honks of the masses). This said, if we all had to re-take our driving tests tomorrow, considering all the bad habits we've got into over the years and forgetting our natural egotism that says we are amazing, how many of us do you think would pass? I'm guessing about 40% at a push!
I'm asking for a truce. We cyclists will try not to weave in and out of slowly moving traffic as dangerously as a scooter-wielding lost Nigerian pizza delivery boy and cutting red lights for our own benefit, if you (drivers) agree that it is wrong to overtake us and then pull left into the Cycle lane crushing our needed limbs against the curb, when you have a least a metre of space on your right hand side. This would be such a better place to live if we could just admit we are all crap and stop pretending (especially on a Friday post work) that what we're rushing for is far more important than anyone else's and that no one is responsible for 'anything' - let alone there own actions!
Secondly, i would like to talk about a mother's love and the contentious issue of euthanasia. Yes, I am as you might have guessed talking about 57 year old Frances Inglis injecting her brain damaged 22 year old son Thomas with an overdose of heroin to end his 'living hell' last week. She has been given a life sentence by a judge and jury that we can only guess are not Liberal Democrat supporters! This realistically means she will be out in 9 years, 7 and a half if you take off the 423 days in which she has already been remanded in custody! I won't go into this too much, but if a loving mother (who brought her son into the world) can't take him out for reasons of compassion then how come drunk drivers who kill people don't all face life sentences too?
Guilty or not, the system is flawed, especially when you take into account that Thomas became brain-damaged after he fell from a moving ambulance taking him to hospital for a cut he suffered in a fracas in Dagenham on 7 July 2007!
So for nearly 3 years, Thomas having had life-saving surgery (during which part of his skull was removed to relieve pressure on his bruised brain and a tracheotomy so he could breathe) had to be fed via a tube into his stomach. That's not exactly a great life now is it? Although Inglis dealt with the problem in the wrong way, the system of people in uncoverable vegetative states and euthanasia must be looked at. I know what you're thinking - is Dagenham really bad enought o kill for? I just don't know!
As his guardians, Inglis and family should have a right to a say in his future if he is unable to decide for himself. Think if it was you, would you prefer your family, an NHS hospital or the government's laws to choose for you? It's not a nice choice ot make, but i would vote for option 1 as I am sure most people would. Maybe something good will come of this and as part of the organ donor card or will or something people can say that if the are unresponsive that they choose to die. Then anyone trying to kill them, mother, state or Harold Shipman, must be punished. Until the law and government start listening to its people, this won't be the last euthansia case we hear about.
And one last point before I wrap up this rant...how did Thomas fall out the ambulance in the first palce and surely (as none of us a responsible for anything) the emergency services in this case are liable in part? 'Oh no! It's all because of that Essex cyclist we had to swerve to avoid! Down with the cloven-hooved clod hopper - string him up for it..............KILL 'EM ALL!' they howl, as another full moon rises over the semi-urbane disenchanted fields of Essex.
Until next week dear reader, when I will be weighing up life in London and the South East vs life in the rest of the UK - should be a belter!
Cheers :-)
Right, cyclists.
God they are like marmite aren't they? You either hate them or love them. Usually, unless you are one, it's hate of course (as they break through red lights and zebra crossings narrowly avoiding pregnant women and Cruft's dogs and your wing mirrors). It's easy to hate someone who cycles, not only because they usually wear stupid clothing but also because (in London) they frequently go faster than cars and buses. No one is immune! Oh but when it is lashing rain, how smug we feel trapped in our metal polluting little cocoons with D'Angelo blasting out the stereo and some yogic breathing dissolving the overall stress of the commute.
Now this is where the schizophrenia comes in. I am both a driver and a cyclist (although not a skin-tight leotard wearing one), so I'm very much on the fence when it comes to this debate. I don't own a car, but when i borrow my sisters I find it both liberating, expensive and frustrating all in equal measure, especially when it comes to London and parking zones and crap White Van drivers and dickhead Volvo driving MILFs from Notting Hill or Chelsea, non-indicating bus drivers on the Uxbridge Road and dillusional mini-cabs. The only advantageous liberating thing about a car is getting it out of London on a long haul trip (well anywhere over 10 miles), but only if you have 4 of you sharing petrol and you can avoid all the traffic hotspots, caravans driving in the middle lane of the motorway and the senior Sunday drivers!
But i have to say, considering I cycle every day (taking my life into my hands) that if I had to vote for or against the mass cull of the above people I would vote definitely for. Yes, I admit when I'm driving and the lane is narrow and some cyclist creeps up my inside, avoiding my wing mirror by inches I do get annoyed. But because of my own near scrapes on the bike, I have to assume that everyone on the road is a 16 year old retarded moron (and generally they are) and have in my mind pre-emptive choices on road safety. This has made me a better driver and a more cautious cyclist - all the better I hear you cry!
It is worth pointing out at this point, that since I purchased the third part in the cyclist's trilogy of safety items - the helmet (to add to bike-lights and sexy hi-vis vest!), I have found life far more dangerous on the roads. Now I'm not saying they don't do a good job of saving head injury victims (they do and are advisable), but it is crazy how much more the average driver risks near me since I got the helmet. Before, they used to linger on my shoulder for what seemed hours as I laboured up a hill in the wrong gear, inwardly swearing and sweating out my ringpiece.
Now I have a flimsy plastic helmet, said average driver thinks it's an invincibility cloak, a magical forcefield that allows them to overtake me and take the first immediate left hand turn across my path at seemingly any speed they like without any dangers whatsoever. Or like the mini cab driver the other day, overtake far too quickly then screech to a halt about 7 inches in front of me before honking for his fat and mentally challenged ten-strong family to emerge from the hovel they call a house and slowly labour in single file into the clapped out Mitsubishi Delica with the forged MOT and emissions certificate, the wife clutching her Benefits folder like a newborn.
Granted, bikers probably bend the rules of the road a bit, but usually for the benefit of others (for example pushing an amber / red light, so that when they turn green again the first car doesn't have to wait ten seconds to get going behind the hunched exahling quasi modo ahead and thus enduring the frenzied honks of the masses). This said, if we all had to re-take our driving tests tomorrow, considering all the bad habits we've got into over the years and forgetting our natural egotism that says we are amazing, how many of us do you think would pass? I'm guessing about 40% at a push!
I'm asking for a truce. We cyclists will try not to weave in and out of slowly moving traffic as dangerously as a scooter-wielding lost Nigerian pizza delivery boy and cutting red lights for our own benefit, if you (drivers) agree that it is wrong to overtake us and then pull left into the Cycle lane crushing our needed limbs against the curb, when you have a least a metre of space on your right hand side. This would be such a better place to live if we could just admit we are all crap and stop pretending (especially on a Friday post work) that what we're rushing for is far more important than anyone else's and that no one is responsible for 'anything' - let alone there own actions!
Secondly, i would like to talk about a mother's love and the contentious issue of euthanasia. Yes, I am as you might have guessed talking about 57 year old Frances Inglis injecting her brain damaged 22 year old son Thomas with an overdose of heroin to end his 'living hell' last week. She has been given a life sentence by a judge and jury that we can only guess are not Liberal Democrat supporters! This realistically means she will be out in 9 years, 7 and a half if you take off the 423 days in which she has already been remanded in custody! I won't go into this too much, but if a loving mother (who brought her son into the world) can't take him out for reasons of compassion then how come drunk drivers who kill people don't all face life sentences too?
Guilty or not, the system is flawed, especially when you take into account that Thomas became brain-damaged after he fell from a moving ambulance taking him to hospital for a cut he suffered in a fracas in Dagenham on 7 July 2007!
So for nearly 3 years, Thomas having had life-saving surgery (during which part of his skull was removed to relieve pressure on his bruised brain and a tracheotomy so he could breathe) had to be fed via a tube into his stomach. That's not exactly a great life now is it? Although Inglis dealt with the problem in the wrong way, the system of people in uncoverable vegetative states and euthanasia must be looked at. I know what you're thinking - is Dagenham really bad enought o kill for? I just don't know!
As his guardians, Inglis and family should have a right to a say in his future if he is unable to decide for himself. Think if it was you, would you prefer your family, an NHS hospital or the government's laws to choose for you? It's not a nice choice ot make, but i would vote for option 1 as I am sure most people would. Maybe something good will come of this and as part of the organ donor card or will or something people can say that if the are unresponsive that they choose to die. Then anyone trying to kill them, mother, state or Harold Shipman, must be punished. Until the law and government start listening to its people, this won't be the last euthansia case we hear about.
And one last point before I wrap up this rant...how did Thomas fall out the ambulance in the first palce and surely (as none of us a responsible for anything) the emergency services in this case are liable in part? 'Oh no! It's all because of that Essex cyclist we had to swerve to avoid! Down with the cloven-hooved clod hopper - string him up for it..............KILL 'EM ALL!' they howl, as another full moon rises over the semi-urbane disenchanted fields of Essex.
Until next week dear reader, when I will be weighing up life in London and the South East vs life in the rest of the UK - should be a belter!
Cheers :-)
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Freedom & The Star Spangled Idiots
So get this. No pants on the subway day - not sure if you heard about it or not, but on Sunday 10th January 2010 - yes 2010 people! - 3000 New Yorkers decided to ride the Subway to work without wearing pants.
Although I admire them for sticking two fingers up to the man and braving the cold, why do we feel that, as a social networking bunch of overactive apes, we need to prove how free we are all the time? I'm glad to report that only 30 Brits (a mere 1% of the yanks) managed it on the Underground's equivalent No Trousers on the Underground Day but that's probably half to do with the fact that only 1% of streets have been gritted well enough in the nation's capital, making leaving the bedsit a life-threatening activity. It would have been brilliant if hackers had managed to de-stabalise the English version back to the original Pants... and a handful of pasty Brits showed up unknowingly with their knackers and minges out before being carted off to Nonce Jail! Now that would've been worth getting a travelcard for!
Hang on, did I just write Nation's capital? I believe I did. And this is my point. Although I have nothing against America and Americans (in fact I have been to 20 states and lived in Massachussets for 3 months and found everyone very friendly), why do we feel the need to copy words and slang and other social conventions that they have reversed or changed from the original English language that was created right here in the first place? Is it ingrained into our brains. I was speaking to an American company on the phone and when asked for the date I immediately went into mm/dd/yyyy format to appease the lady on the other end of the line. But why are we copying them?
Our youths today, thanks to Twitter and Facebook and text messages are only using something like 800 proper words. I work in a further education college where all the kids talk like: Ah my days blad, it was so dry sick yeah, coz i was like right up in his face wid my bretheren yeah and my chinny reckon etc...and this is the understandable ones. Why are we talking like we are all from a downtrodden black American/Caribbean shanty community where drugs rool and the kids are kool, innit! I swear if I hear another teen refer to Fiddy (50 Cent, the awful rapper and over-generous father who took nine bullets before realising what he was doing might be affecting his kids) - or 33p as I like to call him - again this week, god help me, it could well be time for Columbine Part II. Next, they'll be telling me You's got bad body odor, bruv, what's wrong wiv u innit and check ver color ov ur trainers bladclat! Dat is Japes!
Ok, so America has The Wire and Mad Men and all that shit, but we have Fawlty Towers and irony and sarcasm and The Thick Of It and the proper original Office and nameless other sitcoms and comedians to be proud of. Plus we have about a fifth of the population! After all the negative press the US got in the Bush administration no one wanted to go near America with a barge pole, which goes to show what a job Barack Obama is doing now that people want back into American culture and a slice of the American dream, even if most of the time its unfounded or merely an escapist slice of television for example.
Like goldfish with a 4 second memory, or a smack addict in denial, today's celebrity obsessed youths pine for America and it's gold-paved streets without even knowing it. They are pumped full of socail networking, MTV videos and consumerism from birth as it is, America just amplifies it through Coca-Colanisation.
It's 2010, we've been partying like its 1999 for 11 years and today resembles what it would be like to attend a stranger's dark mass orgy on ketamine, but not the fun part. No, today resembles the morning after when you come to and the realisation dawns with the daylight that there's been an overnight blizzard and you are snowed in with the people you've just been carnal with and have to face a kind of civil ritual of breakfast awkwardness with not one, but twelve folk of all ages, sexes and creeds, for a whole day and as you were last in you have to clean the stains from the furniture with your newly manicured nails!
Our situation can be summed up in one political thought - although I don't agree with the media circus and money orientated election process in America, it does make you feel with Obama winning what can be done when people get together and believe in something. That it doesn't have to be all unemployment and drizzle and David Cameron and boring grey British politicians over-using their expense budgets.
People believe in Obama, in that happy endings stuff, but we don't do that very well in Britain. That's why more people were interested in the US election than our own and embarassingly more people voted for the first UK Big Brother final than the first General Election of this millennium! Put it this way, the US will always have Harry Connick Jr while we have to put up with Robbie fucking Williams pretending to be Harry Connick Jr. Soon indeed Pop Will Eat Itself!
I am going to end now as I am ranting, but American Democracy just seems to allow people to act freakish more freely. I am not against minority sports and I'm a bit of a nerd myself so always root for the underdog, I just can't help feel old and depressed by Brit's lack of communication these days and remembering tradition and where you're from and why that's important.
If we must be FREAKS of the new FREEDOM can't we do it our own way, our uniquely stiff upper lipped British board-game playing way? We need a Life of Brian character to step up to the plate. Or should we simply copy a nation that would sue itself for indecency if ever it could find out where it truly did live, because we can't be bothered to create our own reality! The answer as always is - just be yourself man and find your own path, hopefully people will follow!
Although I admire them for sticking two fingers up to the man and braving the cold, why do we feel that, as a social networking bunch of overactive apes, we need to prove how free we are all the time? I'm glad to report that only 30 Brits (a mere 1% of the yanks) managed it on the Underground's equivalent No Trousers on the Underground Day but that's probably half to do with the fact that only 1% of streets have been gritted well enough in the nation's capital, making leaving the bedsit a life-threatening activity. It would have been brilliant if hackers had managed to de-stabalise the English version back to the original Pants... and a handful of pasty Brits showed up unknowingly with their knackers and minges out before being carted off to Nonce Jail! Now that would've been worth getting a travelcard for!
Hang on, did I just write Nation's capital? I believe I did. And this is my point. Although I have nothing against America and Americans (in fact I have been to 20 states and lived in Massachussets for 3 months and found everyone very friendly), why do we feel the need to copy words and slang and other social conventions that they have reversed or changed from the original English language that was created right here in the first place? Is it ingrained into our brains. I was speaking to an American company on the phone and when asked for the date I immediately went into mm/dd/yyyy format to appease the lady on the other end of the line. But why are we copying them?
Our youths today, thanks to Twitter and Facebook and text messages are only using something like 800 proper words. I work in a further education college where all the kids talk like: Ah my days blad, it was so dry sick yeah, coz i was like right up in his face wid my bretheren yeah and my chinny reckon etc...and this is the understandable ones. Why are we talking like we are all from a downtrodden black American/Caribbean shanty community where drugs rool and the kids are kool, innit! I swear if I hear another teen refer to Fiddy (50 Cent, the awful rapper and over-generous father who took nine bullets before realising what he was doing might be affecting his kids) - or 33p as I like to call him - again this week, god help me, it could well be time for Columbine Part II. Next, they'll be telling me You's got bad body odor, bruv, what's wrong wiv u innit and check ver color ov ur trainers bladclat! Dat is Japes!
Ok, so America has The Wire and Mad Men and all that shit, but we have Fawlty Towers and irony and sarcasm and The Thick Of It and the proper original Office and nameless other sitcoms and comedians to be proud of. Plus we have about a fifth of the population! After all the negative press the US got in the Bush administration no one wanted to go near America with a barge pole, which goes to show what a job Barack Obama is doing now that people want back into American culture and a slice of the American dream, even if most of the time its unfounded or merely an escapist slice of television for example.
Like goldfish with a 4 second memory, or a smack addict in denial, today's celebrity obsessed youths pine for America and it's gold-paved streets without even knowing it. They are pumped full of socail networking, MTV videos and consumerism from birth as it is, America just amplifies it through Coca-Colanisation.
It's 2010, we've been partying like its 1999 for 11 years and today resembles what it would be like to attend a stranger's dark mass orgy on ketamine, but not the fun part. No, today resembles the morning after when you come to and the realisation dawns with the daylight that there's been an overnight blizzard and you are snowed in with the people you've just been carnal with and have to face a kind of civil ritual of breakfast awkwardness with not one, but twelve folk of all ages, sexes and creeds, for a whole day and as you were last in you have to clean the stains from the furniture with your newly manicured nails!
Our situation can be summed up in one political thought - although I don't agree with the media circus and money orientated election process in America, it does make you feel with Obama winning what can be done when people get together and believe in something. That it doesn't have to be all unemployment and drizzle and David Cameron and boring grey British politicians over-using their expense budgets.
People believe in Obama, in that happy endings stuff, but we don't do that very well in Britain. That's why more people were interested in the US election than our own and embarassingly more people voted for the first UK Big Brother final than the first General Election of this millennium! Put it this way, the US will always have Harry Connick Jr while we have to put up with Robbie fucking Williams pretending to be Harry Connick Jr. Soon indeed Pop Will Eat Itself!
I am going to end now as I am ranting, but American Democracy just seems to allow people to act freakish more freely. I am not against minority sports and I'm a bit of a nerd myself so always root for the underdog, I just can't help feel old and depressed by Brit's lack of communication these days and remembering tradition and where you're from and why that's important.
If we must be FREAKS of the new FREEDOM can't we do it our own way, our uniquely stiff upper lipped British board-game playing way? We need a Life of Brian character to step up to the plate. Or should we simply copy a nation that would sue itself for indecency if ever it could find out where it truly did live, because we can't be bothered to create our own reality! The answer as always is - just be yourself man and find your own path, hopefully people will follow!
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