Healthy interest in Shit adverts

What is the deal with the health adverts doing the rounds at the moment? Wow, how ‘observational comedy from the late ‘80s’ was that opening gambit? There are two that spring to mind. First up is the one about getting a blood test to check you haven’t got hepatitis. The voiceover is words to the effect of “Have you ever had one too many and sent a text to an ex-girlfriend? [Audience does an internal half-smile, and shakes head at past indiscretions] Have you ever phoned in sick when you’ve had a hangover and can’t face work? [Audience “wow yeah I can’t believe how this advert is speaking directly to me, highlighting not one, but, two things I have done in my life. Very unique things too that surely only a select handful of people have done, what could this mystery voice say next? Have I ever really enjoyed having a wee after needing one for ages?] Have you ever been at a party and injected drugs with a shared needle? [Yeah there was that one time I held a wee in for a 45 minute bus ride...what the?? No I fucking haven’t. I’m not Sid Vicious.]

I’m not ignorant to two things here (1) there are people alive who, though aren’t Sid Vicious, lived through a time when sharing needles of heroin at parties was more socially acceptable (like racism and hitting women), and (2) those people might want to get checked up. But really, how many people lived through that lifestyle and have gone through their life not considering getting a check-up, or more likely being forced to have one. Or dying of AIDS. (Like Mark Fowler. I just mean an AIDS death. He got good AIDS through sex with a WOMAN, who herself had got it from a blood transfusion. Didn’t stop people stopping buying fruit and veg from him when they found out though did it? Probably the same people who didn’t stop drinking in The Dagmar when they found out Wilmot Brown had (been accused of having) raped Kathy Beale. He did do a ‘buy two glasses of wine, get the bottle’ offer though.) Where was I? Oh yeah. I think people who needed such a blood test have probably had one. But what do I know? Apart from not to share needles with people at parties when injecting drugs. I carry fresh needles to input heroin and I don’t share, as you ask.

Taking into account that the advert might have a very small target audience (and one might guess a shrinking one), it was the leap in levels of the questions which struck me more than anything. Bit of a double-take. Do you like drinking water when you’re thirsty? Do you like being entertained in an enjoyable way? Would you gang rape a boy to fit in? I like the thought that some re-formed punk (as opposed to re-formed punk band) has to hear this advert to think “maybe I should get checked out. Now that I’m married and have two kids. It would be a crying shame if I’d infected the three people I love more than anything in the world, even smack. It would be somehow ironic that my recklessness with drugs was equally to blame as my recklessness in not getting tested for these potentially deadly diseases. I’ll book a test tomorrow, just after I take this methadone.”

In a similar act of being overtly obvious are the new adverts for recognising having a stroke. Are there people out there who wouldn’t recognise something a bit odd about someone having pain in the left side of their body, half of their face being paralysed? Maybe it’s a generational thing that this is obvious. Maybe it’s just me and my piers to whom this screams ‘sounds like they’re having the old strokey-woke there’. Perhaps there are people listening to the radio as their granddad grips at his chest with half his face suddenly collapsing going “granddad what up? What’s up?” [it helps if you imagine this as a young cockney lad, I don’t know why. It just does]. Then on hearing this add are like “fack (he’s a cockney remember) saarnds like you’re having a knock-knock joke I’d best dial pearls to swine – pearls to swine –pearls to swine etc”. Though, I think if we live in the country that needs to tell people that if someone goes numb down one side of the body and has a paralysed face they might want to direct said person in the direction of the medical services then we probably live in country where a radio and TV advertising campaign wont solve the problem. Perhaps they should just get a brain-dead talentless celebrity to die of a stroke and create a massive over the top fuss about strokes. I suggest Jodie Marsh.
                     Do you remember when this was how you did a new paragraph? When did that change to a line gap?

London Calling

I’d love to have had an exciting couple of days in London, but I didnt. I’ll tell you something for nothing though, it’s not paved with gold. There was an attack by a big alien spacecraft – but I can’t be arsed writing about that at the moment. I kind of saved the world. No biggie. No thanks needed.

There are a lot of people on bikes in London. Like, I’m down with being environmental and shit but the cyclists here are like the cyclists everywhere – they’re fucking arseholes. The rule if you’re on a bike is you get to act like a pedestrian when that is what suits you and you get to pretend you’re a car when that suits you. Of course cyclists are neither car nor man, not something in between. [Note to self, breed man with car]. Cyclists are fucking douchebag queebs. A couple of them have even shouted at me to get out of the way…when I was just stood in a bike lane. Who knows they’re stood in a fucking bike lane? A bike lane is like a small road at the side of a proper road. You know what’s a bit like a small road at the side of a road? Yes a pavement, sorry sidewalk. I’m trying to appeal to the Americans.

I’ve done my usual fast living when I’m away with work – that’s right roooooooooooooom service and remembering what it’s like not to have Sky. So basically eating not very good food in about 1992. I did not like 1992 too much. [Shit, a car bred with a man is a transformer]. I did throw the universe a curveball though…honestly my actions were in danger of evoking the tooting horns the apocalypse..you wont believe this when I tell you…On the first night I was here, I ordered a steak sandwich. I know. There was a cheeseburger on the menu and I didn’t get it. And the world still turned. But what did happen? I was unsatisified, that’s what. It was a poor steak sandwich. Tonight (writing on Wednesday) I had the burger and chips, and it was just above adequate. Just the way I like it.

I would love to be able to comment on the adequacy of the breakfast at this place. Despite building a 20 minute window into my schedule for breakfast, before going to my meeting. I didn’t make it. Well the bathroom is full of windows (the reflective surfaces not the computer operating system) and I kind of got preoccupied with my own reflection. I took some ace snaps of myself so don’t worry I wasnt the only one who will benefit from how pretty I looked. Just so we’re clear, my Narcissus moment came after I’d showered and dressed. It wasn’t like kinky.

Also just the way I like it? The Apprentice. It ended with that man saying “you’re fired”. I love it when he says that. Every episode I think it’s not going to happen and then it’s always just at the end, then some queeb looks sad in the back of a taxi. One of the boys said “this is what I would do if I was a millionaire”. He was sat on a veranda at an, admittedly nice, appartment. I mean the appartment was the kind of place you might have if you were a millionaire. But he was just sitting in a chair (with some twattish men he had known a few hours). When I say silly things about being a millionaire they are things like taking all my friends around the world watching sport. They aren’t like sitting in a chair in the kind of place I would own if I was a millionaire. If I was a millionaire I would sit in an airport all day. Just sit in the airport.

I’ll tell you something else for nothing. The Holborn Grange Hotel in London doesn’t mind stiffing people wanting some internet. [Wait is it? A transformer is a robot in disguise. Maybe I'm ok...but a robot is a man meets a machine. Fuck it, I'm not breeding a man with a car]. First night – after much twatting about with cables – I get the internet. Just double click on the e thing and the internet (Homepage: BBC, if you were wondering). Today? It wants money. £5 for an hour, which is less than the minimum wage but it still less than the value I would get from being able to get beat by someone at Scrabble on Facebook and maybe posting this when I wrote it, rather than tomorrow. Because the fanbase can hold out that long.

Here’s a couple of my pictures.  I ended up putting 4 in after writing couple, there you go.  I only meant to take one and I took about 20.  So, in summary; me scrunching; me failing in doing a catalogue model shot (it would make more sense if you could see my pointing hand); doing my best zombie face (whilst not really getting where I was taking a picture of like the mongs who look and wave AT the bigscreen when they realise they’re on camera at a match); finally, sad because it’s the last picture and I have to go and be an ‘adult’ all day.

 

 

Me not having breakfast, in London

Failed attempt at a catalogue portfolio shot

On reflection

Unhappy face

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Off 2: The Revenge of Nothing

I couldn’t let my second day-off of the last few days go without some kind of summary. Especially as I basically just lay in bed, got up, walked to opticians, walked back, went back to bed. Of course though – nothing is that simple, there were a couple of minor incidents that I can over describe.

As hangovers go it wasn’t too bad. I went to see Richard Herring last night. Didn’t have too much to drink though as Ste is a fucking queeb and had to get his last bus home. He’s 31. I had the good idea of having a pint of water when I got in: I’m told its good for reducing hangover. Only, I made the pint of water out of a bottle of pear cider. And then fell asleep, fully clothed on the floor. Not all night though, I’m not a complete loser. I got up in the middle of the night and moved to the settee. Anyway, I did get to bed as my girlfriend was getting up for work. Three different sleeping places in seven hours. Yeah – look impressed mother fucker.

So when I woke up for the third time of the day it was, unfortuantely, not followed by another period of sleep somewhere nearby. You can’t have it all. And even if you do, does it make you happy? Not if you’re Ashley Cole. Instead of another period of sleep I had a period of watching the American version of The Office [I think that was quite a long way to go about describing it, but I don't think I left anyone reading that in any doubt as to what I was watching]. I am beginning to know that I prefer it to watching the original. I have thought it was for a while. But now I think I know it is. Soon it is likely that I will know it is better. Then I will begin to question my certainty. Such is the circle of life.

When I eventually left the house it was to go to the place I went when I left the house on my day-off on Friday, and I dont mean the cinema. Yes, dear reader, I went to the opticians again as I didnt have the ear bit curved curved enough and they were still sliding down my nose a bit. Though I am happy that I am now glasses wearer, I don’t want to be one of those people who is always nudging their glasses up their nose. On the way there I witnessed quite an odd thing. Now I cant be sure what I am going to describe is what I am going to say it is, but who gives a shit about accuracy? I saw 3 scally lads with a dog. The dog was sniffing up a wall and the lads were encouraging it. Then they took it behind the wall and were looking in some bushes. Now, I think they may have been looking for drugs using the dog. Maybe they were undercover police men, if they were they were very good at being undercover as they really looked like twatty scally bastards. I would love to say there was more information to offer on this but there isn’t.

The remainder off my journey to Specsavers was uneventful. So exactly the same as what I just described then. I was not bored though as I was listening to the Adam and Jo podcast, which is a bit naive as I know that they will make me laugh. I also think it is odd when you see people seemingly randomly laughing when you see them walking on the street. I was voluntarily being one of those people. I assume at least one person saw me, maybe thinking I had Downs Syndrome.

I treated myself to a subway on my way back. In the queue, in front of me, was an old woman. All she wanted was a cup of tea. Now I want to make it clear that she is entitled to want a cup of tea, Subway sell tea. It is not the oddest thing in the world that she was just buying a cup of tea. It would have been a lot odder if she had tried to evacuate the server of their sense of smell using only the act of mime [well even that's not the oddest thing but that could go on all day]. But she didn’t, she was asking for a cup of tea. Now I was in Withington, there are several places either side that I would go to for a cup of tea – cafes and wanky little shops. But she chose a shop that is essentially called ’sandwich’. It is called that because thats its main product, all the drinks and cookies are merely things to be sold WITH sandwiches. She chose this place above cafes and the like…but she might just like Subway tea, you fucking prick. Well I dont think she did, she had no idea how the ordering system at Subway works (I don’t know why this necessarily amazes me, why should someone know how it works? Especially if they are a, probably, smelly old woman with some beard hair who hasn’t been in before). Right…..she asked for a cup of tea…..and tried to give the money to the woman behind the counter as she was asking….right at the start of the subway counter. You know where you start…choose bread and filling and size, before you turn down/accept the offer of cheese for 20p extra, before you ask for it toasted/not toasted. Well before you ask for whatever salad you want. Ages before you ask for a dressing or sauce. Practically a lifetime before you pay, which is just after you turn down crisps and a drink (unless you want to pay around 80% extra for a drink and crisps than you would at a shop nearby). So she was fucking well early with the offer of financial reimbursement for the tea, the stupid old bastard. Proving it wasnt Subway tea that she craved, and she could have gone to somewhere not called by a word for a specific kind of sandwich, delaying my pointless day – in my almost pointless life – by about 45 seconds or so. The fucking slag, I hope she choked on the tea. Perhaps in an alley and is still lying there, undiscovered – with a cat pissing on her dead face.

In all seriousness I dont hope the woman died. I hope she is safe and sound. Maybe she could have not enjoyed the tea though, so she doesn’t hold up the honest-to-goodness sandwich wanters of the world in the future. To be fair, she is from a bygone age when, I imagine, there were tea shops on every corner – and subway shaped sandwich selling franchises were sparse and so this modern world is a confusing place for her. So I should be more understanding for her actions. And I shouldn’t have followed her home and stoved her skull in with a brick. I didn’t. And I didn’t want to as she looked at the Subway employee with a confused face when she asked her if she wanted a sandwich with her tea. No, I just thought ‘aw’.

So, another fun-filled entry there. Remainder of day: watched Wall Street (Is nothing made in the 1980s as good as I actually remember it being when I first watched it ages ago?) and doing little else.

The potrait of the slacker as an aging man

 What does a man get up to on his day off? It needs chronicling. I rose to find the sun nosing its way through the gaps in the curtains. ‘Why its practically the summer’, I thought, ‘the world is my oyster – no work. I shall not throw this away, this chance to enjoy this amazing land of liberty and freedom. I think I will sit in the dark for several hours, watching a film I’ve heard mainly negative things about. Perhaps making this the tasty filling of a fun sandwich. What could be my bread? Perhaps a visit to Specsavers to get my glasses altered (they’re a bit loose and slide down my nose), and a run on Friday evening?’

So I was in the shower and inevitbaly listening to the station. Parry was on there with one of the presenters who is interchangeable. They were hyping their great new feature, possibly reprising it from 12 months ago. It was a take on the Apprentice. ‘Sir’ Mike Parry was taking the Sugar role. And…well if you’ve seen The Apprentice, you know the deal: budding entrepeneurs compete on a weekly basis in order to land a job with his Sugarness. They sell things, they market things, they research things and of each episode one of them gets to be pointed at while SAS gives it the old ‘You’re fired’. The Talksport version entailed three listeners (morons) giving Parry a pitch for an idea a product that could be produced and make money – they also asked for a hypothetical sum of money to produce said product. If you’re thinking ‘that sounds quite like Dragon’s Den’ (or possibly Dave Gorman’s Genius, seeing as they were hypothetical products and not fledgling business or prototypes), then that’s because that’s what it did sound like. BUT….they played the music from The Apprentice in the background, so – y’know – it was like The Apprentice. Incidentally, the winning Apprentice/Dragon’s Den person suggested that he would produce a kind of mop-shoe for cats and dogs – so they could clean your house as they walked around, you fool. He said he could produce these for ‘about £4′ and as he had £4 he didn’t need Sir Parry’s hypothetical investment. He had clearly done some thinking about these animal mopshoes as he had the answers – how would they be attached to your pet? “Masking tape or something”.

I had agreed that my friend Ste would come and pick me up at 12.30 for our sunny day trip to the cinema. I had got into the shower at about 12.40. I then sat on the settee in my towel for about 20 minutes, slowly thinking how rude it was of Ste not to be on time. Sat in my towel, showing no urgency in moving to put the clothes on that would see me in a position to have any high-ground on the situation. I wasn’t really annoyed about the tardiness but I did have those petty thoughts about it while sat there not getting ready. Kind of sums me up in many ways.

That’s one hell of way to spend your day off, you’re thinking. Well there’s more…I went to watch Watchmen, but that’s a separate blog.  

More? Ok, I did more – I went for a four mile run. I know it was four miles because I looked on Googlemap. I don’t know because of my Nikeplus running thing. As has become the norm it tries to stiff me. 3.18 miles it claimed. But I have Goooglemap and know the truth. Perhaps this is something I should take some of the blame on, though normally the gadget undermines me, this time I think I anadvertently paused the workout while carrying on running for about ten minutes. So, if the big cheeses at Nike are reading this, and I am 99.7% certain they are: your Nikeplus Ipod thing is not necessarily a tool of evil sent to undermine my exceptional running abilities. To be fair all the other times it undermines me are probably due to the little widget thing being a bit loose in my sock. But I’m not buying the special trainers for it to fit in. Though Big Cheeses, who ARE reading – unless the 0.03% error possibility comes into play – if you send me a pair of these trainers (size 8, uk size eight) I will edit this blog to say how amazing the Nikeplus thing is, all the time ..and isn’t evil.

To prove my day doesn’t come round to Talksport and thinking how shit the people who phone in are: I had Talksport on in the shower after my run. One of the subjects for phone-in was along the lines of ‘What footballer would you have on your sunday league team to show off something?’ They wanted people to say like ‘Rene Higuita – to do his scorpian kick’ or, if they were funny ‘Diego Maradona – to cheat’. The two I heard were ‘Paul Scholes – for his dignity’ and ‘Ryan Giggs – for his professionalism’. I’m not saying they wouldnt impress your mates on The Fox and Bull XI, turning up with their dignity and professionalism but what drives someone to ring in to a phone in and say something like that? Yeah I am the one writing this stuff down for no-one to read and they are the ones with attention seeking problems. If the two people who phoned in are reading random blogs about peoples’ day-off and recognise themself in what I have just written, can I just say I mean no disrespect to you, you sad fuck(s).

So that was my day off. And that was a good one. Maybe one day I will recount one of the ones where I get up around half one, go to Tesco for a wrap and play Call of Duty for 5 hours.

Watchmen

The problem with seeing something like Watchmen is twofold; there is a weight of expectation if you’ve read the comic, upon which it based; Secondly and almost importantly, in our hypegeist (eh?? did I just make a word up there? A quick google search tells me…No. Hardly surprising) age there is the weight of pre-release speculation and reviews that you can’t help but avoid. You can’t help but avoid them if you read articles about the film for about two years and then read many reviews before you go to see it, like I did. Unavoidable.

Ignore the hype, lose the bias of the reviews and forget the comic….is it good? Well I’m not really able to do much of that, especially the latter. So I’d better just try and say what I think as a media-sponge. Well…where do I start? Well the film starts where the comic starts, with the murder of masked hero gone wrong – The Comedian. Then we were given some context of the parallel reality in which these character inhabit by a titles sequence which I have heard criticised, but I liked. We are glimpsed into the alternate reality of the masked heroes intertwined into Kennedy (assassination), Nixon (5 term President), Vietnam (no longer a stain on the US psyche as the heroes lead the soldiers to victory)etc to the tune of Bobby Zimmerman’s ‘The Times They Are a Changing’.

What follows, for the next 2 hours and 40 minutes, is somewhat of an assault on the senses. Well sight anyway. It looks good in short. I’m no expert on the comic (read it, liked it) but the films at times does seem like as straight a transfer of one medium to another as you could get. I’m not sure they produced a storyboard, put it that way. So if it’s a straight transfer of a superb piece of literature it should be a superb piece of film..only its not to superb. It’s not bad its just not great.

As I said, it is easy on the eye. I also thought, for the most, the performances are good. With the exception of Matthew Goode as Ozymandias who I didn’t buy/like. Billy Crudup does good work as the other worldy Dr Manhattan, the special effects work allows him to act through the CGI and convinces as a man-come god who is losing touch with reality. Silk Spectre II is sexy and vulnerable enough, the Nite Owl does impotent Batman-y well and Rorsach is as good an anti-hero as I’ve seen in a film (this year, apart from Micky Rourke in The Wrestler. So high praise indeed).

At times, it gets a bit messy and I did find myself thinking that maybe people, mainly creator Alan Moore (to the extent he insisted he was removed from the credits), were right and it is unfilmable. I did also think it could have been an amazing serial – a bit more time for the characters to breathe etc. That could be one of those things where I’m just talking shit though. As a film not far shy of three hours in length, though, it doesn’t drag.

The soundtrack is another strength, the already mentioned Dylan opener is joined by other classics such as Hendrix’s ‘All Along the WATCHtower’. You see what they did there. My personal favourite bit of music was the muzak verson of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule The World’ playing in Ozymandias’ office as he was talking with major players about who…wants to rule the world (clever). Clue: it’s the former hero with his own action figure who has become a modern day Bill Gates. If Bill Gates were evil (now, now).

So, its not the first time someone has taken a great book and made a not-so-great film. It wont be the last. I’m not a mad obsessive of the source material but it deserved a little better than this. I’m not concerned about missing squids and altered endings just the film having an effect on me and to this end it didn’t. I’d preferred to have seen what one of the previous Directors (attached to the project) would have produced.  Otherwise, I’d like to have seen it having no knowledge of the comic but unlike the erstwhile Dr Manhattan I’m unable to alter the universe to suit my whim.

 

It’s not Goodey news

I’ve tried not to get annoyed by the Jade Goodey thing.  It’s too easy.  Half the people in the country are bemused by it on some level.  Unfortunately, the other half of the country being interested in it justifies the continuing saga being portrayed in the papers, websites and televisions of the land.  Inevitably this makes it quite hard to ignore, and equally inevitably not to get annoyed by it.  At what stage does it stop being news though?

 

The fact that her publicist has told people that she is too ill to receive a visit from Shilpa Shetty.  It came on the back of reading that Goodey was worried she was not going to have enough time to finish her autobiography.  Well what a shame that would be.  Whether she finishes it or not the book will inevitably appear.  People will buy it.  The same people who would have had her hung, drawn and quartered when she said some naïve, stupid racist things in a reality show a few years ago [this isn’t an exaggeration – had the papers pursued the matter with that degree of vigour people would have been calling for her to be burned alive.  You know this isn’t hyperbole: someone will be sacrificed by the public before 2015).

 

People will buy the book though.  Why?  She has redeemed herself to the populace by getting cancer whilst having small children.  I think the combination has overrode any concerns people had about her being racist, which itself overrode any affection she had gained from being a wealthy celebrity despite being thick as pig shit and having no talent (and not being particularly good looking).  It’s odd how, to lend the vernacular of the warehouse from Wernham Hogg,  letting some loser shoot their beans up you means you all of a sudden can garner sympathy from hatred.  Had Hitler been survived by very two very cute twins (one boy, one girl) with big eyes and a hear-breaking smiles would all have been forgiven?  Perhaps, if he had the presence of mind to hire a Publicist rather than commit suicide in a bunker.   In summary:  Jade Goody is more liked than Hitler.  Quite ironic seeing as they probably sheared a similar fan base about two years ago.

 

I want to make it clear, at this stage when the four people who ever start reading anything I write have already given up, that I know its terrible that someone is dying.  And its terrible that some children are losing their mum.  But do I have to care about this particular woman because she is in the public eye?  What about all the other little fuckers losing someone?  The ones without a mum able to make a quick million sucking the last bit of sour milk out of the tit of fame.  The ones whose mothers didn’t get famous by not knowing what East Anglia was and hanging their twat out on reality television.  The ones whose mothers didn’t somehow manage to elongate their (already too long) stay in the spotlight?  Well you don’t have to worry about those because their dying mum isn’t famous.  Incidentally when she’s got these last few weeks left with her children maybe she shouldn’t be writing an autobiography with that time.  Just a suggestion.  Or, maybe, the kids are writing it with her, I’m sure one childlike scribble, in crayon, is indistinguishable from another. 

 

And don’t even get me started on women dying WITHOUT children.  Jesus, who gives a fuck about them – especially if they’re not famous.  Slags. Picture poor Corrina with weeks to live approached by her friend: “My god, what’s up Corrina?  You’re what – you’re dying?  Oh my God, that’s terrible.  But…..you’re not really well known for anything are you….and you’ve not got any kids…so….I kind of don’t have to give a shit.  Oh my god Jade’s friends are wearing baldy masks for pictures before her wedding that’s so brilliant, she just wont be beat by that thing.” 

 

I did well not to think it deserved my thoughts.  I did well to bite my tongue and think, I’ll not think this is just another sign that there’s something seriously wrong with the nature of fame and society.  I did well to still think I was better than commenting when she hired Britain’s most awful cunt to orchestrate her death in the media.  But how am I expected to handle it when I find out a woman is NOT coming to see her is a media story?  I think the only acceptable reaction is for this to make Shetty a public hate figure.  Yes – she was bullied and racially abused by Goodey.  Yes – she handled the affair with some dignity, but was also quite happy with the amount it raised her profile.  Yes – the cancellation of her visit was because of Goodey’s deteriorating health.  But where is Goodey’s moment of forgiveness?  [I reckon that’s happened already.  But was she bald on her deathbed with a camera crew in the room?  Was Goodey getting to look as though she was the one healing Shetty’s sole by granting her an audience allowed to happen?  No.  And that is fucking BBC news.

 

 

Making a spectacle

At long last it has been confirmed that I need spectacles. Unfortunately, it means that I am probably wrong in my self-diagnosis; although I have not ruled out the possibility of still having a brain tumour (I am pretty sure someone with glasses must have had a brain tumor before- if not, Doctors, why not look into this? There is surely some correlation here, stop wasting your time on cancer). I am sure I will get over being wrong ….though I don’t agree that you can have a migraine without the head pain bit, no matter how many fancy-pant Doctors want to tell me this is the case.

For some bizarre reason I have wanted glasses for some time. I wore them as a child. I stopped at about 5 or 6 (not through choice, I believe there was an eye test involved but my memory seems to only stretch back to when I was about 10) so I dont think I experienced the negative end of the spectacle wearing stigmatism (pun not intended but acknowledged). I definitely would have mocked others for wearing glasses though, I was like that. I am like that (I’m a prick). But, I like glasses wearers: Caine in the 1970s was consummate, I liked Evans i the 90s (I am aware he was pretty much Zeitgisting Caine though) and I dig the girls in the goggles (I’m not shallow enough to omit non-glasses wearing cartoon characters from my top 10 but fittest cartoon character is Thelma from Scooby-Do). I’ve also just started watching Mad Men so there’s another tick for cool 4 eyes. Maybe there is a bit of geekness in there too, I was reminded today of my childhood dream (other than playing for United) being to work in a Stationery shop. Surely the dream of someone who should wear glasses.

I was quite surprised how poor the vision in my left eye is/has been for x years. Imagine how good I could be at some things from here on in. Well, from when I actually get the glasses. I mean a lot of the things I do could really benefit from me having better vision. I mean my vision isn’t that bad, I’m not Mr Magoo or anything. But lets be honest, other than staving off the odd migraine and meaning I have something else to look gorgeous in, it shouldnt really effect my life too much. That said if my life dramatically improves at the moment I start wearing glasses then so it will be. There is no way it will get significantly worse you idiot: if it starts to get worse (a bit) I shall stop wearing glasses, or at least look on Google for how you get rid of the bad luck brought on by starting to wear glasses.*

* * * *

There’s certainly something about Come Dine with Me that I can’t argue with. I fucking like it, is what I’m trying to say. And I can fucking say what I want. No-one reads this, and why would they to be fair? To busy checking of Jade Goodey has managed to squeeze a divorce/Bar Mitzvah/Satanic Sacrifice before she passes on. I’ve digressed again, note to self: stop digressing (ha ha! Very clever). I know its got more to do with the people on it, which is what is good about all the good things involving real people. As much as I enjoy judging people it does make me want to cook a little bit, though. Well – not cook. It makes me want to do a few things that all the people do that I’ve never done: I want to separate an egg and I want to serve something in a ramekin. Much like most people’s ambitions these are achievable – I have eggs in my kitchen but I can’t be bothered, and I walked past ramekins today in Tesco. I could have bought one but I didn’t. The lesson is if you achieve all your dreams what have you got to work towards? [Alternatively maybe set the bar a bit higher than some incredibly mundane cookery related acts you've seen on a Channel 4 programme].

*I didn’t investigate too thoroughly, but there doesn’t seem to be much on Google about this phenomenon (that I have no reason to believe exists). When you look its just people worrying about being ugly because they have to start wearing glasses. Sounds to me like they were ugly to start with.