I have a friend called Lottie. I know for a fact she's the only person who's EVER read this pathetic excuse for a blog, and she wants me to write a post for her; she did one for me but I can't read it because her blog is private. Back in my day we called them diaries.
I reckon Lottie and me should deffo be seeing more of each other. We both have several things in common, such as living in the middle of nowhere, being into winter sports and having a penis. But for convoluted reasons Lottie's not great at being able to come out places, so we chatter away on Facebook. She's quite a self-assured girl and very talented what with her plays and guitars and stuff. I admire her attitude. We talk about personal stuff usually, and I'm very much glad to have the ability to penetrate long and deep into the soft folds of her brain.
She thinks I'm a complete pervert. Comments such as the one above seem to come very naturally into my brain - there's something about Lottie that brings out my sleazebag side. Lottie is cool because she is very self-assured and likes good music, massive, dangerous boots like oil tankers, and snowboarding, but avoids looking like an unkempt monster from the pits of hell like most girls with good taste.
"Little" Lottie, as she is known, is contrasted with "big" Lottie, a mutual friend of ours. The two Lotties are fast friends, or BFF's, as I'm led to believe the kids call them. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the names are based on relative boob sizes, but it's not really a fair comparison as big Lottie's are a bit like this.
Lottie is very much likely after reading this to put on a pair of finest Doc Martens and come to Southampton to beat me up. I should be honoured.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
The Miracle of Woergl: a lesson for the recession
We are constantly being told that the present recession is nearly as bad as the 1930's, and we ended up with a massive war out of that one. But the Depression was pretty good times for the Austrian town of Woergl.
The story is no secret, and today a good number of towns boast their own currency. In the U.K., my home town, Stroud, is the third town behind Totnes (2007) and Lewes (2008) to have benefited from the initiative by Transition Towns (currently applying the concept to the urban area of Brixton). Stroud is a particularly hippy place inhabited by lots of middle-class artists, but the Stroud pound has almost entirely failed to take off. This is mainly due to the reluctance of already hard-up local businesses to join the scheme.
The main problem here is due to the lack of consortium between businesses in the capitalist system. Nobody wants to make the first move because it allows for them to be exploited, and, as a result, the local economy runs down even faster than the national economy, and everyone loses out. It is not so much the unwillingness of customers to avoid national chains and pay at a premium. Stroud, along with much of the south of England, is a highly middle-class, leftist place where people believe in the integrity of the local economy: Stroud has seen protests against branches of Tesco (1989), Apollo Cinemas (2003) and McDonalds (2004) opening in the town. It is more to do with the reduced liquidity of the banknotes themselves: traders have to go to the trouble of cashing them in and losing a percentage if they want to replenish stock from their suppliers elsewhere.
However, there is one possibility. I know that the price of an item seems negligible and more worth it below a certain level; this is the same reason why we price items at 95 and 99 pence. Could it not be possible to sell items at a discounted rate for people who are paying with the local currency in a time where prices are perceived to be rising fast with respect to earnings? True, it would cost the shop a few pennies here and there, but it would bring in those with very little disposable income as well as the richer folk. Overall, turnover would increase. The revenue cut coupled with the loss from cashing in the banknotes would hopefully be offset in the medium term by increasing trends for spending locally and word of mouth. Convenience often equates to cost for consumers, but if this were turned on its head there is a chance for trade itself to grow.
Another way of achieving this is via consortium. Basically, offer people money-off vouchers at other shops in the area. The key here for businesses is to ally with others that attract the same customers, but provide a different service. Thus, the record shop might offer money off entry to the rock club or the tattoo parlour. For a period in Stroud last year businesses tried out this model but it wasn't very successful: there don't seem to be the forums for businesses to communicate properly. They tend to be suspicious of each other. Also, there was no fanfare about it like there was about the currency, no dedicated promoters.
The pervasive, utopian idea of a village shop at the heart of a community is what local shops must aim for. It's maybe not something that would benefit convenience stores as such - I'm thinking more gift shops, record shops, bookshops, restaurants, which have the capability to become an icon for the town. The proprietor with a positive outlook will organise events: our local record shop used to run little gigs in there, all free and genuinely for the love of music. Similarly, hippy cafes often have random poetry readings and story-tellers, pubs have bands playing ... all these have potential to stimulate of the local economy and to make everyone feel happy and grounded. Our society is miles too big and unnatural, therefore unfriendly. Localisation is the way forward into the new era of austerity.
The Miracle of WoerglObviously, not every town could introduce such a system and see it work: if more and more towns had followed suit, eventually they would all be back to square one. However, it shows that recession is not all doom and gloom if you know how to manipulate money.
The story begins in July 1932 with one Michael Unterguggenberger, who, despite having a name that sounds like a horse vomiting, had won the mayorship of the town. It wasn't going to be much fun, though, because apparently nobody could pay their taxes, so the council or Corporation or whatever they had back then was in dire straits; roads, buildings going unrepaired, that sort of thing. A full third of the townspeople were unemployed and Woergl was threatened with the catastrophic reversal of its fast growth during the prior two decades. Thankfully, Michael was a working-class man; he had made the leap to local government via being a trade union leader.
Everyone knows the economy can recover easily from a recession if everyone put out a bit more and started spending, but obviously no-one wants to as vital provisions, not to mention luxuries, get more and more expensive. Influenced by Silvio Gesell's "Natural Order", he decided to make a local currency. It seems weird to the modern ear, but back in the day it was all about city-states, and the international linkage between very concentrated local economies. The crucial element of this local currency was it was a demurrage currency.
This means, even though it was worth the same as a normal Austrian shilling, everyone had to go to the post office every month and pay to get their money stamped. Without a stamp, the money became valueless from that date onwards. What the mayor had done was essentially to tax savings. What's more, all the money people did end up paying for stamps went into an emergency fund. So everyone started to pay their taxes on time, and despite some hardship, the town quickly got better.
Not only that, they even managed to build a friggin' ski jump.
And this turn-around took only one year. In fact, by the following September, the central bank had forced the system to shut down. It had recognised that the alternative local model was taking power out of their hands and returning it to the people.
The story is no secret, and today a good number of towns boast their own currency. In the U.K., my home town, Stroud, is the third town behind Totnes (2007) and Lewes (2008) to have benefited from the initiative by Transition Towns (currently applying the concept to the urban area of Brixton). Stroud is a particularly hippy place inhabited by lots of middle-class artists, but the Stroud pound has almost entirely failed to take off. This is mainly due to the reluctance of already hard-up local businesses to join the scheme.
The main problem here is due to the lack of consortium between businesses in the capitalist system. Nobody wants to make the first move because it allows for them to be exploited, and, as a result, the local economy runs down even faster than the national economy, and everyone loses out. It is not so much the unwillingness of customers to avoid national chains and pay at a premium. Stroud, along with much of the south of England, is a highly middle-class, leftist place where people believe in the integrity of the local economy: Stroud has seen protests against branches of Tesco (1989), Apollo Cinemas (2003) and McDonalds (2004) opening in the town. It is more to do with the reduced liquidity of the banknotes themselves: traders have to go to the trouble of cashing them in and losing a percentage if they want to replenish stock from their suppliers elsewhere.
However, there is one possibility. I know that the price of an item seems negligible and more worth it below a certain level; this is the same reason why we price items at 95 and 99 pence. Could it not be possible to sell items at a discounted rate for people who are paying with the local currency in a time where prices are perceived to be rising fast with respect to earnings? True, it would cost the shop a few pennies here and there, but it would bring in those with very little disposable income as well as the richer folk. Overall, turnover would increase. The revenue cut coupled with the loss from cashing in the banknotes would hopefully be offset in the medium term by increasing trends for spending locally and word of mouth. Convenience often equates to cost for consumers, but if this were turned on its head there is a chance for trade itself to grow.
Another way of achieving this is via consortium. Basically, offer people money-off vouchers at other shops in the area. The key here for businesses is to ally with others that attract the same customers, but provide a different service. Thus, the record shop might offer money off entry to the rock club or the tattoo parlour. For a period in Stroud last year businesses tried out this model but it wasn't very successful: there don't seem to be the forums for businesses to communicate properly. They tend to be suspicious of each other. Also, there was no fanfare about it like there was about the currency, no dedicated promoters.
The pervasive, utopian idea of a village shop at the heart of a community is what local shops must aim for. It's maybe not something that would benefit convenience stores as such - I'm thinking more gift shops, record shops, bookshops, restaurants, which have the capability to become an icon for the town. The proprietor with a positive outlook will organise events: our local record shop used to run little gigs in there, all free and genuinely for the love of music. Similarly, hippy cafes often have random poetry readings and story-tellers, pubs have bands playing ... all these have potential to stimulate of the local economy and to make everyone feel happy and grounded. Our society is miles too big and unnatural, therefore unfriendly. Localisation is the way forward into the new era of austerity.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Review: Sugar Rush, series 2
I felt that the series really came of age in this instalment. I found the last one cliche and try-hard, and yes, there are heavy elements of the same in the second series - the family gets even more unrealistic, with the brother trying on women's clothes while the parents try on new sexual partners. However, towards the end of the series, after episode six, where Kim gets out of hospital, the main characters, Kim, Sugar, and Kim's new girlfriend Saint - the series is almost wholly about their relationship - seem to have grown up a lot.
The escapism of the stories is still cheaply presented; I'll say it again, if you have unrealistic drama, it cannot be portrayed with the realist camera angles and so forth that this show seems to favour. But by the end the characters were certainly adults; they're all thinking about moving in together, and they're all involved with older people. It's 12-18 months after the end of the last series, which means Kim and Sugar are staring down the barrel of their seventeenth birthdays. The themes are more mature than that though. We learn a lot about the dynamics of relationships in the later episodes - how to cope with 'bed death', the nature of love ... I really related to the final episodes where they discuss moving in together and Kim narrates how the big decisions are made on a whim or on the toss of a coin. The onset of adulthood is speedy because both Saint and Sugar's boyfriend Mark are something like twenty-three - they've both powered through university and are essentially able to provide the teenagers with board.
Sugar is a much more complex character in this series. She has been to prison and been stripped of much of the aura she had in the first series; now she's the desperate, jealous one. She's a faithful representation of chavvy people; she's got emotions, but she hides them by being vindictive or whatever. You hate her all the way, but you've got to admire her gall. She's still an incorrigible slut, though, buggering about with provincial gangsters all the time.
Kim is wholly lovable and grown-up; while I wish she developed more in the realm of family values, I'm not sure her family is intended to be functional. She is occasionally whiny and clingy, but this is usually presented sympathetically.
Saint is a very aloof, independent person. In my review of the first series I mentioned that Sugar should have been more ethereal and I think Saint fulfils this paradigm quite well, particularly in the first five episodes. I almost wish the series were longer so that the start of the relationship with this ephemeral quality could be extended.
I was heartened by the fact that, like me, the characters don't seem to have any hobbies, but they're still quite functional. The central characters are largely realistic portrayals, though lots of things seem to happen to them and there's absolutely no indication that some parts of life are boring or that money doesn't grow on trees.
It was clearly set up for a third series, with the pregnancy of Kim's mother and Sugar's flat blowing up and her having to come and live in a menage a trois with Kim and Saint. The menage a trois is an interesting concept, but I feel that a third series would have gone stale even if the programme hadn't been axed. In essence, Kim has the kind of formative sexual attraction to Sugar that Freud would have jizzed over, and she can't shake it. But she's also well in love with Saint and so Sugar's been a homewrecker all series, but in a really half-hearted way. I really think that Kim's dilemma of choice had been painfully laboured all through both series and that more of the same would in fact backfire and make you want to peel off your own face.
The escapism of the stories is still cheaply presented; I'll say it again, if you have unrealistic drama, it cannot be portrayed with the realist camera angles and so forth that this show seems to favour. But by the end the characters were certainly adults; they're all thinking about moving in together, and they're all involved with older people. It's 12-18 months after the end of the last series, which means Kim and Sugar are staring down the barrel of their seventeenth birthdays. The themes are more mature than that though. We learn a lot about the dynamics of relationships in the later episodes - how to cope with 'bed death', the nature of love ... I really related to the final episodes where they discuss moving in together and Kim narrates how the big decisions are made on a whim or on the toss of a coin. The onset of adulthood is speedy because both Saint and Sugar's boyfriend Mark are something like twenty-three - they've both powered through university and are essentially able to provide the teenagers with board.
Sugar is a much more complex character in this series. She has been to prison and been stripped of much of the aura she had in the first series; now she's the desperate, jealous one. She's a faithful representation of chavvy people; she's got emotions, but she hides them by being vindictive or whatever. You hate her all the way, but you've got to admire her gall. She's still an incorrigible slut, though, buggering about with provincial gangsters all the time.
Kim is wholly lovable and grown-up; while I wish she developed more in the realm of family values, I'm not sure her family is intended to be functional. She is occasionally whiny and clingy, but this is usually presented sympathetically.
Saint is a very aloof, independent person. In my review of the first series I mentioned that Sugar should have been more ethereal and I think Saint fulfils this paradigm quite well, particularly in the first five episodes. I almost wish the series were longer so that the start of the relationship with this ephemeral quality could be extended.
I was heartened by the fact that, like me, the characters don't seem to have any hobbies, but they're still quite functional. The central characters are largely realistic portrayals, though lots of things seem to happen to them and there's absolutely no indication that some parts of life are boring or that money doesn't grow on trees.
It was clearly set up for a third series, with the pregnancy of Kim's mother and Sugar's flat blowing up and her having to come and live in a menage a trois with Kim and Saint. The menage a trois is an interesting concept, but I feel that a third series would have gone stale even if the programme hadn't been axed. In essence, Kim has the kind of formative sexual attraction to Sugar that Freud would have jizzed over, and she can't shake it. But she's also well in love with Saint and so Sugar's been a homewrecker all series, but in a really half-hearted way. I really think that Kim's dilemma of choice had been painfully laboured all through both series and that more of the same would in fact backfire and make you want to peel off your own face.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Review: Sugar Rush, series 1
I'm not gonna lie, as a student, I regularly stay up until about - well, it's 4:30 a.m. as I write this, and I'm not remotely tired. Come seven in the morning though, I'll be out like a light. What this means is there is a hell of a lot of time for often misguided forays into the depths of 4oD. In 2 B.S. (before Skins) Channel 4 put out a borderline daring teenage drama show called Sugar Rush, which is about a fifteen-year-old girl discovering her lesbianism in, you guessed it, the town of Brighton.
My designation "before Skins" is essential to understanding how that show revolutionised teenage programming. Compared to the characters in Skins, when one looks at previous teenage shows all the characters seem very immature and simplistic, and this is a criticism I can apply to Sugar Rush.
The lesbian packaging attracted me to Sugar Rush because I am fascinated by homosexual relationships and the particular personal challenges young homosexuals face (all joking aside, I am interested in these issues). Because girls are cute and boys aren't, I'd much rather watch lesbians. Kim is a cute little ginger virgin with a family entirely set up for comic relief and background drama. She is quite sure of her sexuality, especially since she moved to Brighton and became fixated on "Sugar", a local chavette whose hobbies include playing pool, underage clubbing, alcoholism, chain-smoking, petty theft, fucking surly meatheads five years older than her, manipulation, pathological rudeness, impulsive and reckless behaviour and generally acting unladylike. The behaviours rub off on naive Kim, but she is well depicted, clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing.
These attributes of Sugar's are what make the show fall apart after the first few episodes, because nobody with half a brain would genuinely fancy a girl like her. She is representative of the identikit British teenage slag, but she needs some elusive, ethereal quality, so we can understand Kim's feelings for her. Things threaten to look up by episode eight, when Kim washes her hands of her friend and attends a Christian homosexual reform group, where she meets a girl. Finally, we think, we're going to see this programme expand its horizons, but the girl affirms she "only went along to the group to see who I could pull". Even British teenagers aren't that shameless, certainly not sweet, clear-faced girls with Irish accents. And by the final episode, you are screaming at Kim not to be so pathetic, as she follows Sugar in fleeing the town.
Kim's family is comic relief, but her mother is unfaithful, lazy, unmaternal and impulsive, which causes her parents to split up. I feel that this is tokenism.
So I don't think it was the greatest executed programme ever, but I'm very much down with both the premise and the relatability of the characters Kim and Sugar. I feel that the "home town drama" is one of my favourite genres of slice-of-life. In my review of Scott Pilgrim I talked about how one really felt involved in this particularised alternative scene of Toronto, and here, you feel similarly involved in the truisms of the particular town of Brighton and its relatable, if not particularly colourful, inhabitants.
Kim narrates her life in the teen-pulp style of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, and it is amusing to look at her as an irrational, melodramatic teenager. However, I feel that this is marketed with no sense of irony, and that the depiction of teenage kicks is gratuitous. If something is gratuitous, it should be psychodrama, well sexualised, as it was in Skins. But this isn't, it's second-rate sordidity. It's the British seaside town of teen dramas: cheap and determined to be cheerful, with a sort of Carry on Camping brand of sexuality that leaves you cold.
"Sugar Rush" may be viewed via 4oD and intermittently on E4 or Channel 4 in the UK. It might go away if it hasn't been repeated on the telly in a while.
My designation "before Skins" is essential to understanding how that show revolutionised teenage programming. Compared to the characters in Skins, when one looks at previous teenage shows all the characters seem very immature and simplistic, and this is a criticism I can apply to Sugar Rush.
The lesbian packaging attracted me to Sugar Rush because I am fascinated by homosexual relationships and the particular personal challenges young homosexuals face (all joking aside, I am interested in these issues). Because girls are cute and boys aren't, I'd much rather watch lesbians. Kim is a cute little ginger virgin with a family entirely set up for comic relief and background drama. She is quite sure of her sexuality, especially since she moved to Brighton and became fixated on "Sugar", a local chavette whose hobbies include playing pool, underage clubbing, alcoholism, chain-smoking, petty theft, fucking surly meatheads five years older than her, manipulation, pathological rudeness, impulsive and reckless behaviour and generally acting unladylike. The behaviours rub off on naive Kim, but she is well depicted, clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing.
These attributes of Sugar's are what make the show fall apart after the first few episodes, because nobody with half a brain would genuinely fancy a girl like her. She is representative of the identikit British teenage slag, but she needs some elusive, ethereal quality, so we can understand Kim's feelings for her. Things threaten to look up by episode eight, when Kim washes her hands of her friend and attends a Christian homosexual reform group, where she meets a girl. Finally, we think, we're going to see this programme expand its horizons, but the girl affirms she "only went along to the group to see who I could pull". Even British teenagers aren't that shameless, certainly not sweet, clear-faced girls with Irish accents. And by the final episode, you are screaming at Kim not to be so pathetic, as she follows Sugar in fleeing the town.
Kim's family is comic relief, but her mother is unfaithful, lazy, unmaternal and impulsive, which causes her parents to split up. I feel that this is tokenism.
So I don't think it was the greatest executed programme ever, but I'm very much down with both the premise and the relatability of the characters Kim and Sugar. I feel that the "home town drama" is one of my favourite genres of slice-of-life. In my review of Scott Pilgrim I talked about how one really felt involved in this particularised alternative scene of Toronto, and here, you feel similarly involved in the truisms of the particular town of Brighton and its relatable, if not particularly colourful, inhabitants.
Kim narrates her life in the teen-pulp style of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, and it is amusing to look at her as an irrational, melodramatic teenager. However, I feel that this is marketed with no sense of irony, and that the depiction of teenage kicks is gratuitous. If something is gratuitous, it should be psychodrama, well sexualised, as it was in Skins. But this isn't, it's second-rate sordidity. It's the British seaside town of teen dramas: cheap and determined to be cheerful, with a sort of Carry on Camping brand of sexuality that leaves you cold.
"Sugar Rush" may be viewed via 4oD and intermittently on E4 or Channel 4 in the UK. It might go away if it hasn't been repeated on the telly in a while.
Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
I'm very late to the party with this film. Sounds like an utterly ridiculous premise, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm something of a cinematic snob. Generally the films I watch are very serious. Whenever someone comes round to watch a film, I realise all I have on my computer is:
- pretentious foreign films
- pretentious, white-boy documentaries about urban activism
- pretentious mind-fuck films about psychology
- pretentious films by David Lynch
- films like "Human Centipede" and "Serbian Film"
- hilariously bad C-grade horror films
I'd totally baulk at a film where something that could never happen, like people having superpowers, happens. But I loved Scott Pilgrim. The idea is, as I'm sure the whole developed world knows, that in order to win the heart of the girl whom he is trying to woo in his virginal way, pussy, gamer and unremarkable bassist Michael Cera has to tick each of her seven exes off the list. Unfortunately, they've all got superpowers. Emotionally, I really responded well to the film, despite thinking the silly gimmick would put me off. The characters' relationship backstories create a compelling web, and the easy candour with which supposed "issues" such as homosexuality, casual sex, cradle-snatching and so forth are presented really gives the impression that the characters are real people and makes the film immensely relatable. If you watch this film, and are in any way whatsoever part of your local "scene" community, you'll recognise all the characters, from the virgins to the douchebags who spend half the day doing their hair to the "guy who knows everyone".
Coming from a similar background myself, and at the cusp of young adulthood, I was able to relate to things in the film such as casual sex, the intellectualisation of relationships, rooming with people, trying to get a job, annoying high-school girls who fancy you...
I found that those sections of the film where it was like a game were equally compelling. For these characters, you have to suspend disbelief, not just because of their superpowers but because of their social status - one of them was an actor and a skateboarder, for heaven's sake. But it was OK, because this forms a separate mode that the film goes into. Fight scenes, amusing origin stories for the superpowers, lots of effects to imitate the scoring system of arcade games and the tropes of RPG's. I do have a gripe with this, however. There were seven people to defeat, but when it got past the lesbian (number four), I started getting bored, realising each scene was pretty much the same. The storyboarders seem to agree, because they lump numbers five and six together and kind of gloss over them, before the denouement. Though they did well to introduce a different theme for each enemy - martial arts, extreme sports, veganism, musicianship ... - as it was, each actual fight scene could have been much more individually choreographed. For me, the stand-out elements of the film were the humanistic bits in between.
So all in all I found the film to be a good laugh, brilliant to watch with friends, but also at its core holding a mirror up to reality. If you're a gamer, scene kid, or anyone emerging from the dingier side of the adolescent social spectrum, it's fantastic.
"Scott Pilgrim" can be bought on DVD for the princely price of a tenner. As if!
- pretentious foreign films
- pretentious, white-boy documentaries about urban activism
- pretentious mind-fuck films about psychology
- pretentious films by David Lynch
- films like "Human Centipede" and "Serbian Film"
- hilariously bad C-grade horror films
I'd totally baulk at a film where something that could never happen, like people having superpowers, happens. But I loved Scott Pilgrim. The idea is, as I'm sure the whole developed world knows, that in order to win the heart of the girl whom he is trying to woo in his virginal way, pussy, gamer and unremarkable bassist Michael Cera has to tick each of her seven exes off the list. Unfortunately, they've all got superpowers. Emotionally, I really responded well to the film, despite thinking the silly gimmick would put me off. The characters' relationship backstories create a compelling web, and the easy candour with which supposed "issues" such as homosexuality, casual sex, cradle-snatching and so forth are presented really gives the impression that the characters are real people and makes the film immensely relatable. If you watch this film, and are in any way whatsoever part of your local "scene" community, you'll recognise all the characters, from the virgins to the douchebags who spend half the day doing their hair to the "guy who knows everyone".
Coming from a similar background myself, and at the cusp of young adulthood, I was able to relate to things in the film such as casual sex, the intellectualisation of relationships, rooming with people, trying to get a job, annoying high-school girls who fancy you...
I found that those sections of the film where it was like a game were equally compelling. For these characters, you have to suspend disbelief, not just because of their superpowers but because of their social status - one of them was an actor and a skateboarder, for heaven's sake. But it was OK, because this forms a separate mode that the film goes into. Fight scenes, amusing origin stories for the superpowers, lots of effects to imitate the scoring system of arcade games and the tropes of RPG's. I do have a gripe with this, however. There were seven people to defeat, but when it got past the lesbian (number four), I started getting bored, realising each scene was pretty much the same. The storyboarders seem to agree, because they lump numbers five and six together and kind of gloss over them, before the denouement. Though they did well to introduce a different theme for each enemy - martial arts, extreme sports, veganism, musicianship ... - as it was, each actual fight scene could have been much more individually choreographed. For me, the stand-out elements of the film were the humanistic bits in between.
So all in all I found the film to be a good laugh, brilliant to watch with friends, but also at its core holding a mirror up to reality. If you're a gamer, scene kid, or anyone emerging from the dingier side of the adolescent social spectrum, it's fantastic.
"Scott Pilgrim" can be bought on DVD for the princely price of a tenner. As if!
Reviews
Ok so I think I might use this to review stuff I watch, read, or otherwise consume. I think it's a good thing to be interactive with life - who are we to just laze around passively taking in the fruits of others' labours? I literally feel guilty when watching films.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Having gone to sleep very early in the evening, I dreamed of being at a vague facsimile of university, and of meeting a girl who was exactly the same as me: a weird bean-counter type. I revelled in being myself for once in my social life, challenging each other with logic puzzles in a sexually tense environment. Eventually, the girl invited me over for some sexy time - into my own conservatory, in fact. I showed her a dildo of mine and said that it had actually been moulded perfectly to the shape of my penis, because I'm buying a friend a vibrator tomorrow. The dominatrix took control and had me deep-throat in various positions what oscillated between my own symbolically castrated penis and a peeled, sour-tasting banana, like I eat because I have to refrigerate them at uni - a symbol of scrimping. I couldn't wait for it to be over and derived no pleasure from it - even though I had apparently always fantasised over this. (Heads up: this is not true! I fantasise over being the dominant one.) It was an obvious parallel to the way my head goes when I have tried to have sex in the real world and felt in her control, or subordinated by my inexperience, especially recently. I woke momentarily with the conviction that I needed to take control of my relationship.
I dreamed again of being at university. I was part of a slightly shady club which met in a dingy room to do some sort of martial art. When it came to it, however, we spent our time lining up to take off clothes, towel down and spray ourselves with perfumes. I got into a tizzy, realising I'd gotten butt-naked and was taking ages and holding up everyone else. Afterwards, the judge presiding over the session criticised me for lasting twice as long as everyone else. As I put my clothes back on after the session, I was aware of the presence of some voice of opportunity in the changing room.
Next thing I knew, I was in London on New Year's Eve, on an elaborate set of steps with Dad. He was dropping me off there. As he left, he called from the other side of the street about having forgotten my dinner with the Queen the week before. He checked his diary and found that it was actually later that day. I was disappointed at missing my friends in Gloucestershire for New Year, but also elated to have the opportunity for dinner with the Queen; it was for some reason involving the aforementioned "martial arts" club's success.
Dad went to explain to whoever he had business with that he wouldn't be able to make it, and I wandered around, realising I hadn't said where to pick me up! After an intimidating confrontation with a local rudeboy, I ducked into a small off-licence. I picked up a four-pack of Foster's and something else and wandered to the entrance to join the queue. There stood a security guard with a massive device which scanned my items and made their casing go green. I wondered why the extra security, and, thinking of the price as well, had a mind to put my items back. Then the shop started to move: it was actually a monorail train, and now I saw all the seats and straps around. I panicked, as I don't know London well, and considered calling Dad, but knew he wouldn't pick up. I was calmed by a gaggle of student girls and remembered that the next stop was by the steps I was originally at. I asked the girls where they were going or from and they said, "Southampton." I gave the girl who was speaking a hug and told her same, so we could go back together.
However, at the stop I was bundled out of the train by the horde, and my unbought items began to beep. I tried to cross the road, but I was suddenly unco-ordinated. A security man with a similar device descended on me and let me off, saying I could keep the items - as long as I helped his friend in the classy cafe opposite with lunchtime. I begged the Italian proprietor to let me out shortly, as I knew I had to meet Dad and get back to Southampton and then back here for the Queen. However, he was having none of it, and I considered surrendering my stolen items, guessing it was a mistake to go behind the counter.
I felt sorry for the man; he was in a bad way, fumbling around alone with a monster New-Year's-Eve-in-London queue of overprivileged young career women. He bundled me unceremoniously behind the counter and I painstakingly squeezed out a cucumber sandwich and a bizarre plate of melted cheese and cranberry sauce for a couple of customers, learning desperately where everything was. I knew I'd made barely any difference, but the queue had gone, and the Italian guy seemed quite satisfied. I made to leave, knowing Dad would be waiting outside, and the Italian guy tried half-heartedly to bar my way. Once I got outside, though, he turned into a reasonably attractive, if creepy, Chinese man, who cuddled me, thanked me and tried to kiss me. Reflecting on an eventful day in London, I went over to Dad and walked off, and woke up.
I dreamed again of being at university. I was part of a slightly shady club which met in a dingy room to do some sort of martial art. When it came to it, however, we spent our time lining up to take off clothes, towel down and spray ourselves with perfumes. I got into a tizzy, realising I'd gotten butt-naked and was taking ages and holding up everyone else. Afterwards, the judge presiding over the session criticised me for lasting twice as long as everyone else. As I put my clothes back on after the session, I was aware of the presence of some voice of opportunity in the changing room.
Next thing I knew, I was in London on New Year's Eve, on an elaborate set of steps with Dad. He was dropping me off there. As he left, he called from the other side of the street about having forgotten my dinner with the Queen the week before. He checked his diary and found that it was actually later that day. I was disappointed at missing my friends in Gloucestershire for New Year, but also elated to have the opportunity for dinner with the Queen; it was for some reason involving the aforementioned "martial arts" club's success.
Dad went to explain to whoever he had business with that he wouldn't be able to make it, and I wandered around, realising I hadn't said where to pick me up! After an intimidating confrontation with a local rudeboy, I ducked into a small off-licence. I picked up a four-pack of Foster's and something else and wandered to the entrance to join the queue. There stood a security guard with a massive device which scanned my items and made their casing go green. I wondered why the extra security, and, thinking of the price as well, had a mind to put my items back. Then the shop started to move: it was actually a monorail train, and now I saw all the seats and straps around. I panicked, as I don't know London well, and considered calling Dad, but knew he wouldn't pick up. I was calmed by a gaggle of student girls and remembered that the next stop was by the steps I was originally at. I asked the girls where they were going or from and they said, "Southampton." I gave the girl who was speaking a hug and told her same, so we could go back together.
However, at the stop I was bundled out of the train by the horde, and my unbought items began to beep. I tried to cross the road, but I was suddenly unco-ordinated. A security man with a similar device descended on me and let me off, saying I could keep the items - as long as I helped his friend in the classy cafe opposite with lunchtime. I begged the Italian proprietor to let me out shortly, as I knew I had to meet Dad and get back to Southampton and then back here for the Queen. However, he was having none of it, and I considered surrendering my stolen items, guessing it was a mistake to go behind the counter.
I felt sorry for the man; he was in a bad way, fumbling around alone with a monster New-Year's-Eve-in-London queue of overprivileged young career women. He bundled me unceremoniously behind the counter and I painstakingly squeezed out a cucumber sandwich and a bizarre plate of melted cheese and cranberry sauce for a couple of customers, learning desperately where everything was. I knew I'd made barely any difference, but the queue had gone, and the Italian guy seemed quite satisfied. I made to leave, knowing Dad would be waiting outside, and the Italian guy tried half-heartedly to bar my way. Once I got outside, though, he turned into a reasonably attractive, if creepy, Chinese man, who cuddled me, thanked me and tried to kiss me. Reflecting on an eventful day in London, I went over to Dad and walked off, and woke up.
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