“was a man born just to endure life and then die?”
—Paraphrasing probably my favourite line from Ham on Rye
October 2011
91 posts
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The future of superhero movies is awesome. The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man are out next year, and then in 2013 Man of Steel comes out. All my excitement.
Misfits just had a time stopping sequence and it looked exactly like all the times Hiro stopped time in Heroes and now I miss Hiro’s adventures.
It’s TIME FOR MISFITS. I am too excited.
A Weekend in Windermere
Today was my Nan’s 77th birthday. Yesterday we drove to Windermere, where she grew up. We drove for around two and half hours. Even though I slept most of the journey, the actual drive itself kind of killed any enthusiasm I had for the place. We sped around long, winding roads past the dying grass, and the crooked fences, and the old crumbling stone walls and more dying grass, and more crooked fences, and more crumbling stone walls. Everything was ugly and wet and in ruin. Thankfully I fell asleep after a while and when I’d woken up we’d arrived.
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The rest of yesterday is somewhat of a haze. See I’d only had about 4 hours sleep and I’d also had a couple of drinks but from what I remember, we’d stopped off at this classy-ass hotel or somewhere for “tea and scones”, and by “tea and scones” I mean “being shamelessly overcharge with absolutely no justification”. I’ll let you guess how much it cost five people a few scones and couple of cups of tea. Just come up with a number. £10? £20 even? No. Sixty fucking quid. For some scones. £60. The menu also featured such steals as the £15 sausage and the £14 prawn sandwich. Jesus fuck man.
-The most valuable of baked goods
After we’d enjoyed being robbed, we drove like ten or so miles further to our hotel. It was, inexplicably, a hotel for blind people. There was braille everywhere. I enjoyed a Southern Comfort and lemonade before we had a fairly mediocre meal before I retired to my room. I flicked through television channels before deciding that the concept of flicking through terrestrial television was hilarious and turned off the television, defeated by society again. I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch the fucking X-Factor. Instead I read Ham on Rye, that being probably the highlight of the weekend.
-Great book
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The next morning I woke up noticeably sharper. I’d had some sleep and sobered up. There was an alarm clock on the floor surrounded by batteries. I flashed back to about 2am when it went off while I was asleep. That was a bitch. I got ready and we left. We drove a little further and parked by Lake Windermere. It was a very touristy place. Any direction you looked you saw Asian guys with cameras and middle-aged men and women with anoraks and fleeces and walking boots and have two or three screaming young well-spoken children (who probably had at least 4 names). The type of people who always have their faces scrunched up as if they’re looking up at something. The type of people who go for walks up hills and comment on how “rich” their chocolate cake is. The type of people who’d never be suited to a modelling career. And, of course, there were the wealthy judgmental elderly, too.
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So we were smack dab in the middle of touristville. I fucking hated it. Everyone was so fucking obnoxious. The accents grated on me so badly, too. There were at least two incidents where my eyes met with another boy’s and within that instant I knew he was equally if not more bored than I was. Their faces conveyed pure disdain. I really didn’t blame them. I sympathized. After all, the most exciting thing these shops had to offer was shortbread and ornaments. There were dozens of shops and I had no interest in any of them.
-Those bastards can never get enough shortbread
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My Nan is in a wheelchair at the moment and we had to push her. The road we were on was very steep and we were walking uphill, and I found myself there, in Windermere, pushing my grandmother up a hill, ignoring the people and the shops stocked full of nothing. For at least two split seconds I would’ve traded with Henry Chinaski. Hell, at least life’d be interesting. We lingered around the shops for a bit and then went back downhill, settling by the water. Swans and ducks and birds were being fed at the shore. Surely enough there were more screaming children and fleece-wearers and Chinese taking photographs. You probably could’ve cut the boredom with a knife. And then some guy told his five year old son to punch a swan and life was interesting again.
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Yes, some brilliant man (read: fuck) had brought his son to Windermere and they seemed to have a terrible aversion to winged creatures. It also appeared that he was “walking” his son in the same way a person would walk a dog. The kid was literally on some sort of lead. He rallied his son on with such encouraging lines like “punch the swan! punch the swan!” and “get those birds!” His son, ignoring aforementioned instructions, ran at a gathering of birds, causing them to scatter to the skies in a panic. The swan went luckily un-punched and went back to nibbling at the ground all nonchalant like. Likewise, the boy’s arms went luckily unbroken.
-“come at me bro”
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With the man trying to convince his son to punch a swan, and all of the horrible types of people I listed, I realized that, well, no matter where I go, I’ll never really be able to escape people being people. There will always be dickery close by. Never will I find sanctuary from the stupid. We walked back to the car, over pavements paved with duck shit.
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God was born in a fireplace. In Jerusalem. Apparently. It really does fluster me how I have a mother who cannot differentiate between the son of God and the deity Himself, and also that she literally said the sentence “God was born in a fireplace in Jerusalem” in all seriousness. We were talking about religion at the dinner table in a very nice restaurant celebrating. It was about three notches posh away from an erected fucking pinky though. The waiter made a very convincing robot; it really creeped me out how emotionless and stiff he was. Religion thankfully wasn’t the only topic; I learned of Sir Jimmy Savile’s death. Nobody will ever again fix it like he did. Also, I’d just like to say a big “fuck you” to Wikipedia for not even putting his death in the “In the news” section. He was a fucking Sir.
-bless him
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We had a lot of fun talking that dinner, although the topics of conversation were quite odd. We talked about how a man had bitten his dog over 30 times (what the flying fuck?), and how one time at McDonald’s when I was 12 I stole some Hamtaro hamsters from the toy display and one of the staff confronted Michael, my mother’s boyfriend. That was the first day I had met him.
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We ate up and drove home. My Nan had really enjoyed herself and we all had too. So, again, we drove back along those winding roads, past the crumbling stone walls and the crooked fences and the dying grass. Eventually, after several almost-car accidents later (it’s amazing how badly some people drive) we reached Sunderland. I was home at last. And I have to say, I’m very glad to be back.
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Fuck The Ting Tings are pissing me off. Their second album has been delayed one too many times and it’s gone from anticipation to annoyance. Hurry up damn it.
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Today has been good because this morning I got on the bus but the bus driver was old and he forgot to put his brakes on so he was still moving slowly at the stop and an old woman behind me nearly fell over which was funny and I just bought Batman: Arkham City (PC masterrace, natch) and also bought a ticket to go see The Ting Tings which is really cool.
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