"It's goodnight from you."

Good god. I apologise in advance for this, but it's another TV rant. This time, concerning another recent programme but I'm on the side that wishes it was never aired. Me and my uncle, and I hope many, many other people- we agree on this.

The One Ronnie.

Just look at the talent drawn in, all solid in their own right, to distract us from the fact that it was just a recycled show.

Lionel Blair
Rob Brydon
Charlotte Church
Jon Culshaw
Harry Enfield
James Corden
Jocelyn Jee Esien
Miranda Hart
Robert Lindsay
Matt Lucas
Catherine Tate
David Walliams
Richard Wilson

If that isn't an act of "ooh, look at the shiny! But don't look behind the curtain!" then I don't know what is. No, really. I'm fairly sure that the amount of acts thrown at the show to see what stuck is the epitome of a distraction. If it isn't, someone please correct me or I'll go through life thinking that.

And look at who was drawn in to write the sketches, all based on "formulae" that The Two Ronnies already tried, to much funnier and much more memorable success (to the point where they have now, in many cases, become flogged and over-repeated- Four Candles anyone?). That is all that the show was- repeats of old sketches, with the puns pulled out and filled with updated versions. "Eggs box £3.60" just doesn't work in place of "plug, rubber, barfroom. 15 amp." The Barker magic was missing. Instead it was cobbled together from the pens of these people-

If you don't like it, turn it off.

Alright, television and the internet are evil. That's been established by every keyboard militant in existence, enthusiastically judging the world around them through bitter eyes.

If you believe that then you are a moron. You are welcome to be that, but ultimately, it is inescapable that you hold such a stupid belief. Moreover, believing that makes you wrong. The internet and television are not evil, and if you're sensitive enough to be disturbed by the few things on television that have truly sordid, crass or vulgar elements in them, you cannot use that as a piece of proof. To say "aha! but I saw this programme called Tits and Guns which shocklingly turned out to be full of nudity, swearing and murder and that therefore proves that these two mediums are evil because it shocked and sickened me."

You have the choice to turn it off, or to decline from clicking the "Enter Site" button. And it's not as though programmes deliberately try to trick you into watching them by calling themselves one thing, like Teddy Bears in Cars, and then showing you Gang Rape in a Rover.

You're buying a book. Stop trying to fill the world with mumbo jumbo.

Oh, and also, you're killing your daughter's intellect. You're bad parents. And you really need to rethink your personal hygeine.

This was the reaction that exploded into my LED-adorned Santa hat bearing head as I tried to help a husband and wife buy for their daughter today at the big W. If I had said this, quite probably I would now be drinking to my reasonably lengthy job there as it swanned away. But I didn't voice my opinions, or the facts, and simply advised them on what each of the many books we "tried for size" held within their pages.

It was a fun half hour.

Convincing people it's Christmas-y

So. Seemed like the thing to do this week, living in town. Handing out Christmas cards to the neighbours (dropping them through their doors). The sort of thing that convinces the self that it's not all bad and that every so often people can be decent.

"So this is Christmas. And what have you done?"

And what happened next was interesting.

"I am the passenger...

And I ride, and I ride and I ride."

Just because I love that song and love the recent T-Mobile ads set in the airport with that black guy and his awesome voice. And I couldn't think of a better title, or any title for that matter, for this post. Which will be a moan. But will not be pathetic as the last few have.

People, I've decided, are dicks, purely designed to piss each other off, and we're all bad. Everyone is a bad person, and we only have moments of building ourselves above the shitty getting-by-but-nothing-more humdrum by joking about.

My child abuse days are over, all thanks to a Disney princess.

Insulting? I don't think so. Pointless campaigning set up by fools that ended up being ineffective, unwarrantedly nostalgic and hi-jacked by muppets who think everything is better when Gaston, Simba and the Funny Bones are replacing their faces.

A brilliant day for the (purportedly) most advanced age of civilisation yet.

The Lodgings

It's with a heavy heart, some might say, that he returned home day after day.
Invariably it would be late, when he came back, from being rushed, busy and away.
When he returned the light in the hall would still be burning, dimly casting light
Out of the windows set in the front door. Spilt warmth flickering into the night.
The light would make his heart jump as he slotted and turned his key, always,
as he thought perhaps the lodgers other than he would be around to talk about their days.

Without fail, something he never prepared himself for, that flickering heart would sink.
He'd no sooner step inside and the light would be just that- a left on light. He'd blink
a rapid defence against the deflated sense of being once again alone in the lodgings.
The three others who rented with him would know nothing of it, why burden such things
on their shoulders? It wasn't their life to bear. And so with a heavy heart, his evening
would carry on as normal- some work, a meal and bed, where sleep would evade, morosely brooding.

The three other lodgers, he couldn't blame them. They were always away with their flings,
and though they left him, it was only he who inflicted on himself the cold and empty lodgings.

That's quite enough of that, wouldn't you agree?

You might be wondering why the post title is what it is. Well, what it is, is... it's a comment on the last post. What a lot of drivel that was, eh? No one wanted to know about that. No one reads this anyway, but if someone wanted to read anything it wouldn't be that.

This post is also so entitled because it's the only British response I could think of. The equivalent from across the Atlantic would go something along the lines of me dressing up as a drill sergeant and hollering at the mirror with a Southern states drawl "You are an absolute disgrace!". Which wouldn't do at all, now would it?

Who's the more lonely- the man on his own, or the man in a crowd?

One of the many things I despise on the internet is cries for help from pathetic people who attach themselves to their computers 24 hours a day and live vicariously through their keyboard and the amount of people who comment on their desperate calls for attention about how shit they are at cooking or whatever.

This isn't one of those. I hope. If it is, you all have permission to hate me with the same zeal I have for the aformentioned members of mankind.

Getting ahead but not buggering your degree: Rules of engagement for uni

So. Everyone has degrees these days, or at least it seems like it. And what does it mean when absolutely everybody is special? That's right. No one is.

Any naive and slightly unable-to-hold-their-drink, wide-eyed A2 Level student will tell you just how much better their job prospects/ life/ mating talents/ burial casket will become when they have put in a little bit of work for three years and gotten a degree. The pay will be better. The opportunities more frequent and fruitful. Their fame and fortune in any field they want to approach far more likely.

Fast forward to the other side of the spectrum. "Beyond undergraduate [INSERT SUBJECT HERE]" is seen in most subjects in most unis at some point, normally towards third year, and is almost always not compulsory to attend. So students don't. And then, the poor graduate on the "other side" we've just spoken about who either hasn't been to said lectures, hasn't listened to what was in them or has tried to follow advice and ended up realising it's too late in the day to get the work experience he needed last week sometime to apply for, say, a position in the States, is left with just a degree.

I say just a degree. At the end of the day, it is a degree, and that's definitely something. They come in different shapes, sizes and difficulties even among the same subject, across unis and teaching approaches. But after the training the student is left naked in the wilderness armed with an undergrad certificate, and told to build a castle from it.

So, how do you go about getting ahead of the pack? Top tips, from what I've gathered in my first two years, are below.

They merely lack the light to show them the way...

So, go to university. Check.

Realise it's not the hedonistic haven you might have thought. Check.

Enjoy the hell out of it anyway. Check.

Realise it is rapidly becoming a building site designed specifically to train blind people to use their other senses. Che- Er... eh, what?

Renegades! Maverick journos create scandal, don't do very much!

“In 2010 a socially short, submoronic clique were outvoted by the rest of their university on an issue they didn’t like. These people promptly escaped from anybody's notice whatsoever to the Lancaster underground. Today, still not wanted by anyone, they think they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you percieve a problem, if you know no one else will care, and if they can be bothered, maybe you can talk to the In For A Penny (formerly known as Project X) team.”

There are some things that some people should never attempt. Socially inept and underachieving sloths such as this A-Team-esque clandestine group, who probably see themselves as conspirators when in fact they're just giggling charletans behind the curtain of their own delusions, should not try underground journalism.

An Evening With Strapped F. Cash, Esteemed University Wallet

A scene that could be seen very soon at Lancaster University, if the student body were a single interviewer and those in charge of mispending university money were a collective, hive-minded wallet. Which, given the intelligence they've displayed in building the LICA building, they may well be.

Interviewer- Good Evening, Mr Cash. Thank you for joining us.

Strapped F. Cash- (rattles contentedly) Not at all. My pleasure.

I- If you don't mind we'll jump right in with the questions?
SFC- Of course.

I- First off, let me just ask how you're feeling. Are you well? You're not feeling depressed, hollow, empty are you?

SFC- Not at all. I feel full and fit as a fiddle, honest. There's plenty more where I came from.

I- Perhaps you could explain to us, then, how it is that so many things are unable to be paid for? Important things, like new department equipment to replace 19th century projectors, or rebuilding the current main road onto campus that's in slightly worse condition than when it was ploughed in 456 B.C. by the oncoming legion.

The pain! The Pai*hup*n... FFS

Four days. That's how long it takes for the affliction to really set in and begin to ruin your mind. Four days.

Not even a week, but four days. 96 hours. That's the measure of the fragility of human sense when faced with the dreadful, harrowing and honestly quite physically painful (after a while) affliction.

"And what is more- You'll be a man, my son"

It was National Poetry Day five days ago, and what with being back at uni and having an absolutely no spare time for about a fortnight I missed doing any sort of post about it. Still, even though this is late it has given me an opportunity to write something a bit more than "It's National Poetry Day. Brill."

This is because of two things. One, I've been thinking a lot about Kipling's If, pretty much my favourite poem of all time ever since we were preparing a stand at work a couple of weeks ago for NPD where each of us had to pick our favourite poem and write a small reason why. In my defence, the question was sprung on me before I'd had any caffeine as I walked in the door. Which is why I picked Ozymandias by Shelley instead of letting my brain kick into gear.

Anywho, I was stuck with that choice. But in reality I would probably have plumped for If. And given a few things that have happened over the last few days (all, you understand, my own doing) I've realised I like it all the more.

Welcome to the six o'clock olds. Good evening, I'm Blonde Airhead.

It may strike fear into the hearts of many incredibly middle class mothers and upper class Lords who seem to defy death by only ever napping briefly (normally during important debates), but it is unfortunately a fact- some students actually do like watching the news. Every now and again, or at least attempt to keep up with it.

This in itself, as with so many formulaic posts on the infinite internet, isn't a problem or even that scandalous, but it's a statement that leads oh so smoothly on to the bulk of this grumble, so I've put it first.

Budding Bookseller Returns to the Northern Wilds!

So the summer has drawn to a close. A watery, humid, intermittently gale blowing gargling last breath of a season that, let's face it, never lived past toddlerhood (probably hit by a car or something).

The holiday did bring one great thing though. I got five weeks work at everybody's favourite bookstore, back with the best team of people you could hope to work with. Including the mental American, the retail mage, the management mother hen and drill sergeant, the patient mother with a newly acquired limp, the triathlete hard nut and the Yoda with the social ineptitude and no real role there.

Lots of people say they've got the best job in the world, and while it's all relative I can safely say for me there's nothing better than working with them in a cathedral of books and loving every bit of it, so here's to them! For ten/eleven weeks I'll miss it, because now I am back in the bosom (the frigid, frigid bosom) of the northwest coast. Here's to Lancaster, for my final year of a degree in a town that never seems to see the sun or peak above freezing. It's evening time, it's raining hell and that's ok.

Bolts? Of lightning or of steel? You see, those two are what we call 'different'...

Ah yes, fans of a moan and a mumble, something life affirming happened today. My grouchiness, eagerness to pick holes in the way things are done and wholehearted sense of what is right and what is wrong about laying out a bookshop by genre all collided in a moment of realisation. An epiphany.

I am not alone.

Get me my wife on the phone!

So it turns out some things are harder work than you'd think. For example, despite being a deputy editor on my uni paper last term I was in absolutely no way ready for (read- did not unserstand) the amount of effort it takes to co-ordinate just one section in one issue. So... I've been getting to grips with it.

That means I have, in my own feeble way, been getting my J. Jonah Jameson on- but not as much as I'd like. I'm too... nice? Keen to be liked? Not confident enough to shout at people or be strongly worded... at least, not yet. But I will be. I will be the cigar chomping, blood-pressure pill popping anger-factory by the end of term. At least... close to it.

What are you waiting for, Chinese New Year?

Does not compute- space still misunderstood, robot overlords march onwards.

Evening all grumble-goons. Recently, you may recall (if you've inflicted any past posts upon yourself) I've been pretty down in the dumps about the fact that I'll (we'll) probably never get to flit between planets and what not. The closest thing most of us will get is on a console, and the elite few who get closer will probably suffer the dichotomy of throwing up and then marvelling at the beads of vom as they spiral through weightlessness. That, and they'll have to thank Branson's wrinkled face for the trouble.



If, by some odd series of events such as realising you possess a life or being distract by a more attractive use of your time such as training yourself for said vom-marvelling you didn't read the overly-long moan, here it is.

If the world has a problem, if no one else is famous enough, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Listers. *cue music*

So, generic infamous celebrity female #1 (yes, you with the perky breasts that you whipped out before your blockbuster days- but not, heaven forbid, to get attention from movie bosses), how would you go about solving this here earthquake/ flood/ genocide/ tidal wave/ bout of diptheria? Arrive, wear a shawl and pout? Good answer, but no cigar/ African baby for you this time.

Ah Angelina Jolie. You had a little respect from my corner.

Power-pedestrian blues

I've been walking to work.

There you go, green lovers, that's got to be points to me, right?

And in the heady buzz of the early morning traffic, the haze over the town from Grace Way, the warm shafts of light slicing down through the trees, yadda yadda yadda... well, there are a few things that in a sleep deprived state have got my grumble.

So who are you? How old? And you've got a jury with you to verify this? No? Sorry, can't let you in

Afternoon all. The last few grumbles pounded hastily out on my increasingly ailing laptop have, I noticed, been a little bit "out there", sort of wishy-washy arguments with myself (because, let's face it, in reality who is going to read this barely cognitive regurgitation?) about vague themes like genre or far flung futures we're all going to be too old, too ill or dead to see let alone take part in. So this one's a little more down to Earth, here and now, right up your street, okay?

ID cards. No, this isn't talking about government plans to make us all slice a bit of our eyeball off and stick it to a computer chipped credit card next to a pubic hair for DNA purposes just so we can verify that yes, we are allowed to buy that half pint of milk you psychologically stunted whale, yes you, squeezed behind a machine with a conveyor belt and a bigger vocabulary than yours even though it's entire audio output is made up of beeps.

The eyes of the world still turned to space/ the frontier never ends

Every once in a while I have a moment, just a moment, of startling clarity that pierces the otherwise hazily quixotic assumptions I have of what the near future holds for us (more importantly, me) with going into space and crushes my soul as I heavy-heartedly realise that I will never see the day we run day trips to Alpha-Centauri for picnics.



These steely-lit days where the truth of our inadequateness pushes down on me as the sky fell on Atlas' shoulders often leave me feeling crushed with disappointment, and it seems for every brilliant breakthrough science makes three new questions spawn and the horizon, the edge of the universe, moves a little bit further away. Literally.

Sick of sci-fi seen as second rate?

What is this?

Right, this one's a grumble. Sorry folks, fellas and lasses, grab a Scotch or cigar and prepare to pace while wafting it around.

As with so much of what I talk bollocks about (and, unfortunately, I've been told that it's one of the few things I do talk about, at great length until I've committed mass homicide by accident) this is about writing. Well, writing and reading. Genre related stuff. About sci-fi.

It really hacks me off that no matter what you say 70% of people see sci-fi (and fantasy) as the butt end of literature.

So there's a huge amount of shit that gets churned out as science-fiction (and fantasy- probably moreso for fantasy).

Accidental viewing- Clash of the Titans Whisper of the Sort-of-God-People

Ralph Fiennes playing a hairy Voldemort. Liam Neeson playing a less feline, more human Aslan. Sam Worthington being all crop-haired, muscly and wearing a skirt. Greek myths being faithfully rendered in CGI and then left on the cutting room floor to become a mishmash.

When I typed in Get Him To The Greek on a useful hosting site I use, this wasn't the film I thought I'd be seeing. And yet, well, I'm mega happy I did get to see it. Even though, if I didn't have an excellent knowledge of recent films, I might have been convinced it was the Russell Brand feature until the very end, when they finally had the wherewithall to roll the title.

"But the [drama] did nothing in the nighttime." "That was the curious incident."

Ah, reader. I have, it is a shame, been away from the internet for anything other than sporadic glimpses at important emails before the router gave out again after its concerted efforts for a fortnight. However, I have triumphed over the beginning of the robot uprising (the footsoldiers of which are our friends the toaster, the printer, the shower and now, apparently, the commando router).

That said, I wish I could be writing a far more positive comeback post.

"Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary", said he.

Oh, lo and behold. Stephen Moffat and Mark Gattiss have given us something extraordinary.



There is really very little else for me to say, except that I hope the next two episodes are as exquisite.

The Grump and the Lady gays- Day five: the last page

Ah, the end was near.

Sadly- well, somewhat sadly, if you go in for that sort of sentimental thing and get all sorts of attached to fleeting rungs on the ladder of careers- today ended with a whimper, not a bang. Although, given the orientation of the male population of that floor, a good bang would not have been the way I wanted a fortnight to end.

Thoughts on a book- The Ninth Circle by Alex Bell

So, over the past fortnight I've perfected what I like to call the "commuter blinkers". Generally, people do this with a book. Or a paper. I chose a book, and headphones. The idea? To flit through the underground at breakneck speed, unwilling to focus on anything other than the book and the destination. Part and parcel to this is a complete and utter sixth sense that makes you aware of everything going on around you, including where to go and what train to miss/ get, where to stand for the doors to stop right in front of you.

I'd got it down to a tee, finished a couple of average reads and, mid-week, started a book that had loose connections to The Divine Comedy. I love that book, the visions of Hell, and if you get past the fact that it's written as an epic poem, it's the most stark portrayal of a heinous place. Cracking. Anyway, it was those connections that made me glance at The Ninth Circle.



Ah, I finally thought I'd found a truly great book, something fresh, new and exciting, that actually gripped me and had originality.

The Grump and the Lady-gays: Day four- corporate environment

Well, readers, day four went well.

At the risk of sounding obsessed by floor furnishings, I noticed something odd on the bus today. There's carpet on the seats and a great walkway of it on the cieling. But the rest of the bus (walls, floor, door to the drivers cockpit- which, by the way, he could barely fit inside, let alone the seat) is covered in lino. Lovely.

What is the purpose of it? Is it so that, should the bus flip

The Grump and the lipstick lesbians- Days 1-3:Stuck in the habits

Right, 3 days into the second week at the offices. It's all got a bit samey. Great, fun sameyness, but sameyness all the... same... Erm.

Anyways, I realised a couple of things over the last three days that amused me. Number one- no matter how much the trains try to do the right thing, they never will. Especially the Tube.

The Grump and the Gays: Day Five- end of the week

So, last day of a long, long week.
The circle line broke. Again. And I was at a great station that had no other lines to change onto.
So I ended up walking across London, kind of fun and interesting when I can. I've only been using the Tube because I've got a travel-(Icangoanywhere)-card. It's kind of cool to walk past the landmarks and see where they all are, in relation to each other, instead of just being mystical landmarks at the end of an unknown tunnel.

Started the day with fun at Kings Cross. Then there was fun on Hampstead Heath at lunch- steady now, just being nose-dived by kites and parakeets, and chased by dogs. Great.

To cap it all off,got to write an cracking feature on impotence. I entitled it "Reasons for a reluctant roger".

The jury's out on if it's great or not.

Next week- being thrown to the lesbians. Result.

The Grump and the Gays Days 3 and 4- Hitting the Bigtime.

I was greeted on day 3 with a brilliant product on the desk next to mine.

And ingenious invention called the Cyberskin X7. It's a 'vibrating bum'.

I couldn't take my eyes off of it all morning. Work got very bogged down and hindered with that creepy thing next to me. Anyway, I'm finally settling in (just about time, really, three days into the week). I seem to have become the resident errand boy, for coffee, photocopying and spell checking and grammar checks.

That's all what I thought internships would hold. But- and here's the big but, I've actually got stuff put on the website. The stuff in question being a film review.

It's been a long time coming, but only because I had to 'camp up' my writing a bit. I think it's working. At least, they seme to love what I've done enough to be given the responsibility of attending a big thing that's happening tomorrow somewhere in London and making it news.

I can't tell you what the big thing is, or where it is.

You'll have to look for leading news stories on protests outside the Daily Express. Then you might find out. Also, I got the chance to write news, a style I can do (the editor said it was a hundred percent clearer than the stuff they normally do for news).

There's a brilliant book called the Pope is Not Gay, too, which I had to review.
And they say work isn't fun.

The Grump and The Gays: Day 2- Bleary Eyed Morning and Minogue vs Minogue

Well, after the good fortune of getting two tickets to a film which isn't even out yet (see Day 1), and the late night that ensued because of it, the start to this morning wasn't exactly bright and breezy.

I had to literally drag myself out of the house this morning. That was fun.

After almost falling asleep and missing the tube stop it did mean I got to have a go with the slightly dodgy kettle in the kitchen. Hadn't been in there yet, so it was a bit of an adventure. It also threw up a minor but worrying dilemma.

Which mug should I use?
Do they have their own mugs? Which shelves are for the lesbians (liable to beat the crap out of me if I use their favourite), which shelves are for the guys from the other publications (liable to slap me or weep uncontrollably until I wash it and put it back)? I opted for a plain white mug that looked unpersonalised and average.

Their coffee is good. Really makes you buzz.

That afternoon brought revelation time- as an intern for the two magazines I'm on, I'm working with another intern, who has graduated his course seven years ago and been in the business ever since. I'm about to go into my third year. Win for me!

Also, two fine gentlemen I'm working with began to debate the virtues of the Minogue vs the Minogue. Needless to say, I didn't (couldn't) offer an opinion on the matter.

The Grump and The Gays: Day 1- The Unexpected Film

Well now, as an aspiring writer, and completely driven to get ahead (and a hat, with a big feather on it) I went looking for some work experience in that field for this summer.

Good news is, I got some. I knew that a while ago, but in itself that's not the interesting part. I cannot name names for legal reasons (always wanted to say that), but first thing yesterday morning I was dressed in my sharpest jeans, a swanky t-shirt and slick jacket, ready to commute into fair Londinium and enter the high rise steel and glass offices of this country's leading gay and lesbian lifestyle magazines. Oh yes, the Big Time and I have intercepted each other on the road of life.


The world I imagined I was ascending the staircase to.

Why can't people who design websites and signs speak proper English?

Right. People that don't use English in the way what it was writ really hack me off.

For example. Sainsbury's, Tesco et al insist that you can queue in a 'Five items or less' aisle if your basket fits the requirements. Problem is, you never will. You can have fewer items than five. You can even have less of an item, if you're comparing quality or size to another item.

What makes the best thinkers?

I am a Holmes fanatic. That's Mr Holmes, Sherlock, of 221b Baker Street, London. I idolise and wish I could be like said deductive genius.



I am, therefore, almost completely unsurprisingly, a House fanatic. That's Dr House, Gregory, who lives in Princeton. I idolise and wish I could be like said diagnostic genius.



What makes good thinkers such dickheads? What makes us like them so much even though they are? Is being a genius and having an amazing mind that fuels their arrogance and peculiar personalities such a redeeming quality?

Big Brother Returns for the Summer Holiday- Day Five: The Shopping Escapade

So. The honeymoon is truly off.

For the past forty eight hours me and my sister have been sniping at each other or giggling like lunatics whenever we encounter each other (on the stairs, coming in or out, fighting over food in the kitchen). I've officially slipped

On the point and purpose of men's novelty bloomers...

I've never seen the point of novelty, highly-patterned or gimmick printed boxers, briefs or y-fronts.

The sort of strawberry printed, superhero logo-bearing, 'watchword printed just above the colon'-sporting wastes of money

Big Brother Returns for the Summer Holiday- Day One in the House

So I'm back at home. Home, that is, being my childhood house where my mum, dad and sister all still live, and where I sneak back to after each year renting the amazing luxury flats in Bowland Halls.

Already it's great. I'm in the 'just got back from uni' honeymoon period. There's food in the cupboards (actual, proper food!) and not just a small amount. They're full of the stuff.

The virtues of cheap and cheerful Extrav costumery

Mr Anthony "Tony" Stark. Genius. Drunk. Iron Man.

And, for one night only, me. Apparently.



More strangers said hello to me last night than they have done in the rest of my life. I felt like a minor celebrity.

What a great end to a term, and a year- getting drunk on two-pint beakers of Honey Pot, with live music, and a huge glowing circle taped to your chest.

Here we go... here we go... here we go again...

Somehow (and I'm not quite sure how, everything's a little bit of a blur) I've come to the end of a second year at university.

I honestly can't understand how it's happened so quickly. Maybe, just maybe, I fell through a crack in time, like so-

Weapons grade ineptitude strikes again!

Yep, that's right folks. The continuing war of The CYM against the world has been dealt another blow because of other people's silliness.

Given a choice between someone with experience in writing, editing and publishing; someone with a clear vision of what the college magazine can become; someone who always delivers and produces excellent work- given a choice between that person and two people who are popular but haven't the foggiest about the amount of hard work and effort that will go into the role, the masses used their collective wisdom and voted for the hot blonde leggy girl who happens to be on the pool team.

The Virtues of Voting vs Weapons Grade Ineptitude

Ah, democracy. The greatest element of our modern Western civilization, according to some people who write clever books.

Normally it seems to work. Unless you're the British government.

Or involved in Student Media at Lancaster Uni.

If you're paying £15 for two things, and someone offers to give you those two things, plus a third, for only £3, would you take it?

Hectic hiatuses all round...

So, this whole 'regular' idea went right down the pan.

I've only got myself to blame, I suppose, but being sans laptop recently got me into a habit of not really, well, using a laptop. So I've not been as on the ball.

I also had a friend from home to stay, which was great. The lovely Miss Gemma Davies, who I shall curse for evermore as she gets to see Florence and The Machine thanks to her uni and I don't.

Lament Lemeul

I've just seen the trailer for this Christmas' family comedy "Gulliver's Travels". That's right folks, you read that right.
They're doing it as a family comedy.

With Jack Black.

In a modern American City (I'm guessing New York) and heading to the Bermuda Triangle.



If it's not bad enough that they're completely ruining the satirical nature of Swift's masterpiece, the sight of Mssr Black lying down with the Liliputlians roping him to the floor and his Converse sticking out of the end just sends shivers down my spine.

Leave it alone! Don't adapt it. A film of the book, where the pioneering men of that day and age could actually expect to come across forgotten and undiscovered peoples would be exquisite.

Please. No more of Black gurning at the screen and ruining a classic.



What do you guys think?

Money is the root of all evil, apparently. Dark Lord Lucas Agrees...

I was looking at my bookshelf today, at a series I've been reading for a while, and it reminded me of a gripe I have.

I like books. I like Karen Traviss. I like (although it depresses me to admit it, given that it really won't lend any weight to the following argument) Star Wars.

I don't like Lucasarts/ the Lucas Estate. I don't like (this is the point I've taken a few years to get to) expanded stories based on an existing universe. And here's why.

Some people, eh? No, not the ones in the wheelchairs...

Right, this is just a short entry- got to go ring my dad, read, and sit in the sun. I don't want to stay angry for long.

But something's just happened, as things are known to do, and it reminded me of something else that happened a while ago, as many things have. It made me irritated, nay, infuriated. What was it, you say? Well, it involved a girl in a wheelchair.

Was she at fault, you ask?

The sunshine season tames the Demon

That's right, it's sunny. It's hot. I love it, and most Brits seem to too. At least, the amount of scantily clad girls and twats with their six packs out seems to confirm this.

Of course, some people don't like the heat, but stuffez vouz, I say to them. It's great. I've been up early these past two days, for no other reason than it was sunny and I wanted to get out in it for a bit.

This lack of laptop malarky is actually not too bad-

Overheating... Things on the fritz... Televised Dust to Dust...

Well it's been an eventful twenty four hours truth be told. Woke up to a great day, sun shining, really warm, to the point where I had to change my shirt twice.

It was galling to realise I was without the sole core of my life- my laptop. And when I say it's the core of my life, that isn't a nerdy comment or a geeky love note. Honestly, today was difficult without a computer and without access to the internet. It was as galling to realise how much I depend on it as it was to actually have to do without it.

On the one hand yes, I ended up making myself familiar with these two again:





But on the downside the lack of contact with emails, Facebook and other sites was grating, leaving me feeling detached from responsibility

The Lazy Generation- reminding me of twiddling thumbs...

We are the lazy generation- so The F-Ups said in the eponymous song Lazy Generation (featured in one of my favourite games of all time, Burnout 3. Seriously, all I have to do is listen to that song and I'm sixteen/ seventeen again caring about nothing but getting my next takedown.)

All tangents aside though, they called us the Lazy Generation. And they were right.

Which is one reason why this wasn't posted on Friday.

Mr Stark, Mr Fury and Mr Odinson- one movie that beat low expectations...

So, in the height of a mild to fierce fever and with a big exam a few days away I decided it'd be a great idea to allow myself to be dragged out to see Iron Man 2.

I was right.

If you believe all the tosh that's been bandied around about it being as awful as SpiderMan 3 and completely disjointed and non-functioning as a story, let me first tell you that those ideas are wrong, false, pretence and deceitful. Iron Man 2 is a very good film.

Flammable forehead, the it'll-be-fine complex and a pile o' books

So, since about last Wednesday I've had the sniffles. Well, it's been a bit more than the sniffles, at one point I felt like I was facing this nice chap:

The Curse of the Laundrette. Strikes Back. With A Vengeance. Part II. (This time it's personal...)

There are dozens of mythically cursed and ancient places around the world. The pyramids in Egypt. The Stone Heads of Easter Island. Native American burial grounds across the US. Druid sites like Stonehenge. But there is a far deadlier type of location that is out to get you, and it is only just at the beginning of being discovered, let alone understood. It is...

The student laundrette.

Piss-up in a brewery, plagues of pages and the son of Odin.

So, this week has been fun. For the first time in university education, I decided not to leave everything to the last minute. Not to bore you with the details, but 25000 words were due from me at the end of last week through different bits of coursework.

And lo, in the beginning...

'I name this blog Binned Pages and Ink Stains. May God bless her, and all who read her.'

That is to say, here it is. Maiden voyage of an idea that's been brewing long enough that if it were tea it would be undrinkable and if it were beer it would have quite a kick.

This is Binned Pages and Ink Stains, a blog that'll show you the funny and not so funny sides of a life on a campus, buzzing with thoughts and with no where to shout about them. Here you'll find a bunch of articles, thoughts and a generally cynical outlook on people peppered with flashes of humour. The Curmudgeonly Young Man seems to be here to stay- there are more of us out there than you imagine.

So stay tuned and prepare yourselves for full blown rants, opinionated wonderings and daily thoughts on things that have happened.

Grumbles, groans and grins all in one.

NB- no actual deities were consulted about the beatification of this blog. This blog therefore cannot be gauranteed to be holy and as such readers will not be blessed by proxy as the shpeel suggests. It was a thing I nicked. If any deities are passing, they may be coerced into such blessings, but right now apparently they're all on a break they like to call non-existence. If anyone knows a deity, a referal would be appreciated. Terms and conditions apply.