Inebriation

I am currently slightly inebriated as I just saw some pretty lights which are commonly referred to as fireworks then proceeded to visit a friend's house with a large enough party of people to defeat a level 125 dragon and drank several bottles. Due to the fact that my metaphorical weight is light, that is to say that I have a low tolerance level for alcohol I was rather drunk but having got home, the home in which I am presently sitting and what a lovely home it is, and enjoyed a nice cup of tea I realize that I may have said things I should have not and done things perhaps better not done but the emphasis is firmly on the latter. I will definitely regret this in the morning when the nice fuzzy haze of alcohol induced happiness, like a lovely pink fog made of candy floss, slowly dissolves and fragments in the sharp rays of the morning sun.

 The fact that my currently intoxicated narrative voice is probably not that different to the speech mannerisms I employ when sober on this special little corner of the internet referred to by travelers as my blog is probably indicative of something but what it is I shall deduce and detect, as I am a detective and a very good one at that, in the morning because my mind will be sharper then. Although I did have a story idea (and i shall record it here in case i forget) about a detective who can solve murders when extremely drunk.

 potential extract: The body lay, cold and motionless in the center of the drawing room. "My god", said Detective Stephen Baxendale, as he cast his expert eye over the scene of the crime, "This is some serious shit." Quickly he turned to his assistant, the ever present butler whose name was Timothy Fendleweed, and ordered, "Timothy, get me two bottles of beer."
 "Yes sir," replied Timothy with much enthusiasm for he was a young sprightly creature eager to learn the tricks of the trade though he would not be learning anything with this particular detective since his methods were very specialized.
 Just as the butler was walking away, Stephen looked at the still corpse again and shook his head, "wait Timothy," he sighed suddenly, "This looks like a tough one to solve. Make it a bottle of vodka"
 "Yes sir," came the enthusiastic reply followed by the click of well polished shoes on rich marble tiles as the butler hurriedly exited the room.

 Wow, that looks like a bestseller. What would the title be? The drunk detective or the Pissed Private investigator or maybe the inebriated inspector. I am sending out these alliterations like a machine designed specifically to create catchy titles, an alliteration automaton. I'm not sure 75% of this post made sense but I'm sure even if it didn't the remaining 25% will be absolutely quality reading. Anyway no one reads my blog so its fine, for all anyone cares I could spill my deepest darkest secrets on here (like I did when drunk at the after party tonight, god dammit I will regret it in ten hours time.) and no one will be any the wiser. I love society. Peace out. I did not just say peace out. And if I did, it was meant ironically.

Personification

 Tonight I feel, in a word, cold. In two words very cold. In fact, I feel so cold that I could, if the opportunity were to present its self to me, simply go on a long and tenuous descriptive journey purely around the subject of how cold I am. To accurately convey the sheer coldness of my current being, imagine that you are eating a bucket of ground ice, while sitting in a fridge, which is its self situated atop a boat floating in the freezing Atlantic Ocean. Just nearby the Titanic is sinking and desperate survivors are swimming up to your boat for help but you kick them away, I currently feel as cold as your dark twisted heart as you mercilessly dislodge a dying child clinging desperately to the side of your vessel.

 If I were to demand to see the cruel individual responsible for my frosty fate, I would more than likely be directed  to a mirror since it is none other than my own mind that made the conscious decision to go out and see fireworks at a local park with companions despite the temperature. However what I require at the moment is not the rational analysis of my own poor judgment (especially in not taking my thick woolen trench coat purely for the reason that it still stank of alcohol and punch which would have been a minor draw back with hindsight considering the heavenly warmth it would have provided) but some figure at which to direct my, unfortunately all too metaphorically, burning anger.

 I would currently give anything, well, my entire present monetary fortune (which amounts to about three pounds and twenty six pence) for Jack Frost to appear before me, a personification of the natural phenomenon which caused my legs to feel like ready made fish fingers before defrosting and my arms like pain flavoured ice lollies. Though I am not usually the physically violent type, far preferring to psychologically wound the opponent with skillful verbal jousting, I would readily kick the chocolate flavoured soft ice out of Jack Frost to vent my sheer frustration at this bone biting, brain numbing, scrotum climbing cold.

 All I can do however is stamp my feet, rub my hands and curse the current climate as well as the rising cost of gas and electricity bills. Two other things I wouldn't particularly mind being personified to manifest themselves before me as a subject of my anger at the generally conceptual, the Price Rise Pig and the Bill Building Bird. Perhaps I could design them, little fable characters for the new age kids living through an economic down turn. Goodbye tooth fairy who takes childrens' teeth, hello the fat fairy who causes child obesity. So long Santa Clause who leaves you presents, welcome Pawnshop Pixie who takes your stuff at night but allows your family to eat for another few days.

 So the moral of the story is, its winter so wear a jacket when you go out, even if it does have the repugnant scent of stale alcohol wafting around it like vultures around a dying animal. God, its cold.

24

 The number twenty four. First discovered after the number twenty three, the history of the number twenty four is connected deeply with our own. For example the Edinburgh Municipal Fire Brigade was founded in the year 1824 and a failed Soviet coup occurred in the year 1924. Even more strikingly, by the march of the year 2024 I will be 28 and if this wasn't enough evidence to back up the importance of the number 24, those born 4 years after myself will be 24 years old in the year 2024. Coincidence? I think not.

 However if it is not sheer chance then who has engineered it this way? Perhaps there exists some secret society, a covenant of 24 followers. A devout cult whose members pray to 24 24/7. And this secret organization has, today, spun me into their conspiratorial web for this is my 24th blog post! (I usually detest exclamation marks, trying to force their enthusiasm or surprise or excitement on the reader without any respect to his/her actual emotional response but today I'm making an exception on the account of it being a celebratory occasion!)

 Considering my long winded verbose writing style, these 24 blog post behemoths combined can probably create a good sized book to be sold in WHSmith alongside all the other deeply meaningless celebrity autobiographies (and mine would have the advantage in the celebrity autobiography market of actually being written by me, though this may be slightly outweighed by the disadvantage of myself not actually being a celebrity).

 

 

 Nonetheless, despite my best efforts, I still appear to have minimum readership. Zero followers. Twenty four posts, god knows how many words (or he would know if he existed which is a really rather murky grey area at the moment) and yet, zero followers. What? How? Why? Who? Where? When? With whom? These are questions I ask myself when I see my follower count (although the last four questions were possibly irrelevant but I ask them anyway because I am a thorough individual) which is still a colon followed by a solid stubborn zero, a combination of symbol and number that, incidentally, perfectly mirrors my shocked expression every time :0

 I have more than once discussed this issue with my underlings and the response I got was either that I should include more cute cats or cut down the words I waste in rambling. Ignoring the former as I refuse to bow down to the vulgarly low standards of internet popularity, the latter is a difficult suggestion. This is largely due to the fact that my posts are composed of nothing but rambling, cutting away the rambling would leave absolutely nothing behind which, might precisely be the source of all my problems. Namely that my blog, like a broken camera or a child with ADHD, has very little focus.

 With a clear focus comes a target audience, with a target audience comes an audience and with an audience comes readership. Therefore what I need is some subject for me to concentrate all my posts on. However I have no job, nothing of interest happens with any reliable regularity in my school or family life and I have no interests that could feasibly involve a blog such as botany or animal experimentation. One topic I could attempt to cover is some social injustice that enrages me, something I find absolutely unforgivable to the extent that I am willing to dedicate my blog to pursuing the injustice's demise. Like a knight fighting a terrible dragon, I could brandish my pen that is mightier than the sword and write aggressive campaigns against the said injustice.

  

 

 ....There is however, one problem. I really have no social injustice I would willingly dedicate this blog to. I am the sort of horribly cynical and unhelpful human being who, whilst being perfectly aware of the fact that there are a multitude of things wrong with the world as a whole, is too unempathic and lazy to feel even the slightest need to do anything. The only things that passionately enrage me are petty day to day issues such as casual Americanizations, blatant marketing, irritating adverts and mild illogical phrasings and ideas. I could make them the main focus of my blog but as social injustices go, they are less of a tremendous dragon to be fought by a courageous knight and more of an irritating worm to be cruelly crushed by some malicious child. There's really only so much I can milk from that petty topic before the metaphorical udders begin to bleed.

 Then, as it lies bleeding to death at my feet, where would I be? On the run from the metaphorical RSPCA for needless cruelty to a topic. Unplanned and frantically shoddy writings mindlessly fleeing from the pursuit of the police and the angry animal rights activists (who are exactly the sort of people capable of maintaining a blog about social outrage, spewing out a post per day on the cruelty of eating eggs or whatnot). Soon, apprehended and arrested, I will be forced to stand in a court of law, surrounded by stern animal lovers and bestial romantics.

 "And why, Mr Galanthus, did you milk the topic until it bled?" asks the judge sternly, glaring coldly at me from his majestically high oak podium.

 "For internet popularity," I mumble ashamedly, hurriedly adding, "your honour."

 "So you pushed a meager topic far beyond its capabilities for blog readership you say?" he affirms accusingly, an accusation in response to which I can only give a silent downcast nod, "Then," he announces, "you are indeed guilty."

 I sigh shakily and feel tears spill out from the corners of my eyes, my entire body sagging with depression as I await my sentence. The Judge continues, "Guilty of losing your way," an unexpected warmth enters the Judge's deep booming voice echoing around the courtroom, "Why do you need to gain popularity and readership? Why can you not do it just for your own creative entertainment? I for one, preferred it when you were just writing your pointless and unfocused, but nonetheless honest thoughts" With that he smiles slightly, a paternal reassuring grin and before I know it, I'm out of my own defendant box, legs propelling me towards my savior.

  Which is why I have decided that despite not having any readership, I will keep my writing style and subject entirely unchanged.

 I shall leave my blog completely unfocused, deeply shallow and thoroughly pointless. I will not cut down my long winded meaningless rambling, I will not display any pitiful pretence of social outrage and I will not bow down to compromise for the masses. It may be a lonely road but at least it's my road.

Lobotomy

 The date is the 19th of October 2012. The starting pistol is fired high into the air, simultaneously I spring forward athletically from my  braced crouching position, beginning my sprint down the long metaphorical road. My two fingers (because despite being of the new supposedly technology savvy generation, I never mastered touch typing and can still only competently type with two digits) dance swiftly across the keyboard, each aggressive tap of a key imprinting a pixel articulation of my thoughts onto the blank white screen before me.

 The clock ticks precious seconds away and as the ultimate countdown commences, to my relief I see that the end line, the deadline, lies just meters from my exhausted self. With a final burst of energy I propel myself forwards, the remaining few paragraphs flowing onto the page in a jumbled flood of words. The time is eleven fifty nine. Relieved I have made it, I click the beautifully vibrant button labeled "Publish". Feeling victorious, I close my eyes, I have successfully written and posted another bog within the day. Then as I open my tired eyes to look back onto the screen, a sudden ice age envelopes my heart and the exhausted yawn meets an untimely end half way up my throat. The red box stating "you are only allowed a maximum of twenty labels" lies smugly across the top of the page.

 Hurriedly I delete the one extra offensive treacherous miscreant of a label that now threatens to ruin everything I have worked towards. I frantically click "publish" again, the time is midnight, in the distance a clock presumably strikes twelve and I imagine for the few seconds it takes to load my online publication, the deep resonating mournful rings of the ominous metal bell. I grit my teeth in frustration and cast my eyes onto the screen in vain hope that blogger counts midnight, the barren no man's land between two days, to be the territory of the merciful today as opposed to under the occupation of the tyrannical tomorrow.

 I let out a slow sobbing sigh, the post is labeled as "20th of October".

 It has finally happened, on my last post, I failed to meet the deadline. I'm sure there is a meaning to the term "deadline". Presumably if you go past the deadline you become dead in some way, but as far as I know in most every day situations people aren't killed for late paperwork, unless there exists some evil organization skilfully covering up every unpunctual excel sheet or mildly tardy report related murder (Perhaps entitled League of Uncompromising Beaurocratic Employers or LUBE for short).

Therefore if you miss a deadline, you must be dead in some other slightly more subtle way. Perhaps you become dead to whoever set you the deadline. So as soon as you fail to meet the deadline, your employer or immediate superior or whoever it was that told you to hand in that file by six o'clock in the morning sharp, no longer looks at you with the level of burning passionate friendship that they used to. Instead your employer stares coldly at you, a certain emotional distance appearing between superior and subordinate, an invisible wall suddenly erected to severe the bond of mutual trust that had grown so strong between the two of you before that fateful six o'clock in the morning blunt.

 But in this instance I had set the personal deadline of one blog post a day for myself to keep and as much as I might try, it really is rather difficult to keep an emotional distance from yourself. Hence, if I want to become emotionally disconnected from myself, the only possible solution is to become generally emotionally unreceptive as a human being, this may perhaps be achieved by undergoing the great medical process of lobotomy.

 Goodbye dear meager wavering mirage of a readership whose existence is more than a little doubtful, the next time we meet, I may have become an empty emotionless husk of a human being but at least I would be a punctual empty emotionless husk.

Holiday

 If leaving things that need to be done as soon as possible till last minute were a crime, I would have been arrested and taken to court long ago. The news would show chalk or pastel illustrations of my downcast face as I stood before the judge, pleading entirely guilty to the charges of irresponsible work avoidance. In short, I am a self-confessed procrastinator. Because of this trait I am forever forcing myself into a metaphorical corner, backed up and cowering against the wall, surrounded by sinister looming mountains of tasks that should have been completed hours ago but quite inexplicably, aren't.
 Hence you might assume that the opportunity to take a break; to go on holiday; to flee from the menacing malicious parade of labor (seemingly forever in slow but definite pursuit) even if only for a few short weeks, would seem like my ultimate goal. A safe haven, my equivalent of the helicopter complete with ladder for the fleeing foiled villain atop a building, the beautiful oasis filled with water and vegetation for the weary desert camel rider or the inviting open toilet bowl for the severely inebriated guest in a house decorated with expensive carpets.
 However that is not the case. That is a case that belonged to me about three, possibly two years ago. A worn old case, its aged leather surface scratched and eroded with time, any colour it might once have had long since faded out save in a few faint patches which stubbornly stain their ground as the last crumbling bastion of dying vibrancy. But a case not without its charms for what it lacks in outward appearance, it more than makes up for in contents, packed full of dreams, hopes, adventures, aspirations and potential I saw in the world as a young child.
 Whereas my current case (the case here being a metaphor for my outlook on holidays generally) is a cold unfriendly coal black rectangle, its strong artificial geometry only emphasized by its viciously sharp clean cut corners. Polished and newly formed with a sparkling reflective surface like the back of a beetle, but for all the novelty it holds as a brand new object, it is entirely worthless due to its contents or rather a lack thereof. When its gold coloured clasps are unfastened with a precise click and its lid smoothly opened, it sits a gaping empty casket of hopeless nothingness.
 Recently I have begun to see holidays as nothing more than a depressing experience where one can agonizingly consciously experience the passing of time. Of course there are enjoyable moments, events and happenings to punctuate the dull monotone aimlessness of it all but these exactly that, mere moments ina  far longer sequence.
 Because when you're busy, the very act of excavating a free moment to do what you enjoy becomes a goal and a reward, like precious jewels occasionally discovered while hacking through a near endless tunnel with nothing but a rusty pick axe. However when the jewels begin to line the walls where before there was depressingly solid rock, after a very brief period of elation, the jewel market goes through a very rapid inflation and after a few days of hacking through nothing but vibrant beautiful jewels, all you want is too see some patches of dank depressing rock again. Soon you are driven solely by the desire to be reunited with boring old rocks and even begin to paint jewels black with tar just to convince yourself that its dull rock and not a stunning gem but in your heart of hearts you're aware of the fact it's just not the same.
 Perhaps its a trait shared by all humans generally or possibly it is just a trait held by me, a damning indicator of my weak psyche as a human unable to experience true freedom, that we cannot handle purposelessness for a prolonged period of time. Perhaps the fact I am dependent on the school to provide me with daily doses of purpose shows how poisoned I have been by the system as a whole, I have been turned an aim addict. Corrupted and enchained, unable to feel true liberation, a prisoner of my own mind, I am a victim of the system. Therefore I blame the world for the fact I cannot experience holidays with the pure innocent thoughtless joy that I once did, instead having to painfully endure the knowledge that I am doing nothing substantial with my time as I gradually waste away my holiday hours, feeling my conscience slowly decompose. In short, I blame society.

Alone in the Mansion

 The once crowded mansion stands empty, its heavy oak doors, which once shone with a refined polish, now sit in slow lusterless decay. Those poorly maintained gates have been motionless for a few hours now, no one has entered or left since the rusty creak of the last departure which echoed forlornly through the dusty corridor. The fading gray rooms are filled with the desolate silence of an abandoned building, gone are the days when the sound of snide and mocking but nonetheless happy laughter had bounced through its sparkling structure. All have left to pursue a vast and varied life outside its thick impenetrable walls, all but one. This is the Bachelor Mansion.
 The lone figure sits hunched malignantly by a fireplace black with soot, a cold empty fire place in the shape of a heart. In the figures twisted malicious hands is clutched a once fine china mug, its pristine white surface now stained to a dull yellow. The mug contains a deep dark brown fluid, tar like both in appearance and texture, very strong tea without milk or sugar. Very bitter tea. Very very bitter tea.
 How did it come to this? There used to be others here with me. All snidely talking about the foolishness of love and the stupidity of relationships, mockingly discussing romantic ideals or viciously insulting those clueless fools roaming outside the mansion. Now there is only me, me and my thoughts which provide no comfort at all.
 I'm certain everyone has experienced that one long distance race at school where the five or so non athletic friends line up at the starting line, smiling humorously at each other. After a brief minute of amicable discussions its decided that all of them will take it slow, go at a nice jogging pace, take it easy, cruise it, chill. The starting pistol is fired into the air and one secretly competitive supposed comrade suddenly breaks rank, running with all his strength so as to get as far ahead as possible before the others realize they have been deceived. In that instance, everyone shakes their heads and roundly agrees that the one former comrade dashing aggressively ahead is, to put it mildly, a complete dick and should be excommunicated from the alliance of the non athletic.
 However this time round, we all agreed to take it easy but all except one, at the sound of the starting pistol, revealed themselves to be secretly competitive dicks charging headlong down the path of romantic success. By the time I realize what's happened and decide to quicken my jogging pace, that is at present infinitely close to a walk, it's all too late and my former comrades have crossed the finishing line, cheering as they do so. I watch them celebrate, teeth gritted and all I want to do is take the starting pistol and take careful aim at those distant , now coupled, figures.
  I thought we were all on the same boat, all proudly sailing under the fluttering banner of "Awkward", the academic cynical types whose only knowledge of love came through a study of biochemistry, a bunch of social outcasts united by our ability to insult romantics in Latin. Now "Amicus" has turned "Hostis", "Callidus" has turned "Stultus", they have all recently dived into the surrounding oceans to leave me bobbing up and down on the unstable raft, feeling more than a little bit nauseous.
 Riding the wave of a drunken kiss or holding onto the helpful dolphin of previously hidden charisma, my former fellow sailors swiftly move across the ocean to reach their own idyllic islands, overgrown with convenient coconut trees and pretty flowers as I watch on from a distance. My last fellow bachelor sailor dived from the raft a few hours ago, or rather was gently pulled into the waves by an enticing mermaid (I sincerely hope that this is a mermaid of slightly older, more brutal, less Disney type myths which will go on to ravenously shred and devour the ex-comrade turned turn coat). Now I stand alone, realizing suddenly that my raft has developed a hole and is sinking fast. It's either swim or drown from here and I haven't done much swimming since I received my Kellogg's Frosties 200meter swimmer badge seven years ago.

Procrastination

 The time is fast approaching midnight and it is Sunday evening. As such there is school tomorrow starting at eight thirty in the morning sharp and there is a 3 page history essay and a write up on a Shakespearean play due in tomorrow, both of which are as of yet looking resoundingly uncompleted.
 I am currently procrastinating in the same way that a man who has been pushed from the empire states building procrastinates the inevitable collision with the ground by flapping his arms and hoping the bingo wings he's acquired through many years of unhealthy eating will somehow catch the wind and allow him flight.
 I admit that procrastination is not the best way forward nor is it the best habit to have since it tends to manifest its self in moments of pressure and immanent danger where concentration and willpower as opposed to the desire to do anything but what you're meant to be doing, are necessary. It's true that no airplane has ever been saved by a pilot procrastinating the emergency flight procedure with the plane falling apart around him as the ever increasing emotional and air pressure take hold.
 However in other less potentially fatal circumstances, procrastination may prove its self the mother of invention (in which case the pressuring work load would be the brutally abusive and sadistic twisted father of invention). I am willing to bet serious money, in relativity to the total sum of my pitiful finances (so about five pounds and fifty seven pence) that if ever a time machine is invented, it will be invented by a procrastinator creating a machine out of the manic desire to travel back to that very morning so he could get started on the bloody 3 page history essay a few hours earlier than he actually did.
 I've just given it some thought (which also took some increasingly precious time. Time is currently going through a period of extreme deflation. I am pretty sure that if time is money then the time now is worth at least a hundred times more than the time this morning) and it seems that I'm yet unable to come up with a working time machine. Hence, with sixty five minutes to midnight and the prospect of getting up at six in the morning tomorrow. I shall now leave this place to start my history essay.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

 The dark robed man glided slowly across the dead earth of the graveyard, its soft soil transformed into a quagmire by the pelting rain. He stood in front of one grave stone scarred with the words "Entrepreneurial Confidence". Lifting a thick leather bound book before him as if preaching to an invisible congregation, he began to utter a series of deep ominous words with a rhythmic droning rumble that would drill fear and uncertainty into the mind of any who heard it. His tone, the speed of his immaculate pronunciation and the volume of his voice simultaneously rose as he snapped the book shut, raising both hands violently skywards to be blindingly silhouetted by the sudden and vibrant flash of lightening. A moment of silence punctuated the scene, then a slow trembling shudder ran through the ground, gently at first, like a colossal beast shaking its self awake from slumber. As the quake reached its climax, the ground before the gravestone cracked then, after a moments pause, exploded upwards. Fragmented soil flew through the rain, pelting the old necromancer with a mixture of mud and water but he continued to smile, transfixed by the figure climbing out of the fractured wooden coffin.
 ...That was not how my entrepreneurial confidence was resurrected today but in terms of the dramatic mental impact it had on me it could be comparable to the slightly over extended and tenuous metaphor above. For my confidence as an entrepreneur has been dead a fair few years, ever since a school competition titled the Social Entrepreneurs Project (SEP for short, I do feel its shame they didn't title it the Entrepreneurial Social Project in which case the abbreviation would be ESP giving the misguiding but nonetheless interesting suggestion that it is some program associated with psychics) whose basic aim was to raise money to help children in Africa.
 A friend, called Faisal, and I decided we would buy sweets cheaply then resell them at school at a far higher price. Since Faisal lived in New Malden (despite being Pakistani, or more importantly, not Korean which meant he was treated as an immigrant within a community of immigrants, like some sort of Matryoshka doll of mild racism) we decided to buy a vast quantity of penguin bars (about thirty pounds worth of confectionery in total) from his local Iceland as well as some Japanese sweets called "Haichu" (A chewy fruit flavored sweet which gave you happiness and diabetes in equal quantities). Our ploy went a little like this, "The people at school shall all become addicted to Haichu and penguin bars, relentlessly eating and buying, trapped in a vicious cycle of sweet consumption and craving (cue evil laughter)"
 However, as if to prove there is some karmic justice within the world, both Faisal and I promptly became addicted on our own stock of foods (I on Penguin bars, he on Haichu). Like hunters who had been ensnared and captured by the sheer excellence of their very own traps we had finished off our entire supply of teeth torturing treats by the end of our first day of business. However we still had our pride as businessmen, and as true vendors we could not allow our customers to not pay, even if the customers were ourselves. Hence we paid for our ridiculously over priced confectionery (while being bitterly aware that it was over priced and even more bitterly knowing that we had already paid for it once) thereby successfully making a profit on paper but in reality making huge losses in terms of money, dignity and confidence in enterprise. At the end of a tough week of being social entrepreneurs we had actually gained nothing apart blood sugar levels and weight.
 From that crushing tragic defeat forth, I had never thought I could ever be a, entrepreneur. It was one potential aspiration which had become less of a career path and more of a 120 mile per hour career motorway utilized exclusively by trucks, the middle of which I would have to walk, trying to deftly dodge the metaphorical vehicular executioners lest I be splattered thinner than my chances of becoming a successful businessman. However, on this very day, my eyes were opened, then kept open with a contraption of metal wires as I was metaphorically put through the entire Clockwork Orange experience (though generally more positive and pleasant) to a whole new possibility of career for me.
 Today, at my school, it was Make A Difference Day, abbreviated with self deprecating humor to MADD. A day dedicated to charities of all kinds (ranging from childrens' hospices to cancer research to helping infants in Africa) where the school grounds are littered with sweet vendors, coconut shies, sport competitions, buskers and various other fairground style activities all raising money for charities. The day also gave permission for students to come in dressed not in the usual suits but in their own home clothes. So there I was, dressed in my lavender colored shirt, violet trousers, purple tie, jet black top hat and billowing dark coat, feeling thoroughly misanthropic as self righteous charitable souls walked around smearing their goodwill in people's faces.
 Then as I was harassing a group of buskers by tunelessly joining in on their singing, one of the people running MADD approached me with a tray full of sandwiches in their hand. Apparently there was an excess of sandwiches and she, along with several other tray bearing laborers, were now attempting to rid themselves of the sandwiches by distributing them for free. I, like other great business leaders before me such as Lord Sugar or Steve Jobs, in one inspired entrepreneurial move exclaimed "I'll take the whole tray!"
 Quickly I began to run amongst the crowds, attempting to sell my sandwich to passers by for just twenty pence while also eating some of them myself as I hadn't had lunch. However, despite the fact I did everything to make them seem appealing (verbally promoting them, rotating the tray seductively, threatening potential customers with violence) none of them seemed to sell, perhaps due to the recent economic downturn or the fact that the sandwiches were getting drier and drier by the second, losing what little appeal they originally had or the fact that there were other people going around giving out identical sandwiches for free.
 Very soon my legs were tired from running, my voice hoarse from shouting, my heart heavy with despair and my stomach heavy with sandwiches yet I hadn't sold a single sandwich. I sank to my knees, my will (like a "shatterproof" ruler in the forceful hands of a curious child) on the verge of breaking, was I to lose at this first hurdle on the road to business success? To be defeated like other business tycoons before me? Defeated like Murdoch by the Leveson Inquiry, Woolworths by the economic downturn and Steve Jobs by cancer?
 As I sank deeper and deeper into emotional submission a voice called out to me, a lifeline cast from the banks of the river, a blond, stupid and gullible lifeline called Hugo Speak (An individual whose bar of chocolate I once snatched and ate after he said "I wonder what it would be like to live in a lawless society") and his clueless words echoed in my grateful eardrums like the tinkling of gold coins on a marble floor "Oh, how much are those sandwiches?"
 "Twenty pence," I replied cautiously, hardly believing my luck but grasping onto it with all my strength nonetheless.
 Now, the brilliance of a charity event where many things are being sold for charity is that people instantly assume any goods being sold are being sold for charity. Example one, Hugo Speak spoke to say, "Well I'll pay fifty pence since its my donation." Donation to my wallet, I thought but did not utter. "Oh my money's in my bag" he announced and began to slowly unzip his bag. However even as he did so, I realized there was someone walking behind him, a tray full of sandwiches identical to the ones I had in every respect except his were completely free. If he were to call out to Hugo at this moment the entire deal would be blown. Silently willing the blond haired idiot of a customer to hurry up and take out his money, I watched my competition edge ever closer, sweat on my brow, the tray shaking in my nervous hands.
 Then, with a sudden clink of a fifty pence coin and the swift selection of two triangular sections of bread, the transaction was complete. I had a fifty pence profit and my customer had a dry tasteless sandwich he could have had for free. Of course he had the benefit of having the emotional satisfaction of thinking he had given to charity, a benefit I destroyed with a few smug words. I proceeded to quickly flee across the school with a very disgruntled customer behind me, a tray of sandwich in my arms, a profit in my pocket and a bright future in business ahead of me.

Mental Health

 I'm sure you have walked down the street one wind swept evening, shoes squelching wetly in the light drizzle, to see the ghostly pale form of a plastic bag, mutilated by some hungry urban fox somewhere, half drifting half rolling miserably across the road. Perhaps you, upon seeing it, put aside such environmental concerns as the biodegradability of plastic and stopped to look at the bag in order to briefly wonder what an apt metaphor for a tired and downcast state of mind the plastic bag could be. In which case I take this opportunity to humbly apologize to you for stealing your metaphor.
 However recently I had been feeling a little empty, lacking in confidence and an absence of general happiness, in short, I felt like a torn plastic bag. Of course I still had a certain amount of class and dignity in so far as being a torn plastic bag from Waitrose, not from Sainsbury's or Tesco's but my days of being a bag from Fortnum and Mason felt well and truly behind me.
 I'd been assaulted by a sudden torrent of doubts, I got the feeling that I wasn't as full of offensive witticism or snide remarks as I used to be, that I had become generally less amusing. Where was that verbose abusive flare with which I used to articulate statements designed only to irritate and upset? Where was the mind with which I had taken every opportunity to weave the most inappropriate and emotionally scarring of jokes into the conversation? Is this a mid-life crisis? In which case does that mean I only have sixteen more years to live? To put plainly, I felt like some spark that had burnt stubbornly in me for the last ten years or so had quite suddenly given up and vanished with a tired sigh, leaving behind only a fast dispersing smoke-like remnant of vaguely amusing cynicism.
 Even in the darkest of times however, there is light. On the very hour I was feeling least confident about myself, almost as if by fate, my school held a lunch time assembly on "Mental Health". An assembly there to cover lack of confidence, depression and other symptoms of teenage pubescent angst. With as much hope as someone mildly dejected can muster, I was, along with everyone else in my year group, shepherded into the assembly. Perhaps, just perhaps the talk would improve my mental health.
 As the chatter dies down, I wait in anticipation as the talk begins. The two women in charge walk onto the stage, armed with an optimistically colored power point behind them and a presumably helpful speech in their grasp. They open their mouths in preparation, I assume, of great enlightening words that will open my mind to the wonders of psychiatric treatment.
 "Hello," the first woman, let us call her Messiah One, announces while the second woman, Messiah Two, fiddles with the power point presentation, "We're here to talk to you about mental health. Do you know," a healthy pause as the power point changes slides, "That we all have different personality types."
 By which she of course means human beings are all, believe it or not, different and individual... my eyes are opened, not to new and enlightening facts about psychiatry as I had hoped but to the now painfully apparent fact that this talk is an irritatingly patronizing game of State the Obvious. With that comes the realization that I might as well replace the two women, Messiah one and two, with some suitably wizened looking bearded homeless man off the streets and he would fulfill the role of Messiah far better than the two on stage both in terms of appearance and genuine ability to enlighten.
 At that moment, fueled by vexation, my motivational spark rekindled and roared into a full blaze. And like the fallen warrior rising from amongst the corpse littered battle field to face the oncoming enemy or the limp fighter rising from amongst the graying bushes with the aid of Viagra to face the on coming...... I slowly raised my hand high into the air to make a contribution: an intelligent, malicious, needless, spiteful, cynical, provocative, irritating, misanthropic contribution to be articulated confidently and verbosely with a facetious grin across my lips.

To Start On an Epiphany

I have before this time attempted to start and maintain several different blogs but this evening, at precisely around (a combination of words which seem to contradict each other but nonetheless capture my desire for it to have been precisely midnight for my own personal love of dramatics in real life and the unavoidable fact that I do in fact have no way of knowing when exactly the idea appeared in my head as I simply am not the sort of person to regularly look at the time) midnight I had something of an epiphany. Or perhaps epiphany is too large a term for this instance, rather like over wrapping a present with several layers of garishly colorful wrapping paper when the present its self is something small, relatively cheap, appropriately cheerful but not particularly significant to the recipient of the gift, a "cute" object from "Paperchase" for example.
 I have recently gotten into borrowing a "Paperchase" rubber from one of my female underlings, one Underling Spirit, who is in my maths class and although I used to sneer at the pointless brand of "cute" stationary in favor of the far more functional, cheap, unisex and less fashionable WHSmith brand; I must admit I have recently grown fond of the little green rectangular semi-transparent block of broken dreams or whatever rubbers are made of (possibly rubber unless the term "rubber" comes from the act of using the object to rub something and not the material out of which it is made in which case the name "rubber" is terribly deceptive and must be changed immediately)with the name "paperchase" scrawled neatly, almost seductively, in nice curled sloping writing on its melon coloured surface. I may go and buy one of my own Paperchase rubbers in the near future but considering my dignity as a man is always skimming the surface of utter oblivion like some fish-hunting sea bird cruising a centimeter above the dark oceans of extreme male femininity, I suspect going into a Paperchase store may result in me losing all rights to owning a protrusive reproductive organ.
 Anyhow back to the main point, epiphany or not, I came to the realization that so far in my attempts at being a blogger I had gotten everything completely and utterly wrong, I had gotten lost in the maze of the very fundamental concept of blogging to such an extent that it was no longer a matter of turning right when I was meant to be going left but rather continuing to plough head first into the floor of the metaphorical maze.
 I simply had not realized that blogging was all about presenting ones self and ones own experiences in a genuine fashion.
 In my previous blogging attempts I had employed well thought out, plotted and planned methods to attempt to be more amusing than I actually am or to purposefully over dramatize certain events for the benefit of an utterly non existent readership. In doing so my blog had lost all character and voice, essentially becoming a multi-coloured soulless empty husk of a chunk of text. I had lost sight of the fact that people usually observe blogs to see into the lives and minds of other people, like looking into a neighbor's garden. What I had essentially done with my cybernetic mental gardens was, instead of growing plants of my own personal preference in the garden as I should have, conducting thorough research into what my neighbor's botanical preferences were then proceeding to stick lots of garish plastic copies of said plants. Thereby depriving my blog of all life or interest (where the garden analogy falls down is that an entirely plastic garden would, in its own slightly creepy way, be quite fascinating whereas my previous blog attempts had absolutely no such charisma or, consequently, readership).
 Hence I intend to keep this blog, I have no idea how long it will last but I have a good feeling about this one (The primary reason being that I have just enjoyed myself immensely in the last thirty minutes or so of worthless egocentric typing) so i would be honored if anyone would care to stick around for the ride (and as a word of warning to avoid disappointment, the term "ride" gives suggestion of an element of speed and excitement whereas, as you may have guessed from this long introduction, my rides are quite slow and full of utterly irrelevant detours). All aboard.