Waking up at 10 am last Saturday after a night on the lash, I knew already that playing rugby was the last thing I should've been thinking about. I had a few concerns, firstly the meet time was a full four hours before kick off, slightly unnecessary for a Merit League game against a local third team one might think. Secondly, with only 5 hours sleep in the bank I wasn't, shall we say, on top of my game in the broadest possible terms and thirdly I seemed unable to escape the invisible shackle of pungent, stale snakebite, my exotic tipple of choice from the night before.
We arrived at the venue for the game a good 3 hours before kick off and even though the banter was flying around the majority of us were certainly not in the frame of mind to get involved. Finally 3pm came around and we were greeted on the pitch by one of the strangest, most eclectic mixes of men I have ever seen in my short life to date. Ranging from 18 to 45 and carrying off some intriguing body types it was at that moment the phrase "has beens or never beens" was coined...
Our line up boasted some positional changes, a number 8 playing Fly half, he became the star of the show, scoring 25 of our 52 points...including a hat-trick! Our opponents new every dirty trick in the book and our cause wasn't helped by the hopelessness of the referee who appeared to have never watched rugby before let alone played it or refereed it. We ended up cruising to a 52-5 victory and I must admit I did have slightly more fun than I had expected to seven hours earlier but I still couldn't help feeling my time had been wasted somehow.
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Day One in the Big Brother House
For 9 years Big Brother has graced our screens every summer taking over months of broadcasting coverage without considering the pointless list of z-list celebs who have tried to re-launch their tired careers with a foray into the house of horror. As you can probably tell with my tone in this post I use the word "graced" in the loosest terms possible and quite probably the most ironic. Millions tune in each year to see the complete physical and mental breakdown of multiple strangers in scenes reminiscent of feeding time at Chester Zoo.
The grating narrator describes the events or should I say lack of events in way that must surely have destroyed the reputation of Geordies across the country and if said narrator is allowed back across the Tyne and into his fair city I would be very surprised. You hear the most trivial events described as if they are era defining moments suitable only for broadcast on the News at Ten.
If anyone has ever been unfortunate enough to sit through the varying degrees of boredom illustrated through Big Brother Live. Is it simply me or does nothing happen for hours on end? And yet millions of Britons tune in day by day to stare aimlessly at the vacuum of wallpaper television evolving in front of their very eyes.
Then you have the contestants...where do they find these people?! Does the door for people failing to get on the Jeremy Kyle show lead directly into Big Brother auditions or is it by some other freak method that these circus acts are selected. Caricatures of real people is the best way they can be described, the "contestants" another word used loosely around this show, couldn't be created by the likes of Gervais, Lucas and Walliams and lets be honest if they were we wouldn't believe them possible...
I wouldn't mind if there was any escape from the madness, the all encompassing nature of it all takes over press, television the radio airwaves making the summer a battlefield as you struggle to avoid being drawn into the corporation. The contestants come and go, driven by a desperate, burning quest for the holy grail or should I say 15 minutes of fame and a double page spread in the Daily Star. It used to be a case that fame came with the protagonist doing something important, meaningful and positive for the world not being willing to sell their story of a one night stand with a footballer (which I'm sure uses a template by the way, every story is the same) or the first pictures of their newborn baby. Intimate secrets are revealed to the world, the lads mags get a few new readers favourites and wedding coverage in OK goes up as ordinary people become media sluts, driven on by ££££££££££££'s.
And finally if you've lasted this long then you deserve some sort of reward...not that I have any to hand out but I would like to draw your attention to the most frustrating aspect of Big Brother. You may have picked up on some hypocritical references, that despite my hatred I may seem to have clocked up a few hours viewing time during the last decade and it is this fact that I am most annoyed about. Every year as much as I try to avoid it because I do believe everything listed above I always, without fail end up glued to the television caring about the people I see falling apart in front of me and giving a shit about the outcome after 3 months irrelevant shit.
There's my two penneth, I hope it affected you somehow even if it means ranting about something yourself...trust me you'll feel better for it. Thanks for reading...until next time.
The grating narrator describes the events or should I say lack of events in way that must surely have destroyed the reputation of Geordies across the country and if said narrator is allowed back across the Tyne and into his fair city I would be very surprised. You hear the most trivial events described as if they are era defining moments suitable only for broadcast on the News at Ten.
If anyone has ever been unfortunate enough to sit through the varying degrees of boredom illustrated through Big Brother Live. Is it simply me or does nothing happen for hours on end? And yet millions of Britons tune in day by day to stare aimlessly at the vacuum of wallpaper television evolving in front of their very eyes.
Then you have the contestants...where do they find these people?! Does the door for people failing to get on the Jeremy Kyle show lead directly into Big Brother auditions or is it by some other freak method that these circus acts are selected. Caricatures of real people is the best way they can be described, the "contestants" another word used loosely around this show, couldn't be created by the likes of Gervais, Lucas and Walliams and lets be honest if they were we wouldn't believe them possible...
I wouldn't mind if there was any escape from the madness, the all encompassing nature of it all takes over press, television the radio airwaves making the summer a battlefield as you struggle to avoid being drawn into the corporation. The contestants come and go, driven by a desperate, burning quest for the holy grail or should I say 15 minutes of fame and a double page spread in the Daily Star. It used to be a case that fame came with the protagonist doing something important, meaningful and positive for the world not being willing to sell their story of a one night stand with a footballer (which I'm sure uses a template by the way, every story is the same) or the first pictures of their newborn baby. Intimate secrets are revealed to the world, the lads mags get a few new readers favourites and wedding coverage in OK goes up as ordinary people become media sluts, driven on by ££££££££££££'s.
And finally if you've lasted this long then you deserve some sort of reward...not that I have any to hand out but I would like to draw your attention to the most frustrating aspect of Big Brother. You may have picked up on some hypocritical references, that despite my hatred I may seem to have clocked up a few hours viewing time during the last decade and it is this fact that I am most annoyed about. Every year as much as I try to avoid it because I do believe everything listed above I always, without fail end up glued to the television caring about the people I see falling apart in front of me and giving a shit about the outcome after 3 months irrelevant shit.
There's my two penneth, I hope it affected you somehow even if it means ranting about something yourself...trust me you'll feel better for it. Thanks for reading...until next time.
Top Ten Rants
As a nation we are renowned for our moaning and ranting recently brought to the fore by BBC shows such as Grumpy Old Men, Grumpy Old Women and Room 101 not to mention the sarcastic humour we all possess in abundance.
But given the opportunity what subject would you pick to rant about? Positive or negative where would your focus lie? Here are my Top Ten as of Friday 10th October 2008...
But given the opportunity what subject would you pick to rant about? Positive or negative where would your focus lie? Here are my Top Ten as of Friday 10th October 2008...
- Laundry Rooms...particularly Brook Street Halls, High Wycombe.
- Poor Drivers
- Ignorance
- Little Britain...why?!
- Whistling and other repetitive noises
- Big Brother
- Rugby Union vs Football
- Punctuality
- The meaningless of fame and celebrity culture in general
- Politics
beauty...fact or fiction?
One of life's great questions, what is beauty? Does beauty even exist?
Everyone has their own perception of what exactly is beautiful, it could be a shape, form, image, feeling, moment or memory, a happening in our lives which makes us sit back open mouthed and think wow...
As we grow older our view of the world changes, we seem to become cynical creatures viewing the world through tainted eyes, our vision distorted by things that happen in our everyday lives. My interpretation of beauty is one of innocence, without responsibility or pressure, something we have all experienced...childhood.
These images show how I represented the beauty of childhood innocence, something about sand and the
feel of it running through my fingers takes me back to a time where everything seemed much simpler. Add to that thought the feelings of escaping the pressures of everyday life to wake up on a warm beach somewhere, the sea lapping at your feet...
To me sand represents multiple forms of beauty but that is simply my opinion your interpretation could be entirely different.
So the question still remains, Beauty...Fact or Fiction?
Everyone has their own perception of what exactly is beautiful, it could be a shape, form, image, feeling, moment or memory, a happening in our lives which makes us sit back open mouthed and think wow...
As we grow older our view of the world changes, we seem to become cynical creatures viewing the world through tainted eyes, our vision distorted by things that happen in our everyday lives. My interpretation of beauty is one of innocence, without responsibility or pressure, something we have all experienced...childhood.
These images show how I represented the beauty of childhood innocence, something about sand and the
feel of it running through my fingers takes me back to a time where everything seemed much simpler. Add to that thought the feelings of escaping the pressures of everyday life to wake up on a warm beach somewhere, the sea lapping at your feet...
To me sand represents multiple forms of beauty but that is simply my opinion your interpretation could be entirely different.
So the question still remains, Beauty...Fact or Fiction?
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