27th October: What I've been up to

Well.. apart from mourning - as my mother passed away earlier today - I suppose that I've done other stuff in the last few days. Understandably, I haven't written anything for a few days. I've been worried, I've been stressed, I've been whatsit called... anxious maybe? I'm sure that there's a better word, just can't remember it. Meh, you know how it is. Anyway, I've been playing Oblivion. That wonderful game where you get to kill stuff and be killed and blow stuff to pieces. It's a great stress relief game, takes barely any effort at all and the graphics are occasionally breath-taking.

Only occasionally.. my computer isn't that good! It crashed when I tried to upload a bunch of twice-as-good-high-resolution textures that I found lying about on t'internet. THEY looked awesome... and make me wish that I had at least a few thousand pounds to waste on a computer.

Like that hasn't happened already... albeit on a smaller scale that wasn't quite so extravagent. Worst luck....

I did have a bunch of personal things here, but I removed them because I don't think that I should put that stuff on the web at the moment. Not in the right state of mind to decide if it's suitable.

Scrapping all of the gloomy talk for tonight, as it's depressing me and I'm trying to avoid being depressed all night as I need some sleep (I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night... for obvious reasons) and depression causes insomnia (being unable to sleep) I thought I'd wind up Grace a little more.

She has just managed to steal an illict internet connection from a computer she's not supposed to be on from parents who are out and expecting her to be normal and be a good little girl. I don't know what has got into her... is she wierd or what? Anyway. She was trying to cheer me up earlier, after having sarcastically asking if I'd died and then doing the entire embarresment/ohgodimsorry type thingy that everyone seems to do, and was succeeding. I presume it's because I'm so tired, but I seem to be reading innunuendos into everything she says.

Take, for example, this brief snippet of conversation (which she will hate me for posting, but she'll hopefully forgive me. Afterall, it's for a sort-of vaguely good reason. Possibly.)

Me: My little sister is keeping me warm, sitting on my lap.
Me: Hugging me...
Grace: Awwww...
Grace: I'm cold too *hugs*

Now then, just what could we read into that situation? Does Grace wish to be kept warm by my rather annoying little sister or is there something more sinister going on here? Meh... it all makes sense to someone that's spent the last 30 hours or so awake and about half of that either worried or in tears. I'm not going to draw any more dots together with this snippet. I shouldn't need to. Try not having sleep, then reading it. Is like having a good dose of nitrous oxide.

You go too fast, see nothing but a blur but reckon you've had great fun doing it. And you didn't stop laughing either. It's a side effect of nitrous oxide... or laughing gas as they used to call it.

I could post another few snippets, but I'm not going to. Suffice to say that Grace, to my mind at least, seems to be opening herself up to all sorts of innunuendos.

Only joking Grace.. you know I love you - as a friend, obviously - really.

And to those sad sad people that decide that every time I mention friend and a female in the same sentence, or - in fact - mention any female at all in this thing, I suggest you read it carefully. And then go and look up 'love' in an english->ancient greek translation dictionary. It explains a lot about the different types of love. Agape, Lust and the other two which I can never remember. One of those 4 things is the one I'm looking for. Free mention to whoever tells me.

Not that I charge for mentions anyway, but that's not the point is it?


It's like the adverts in shops really. "Buy 3 for 5 quid!" when they're actually a mere 1.50 each. You make a grand savings of -50 pence. The outrageous little buggers overcharge you! It's really stupid. The other thing that irritates me is the vast amount of those sticky label thingies. You know those bright colour things that lie around in corner shops saying "this thing is 40p. If you don't have it, don't steal me. Just fuck off and go and find some other corner shop to nick stuff out of" (or words to that effect) which always seem to be wrong?

Take, for example, one of my local corner shops. The worrying thing about them is the amount of staff that work there that know my name, family history, school details and everything else simply from having talked to me for a bit when I've bought sweets from them. I buy lots of sweets from there, but this is not the point really. Fruit Pasteilles are 38p each... or about 5 and 4/5 for 2 quid. I buy 5 packets, if you haven't guessed.

On the packet it says 40p. So I wander along with my 2 quid coin, buy 5 packets and start walking home to eat them.

Yes, fruit pasteilles are my haribo substitute for when I cannot find haribos. Yes, I have too much money to waste on things like this. No, my teeth are not rotting away. Yes, they will do at some point. Any more questions before I continue?

However, nice lady in the shop pulls 30p change out of the till and stops me as I'm nearly out of the door. Me, being me, decides that honesty is probably a good option and so points out that, on the packet, the sweets are indeed 40p. Not that I was complaining mind, but honesty is one of these things drilled into me from an early age by my parents. They probably wonder why they did something like this, and wonder if it ever actually worked at times, but it's always nice for me to have someone to blame. And I get told that the price on ALL the sweets are wrong, and that they're fixing them. Slowly. As people eat up their stock and new stock is brought it.

Don't worry too much, oh faithful cornership whosellnicesweetsatgoodprices! I shall help you with fixing these incorrect labels. And can I have 6 packets instead of 5 for 2 quid next time please?

Yes, I'm a greedy sod. Any more questions?

Don't you find it really stupid that all these shops have incorrect prices, deals that rip you off, non-deals that rip you off even more, unhelpful shop assisstants and everything else that turns a fairly decent shop into something stupid that barely qualifies as a market stall? Seriously.. the amount that places like Asda are charging for food means that Waitrose are charging equal weights of gold for items! Or platinum, depending on if you're buying bread today.

I notice things like the price of bread, if you haven't guessed. Not from any particular choice, but due to my parents (or should that now be parent?) pointing out the extortionist amounts that these shops charge for staple foods. My brother pointed out to me, earlier today - or maybe late last night, it sort of hazes over at some point - that it's actually cheaper to buy the ingredients for bread and then just make it. 10 a penny loafs may be the size of a needle, but at least a quid's worth of bread gets you something that might last longer than just one meal.

It does make me wonder though.. is it worth buying a cow and some chickens for the back garden so that we can have milk and eggs practically for free? And, of course, it would save on lawnmower bills. Cows eat grass right? Of course, we might have to have a flock of sheep for making our own clothes as well, and maybe a small industrial power plant that runs on elephant grass or something, just to get the full cheapness benefit. I'm sure that you could make a profit by running a small household menagerie, but I also get the feeling that owning a flock of sheep would become an obsession.

Ah well.. I could always hire Chamarel to watch them... Or Bo Peep should that be? Or is that Alex playing that part? Gods... I'm confused this year, can't remember which of you is male.

That sounds bad out of context.

Hell.. that sounds bad IN context.

I'm fucked aren't I?

I also get the feeling that if I owned a few cows, 6 or 7 chickens, a small flock of sheep and a smal industrial power plant then things like saving money would be the least of my problems. I'd have to have a fairly big perimeter fence to keep out the local chavs so that they can't kill my chickens. All 6 of them on some giant pasture.

It made sense in my head before I started thinking about it properly.


I was watching Ricky Gervais yesterday night (it seems alot longer ago than that though) and he was talking about fairy tales/nursery rhymes and the awful morals that they taught the children of today. And it got me thinking a little.. I mean, take, for example, the story of the boy who cried Wolf.

Once upon a time, in some little mountain village that was far far away in a galaxy that wasn't quite so far away (Yes, I'm adapting this... well done for noticing), there lived a flock of sheep, a shepherd and a flock of villagers that would object to being a flock. They'd probably take me to court, but even the most convulted of legal systems can't quite reach this far away from a galaxy that wasn't quite so far away. I digress, so back to the story.

One day, the shepherd being quite bored, decided to have some fun. Looking around his flock of sheep he decided upon a trick. He shouted out "WOLF! WOLF!" and the flock of non-sheep ran out into the field and asked him where it was. "Oh," he said, "It ran away." The villagers, not believing him, grumbled and moaned and grumbled and moaned and went back to their little village. Thinking that this was quite fun, the shepherd - on the next day he got bored - shouted it again. And the villagers grumbled and moaned and grumbled and moaned and smacked the shepherd round the face once or twice to teach him a lesson that was well earnt before going back to their village.

Dissuaded from trying this path any further, the boy resolved not to tell lies any more. The next day, however, a wolf came along and thought, 'hmm.. let's have lamb chops for dinner tonight' and went and attacked the sheep. The boy, panicking, shouted out once more, "WOLF! WOLF!" but was just ignored by the villagers and was eventually eaten up by the wolf as a small side dish as the shepherd wasn't really all that big.

So what's the moral of the story? Is it not to tell a lie? Don't be stupid. The boy promotes lie-telling. Admittedly, this isn't very nice, but the boy still enjoys himself and has fun. The cheeky little bugger.gets away with it the first time! So maybe it's not to tell the same lie twice? Now if it is this, what sort of attitude is that to be teaching to a little kid? "Oh yeah, it's fine to tell lies... just don't tell the same one more than once else we'll just ignore you for ever more."

I wouldn't want any kids that I ever have in the future thinking that (and yes, I know that this is vastly hypocritical) that it's okay to tell lies. Who knows what sort of mischief they might get up to if they started doing what I do? But, despite this being what Ricky Gervais concluded at, I think that he was wrong. It's not not to tell the same lie twice... it's a slightly more complicated one than that.

Once you start lying, everyone ignores you anyway, so it don't matter if you tell the truth.

It's a much better moral, fits in with the story - sort of - whilst not ruining it totally, and seems to show just how strange my brain works when it's at it's theoretical worse or best. Depending on how you view me being tired.

I'm nearly definite that there's a few people out there who would love to manipulate me and exploit me at the moment. Hopefully if there are any, they're fairly nice teenage girls who can provide me with some entertainment. Leaving that line of thought there. If you're intelligent enough, you'll fill in the gaps. If you aren't then I'm amazed that you understood this blog. If you don't understand this blog then why the fuck are you wasting your time reading it? You should do it more often!

Time wasting is a skill that requires practise... and here is something that allows you hours of undivided boredom. Isn't that so fascinating?

Another thing that Gervais mentioned was Humpty Dumpty. Which stuck in my mind for the simple reason that I'm doing Humpty Dumpty as a pantomine.......... always a good reason to remember stuff like this. The nursery rhyme - for those that were neglected by their parents and never heard it, or simply have no memory at all and forgot it (much more likely scenario) - goes something like this:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
And all the King's Horses
And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

It's a nice little rhyme, with a nice whatsitcalled to it.. rhythm? Is that how you spell that word? This is why I need a spell checker... Anyway, musician in me aside, you have to wonder about the morals behind this.

As far as I can remember, Gervais couldn't find one other than "don't sit on top of high walls if you're an egg" which doesn't really apply to the vast majority of small children. But what about old favourites such as:

'The bigger they are, the bigger the SPLAT!'
'To fall a great distance, you've got to get up there first'
'Too many cooks spoil the broth'

And, naturally, some new ones of mine:

'Horses don't make good doctors'
'If you want attention, jump off of something'
'Smashing something is generally irreversible'
'In the land of fairy tale scrambed egg is not on the menu.'

Not that I like scrambled egg anyway, I never really developed a taste for eggs. Maybe it was the humanitarian in me thinking off all those humpty dumpty's that were murdered to provide me with my food. Or maybe it was just because I didn't like the taste. I'll let you decide... I might even get a compliment or two out of that one?

Just to decode some of those - as I'm sure that many of you are giving your trademarked puzzled looks and wondering what the hell is he going on about - for the people that can't think for themselves....

'The bigger they are, the bigger the SPLAT'
If you get to become the best, make goddamn sure that you can't become not the best. Usurping someone's seat of power when they've had such a high amount of power means that the 'SPLAT' not only affects them by rapidly sending them downwards, but also means that everyone nearby gets covered with the explosion of whatever the SPLAT is. Maybe this is a carryover from when unanimous agreement meant that the rest of the committe had been disposed of through the garbage exit. Otherwise known as the window. That garbage exit!

'To fall a great distance, you've got to get up there first'
Or in reverse, 'you can't fail at something until you've given it a go.' Basically saying that anyone that doesn't bother to apply themselves to the task won't succeed at it, but at least they won't fall. It could also be taken literally, in that if you don't want to die of falling into great depths then you shouldn't climb up to the heights that create the depths. But this sort of common sense thinking is probably asking a little too much of most of human kind. Why IS common sense so uncommon?

'Too many cooks spoil the broth'
Two words... GOOGLE IT! I don't need to explain this one surely...

'Horses don't make good doctors'
Fairly self-explanatory. You can't expect horses to do much, as they have no thumbs, let alone opposable ones. Admittedly, they could probably manage a crude form of dissection, but when the thing is predissected by contact with a immovable solid at high velocities then it's hardly necessary to dissect it further. It COULD make for an interesting training thing for new surgeons though. Presuming that you can drag them off of that game that they're using to train them all now.

'If you want attention, jump off of something'
Erm... yeah. Self-Explanatory maybe? Of course, you'll get news coverage if you do jump, but then you won't be around to enjoy the attention. Unless you somehow arrange it so that you get rescued by some sort of heroics. I'm not sure if Spiderman does guest appearanes though. You'll have to talk to him about that one.

'Smashing something is generally irreversible'
Smashing anything means that it's hard to put back together. Friendships, relationshpis, valuable objects. Treasure them before you smash them, becase afterwards it's too late to go back and start again. Hard feelings stay put. As a side note to you all, appreciate what you have now. Learn all you can, however you can, off of those that have wisdom to tell you. Once they're gone it's too late, you can't simply call a helpline and get some sort of line direct to the afterlife. Not yet at any rate.

'In the land of Fairy Tale scrambled egg is off the menu.'
Just a brief note for anyone planning to start a restaurant in fairy tale land that's all. I would advise that you also go see the men with the nice comfy white van. They might be able to provide you with a nice padded room to run your financial empire in. Dani - have you still got the straitjacket or did they get round to releasing you?


Sometimes don't you feel the urge to shout out secrets and just let the world know the truth? Impulses that seem to defy logic and that if you think about them, make no sense even using teenage logic. Hiding things, as I do, means that I have so many secrets - not just my own - to tuck away. There's secrets that no one would ever guess, and that hopefully no one will ever care to know. Some parts of my mind remain off limits due to stress caused by visiting them. Those that know me will know what I'm on about.

Those that don't, just think of it like this. I lost an uncle two years ago, a close friend in February and now a parent today. Places where no one goes are places that I hate to probe for fear of discovering things behind them.

Yes, I still remember my uncle. My memory is phenonemal should I care to use it.

My uncle, whom I was named after, was a remarkable man. He was englands correspondence chess champion, he achieved his life's ambition of being not ranked bottom in the world's top chess tournament. He played the piano, was an accomplished optician who monitored my families eyesight for most of my life and seemed to actually care for the kids wheras some of my other uncles didn't.

For some time, he was - for want of a better word, as this one doesn't quite describe it in all it's subtleties - a role model. Something to aspire to.

It should be noted, however, that this is no longer the case... I no longer wish to become a chess champion and beat his ranking in that chess tournament. Childish notion that I'll go back to at some point.

Apparently we regress into childhood as we get older.


I disagree.. I don't think that my grandparents could come up with anywhere near as complicated a game as the current standard of them seems to be in schools..

Nuances of rules and loopholes and so on that escape everyone.

Probably why they play them... cheating made easy.

Don't know what the girls do though.

Is skipping still allowed or did it get stopped for health and safety reasons?