On Racism

People entertain me so much these days. Today has been a relatively entertaining day in relation to people’s views on racism and I’ve concluded that some people are simply prejudiced or dare I say it, stupid.

Dispatches: In God’s Name
Channel 4 is one of my favourite television channels, not just because it shows some of my favourite American shows (ER, Scrubs ect) but because it also shows the fantastic show, Dispatches. Channel Four is the British TV channel that’s probably the most left field. One of the ways the difference between Channel 4 and other channels is expressed is through Dispatches where a various issues ignored by other channels and often the government are expressed.

The episode of Dispatches I just watched was not one of the hard-hitting, gritty stories about what’s really going on in society, it was not one of the episodes that points a finger at the government, what I consider it to be is an examination of a rising sub-culture. The focus of the episode was Christian fundamentalism. I say sub-culture because this is not representative of Christianity, most Christians are not like this. Some of these people really scare me. During the course of the show they indirectly stated that anyone that disagreed with them was evil. This means, as a result of my support for abortion, gay-marriage and acknowledgment of Islam (I’ll get back to that) I would pretty much be evil. The main thought that went through my head was, “this is none of their business”. I don’t understand why so many people believe that they have the right to attempt to change the lives of others.

Now, to the main reason why I felt the need to comment on this show. There was this man and in addition to protesting about Jerry Springer: The Opera, he, and a group of others took it upon themselves to protest about the opening of a Mosque in East London. They basically stated that Islam was not a religion, all Muslims are the same, they are not peaceful people, Allah is Satan and then proceeded to give thoughtless “explanations” as to why they thought they were right. All religions are based on faith, belief without proof, this, in turn means that no religion can be proved or disproved. No-one of any religion has the right to say that another is wrong.

Tropic Thunder
Now, you just read an account of what is definitely racism in modern day society. However, there are always those who blow issues waaaaaaaaay out of proportion. For those who haven’t seen the trailer for Tropic Thunder firstly, shame on you, and secondly, here it is:


Okay, fun wasn’t it. And yes, that really was Robert Downey Jr and this is also the “issue”. People have stated that Robert Downey Jr’s playing a character, playing a character who is black is racist. If anyone believes this, please, give me a logical explanation why. I mentioned a REAL account of racism previously, THIS, however, is foolishness, It’s not racism, it’s entertainment (I do understand that entertainment can be racist but this is not one of those cases). The strange thing is, this has happened in reverse on several occasions, White chicks (which committed sins against cinema for even existing) and various Eddie Murphy films. I just hope that people don’t take out their foolishness on Robert Downey Jr, it’s his year, don’t mess it up fools.

Let’s leave this on a fun note


Hehehe, Albino Shape-Shifting Lizard Bitches-Classic

Ooo, I just read this, it really doesn’t sound eloquent, drat. Oh yeah, where it says Dispatches: In God’s Name, I’m not being blasphemous, In God’s Name was the name of the episode of Dispatches.

Rocket+Car=Rocketcar

I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve been watching Ally McBeal partially because it makes me feel saner. I also mentioned that I feel happy knowing that I’m not hallucinating. Yesterday, I got very worried that I was indeed hallucinating. I was sitting on the bus on my way to college and I could see a rocket coming into my view. It was a rocketcar! I kid you not. My first thought after thinking about the greatness I was seeing was that I must be hallucinating, come on, a rocketcar? I took a picture to clarify whether or not I saw what I though I saw. After getting some second opinions, It turned out I really did see a rocketcar. Look!

Yesterday was also my very last day of college, well, that’s what they say. We still have to go back for exams and leavers afternoon. Lets just say, my last lessons at college were on Friday. Regardless, I still think this deserves a…

People Getting Punched

Ever just want to watch people get puched

...just before eating


...just before breaking AF1 rules!!!

Ever feel a bit...blah?

It’s official. Exam season has begun. My first exam is tomorrow; if I had done better in my exams last year I wouldn’t be taking this one. You see, this is a re-take of my AS maths exam. I’ve tried reasonably hard to prepare for this, but, as usual, my efforts have gone unrewarded. Every practise paper I have taken thus far has given me a grade C or lower. It’s not that I expect to get an A in maths, but I just hope to get at least a B on the paper I’ve spent two years preparing for. My sister insists that my grades last year were good and that I have really high expectations of myself. She compares me to others that I have not done as well as myself. At these such times, a quote from William Faulkner springs to mind, “Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” It is these words that I try to live by, at least academically.

Today, I revised for around 7 hours (taking food and YouTube breaks) and during this time I tried not to be distracted by checking my e-mail. To avoid this, I didn’t open iGoogle…until 20 minutes ago. I don’t really care about horoscopes, I find it highly unlikely that 1/12 of the worlds population will have the same experiences on any day. Despite this, I have my horoscope on my iGoogle page, partially because the picture matches my iGoogle design. My horoscope caught my attention today, possibly because of the word, disillusionment. It said:

Your career goals may not be as in touch with reality as you think and you could face disillusionment if you try to hold on to them. Unfortunately, working harder won't turn a fantasy into something that's real. Take an objective look at what you are doing and consider whether or not it fits with a sensible plan.

I’m not sure the way these words should be taken. Does this mean, screw A levels, you’re not going to pass so stop trying OR do your frickin’ A-Levels, you’ll never be a film director OR, could it possibly mean, do SOMETHING with your life, this waiting for your calling just isn’t working. Oh the triple entendre.

As I mentioned previously, I have an exam tomorrow (technically two). At this point I should be nervous or scared in some way. Strange thing, I’m not. I’m beginning to think that I don’t care. It’s not that I’m prepared (which I’m not), I simply don’t care. (I smell a rant coming on). This is all rubbish, education should be one small aspect of ones life, at 18, it should not be the only thing I worry about. Every once and awhile I think about forgetting about all of this, pursuing something I enjoy. Right now, I think the most important thing about any occupation I take on in the future should be that I enjoy it. I don’t want to be a psychologist. I can’t help people with their problems, I stand by my belief that someone as messed up as myself does not have the right to tell other people that they need to be helped. I’ve been watching a lot of Ally McBeal recently, it’s a show that always leaves me feeling a bit saner. Right now, I feel better because I know that despite all the things that make my sanity somewhat questionable, at least I’m not hallucinating. Dear God I’m using a fictional character to determine my sanity.

I don’t think I’m any better that Rae Charles. Help.

Remember...Gap Adverts

So, back to my Iron Man adventure. We went to the cinema on Monday to see our free film. The whole time my brother was speaking to the staff, I was just thinking that they had no proof that we had free tickets and they’d send us home. They did not. One of the members of staff just told the others that they didn’t need to see our tickets. I was a bit of a Jedi mind tricks moment.

What happened on Sunday: As I mentioned previously we were running 10 minutes late for the 5pm show. What appears to have happened was, we went into the show that started one hour before the one we thought we were going to see so we missed an hour or so of the four pm show. I didn’t enjoy the second showing as much as the first mainly because I felt quite ill. I ate a large amount of sweet popcorn and Pespsi. That was not a good idea.

Whilst at the cinema I saw one of the most awesome adverts I have ever been privy to so I thought that I’d dedicate this blog to some of my favourite adverts. Indeed.

This is the advert that I saw at the cinema. It basically tells the tale of me, every time I start to revise, I mean, when I try to get my stuff done.



This advert was one of the most impressive adverts I had ever seen. I made me want to learn how to dance (it soon wore off).



Who does better adverts that Gap? It saddens me that I don’t see gap adverts anymore so here’s a tribute to some of my favourites.

Just one of those days...Until...

Today started off as one of those days, you know, you want to go back to sleep but you can’t, you want to eat but you’re strangely full, you want to work but you just have no motivation and, most importantly, you want to download your favourite podcast but it’s not in the feed yet. Or...maybe this is just me. After some computer time i finally hit the books and revised for my impending C4 (that’s core maths to the people smart enough not to choose maths A-Level) mock exam. My real exam is under 4 weeks away so technically I was revising for that too. Anyhoo, back to it being one of those days, I’ve been working in my kitchen as opposed to my bedroom for two reasons; 1) There is barely any natural light in my room which makes it a reasonably unpleasant place to work in, and 2) My desk is quite high; combine this with my being under average height and you get a reasonably uncomfortable work station. So I’m working in my kitchen, a communal area and naturally, I get interrupted by the family, over, and over, and over again. I completed 1 and a half modules, significantly less than I intended to. Now, let’s get to the interesting part of my day.

Around, four thirty my brother comes to the house, we’d planned to see Iron Man. He, of course did not check what time the film started and a quick internet search resulted in me dressing very quickly to get to the 5pm show. There’s no way I could have left my house in what I was wearing previously. I got up this morning and I had a strange desire to wear shorts, so I put on theses horridious (yeah, horridious-a hybrid of horrible and hideous) purple shorts and one of the baggiest t-shirts I own. This, is what I call, studying clothes.

Back to the cinema segment of this piece; I was ready at 4:50 giving us 10 minutes to get to the cinema. We got there at around 10 past 5. You’d expect us to see trailers when we got there right? Wrong. As we open the doors I see Tony Stark being rescued by the military. You don’t need to have seen the film to know that a whole load happened before that moment. We still watch the film (because, you know, it’s our fault) and it turned out to relatively awesome, I’ll speak about the film and express some mad Robert Downey Jr love later. As I got home I went straight to the computer to watch the 10 minutes of the film I missed (don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone watching films online). It turns out, we missed around half an hour of the film, 38 minutes and 21seconds to be exact. That means it was not our fault. My brother has gone to complain and hopefully get us some free tickets as compensation. Yeah Boi.

He just got back, apparently we’ve got free tickets for a screening tomorrow. Unfortunately, my brother appears to have no proof of this so I’ll just see what happens.

Okay, back to what I saw of Iron Man (and the RDJ love). Iron man is what I call a great start to a story that will (yeah, I said will) be even better. It’s an origins story and we all know that origins stories can be, well, crap (Hulk anyone?). It was a film that relied heavily on the performances and the interactions between the various characters. Luckily, the acting and chemistry was fantabulous (hybrid of fantastic and fabulous). There were some great moments between Robert “Cooler than nitro” Downey Jr and Jeff “The Dude” Bridges, between “Cool Hand” Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth “kinda growing on me” paltrow and between Robert “Got the cool” Downey Jr and Terrence “I’ve only seen you in Iron Man and Crash” Howard. I’m sensing a theme here, oh Yeah, Robert Downey Jr was Awesome (in the Bill and Ted sense). There were many Downey Jr-isms present and that added a drop of, I don’t know, liquid perfection to the film. Iron Man was not necessarily faultless in terms of story and progression, but what I can say is that the next instalment will be exceptional. Can I get a Yeah Boi?

On a final note, if you actually read this and trust me, at least in the movie sense, you’ll watch iron man and If you do, WATCH THE BIT AFTER THE CREDITS. Yeah boi, fan boys, Nick Fury is coming.

Ken and Boris and Brian and...Charlie?

‘tis a very important day in London. The final segment, the important part of the Mayoral Election takes place today, well, until 10pm this evening. Today, I voted for the first time. Sure it’s not a general election, but it’s pretty damn important. I’ve decided not to disclose who I voted for to anyone, not even my dear readers, sorry, I’m just not willing to go into a long conversation defending myself and my opinions. You can at least know that I didn’t vote for the BNP. I’m sure that quite a few people think I voted for the Green Party (good old Sian), mainly because I’ve been saying vote Green for the last however many years. Oh yeah, I’ve turned 18 since I last wrote, hence the voting.

I went around one week without watching any films in full, it’s strange. There is barely any time to do anything these days. Right now I really should be working, but I just can’t bring myself to pick up a pen. I’ve been approaching most things with indifference, I’m not really the most fun person to be around right now. This is what A Levels do to people.

I watched the film Chaplin (1992) the other day. I’d taken to watching Charlie Chaplin films so I thought I’d learn a bit more about the man behind the tramp, not to mention, Robert Downey Jr is supercool. Anyhoo, despite not really bearing a physical resemblance to Chaplin (except maybe in relation to height) I never doubted that he was Chaplin. And, for an American, he pulled off a reasonably good British accent. My conclusion: not only is Robert Downey Jr supercool, he’s cooler than liquid nitrogen. So, I watched Chaplin, and it turned out to be a jolly good watch. Richard Attenborough is a pretty talented director.

Old Charlie was an interesting guy, and he made great films (based on what I have seen thus far). There’s scene from The Great Dictator (which cause a load of controversy at the time because people didn’t really see anything wrong with what the Nazis were doing), that almost anyone would enjoy. It’s hilarious, well , there are two scenes, have fun.