The List

74. The music in Starbucks

2012-01-25T22:24:00.011Z

^ I actually used one of those 'free iTunes tracks' cards from Starbucks the other week. The only thing worse than listening to The Kooks is realising that you willingly downloaded one of their songs because it was free.

In recent months, I have become a corporate whore with one of those job things and a desire to spend all my disposable income on unfairly priced consumables sold by big chains that are slowly but surely destroying our society. But rather than address my own willingness to conform to the consumerist dream, I’m going to pick on the bits I don’t like about these places like a spoilt brat with an overwhelming sense of entitlement.

It must be hard for Starbucks to source their music. I’m curious as to what supplier has such a wealth of indistinguishably cultural artists that are so inoffensive, they wouldn't be able to drown out the quietest of conversations - even if the conversation was two mice whispering secrets to each other and the music was played through a Spinal Tap amp on 11. It’s as if lift lobby muzak had an illegitimate child with the ‘Garden State’ soundtrack, only for the disadvantaged bastard to be adopted by Norah "I Am Disgracing My Dad, Ravi Shankar" Jones and Chris "Dontplay My Records, They're Abysmal" Martin. Every piece of music at Starbucks is more generic than the last, with each resounding note of the homogenised cultural mash-up further cementing the coffee chain as the epitome of cosmopolitan venues (and therefore, the meeting place of yuppies and Sex & The City fans alike).

I'm going to level with you, Starbucks. I don’t think pumping your coffee shops with pseudo-ethnic and adult contemporary music is convincing anyone that your business is anything but a big, fat, slobbering American monster with its chubby sausage fingers forcibly clutched around the throat and wallet of modern society. We know you’re all about the dollar and, frankly, I don’t think anyone cares anymore. Just be honest and we'll be honest with you. You want our money so you can take over the world and we want those Frappuccinos because they’re awesome. Mutually beneficial. No amount of smooth jazz is going to change that.

73. The term "sheeple" and the sheeple who use it

2012-01-25T21:11:00.010Z

^ A flock of sheep much like the one above once prevented me from getting to work on time. True story. Living in Wales was a blast.

Let's get one thing out of the way here. I love making new words out of two old ones. Urban Dictionary, one of the greatest corners of the internet, is effectively founded on people artificially ramming together two words that don't get along. Terms like "brofessional", "carnevoyeur" and, of course, "overjaculation" stand as a testament to language's beautiful capacity to constantly evolve and adapt to new surroundings. Sort of.

My issue with "sheeple" is therefore not to do with someone slamming together sheep and people - the Welsh do that all the time*. My beef (...lamb?) stems more from the kind of people who use the word and the context within which they deploy their elitist put-down. Almost always veering on the "alt" side of life, they view the "norms" as "sheeple" because they "conform". If you don't make a blindingly shallow statement about yourself being slightly different from the rest of society, then you're just falling in line with the establishment without ever thinking for yourself. Obviously.

Now, I don't know what criteria this is generally based on, but as far as I can tell, if you've never worn an Anarchy A t-shirt in your life, then you're probably a sheeperson (clearly no thought went in to a singular form of the word). If you don't have a slightly off-key haircut, then you're probably a sheeperson. If you've never listened to at least some of the collected works of System of a Down, you're probably a sheeperson. The delicious irony in all this is the fact that to not be part of the sheeple - the flock unable to make their own decisions, instead damned to mindlessly conform to the standards of society - you must because an alternative stereotype, unable to make your own decisions about other people and instead damned to mindlessly conform to the standards of your contemporaries' idiocy.

If you're going to start stereotyping large groups of people, just make sure you're not also part of an equally idiotic stereotype.

...wait.

*I just burnt myself there.

72. Lazy and uninspired sampling

2011-07-06T21:24:00.012+01:00

^No, seriously. What the hell is this? It's like the Black Eyed Peas threw up on Lady Sovereign and then let it fester for several years.

Sampling can be awesome. Seriously awesome, at that. Take Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, for instance. All of the music accompanying those hilarious crackers' rapping is patch-worked together from a wealth of funk, rock and pop records. Just little, tiny and vaguely familiar snippets of moderately well known songs elegantly sewn together to create a brand new tapestry of sound that, rather than sounding derivative, breathes new life in to soundbites from the past. It really is something special. In the space of the song 'Shake Your Rump', the Boys rattle through bits of Led Zeppelin, The Supremes, James Brown and Sugarhill Gang amongst others. It doesn't sound like plagiarism, it's just an inventive means of mixing together old sounds to make something new. Fantastic.

Of course, the Beastie Boys (and, by extension, the Dust Brothers) aren't the only ones do the whole sampling thing pretty well. I think even Aerosmith would agree this version of 'Walk This Way' is the definitive one (no, it's not the Sugababes / Girls Aloud one, you spoonknocker). Furthermore, one need only look at the relatively simple sample usage on The Prodigy's Fat of the Land to see that the technique was still being used to good effect in the late '90s. But come the 21st century, something went horribly, horribly wrong.

Simply put, there is nothing inventive about taking the lead chorus hook of a song, stuffing it in your own song and rapping before and after it. This isn't exactly new, as 'Can't Touch This' and 'Ice Ice Baby' depressingly confirm, but at least they only took bass lines. They didn't bastardise an entire chorus with autotune and altered lyrics like the monstrosity featured above. There's a befuddling sense of audacity that comes with these songs, however. I could probably live with it if the musicians were claiming it was a cover or remix - you've got the main fundamentals of the original song, but you've updated it with a modern flair. You know, like that version of 'Sun Is Shining' by Bob Marley Vs. Funkstar Deluxe. Or that Elvis Vs. JXL version of 'A Little Less Conversation'. As amusing a form of giving credit the 'Artist Vs. Artist' tag is, at least it seems to show some respect for the original track and an acknowledgement that the modern artist knows they didn't write the song.

Call me a music elitist, because I probably am, but there is something inherently wrong with people thinking that the Black Eyed Peas were in anyway responsible for the only good bits of their song 'Pump It' - namely, the instrumentals of Dick Dale's 'Misirlou'. Or that Flo Rida had anything to do with Dead Or Alive's 'You Spin Me Right Round (Like A Record)'* - he could barely be arsed to change the name on 'Right Round'. Or indeed, that Cher Lloyd, the gobby-snouted goatclown off that talent mockery / sob-fest X-Factor, has any claim to 'Oh My Darling, Clementine'.

I don't understand why anyone would want to go in to music just to ride on the laurels of better musicians who came before them. Surely it would just be a massively unsatisfying creative nadir? Wouldn't you want to build on what came before to reach a new level of musicianship, thus forging your own identity in the process? Then again, I guess the money helps quell the self-doubt that comes with being a musical whore. I blame Scooter for all of this.

*I know this song is kind of terrible, but dear me, I love it so much.

N.B. I should probably stop turning The List in to a collection of poorly thought out music essays.

71. The phrase "at the end of the day"

2011-07-06T18:16:00.005+01:00

^ I love the people on the internet who have the time and dedication to assemble genius things like this.

"At the end of the day" is a completely pointless phrase. I know it's meant to act as a colloquial equivalent to words like "ultimately", but it doesn't quite work. It's an utter throwaway of a phrase that has become little more than a marker of laziness of language. As the always wise Urban Dictionary puts it, "at the end of the day" is a "verbal crutch" used as a stopgap for people who can't be bothered to justify their arguments and instead skip ahead to their baseless conclusions.

However, its complete over-usage leads to a very real concern. Imagine if this metaphorical day was to finally set and we did indeed reach the much touted "end of the day". It'd be an apocalypse of bad opinions occurring all at once, proving itself a chaotic epiphany of moron-morality.

*insert witty justification of nonsensical viewpoint here*

At the end of the day, usage of the term "at the end of the day" is a quick way to identify people too stupid to justify their nonsensical viewpoints.

...wait.

70. People who take photos of their food

2011-07-06T18:00:00.008+01:00

^ Promotional photos of McDonald's meals are such a visual, it physically hurts. It's like that music video where Nicola Roberts is attractive.

I love food, I do. If I wasn't so relentlessly paranoid about regressing to the state of an amorphous blob, I'd probably spend all day eating delicious things in vast quantities. I'd arrange a nonsensical banquet of fried chicken, pie, M&Ms and pizza and eat until my stomach started to burst at the seams and I would be required to visit a hospital. Glorious.

It is because of my fat-man love for food that I cannot understand people who photograph their meals. Maybe every once in a while, I could go with it. Maybe you've spent the last two hours slaving over a feast fit for a king and you wish to capture this achievement in photo form. You might have made a four layer sandwich that is bursting with different pork products and cheeses. Perhaps the mere sight of this food is so potent that you will forever taste the meal in your mouth from just looking at a photo of it. That's fine. That's a rare event and one that probably should be documented for posterity.

But I've seen people on Facebook dispassionately photograph all their meals. They'll go out somewhere and they have to take a photo of their sushi. They'll come back home and take a photo of whatever solidified bile they're ingesting next. They'll even upload the photo before they eat the food. Surely that's just inviting the meal to go cold before they get the chance to tuck in? What is the logic behind this? The best I can assume is it's an indirect form of bragging: "Oh, look at me eating pheasant stuffed with quail's eggs and caviar - I have such a wide palate!" or even "Haha guys, look at me - I'm eating four steaks because I'm so manly! Four! Get me!" It's narcissism through the photography of food. Just eat your charred mess and stop clogging up my Facebook feed with photographs of every non-event of a meal you ingest.

You are what you eat and you've presumably just chowed down on a massive chode.

...too graphic?

69. Other people's opinions

2011-07-06T17:45:00.014+01:00

^ This opinion annoys me because, whilst I agree the Beatles are better, the factual inaccuracy and the implicit sense of American nationalism attributed to the band makes me want to smash my head through the nearest glass object.

[Warning: This post contains dangerous amounts of hypocrisy. Having said that, if you're reading this website, you're probably aware that all of these posts are massively hypocritical. The joys of being an internet elitist.]

Opinions are like traumatic and unresolved issues from childhood: everyone's got them and I'll be damned if I ever want to hear about them.

The problem with other people's opinions isn't that they're different from mine - hell, I disagree with myself half the time, which doesn't even make sense. It's that somehow everyone else seems to have an opinion on every banal topic, regardless of their level of experience with it. I'm all for other people's opinions if they're informed, presented with a degree of rationality and are exercised in the kind of context that asks for it (for instance, a friendly debate amongst friends is just about bearable a situation for hearing what other people think). But if these opinions are thrown at me unprovoked and laced with misinformation and idiocy, I'd really prefer it if you kept your mouth shut.

The internet has basically made this over a hundred times worse, however. Reading the news online, all one has to do is accidentally scroll too far past the article to be bombarded with the argumentative witterings of keyboard-warriors who think that they can offer a "unique" and "intelligent" insight into the topic at hand. I browse a lot of music websites and the user comments make me weep for humanity. They are almost exclusively used to bash bands and exercise elitism of taste. What's the point?

I mean, for crying out loud, the internet has given me the very real opportunity to offer up my equally worthless opinions for the world's perusal. The only difference is my presence is arguably less ubiquitous and people can probably quite easily avoid being exposed to my verbal bile should they choose so. I, however, will be continually forced to read all your inane, badly reasoned, ill-informed, misguided, wrong, racist, bigoted, sexist, anti-establishment, pro-establishment, psuedo-activist, pretentious, middle-class punk, white-knight, cyberbully, trendy muso, sheep-like, sheepish, archaeic, arbitrary and horrifically uninspiring opinions on Facebook, Twitter, Google, internet forums, emails, Blabbermouth, NME, streaming websites (I really don't care for your thoughts on the latest episode of How I Met Your Mother and YET THEY'RE ALWAYS THERE), Cracked.com, Youtube, eBay and whatever other pointless fragment of the internet I choose to look at.

Really, I should probably just stop surfing the internet and get a job. That's the real issue here.

68. That awkward moment when everyone joins Facebook groups starting with "that awkward moment when..."

2011-05-12T20:17:00.002+01:00

^ I actually scribbled this on to my screen. In permanent marker. I regret nothing.

An introductory note: I seem to mention Facebook-related things on the List quite often. But rather than take a critical look at myself and finally admit that I spend far too much time on the internet, I've decided to whine about what I see other people doing online instead. Because I'm awesome.

--------------

Everyone likes a good joke. I once heard a joke about modern music. I think it was called 'Black Eyed Peas'. I laughed for days and days after I heard it. And so, it is understandable that everyone clamours to "like" a funny group or page on Facebook when the opportunity to do so arises. However, as soon as one funny idea comes out, it is replicated ad nauseum until what was originally mildly amusing becomes hugely unfunny. The internet as a whole is a massive corrupter of a good thing, mindlessly repeating something special or hilarious over and over, in order to bask in the reflected glory of the original. However, each increasingly unoriginal and dull parody slowly chips away at the little bit of joy that original joke represented until all that is left is frustration and tired gags. One of the biggest joke graveyards online is Facebook because, let's face it, nearly everyone ever uses it.

Facebook is plagued with people who think they're hilarious. Who think that their unique take on the currently trending joke format is just that bit more hilarious than everyone else's. Who think that if they set up a group on Facebook called "That awkward moment when I made an unfunny joke", they will finally get a slew of e-validation through people joining it. Unfortunately, they will get that e-validation because everyone else is as mind-rottingly stupid as they are. Now, I love awkward humour. I'm all about that caustic mix of cringing and laughing when Larry David talks about Affirmative Action or Jez starts eating the burnt carcass of a dog. Hilarious. But very rarely are awkward moments even mentioned in Facebook groups. More often than not, they're just "wacky" and "random", like a mentally deficient horse attempting to write a cut-away gag in a recent episode of Family Guy. I'm sure the first handful of "That awkward moment..." groups might have been mildly amusing, but can we not just let a dull joke die a respectable death?

No? Okay then. My bad. Then can we at least try and prevent getting to the point where Facebook has destroyed every aspect of every funny joke ever and we are all left as cold husks devoid of being able to tell so much as a knock-knock joke without wanting to jam a pen in our eyes? Pretty please?

67. Unexpected items in the bagging area

2011-05-12T20:11:00.002+01:00

^ The man with a mustache is blatantly thinking "Corr, I'd put an unexpected item in her bagging area." That's what all men with mustaches think.

The next time I get told by a machine that there is an unexpected item in the bagging area, I'm going to put a squirrel in the shopping bag, thus validating the whining machine's ill-voiced claims. Then I'll ask an attendant to come over and see what the matter is and hopefully we'll all have a good laugh at my light-hearted prank. That or I'll take a dump in it. It depends how resourceful / angry / fibrous I'm feeling on the day.

66. My lack of attention span when I try to work in the library

2011-04-27T22:24:00.018+01:00

As a third year Anthropology student, I am currently writing a dissertation. For those of you who don't know what a dissertation is, it's basically a 10,000-12,000 sprawling diatribe about absolutely nothing. It is mind-numbing and pointless but in an attempt to actually get a degree, I've got to do it. And so it is with great dismay I drag myself to the university library everyday in an attempt to finish it (because if I sit at home and work, I end up playing that riff from 'Day Tripper' on guitar ad nauseum, briefly stopping to write entries for The List - take a guess at what I should be doing now!!). However, due to years of watching Ren & Stimpy, playing video-games that involve either shooting or punching things and a nasty coke habit*, I have the attention span of someone who doesn't have a very big attention span (what am I, the simile master?). To that end, working in the library is an extremely frustrating process for me, simply because I waste my time and never work efficiently. To demonstrate this point, here is a pie chart - click it to enlarge it, you knucklehead.

It will be a miracle if I end this year with a degree.

*This isn't what you think. I buy cans of regular Coke and, in an endeavour to avoid the horrific fuzzy teeth that come with drinking it, pour out lines of the caramelised liquid on a mirror and snort them through a bendy straw. Rock n' roll.

65. Flesh tunnels

2011-04-27T22:20:00.008+01:00

^ If I saw one that big in real life, I might actually start weeping uncontrollably.

I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe. I can put my finger through your earlobe.

Ewwwwwwwww.

64. Jan Moir

2011-04-25T16:45:00.001+01:00

^ A picture is worth a thousand words. Specifically "Ew" x 1000.

"Hi, I'm Jan Moir. When I'm not too busy spreading homophobic bile about dead pop-stars and their deviant lifestyles, making baseless assumptions about how Kate "snared" the "damaged and difficult" prince, pushing feminism back 50 years, callously treating a topic like teen pregancy with unhelpful vitriol, stereotypes and a misguided air of superiority or half-heartedly apologising for one of these acts, I like to relax by dropping kittens in a tub of sulphuric acid. And eating lots of pies. And kicking babies. With knifey-shoes."

What a cow.

63. The romanticisation and lack of realism in modern media's portrayal of every day life

2011-04-24T12:20:00.002+01:00

^ "It's these cards and movies and the pop songs - they're to blame for the lies and the heartache!" Hey, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, don't forget over the top, try-hard quirky romance films like '(500) Days of Summer'! You tit.

Being a fan of 1980s pop-culture especially, I've watched a lot of terrible films and television series. I've also read a lot of silly books in my not so vast time on this mortal coil. One thing that has always struck me is the complete lack of reality in everything. Especially in television. But especially in films.

Day to day life is generally a bit mundane with a couple of occasional flourishes of drama or excitement. However, if I were to believe Desperate Housewives or even Eastenders, every day would be a cavalcade of people being shot, multiple marriages and occasionally touching love stories, Tiffany being pushed down the stairs, murderers buying houses on my street, crack addiction related hijinks, women older than time itself bearing faces made purely from vacuum-formed plastic or the baby-stealing shenanigans of a psycho. Of course, that isn't life at all.

I'm happy to accept that life isn't all doom and gloom, but let's be realistic. Good things do happen every once in a while - of that we can be sure - but they never happen like they do in visual media. Life simply doesn't work like that. To demonstrate my point, what follows is a dispassionate list of a few instances of romanticised rubbish infused with a healthy dose of realism;

Ferris wouldn't get away with all that crap he pulled, for one he's using a computer to edit his attendance records before the internet existed. Ross and Rachel would probably not have stayed in such close proximity all the time considering their intense break up and their group of friends would have been fractured as a result. Charlie wouldn't find the golden ticket and would remain poverty stricken all his life. Girls like Zooey Deschanel don't listen to the Smiths. Marty McFly would have never been born because he decided to mess around with timelines. Indy would have been crushed horrifically by that giant boulder. Juno wouldn't own a hamburger phone. Carol Hathaway would have died in the first episode. Mia would have died from that overdose and Vincent would get killed by Marcellus. Ted never met your mother. Nicholas Cage wouldn't have hair. Morpheus was actually a very clever drug dealer and Neo became hooked on the red pill. Luke wouldn't have destroyed the Death Star because he turned off his targeting system. Judd Nelson would have been expelled from high school, Molly Ringwald wouldn't have talked to Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy would be seeking medical attention for all that dandruff and, most importantly, hot-boxing a room wouldn't give Emilio Estevez the super powers to shatter a glass door with the power of his voice.

Yeah. I think that will do for now.

62. Listening to people talk about their dreams

2011-04-24T12:16:00.000+01:00

^ Nothing evokes the realism of a dream like Tommy Wiseau's disjointed mode of conversation.

This is a massively easy target, so I'll keep it short (also, I think I might have stolen the thrust of this from something I saw, but I can't for the life of me remember what - answers on a postcard, folks). Unless the dream involved any combination of the following a) awkward sex with people you know, b) sex with awkward people you know, c) manning a ginormous Japanese fighting robot, d) something funny involving people we mutually know and enjoy laughing at or e) all of the above*, it is not worth discussing with me or anyone else.

No one cares if you have a dream about someone they don't know doing something dull like playing checkers and then he suddenly transformed in to a moose but in the dream it seemed normal and you weren't surprised he had transformed in to a moose so you just accepted the fact he was now a moose and then you were in a classroom, but it made sense in the dream yada yada etc. etc. Dreams are nonsensical and for the most part, awfully monotonous. They can be entertaining / emotive / scary or whatever to the person who has them, but don't inflict them on anyone else. To people outside of the frightening mental scatter that is your mind, your monologued recollection of last night's dreams will make about as much sense as 'The Room' except without the entertainment factor of laughing at someone else's inability to act / direct / pace dialogue.

*Just to put a pleasant image in your head, 'all of the above' would consist of you in a Japanese fighting robot having awkward sex with your socially awkward friend whilst everyone else you both know points and laughs. Probably shouldn't share that dream with people, otherwise you will get sectioned.

61. Inappropriately loud music in pubs

2011-04-24T12:12:00.000+01:00

^ Apparently this is from the Cross Keys in Bedworth. Absolutely genius marketing, almost makes me want to go to Bedworth. Almost.

Picture this: you're in a pub with some good company, you've all just got yourselves a casual pint of whatever and you all sit down to have a nice little chat about everything and nothing. As the drinks effortlessly flow (wallet permitting), so does the conversation. It begins to span new depths of inaneity and pointlessness, but you're conversing in good company so who's to care what the subject is? Bliss. Ah, I do enjoy a nice little pub session. And then it happens.

Suddenly, you notice that every line of conversation is suffixed with a "Sorry, what?". Instead of new threads of chatter unraveling, repetition of previous statements has become the lion's share of what's spoken. And in-between each utterance, there's often a pause of mild confusion followed by the listeners leaning in towards the speaker in order to decipher what they were saying. There are a lot of self-dismissive 'It doesn't matters' being thrown about, as the effort involved in perfectly reiterating what you've just stated isn't worth the pay off. What the hell has happened? Has everyone gone collectively deaf? Have you all just got a bit sick of each other's company? Did everyone drink too much and now every sentence is a group exercise in trying to figure out what order words go in sentences?

Nope. Someone turned the music up. Really, really loud (although all those other things could have happened too, but that's not the point!!). Now, keep in mind - you're all sitting down. Everyone else in the establishment is sitting down. There is no "dance floor" or whatever you kids call it. You're in a pub. For all intents and purposes, this is a vicinity intended for preching or occasionally standing awkwardly by the bar. And yet the music is as loud as some grotty club.

Apparently, loud music makes people buy more drinks - presumably, the logic is that if you can't capably talk to your company, you're all going to need a drink to sheepishly nurse in the conversational downtime. However, in my case at least and, granted, I am a massive old man at heart, I'm just inclined to leave a pub if I have to compete with the background music. If I'm in a pub, I want to hear things at a reasonable volume and not to have to shout every sentence - if I want music at 11, I'll listen to Spin̈al Tap or go to a club.

(Except I wouldn't go to a club, because clubs are Hell on earth. They're the equivalent to being trapped in the gorilla enclosure during mating season, except somehow the big apes have got expensive clothes and acquired a massive PA system that plays nothing but a relentless drum and bass thud. And they're sweating a lot. And the floor is really sticky.)

60. Fans of a band who are outraged by cover versions

2011-04-24T12:06:00.004+01:00

^ Without question, this is the greatest cover version of anything ever. Shatner really gets Pulp.

There are certain bands and musicians that I have discovered in my life that I value so highly, I will relentlessly devour any piece of music that has some tenuous link to them. For instance, I am probably one of the very few people in Britain who has nearly every single Andrew W.K. release, include such rarities such as his pre-I Get Wet EP, Party Til You Puke. On vinyl.

Suffice to say, I am a disgusting nerd and fan-boy of the utmost degree. And yes, I agree, I should probably be ashamed of myself. But I'm not the worst of the fan-boys. Oh no (though I'm probably up there, next to those who constantly bother their idols on Twitter with desperate pleas for a retweet). There are some fans who consider their band's music so sacred, that for another band to cover it would be sacrilege. This is a mindset I don't think I can ever understand for several reasons.

1) Covers can breathe new life in to a song that you might have played to death and rekindle your love for it if it had become somewhat stale.

2) There's nothing more fascinating than seeing how another group of individuals interpreted a song you hold dear. What nuances they picked up on and what they think are the main focuses of the song are exceptionally subjective and covers can give you a unique insight in to something you may have missed before.

3) They're (usually) a labour of love. You're hardly going to cover a song you dislike. Hell, most covers recorded by a band will be of someone they love. Like you, they're a fan of the band being covered. They even like that band's music so much that they're willing to take the time to learn how to play it and attempt to recreate it. All you can be arsed to do is sit there and listen to it, caustically passing judgement on those who engage with it in a different way.

4) This is probably the most important one. I'm not going to pretend all covers are good, because they certainly aren't. There are a wealth of terrible covers out there. Far too many to count. But you know what? They don't affect the original song. You can hear a terrible cover and then you can forget all about it and go back to the definitive version. No reason to get high and mighty and claim your band of choice has been done a dishonour - their music still remains 100% in tact. Get over it.

If you shut yourself off to cover versions of your favourite bands, you'll never discover the other musicians who also share your audial affections. And for all you know, you could be preventing yourself from discovering another group that you will come to love.

N.B. There isn't enough "insulting the reader" in this article, so just pretend every paragraph ended with "You elitist plonker."

59. The constant assault of passwords

2011-04-04T00:16:00.016+01:00

^ This is pretty much what happens when I use the wrong password three times on my Visa security checker thing and get my card locked.

Having spent my childhood years playing too many video-games and my adult years drinking, the only time my brain wasn't being rotted on a regular basis was between the ages of 15-16. As such, my memory is shot to pieces with the only permanent fixture being things learnt in that one year of mental stimulation. Unfortunately, I squandered my chance to learn something valuable and instead the only things I properly remember are regarding Metallica from 1981-1992. Essential information, I'm sure you'll all agree.

With my premature senility in mind (well, as "in mind" as memory loss can be), it is with great disdain and reluctance I sign myself up to anything online nowadays. Not because I have to come up with a username, words are actually relatively easy to remember having learnt to speak at some point earlier in life. No, it's because of passwords that I fear making new accounts. Security is apparently always at risk on the internet and so online purveyors of banal accounts want to make sure your account is particularly secure. That's all well and good, but when the websites in question then reject your first twelve passwords because they either use actual words, don't contain random enough digits like 7 or $π$ , dOn'T cOnStantLY cHANGe CasE or, God-forbid, don't alter the font, then it becomes a chore. The mighty internet tells me this is a good password;

Do you realise how long it takes me to type that? The mini-Sonic takes at least 15 minutes to draw and the upside question mark requires 40 minutes scouring the computer's character map and crying. But at least my Gmail account is secure!!

However, remembering one unrelentingly unguessable password simply isn't enough. Apparently, having a "global password" is mind-numbingly stupid and basically equivalent to wearing a sign that says "INTERNET HACKERS, PRETEND TO BE ME PRETTY PLEASE". The only solution is to have hordes of unique passwords - one for every account you may have. This means that every time you try to log in to your Amazon account, you have to cycle through each and every password you've ever thought of in an attempt to eventually find the correct one. And don't you dare write these passwords down. The hackers will still find it. Even if you encode the passwords and hide them under your bed, they'll find a way.

Similarly, some accounts will even require you to change your password every few months, just for that extra. Secure. Edge. Whilst you clutch at straws to think of something new that you won't forget in the next few minutes, the password-checking program will mock you and repeatedly tell you that your new password is too similar to your previous one or that you can't re-use an old password. I can only remember so many things. A random assortment of numbers, digits and dated cartoon characters is not one of them!

Please Internet, I know no one is going to hack any of my accounts. I have no money to steal and the only emails I've received since 2007 are about Russian women who allegedly can't wait to meet me (turns out they were lying). Just let me have something simple like "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" as a global password.

...wait.

UPDATE: I don't usually do this, but this is utterly karmic payback for writing this entry. I got my online banking password wrong twice and now my account is locked. GEE THANKS NATWEST.

58. The bitter realisation you have peaked physically

2011-04-03T23:43:00.014+01:00

^ The most depressing thing about The Cure isn't the music, but rather the fact that most of us will spend our adult life gradually transforming in to modern day Robert Smith.

Chances are, if you're reading this, you're not a child. You're possibly an adolescent or, seeing as most the viewers of this blog seem to be vague acquaintances of mine, you're probably 20+. If you're not, stop reading now before I instill you with fear and depression regarding your inevitable future.

So old folks, do you remember what it was like being 18? Yeah, you may have got a few spots every once in a while but other than that, you were invincible. You could eat deep-fried lard encased in bacon grease and be stick thin, you could guzzle down ten thousand pints in a night and not get a hangover, you had so much energy that you didn't need to drink coffee (but you did drink coffee and lots of it because it's the best drink), you never exercised but remained fit enough to fight seven bears who were convinced you had wronged their mother, knives snapped when they came in contact with your skin and bullets bounced right off. It could only be described as "jawesome" (similar to "awesome", but infused with the coolness of Jaws the shark).

19 was alright, but there was a downhill trend making itself apparent. Your belly was starting to wobble a bit, you felt a bit ropey after a heavy night, the bears were starting to graze slightly and you were once or twice admitted to the hospital for bullet wounds. For the most part though, you were doing well. Nothing to worry about.

Then 20 happened and your body couldn't take it any more. All that delicious refried lard was giving you seven chins, a casual ten beers would lead to waking up the next day with your brain pounding the inside of your skull for mercy, you couldn't function without a coffee drip hooked to your veins and the bears, knives and guns were leaving you missing limbs, riddled with bullets and so many exit wounds that you began to resemble swiss cheese.

It's at this point you start to try and turn things around. You start to consume in moderation, pretending that the saved money makes it worth it. You begin exercising on a regular basis, spending your new found spare money on a worthless gym membership. Also, you learn to stay away from the forests where the armed bears seem to live (I'm running with this bear joke - deal with it, this entry doesn't get any better than that). But it's simply not working. You're in the worst shape of your life. Thanks to Facebook and its ilk, it's all too easy to compare photos of yourself now with ones from a couple of years ago. Your face is haggard, there's flab everywhere, you haven't shaved in years, you're emotionally crippled and you're so dependent on coffee that if you don't have at least four cups a day, you'll fall asleep on the bus home and wake up leaning and drooling on a complete stranger. Twice. In a week. As soon as all this physical degradation clicks, it's official. You're no longer youthful and you've squandered your best years without truly appreciating them. Nice going, turtlegobbler.

N.B. I used to fight bears.

57. Pineapple on pizza

2011-03-31T00:07:00.011+01:00

^ THIS PIZZA IS A DISGUSTING CHARLATAN

I'm willing to put most things on pizza. Any variety of meat, most vegetables, fried eggs, even ~~the collected works of Shakespeare~~ goat's cheese are all suitable toppings for pizza. Really, pizza is quite fair game... except for fruit. Fruit doesn't suit pizza (other than tomatoes, smart-arse. If they count as fruit, I don't even know anymore). I can't put my finger on it entirely, admittedly, but I think it has something to do with warm, squidgy fruit tasting like suffering when mixed with fried cheese and delicious ham. And yet, ham and pizza is such a ubiquitous topping. So much so that when I worked at Pizza Express, people would ask why there was no ham and pineapple pizza on offer on the menu and ask if the chef could prepare one. Of course, the chef couldn't because Pizza Express makes good pizza and doesn't keep pineapple in stock. The outrage some people expressed at this was baffling. Just get the pizza with fried egg on it, you slack-jawed pizza urchin.

Call this pizza-based elitism, but you know I'm right. Pineapple is not an authentic Italian ingredient for any pizza, but more than that, it tastes horrible. It doesn't belong with melted cheese and it definitely doesn't belong alongside cooked meat. How anyone can stomach that abomination without retching up a yellow splurge stuns me.

56. The term "nom", "nomming" or any other ridiculous extension of it

2011-03-30T23:05:00.010+01:00

^ Okay, this picture is so cute it warms my heart. Well, the cold, shriveled and blackened prune where my heart should probably be.

"Nom" is one of those little phrases that rears its unoriginal head all over the internet, primarily in the context of cutesy animals eating food. Adorable. Or at least, it used to be before the entire internet decided they would use the phrase more often than the word "like" punctuates their meaningless statements.

"Nom" and its variants are kind of onomatopoeic in the context of animals, so I'll let it slide there. I'd even let it slide in the case of Pac-Man, because it makes a bit more sense than"WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA". But when real people start using it to denote their eating activity, usually in the context of declarations as obnoxious as "PIZZA?! OM NOM NOM", it ceases to be endearing. Instead it becomes an annoyingly turgid and unflattering phrase. Ultimately, you are not a cute, lovable animal. Indeed, you are neither a "lolcat" or some other internet meme. You are a grown human with no concept of reality who needs to be taken to the vet to be put down.

55. People who stop on staircases

2011-03-30T22:44:00.012+01:00

^All these people are really in the way. Inconsiderate sods.

Stairs. You know stairs. The non-moving escalators. The ones you reluctantly drag your animated corpse up whenever the lift isn't working. Yeah, you know stairs. They're pretty essential to every day life, provided you're not a lonely hermit in a bungalow. And if you are, bully for you.

Stairs are usually just about wide enough for two rows of people to use them, one row going up and the other, surprisingly, going down. So, what happens when two members of these rows recognise each other and they wish to converse? Why, they stop and talk. On the stairs. In the way of every one else who was currently using the aforementioned stairs. And so, everyone has to stop ascending or descending the stairs as Joe Knob-Gobbler and Jamina Pig-Features discuss the intricate ins and outs of just how drunk Steve Statitis got last night. It's not like you're in the way or anything, is it?

This entire debacle can be made worse, however. Specifically, on double-decker buses in London. There is nothing worse than someone waiting at the top of the bus stairs, waiting for someone to vacate the upper-deck so they can grab a seat. Think of it like this; when someone does leave their seat, they need to go downstairs. But they can't go downstairs, because you're in the way. There is barely any space for either party to get past each other because this is a narrowly confined bus. A stalemate occurs when seat-evacuee and seat-grabber can't get past each other, because the latter party thought waiting at the top of the narrow, confined, tight, uncomfortable staircase was a sensible idea. It wasn't. Wait at the bottom of the stairs like everybody else, you twunt.

Basically, it boils down to this. If you're on the stairs and you're not moving, I will rectify that by pushing you down them.

54. Sex and the City

2011-03-19T17:17:00.017Z

^ Sarah Jessica Parker (above) plays lead anti-feminist, Carrie Bradshaw.

My beef with Sex and the City is similar to that of my beef with women's magazines, albeit S&TC is probably more harmful on a global scale.

For the few of you who have mercifully managed to avoid this completely narcissistic bilge of psuedo-feminine-empowerment gone horrifically wrong, let me fill you in. Sex and the City follows the exploits of four "empowered" women who, when they're not desperately plastering their aging faces in relentless amounts of slap and wearing expensive clothes, are found in cosmopolitan settings such as cafes and bars, drinking some description of a trendy beverage and guffawing about men - whether or not a certain man likes them, whether that man is good in bed, what men mean to them, whether that man has a big penis, whether all men have penises etc. It's a bit like Loose Women, except everyone is stick thin and tied together by a poorly written narrative. Also, the lead character is played by a horse - a well made-up horse, but a horse nevertheless.

Despairingly, lead failure Carrie "I'm a God-Damn Horse" Bradshaw, tends to book-end episodes with the insipidly dim-witted weekly sex column she writes for some magazine. Now, all throughout the show, the dominant theme is that these are liberated women. These are independent women. These are women who don't need men in their lives in order to be successful. This is how the modern woman should act. And yet, any notions of "independence" are quickly quelled by Carrie regurgitating the collective desperation of her group of friends in her column. Splurging about how she wants to find the "right guy" on an almost daily basis, it becomes achingly clear that our four "modern women" all seek men in a hackneyed attempt to validate themselves. These aren't role models. These are pathetic caricatures of spoilt hags. This is a joke of progressive television. There is nothing liberating about so strongly associating female independence with self-involvement, superficiality, shallow values and flaunting money. I'm glad I'm not a woman, otherwise I'd find it personally insulting.

I could almost let this go. Almost. If it wasn't for the film Sex and the City 2. It's portrayal of the Middle East is nothing short of borderline racist. The gabby four's Western values clash with Muslim customs throughout, not in the least coming to a head (easy!) with regards to Samantha "I'm So Desperate To Prove I'm Sexuality Active" Jones being arrested for public indecency after fondling a guy's balls. Classy. But when the mischievous girl gang get saved by a bunch of veiled Muslim women, things go horrifically awry. The latter group eventually take off their "oppressive" clothing for to reveal that, underneath, they share the same fashion sense as our American girls, boasting make up and "fashionable" clothing! Because that doesn't imply that every culture secretly wishes to subvert their religious or traditional values to be a spoilt monstrosity of Western superficiality! In foolishly attempting to make a comment about Western ideals of sexual egalitarianism in comparison to say that of Islam, S&tC basically just ends up insulting a varied and widely practiced religion, ignoring the relatively progressive nature of the United Arab Emirates for ill-informed stereotypes (at least, in the context of female empowerment) and highlighting just how utterly misguided values are in the Western media and entertainment. Style does not equal empowerment, you git-wizards.

It really warms the cockles of my heart to see unanimously loved visual vomit such as Sex and the City not only proliferate stereotypes regarding gender in our own society, but also to cast aspersions on the cultural backwardness of others that it clearly has no understanding of. Wait. No, it doesn't. It repulses me.

53. Enemies who don't understand the etiquette of mutual hatred

2011-03-06T21:46:00.015Z

^ The best thing about Super Smash Bros. Brawl was finally seeing these enemies bash seven shades out of each other.

I've not made a lot of enemies in my life, nor do I intend to. I very rarely hold grudges and generally can't be bothered to invest genuine emotional energy in disliking someone as much as to even call them an "enemy". But every once in a while, you will meet someone who you simply do not click with. Not only that, but they actively offend you by their mere presence. And, granted, you offend them in a similar manner. In each other's eyes, you are nothing but a Berkosaurus Rex waiting for extinction. That's fine. You can't get along with everyone. Hopefully, you'll never run in to each other and just generally stay out of the other's life. You'll ignore one another and everything will be dandy.

But sometimes life just isn't that easy. Sometimes you're forced in to a situation where direct contact with your figure of hatred is not only obligatory, but necessary. Most of the time, this is a difficult affair where both parties try their hardest to bite and dullen sharpened tongues. After all, you don't want to make your shared acquaintances uncomfortable just because you two have some petty and nonsensical feud. That's just unfair on them.

This situation is always made one hundred times worse when one party doesn't get the position they're putting everyone else in and immediately proceeds to make rude comments at their enemy's expense. The antagonistic commentary doesn't serve to belittle their enemy however. Rather, it just cements them as an utter whore for drama whose own deluded sense of self-worth grossly overpowers their ability to use tact and self control in the interest of not placing friends in an intensely awkward situation. It's nothing but sheer karma when their target responds with nothing but civility, as the perpetrator has just made a fool of themselves in front of all their own friends. Well played, you nuclear numbskull.

If you're going to hate someone, at least learn to do it without making other people think you're a spiteful cow, eh?

52. People who claim they "get" you.

2011-03-06T21:08:00.010Z

^ These guys get each other. You get me?

Friends are great. Contrary to this misanthropic slice of internet I call The List, I really quite like some people in real life. For some reason or another we click - maybe they like sarcastic humour, perhaps they enjoy the 1980s, mayhaps they're massive nerds or possibly they engage me in lengthy discussions about the pros and cons of the Manic Street Preachers' discography. Different friends have different appeals and variety is the spice of life.

Amongst these friends, there will be a small group who really understand you - more so than anyone else seems to. I could probably count the ones who "get" me on one hand. Not that I'm belittling the others, they're all lovely too. But more than anything about someone who gets you is there is both a shared thought process and an ability to put yourselves in one another's shoes with relative ease. It's sort of like empathy on another level. You don't need to explain yourself all of the time, simply because they get where you're coming from. And so it is infuriating when someone who isn't of that caliber states that they get you. Because they don't.

If you're at a stage of friendship where you need to tell the other person that you get them, that you know what makes them tick and that you comprehend their reasoning, then you're merely clutching at straws to make your friendship seem more important than it is. The problem with claiming to get someone you don't is that you will forcefully project so many relentless beliefs upon them in an attempt to validate your claim - you'll act like you know what kind of things they like, you'll be shocked and offended when they tell you otherwise, you'll constantly ask them questions that reveal how little you actually know about them and you'll continue this process of making baseless assumptions of your victim in an ill-thought out attempt to make them think you're on the same level. You're not, you're just too blinded by your own desperation for real friendship to actually spend time getting to know them.

Close friends don't need to constantly reassure each other that they're close friends. It's that simple.

N.B. I have used the word "get" so many times in this entry that the entire word is beginning to lose all sense of meaning. I'm not even sure it meant anything in the first place now.

51. Taking photos in club toilets

2011-03-06T20:37:00.002Z

^ I thought it would be rude / possibly illegal to copy photos from Facebook acquaintances that exemplify my point so here is a deep and profound image that speaks volumes about the sheer futility of life in an adorable fashion.

I can't actually fathom this one. You're on a night out and, as has become almost too standard a procedure, someone has brought along a camera so you can ruthlessly document every aspect of the evening. Forget actually enjoying your night, it's far more important to show others you're having a wild night out by posing for photographs, uploading them all to Facebook and making it seem as if you live an active life and many friends. You don't and your complete obsession with visual validation on social networking sites is ridiculous. However, I'm willing to accept this happens a lot - photos of forced "good" times are standard affair. Whatevs. Cool beans.

Where things get a bit bizarre is when examining the location of the photo. Specifically, when you realise that the photo of the person on your Facebook news feed is of them in a toilet. Now, I'm ruthlessly opposed to gender stereotyping but this does seem to only ever occur with girls - mainly because if it occurred in a men's toilet, there would be a lot of... urinal usage and wang. I can understand taking photos out around the dance-floor, the bar, maybe even outside the club, but what about an area where people excrete bodily fluids and occasionally solids seems like a prime venue for photography? I don't care if there are cubicles, it's still odd.

A lot of these toilet based photos seem to involve mirrors and so I'm jumping to the possibly baseless conclusion that you want to take the "perfect" photo of yourself. Are you really so vain that you have to preen in front of your misleading reflection before you commit any image of yourself to camera? Are you that proud of your hideous fake tan, miscoloured lips, Snuffleupagus eyelashes and domestically abused hair? Just because you think you look perfect, doesn't mean anyone else does.

I think I kind of lost my train of thought there. You're grotesque and shouldn't take photos in the toilets. All of you. That'll do.

50. Using "I was drunk" as an excuse

2011-02-20T17:07:00.009Z

^ This might be the one occasion I'll let the "I was drunk" excuse slide.

Heaven knows I like a tipple. I also have enough humility and self-awareness to admit that, every once in a while, that tipple escalates in to a topple, spilt drinks, slurring and me spouting incomprehensible nonsense about music circa 1984. Honestly, it occasionally happens to all of us. It's silly, it's irresponsible and it's a mistake but, like all errors, we vaguely hope to learn from it and accept our own idiocy. Everyone slips up every once in a while, I think we can all tolerate that.

What I can't abide, however, is getting yourself in a complete state and then not having the proverbial balls to own up to your own antics. Simply put, if you don't learn to stick to your own drinking limits, then at least have enough moral integrity to accept your actions. If you can't do that, then don't drink. It's that straight forward. The excuse that you've drunk too much and that's why you're acting like a prat shows a child-like understanding of how your behaviour affects other people and your own inability to admit you were in the wrong.

"I was really drunk" is not an excuse, it's a statement of your own lack of self-control.

49. Pseudo-intellectuals

2011-02-20T12:45:00.000Z

^ Okay, this made me giggle heartily. From here.

Ooh, look at me. I'm so intellectual because I've been reading all this avant-garde literature you've never heard of, like Chekov and Sartre. I've also read Joyce's Ulysses. I read it whilst listening to nothing but Rachmaninov pieces and the sound of my own ego inflating.

Earlier today, I went to sit in Starbucks with my personally assembled collection of T.S. Eliot poems and gave all those idiotic, caffeine-absorbing numb-skulls a chance to view what they could be if only they challenged themselves. I didn't even buy a coffee, I was too busy doing a public service! Then, I followed it up by giving a talk on how political I am to a group of politicised youths who are currently occupying a political building for political reasons. Now, excuse me as I have to return to my ironically dilapidated flat, sup wine and write a brilliant novel by candlelight. With a quill. On a scroll.

I hope you spill the wine, knock the candle over and burn your house down. Yeah.

48. Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T13:00:00.018Z

^ 'More Than Words' is unquestionably the most romantic song ever, despite the massive subtext of "I want to get in your pants". However, this song is only good when Extreme do it. No exceptions.

I know what you're thinking. "Oh, here we go. Generic internet-whiner is rambling about Valentine's Day because of its supposed over-commercialism, when in reality they're just bitter because they're alone".

Well, think again. You pissbag.

There's nothing wrong with the over the top commercialism of Valentine's Day. We are, for the most part, happy enough to bastardise events like Christmas and Easter with the never-ending desire to thrust material goods on other people, so why not St. Valentine's? It's only logical. I just want Valentine's to give up any pretence of being romantic, much like we all know Christmas is no longer about Jesus and Easter is no longer about giant pink rabbits who lay eggs.

There is nothing romantic about everyone doing something "romantic" on a set day, every year, without fail. The very nature of being forced to show your affection to someone by an arbitrary calendar date robs the recipient of the spontaneity that is often key to romantic gestures. If you really want to be romantic this Valentine's day, do nothing. Instead, wait for the right time. When you're genuinely bursting with love and need to express it, then do something that displays your actual feelings - not the feelings you've been told you should have by social convention. Don't go to a restaurant / cinema / pub / MaccyD's (delete as appropriate) on a day that is completely meaningless to your relationship. All that will happen is you will be surrounded by other couples who are also desperately attempting to validate their own relationships and fawn awkward conversation about how "in love" they are, further cheapening your false-hope that your Valentine's date will really be something special.

At the heart of it, just take all the pressure and forced emotion out of Valentine's and treat it like any other day. Don't wait for one day a year to show your love - you should show it when you can and want to.

47. Hindsight

2011-01-22T16:00:00.003Z

^ That white is awfully grey and in hindsight, I should have really sorted the transparencies and things on this image. This was all definitely deliberate and made to fit the entry. Definitely. Yep.

Hindsight is unquestionably 20:20. Whenever you look back on your life, you become acutely aware of everything you could have improved, done better, not messed up and so on and so forth. It's a bit of a kicker, as you begin to dwell on any petty squabble you've been involved in and think of all the amazing comebacks you could have come up with. Just when they're no longer useful. "If only I could think in real time," you think to yourself as you stand humiliated by your inability to respond to the banter / fight / argument / political debate you're currently involved in.

But thinking off the cuff has its repercussions as well. In the moment, we may feel that we are being undeniably awesome. However, through hindsight, we are drop-kicked in the face by the martial-arts-strength revelation that we were actually being a massive tit. The clarity provided by hindsight is both sobering and heart-breaking in equal measure. I guess the easy thing would be to think long and hard before you speak and do but that's simply not a luxury afforded by every day existence. Guess you better stay indoors and avoid social contact and activity for the rest of your life in an attempt to avoid feeling regret about anything ever again. Although, in hindsight, that will probably turn out to be a bad idea.

46. Oasis' "Wonderwall"

2011-01-20T14:16:00.011Z

^ From left to right: James Hetfield without gelling his hair, early 1960s George Harrison with drawn on sideburns, a disgruntled chestnut and relatively unknown comedian Tom Meeten. I went to the effort to include extra pictures simply because this entry isn't funny.

This slightly follows on from my entry on people with acoustic guitars, but I feel this is enough of a peeve to merit its own entry. I'm not bereft of ideas. Honestly. I'm just lazy.

I'm not going to lie, I'm not a fan of Oasis. As much as I make myself out to be some kind of musical authority who is open-minded and enjoys a bit of everything, Oasis are a band I will never get on board with. It's especially bad because I can't put my finger on it and articulate precisely why I think they're atrocious - they just are. However, there is one song of theirs that seems to offend my senses more than any of the others. Good ol' "Wonderwall".

I don't understand why everyone loves this song. It's repetitive, it's dull, it has one of those awful Gallagher boys badly crooning over it and more than anything, it seems to be the mantra of mindless idiots everywhere. It's more of an anthem for indie drones than "Come As You Are" is for spoilt angsty children. What makes this track especially infuriating is that whenever some drunken-jawed spoonknocker whips out an acoustic guitar in a social situation, "Wonderwall" is the go-to track to inflict upon the unsuspecting crowd.

And everyone knows the words. Everyone, that is, except yours truly. Why? Because it's about as mentally stimulating in the lyrics department as Anne Widdecombe is in the crotchular vicinity. I'm not saying that lyrics need to be deep to be enjoyable - for crying out loud, I listen to Poison.* But what about "Wonderwall" is so memorable in comparison to say "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" or "Here Comes The Sun"? Is it just a matter of relative age? No, because if that was the case, we'd presumably have James Blunt songs forced down our ears... oh wait.

In short, I can't fathom how "Wonderwall" has become so ubiquitous a song. As is probably clear, my reasons for disliking it are flimsy but it bothers me that people armed with guitars refuse to think outside the box and just go for this whiny lament written by an overgrown child. I'd rather you played the worst of Blur's material, at least Damon Albarn can write good songs. Or, you know, stop playing guitar and singing in social situations where all I want to do is enjoy myself.

*Poison are deep, man. To quote the appropriately titled "I Want Action"; "I'm a sucker for a pretty face. I don't care if she's leather or lace 'cause I'm just lookin' for a little kiss." (B. Michaels, 1986:2). Having said that, Bret sort of taints the song with "If I can't have her, I'll take her and make her" (1986:2). Ooh-er, that adds an extra subtext to 'Rock of Love'.

45. Inception and the people who think it's profound

2011-01-09T16:34:00.017Z

^ Xzibit nails it once again. Word.

Wow. This is timely. It's not like this film has been out for months. I even saw it at the cinema. Whatever, e-punctuality isn't my strong point. This will contain a light spoiler or two. Nothing major, though.

Inception is an entertaining film - it has some interesting ideas and some impressive special effects. At the very least, it's certainly worth watching at least once for the pretty pictures. What it is not, however, is clever - or, more accurately, as clever as the mindless hordes who loved it think it is. Take a couple of ideas from The Matrix and execute them through a medium as wishy-washy as dreams, throw in Leonardo Decap Attack* and you've basically got Inception.

There are about forty minutes in the middle of the film that are really good viewing - the concept of dream altering has been boringly established and some kind of plot is actually kicking in. We witness the idea of a dream within a dream and the interactions between the dream levels proves an compelling concept. Once you reach two dream layers in though, stop watching. That's as good as the film will get. At this point, the film trips on its own shoe-lace and face-plants in to a pile of fresh bull excrement, getting caught up in its own nonsensically self-indulgent concepts of dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams WITHIN DREAMS WITHIN DREASFSDGDHKSANFASFDBARBARASTREISAND. It ceases to be clever because the relatively unique concept becomes convoluted in an attempt to come off as more intelligent than it could possibly be.

Then the ending. I'm not going to complain that the film was left on a cliff-hanger, that's fine. If anything, there was no way they could resolve the plot-line considering how contrived in idiocy the film had become by that point. What I can't forgive though is how such an open-ended finale gave ammunition to the relentless internet drones discussing the profundity of the film in an attempt to justify their £10 cinema ticket. People were freeze-framing the final part to (look away if you don't want a spoiler) establish if the children were real and if the spinning top looked like it might fall over. Let it go. If you have nothing better to do with your time than callously take apart the last few seconds of a film and examine whether or not the physics of the spinning top show that it might fall over, then you really need to re-evaluate your life. Do you really think the film makers thought as much about the physics of a spinning top as you did? No, because they have lives, a job, friends, family and leave their house on a daily basis. Take a page from their book and shut up about Inception.

*If anyone knows what Decap Attack is without Googling it, they get a biscuit of their choice from me.

44. New Year's resolutions

2011-01-01T20:03:00.000Z

^ Definitely relate to Calvin's logic here.

New Year's resolutions are pointless simply because there is no value in marking something as arbitrary as the beginning of the year with misguided goals and aims. A person can't just magically reinvent themselves because their calendar has gone from 2010 to 2011. Self-improvement is a gradual process that requires dedication and effort and New Year's resolutions are usually quickly forgotten half-way through January. No one sticks to them - if the resolution they had come up with was so important, they would have started acting upon it earlier, rather than waiting for such a non-event to kick-start it. Resolutions that are forced are doomed to abject failure. If you're out of shape, you'll probably remain unfit in the new year. If you drink too much, nothing about the new year is going to break that habit. If you're unadventurous, you're hardly going to become exciting as soon as the 1st of January strikes. You're still a fat, drunk, boring dolt who nobody loves (I felt that last part probably comes with the other characteristics).

I'm not against setting goals and targets for yourself. On the contrary, I actually think it's a very beneficial process that can really help in the relentless struggle of life. What I am against is the complete lack of thought that comes with New Year's resolutions, as they are only ever really done for the sake of it. The new year means nothing. There is no reason we should all eagerly eye up the clock at 11:59 and count down to the beginning of yet another year. Ultimately, nothing ever changes unless we're proactive. The beginning of the year is not a fresh start, everything remains as putrid as before. Deal with it.

In summary: My New Year's resolution is not to make any New Year's resolutions because New Year's resolutions are moot. If I want to make some semblance of a positive change in my life, I'm not going to wait around for January to get started.

P.S. Happy new year!

43. Shaving off your eyebrows and drawing them back on

2010-12-26T14:30:00.010Z

^ Amanda Palmer is the one exception to this diatribe because she's talented and lovely.

Eyebrows are inherently kind of odd and, as far as I’m aware, only serve purpose in articulating and exaggerating facial expressions. They’re a key facet of comical faces that are, in any other context, ever so slightly distracting. But, just like ears, everyone has them so they don’t look weird (come on, ears are pretty bizarre – if we didn’t all have them, we’d be pretty frightened by those fleshy craters). Occasionally, they’re a bit bushy or inter-connected but that can be remedied quite easily. My Indian hair-itage (see what I did there?) has given me amusingly blunt eyebrows and I’ve learnt to live with them, but I can understand why people might occasionally get a tad self-conscious about their own. However, shaving them off and drawing them back on is not an appropriate reaction to brow-based dissatisfaction.

No matter how quirky your eyebrows are, they will always look like eyebrows. Drawn-on (or worse yet, tattooed) eyebrows do not look like eyebrows. They don’t leave much to the imagination – it’s blindingly clear that you shaved off your eyebrows, grabbed the nearest marker and drew a thin black line, even if your hair isn’t black. I don’t understand how anyone would expect a pen-line to be an effective surrogate for real eyebrows – there’s no hair, it’s completely flat and the fake-brow simply doesn’t move with the eyes the way a normal eyebrow would. Also, you either end up with a freakishly smooth elliptical curve or violently triangular Thomas the Tank Engine eyebrows. You lose all the expression that comes with normal brows and create a hideous caricature of your own face. On your face.

If you’re going to shave off your eyebrows, why stop there? I say you should just start shaving your head and drawing on new hairstyles. It has the same aesthetic value after all. I’m pretty sick of the maintenance that comes with having a light beard, so I’m going to shave it and draw stubbly dots with a biro. Might draw in a jaw line whilst I’m at it. Oh, I’m definitely adding a badass scar over my left eye. After all, apparently ink is an effective way to deal with facial flaws.

Except it isn’t. Shape your eyebrows all you want, but don’t shave them unless you want to look like Pete Burns. I would wager at this point, even Pete Burns doesn’t want to look like Pete Burns. Also, what if your pen runs out? Would you just spend the day wondering around with no eyebrows? I imagine girls in this situation probably have some kind of contingency plan for such emergencies, but I’m secretly hoping they just panic, grab a red pen and hope for the best.

42. Axl Rose

2010-12-24T17:29:00.018Z

^ I know I'm pretty unfashionable, but this really takes the biscuit.

Axl Rose, former singer for seminal rock band Guns N’ Roses, current front-man for tribute act Axl N' The Roses (who occasionally tour under the GN’R moniker), is no stranger to causing trouble. Guns’ most recent tour – a tour in support of an album that came out two yearsago and took fifteen years to make – was plagued with Rose’s standard shenanigans; turning up late, stopping shows in the middle of songs, hilariously over the top tour riders, shouting at people and just generally being a bit of a nuisance.

The latest in a long line of on-going and pathetic controversies sees the bandana-bearing blunder suing Activision for including ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ and Slash in Guitar Hero III. Apparently the issue here is that Activision allegedly lied about making links between the Guns N’ Roses name and Slash himself, the guitarist being probably the only member of Guns N’ Roses who hasn’t reconciled with Axl in any capacity. Axl wants Slash and anything related to him to be treated completely separately from the Guns N’ Roses body, which is essentially saying he wants to rewrite the band’s history. A history that is integral to Axl Rose being able to make any money nowadays – Slash has writing credits on the bulk of the band’s discography. I don’t mind Axl continuing the band but to ride so highly on the heels of its legacy whilst simultaneously refusing to acknowledge some of the key reasons it worked so well seems like Axl cutting off his nose to spite his botoxed face.

One thing I don’t understand, after being in the music business for so long, how does Axl Rose not understand that the only people who lose out in all these shenanigans are the fans? You show up late to your own gig after being repeatedly warned of the promoters’ legal obligation to pull the plug on you after a certain time and you have the audacity to blame the shortened set on the Reading festival organisers. That’s not fair. You could have just showed up on time. One of Axl’s penned lyrics from GN’R’s hey-day sees Rose lambasting the music media for “rippin’ off the fuckin’ kids while they be payin’ their hard earned money” to read about and be involved with their favourite bands. I fail to see how Rose is doing much better when he continues to act like a spoilt adolescent at every opportunity, robbing the dwindling modern day Guns fan-base out of their cash too.

Ultimately, if anyone is unceremoniously urinating over the Guns N’ Roses legacy, it’s Axl. Not Activision, not Slash, not Axl’s merry band of hired guns and hell, not even Steven Adler and his unrelenting need to cling to the past (I don’t think that reunion is happening any time soon, Steven). Just chill out, stop taking yourself so seriously, cease suing everybody and show up on time.

P.S. Also, first the multicolour braids and hockey jerseys. Then the pony-tail braids / goatee combo. And now a fu-manchu. Dude. No.

P.P.S. I realise this is a post that could be summed up as "The Ramblings of a Slash Fanboy", but this is my corner of the internet and I'll be as pompous and self-indulgent as I want. Pout.

Disclaimer: I did see Axl N' The Roses on their most recent tour and it was actually pretty fantastic, despite the lateness. Even Rose himself sounded on top form. I was shocked. They covered Rose Tattoo's 'Nice Boys'. Duff McKagan came on stage. It was magical. Also, please don't sue me, Axl.

41. Deal or No Deal

2010-12-24T15:34:00.004Z

^ This is the only known example of a Deal or No Deal contestant admitting that "it's just a box". Notice the complete emotional melodrama of the entire situation.

I have no idea how it has taken me so long to commit the goatee with a body and his mysterious boxes on to The List. In the words of Kenan & Kel - awwwww, here it goes!

Deal or No Deal is a terrible game-show. It's tantamount to taking the blue-print of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and removing any element of skill or knowledge required in an attempt to give the thickest of the thickies a fighting chance in the world of free money. Basically, the contestants are usually about as sharp as a sack of wet mice*. Rest assured, these people would be rejected from The Weakest Link before they even fill out the application form. They will spend the entire game waxing lyrical about some profound strategy they have developed as part of their game plan, bragging that the mystical link between some poxy lucky numbers and their ability to point at people standing behind red boxes will guarantee them a win. What they fail to realise is the entire game is resistant to a strategy - you're just pointing at boxes in a random order, hoping for one of them to reward your Neanderthal antics with a cash pay out.

Worst of all, this entire process is punctuated by constant bouts of emotionally-charged encouragement from Beardy Noel and the contestants behind the boxes. Frequently, Edmonds and his cohort of lobotomised drones throw out phrases like "you've played a clever game" and "you're very brave" amongst other such lies. There is nothing intelligent or bold about pointing at boxes and waiting for someone to open them. There are no questions to answer, there are no challenges to complete. You're literally flailing your arm and shouting. It's not much of a change of pace to your daily life at the zoo, is it (my implication here being that these people are monkeys or something, except with less excrement flinging... hopefully)?

I don't understand how people get caught up in the "atmosphere". There's nothing tense about the situation, the entire game is a glorified version of eeny-meeny-miney-moe, except EMMM actually serves a purpose. It's like Russian Roulette without any of the consequences. I think perhaps the most telling thing about the contestants' mental capacity is nearly none of them realise a good offer when it is thrown in their face. They're all greedy scrotes who turn down the banker's potential gift of free money because they think they can extort more than that. Thankfully, usually they're cut down to size and have to deal with the crushing humiliation of winning a £1. So that's something.

Also, Noel. I am sick of your idiotic monologues with the banker. You're not charming, funny, charismatic, affable, witty, amusing, beguiling or amiable. You're a creepy sleaze who hits on the contestants and you act like a suspicious uncle who has been ostracised from the main core of the family. What are you hiding behind that dyed goatee, anyway?

*Have I used that phrase on The List before? Answers on a postcard to;

123 I Really Don't Give A Damn Crescent

Originality Is Not My Strong Point Lane
London

NW3 FOAD

40. Nick Clegg

2010-12-24T14:40:00.012Z

^ Close enough.

Bit late on the bandwagon with this one, but then I've never been one for punctuality. Rather than use the same old tired jokes that every real comedian has used over and over (I'm pretty sure Mock The Week's resident unfunny man, Andy Parsons, and his unreal accent have commented that we're under a government that none of us voted for at least nine full years now), I'm just going to run with a nonsensical and nerdy analogy: Nick Clegg is Harvey Dent.

Harvey Dent had principles. Harvey Dent was loved by all. The Clegginator, as he was affectionately known (...by me), had principles too and was loved by many, especially students because of his education related promises. Hell, I hear even Nick Griffin had a little soft spot for the Clegg, but then that's probably just because he's not an ethnic minority. We all knew what to expect with David Cameron - unrelenting misery - but when Cleggy-Cleggy-Gumdrops (I'm running out of silly names) was revealed to be part of the coalition, there was a tiny hope that this government wouldn't be the dreary melancholy we previously thought. But then it happened. Someone threw acid in Clegg's face (or he burnt half of it off in a series of events following his capture by the Joker if you're going by the Dark Knight) and he's gone off the rails. Shedding himself of all the qualities and ideologies that previously made him good, Harvey Clegg is now Two-Face - a super-villain with two faces. Well, two half faces but that's not the point. He has sacrificed all that he once believed to gain power and exact revenge. No longer is he the beacon of positivity he once stood for, instead he is a broken man who has fallen from grace. His face is also hideously scarred and he looks a little unhinged because of it.

There are many flaws with this analogy. Is Cameron the Joker? Does this mean London is Gotham City? Where is the rich vigilante with a utility belt to save the day? Whatever the answer to these questions, one thing still stands: Clegg totally clegged out on us, the two-faced clegg-head.

I might go watch The Dark Knight now.

39. Relentless

2010-12-23T17:48:00.005Z

^ I've never seen a drink desperately try to pander to young people as much as Relentless. Except for Becks. Becks is a shameless tramp.

We all get run down from time to time and need a little boost to continue on with our daily stresses. But no matter how dire your exhaustion may be, never drink Relentless. Never. Once you get past the foul taste of raw jelly and suffering, it's only a short matter of time before you feel the poison's deadly effects. Make no bones about it, you have just drunk pure thunder. Your insides will be shaking with uncomfortable amounts of energy, with the over-jittery sensations slowly rearranging your internal organs and making sure there is no blood left in your caffeine stream. This is unbridled catastrophe in a can - people simply aren't built to consume a pint of sugar mixed with crack (I can only assume one of the ingredients is crack).

Also, the less said about the effects on your bowels, the better. Let's just say you won't enjoy your next trip to the loo. Or the one after. Possibly the one after that too.

38. Twitter

2010-12-23T17:21:00.013Z

^ Hi, we're Twitter. We're so trendy that our logo lacks formal capitalisation. Modern or what?!

In an attempt to get this inane blog some more attention and to just generally whore myself out, I recently joined the dysfunctional e-family that is Twitter. However, shortly after advertising my own non-achievements I just started following a bunch of celebrities and what not that I was interested in. For a while, it was bliss. I was relishing in the constant updates of the lifestyle of Ginger from the Wildhearts and finding out what financial ventures Gene Simmons was moving in to (turns out, it was all of them - Gene has his finger in every pie, both figuratively and literally). It turns out some of my friends had Twitter, so I had yet another channel in which I could spew pointless and uncalled commentary about their lives at them. Then, as my university developed one of the strongest student protest occupations, I watched a talented group of tweeters use Twitter and its social networking prowess to develop and nurture an entire cultural movement from their finger-tips. It was fascinating.

Yesterday, the honeymoon period ended. I was reading the tweets of one of my favourite directors and funny-men, Mr. Kevin Smith (of Clerks, Chasing Amy & Dogma fame), expecting to get some kind of witty insight in to the world of comic-book-movie-nerdery. Instead, I learnt an awful lot about the man's masturbation habits. Apparently, he makes frequent withdrawals from the Barclays bank account on a daily basis. Apparently, he uses a "Fleshlight". Apparently, he can't wait for his wife sometimes so the "Fleshlight" does the trick. Apparently, that's just his preference. Apparently, all his fans needed to know this. Apparently, this isn't going to enter my mind every time I watch Clerks from now on.

Twitter is good and all but it really does bring the fan far too close to the talent. Artists, musicians, comedians, directors etc. all lose some of their mystique when you follow them on Twitter. Especially when they talk about churning the foreskin butter. Grim.

37. People who buy band shirts for their babies

2010-12-23T16:25:00.006Z

^ I bet you this baby knows nothing of Metallica's early material. He wasn't around in 1983, he'll never 'get' thrash.

I understand parents have full control as to what their babies or young children wear. That's fair enough, they're kids - they have no mental conception as to how to put clothes on, let alone make decisions about what kind of clothes would suit them. The standard result of this is a bunch of aesthetically challenged children - for formal occasions at some point during the deepest, darkest depths of the early '90s, my mother used to dress me and my older brother in matchingly over-the-top green, black and gold waist-coats and ridiculously smart trousers. I think we also boasted some dashing suspenders. Needless to say, we looked ridonkulous. Not that we don't nowadays, but at least we now look silly by our volition.

Fashion crimes aside, I think we can all agree this is standard practice. But one thing I will never understand is babies in band t-shirts. Most people start wearing band t-shirts when they're a thirteen year old twollox who thinks their opinion in music is important and has to be expressed at every given opportunity, especially so via the medium of clothes. Some of us never outgrow this phase (at this point, I should point out I'm wearing a Dr. Feelgood era Mötley Crüe t-shirt - it's quite fetching) and that's okay, as our status of 'man-child' will seamlessly lead in to our autumn years of 'awkward dad'. But what about the babies who can't properly formulate opinions on what music they might like? Should you really be damning them to an existence filled with ridicule and shame so early on in life? It's going to be hard enough being your offspring as it is, without you gussying them up in an assortment of black tops.

It's like those religious fundamentalists who indoctrinate their children with molten hatred, except this time with socially unacceptable bands*. Wear all the Megadeth t-shirts you want, but until your child learns the difference between KISS and Lordi, don't use them as yet another vehicle to express your misguided love for rock. If you're not careful, when they grow up a bit and start rebelling, you'll have to put up with a lot of free-form jazz. And don't pretend you're open-minded and like free-from jazz. You're not. You've just been parading the fruit of your loins around in a Motörhead shirt in the vain attempt to reaffirm your maligned status as "rock fan".

*This is a major exaggeration. It's pretty bad, but probably not that bad.

**If I ever have children, they're blatantly going to listen to mainstream noughties R&B exclusively as a form of rebellion. I will disown them the moment I hear Kanye West.

36. Communal showers

2010-12-06T20:52:00.016Z

^ I thought using the Socially Awkward Penguin would be less horrifying that slamming "communal showers" in to Google Image Search

Today, I learnt that there is nothing more intensely awkward than running in to someone you know in a communal shower. Enough said.

35. Mondays

2010-11-29T20:55:00.019Z

^ I feel like I live somewhere in-between Office Space and Clerks

It's Sunday morning. You wake up, realising you don't have any job / education commitments for the day and lazily lay your head back down before it truly hits you. It's Sunday. This is your last day of weekend-based freedom before the weekday slog kicks in and begins the gradual process of chipping away what few fragments remain of your disillusioned soul. So, really, you better make the best of it.

It's Sunday afternoon. You're awake again. You have wasted your entire morning in bed and achieved none of the things you intended to by this point. And that's okay, because it's Sunday. You lazily make a fry-up to eat the pain away. Delicious. It dawns on you again though, that tomorrow is Monday. Better make the best of your free time.

It's 5pm. You've spent the day thus far playing Robot Unicorn Attack and re-watching episodes of the unrelenting mediocrity that is How I Met Your Mother. You think about dinner and pittle away your time by tapping away on the internet. Ooh, 2 notifications, how grand!

Somehow, it's Monday morning. You're up at the crack of dawn, you've had about five broken hours of sleep and the slog begins. You feel your jaw crack as you hear that unceremoniously violent alarm shatter your ears. You remember you spent last night illegally watching Piranha 3D (in 2D) and drinking. The morning is brutal. It's dark outside. Your eyes are crusted over with sleep and your vision doesn't want to kick in. Your legs are useless. You fall over your bag and spill that glass of water you keep by the bed. Ooh, crumbs. After making a coffee, you decide to turn on your laptop. Leslie Nielsen's dead. A significant part of your childhood dies with him.

You eventually muster the courage to leave the house. It is as cold as Hell would be if O.J. Simpson was actually innocent. You're wearing at least four layers and yet your nipples could cut glass - double-glazed glass, at that. Your nipples are too powerful for this time of morning.

You're at the bus stop. You notice there's an awful lot of people waiting for the bus. Oh, it's a Tube strike. Of course. You have to wait for a couple of buses. When you finally get on a bus, you are sandwiched between two unsavoury characters with an odour so offensive, it's like the smell took your nostrils outside and beat them up with a lead pipe stolen from a sewage plant.

You realise this is all before you have even reached your institution of choice for the day. You have an entire day of this tripe to put up with.

No other day assaults every one of your senses so aggressively in the space of the first hour of being awake. You become fully aware of the entire gravitas of the situation. You have a terrible case of the Mondays.

You write on your to-do list "buy wine and cookies before heading home".

You wait as five buses pass. You lose the ability to write coherent sentences. Banana hammock. You start writing entries for your inane blog.

34. The emptiness of crisp packets

2010-11-29T20:31:00.008Z

^ "MAX deep ridge"!? That's what she said. I think. I don't know, I don't do innuendo very well...

You know that feeling you get, when you crave a bit of a potato-based snack and only something crispy will suffice? It's a strong one, so you take a detour in to the nearest newsagent and there it is; a big packet of Doritos. Lovely. The bag's pretty generously sized; there's a lot of spicy, corn-laden pseudo-nachos in there. You could save some for later. I mean, a bag of that voolume is really intended for several people. You could divvy a few out amongst your friends and still have some left over. So, you drop the newsagent one of your precious pound sterlings and leave the shop, excited about the snackery that is about to unfold.

And then you open the bag. A waft of tasty smelling air escapes and you excitedly examine the contents of your purchase. Four sullen tortilla chips and a lot of silver foil. If you're lucky, maybe a small pile of conglomerate flavourings at the bottom.

I. What? Gaaaaaaaaaah.

Words cannot express my disappointment when this happens. To this day, I naively expect big bags of crisps to contain lots of crisps - at least an amount in line with how big the bag is - but all I find within is Kate Moss' daily calorific intake (I'm making the somewhat crass assumption that a single Twiglet is too much for the Moss to take). I am a man, not a fashionable stick of a woman, and I demand my crisp packets be filled with "food" that will permanently damage my body. I am sick of bags of foil that gleam with disappointment, their shiny innards reflecting my crushed culinary hopes. My inner child needs nourishment.

(N.B. I was a fat child).

33. Tube strikes

2010-11-29T20:08:00.008Z

^ I have spent over three quarters of my life living in London and I have yet to see this.

So, the London Underground (or "The Tube" as those of us within the accurately titled "Big Smoke" call it) was out of bounds today due to yet another strike. Now, I don't tend to take the Tube very often to travel around, so it certainly didn't affect me on that level of inconvenience. But, whilst I feel that the strikes are inconsiderate at best (I refuse to debate whether or not I think they're justified), my beef isn't with the train drivers (I say drivers, but those things drive themselves - I'm not really sure why there are people employed to witness that). My initial sirloin* lies with the appalling organisation of TFL, who don't see it fit to run more buses to deal with the huge amount of extra bus travellers that occur during a Tube strike. But the ever-so-slightly-unhinged sets of Londoners don't half make it worse.

*23p to who sees what I did there.

Every time there is a Tube strike, London seems to collapse in to some adolescent fury where would-be grown ups throw temper tantrums because of the, admittedly frustrating, process of getting home. Waiting for several buses before one with enough room for you to awkwardly squeeze yourself in turns up is, unfortunately, part and parcel of the striking process. It's annoying, it's aggravating and ultimately, disappointing when you eventually end up on a bus filled to the brim with sour-faced people and screaming babies (such as the trusty 134 I took back today). But never before had I seen a bus driver flip the bird at someone. He was more than entitled to though, seeing as a 30+ woman repeatedly tried to smash the door of the bus down when he was physically unable to let more people on to it. Don't take it personally lady, there's a lot of people trying to get home - God forbid, you have to wait for another bus like everybody else has for the last hour. She's not the only one, mind. I saw a man on Tottenham Court Road repeatedly hit a taxi with some kind of pipe because the driver wasn't letting him in. Well, putting a few major dents in his cab was certainly going to warm you to your charms, wasn't it? I bet you're a riot at parties. Literally.

I understand the annoyance of trying to get home in a timely manner. Really, I do. I had a horrific time on the bus today. Truly terrible. But, despite my relative youth in comparison to the wealth of people I saw throwing their proverbial toys out of the pram this evening, I accepted that it was a bad situation and I would have to deal with it. As did many other fellow travellers who, although clearly pissed off, managed to channel their energies in to not exacerbating the already stressful situation. If there's one thing I've learnt living in London, it's that someone always wants to make the experience worse for everyone else because they're too mentally unable to comprehend that everything won't always go their way. These people should have their Oyster cards revoked.

32. Life

2010-10-24T14:55:00.004+01:00

^I have moved beyond static images. Watch / listen to this whilst reading for that extra degree of interaction.

An awfully broad and nihilistic addition to the List, I know but bear with me. Your life is spent ultimately doing a bunch of things you don’t want to do for a small segment of people who somehow maintain authority over you, who in turn are doing the exact same thing for their superiors and so on and so forth. From the age of 4 until you hit 18, you are a child of the school system and the property of your parents – that’s fine and all but you always entertain the feeling, especially once you hit adolescence, that when you leave school, you can strike out on your own and make something of your life.

You eventually make it to university, which ultimately becomes an exercise in bitter social politics, badly organised departments and degrees essentially worthless in anything but name. If you actually aim to succeed, you spend a huge amount of time slogging through badly written books, writing essays that do little more than rehash and re-articulate the safe, tried and tested ideas of prior academics in order to fit the variety of arbitrary deadlines that control your life and watch as everyone else around you has all the fun. If you attempt to have some of this aforementioned fun however, you fail spectacularly and end up cementing a career in staying home and watching Jeremy Kyle without a TV licence. So, hopefully, after university, you’ll get a job and you can finally start living life on your own terms.

Wrong. Job satisfaction is a fictional concept. Instead, you will whittle away the rest of your life ticking boxes and earning enough pittance to sustain your meagre existence. Throughout these experiences, there may be small smatterings of enjoyment but these will almost always be crushed like a paper cup by the monstrous hand of reality; its Kung-fu grip perforating and crumbling the very foundations of life satisfaction.

The only time you are somewhat liberated from the shackles of education and career is retirement. But by the time you hit retirement, you’ve had to work yourself to the bone and are left unhealthy and incontinent, unable to truly enjoy your emancipation. You can barely eat the gruel you are now fed and your body continually taunts you as your mind remains perfectly intact, a prisoner of the tool it once used to make its mark on a world.

Freedom certainly isn’t free. It’s just a shame the cost is your life. But without that ‘life’, you’re unable to enjoy the freedom. It’s like paying for a toaster with the only loaf of bread you’ll ever have (or some other metaphor that is equally pretentious and poorly thought out). Or to quote Twisted Sister, “It’s a life we gotta choose and the price is our own life until it’s done”. Deep, Dee Snider. Deep.

31. Facebook relationship statuses

2010-10-24T12:32:00.004+01:00

^ And the prize for creepiest status comment goes to Long Black Bar.

Facebook is a blessing and a curse in that it can be used to maintain contact with people you like and it can also remind you that there is absolutely no hope for humanity. One particular aspect of Facebook profiles that bothers me is that of the 'relationship status'. I don’t have a major problem with people being listed as ‘single’ or ‘in a relationship’. That's fine, if a little bit pointless / encouraging of further e-stalking. What does bother me is that those aren't the only options.

Firstly, we have 'in an open relationship' - no one cares if you and your partner are oh, so modern and confident in each other that your relationship is open to the addition of third parties or casual bits-on-the-side - the fact that you have to exert your dubious relationship arrangements on a large forum of people you (hopefully) know in the real world is creepy at best. Are you attempting to find your extras on Facebook? Even worse however is the the e-cry for attention that is 'it's complicated'. If your relationship status can only be described as ‘complicated’, why even bother putting up a status? Saying you’re ‘in a relation but it’s complicated’ is equivalent to walking up to a group of people and immediately interrupting with “OMG GUYS LAVISH ME WITH ATTENTION MY BOYFRIEND SOOOO DOESN'T GET ME”. I do not wish to lavish you with attention. Instead I wish for you to take a long walk off a very short pier. Whilst wearing concrete shoes.

30. The overuse and non-existent profundity of the phrase 'I am'

2010-10-16T14:30:00.016+01:00

^ This picture is effectively self-definition for skid-marks on humanity.

I am my parents. I am my brother. I am the teacher who failed me. I am your best friend in primary school. I am the scar on my forehead. I am the collection of CDs adorning my shelf. I am your fellow man. I am your disgruntled post-man. I am everyone. I am sticking with you. I am what I am. I am everywhere. I am a camera. I am Iron Man. I am the winter of your discontent. I am the most important thing about parliament. I am Bootsy Collins. I am proud of my Parliament joke. I am appalling advertising campaigns. I am a man, not a disco ball. I'm the man. I am a robot sent from the future. I am incontinent. I am the internet. I am in your base, shooting your dudes. I am this blog. I am half human, half robot and half kangaroo. I am setting us up the bomb. I am the law. I am watching you whilst you sleep. I am Grover. I am so omniscient that if there were to be two omnisciences, I would be both of them. I am shipping up to Boston. I am a rock. I am because we are. I am eighteen. I am not okay (I promise). I am a vagabond. I am (I'm me). I am broken. I am the Hitcher. I am the hell outta here. I am the warlock. I am legend - out for blood.

I am wholly unable to define myself and realise who I am as a human being without a variety of soulless marketing campaigns nonsensically trying to define me through a mix of "touching" moments and terrible music. I am enraged by the lack of creativity in modern day advertising. I am hitting the keys on my keyboard really hard right now. I am going to need a new keyboard.

29. People who are more socially awkward than me

2010-10-10T17:32:00.013+01:00

^ I just looked at around twenty of these 'Socially Awkward Penguin' things and was able to relate to at least 19.3. Oh dear.

Like any nerd exposed to the outside world, I spend a lot of my time fumbling through conversations with people I have no real desire to talk to but am forced to thanks to the constraints of social etiquette. That's fine though. Whilst I rarely initiate the conversation, I've managed to get this 'small talk' thing down to an art - a greeting, ask how they are in a the manner of an 80s sitcom character ("What's shakin'?" and "How's it hanging, brosef?" are two such colloquialisms that help me fit in) and exchange general banal pleasantries before finally making polite excuses and scurrying away from further interaction. Because most people are far more adept than me at communicating with one another, any degree of awkwardness in the conversation is made up for by the other person's understanding of the communicative process. It's not a great conversation, but it's functional. However, I've met people who are worse at these inane exchanges than me and let me tell you, what ensues is not pleasant. (You will be able to tell who I am in this example through my use of bodacious vernacular).

"Hey man, what's shakin'?"

"Not a lot."

"Oh."

"..."

"This is the point where you reciprocate the question, you potato."

If you don't have the rudimentary skills to even return the question "How are you?", you should not be allowed to converse with other people. You should stay in your room, watching television shows online and vicariously living through the cast of How I Met Your Mother until you learn how to be around real people.

Shockingly, this can be made worse. There is a specific breed of the socially awkward that are blind to their own conduct and appear, as if from nowhere, at the most inopportune moments. They are poised for inaction, ready to harass you with statements that stop conversations dead in their tracks. These Surprise-Awks (look, I'm not good at naming things) will join you in a group situation, interrupt what you're saying and then proceed to talk only to you, ignoring the other members of the conversation. They pull you away from your friends and force you to interact with them whilst everyone else continues the discussion you were once part of. Eventually, your forced private exchange will die out and you will return to the larger discussion at whole - only for you to say something and the Surprise-Awk to drop another comment meant exclusively for your ears, thus destroying any fluidity of group debate. It's pretty simple; if you can't engage with more than one person at once, don't attempt to. Stop ruining one of my few moments of sociality with your ridiculously unhelpful comments about nothing.

28. People who say 'arks' instead of 'ask'

2010-10-10T17:18:00.003+01:00

^ These are arks. Are you a particularly big fan of them or something?

Honestly, I don't even know what to say about this one. Whatever semblance of logic behind saying 'arks' instead of 'ask' eludes me. And yet, it only ever occurs with the word 'ask' - I've never heard someone say 'tarks' instead of 'task'. You can't just rearrange and add more letters to a word, that destroys the function of language. Rest assured, if you say 'arks', you're responsible for lowering the country's collective IQ. I hope you're proud of yourself, you arks.*

*The joke here is that 'arks' sounds a little bit like 'arse'. I'm trying to provide you with humour that you'd be able to understand.

27. Living alone

2010-09-20T13:21:00.009+01:00

^ Look at how lonely this bear is. This is you living alone.

Shared accommodation can be a struggle at times. Even if you’re friends with all your flat-mates, living with them is always a very different process. It’s not like you come to dislike them as a person, but often the best of friends merely have rather incompatible living styles. It’s one of those intangible, wishy-washy “facts” of life. You simply learn unexpected things about them, the kind of things that only occur in a living environment. Banal things, like they're always using the telly when you want to watch Eastenders or their right foot clicks when they walk, creating audible discomfort akin to Chinese water torture. Having dealt with situations like that, you’d assume that you’d relish living alone. The independence, the freedom, the not having to deal with petty squabbles, the ability to wash dishes and tidy up on your own terms. It truly sounds glorious.

But no. No, it isn’t. There is nothing worse than being in a flat or house by yourself for an extended period of time. After the honeymoon period of a day or two, you are unceremoniously forced to deal with the reality that you’re just not that self-sufficient a person. You can’t entertain and look after yourself without any kind of outside stimulation. You are boring. Without other people in your house, you are nothing. You are a shell of inactivity, no longer motivated to exist due to a complete lack of human interaction. Dishes pile up as no one makes you feel shame for being such a slob. You start talking to yourself to make up for the lack of impromptu conversations you were used to before. Ultimately, for every little fight over late bills and dirty laundry you no longer have to suffer, you also lose every enjoyable aspect of cohabitation. No one to talk about your pointless day with, no one to have a couple of drinks with... hell, you can’t even actively ignore your flat-mates anymore because they’re not there.

Living alone for any period more than a few days will make you acutely aware that you are tedious, unsociable hermit who is afraid to leave the house for fear of needing to shave and having the dappling sun scorn your unhealthily pasty skin.

26. Cold reading

2010-09-20T12:56:00.012+01:00

^ Hi, my name is Derek Acorah and I make appalling television shows like 'Michael Jackson Séance'. I also look like a greasy owl.

Cold reading is a despicable practice as far as I’m concerned. Often used to falsely convince people that they are communicating with their loved ones who have passed on, it is the epitome of emotional exploitation. If you’re not familiar with it, I suggest you watch this for a very good explanation (it's lengthy, but if you're reading this you clearly have nothing better to do with your life). The people who claim they have this supernatural power to talk to the dead are, of course, pathetically obvious charlatans; their only real skill being that they know how to manipulate an audience of people through the use of deliberately vague language and adapting it quickly should things not go their way. Now, most people in a rational state of mind should, I hope, be able to see right through their crooked game but that’s perhaps the most sinister thing about cold reading. You’re not attempting to manipulate the rational, the ones who’d be able to pick up on your inadequate fumblings in the dark. You’re picking on those who are emotionally drained from mourning and aren’t in the right frame of mind to dismiss your antics. Your shadows and mirrors merely provide horribly false hope that makes your victim's ultimate realisation of closure even more painful.

There’s no shame in trying to provide hope to the empty hearted in need of it. There is however much shame in lying to the vulnerable to line your own empty pockets.

25. People who don't get urinal etiquette

2010-09-20T12:38:00.015+01:00

^ If I ever run a pub (very unlikely), this will adorn the male loos. Picture shamelessly stolen from somewhere on Google Image Search.

This is a problem that has plagued me for years and one I don’t think gets addressed properly in our repressed society. A male toilet typically consists of several urinals in which you can empty your bladder. Simple enough. If there are three urinals, you use either one on the furthest side. That way, should someone else enter, they will take the opposite side and there will be a polite one-urinal buffer zone between you two. Should someone else come in, they’ll take the empty spot and you’ll have to make do. That’s fine, that’s life. You deal.

But sometimes someone takes the centre spot when the sides haven’t been filled. You have a situation where there is no polite buffer zone and instead an uncomfortably close pissing session made worse by the mockingly empty urinal on the far side. I was once in an empty six urinal toilet (fancy, I know) and chose an innocuous spot on one side to drain the lizard. Someone else comes in and stands directly next to me, despite there being five more empty toilets. Right next to me. That’s just antagonistic. It’s like he wanted to challenge me to a urination contest. I don’t even know what that would entail but it sounds inappropriate. Needless to say, I got stage fright and had to pretend I was peeing until he left. Awkward.

And yes, I am this neurotic.

24. The repetitiveness of sketch shows

2010-09-20T12:18:00.016+01:00

^ Every once in a while, I just sit in my room shouting random numbers, waiting for someone to tell me that it's Numberwang. It's a very lonely game.

I used to really love sketch shows but after a while, you realise they’re all the same thing. They find one or two sketches that are moderately funny and repeat them for an entire series, barely editing the premise of the joke in order to establish some continuity of a catchphrase and character. This occasionally works well (That Mitchell & Webb Look’s ‘Numberwang’) and more often than not, becomes tired and annoying (That Mitchell & Webb Look’s ‘Numberwang’). Sketch shows are increasingly devoid of original sketches, depending on a small set of scenarios that they hope to repeat ad infinitum until you reach the point where you watch an entire series only to notice that every episode of it was indistinguishable from the last. It’s not even like the series are long – what, about six episodes per series? And you’re telling me you couldn’t come up with six episodes worth of original material? Then you shouldn’t be making a sketch show. Come back when you’ve got enough material for a series and until then, stop taking the easy way out.

Oh, and whilst we’re on the topic, yes Catherine Tate, I am bothered. I am bothered by the putrid visual display you call ‘The Catherine Tate Show’. You’re about as funny as a hernia*.

*Joey having a hernia in Friends is the exception to the rule 'hernias aren't funny'.

23. The relentless arrogance of Richard Dawkins

2010-08-19T19:52:00.014+01:00

^ Dawkins is the kind of guy who is proud of his own gas expulsions due to the source of origin being himself.

I am a staunch atheist. I don't believe there is God and I find it a sobering thought that when I'm dead, my inner-self will not continue to live. My body will become part of the Earth's matter* and the only sense of eternal life I will be privy to will be through being remembered as a rambling idiot by the dwindling few who tolerated my presence. My views on this are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future and I honestly find it difficult to understand how people can have such a strongly held faith in a God or an afterlife. But unlike Richard Dawkins, I'm willing to accept that difference of opinion.

Richard Dawkins is an extremely intelligent man, that I can't deny. Whilst perhaps not the most original thinker, he has an almost unrivalled ability to synthesise the ideas of his contemporaries in a well articulated and comprehensible manner - something best exemplified by his book, "The Selfish Gene". An extensive study of the theories behind genetics, Dawkins provided one of the most important texts of the late 20th century which explained the science with such expertise and clarity that it can provide an interesting read for those not great with biology (such as yours truly). But even reading "The Selfish Gene", one thing is abundantly clear over everything else; Dawkins is a cocky funt. Every concept is lathered in layers of unrelenting, self-congratulatory arrogance and the often intelligent morsels that don't conform to Dawkins' ideal are regarded as little more than the intellectual drool of the mentally deficient.

It comes as no surprise then that, when discussing religion, Dawkins is just as much of an egotistical sod about the entire affair as he is with genetics. Whilst I fundamentally agree with most, if not all, of Dawkins' views, having someone as arrogant and dismissive as one of the poster-boys for atheism leads me to understand why non-believers are often portrayed as overwhelmingly intolerant and culturally insensitive. I almost want to disagree with his writings just because he's such a dick about everything. I respect Dawkins' conviction in his views, but I'm far from respecting him. Until he realises that other people are as entitled to their own opinions as he is, I'd really rather not have to suffer his conceited diatribes.

And yes, I am aware of the crippling sense of irony surrounding me criticising someone for being arrogant in the way they write. My only defence is I'm not a hugely successful writer who gets a lot of television time; I'm a long haired nerd who sits in his bedroom watching a lot of TV, drinking Pepsi Max and avoiding day light.

*Well, not straight away. First, I fully intend for my body to be taxidermed into a surfing pose so that at my open casket funeral, when the coffin is carried down the church aisle, it'll look like I'm riding a sick wave (the pallbearers will be dressed in blue). Also, everyone will get a photo with my surfer dude corpse.

22. Using "would of" instead of "would have"

2010-08-18T21:38:00.012+01:00

^ An extract from the next Twilight book

Now, I am a perpetual 'grammar Nazi'* and I realise that my constant years of language correction are going to result in a horribly embarrassing experience where I write 'their' instead of 'there' in some article and get ridiculed for the rest of my life. But hey, that's karma. In the meantime however, I am going to continue to correct people until they learn each and every inconsistency of their patchwork language and brandish them in whichever part of the brain handles grammar rules.

On that note, every time I read 'would of' instead of 'would have', a part of what little remains of my soul dies. I understand where it's arisen from and there is some logic behind it. If you were speaking the abbreviated form of 'would have', you'd say "would've" which sounds an awful lot like 'would of'. So, working from the spoken representation, you would end up writing 'would of'. But surely, at some point, you'd look at 'would of' and think "Wait a second. 'Of' doesn't have the same meaning as 'have'. What have I been doing with my life?!" I'll tell you what you've been doing. You've been losing SPAG** marks on every essay, exam and academic piece you've ever written. I hope you're proud of yourself, you git-wizard.

*For the two of you have not heard this term before, it effectively means that I am as passionate about the difference between 'your' and 'you're' as Hitler was about the difference between Aryans and normal humans... possibly with less genocide.

**Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar as opposed to spag-bog. Mmmm.

21. Andrew Lloyd Webber

2010-08-18T21:27:00.007+01:00

^ "Yes, Dorothy... Now you are mine," Andrew thought to himself. He dared not utter the words for fear that they may be used against him as evidence in court at a later date.

Not to be needlessly cruel, but merely looking at Andrew Lloyd Webber gives me the chills. His face looks like it was drawn on an empty balloon that was only blown up to three quarters its capacity. Unfortunately, the only way to distract people from its rubbery hideousness was to stick a couple of distracting moustaches above his lifeless eyes. But I can't hold that against him, it's not his fault I'd rather jam a fork in my cornea than have to witness his unnervingly menacing smile ever again.

What I can hold against him is his shameless love of money. "Over The Rainbow" was bad enough. There was something clearly quite wrong about seeing Webber residing over young, impressionable women and casting judgement on them from his throne of perversion. Coupled with Graham Norton's presence, the entire thing was effectively an exercise in making the creepiest family-orientated show possible. But now, the Webber machine has seen it fit to make a sequel to his acclaimed "Phantom of the Opera" musical. This would be all well and good if the storyline to "Phantom of the Opera" was his to sequelise. But it's not. It's Gaston Lereox's.

Now, I don't necessarily mind the musical of Phantom of the Opera, but suffice to say it was a complete bastardisation of the original novel, somehow transforming it from a bleak tragedy about a hideously rapey stalker kidnapping a singer in to a proto-Twilight tale of romance and beauty coming from within. It was a vaguely similar story at least and both had closure in their ending. But it's as if Andrew just wasn't happy enough with sullying Lereox's legacy enough. The fact that he has written "Love Never Dies" just goes to show that anyone's creative product, no matter how brilliant it may be, is at risk of being regurgitated time and time again by those devoid of their own ideas in the interest of milking the decaying udders of a half-dead cash cow.

P.S. I realise I'm actually very late with this complaint, but it had been quietly bubbling inside of me for a good few months before I was able to articulate my pretentious rage.

P.P.S. I just found out that at around a decade ago, Paul Stanley of KISS starred in a production of "Phantom of the Opera". I really hope he was wearing his Starchild make up for it.

20. Superfluous language with no real purpose

2010-08-09T11:17:00.009+01:00

^ I wanted to make the guy on the right look intelligent. Intelligent people wear top hats, right?

To be fair mate, at the end of the day, this language proper serves no purpose. Don't get me wrong, but to be honest, no offence or nothing and with all due respect, it is what it is and all this and all that. You know what I mean?

No, actually. I don't know what you mean because you speak like a lobotomised ninnyhammer, bescumbered by your own verbal inadequacy. I would love to continue insulting you, but I don't think you'd understand.

19. Broadsheet newspapers

2010-08-08T22:21:00.015+01:00

^ This is a genuine photo of me attempting to read a broadsheet. Notice how needlessly large it is.

We all know that the modern media and its fear-mongering depiction of the world is inaccurate, biased and frankly ridiculous. But few of us acknowledge the bigger problem with the modern newspaper. Forget the lies, forget the Daily Fail led scandals, the real issue comes down to size.*

I was recently in an airport where my flight had been delayed and I took it upon myself to read the Financial Times. "Ah, current events," I thought. "How scholarly." I read the front page. The article was quite compelling and like a sucker, I proceeded on to open the paper and continue reading. School boy error, the bloody thing attacked me. There I was, sitting in the departure gate of Cologne-Bonn, being swallowed alive by pink pages of text whilst a middle aged Asian woman gazed at me, judging my inability to hold the newspaper properly. After five whole minutes of loud rustling, I managed to refold the paper and sheepishly returned it to the shelf. I sat back down and ate duty free M&Ms for the next hour. Arguably, time better spent.

I honestly do not understand how broadsheets became a standardised sizing. It's as if they were invented by a socially aware sect of human-giant hybrids (I was going to say they were created by full blooded giants, but giants are probably too big for broadsheet newspapers; I'm nonsensical, but damn it, I'm logical). Whenever I try to read a broadsheet newspaper however, I am caught adrift in a mess of trying to unfold the thing, keeping it up right and not becoming engulfed by the low quality paper. Now, admittedly, this might be something to do with my impressive stature of 3"5', but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking these newspapers are impractically large to read. I'd genuinely read physical newspapers more often if it wasn't for the effort. It's design flaws like this that lead people to get their misinformation from Fox "News". I hope whoever designed broadsheets is proud of that.

*Obligatory "That's what she said!"

18. Twilight and its depiction of vampires

2010-08-07T18:32:00.000+01:00

^ No, I didn't draw this but yes, it is amazing.

Yes, I know it's oh-so fashionable to rip on Twilight nowadays and yes, there's a wealth of people who do a much better job at it than I ever could (for instance, Alex Reads Twilight on Youtube basically sums up why Stephanie Meyer is a disgrace of an author - the mind boggles how she got her sloppily written emotional-porn published). But I have one particular gripe with the book / film / dried out cash cow - its utterly dull depiction of vampires.

Vampires are a fascinating sect of folk lore. Whilst of course rarely more than fictitious, vampires have often been used as the central subject for a plethora of literary materials that air the grievances of their chronological context. For instance, sustaining themselves on the blood of the living has always lent vampires the ability to make comment on a society's repressed sexual tension. Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' made a point of this and focussed itself succinctly on Victorian anxieties as a whole, bringing in themes of immigration, cultural amalgamation and patriarchy via the medium of the titular character and his impact on Whitby, England. It even went as far as to cleverly use the vampyric infection as a metaphor for the Victorian concerns over syphilis and disease in general.

But pretentious intellectualism aside, the vampire is unanimously a creature that instils fear. They are intelligent, high class and strong as shown in a wealth of different materials; Dracula, Castlevania, Blade - hell, even True Blood at least makes them a bit of a bad-ass. How does Twilight portray vampires? As uninteresting emo children who are incapable of functioning beyond nonsensical love interests. Stephanie Meyer is lost in a world of pseudo-gothic imagery and 14 year old girl romances. Vampires don't sparkle and fall in love with overtly depressed girls called Bella, they feast on people and attempt to deal with some kind of inner struggle.

It has been argued that vampires are often used to air the anxieties of of their time. I sincerely hope this doesn't apply to Twilight, as that means the most important concerns our society can muster are angst ridden tendencies of non-expression and pale men with greasy hair.

17. Loose Women

2010-07-15T18:28:00.011+01:00

^ This looks like an advert for possibly the worst sitcom ever made

I honestly don't feel I should waste too much of my time disseminating this trash, so I'll keep this one short and sweet.

Whoever decided to pitch the idea of assorted muttons badly made up as lambs discussing their vapid "insights" on topics as varied as men, social affairs, sex, men, current events, television, faux-feminism and men is a toy short of a Happy Meal. It never ceases to amaze me how these talentlessly gobby women have yet to discuss just how pointless their air time on television is. When it comes to day-time telly, I'd much rather watch that sociopath in a suit, Jeremy Kyle, callously tear people apart emotionally than listen to the grating middle-aged cackles of the Loose Women panel making appalling sexual innuendo and fawning over whatever man appears before them. Way to push feminism back 70 years, I guess Emmeline Pankhurst did all those hunger strikes for nothing.

16. "Metal-heads"

2010-07-07T20:25:00.018+01:00

^ Anyone who describes themselves as a "metal head" will probably make this "grim" pose at every photo opportunity

Okay, so you're a fan of Megadeth. Fair enough, they’re one of the leading pioneers of the thrash metal movement. So you grow your hair out, you rip some jeans, buy a leather jacket and generally look like you’ve walked out of the 1980s, presenting an image that is both incredibly un-trendy and effectively a parody of itself. That’s fine, you can look like what you want. Not that I can ever judge, I look somewhere between a member of Guns N’ Roses, a librarian and Snoopy.

However, when you become an elitist metal fan (usually, the self-titled "metal-head"), that's when you instantly become a bad person. First is the superiority complex that embodies metal-heads regarding their genre of choice, belittling every other musical style as below metal. But then, metal is hardly an original genre, founding itself on a white appropriation of the blues and like any musical style, it has been dependent on the influence of others to sustain it. Effectively, to play the “But that group isn’t METAL so they’re bollocks! Metal is the best genre out there YEAH FUCKING SLAYEERRRRRR” card is as pointless as a circle.

This entire thing is further exacerbated by the metal-head social circle (or what I have wittily dubbed "the socio-circle pit"). I understand the concept of having friends of similar taste, but "true" metal-heads will surround themselves exclusively with other "true" metal-heads. Through the aforementioned 'holier music taste than thou' attitude, metal-heads effortlessly project their unwillingness to deign themselves to the level of other music fans. The result? A group of friends who are as intolerant and insular as they are nerdy and desperately alone. At this point in your life, you may as well just introduce yourself to people as a narrow minded prick who has nothing better to do than sit in a dark room examining your vinyl collection of ‘true metal’ bands whilst multi-tasking the slagging off of anything that doesn’t depend on dual guitar leads on an internet forum and masturbating over pictures of barely passable girls wearing Iron Maiden t-shirts.

15. Spoilt students

2010-07-07T20:08:00.008+01:00

^ I don't approve of using the cane on children, but it should definitely be instated amongst 18-23 year olds who have yet to show any modicum of acting their age.

Being a student is an increasingly common thing nowadays. But rather than rant about the complete over-saturation of degrees and the worthlessness of many of them (yes, pot and kettle analogies are very relevant in my case), I have chosen to pick on the students. Not all students, mind. Contrary to the stereotype, many are hard-working and, whilst possibly getting ridiculously "crunk" too often (I heard that term on the street), appear to be vaguely dedicated to their degree and achieving something. Unfortunately, amongst these students are those who have suffered from a ridiculously sheltered and care-free upbringing of no responsibility that they continuously flaunt in front of their peers.

These are the kind of students who receive their student loan and within the next week, will have spent it on a variety of frivolous things such as designer clothes, expensive trinkets and a PS3. Shortly after, they'll be bawling their eyes out as they whine incessantly about the fact they are now in to the overdraft of their bank account. They'll complain that the loan they received wasn't enough to cope with their oh-so difficult living experience, discreetly forgetting to mention how they squandered it on the various material embodiments of their own idiocy that now adorn their room. However, one phone call to mummy and daddy dearest and their woes are sorted - magically, the money in their bank account has been replenished and the crisis is averted. I suppose this could be construed as a learning experience, but I've yet to see this situation used productively; because the incompetent student's intelligence is inversely related to their affluence and spoilt nature, they are doomed to lather, rinse and repeat this process with their parents bailing them out at every turn.

Worse yet is when they become aware of the fact their parents will fork out the money when they need it. Recently, I overheard a 20 year old manchild tell his friend about the rail fine he had received for not purchasing a ticket. He did a stupid thing and was now going to have to pay up for his mistake. Simple process, lesson learnt. His solution was a bit different. He had the written fine sent to his home address, hoping his parents would pay it off without question so as to not exacerbate his non-existent exam stress. Even worse, they did. How do these reprobates hope to cope in the real world if they can't even accept their own mistakes and build upon the experience?

In reference to the homeless, I've once heard the argument that the benefit behind giving people money is that it helps teach them responsibility - how to manage their finances, how to budget for food and other things of that ilk. Clearly, this is not true with those who have been spoilt through life. Give them money and they will do nothing better than exploit their parents' misguided generosity.

P.S. There was a guy in my halls of residence who had never used a toaster before as his bread had always been toasted for him. That's more amazing than it is spoilt.

14. Pretentious people who play acoustic guitars in social situations

2010-07-07T20:00:00.005+01:00

^ I will only be impressed with someone who starts playing guitar in a social situation if they own a quadruple neck and shred like the always hilarious Michael Angelo Batio

Picture it. You, some friends, some assorted alcoholic beverages and some general good times. Lovely. Hey, look! One of the people in your group has suddenly cracked out an acoustic guitar. Oh. Fiddlesticks.

There are several problems with doing this. Firstly, nothing says "Lavish me with attention, I'm so desperate for social validation right now" like feebly trying to show off your "creative skills" in a group situation. It forces everyone else to stop what they are doing and pay attention to you - especially if you begin to warble over the top of your badly strung together chords. At least if you were just quietly noodling in the background, you could maintain the façade that you were providing instrumental accompaniment to the evening's proceedings - like a low-budget pianist in a not-so-fancy restaurant. But with you caterwauling about some non-profound, pretentious insight over the top of your generic chord progression, you prevent everyone else around you from enjoying their evening.

The only thing that could possibly make this worse is if you try to get your victims to sing along. Not only have you ruined their previous activity of casual socialising and alcohol, you are now forcing them to pretend they know the words to every bland and overplayed song you can think of; from the vomit of Oasis and appalling Bob Dylan covers to the tripe of whatever indie nonsense passes off as music nowadays. You are not talented and never will be. Sod off.

13. People who "speak their minds"

2010-06-19T14:35:00.006+01:00

^ Considering it looks like a child threw this picture up, it took a deceivingly long time

If those horrifying audition tapes they show at the beginning of any series of Big Brother have taught me anything, it's that society is comprised of numbskulls. Of course, this isn't entirely true as Big Brother utilises a very succinct selection process that cherry-picks only the most brain cell deprived individuals of Britain. In the process of several minutes of banal audition footage, these lobotomised would-be-humans extol their self-perceived virtues which almost always consist of nonsensical clichés of cookie-cutter uniqueness. One of the worst offenders amongst the rambling list of what makes these people so "great" is the seemingly standard "I'm not afraid to speak my mind" - the snot-rag's code for "I'll vocalise whatever incomprehensibly ludicrous thought enters my head because I lack any form of self control".

What this amounts to is a never ending tirade of barely contemplated statements that the speaker throws out at random, masked by their own pretension of profoundness; their logic being that they are edgy and intelligent because they lack any concept of tact and the ability to mull over their thoughts before unceremoniously inflicting them upon other people. If I did that, everyone around me would privy to such gems as "if I put my laptop and speakers next to the TV and wear one of those beer-hats, I could play Sonic 3, get drunk, listen to Black Sabbath and look at boobs - I must be a genius". Of course, I'm not a genius, I'm just a weirdly efficient nerd. However, at least I don't "speak my mind" as I'm aware of the completely inanity of my embryonic thoughts. People who speak their minds are just too lazy to put any effort in to thinking about why they're an idiot.

12. The term "fat Coke"

2010-06-19T14:00:00.003+01:00

^ I didn't want to visually advertise Coca Cola so instead I decided to use this vulgar image. Lovely.

Now, I'm no nutritionist. In fact, far from it - I have spent the last month sustaining myself on a caustic combination of Sam's Chicken and coffee, with my body becoming a doughy, jittery mess as a result. But in moderation, something like a simple can of Coke is utterly fine to consume. The fact that it's mildly unhealthy is, of course, a given, hence there being a "diet" version of it. I've no problem with people drinking Diet Coke, though. Sure, it tastes terrible and is unlikely to be much healthier than the original swill but I understand the need to delude yourself that you're being healthy.

But a "diet" version of something doesn't make the original "full fat". Coke isn't a coffee from Starbucks. The pervasive nature of American chain coffee shops has made every pretentious, trend-embroiled spanner think of all beverages in coffee terms. Coke has become some kind of dairy based product; you can get a mocha caffe Cokecuinno with frothy milk before you go to work because you live a glamorous, on-the-go life like those insufferable skin-bags of consumerism and sexual innuendo in Sex & The City. Your life isn't glamorous. Once you purchase your coffee / Coke / generic beverage, you'll go to work merely to be shouted at by your Neanderthal of a boss and the crushing embrace of reality will crack your soul's bones as you choke down your overly priced drink.

Plus, if regular old Coke is "full fat", shouldn't Diet Coke be "skinny"? Not only are you an idiot, you're inconsistent in your beverage reference terms. Just man up and drink your caramelised poison in its full glory.

11. Sob stories on "talent" shows

2010-04-30T18:46:00.007+01:00

^ A lot of people point out the irony of Amanda Holden hosting a talent contest, but to them I quote Max Weber - "One need not have been Caesar in order to understand Caesar." Or in Holden's case, one need not have any modicum of discernible skill in order to be a judge on one of the most ridiculously stupid shows on television.

I know reality television is by definition meant to be bad (it wasn't always, mind - remember, when Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was set in the UK and didn't depend on a blubbering mess of American drama queens whining about how they've let their families down? That was good telly), but shows like Britain's Got Talent or the X-Factor are probably amongst the worst offenders. The fact that they masquerade themselves as a talent contest should be enough of a hint that they're probably not worth watching - after all, any show that presents the warbling mess that is Alexandra Burke as talented probably wouldn't know what talent was if it slept with their wife and repeatedly punched them in the face. But it's as if the contestants themselves have given up the fallacy of auditioning on the merit of their own talent.

I don't know if the camera brings it out in them, but anyone who auditions for these shows always has some ridiculous story to tell, inevitably wrought with uninteresting emotion. These idiotically constructed narratives usually consist of some kind of tragic event being an adversity in this member of the public's long, arduous struggle to make it through to the show's auditioning process. Common offenders include the passing away of a close relative, an overcoming of a terrible illness, a self-indulgent affirmation of some poxy achievement or something else that occurs every day in the lives of everyone else. I couldn't care less about what happened in some emotionally-inept scrote's life prior to the audition, it bears no relevance whatsoever on whether they have any talent. Tear-stifled proclamations of "Yeah, I auditioned for the X-Factor because my brother died" aren't suddenly going to give you the vocal pipes of someone like Meatloaf (or some equally contemporary singer that the kids listen to). You're still going to give an embarrassing performance, except now you'll sully your dead brother's name in the process. Well done, you talentless sod. Now get off the stage before I push you off.

10. Street fund-raisers

2010-04-26T22:16:00.004+01:00

^ If so-called charity muggers were at least a quarter as creative as this man, I would be destitute. Instead I'm presented with a 18 year old boil on the face of humanity, striving to make money for his gap year and not even knowing what "charity" means.

Every time I walk down Tottenham Court Road, I can guarantee being accosted by one of these false-smiled guilt-mongerers - there is literally no way to get past them. Ignore them and you're a horrible human who refuses to even acknowledge your fellow man when they reach out to you (I'm surprisingly adamant about politeness despite being a misanthrope). But, engage them and you're forced to endure five time-wasting minutes of emotion-laden verbal spew until they finally let you get a few words in edgeways - the words always inevitably being "No. I'm leaving now".

I'm not against the principle per se, contributing to charity is a worthy cause - I do it all the time*. What I am against, however, is being cornered and consequently subjected to a drawn out begging session, where the enduring message is "You're a terrible person, give us some money to help other people / animals / out of work actors and levy your social guilt, you morally bereft fadger". Also, sometimes the fund-raisers are just rude and refuse to believe that you're genuinely in a hurry or going somewhere, making you look like even more of an uncaring egoist. You stopped me on the street. Do you really think I'm wandering about aimlessly in my free-time?

Coercion techniques aside, the main problem I have is far more reasonable; donating to charity shouldn't be something you do on a whim when some student twerp starts hassling you in the streets about the dying elephants in the world. Screw the elephants (not literally, that's bestiality). When I donate to charity, I'm going to be contributing money to causes I feel personally invested in and so should you. Stop being a mindless sycophant who lets other people make their decisions for them and instead seek out a charity that you genuinely want to be a part of. For instance, I support groups for alcoholism, Type 2 diabetes and treatments for cancer of the soul - primarily because these are all organisations I will eventually come to benefit from when I'm 60, watching Jeremy Kyle Jr., drinking warm whiskey out of a pint glass balanced on my balloon-gut and eating M&Ms through a funnel. Think of the future you wish to create and help a charity based on that.

*My existence is a charity to humanity. I fund that. Charity starts at home.

9. Commentary on the televised political debates done via the medium of Facebook

2010-04-22T21:22:00.000+01:00

^ The four comments were just unfunny as my silly status. Magical.

Yes, I realise the hypocrisy in me lambasting other people for sharing their nonsensical opinions on the internet, but in my defence, I'm doing it in the privacy of a blog that no one visits. I'm not on Facebook, predictably making inane commentary of the televised political debates, like the swathes of thinking-infirmed feists who not-so-secretly hope that someone will 'Like' their inability to actually concentrate on the vaguely important sham of a programme before them. Seriously, are your lives so vacuous that you have to sit poised at your laptop, ready to scribble the first "wittily observed" opinion you have regarding the television show you're watching? You're not a guest on 'Have I Got News For You' for the simple reason that you're not mentally equipped enough to do satire - it'd be like if they let a drooling chimpanzee on the panel, whose best contribution is violently pounding his fists on Paul Merton's thigh every time they ask him to caption an image (admittedly, this is gross stereotyping of chimpanzees, who are actually deceivingly clever creatures - they're certainly more cognitively evolved than the politically-focussed unintelligentsia that plague my social e-network, at least). Until you at least learn how to put your pants on without your mother awkwardly helping you (you're 21, you should have at least mastered this by now), stop clogging my not-so-precious Facebook News Feed with your poorly articulated drivel.

8. Downloading entire band discographies for just one song

2010-04-20T08:03:00.000+01:00

^ Look at me, I'm listening to the Manics! I'm so avant-garde and yet reassuringly mainstream at the same time. This isn't even all my Manics collection but I had a hard-drive crash and have yet to restore everything. At least I own the bloody CDs, though. That's entitlement to being a pretentious elitist.

I understand not everyone will agree with me that illegal downloading is generally a bad thing that robs artists of the money they usually deserve for their hard work - that is, provided they don't have anything to do with modern day R&B, in which case they should get nothing and like it. I'm not going to get in to that, though it is destructive and you should stop hurting the bands you love. But hell, even I’m susceptible to downloading a few tracks now and then. However, if you just want a handful of songs from a band or artist, just get those specific songs. Don’t download their entire discography. We know you only do it so that when your friends peruse your iTunes library at one of your very private (read: excruciatingly boring) gatherings, you’ll look like you have both an extensive and eclectically diverse taste in music. But you don’t. You just wanted Jeff Buckley’s cover of ‘Hallelujah’ to add to your cack-handed collection of increasingly poor quality ‘Hallelujah’ covers that you started after Alexandra Burke went to number one. I bet you even made a playlist out of all the 'Hallelujah' covers you found, like a dung-beetle assembling fecal matter. Like hell you’ve ever listened to Buckley's album Grace in full, nor do you ever intend to (your loss, by the way - I doubt you even know who Jeff Buckley is, let alone that he's dead, you coccydynia). There is no crime in liking one or two songs by an artist but you look like a tit if you have the entire Led Zeppelin discography and the only song you actually know is ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Grow some balls and be honest about your predictably undiscerning music taste.

7. People referring to their sports team of choice as "we"

2010-04-19T23:27:00.000+01:00

^ I wanted to be topical (i.e. four months late by my standards) and make a John Terry related joke in this caption but I'm not going to lie, I'm not even sure if this is a picture of John Terry. I've no clue what he looks like nor do I care.

Like a football team? Good for you, everyone needs a hobby. Watch them play on the weekend? Good match? Wait. You did what? I was unaware you were actually a member of the team! That must be so exciting! Oh, you're not? But when you said "we scored the winning goal", you implied you were actually part of the game playing process and did something worthwhile with your sham of an existence... You didn't? Well then, the correct phrase would be "they scored the winning goal", not "we". You did nothing, you microphallus.

N.B. Please read this entire blog in an extremely sarcastic tone of voice for full effect.

6. Awkward conversations with people you've deliberately lost contact with

2010-04-18T22:46:00.000+01:00

^ The 'Awkward Turtle' can not save you in one-on-one situations. You just look like you have a some kind of hand coordination deficiency.

Sometimes it’s elating to run in to someone you haven’t seen for years. Positive feelings regarding your mutually enjoyed good times come flooding back and you suddenly feel comforted and at peace with this unexpected social contact. Then about two minutes in to the inane chatter, when the initial nostalgia unceremoniously crumbles, you become abundantly aware as to why you haven’t seen this person in several years – they’re a bintcopter. The awkward conversation that ensues is possibly one of the most painful verbal exchanges of anyone’s existence, only made worse by the inevitable and crushing statement of “We should really meet up for a drink / stay in touch”. No. No, we shouldn’t. There’s a reason we lost contact. I’ve only given you my real phone number because I’m worried that if I give you a fake one and you ring me on the spot to give me yours (like the socially desperate exasperation of life that you are), our current situation will become even more awkward. I can’t handle that level of awkward, please leave me alone.

5. Anthropology

2010-04-18T22:00:00.000+01:00

^ If only Anthropology was like a campy '60s comic book. Picture taken from a brilliantly enlightening blog here

There are many problems with Anthropology. At the heart of it is a hugely fascinating discipline. Unfortunately, the surrounding body is a carcinogenic obese man, whose already vulnerable lifestyle is exacerbated by an unstable collection of lipids and white blood cells unrelentingly clogging the arteries to his heart and squeezing what little life remains out of it. Yeah. One of its key issues is that anthropologists, as a rule, can't write. In a 70 page ramble about the sociality behind collections, the author will only have one real point. This singular point will be alluded to multiple times throughout the diatribe, but it won't be until the final paragraph that they will just come out and say what they're actually thinking - in this specific case, that collections are a replacement for sexual satisfaction and are effectively masturbatory aids (yes, this is a genuine academic paper). Amidst the badly articulated verbal spews however are lengthy disseminations about how predictable and insignificant humanity is, showing that we - despite our own notions of having free will and extreme intelligence - can be ruthlessly dissected to the point where people become nothing more than objects bound and pushed about by a variety of almost nonsensical social constructs. Consequently, in studying Anthropology, you become acutely aware of how meaningless a human's general existence is - especially when that general existence is spent studying Anthropology.

4. Emmerdale

2010-04-17T23:55:00.000+01:00

Not only is Emmerdale primarily a soap about old people, it’s about old people in the countryside. I spent most of my teens in the countryside, I already know how mind-numbingly dull it is. I don’t need to wallow away what is left of my already worthless life watching people with beards sit and get fat - I'm already doing that myself, I can just look in the mirror and not waste money on a TV licence.

3. Woman's life-style magazines

2010-04-17T22:35:00.000+01:00

^ A disheartening amount of effort went in to making this picture. Equally, I could have used a photo of Kerry Katona but I didn't want to risk the Google Image Search.

For some reason we have an issue of Cosmopolitan in our toilet (probably the best place for it, thinking about it) and the amount of vapid articles it contains is utterly shocking. Firstly, their particular feature about what men talk about on their "lads only" excursions to the pub was just one of the most misguided stereotyping sessions I’ve ever read. I understand that not everyone goes to the pub to discuss the intricate details of Led Zeppelin's discography (although they really should) but their proliferation of the myth of all men as drunken Neanderthals who only discuss tits when grouped together was plain unreasonable. But that’s not where my main complaint lies - I'm remarkably indifferent about my gender being stereotyped.

What bothers me far more are the pathetically obvious attempts to warp the perceptions of women who are in an unfortunate enough situation to look to this text-based trash for guidance. Features such as “WAYS TO MAKE A MAN FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU!!” and “TIPS FOR BLOW-HIS-MIND SEX” scream of the overly present attitude of “Quick! Attach yourself to some man before you die alone, miserable and a cat-lady!” that has come to embody the female-orientated media. I might be completely off the track, but aren't women's magazines meant to be an exercise in empowerment? What exactly is empowering about further perpetuating the idea that a woman needs a man in order to be considered a "real" or successful person? I'm all for finding contentment in relationships, but these magazines pervade desperation and misinformation rather than even attempt to provide genuine advice. I realise I'm starting to sound like a feminist, but the ridiculous stance these magazines take is rather disgusting.

BONUS: Fifty pence to whoever spots the typo in the above cover. Answers on a post card to;

Sam K

This Isn't A Real Address

London

PO Box You're A Tool If You Read This Far

2. Alan Carr

2010-04-17T22:23:00.000+01:00

^ Image shamelessly stolen from www.newcidcosmetics.com - anyone using Alan Carr to sell their goods must be desperate.

We get it Alan, you’re gay. It's the 21st century, no one actually cares and those who do are probably just repressed or in denial. But in the process of shoving your sexuality down our throats (if Alan Carr had used a phrase like that, he'd also be pouting and saying "oo-er" right now), you're painfully unfunny. Your “risqué-homosexual" - or for simplicity's sake, 'riskgay' - act has done nothing but belittle the sexual orientation that you continue to moronically misrepresent at every given opportunity.

1. Amateur photographers with ideas above their station

2010-04-17T21:47:00.000+01:00

^This image clearly portrays the futility of life's rat-race, providing impeccable visual insight through the talentless eyes of an irreverent moron. (Click to enlarge)

In purchasing a professional quality camera, you do not suddenly acquire photographic skill or even the slightest appreciation for aesthetic value. I don't want to see incredibly high resolution photos of your lunch or a bunch of "friends" (I use this word in the loosest sense because I'm sure the subjects of your photo are aware that you're a pretentious spanner), sitting nonchalant in a corridor because they haven't noticed that you're taking a picture of them - which, by the way, doesn't capture their 'natural poses' but rather serves to make you look like a creepy stalker. And I especially do not want to see these aforementioned photos uploaded on to Facebook accompanied by a watermark and the URL to your poxy website where you attempt to peddle your non-existent talents to misguided fools.