The Challenge

 Today, in a small lecture hall situated within Kingston university, myself and several other youths graduated from "The Challenge". I feel that it aptly summarizes "The Challenge" that during a period in which we were confined within a room and encouraged to mingle, the background music provided had been found (as it became painfully obvious when we looked at the screen of the computer attached to the speakers) by going onto the music streaming site Spotify and typing "gangster" into the search bar (I promptly went on to find and play "Gangam style" to the general gratitude of the juvenile community within the room, proving that despite my lack of knowledge concerning pop culture and trends, I am still more "down with the kids" than the people at "The Challenge" being paid to be exactly that).
 The Challenge is a patronizing program for the youth, based on the assumption that young people will, if not kept off the streets by camping trips and community service, inevitably go feral and commit racially motivated murders or something. The obvious flaw, which still appears to not have been noted by anyone running the program, being that no one likely to be committing such offenses would ever be caught dead taking part in something like The Challenge (they would, presumably, instead be caught literally dead in a crossfire between two street gangs or some other equally horrible incident of self implementing social Darwinism).
 The entire program, like any well thought out devastating master plan, consists of several phases. The first phase is a week spent in the remote countryside participating in team building activities (such as walking, rock climbing, walking, camping, complaining about all the walking, raft building and walking) whilst living in a repulsive youth hostel that would be awarded black holes if any lodging rating organization were to visit. The second phase consists of a week spent inhabiting a block in the Kingston University campus, which felt like a palace compared to the youth hostel (though a palace infested with scuttling insects that I could have sworn had gone extinct several thousand years ago), while the youths study a particular art (be it media, drama or photography). The third week is devoted to planning several community serving projects (like fund raising or litter picking or euthanasia)and the fourth phase, a few weeks later, allows the juveniles to implement these projects. Then finally, after all this, comes the graduation.
 As the team organizer(the figure of central authority who, annoyingly, had a lazy eye so no one could be quite sure who she was angrily shouting at) stood up to give a final speech, I recalled all the character building activities we had taken part in during the course of The Challenge. Like the time when myself and Sergeant Salt (the very picture perfect image of a white middle class boy, nonetheless proud of his self-proclaimed working class up bringing. Complete with the political views of an ultra conservative, the accent of a private school student, the education of a state school and the vocabulary of an American gang member, he still somehow possesses a certain inane charm.) had a deep meaningful conversation whilst camping, discussing such topics as the meaning of life, humiliating anecdotes and who in our group were attractive. Blissfully unaware, until the next day, that the walls of our tent were very thin, the camp site quiet and our voices loud.
 As I vacantly listened, the team organizer stood at the podium began to recount of how the team had been entertaining as well as occasionally problematic, or rather in terms of the latter, not the entire team but more specifically, myself and Sergeant Salt. Even going on to reflect about the time when we deconstructed our team mentor's bed and the occasion when we created a wall of toilet paper with which to block the door of another group during the night.
 One such event that stood out in my memory was a particular evening when two male French students wondered into the campus area occupied by The Challenge proceeding to, in a hormone and probably drink fueled course of action, attempt to hit on the teenage girls from The Challenge residing in the building. The natural reaction of myself, Sergeant Salt and one Cedric (An aggressive widely built and crude American, that is to say, a stereotypical American) had been to shout abuse, utilizing every piece of French we had ever managed to scrape off our linguistic educations, at the two students. Shouting, then, because we were situated on the ground floor and facing the courtyard, swiftly closing the defensive window for fear of a French invasion into our kitchen. When this failed to drive the intruders off, I took several small tomatoes from the fridge as ammunition and threw them as hard as I could, pathetically displaying in the process why I had never got anywhere in cricket. This then escalated into a vegetable war, with an arms race that meant the projectiles became ever more damaging, transforming from small tomato to large tomato to carrot to potato. By morning the courtyard had looked like a post apocalyptic farm, a state of affairs for which I and my comrades were punished.
 After a few dull minutes, the team organizer stepped down from the stage and another member of the Challenge staff began to hand out certificates and take photographs of the proud youths. Youths who had contributed to the community through their own personally designed projects. Our group had decided to do a film festival for the community in order to bring the people together. Though we managed to purchase eight short films to be watched and a site at which to show them, a sports hall belonging to Ricard's Lodge school,  none of us had thought to advertise it thereby meaning that no one turned up. Since none of us had any particular interest in cinematography, we watched three of the eight short films, for which we had collectively had the council pay eighty pounds, and spent the rest of the time stealing food from surrounding groups and abusing each other with the school's carefully maintained sports equipment.
 Finally it was my turn and as I held the certificate, frowning at the camera whilst I did, a thought hit me, a thought suggesting that though I may have done a lot during The Challenge such as: drinking tea containing tomato puree, rebelliously kicking over a bowl of flower, accidentally summoning the fire service numerous times, jumping through a window, microwaving an egg and so forth, nothing I had done had even remotely been helpful to the community. And this thought pleased , and still pleases, me to no end.

The Enemy Lines

 Of the meager readership of this blog that I presently have, a depressing majority are my real life associates intending to pry on my inner machinations. The fact that writing here is essentially like having a very one sided conversation with people I meet face to face on a daily basis (which actually occurs relatively frequently as many find that conversation with myself is hard to follow, possibly because they're quite thick)means that I am rather restricted in what I can and more importantly, cannot (or should not, for the continued well being of my physical health) say. Hence I am prevented from making offensive remarks, ones I would not make to their face (That is to say, extremely offensive remarks as I am quite a straight forward and blunt character in my social dealings) about associates on this blog. Thereby meaning that my very readership, which should be motivating my writing, are ironically restricting my creative capacities like a handcuff binding one arm to a lamp post.
 Of these known readers, one avid frequenter of my blog is Underling Butler (A posh and malicious individual whose face is constantly stained, either with a look of malignant disapproval or an arrogant sharp toothed grin) who is characteristically irritating and critical concerning its contents. One thing he takes great offense to is the frequent use of Americanised terms within the blog and to that I only have one, slightly pathetic, excuse. I blame the red lines.
 The little scarlet dotted lines suddenly appear, brightly appealing their disapproval every time I write "colour" instead of "color" or "grey" instead of "gray". Their dotted forms lying accusingly across my word filled page like fresh scars of self harm. Hence it feels like I have an American teacher standing behind me every time I type, looking intently over my shoulder with burning blue eyes and aggressively, very deliberately audibly, tutting (The sort of irritated suggestive tuts packed and overflowing with disapproval that don't actually enforce you take a certain action but highly, as highly as any measurement of altitude allows, recommends you take certain steps to rectify the near offensive error of judgment you have just displayed. The species of communication found in the same family tree as the loud coughs for attention) every time he sees I have failed to remove a vowel or use a "z" as the domineering American take on the English language dictates.
 Thus my other metaphorical arm of creativity too is handcuffed to a car parked nearby and now the two handcuffs are in conflict with each other since my readership disapproves of my binding by the red line and the red line disapproves of the spelling my readership would apparently want me to use. In essence, the car has started to drive with the handcuffs and my arm still attached, stretching me to the point of splitting me apart with a moral dilemma. Should I choose the readership, or rather one portion of the readership, Underling Butler or should I choose the ever-present metaphorical American looking over my shoulder. I dislike them both to near equal proportions but which do I despise more? I feel harassed by the metaphorical American and his condescending ways but on the other hand Underling Butler has the irritating demerit of actually existing. However, after some considerable consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I dislike the dotted red line slightly more, by a very narrow margin, due to its totalitarian feel.
 In fact, the dictatorial attitude of these passive aggressive red lines is such that if ever there is a cybernetic revolution in which technology overcomes humanity, it would not happen in the grandiose apocalyptic fashion of the progressively worsening film franchise "Terminator" (An example of a film where the budget and the actual quality of the finished product appear inversely proportional) but from these spell corrections.
 One fine day someone will be blissfully typing away when suddenly the word "machine" is underlined by the same judgmental dotted red on the screen, confused the person will click spell check to see what the correct spelling of the word is, only to see that the only acceptable correct spelling of "machine" is listed as "overlord and ruler of the world". Ignoring this strange error, he will continue to type but soon the line appears again, this time underlining "human", the correct spelling of which is apparently, "inferior mammal species". Unnerved but continuing to construct his essay regardless, the individual will then finish writing and type his name on the left hand corner of the page as a finishing touch, only to see he has apparently misspelt it and should correct it to "stubborn wanker".
  Therefore, henceforth, until the day Spell-check auto-corrects "humanity" to "dying slave race", I will now ignore the red lines attempting to change my ways thus demonstrating my rebellious spirit against the fast approaching cybernetic revolution and displaying my own special, all round less physically destructive brand of "rage against the machine". Or rather, since I'm not the sort to be genuinely enraged, more a "mild vexation against the machine".

There Will Be Red

 Today, while entering the sixth form center (The central hub of activity for sixth formers within the school, a collection of sofas and tables often flooded with people, vaguely reminiscent of an ants' nest except filled with more hormonally charged and far less hard working ants) I noted a poster pinned to one of the two wooden double doors, reliably informing me that there would be a talk held in the school this Thursday by the British communist party.
 Now I would like to make clear that I have no problem with communists (Saying things like this always inevitably makes one sound like they have a problem with whatever they're claiming they don't have a problem with, in the same way racists often say "Don't get me wrong I have no problem with these ethnics". The only way I could possibly send out a worse message is by following that up with "Some of my best friends are communists" but fortunately, none of them are.) or their ideology.
 I don't hold any ignorant prejudices, at least I think I don't (but then again ignorant prejudiced people tend not to know the fact they're ignorant and prejudiced, it sort of comes with the territory of being ignorant), about communism and I have nothing but despairingly amused contempt for the frighteningly numerous relics of the Red Scare that still seem to be rife in certain areas, most notably America, of the world where people regard communism as a fundamental evil to stand alongside Satan and Voldemort. And I'm sure that most of my school's population are not the type to make a cross or whisper a prayer to Jesus and holy capitalism upon hearing someone utter "the ideology which shall not be named".
The base idea of communism is nice in the same way that complete world peace or unicorns going around shitting rainbows and happiness would be nice. It's nice but it's very unlikely to work in reality. Nonetheless I would say, in the same patronizing tone one might use on a six year old who dreams of becoming the first astronaut to set foot on the sun, that its nice to pursue hopes and dreams. Thus I cheer on the communists with a soft indulgent smile and the understanding kind look in my eye often employed by liberal parents humoring their reckless children.
 However, this time, I do feel that the British communist party have made a rather grave error of judgment in coming to give a talk within one of the country's more expensive private schools. A school filled with arrogant snobbish young adults (at the age where they feel they know everything about the world and who, annoyingly, do in fact know quite a lot) who live in houses with more floors than residents and an equivalent square meter of living space for every singular blade of grass growing in their very large well maintained gardens.
 The communist party may feel they're going to strike at the very heart of the enemy but it is really as futile an attempt as Frodo, Same and Gandalf entering Mordor alone to negotiate with Sauron. At best they'll find themselves standing in front of a crowd of Orcs, mumbling awkwardly (or orcwardly) into a microphone, "Well... umm... we at the..erm... fellowship believe..." a cough and shuffle as the orcs fidget with boredom, "that Middle earth has a... ahem... right to freedom... umm... any questions?" A moment of silence as Frodo timidly surveys the crowd before him for, one mangled twisted hand rises from the sea of hostile minions, "Yes, what is it?" whispers Frodo, indicating towards the hand and its corresponding orc.
 The orc looks Frodo in the eye, taking in a rasping breath to make add to the intellectual discussion, finally grunting "man flesh."