I Hope My Legs Don't Catch On Fire

I had a dream... actually it was a daydream but it was very vivid and I genuinely thought it was happening at the time, which I wasn't sure daydreams could do but anyway... oh, maybe I fell asleep.

But I digress like a tigress... I had a dream: my house was on fire and I was trapped in my room upstairs. I was about to escape out the window when I grabbed two things. (No, not my boobs.) I then realised the significance (or possibly not at all) of what I had subconsciously just done.

They always ask that don't they? "What objects would you save from a burning building?" Well, besides people and animals, that is. The two objects I saved? My laptop and my phone. 'Bosie' and 'Morrissey', respectively. How very 21st century of me. Actually, I remember the reasoning in my head was "How will Fergus know my house is burnt down?!" That was pretty much my first thought. The second was "I hope my legs don't catch on fire!"

I stand by my choice to save my laptop. I love Bosie. He has all my life on him and I would genuinely be confused and well and truly flabberghasted without him.

The only thing is, does this make me an awful person? I didn't save any teddybears (they're all in the back of my cupboard) or photos, or books, or jewellery: all of which I own and hold a great deal of sentimental value to. I didn't think of that. I suppose I could say I was thinking more of the present and future than the past. I've got the memories of those objects, but I need my laptop and phone for the future.

What would you save from a burning building? Do you think what you should or want to save is different from what you would save in reality? Also, what the buggery does this tell us about ourselves anyway, if anything?

Another thought: some girls name their boobs - I name electronics*. Sad? Yes.

*And plants

Barbapapa?

Top 5 Books

Could do top 10... probably won't. There's enough words as it is.

5. The Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling

Intended to explain the questions children ask such as 'How the Camel Got His Hump' and 'How the Leopard Got His Spots', these beautifully written short stories are a very memorable piece of my childhood. They're appealing to children especially because of the rhythm of the words: anyone who's read them will be able to recite the 'great grey-green greasy limpopo river (all set about with fever trees)'. You'll remember them, because they're fantastic. Every child should have these stories read to them. They mean even more to me now than they did when I first heard them. Click here to read them for yourself.


4. Trainspotting - Irving Welsh

I've yet to see the film (rubbish I know) but the book, I can tell you, is bloody magnificent. It was described by Rebel Inc as "The best book ever written by man or woman". It's written in a Scottish dialect, so it takes a bit of getting used to, but it's completely worth it, and once you're over the shock of reading something that doesn't conform to spelling and grammar you can clearly see why Irving Welsh wrote it like that, and why the man should be considered a genius of language.



3. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

This book is a must-read for everyone during their teens. I'm going to force my children to read it on their 13th birthday. It's a definite coming of age book, but it resonates to all ages. I have a different opinion of Holden Caufield every time I read it, so I think I'll try it again and see what I think this time. Read it. Read it. Read it... read it, motherfuckers.

2. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

All-time top-five favourite things about High Fidelity? 5. The awesome film, which completely does the book justice (but could have been a little more true to the book). 4. The difference of the characters, which let you know that even though you're being told everything from the narrator's perspective, he's actually a bit of an idiot. 3. The completely human aspect of the narrator - I believe this man is real, or at least, that I'm reading Nick Hornby's diary. 2. The constant music references, and piss-taking of music snobbery. 1. The lists. How I love them.

1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

(That especially includes Through the Looking-glass!) I honestly think that without this book, and in fact most books on this list, that I wouldn't be doing an English Literature degree. Literature would be so much poorer without this book, and so would our culture. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland beautifully epitomises everything that is eccentrically English. I love this book beyond words. Everyone knows the story, or most of it, but if you haven't read it I really would urge you to because there's so much you can miss out on that isn't well known. The poems alone are just fantastic.

"Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,
And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:
Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea-
And welcome Queen Alice
with thirty-times-three!

...

Then fill up the glasses with treacle and inc,
Or anything else that is pleasant to drink;
Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine-
And welcome Queen Alice
with ninety-times-nine!"

Spring Chickens

As I get older, the differences between attractiveness of men and women of different age groups has become more apparent to me. As with most things, I felt that it should be portrayed in graph format, et voila:


So, what we can see from this highly accurate and scientific graph is that generally, women are more attractive than men, unless they're old in which case they're significantly less attractive. I'm speaking from a visually pleasing perspective, and not a pervy one... that's what makes it so scientific. Generally, women are as attractive as they're going to get at around early to mid thirties, and then I'm afraid ladies, it's all downhill for us from there. Men, the jammy bastards, are generally ugly fuckers until they get to about mid twenties at which point they become more visually acceptable until at around the age of about 37 they reach the pinnacle of attractiveness.

What I conclude from this is that men age like wine; pretty much getting better with age, unless they're lambrini in which case they probably didn't have much of a chance to begin with. Women age like cheese, getting better with age up to a certain point, at which point you have to start cutting bits off for it to be acceptable.

Too Late, Stupid

You know when you think of the perfect thing to say, way after the moments been and gone? Yeah, it sucks. Something else that sucks is the English language because despite everyone having experienced this at some point or another, we still don't have a word to describe it.

In French it's called l'espirit de l'escalier. In German it's treppenwitz. I'm not sure of other languages, but I'm sure they've all got something similar.

Come on English, you want to pull your wordy socks up. You know you're not doing good when the French beat you.

500 Days of Summer

There's a lot of talk surrounding this film which is due for release in July:



I can't tell if I like it or hate it, but why do I feel like I've seen this film before? I like it in as much as I like sappy romcoms where someone gets a boot up the arse, but then... "Oh look everything's fine... lah dee dah...". What delightful bullshit. Show me this trailer a year ago and I might have been interested - show me this trailer 2 years ago and I'd be counting down the days until it came out.

Since then I've developed a loathing stemming from a disparaging awareness of the unoriginality of all things 'indie'. No, this is not an original film for the two people* out there who've heard of Sid and Nancy. It's all too easy to throw a band like The Smiths into the mix and gain cult indie status nowadays.

Just like music, indie film have become mainstream - but they're trying to hide that for as long as they can so all the "I'm shitting unique, goddammit!" kids of our generation will eat it up, and hand over their very lucrative custom.

The indie teen market must be massive. Throw in an unlikely hero (with one leg, or a stutter or something), a pretty girl who wears nice dresses, let them have adventures edited in a non-lineal fashion, maybe a bit of kooky captioning, and put an 80s indie rock soundtrack over it. Bish. Bash. Bosh. Give me a million quid, I've just written you a indie breakthrough hit.

I'm not saying that liking quirky things is wrong. I'm saying that liking these things because they are quirky is stupider than your mum on toast, and that everyone should like what they like, whether it's popular or not, whether it's cool or not, and whether you want to or not. That's individuality: that's indie, motherfuckers.

...

Also, is it just me, or does that guy look insanely like Heath Ledger?

*That would be a chasm of sarc, there.

Simple Minds

Just a beautiful song.