I'll keep this short. Frankly, Jeremy Kyle is on and its amusing me greatly. Vegetable pakoras and samosas in the oven, ready to be munched on.

It's been a good six or so months since I last wrote a blog entry, I have a couple of posts half conceived on my computer that are probably too late and too topical to give birth to. I haven't had much to say because it's kind of back on to standard life. Living in Copenhagen gave me something slightly out of the norm to describe and whilst I have cool adventures and happy moments in both Lancaster and Belfast, nothing seems too worth writing about. I can't really write a review of Jon Carpenter's ability to tickle and/or lick my balls as a forfeit for losing at foos ball or otherwise. I'm not going to compose a top five insult/comebacks from our house because too many of them involve parents dying from various forms of cancer. I'll probably do a post about Lancaster next term or in third, when its really close to leaving. So I can chronicle my three years there for real. Lastly, I've gone back to my style of saving every day stories over for my orating skills, which due to my slowness, and hope that I won't exaggerate a story, I'll often fuck it up, lack a decent punch line and generally just falter about nothing.

It is as I said to a friend "Man, I'd love to say I love your long winding stories that go absoloutely no where, but that would be a lie." Good rinse.

That sounds pretty negative, but if you've been around me, you'll know I'm often better at dropping a good one liner or punch line than a well put together story. I'll either use a semi-intelligent turn of phrase to use as wit or I'll play dumb, Irish, or Irish dumb. That being said, given half a chance, I'd still do three minutes of stand up if I saw the option going in a bar. I'd maybe only be half as funny as Dylan Moran could be in a minute, but I'd still be doubly as funny as that twat Alan Carr. Which brings me on to a good topic for this post. Talentless celebrities.

Alan Carr's comedic talents are grossly lacking. Maybe you could argue it is the evolution of classic British camp, but Frank Spencer and the Carry Ons were classic because they were classically trained, their acts had subtle nuances and clever physical movement to match their indulgence in catchphrases ("Ooh matron", "Ooh Betty!"). Alan Carr doesn't even have good timing. He just has a spastic grin and attempts to be a poor man's Julian Clary, or steal Graham Norton's routine entirely. Norton used to be funny too, then he just lowered the tone to a level that was just awkward. The man makes Chucklevision seem high brow now. Want to be a gay comedian? Gain a little (okay maybe about a hundred points of IQ) intelligence in your act and be Steven Fry. Don't be the gossip queen who fights over men with Gok Wan. Probably don't do a double act with he who is little more than an accent-with-a-beard Justin Lee Collins. Though Collins is more forgivable because he has a better energy and can put together mildly entertaining shows like "Bring Back Star Wars". At the end of the day, both men really need to learn how Bill Bailey, Franky Boyle and Ed Byrne are funny.

Another instance of talentless celebrities is Kerry Katona. She's like a more likable Jade Goody. God bless her lovable coke binging heavy drinking ways. God bless her appearances in the Iceland adverts and on Loose Women. Two marvellous contributions to society. Before you start to wonder, I'll tell you how she found initial fame. In a girl band of about five years ago called Atomic Kitten. Atomic Kitten can be remembered for none of their songs. Well apart from their bland cover of the bland Bangles song "Eternal Flame". That and they were big in Japan, but I reckon thats on part due to the name. They were probably presuming it was a musical act of a Godzilla-esque cat. In all seriousness, ever since experiencing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the giant robot loving Japanese have had a kind of fascination with atomic bombs. That and they are a big fan of cats for instance show a big breasted cat girl in an anime and you'll keep millions happy. Stick the Hello Kitty on a pencil case and you're guaranteed big sales, albeit to a certain degree world wide. Going back to Kerry Katona, if I could make my money from being an addict to various substances whilst attempting to be a parent to children and appearing on a series of reality TV shows I probably would. If I could be in a TV advert which would attempt to market frozen, warm in the oven party snacks to students and single mothers wanting to add some Iceland class to the gathering I probably would. Lets be honest, those snacks are probably quite tasty.

I had a few more instances of crap celebrities stored in my head yesterday, but since they've evaporated from my frontal lobe, I had to ask around. Suggestions we have are Heather Mills and Vanessa Feltz. Despite the fact I don't think Mills deserves that big a share of Paul McCartney's money, part of the idea of marraige is that no matter what it is for life and if you do split, you do have to split everything you have with the other person. That being said, I'd prefer if we don't see the one legged bitch for a good long time. I'd rather watch Australian stand up Adam Mills shower us with banter about his one footedness. Then there's Feltz. We've seen less of her over the years and no-ones complaining. We get concerned about the massive swings in her weight. She puts it on and then she looses it. Then she just becomes obese for years, but still has a how to lose weight guide out there somewhere. I could go back to Jade Goody, but she's just too easy. She has a perfume out, but really.. who wants to smell like her? She's got an autobiography (if she wrote that, I'll have my bottom ribs removed to perform autofellatio) but who wants to read about her? As found out whilst she was in Indian Big Brother (to make up for the fact she was being racist on British TV) though she is probably going to die of a tumour the size of a tomato. I'd almost feel sorry for her, but she's making the whole thing horribly dramatic - planning her funeral like a wedding and wanting people to cry, rather than have a piss up. To be fair, she never wanted to be liked and was herself, which sometimes is all you can ever ask of anyone. As I should say in this blog, cancer isn't a laughing matter, unless you reside in a certain fucked up house with a number 12 on the door.

Once more for Piers Morgan. So up himself that he'll probably shit out his own mouth someday. After being kicked off not one but two tabloid newspapers, he's gone onto judge talent shows so he can tell them they're shitter than he is. I don't think my repeated use of the word shit can really detail how shit he really is, I kind of enjoy the fact he's on television because it gives us a role model that we can be better than. Its funny, he has a feud with Jeremy Clarkson and even if you dislike Clarkson you can at least agree he's better than knee-cap-him-then-just-to-see-if he-swims-throw-him-off-Blackpool-Pier Morgan (see what I did thar?). He's just so painfully slimy.

Back to my life, I'm kind of looking forward to tomorrow. I love a good Christmas day feed. Hell, its me.. I love any given feed. I'd say I'm feeling festive, but I'm not really that bothered. My belief system being an agnostic one with a built in Christian lean, I can thank God for giving me his only son, but then thats all up to question. As Richard Dawkins put it, if I were born in Ancient Greece I'd probably believe in Zeus. If I were born in India, I'd probably believe in Shiva and Ganesh. Its just how I was raised and schooled that I do have the belief I do and that belief is doubted, but never the less built in. As for just an occassion to hang out with the family, its nice and all but I get bored. I get upset whenever my mum panics as she usually does about Dad either not doing anything to help out or the roasties getting a tiny bit burnt. She does like it perfect. There should be some good TV on tomorrow too. Father Ted Christmas special was on the other night and fuck me that was a mighty good show. Not that I haven't seen it about once a year ever since it came out (MCMXCVI I think were the numerals or 1996 to you and me), the timing, comic acting and script are unbelievable. Great slapstick is complimented by great spoken comedy and everybody is happy. Just don't watch it and think of me whenever Dougal does something dumb.

At the end of the day, whatever your religious beliefs are, I hope you all have a good, but safe Christmas. A lot of bad shit happens round Christmas (as often enough does a lot of good shit). Don't go drink driving because lets face it, there's enough of that already and two wrongs does not make a right, unless that right is a right turn into a ditch. Do get sozzled, just like I have over the last two weeks. Do learn to deal with the inevitable red wine, beer, cider and spirits hangovers. If you're anything like me you probably will mix them to get extra fubared, along with indulgence of many other things. Whilst none of my housemates are likely to read this, I know a certain Jewface who probably will. Read his Basque-region set blog after mine because to be truthful, its wittier, sleeker and shinier than mine. www.jewbao.blogspot.com . I reckon I should do a top 5 things to do over the Christmas holidays in a week or two, but until then enjoy yourself. Eat, drink and be merry. And for Christ's sake don't fall down an open manhole.

Arrrgh. I don’t even know what I’m writing any more.

Its been a good few weeks since my last entry to the blog and its boiled down to a number of things – mainly lack of time, effort and the fact that a few of the buttons on my laptop had to be ripped off because I got grains of dirt trapped under the keys. That meant I was left with these tiny rubber circles to press instead of a nice flat bit of plastic. When those circles happen to represent g, right shift and space bar, this becomes a particular chore, but I digress.

The lack of time and effort thing boils down to my job. Back at home I work in an inbound (that means I answer the calls, not make them) call centre handling customer support for Creation Consumer Finance. This is the company that lends you money to buy overly large televisions from Bennets and sofas from Land of Leather. I wrote an entire post on how the job is, but I’ve since discarded the old material and re-written, but I think I’ve got kind of a mixed response to it, which means I’ll have to write and re-write before I’m ready to tell the world whether or not one should get a job answering the phone all day.

I also have notes scribbled down on a dilapidated notebook on Copenhagen, coming back from it and whether or not it was a good idea to do so. In a lot of ways, I haven’t decided.

That’s the thing with going anywhere, whether you’ve never been there or that you’ve lived there all your life. Initially, the change of scenery is nice. You get a different mix of people too, which given your freshness means that you can be treated with a really warm reception. People have either missed your presence, friendship and company or they appreciate it because its new and therefore with a slight novelty towards it. Get a warm reception and you’ll get a warm feeling, you feel more confident, happy and settled in life. You treat everything with a renewed sense of wonder and you feel as if nothing could go wrong in your life. Optimism leads to more optimism, when things are going right in your life and you have this feeling of confidence things seem to go along with it.

That’s what it was. I was having a ball of a time, meeting friends, going out. Meeting new people, seeing new things. Watched the Incredible Hulk, played some card games, got drunk, got high.

The problem is, give a week or two and something to go wrong and you’re back to square one; at least in my experience.

Ever since I lost my bike key and my bike has been locked up to a bike stand, before being consequently stripped of half of its parts, things haven’t been that swell. Had the odd moment of greatness, but equally or perhaps more so there have been a number of crapifying minutes of my life I’d like to forget.

Now, there were a serious of things that f-ed with my happiness for a little while. First of all work started getting on top of me – I went through a series of days where I had to take call after call, that was fine until I lost the key to my bike lock. By the time I had even half a solution to removing the notoriously stubborn kryptonite lock (this is one of those metal U-locks where if you use it and your bike is stolen they will give you £1500, apparently). I also had a bit of trouble from a this bat-shit insane girl who I’ll talk about if you ever ask me.

You get the odd niggling problems as well. Take for instance today (this part was written last Wednesday). This girl who works in the cash office (to pass the time, e-flirting goes a long way) and I were e-mailing a little back and forth. Since she said she’d go for a drink with me I was starting to get ideas I was in there. Guess what though. I fall into the “Oh I have a boyfriend trap”. Not that I’m not used to it by now, every guy should, but it still sucks.

People always ask me what I think of Belfast/Lancaster/Copenhagen and I think I can only give one true response, something that applies to all of them.

They have their moments.

That is to say, from time to time, they can be truly amazing. Maybe you just have one of those days that are great, that makes you glad to be alive. Then you have a string of days that are kind of.. meaningless.

Those days when you’re in a call centre doing nothing. Its not that you would be doing anything with a day off, the weather might be bad wherever you are, so you watch your landlord’s DVD collection or Battlestar Galactica season one which your friend (thanks Matt) has lent you. That’s if your friends aren’t around. Otherwise you meet up and do a variety of activities that may or may not include the following:

Alcohol/substance abuse, watching movies, playing card games, doing sweet f.a. in a park.

It’s not so bad, but I’ve started to notice how many days just seem to blend into one another. I’d quite like to say I’m doing something useful with my time, but would I necessarily enjoy doing them? I don’t know. It’s one of those things that I need to do to find out. But to do them , I need to arrange them around my work schedule, which seems to be endless. This week, I will have worked around sixty-one hours.

Sixty-one hours.

There are one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week.

If I sleep roughly a third of that time, its fifty six hours.

That means I’ve got fifty one hours a week to do whatever I like with it. Should be enough really, to fit in some guitar lessons, muay thai classes or more card games, but somehow I haven’t found away to do it.

Seriously though, what should I be doing with my life?

From what I gather, most of my pals also seem to be working their proverbials off, just like myself, though perhaps not to the exact same degree. Often they’re skint because instead of answering bollocks phone calls during the day, they’re actually nursing their hangovers rather than riding them out in their places of employment. That’s the method of yours truly. If I’m half drunk from the night before in work, the whole day will pass a lot quicker. I’ll sober up quickly anyway. Being that my alcoholic consumption is almost entirely based on beer consumption rather than anything else, the worst I seem to get these days is just a groggy feeling, the odd sleepiness from lack of sleep or occasionally the feeling that I’m still drunk from the night before.

Sometimes that actually makes what might be a boring day a little bit more interesting.

Its not that I hate my job, its just that I really can’t be arsed with it half the time. I’m stuck with the Homer Simpson tendency:

“If you don’t like your job, you don’t quit. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the way, that’s the American way!”

Seems I’m living my life just like the overweight balding beer-guzzling, doughnut-digesting American cartoon character. Whenever possible, I’ll even try and catch some sleep at my computer controls. Though this never lasts that long, obviously I have to keep a look out for the discerning eye of the team leaders. Who whilst generally patient, easy-going and not thinking they’re better than the little people, still have a job to do. In turn I have to respect that. I don’t shirk on the work, its just I only do it because I have to.

Half the time, I can’t really dislike it. The further you drag me down to earth with the mundane, the more my head will go off into the sky with the arcane. Sometimes, I’m doing the obvious planning of what I’m doing later, sometimes its planning my destiny. On some level, they are one and the same.

Sometimes I question the morality of the job at hand. Like I said before, we’re acting as the middle between the finance company and either customers or retailers (depending on who’s making the call and the purpose of the call), often to give them information on their account, take payments or set up new agreements. However, there is another side to it.

As one friend put it, we’re basically selling money. As part of a company that handles credit and makes its money by applying very steep interest rates, we’re on a day to day putting people in hot water. If you fail to pay off your £1200 for your sofas, you can end up being as much as £3000 in debt to us. Now I can imagine, with the chunky thirty six instalments, that can be a bigger bite out of one’s pay-cheque than the repayments for the almost twenty grand of student loans many of us might have borrowed, people can have a lot of problem with their debts.

So, on the “no-its-not-morally-wrong” side of the argument, providing credit is the corner stone of the free market economy system. To improve one’s situation, anyone within the liberal system we live in can borrow money for the purpose of sorting out their cash flow. 95% of the time if you pay everything off in good time, it will work out well for you, but then there is that other five percent of the time.

It used to be a case that if someone rang in having failed to pay their debt by so much as a day and having incurred so much interest, I used to feel sorry for them, speak empathetically. Now, its not the case. I don’t so much as rub it in, but behave like an automaton. My answers become robotic and if you put them down on paper they would read like bullet points. Like I thought the other week, I’m getting gradually more evil working the job. Whenever someone rolls over the Special Offer Date and incurs this interest, I almost take a guilty pleasure in knowing that they have. Maybe I’m thinking in terms of the company that my job is more secure by the added money coming into the company’s account from the suffering customer. Maybe its knowing somebody else has made a mistake, one that I am believe I wouldn’t ever do in real life (three of my flat mates from second year will recall an epic drunken conversation on my birthday about buying things on credit, if you want a sofa, just save up and buy it was my bottom line). Maybe I’m just that sadistic that I’m taking pleasure in somebody else’s anguish. At the same time though, I do feel for the person that has had the bad thing happen to them. A lot can add up on a person, I don’t even know the circumstances of how they live (though if they tell me their sob stories, I’m actually more annoyed that they’ve tried to place all this guilt on me, as if I am personally responsible for their hardships and that I should bend over backwards to fix the situation).

Don’t you people understand your suffering pleases my cold dead heart?

There’s also the point that I wasn’t the one who actually sold the agreement. I didn’t advertise it, I didn’t mis-sell the agreement to the customer by telling them there would be no admin charge, no interest charge, no 3% surcharge for using a credit card to pay the bill off. In fact, it all boils down to the principle of free will. Who forced the customer to sign themselves into a contract? No-one, but their own drive for a better, more expensive and shinier sofa. It really annoys me whenever they rant and rave down the phone because they took credit out on a 48” LCD television as well and failed to pay it off within the year.

I’m the type of guy who takes pleasure in finding a bargain, takes pleasure in finding a freebee. Maybe its because I like the idea of saving for my future, or generally just so I can save my money for other things i.e. drinking and smoking. Those of you that know me may remember about half a year ago I purchased this 24” CFT television for a grand total of £16 off ebay. Not only was the screen grossly oversized in comparison to the one bed en-suite rooms of Lancaster university’s campus, but the picture quality was pretty good as well. It just looked amazing in comparison to the otherwise bare room. In fact, I think if you said to me

“Here’s seven hundred pounds, go and buy a big television,”

I would look the gift horse in the mouth. I’d question why not buy a half decent one for under £100 and save the rest for other things.

I think half of Lancaster will remember Mr. Loverstreet’s discovery of a giant television that was being thrown out that the Carpenter and I carted round to the ground floor of Block 28 and installed in Sean-joe’s room, in place of a scrawny (but serviceable) 14” television. Oh the FIFA we played..!

Now my point about this is not that I have an eye for bargains or that I think more ascetically than a bunch of idiots who ring up to give me abuse down the phone about excessive interest rates, but that the simple things in life need to be appreciated more. Try not to get sucked up into consumerism and the keeping-up-with-the-jones’ lifestyle that has people buy stupid shit. Or if you really need to, save up and buy it. The company doesn’t send out reminders that people need to pay off their bill because it shouldn’t need to. If you sign an agreement (and are handed not only a that says pay off this large amount of money we’re lending you by January, its your prerogative to make the payment.

Someone else said this about another call centre:

“I’m not a nazi, I’m just working in the gas chamber.”

In some respects, this one is no different.

But then, on the other hand you have four fingers and a thumb.

What I do like about this place, there is a bit of a cool mix of people down at the oul (this is a Norn Irish term meaning old, but really a term of endearment) office. From a bunch of slightly chunky but generally friendly and likable lesbians in their mid-twenties, to an ex-priest in training to uni students, middle aged housewives and eighteen year olds with limited life experience and limited education.

I got off to a good start with most people here. Many of them are as geeky as I am. I’ve played about half of the customer services department at chess and won, only to have a challenger coming from the underwriting department (this is where they credit score you to decide if we can trust you to make payments back on your hundreds of pounds). I’ve also shared and discussed comics, music, science, religion, films with a lot of people, finding out I share a lot of tastes with people.

You get the odd brainless person, who knows little more than the musical stylings of Cascada, hair extensions, shoes and Baracardi breezers, but they’re sometimes fun for even a giggle. I’m not going to act up like an emo child and say that they are so low on intellect and intelligence they are a problem with society, because that would be very short sighted and overly pedantic, judgemental and failing to enjoy the simple nuances of simple people. They are funny in a round about way.

So about Belfast then? Any good?

Its gotten a helluva lot better over the last few months.

For instance, one can actually enjoy a night out in Belfast and then with a carry out go and sit on the protective surroundings of a bandstand centred in the middle of a park at about three o’clock in the morning.

Clubs seem to be improving too, though with the credit crunch on the go, things have gotten a fair bit more expensive. £20 can still last you a night the way we play it though. Times are good. Except the green scene.

What started as a very promising few weeks in terms of what we could get our hands on smoke wise, things soon turned sour. After getting a hydroponically grown bag of awesome, there seems to be a new drought. Or a turn to five score bags (£25 for about 2 grams of sand blasted bud, simply marvellous. Sorry did I just blow up a sarcasm). We got an O between four of us of soap bar stuff, it did the job, but it hot rocked to be-Jesus and it just isn’t the same. Give me the pungent stuff that smells like a greenhouse full of miracle-gro and I’ll be happy.

From anyone else’s view it’s kind of clear what I need – either a girlfriend or a hobby. Even though I’ve kind of pointed out that since I’m working all day I have time constraints and need to relax, someone really needs me to take me somewhere where I take up rock climbing or martial arts or something. I should really learn to enjoy other things in life than getting stoned and playing card games. But you do whatever you enjoy. No point forcing yourself to do things you don’t want to do. Actually that doesn’t make sense, I’d probably never go to work.

Well I might.. just for my attractive female colleagues..

Life is what you make it. If I’m working too many hours, I bring it on myself. Days that seem meaningless will make the days that seem meaningful more so.

That’s about all for now. Catch you on the flipside

C-dogg (irony)

Of Fights and Fiascos

I promised myself, I’d save this writing bit until I got on the plane home. That way, I’d have something to do for the two hours. Chances are though, I might pass out from being too tired, or even try chatting up whoever sits beside me. I may not have gotten any in Denmark, but the concept of getting some over international waters with some attractive stranger is like the porn film, I hope to write, direct and star in some day.

Join the mile high club at thirty seven thousand feet

Been there, done that.

I WANT A NEW TOOL BUS FULL OF OLD GUITARS..

Sorry, I was having a moment. One based on the catchy, cheesy but generally shit song by Nickelback.

As a wannabe writer, I also have plenty of material that can be summoned from the right side of my brain.
I have an entire chapter on stoner philosophies that needs to be translated from the thoughts of Conor into the format of electronic text.

Anyway, this blog entry serves as a way of trying to calm myself down. The rest of this entry, probably isn’t going to be funny, it’ll attempt to be thought provoking

I wrote a long post on TOTSE (a website with forums, I go onto all the time) about what happened last night, so I’ll do a quick copy and paste (I’ll edit it slightly too) to recall the situation:



“So I was out drinking tonight and this guy did this really wierd thing with my back. Rather than push me to the side, or tap me to move, he put his hand up my t-shirt and was like ticking my spine, or at least that's what it felt like.

I let him past and for the next few minutes to shake off the awkwardness. It did not feel right.

It's not a case of homophobia (I‘ve no problem there at all) - the guy was hitting on girls and stuff, he appeared to be straight. I also have had gay guys pinch my arse or shit and I can deal with it. It can be a little bit awkward, but you can laugh at it. Touching my back in that way, was not right. Me having a

So I walked over to him and told him, not to do it again, firmly, explained what he did. Without being violent or threatening, just a stern "do not do that again." There was a little bit of a language barrier because he was Danish and of Arab (I’m reasonably sure he was from somewhere in the middle-East) descent, but once he gathered I only spoke English he started getting confrontational.

"Are you fucking with me?"

"I wish I was man. Just don't do it again."

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No, I am not fucking with you. I’m just telling you what I felt and not to do it again.”

After this, he got a little , putting his hand on my stomach, so my friend (Mark, you’re a hero) dragged me away.

Now, I didn't want a fight. I’d like to think I wasn't afraid of one and maybe to some degree I was, but I wasn't talking him out of one. I had a couple of issues at the time, I heard my mother’s disapproving voice in my head and I could have done without being thrown out/bouncers having issues.

So we went downstairs in our group. He followed and got in my face again. My friend pulled me away and so did his friend. We left for a few other bars.”



There’s the first part of the post. Now, that was my “written statement” last night, I had about five pints, so I wasn’t per say “pissed”, but I was less than 100% sober. I was also a little shook up.

After the original incident with the Danish/Arabian guy, I was a little bit pissed off with myself and how I had gotten confrontational about something I should have forgotten about. I didn’t need to tell the guy not to do it again, I could have just ignored it. Maybe part of me was trying to play macho or something and get the guy to acknowledge what he’d done and agree not to do it again. Maybe part of me wanted him to cower a little, but I don’t see how this really would have helped. With four pints in me, my judgement was a little clouded and I really do not like my back (used to have back problems that could be damn sore) being touched.

Now thankfully, no-one in my group took too badly to the incident where it had happened. It meant we got to see a few other places, that were pretty good - one place was very cheap whilst it was open, another, had a nice ambience and allowed us to pick a lot of tunes, which were at the time, a series of hip-hop beats being blasted out, such as Snoop, Eminem, Dre, Coolio,Wu-tang and uhhh, the Foo-Fighters (cos they’re really gangsta). Despite having a good time, I still felt like a fool, letting some form of macho pride mess with my decision making process.

I figured I could have handled that guy, but seriously, if you’re with friends, they’re gonna look out for your best interests and get you out of the situation. Probably quite wisely, before somebody did something stupid - he may have been smaller, but he liked to bring his beer bottle around with him everywhere. Like I’ll explain later, how much I can actually fight is another story.

Here’s the second part of the post:



“Later on that night, I saw a guy being attacked by four-six guys. I slowly walked towards the fight and with a bunch of other guys, managed to act in a sort of protecting circle around the guy being attacked - kind of getting him away, before he walked to fight them again or they charged at him.

In fact, us getting him away almost wasn't stopping them, if it wasn't for the sound of sirens, they would have kept coming.

The thing was, I could have acted sooner, to stop the guy getting into too much trouble, but I started thinking about my own skin (and perhaps to some degree, my mother having a go at me for getting involved/putting myself at risk).

Without being stupider, I'd like to be braver/more equipped to handle a situation like that.

I know if I saw a friend in a one on one fight, I'd let him fight it out, unless he was getting wailed on, in which case I'd drag him out of there/try and step in to get him out of there.

A random guy in the street though, what would you do?””



So yes, I was walking home from that cool nineties hip-hop bar (it looked like a kind of classier and smaller version of Revs), I witnessed the whole Scottish-guy getting the shit beaten out of him. I don’t know of the events that led up to the situation as I didn’t see anything other than halfway through the fight, which I stopped, watched for a second to do a double-take as to whether it was a real fight, before I started pacing towards it very slowly, unsure of what I intended to do.

He took it well, cos he was a big guy and managed to get on his feet despite being booted in the face. He could have had worse. At one point, one of the guys attacking him charged at him with a big plastic post used to separate off the street from a construction site and he narrowly dodged it, was fucking impressive.

What this reminds me of, is those tv shows or films where somebody is attacked or beaten to death and people walk past, not getting involved. I’ve always thought to myself “if I was walking past, I’d do something”, but having put myself in the situation last night, I barely did. Adrenaline in such a situation can give you that “fight or flight” reaction. Where you either get the hell out of dodge, swing a crude right hook, or piss your pants. In both those situations, I felt ill. I wasn’t going to have anything pre-emptive with the guy who was picking a fight with me in the bar and it was the same with the guy on the street. In the one real fight I’ve ever had in my life (will tell that story another time), I took the first punch, not gave it. I didn’t run and fight one of the guys hitting the Scottish guy, because I knew it could have made things worse and perhaps not just for myself. I didn’t hit the guy in the bar, because that would have been deliberately starting a fight, when I believed it could have been avoided.

As a kid, I grew up loving the idea of being the warrior, the cool hero who won every fight and maybe that has stayed with me a little. I -like- to believe I can fight and I like the idea of being a force to be reckoned with, that people in bars are going to avid having a scrap with because of size and coolness, but when it comes down to it.. I probably can’t fight for shit. As anybody who has ever hit me in the face (Jewface, Yakob, some random spides!), should know as long as I don’t get punched in the nose, I can take a dig in the face. Being able to take a beating does not equate to being able to give one though. Then you have fear of a fight, which can be caused by a lot of things. Whilst you don’t really feel the injuries until the next day, you start thinking on what you have to lose from even a punch. Intelligence, charisma and “good looks” can all go to waste in a couple of slugs.

This thing reminded me a lot of a couple of conversations in Lancaster. In flat one of house twenty eight, we were rampant face book “compare people” users. For those of you who don’t know it, compare people is a program that allows you to compare your friends against other friends in various categories ranging from best looking, to most useful. Two of these categories came into question one night as our favourite Jewface kept voting me “not as powerful” as somebody else, often a girl, or “less likely to win a fight” than somebody.

Whilst I still manage to rank eighth toughest, for a while I thought I deserved a higher ranking. As much as I’d like to believe “I’m hard”, I now realize, I’m really not. The theory is of course, yet to be fully tested, but I think most of the time, my bark is worse than my bite. I still feel, “I can handle myself”, but I need to stop acting on this belief. It’s not smart, or cool. Which is probably what I’m trying to be, by letting silly shit like touching my back in a weird way nearly get me into a fight I should be afraid of.

I think in the end, I tried to do the right thing with the Scottish guy, but it was only after I had more support, whenever there was three-four other guys stepping in. Safety in numbers. Two of the guys the Scottish guy had been taking a beating from looked ready to charge at us. I near shat myself - they looked quite tough, luckily though we were saved by the bell of sirens as I mentioned earlier. I could have gotten that fight that would have tested my mettle. Might have moved myself up a few face book ranks, (lol). At least the guy was okay afterwards and I can say I was brave enough to put myself in a position of potential danger.

I’m still planning on going to Muay Thai again over the Summer, try and give me a bit more confidence, so that I don’t get all fearful in a situation where I, or somebody else is under threat. At the same time, I need to start using my head more. When I’m in a face-to-face one on one confrontation with someone (they do happen from time to time), I front a little. Generally, I’d much rather have a good time, party, drink, flirt, so if some guy is potentially trying to start with me, I try and approach things calmly, stress that I don’t want any trouble. At the same time, I don’t want to act up like a chickenshit and begin wailing “I’m sorry man, I’m sorry.” blah. Maybe, I should just humble myself to that level. I need to stop thinking I’m Tyler Durden as well.

Song of the Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98i4s9iKBQo

Procrastination. Rhymes with playstation, ramification, wash hand basin and mastur..

Yeah. I should really write a song on the art of doing nothing, or at least, putting your work off to a later date.

I mean, I spent a day writing a blog entry, only to decide it sounded border-line self-pitying, downbeat and unhappy. You ever noticed the way its difficult to sound cynical and happy at the same time?

I then spent another day acting out my own ad-libbed words to the famous Afroman song.

I was going to write three pages, but then I got high. I was going to get a first, but then I got high. I was going to read some pages about Denmark..
But then I got high, then I got high then I got hiiiiigh
LADADADADADADA

If you want to know the reason why I haven't done that much of the essay, I'll give you the question:

"Discuss the characteristics and scope of the so called 'Danish model'. Exemplify within topics of your own choice."

I was taught once, the best way to tackle an essay question is to start off by taking apart the key words and thinking about them.

Discuss - my immediate reaction is: No. Do I have to?

Characteristics - stop using big words.

Scope - Every time I hear this word, I think of SUSAT (Sight Unit Small Arms Trilocks), that's the thing on top of a rifle

Danish Model - Ever watched the Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" and thought that blonde chick he was nailing at the start of the film was the hottest bond girl in the film? That's because she's a Danish model. Here's an example of what happens when you google image search Danish model:















And another:













Now by my exact calculations about one in seven Danish women look this good. I'd like to write an essay about beer and how it has affected people, but God damn..

Alright, next we have the phrase "Exemplify within topics of your own choice."

Well I have already picked breweries and beer and its effect on the Danish population. Which means, I have to scientifically and historically go deeper than:

The Danes like to drink beer. Danish beer tastes nice. I like Danish beer.

Now, I have read a lot and analyzed the situation from a philosophical and socio-political angle and I have come to a conclusion:

I don't give a shit.

I'd really like to say I don't belong in academia, but lets face it.. I was never a born laborer..

I've kept this one short and sweet. Like a good kiss. Aww.. sweetiee..

Sarcastically yours,

Conor

Song of the Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czyfws7OLCs

Monday was a whole other kettle of fish compared to most days in Copenhagen so far. It was potentially one of the worst days I've seen in the city weather wise. So the saying goes - it never rains, but it pours.

It made getting around the town a little harder to do, so my Mother and I were constantly having to rush from place to place with a cheap umbrella over our head, darting from cafe, to shop to closed museum to closed museum.

That's one of the few problems with Copenhagen. There's not that much to do on a Monday, other than maybe shops and cinema. When your art loving mother comes over, you want to show you've grown and matured into your years as both a student and a human being. She listed a number of places she wanted to go to and so I did my best to take her round some of them. One of them was Christiania, the former hippy commune, I've undoubtedly talked about before. When she first suggested it, I warned her of the nature of its excess - the first thing that hits you is the sweet, sweet smell of hashish. I told her she probably didn't want to go there, that's where I met my Danish friends.

"Ah, are they drug takers?"

I nodded and gave this awkward smirk. "Sometimes."

"Are you a drug taker?"

Caught off guard, I froze in silence for a fleeting moment. "That depends on what you mean by drug taker. I suppose I am though." At any other point in time, I probably would have laughed at the phrase "drug taker", due to how outdated and inaccurate it actually sounds, this point though, I couldn't.

I can't remember my mother's facial expression at this point. I felt a minor adrenaline rush, as if I was an animal backed up against a wall, unable to escape. I don't even think her reaction was that bad either.

"Really. What drugs do you take?" likewise, I don't remember her tone. It was somewhere between curious and disappointed.

"Oh you know, smoke a little weed here and there.. but I've tried other stuff."

"Like what?"

At this point, I listed the other types, that I've tried (I don't make any habit of anything). I'm not going to list them here because its incriminating evidence, I've done enough by admitting that I smoke weed. Not that I'm a-feared of cops banging on my door, because that's entirely unlikely - I neither deal, grow, produce or supply any thing to/for anybody which is who they'd come after, but things like this may come back to bite me in the ass. At one point in my life, I considered joining the military (read the earlier post where I mention the OTC) and whilst I don't think I will, its better not to rule things out. Similarly, I know in twenty years time, if I ever wanted to run for political office, people would probably care less about what I've done/may do in my "wild student years". I know that if I ever want to make bar (unlikely, but I'm not known for my firm decisions in life, I might turn around five years later and decide I want to be a lawyer or some such), they'll only take into account whether I have prior criminal convictions. My fear would be companies who may scope out exactly who I am before they hire me. They may decide because of what I've taken they'll rule me out in favour of a less qualified yet more willing to obey the law type. With them, I can't pretend I am some crack pot bullshitter, or even that I wrote the entries in moments of temporary insanity because that would be painting me as at least a little unstable.

Her reaction to the list was initially of complete shock and concern. She talked about what it might be cut with and I talked her around to the "drug taker's logic", about how I understand what I'm doing, I look into it before hand before I take it and I don't take anything that's likely to be mixed with rat poison or heroin (or coke/crystal meth, anything like that I have never tried and never will), things I have taken to be niche drugs; not generally in high demand, so they'll just be weaker variants rather than watered down. It'd be bad economics to mix them with rat poison.

Later on though, we stopped by my house to pick up a couple of jumpers so that we could endure the sharp chill better as we walked around the harbour area. I didn't want her to come into my room, insisting that it was too untidy for her to see. She persisted and after realizing it wasn't that untidy went and looked for what I was attempting and failing to conceal - a desk loosely covered in grains of tobacco and grass.

"That's what you were hiding. That looks recent. How often do you smoke?"

"About twice a week." At this point, it was a half-truth. It would be about twice a week, if I didn't see that much of my Danish friends. Like I say - good company, bad influence. But I was honest about a few things, I'm intending to stop soon, or at least cut down severely. This is down to two reasons. One; it's going to get harder to acquire once Gordon likesitinthe-Brown gets it moved up to a class B drug because he's an idiot who likes to divert people's attention from things that actually matter, and a number of other reasons which may or may not be related to:
Physical and mental health
Lethargy/motivation
The appeal
Money

I've basically edited this bit down because it's border-line whiney, the summary is if you keep doing something too much, no matter what it is, sooner or later, it'll catch up with you.

But back to my Mum's reaction. Overall, it wasn't as bad as expected. I think she doesn't judge or worry as much as I believed she might. She'll always worry of course, that's what she does as a mother (if your mother stops worrying about you, I'd grow concerned). There's no escaping that fact, but I don't think I've changed in her eyes. I'm still her little boy and she still trusts me like she always did. She didn't yell me down, or even give me the classic "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed" line. I was really relieved to have gotten it off my chest.

Her reaction is something I would like all non-drug takers to consider
That's exactly how I hope I'm treated by people who read this, a shade of understanding - instead of a weak and incredibly shallow "You take drugs, I don't want to have anything to do with you" response, judge people by their character. Not their habits.

Similarly those who take drugs, shouldn't be thinking "Oh, they're not cool; they don't want to take stuff with us." I mean, I was guilty of thinking that from time-to-time when I was younger, but like I say, I'm friends with everyone.

A friend of mine on the bus heard a girl ask her friend if they were going to my leaving do. Her answer was "No, they're all drug addicts in that house."

At first, all of us who heard this story laughed. Drug addicts tend to be those who take addictive and dangerous substances and depend on, doing anything in their way to get their hands on the drug to keep them going. Apart from de 'erb and beer, there's nothing I do day to day, or on a week to week basis.

Whilst I really shouldn't care what some people think, reputation sticks and misinformed judging hinders what people think.

I gave up drinking for lent, drinking only four times in the space of those forty odd days. I'd be surprised if she could have done the same.

Anyway.. enough critisizing people, that's not what this is all about. I'm far from perfect myself.

So, back to the Copenhagen situation..

What the fuck is Denmark's obsession with Australians..
First of all, they have two really cheesy soaps shown during the day time. And yes, I mean cheesy. As in, they're akin to BBC's doctors, meets Home in Away. Mercy Beach or something..

Then you have "STARS", a fifteen minute show about movie stars, voiced by this whiney nasal Aussie guy talking about Julia Robert's screen "dayboo". It's pronounced like a french word, day-beau, you kangaroo molesting fuck (sorry Jake, you know I love your kind really, but you'd hate this guy's voice as well)

The show makes me beg two questions though:
A) Who gives a shit about Marcia Gay Harden?

B) Why doesn't Orlando Bloom get an acting coach?

Then you have Miami beach patrol. It may not have anything to do with Australia, but it is about as pointless as the other few. Now, COPS can be quite entertaining, but that Miami beach thing is just irritating. They spent about four hours catching some lobster poacher who shot one with a spear gun.

Seriously, there were about four police officers surrounding him and making sure he didn't run off. I may respect that important endangered species like elephants and tigers need protecting from poachers... but this was a lobster and not even any special kind of lobster, just a regular boil it and eat it kind.. So they confiscate all his shit and arrest him and find the evidence that they need to ensure he was guilty of the heinous crime. I'm sure somebody must have been thinking "should you not be out solving real problems?". The worst bit was when somebody went "I'm going to have to keep this lobster as evidence." Seriously. What a fucking dick? If he'd been smart he could have cooked it whilst it was still fresh. As that irritating robot from the Power Rangers once uttered: Ay yai yai!

On an unrelated note, does anyone else have a thing for that red headed girl in Mythbusters?

Back to real life, I got offered a few jobs here. Just after I had booked my flight. Its a shame; I would have liked to have stayed on a little longer, but on the other hand, I'm looking forward to coming home immensely. Missing the place and the people since I only got back for ten days at Easter.

On the women front,

Here is a short list of bullshit reasons why I didn't get any this week (or for that matter the last two months) that include:
Losing two days due to my mother being around
Cute Scottish girls who I -might- (Marc seemed to think so) have had a chance with going back to Glasgow earlier than anticipated
Being too high
Being too drunk
Not being drunk on other occasions (for instance this female friend of a Danish friend was this brunette with pretty blue eyes who was into me, but felt awkward because I was too sober)
Not bothering to call/e-mail some girls I had the number/e-mail of
Not getting replies from some of the girls I did have a number/e-mail of
Over thinking things before approaching - e.g. "what if she wants a relationship?" "what if she has a boyfriend?" "what do I say/do/think if this pops up, or this happens" "what if x/y/z are three lines with correlation on a graph.."
Trying too hard
Not trying hard enough
I'm too nice and gentle around nice girls
Not wanting to seem too desperate (a very difficult thing to do at this point in time)
Passing up opportunities to go swimming with hot Swedish girls because I thought I had other plans (this is the worst one. I can sort of understand the mindset I was in at the time, but at the end of the day it still adds up to one conclusion - I'm a fucking idiot!)

I had some other introspections on this situation (previously written down in the blog, but later removed), but the bottom line is - I'm not really that bothered. I've got work to do and beers to drink, along with a radiator that keeps giving me static shocks just by touching it. I can't let my nuts run my life, I'm not a fourteen year old with chronic masturbation syndrome any more.

I did promise one other thing last time, so here's the beer review. This final section is a little shoddy, so skip down if you're unable to give a shit.
Danish Beer Reviews

Now, I don't know how qualified I am to review beers, because lets face it - there are only a few occasions I am able to recall the actual flavour of the beer. Usually, like all good beer drinkers, I have a number of beers greater than four. At this point one's taste buds are often dulled or dumbed down a little so that all lagers taste pretty much the same.

When it comes to Danish beers though, many of them taste quite similar anyway, so you have to use your keen sense of smell and taste to work out what they're like before you enter drunk mode.

Here's a list though, of the ones I can remember. I'll begin with a list of Carlsberg brewed beers:

Carl's Special - This one isn't bad, a little bit bitter but drinkable
Carl's Ale - I've never been a big ale man myself and I don't think Carl's Ale is any exception. Its swiggable, but its not too good to sip on, there's a bit of a mad aftertaste
Carl's Hvede- I either haven't drank this, or I cannot remember
Jacobsen's Special - The Jacobsen's brew house only opened a few years ago, but the beers are brewed in an old style. Most of them taste quite nice, aged but with a chocolate style flavour
Carlsberg Pilsner - This is the standard carlsberg beer in Denmark. It tastes awesome in comparison to the 3.8% stuff brewed in England. When I drink a beer, I want beer. Not water. This has flavour, a bit of a kick and its nice. I wish they served this on tap in England instead of its womenly variety
Carlsberg Elephant Beer - You don't tend to drink 7.5% beers for their flavour, but even this one isn't too bad
Carlsberg Sport - Not actually a beer and is in fact a gatorade meets mountain dew style soft drink

Yes, I understand you're surprised that Carlsberg make so many. In fact, they make more, just these are the ones I actually vaguely remember drinking/coming across.

Tuborg - Tuborg is another Danish brand owned by Carlsberg. Danish people often attest that there is no difference between the two, but if I could take the pepsi challenge between Tuborg and Carlsberg and I reckon I could tell the difference. Tuborg is a much better beer. Unobtrusive to the taste
Tuborg Classic - Classic is for those days you don't fancy regular tuborg. It smells horrific, but it tastes pretty good.

Royal - Just ignore it. It's not bad, but its horrifically over priced for what it is. Its damn weird.

Faxe - Available in litre cans sold in Asda for £1.87 making them great for novelty value. I just can't seem to get a glass of the stuff, but I'm tempted to go down to the Faxe brewery on a day off and get sozzled. Problem is it takes about two hours to get there. It's almost not worth it.

King - Good cheap bottled Pilsner, available from the philosophy bar at the university, where you can also find the secret "medicine of philosophy" room. A room without even a conventional door handle.. Ooh the mystries

Odin's Pilsner - This will become your favourite at 25 p + 10 pant (bottle tax, that you reclaim when you recycle), you get a tasty, refreshing pilsner. It tastes quite watery, but it also gets you hammered if you drink eight or nine of them. Sorry, I don't see the problem with that.. do you?

Odin's is named after a God because for what it is, it was made by a God.

Keep the comments coming guys. I love them all, positive and negative. Though if anyone can relate to anything here, you have to tell me.. that's what I appreciate the most.

Conor

I wrote the guts of this entry on Saturday, so it'll generally reflect the thoughts of the time...

Oh good Lord my ass just had the longest conversation with the toilet. I am feeling drained! Not that you needed to now that, just I thought I'd enlighten you all as to how relieved I'm feeling at this point in time.

I've decided to lie in the sun, generally just to have a lazy day. You know when you've got shit all else to do, so you just make the most of the warm weather and sit on the cool, fresh grass? I'm sure back in Lancaster, you've come to enjoy the weather, either instead of revision or as part of it. Anyway, some good company and a relaxing activity wouldn't go amiss but over all, life is good. You can't ask for much more than what I've got; sunshine, pen, paper and a gigantic watermelon (to help me feel extra "negarious") and the sweet sound of bird song. I thought I'd write a movie review or two to entertain y'all. Do a write up of what I've bore witness to in thelast week, but I think I'll reiterate something I said last time.

Cycling wasted = amazing

Last night I met up with some Danish friends, grabbed about twenty beers between five of us and sat out in my yard drinking and smoking (speaking ow which, that brown stuff from Morocco is in Norn Irish slang "wile parful!") till about eleven. I then went to meet up with the other ten Lancastrians in town. My method of transport - city rent-a-bike. Not only is this potentially dangerous and moronic, but it is also great fun! You go flying at great speeds as if you're Ghost Rider on fire, you feel every bump, surface and contour of the road and you never feel tired. Perhaps best of all, when I woke up I felt like I had lost twenty pounds and consequently spent about five minutes thismorning still admiring my washboard stomach in the bathroom mirror, before realizing I was till out of it and that my torso wasn't as handsome as I first believed.

Still.. I'd do the whole thing in a heartbeat..

Sadly, when I got to town, things didn't work out to plan as much as we hoped. The bar/club we planned on attending was more expensive than we planned, so we spent some time faffing around and perhaps as a combination of a multitude of grumblings (myself included), animosity kind of killed some of the previously good vibe. All well and forgotten about the next day as far as I'm aware.

At this point, I stopped writing to talk to some Aussie hippy in my large, communal back garden. Flash forward to Sunday and I'm in the garden again..


My ma was supposed to be here today, but in true Charlton style (I've been stuck in Liverpool, living on the good grace of friends twice!), she missed her flight out. It's a shame for two reasons:

a) I was looking forward to seeing her today. I planned on taking her to a number of art galleries and museums to entertain and amuse her, all of which are closed on a Monday.

b) I passed up three opportunities to wet my willy.
The first, a salsa club which this short Borat-lookalike mofo invited me to. I'd met him a bar when I was waiting for the English crowd to appear, who were in a packed out Irish pub watching the Champion's league final, which ended much later than expected. So Borat and I played some chess before proceeding to chat up a series of women in and around the bar. Two of which were these good looking Polish girls, who invited me out on Saturday night as well. I think one liked the look of me and I would be lying if I said the thought wasn't mutual.

Lastly, but far from least was an invite from the previously mentioned Danish bag-head friends who I spent Friday night drinking and smoking with. They were planning on getting diddly at a house party and I probably would have joined them if it weren't for the mother situation and my apparent lack of sunglasses (God damnit! Where are my £2 Primark aviators?!)

Now, I know looking for opportunities leading to nookie is in a way, a little pathetic, but I'll make what I perceive to be a very valid point; this is the 21st century, I'm a man. We are believed to think about sex every six seconds.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.


Yeap, I thought about it. Perhaps because there's a tasty looking scrumpet in a bikini lying on the lawn a few meters away from me, but consider the theory proven for now. Not only this, but as society seems to suggest - everyones doing it. So, I feel like I'm missing out. Due to my very peculiar style of "charm", my lack of effort to pursue and rather average looks, opportunities don't come around that often. The current dry spell I'm experiencing only tends to add insult to injury, though it could be worse. I could have long make out sessions with that lead only to failed escalation and the most painful, common affliction known to modern man: blue ball.

Now, I'd say I'm far from a sleaze ball womanizer. I like exchanging laddish humour involving shit innuendos, but often enough I buzz off female interaction and don't need anything else other than a nice chat. Generally I'm not a sleep around kind of guy (though the question always arises, would be if I could?). I've had some fairly meaningless moments, the odd one night stand but I tend to be more about pursuing a girl I meet when I'm sober and grow to become besotted with.

Anyone thinking with a feminine mindset might be thinking "awww that's really sweet.." but don't say it. This is nightmarish..

Once you put on a pedestal, you're ruined. When you're around the girl, your rational thoughts are replaced with lovey dovey nervousness. You spend half of the day thinking about her too, failing to achieve as much as you normally would. In addition, you try too hard and its painfully obvious. You start turning up to things you wouldn't normally go to if it weren't for the fact you know she'll be there. You check her facebook/bebo constantly to see if anyone else is in the picture and your mind just generally obsesses. Not once in my lifetime has this ever worked out. But I wonder if it would, would I be so interested. It's one of those things - what we can't have, we often want more.

When you focus your life on other things than trying to woo somebody, you become more attractive. You can charm a multitude of people in no time at all. Its similar to being unavailable or in high demand - you are instantly more attractive.

Take Easter holidays. I met this girl on a Monday night whilst winged/diddly/off my tits. We got on well so we went home together and hung out for much of the week, (though its never really the same sober as it is in the initial state). Thursday night and I'm out again. I know I'll be meeting up with the same girl later on and I'm also out with my friends for his birthday. I don't really care about flirting/meeting other girls, yet I'm approached by a number of different girls on a number (I remember at least two, the night got a little bit hazy) of different occasions. In my eyes, this helps strengthen my people wanting what they can't have theory. Maybe this is because you give out some vibe of coolness and confidence without any signs of desperation, but I also find if you talk about somebody you're into, or a girlfriend in positive light, other girls will hang off your every word. There was one time in a bar back in the Summer where the legendary Matt and I were just generally chatting to about three girls, just chilling out, having few beers after work. The girls were loving it, despite our situations (both of us had other girls in the picture) and were at the point where they were buying us beers to keep us around. It begs the question, if you were to fabricate a girlfriend in the middle of a conversation, would you be more tempting?

So, back to the here and now.. I'm killing off more time by writing before the day is over by writing (Sundays bore me - being dragged to Church as a kid has made me grow up with the conception of the Lord's day, where we can't do shit - mostly because everything used to be closed on a Sunday and still is in Denmark) and perhaps some reading. I could do with some company, or even some exercise, but to attain them both require the same thing I lack at this moment in time: effort.

Maybe the hippy guy who I owe a fiver to for a lump of hash will appear to tell me some more history about Denmark and Christianna in particular, or tell me he's found me a job in an Irish bar or somebody will give me a call asking for a chat and a beer. Generally though, my main concern is digesting the chicken kebab wrap swimming in my stomach and to tell you a little bit about some movies worth/not worth seeing.

At the Cinema
Indianna Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull ***
Ack, it's alright, but with a lot of movies I tend to nitpick. Its quite good fun but gets a little too silly towards the end by paying too much homage to not just the old Indy films, but to 50's B movies and ends up with a nostalgic effect, meaning everything looks really cheap and tacky. Lazy sets and props accompanied by additional cheesy characters (never with the same flair as Indy) and hammy acting. It's not as good as Raiders though and you never feel sucked into its nonsense as you do in the previous films.

Iron Man ****
Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. I don't mean he plays the role of the industrial entrepreneur, I mean he was born for the role. He lives, breathes and becomes the playboy turned superhero. As a film, its well paced, nicely shot and accompanied with some witty writing. Its second only to Batman Begins for the best superhero movie title and could only have been improved if the end fight scene was a little bit more intense. It shits on Spider-man from a great height and a surprise that all comic fan boys will love appears right in the end, so stay after the credits if its your type of thing. All I'm saying is 2010 will be a good year for the Marvel nerd.

Blade Runner: Final Cut ****
The only time I'd seen Blade runner was during a channel five screening, complete with bad reception and the fact I was using the computer at the same time. This is akin to watching an on-flight movie. You can never relax, have your elbow bashed by the passing food trolley, are constantly interrupted and yearn for more cashew nuts halfway through the climax. This time though, I was treated to it on the biggest screen in Northern Europe with a steady supply of nuts, right to end. In short, I loved it. You empathize with Ford's character as he is outclassed and constantly taking a beating by the hands of the other android replicants. Along with this Rutger Hauer is also scary as shit in this dark epic. Just go see it.

DVD
Gabriel ***
This was an extremely low budget Aussie film that would have been any Goth's wet dream in the nineties. Its like Underworld/The Crow/The Matrix/Blade Runner/Sin City. There are cool characters, but the finished product is kind of sloppy. It was nicely shot, directed and interestingly edited though. I'd say, catch it for something a little bit different, but you could pick gaping flaws out about it.

Resident Evil Extinction ** (and a half)
Vaguely entertaining Zombie flick with no bearing on your existance other than the brilliant joint smoking scene.

Catch Me If You Can ****
I know it's been out ofr a while, but I only saw it the whole way through a few days ago. It is mint. Wittily written and with great comic timing and terrific performances from both the lead actors. Imagine the life DeCaprio's character was living at the age eighteen.. that would be amazing..



This was typed up on Wednesday, so tune in next week whether I've found employment in an Irish pub, have gotten my slice of poontang pie, how I review Danish beer brands and how telling my Mother I do drugs went..

In a bitty Mcvitty..

Conor

So after my first feel good rant, I think I'll discuss the merits of being in Copenhagen on an Erasmus scheme with ten other students from Lancs. After all, it beats the hell out of watching Beverly hills ninety thousand two hundred and ten as I try to beat this minor hangover (1). So, here's a bit of background to my current series of adventures..

Now, as most of you know I'm a second year history student at Lancaster, though I took a year out to be a bum.

By bum, I mean I "attempted" to do extra A-levels - chemistry and biology to be precise. I started off with good intentions, but a mixture of not trying quite hard enough, coming into class still tired from the night before and not quite having as scientifically minded brain as I once imagined, I crashed and burned. By Christmas, the one year A-level became an AS chemistry and I was still doing hideously at biology. That year wasn't all to waste though, I picked up a couple of social skills along the way by having the legendary Matt and Mike living in the street next to me, learned a number of things like the ancient art of drinking (I sucked severely at anything soldierly, could neither shoot, march or keep my uniform in good shape, whilst having to clutch onto my rifle as I did sentry duty in the middle of a cold, dark, Scottish forest at 3 am near sent me over the edge) by way of Queen's Officer's Training Corps. and developed a tactical mind by playing copious amounts of trading card games in my favorite comic shop. Regrets? A few. Some days I see it as a wasted year and other days I see it as perfect timing, after all it was undoubtedly one of the best years of my life.. Things only got better after that point

Straight to university and I would have had a completely different experience, probably picked a crap college and associated with a bunch of people that are simply inferior to the almighty House 28 Crew. The crew, (amongst a few others) were the gentlemen I was cohabiting with in the first two terms of this year, having met them last year, their on campus accommodation was opposite mine. The series of misadventures we have had are absolutely priceless. For sure I'll give a write up of a couple sometime, but I need to get back onto the subject at hand: Copenhagen.

To define Denmark in five words: Amazing, interesting, beautiful and well.. excruciatingly-expensive

Seriously, if I spend less than £20 a day, I feel proud. Maybe that's partly down to the fact I'm constantly out drinking and whilst a pint of the beer is about much tastier than it would be back home, it still will cost £4.50. Also, a meal out is probably double the price it would be back home. This is down to the fact that the service charge is included in the meal and minimum wage in Denmark is £8. That's right, -minimum wage-. Best of all, only places like McDonalds or Burger King pay as low as that. Give me a good job and the ability to seduce delicious Danish dames and I'd be set for life.

As for the city though, there is so much to do and it has a character of its own. Instead of the harsh concrete jungle surroundings of London or Glasgow, the houses and buildings are beautifully designed and put together. Its like you're back in the renaissance period without the stench of open sewers running through the streets. Its safe too. I know my way around Belfast alright and how to make it home with relatively little incident late at night, but I'm still going to be on edge if I'm trying to get home. In Copenhagen, I feel like the most dangerous person on the street half the time. Even if it weren't for the fact I'm tall and getting kind of stocky from my beer drinking habits, I'd still feel as safe as a house. Even the "bad" neighborhoods (a place called Norrebro used to have high levels of crime, it has the odd gang problem which rappers from here like to go on about, but its generally safe-as) are nothing in comparison to even the good areas of Manchester.

Getting around Copenhagen is also by and large a piece of piss (I'll qualify that statement in a moment) Despite having a population of 1.5 million, the place still feels kind of small. The canal and marina seems to run through most of the town so you always feel close to water. The transport system is pretty good, buses, trains and the metro system are consistent and tend to run on time. The only issue is that if you're out late, you might have to get take a night bus home, which runs about once an hour and has an excessively long route.

The people in Copenhagen are fantastic. Friendly, easy going and likable. They will go out of their way to help you, nine times out of ten. That and they speak brilliant English and often love an opportunity to practice and improve their multi-lingual skills - much like I want to improve my cunnylingual skills with their women, (though statements like this are why I probably never will..). Just make sure you don't look like you're trying to get them to sign up to some charity scheme because just like every other city, they'll probably walk straight past you.

So without further ado, here's a list of five things you should do whilst in Denmark

1) Visit some of the many interesting tourist attractions - though the Little Mermaid statue is hideously overrated, there are tons of great museums and art galleries I need to get round to going to, just so I can get a bit more cultural and sophisticated than my bag headed self. From the theme park Tivoli, to the ginormous screen of the Imperial cinema, there is a multitude of things to do. See some castles..

2) Drink Danish beers - By this I mean, sensibly. Beer is the quickest way of achieving "hygge", a Danish word that can be very loosely translated as comfort, cosiness, confidence and Carlsberg. I'll probably discuss the history and the ins and outs of the different beer brands in another post.

3) Listen to some live music. This can be done almost anywhere, there are tons of great jazz clubs scattered around the place and they can make a great way to spend a Saturday night whenever there aren't seedy old men staring with big sleazy eyes at the innocent females of your group of friends.

4) Eat around. The food here, whether you cook it yourself or buy it from a restaurant is expensive, but you pay for what you get. Last night we went to a Caribbean cafe and I ate like I hadn't anything in a month. On Sunday after taking a trip to Kronborg castle we had the biggest feed courtesy of one of our Danish friend's families. Its like the best thing I had eaten in about two months. And thats part due to "Rødgrød med fløde", which is this desert thing they have, kind of like a creamy strawberry and rhubarb puree. Danish people will always want you to say the words as they are notoriously difficult to pronounce by someone who isn't a native Danish speaker. As well as all of this, you'll soon find a love for the hot dog stands they have here, twice as good as going to Maccie Ds for some processed shite.

5) Exercise/Get around the city. A walk around or a cycle ride every now and then goes a long way. Especially since there are many things to see and many beautiful people to admire. If you go to a park on a good day, you'll find you're surrounded by good looking women and completely outclassed by the guys that live there

Here's five things you shouldn't do:

1) Sit around indoors all day. Yes, it goes without saying, but its about time I stopped doing it. On days that I don't have class, I'm often watching a multitude of DVDs provided by my awesome landlord and landlady. Instead of letting my body go slack and getting fat from beer and inactivity, I should be going to the gym, going for more of a walk and visiting museums. In a way I'm looking forward to going home so I can get a job and have some money to spend on muay thai classes and guitar lessons (either that or jazz trumpet, I'm determined to develop something)

2) Get wasted on an almost day-to-day basis. This began as soon as I got here and it hasn't really stopped. From Tuesday to Sunday of last week I was pretty much without any sort of solid sobriety. I got to the point where I had hair of the dog, then a whole lot more. Far from healthy, but very never the less enjoyable. The fact is, it can be incredibly easy to do, you can get 4.6% beers for about 35p. Bring the bottle back and you get 10p back. If you get a room in Christianshavn, like I did you can be right next to Christianna, a former hippy commune nicknamed "Little Amsterdam". I don't think I need to elaborate too much on this one, lets just say.. when you set it on fire, there are certain effects..

The other problem with getting messy is that it doesn't really help you pick up as many Danish women as you'd like. Whilst I can admit to feeling more confident from drinking a beer or two before I begin a conversation, the more beer you have the more crazy your eyes go and the more incomprehensible you sound.

3) Attempt to pick fights in Copenhagen. In a drunken temper, I gave a bit of abuse to the odd person. Told a goth that he had something wrong with his face "man, there's black stuff coming out of your eyes". Worst thing is, I have no problem with goths. A moment before, I yelled at the security guards for not allowing me upstairs in a burger king without buying something. There's a couple more, but lets just say picking fights is not funny (well it can be), clever or cool.

4) Make friends with a bunch of Danish bag heads. This is kind of a repeat of options two and three, you'll end up drinking and smoking far more than you ever have in your life. Think you have a high tolerance to chemicals in your body? Think again. You cannot compete with the Danes in this respect. I'll probably go through them another time, but the best way to describe them is good company, bad influence. Last time I saw them, they were trying to encourage me to go to a Brondby F.C. game and potentially start a fight with the F.C. Copenhagen supporters, luckily I had to go to a castle and haven't ended up in a string of riots or police issues

5) Try to beat the Danish transport system. This goes on two counts. The first one is trying to temporarily steal a bike. its not that I wanted to keep the bikes, its just that I didn't want to walk or take the bus home. I planned on cycling it home the next day and the fact was, like so many nights.. I was drunk. Most of the bike wheels were locked anyway and in the end I managed to find a city rent a bike that actually worked, so I was only guilty of one crime that night - drunk in charge of a bicycle.

The other count is on not paying for bus, train and metro fares, by flashing my out of date pass as if it were an L.A.P.D. badge and not giving them a chance to check the date on it. I'm going to have to renew my pass sooner, rather than later. Its a hefty fine for being a bag head.


Well, thus concludes another happy and exciting blog. Leave a comment and hear something new. Oh, a shout out to the very attention seeking Danny Hilton who ought to be thanked for showing me how to make the good bolognaise, I mentioned in the last entry :P.

Hi Hi

You know the way some people don't learn from one mistake and make the same mistake again?

Well it appears I might be making this mistake for the third time. The difference is, this time I hope to have no regrets.

The problem was last time, not to do with the blog, but its content or rather, its writer.

Back when I was in sixth form, I was lacking severely in the social skills department. Hell, I didn't even kiss a girl until I was seventeen. Now, that my friends is slow development.

I'd like to think I've matured a little since then, but apart from having some (apparent) social skills, being somewhat less frustrated with the world (alright, it's been a while since I've got any but I'm trying to rely on luck, a ridiculously over-the-top Norn Irish accent and uhhh.. "good looks"), I'm still about as dozy and in my own little dream as I always was. This time though, I have a plan.

As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures and well.. I'm counting on loans coming through for me and being in Copenhagen (the expensive but beautiful city that it is), am running out of money fast. If there's a problem with the loans (there always is whenever I fill forms in), I'm pretty screwed. Sure, I can probably yelp at the parents and demand stipends to keep me going, but I resent having to do that. As I showed in Christmas, I'll work 56 hour weeks just so I don't have to borrow any money from them to keep me going.

Now some people might wonder why I'm so fiercely committed to being financially independent from the old folks and so I'll explain why.

Whenever you're an only child, you can't do any wrong. Further more, with the adapting personality I have (despite never not being "myself", I've a different personality for every event and group of people I'm with.. being with me in a group is different to being one on one with me - call me "fake" if you want to, but I can't help it) I try and do my best for my parents when I'm at home, even act like the charming golden boy they believe I am. In reality, I'm chonging almost every day, drink way more than they believe I should (let me ask who doesn't in this day and age?) and partial to trying the odd "other" substance. If you really want, I'll recount some of my experiences someday in the very peculiar style of storytelling you're so used to reading from me.

To those of you who aren't used to reading my blog and are wondering what this is all about, I'll explain;
Back when I was 16-17 (lower sixth), I decided to write a blog - an internet diary if you will. Not only was this a dumb idea, but I decided telling a lot of people was a good idea.

Now, if I had been one of the "popular" kids at school, I might just have gotten away with it. However, having the athletic ability of a lame sea otter, I could barely swim, run or row. I was picked last for everything, with good reason. My competitive streak was based mostly on Magic the Gathering, or computer games. I'd always try and start talking about computer games right in the middle of somebody else's conversation - despite the fact they'd be discussing the pros and cons of 4-4-2 formation or the location of the G-spot, two things the "jocks" knew about and which I didn't have a clue, the former for lack of wanting to have a clue.

The other problem was that I could never take being made fun of. Which being as dozy as I am meant that I was going to have a lot of things being made fun of. Not least because I have an inherent belief I can be friends with everybody and try to at all times, which backfires more than it needs to. So, I'd get really angsty and you could see that in my blogs, I'd lash out at other people when often they were doing what any normal human being would do - have fun, occasionally at someone else's expense.

It was like reading the diary of a modern day Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye) without the wit, charm and influence on serial killers that J.D. Salinger was able to write with. The blog was perhaps like Catcher, emo before emo was "cool". It didn't have as much fear of being buggered by old school teachers, but it was still written by somebody who felt they were different. Maybe I wasn't as big an outcast as I sometimes believe, I know I had a fair few friends, but my attempts at being class clown resulted more in being village idiot. Clueless was probably the best word you could have used to describe me.

Funnily enough though, the blog picked up attention by pretty much half of the school. It came to a point that print outs of the site were being littered around the actual buildings and every other computer in a computer suite had at least one IE window open with charlto.blogspot in the URL bar. This was partly on the basis that I said a lot about my classmates (the goings on of the entire year really) and partly on the account of my writing style, which arguably shows more intelligence than the near incomprehensible bullshit I spout to people on a day-to-day basis.

In an odd light the blog was revolutionary - nobody else really had the balls to use the internet for something like that in our school back in the day. Or at least, everybody else had the smarts to avoid social ridicule.

Unfortunately, some of this attention was negative. Being unable to take the teasing and joking, I deleted it. Six months later, made the same mistake again, probably what should have been for the last time. However, I submitted a nicely composed three page article for the yearbook, which due to space constraints got tidily edited down to one and was left as a nice reminder of the years that were. My resolve though was that I was probably never going to write anything on the internet again, whether it be horrendous lyrics on project rockstar, the blog or even anything larger than a private e-mail.

Now I'm a lot more mellow. Still prone to flying off the handle if I'm feeling bullied, but it takes a long while for things to get that stage. I still like a good rant sometimes, though I like them for comic value. So if I get abuse or being teased for my blog, I might still turn red faced in either embarrassment or rage and yell incoherent strings of swearwords at my agitator. Chances are though, I'll shrug and hope that the adsense is bringing me in enough loot to keep me in beer and smoke for the next half a week. If the certain "ginger haired devil" finds the site and points it out to everyone, I won't mind. Last time I spoke to him, I had a fair amount of respect for him. He was able to stand up for his faith, whilst admitting he wasn't the prime example of what a Christian should be (though I still stand entirely agnostic). If I had any problem with him in school it was perhaps in part to the failure to understand his social intelligence he had with certain people, or perhaps a jealousy in a feeling I couldn't compete with his wit. From our interaction, I like to think that the new found respect was mutual. If not, c'est la vie. Life is too short for letting things that bothered you as a teenager to go on affecting the rest of your duration on earth. Especially when you meet your old school friends about once or twice a year at the most.

And that brings me to the next point - why I'm doing this. Like I say, I have a plan and I've explained my desperate times. What I haven't explained is why blogging.

The thing is, I'm good at a few things. Anyone that knows me, will recall my previously mentioned lack of athletic ability, my occasionally embarrassing social presence and a distorted coordination. That being said, I can handle my long list of flaws on the grounds that I can walk away for a couple of pints after having the shit beaten out of me for about three minutes by three different spides. can get people to alike me, have the ability to pull good marks out of my proverbial I can even make a fucking awesome spaghetti bolognase (spelling?), but in the long run there isn't too much I can make a living out of. That's why I'm thinking, I might just write.

Maybe in the style of Bill Bryson, or even the man himself Hunter Shit-me-I'm-awesome Thompson, I might just achieve some kind of career out of it. Likelihood is I'll fail old-school. Be dead like F. Scott Fitzgerald due to drink and drug abuse in my fourtys yet without even haven written as something as influential as "The Great Gatsby". But this blog stands as a testing ground for how much money and success I might be capable of achieving.

I've added adsense in hope that somebody bored who has found the blog decides to click on one of the links. Now, I can't by the rules encourage you click on them. Posting requests to "CLICK MY ADDS" is retarded, so what I can do is occasionally offer product reviews amongst regular blog entries. Talk about Danish beer, or hydroponics kits once I know more about them. En temps en temps we'll see magical adverts appear which might catch the eye of a stray googler. In addition, you'll learn a little more about things that you might actually find useful. I might even post essays I've written just so history students can skaff a bit out of, or critique to decide whether Lancaster University is a good one to go to if you want a good degree.

Lastly, feel free to add comments. I'd quite like to know who the readership is.

I'm away to read up on how to make more money from blogs and possibly "skin up a cheeky one", because Madeline isn't here to do it for me.

Ciao Bella.

Conor