Crikey, a month since my last post? Okay, let's talk radio.

Well, as the title suggests, I immediately clicked the new post button as soon as I saw the date of the posting of my previous post and posited that I should post a new post.

I'm currently presenting a new drive-time show on a community station which has been going incredibly well. At first, it was a slow start and it was like powering up the Amstrad - I had to give it about 10 minutes (in this case I wasn't playing Daley Thompson or Bomb Jack). But after a while, it started to flourish and all my shows since have been some of my best. So what sparked my interest in radio?

Well, there are a number of reasons. I had always been a fan of movies but never enough to call myself a movie buff. I loved and still love computer games, though perhaps not as much as I used to. But that was all a very passive, hypodermic-needle model, do-whatever-the-telly-tells-me existence. The very beginning of my foray into working in media was the Media Studies course at the college up the road. I had a great teacher and I found it much more interesting than the other courses. I took the course in my 2nd year and thus, I felt like I was more dominant than my classmates. I had a year on them at the college and to them, I was a guru, a sage, a master of mise-en-scene analysis; the progeny of media itself. The aura about me as I entered the classroom in an old hoodie and baggy jeans was always momentous; you could hear a pin drop. No-one really carried pins and I don't know anyone who does to this day, but should there have been a pin present in the classroom and pushed over from a place that would constitute the pin being in a dropworthy position, then yes, that pin would have made an absolute racket in the environment I created.

My love for the media, in it's broader sense, was strong enough for me to pick it as a subject at university, imagining that I would one day be a reporter like they used to have in the old days (see Boardwalk Empire reporters for reference to cool cliché) with one of those hats they used to wear with a label on it. Mine would say 'Entertainment Reporter' as I would approach someone noteworthy enough for taking notes in my little flippy notebook. I'd go there in a suit, which would be covered in a trench coat, buttoned enough to see the lapels, shirt and tie of the beautiful attire underneath. Sadly, these delusions of grandeur dissipated into the air they came from after one lesson of 'Journalism'. What a complete bore. One activity given in this lesson was: 'Write any news story you want. It can be about anything. Absolutely anything. It's got to be interesting and get my attention with the headline and well-written afterwards. Oh, and it has to be a breaking news story'. I'm para-phrasing but that was mainly it. So I thought for about 15 seconds, after which I had a 'Eureka!' moment. My article was as good as written. The opening lines of it would be something like: 'The Prince of Wales was attacked in a hit-and-run last night'. Now, I've got nothing against him; in fact, he seems like a good chap, but the whole point was to be interesting. After finishing the article and handing to the lecturer, she said 'No, not possible. You'd need to await confirmation from the royal family'. So she had technically lied. We couldn't write about anything. My lecturer couldn't even let down the wall of ennui long enough for her to crack a smile or even go 'Okay yeah, that's pretty big news. Well done'. But no, it wasn't. I slumped back into the chair which had probably been slumped into more than once by my predecessors.

So I eventually got round to radio and I loved it. The live dynamic and small team meant that I didn't have to rely on too many people to get it right. I was in my element again. Presenting, producing, editing; you name it, I did it. And successfully. I even got great feedback from the Creative Producer of Global Radio for my advert, which was an advert to sell a radio. To sell a radio on a radio advert was tough but this man said that my idea would be good enough for their stations. And I have since worked on a more freelance basis and it's certainly picking up.

But now it's just getting it to a full-time job. And I tell you, it's blummin' hard.

Mohammed Adnan's '2047'

I told you. I told you I'd add 36 years. Just an example of the psychic power I'm going to be employing in this post. If you've got a bit of a phobia about all things ghostly and supernatural, then I'd recommend you keep reading as there's nothing of the sort anyway.

It was a bit of a crap day in June and clocks were broken. William Churchill was tapping the beat of a song called 'Same' by The Unchangeables, a band of identical quadruplets who all played instruments manufactured by Simple. After a little while and a lot of boredom, William got out of his room, running past the newspapers strewn across the floor like someone had used the Daily Paper as confetti in some sort of extravagantly plain wedding. The words 'Cloning is the way forward, exclaims clone' was on every page of each paper. William got out of his cubic flat, only to see more cubic flats line across the way, each flat spaced equally apart.

Rain pattered on the ground outside. It did not pitter. Just another example of the many changes that had occurred in recent years. The pavement outside had become uniform to reflect the homogenised society we now lived in. The bell would be ringing soon and people would be walking out of their houses and towards the work factory where all administrative duties and computer-related business took place which kept the cog of society grinding slowly to churn out the little meaning given to the lives of the people inhabiting the town. All the stores around were either delapidated or on their way to being so. The work routine was organised by the mayor's Work Policing Unit, who ushered the people towards the factory and stormed into the houses of those had not left and fished them out.

William looked at his calculator watch, which had now been termed 'retro' in 3 different generations. It read 2.20pm. He looked up and saw the train station he had been running towards. As he got in and approached the platform, stopping before the 'Mind The Gap' warning, his train pulled in, scraping the rusted metal and letting out a screech which mirrored his yearning to leave. He got on the train and as he did so, he could see others doing the same; eagerly hurling themselves onto the train to escape the grimness. Ennui lived in splendour here and William had had enough of his company. As he bustled his way past the crowded train, many of whom were looking towards the heavens as if salvation had engulfed them, the train began to move. William found a nice floor spot where he could sit and see a window. As Slough passed him by, he'd return to normality. Nothing had really changed in the last 36 years anywhere else. But Slough just got worse.


I bet you were thinking that this was a glimpse into some washed-out future. However, everywhere is pretty much the same or more vibrant, except a few towns here and there. They're just stagnant. Let's be honest; things aren't gonna change that much in 36 years... are they?

Would you like anything else with your oxygen canister and chicken pizza?

This was a great article and a topic of discussion on the drive time show I present on local radio: http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Pizza_restaurant_to_open_on_Moon (article courtesy of Orange News and the Daily Telegraph). Weird news and odd tidbits I can get my grubby mitts on usually slot themselves firmly into my show, otherwise I'd be blabbering in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way which would make listeners switch off and to listen to the sound of lawnmowers as that would probably make more sense.

So, after broadcasting the news on radio and leaving the station, I sent an email to the PR department at Dominos pizza with the following:


To whom it may concern,
 
As a fan of your glorious pizzeria, it concerned me that you may be opening a store on the moon:http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Pizza_restaurant_to_open_on_Moon?pg=2#newscomments

With the current economic climate, it might be a bad move to build this store on the moon due to lack of customers and no financial return. That no oxygen thing might be a problem too. Plus, I'm no mathmatician but £13.4billion sounds like a lot of money. I could buy lots of pizzas with that.... oh, and solve a big chunk of an economic crisis.



However, if this is true, do you do home deliveries? I'm craving a nice margherita pizza. And as I am currently looking for employment, is there a job application I can fill out?


Thank you for your time.




Yours faithfully,


Mohammed Adnan


Thinking that I wouldn't get a reply, I still refreshed the page, hoping that I'd get a response of some sort to answer some of the, quite frankly, pertinent questions regarding a home delivery from the moon and if I could work in outer space as a pizza-selling assistant.


And I did. And kudos to Dominos, they humoured me and replied with the following:

Hi Mohammed

Thank you for your email.

We’re over the moon you liked the idea but I’m afraid we can’t take credit for this story as it came from Domino’s Pizza in Japan.

Please could you tell us if you are based in the UK?

Kind Regards

Tanya

What a great reply. Great pizza and great staff. And I think this news story has sparked my next story because to eat on the Moon is perhaps a future pursuit, should we run out of space to build more restaurant here on this green and blue planet. I understand that George Orwell wrote '1984' in 1948. Whether that number came from him swapping the latter 2 digits and setting his heart on that, I have no idea. However, if I did it in this year, 2011, it'd be pointless, because my depiction of the crumbling future under the scope of an oligarchical dictatorship would be of me writing this blog. Instead, I'm going to add 36 years, just like Orwell did to portray the society under the control of 'Big Brother'. I could be a sort of Winston Smith character who rebels. So my next post is storytelling? Great.

My old radio

Hello all, I'm back again. I was getting all nostalgic from listening to some of my old radio pieces I did at University and thought I should upload some of the best bits on here. Even now, this makes me laugh. I was at doing my breakfast show stint on the university radio station, which went by the name of Cheeky Rainbow. We produced 3 pieces like this every day and it took the best of 5-6 hours to do all 3 pieces. All in all, including a 3 hour breakfast show, it took an entire week to do a really good show, and it still remains the best week of radio I've ever been a part of. Enjoy!
(All rights of 'The Godfather' images and 'The Godfather' audio belong to Paramount Pictures)

Technological diarrhoea

The world is at our fingertips, technologically speaking. It's technological diarrhoea. It runs and it's everywhere. There are now millions of rooms in the world occupied by electronics. On the bus, a person is either listening to their mp3 player, browsing the internet on some new phone that predicts the future or is looking at electronics shops pass them by as they head towards a gadget store (with The Metro newspaper and a handbag on the seat next to them, occupying an entire seat on the bus so you can’t sit down. What bullshit. You loaned some money from a bank for a seat on the extravagantly-priced bus; that handbag and crap should be moved so you can sit down. I hate it when people leave their bags on the seat next to them. Did they pay another ticket price for their bag? No! So move it out of the way or I will sit down on the bag and who knows what sort of relationship will be explored between the contents of your bag and my backside... maybe this is something for another post).

We have so much now. I am the proud owner of an iPhone as well as a laptop and yet, when my laptop takes five minutes from pressing the power button to a fully funtioning operating system, I go insane. I enter this incredible fit of rage where I start shaking and like some sort of fucked-up clairvoyant, I can see myself breaking my laptop in half like something out of a Record Breaker’s feat; where people would be applauding me and I would look on, smiling and waving, throwing bits of laptop into the crowd for people to fight over as I strut off stage with the unmistakeable swagger of someone tearing up a computer. Do I not realise the miracle occurring? Silicon, metal, wires, electric and some other unidentifiable stuff is allowing me to find out what’s happening everywhere in the world and I can’t wait five minutes before having psychotic visions of a broken computer. With this foldaway bit of tech, I can find out if a bunch of gormless gorillas are prancing around in an open field anytime soon or when the next Rolling Stones concert at Hyde Park will be (same thing).

‘My BlackBerry is shit’ is a perfectly valid statement and when the soundwaves of those inevitable words bounce off the walls inside my ear canal, I nod in gleeful agreement, with an expression reading ‘You should have got an iPhone, but you tried to be different in the hope of looking cool and you ended up with a phone that looks like someone pounded an old phone into a metallic waffle’. A difficult expression to read, I’m sure you’ll agree. But you are now capable of speaking to someone through airwaves and hear them clearly. Before mobile technology, if you dialled from the landline and said ‘Meet me in the town centre in half an hour’ and you went at that time; if they didn’t show up, you just had to go home. Out of breath, you’d ring that person back and say ‘why didn’t you meet me in the town centre?’ ‘Oh I got sidetracked, I tried ringing you back but you’d left at that point’. An entire day wasted. Nowadays, you can ask people 'what the hell is going on?' through a bit of metal. And that bit where people say ‘Ok, I’ll send him a message. Argh, I can’t get any reception. Why? Why can’t I get reception? Come on, come on, come on. There we go. Bloody hell, that took the piss.’ What did? The whole five seconds you had to wait before you could beam an entire piece of text to someone in another place? What would you have been doing instead? Saving someone’s life from a burning building? What else would you have done that has angered you so much in that small space of time? I’m sure you understand what I’m getting at now, so next time you use a bit of technology, be a little patient. It’s unbelievable.

‘WHY ISN’T MY PHONE CONNECTING TO THIS WIFI?! THIS NORTH POLE IS SHIT!’ is the next line I’m waiting to hear (when I'm in the North Pole next).

If I was to choose a format, I would put English in technicolour over black and white. ‘Cos then, like, it’s nicer.

I am just one of many that take great joy in being able to have a respectable command of the English language (I know, how arrogant). Decades and centuries have passed with evocative poetry, eloquent writers and articulate speakers, all with the aim of being able to describe a situation so completely true that the reader is immediately able to make an instant connection without the faintest flicker of ennui; a student immersed and convinced that each following word unlocks the mystery of the sentence and eventually, the entire magnum opus. So, if that’s what you were looking for, you’ll be a bit disappointed. I don’t do all that ‘meaning of life’ stuff, I'll leave that to some cheesy poet who just wants to sound profound. Rather, this piece intends to pick apart the things that stealthily frequent our lives. And no, it’s not the toilet paper that inexplicably finds its way onto the spool hanging in my bathroom. Someone from my family does it. I solved that a few weeks ago. Ha! And they say Columbo was a good detective. Twat.

I’m going to keep this post short (not entirely true). I have a healthy obsession with trying to incorporate new words into my lexicon, without those words sounding particularly alien when they exit my mouth in an orderly fashion. See, I think that as a nation, we have a strong tendency to stick with the familiar, which I suppose is only natural considering our habitual instincts. In a country nestling comfortably in a schedule of work, 9 to 5’s, food diaries, gym routines, sock drawers, correct alignment of coasters on the dining table, carrying your phone in a particular pocket, sleepy time, meeting friends, Sky planners and the regular intake of breath mints, it’s no wonder our lives are plagued by repetition. Inevitably, ‘routine’ is bound to spread its languid wings to also encompass our diction and ‘keep it simple’. Consequently, it results in staccato pronunciation of seemingly difficult words that could have comfortably exited our mouths had our tongues been able to form some sort of muscle memory in the early stages of our lives.

I’ll structure a scenario with words for you. Imagine the following sentence being uttered from a toothless urchin on a street corner: ‘Oh, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s... it’s...’ . And the sentence ends on this predictable cliffhanger (how prejudiced; maybe this toothless urchin is actually some sort of linguistic professor... but in this case he's really not. He's a stupid toothless urchin. Deal with it). Can you guess what this person was trying to explain? Yep, it was someone trying to illustrate what heroin is. My conclusion is that these substances aren’t as popular because druggies find them difficult to describe. Their PR is all over the place; they don’t know whether they’re coming or going (probably because that person is on heroin). For example, I love a Starbucks every now and then but that’s largely down to the foamy green and white advertising. And they tell me that the beans help some people in another country so by buying this stuff, I’m actually helping someone by sending my brain into a caffeine-induced frenzy, and who doesn’t want that? So if the rotting, walking, illegal-substance-selling junkies put on a suit, brushed their teeth and either spoke beautifully or sang ‘Golden Brown’ when selling, I might just say ‘Oh, tell me more; the grubby spoon and needle looks interesting. Do they come in other quantities? Or is it just a teaspoon? No thank you, I might come back later ‘cos I wanna see if anyone has a tablespoon or something, ‘cos usually if you buy in larger quantities then stores sell products cheaper due to the whole bulk-buying system which has probably revolutionised shopping as a whole. You know, like a Costco for smack’. Not that I'm condoning this sort of alleyway business, it's just mere observation.

However, I think this rant will remain pointless as I don’t believe that a complete command of English will ever seem cool. Unless I tell you that it is incredibly sexy. ‘Cos erm... it is.

08 April 2010 - 'Yep, you guessed it. Another post' - I'll social network you in a minute if you're not careful

I’ve never understood why, when there is a world crisis, someone goes ‘Quick, to the BBC!’ and they all march there, as if this was the best solution possible. As if they’d gone into a meeting and after much contemplation, graph-drawing, diagrams, mind-maps, video conferences and in-depth briefings, they thought ‘the BBC must be vehicle behind such widespread turmoil’ and ran out. What nonsense. I can imagine them there now. ‘Oi! Cameron! Get out of there! What, you scared? Just ‘cos you own the BBC and that house in London an’ that?! Yeah? Well, let me tell you, my son, you ain’t the boss of me!’ It doesn’t work (by the way, Cameron doesn’t own the BBC and all these people sound like Ray Winstone, in case you were wondering). Pointless protest is not a protest. It has to mean something. ‘Oh, summat’s up with the plumbing. Er, quick, everyone go to Sky! Oi, Murdoch, I got a toilet leak and I don’t like it one bit. Fix it before the urine touches my bath mat, you ponce!’ It’s just mindless and will not solve anything. We need to conduct ourselves properly and gain a better understanding of the circumstances in front of us, before throwing ourselves in whole-heartedly. Protests have probably been around since caveman, although I’m assuming the John Lennon ‘lying down’ revolt hadn’t even been imagined by our grunting predecessors. They were probably more violent in their protests, beginning with a Captain Caveman yelp before diving into battle, clubbing people, plants, rocks, birds, oxygen, the meaning of life, hair; basically, hitting anything in their wake. Now we’ve developed as a people and are able to do things in petition form, the content of which can range from ‘Get a new government in!’ to ‘I want the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand to change his hairstyle’.

Another recent development is the advent of social networking. ‘Is my mate biting his nails? Let’s check Facebook, he always posts that sort of humdrum trivia’. This constant need for telling ‘friends’ (I use the term so loosely, it is highly likely to slip through my fingers) about each action through a status update is something which I have not quite got to grips with. Before I launch into a verbal gladiatorial attack on these sites, I too am a member of some of these. But my rant is not a case of ‘people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’, it’s more of a ‘let’s make this glass house bulletproof’. So, onwards and upwards. What are the flaws of social networking?

Setting up parties on Facebook is pretty much always going to end in disappointment. Most people leave RSVP’s on ‘maybe’ for the sake of sympathy, a ‘throw the dog a bone’ gesture which leaves little to the imagination; you have no intention of attending such a gathering. So my first idea here is that all the RSVP’s should be hidden, there should be no choice; and until half the people are going to the advertised event, that figure also remains hidden so you don’t look so lonely. Plus, you don’t want some random bloke you used to go to school with turning up, being all loutish and cantankerous, as if his sole purpose was to taint the party with barbaric antics and vomit. So make sure you don’t fall into the trap of inviting everyone your Facebook list. I also mentioned earlier about how it refers the people linked to your profile as ‘friends’. They should change this to ‘acquaintances’. They’re not really friends, are they? You met ‘em once, and you haven’t uttered another word to them since. Remove them from your list. Unless they’re useful to know. In which case, you may want to return to sycophantic ways and make sure that the imprints made by your lips are firmly stuck to the derriere of your target.

I recently joined Twitter which is nice. Because all you can properly do is status updates, and you want to make each one count because people will stop ‘following’ you on there if you’re a boring old sod. But I’m thinking of setting up a fake profile and doing a load of crazy stuff whilst following celebrities and documenting it for some radio show. My idea is that I set up a profile as a snarky critic, just asking them negative questions and getting reactions from people in the spotlight. There’s no real point to it; it’s a virtual Dennis Pennis. With Twitter, your insignificance is magnified when you realise the gulf between you and celebrity is much bigger than you could have dreamed of. You’re there, sitting all meekly, constantly checking how many followers you have so your mundane life can be projected to more disinterested people. ’I have 6 followers, that’s like a gang’, I exclaimed. Until I saw Sylvester Stallone’s. And then I wondered: ‘when Sylvester tweets, do Looney Tunes file a lawsuit against him?’ It’s definitely worth thinking about.

This particular post has been inspired by James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, in that the above rant is more of a stream-of-consciousness rather than anything else. I just typed what I thought and put it in a blog, although to some extent, there was a bit of pausing just to see what I’d written wasn’t complete garbage. Half-garbage, I can deal with. Three quarters garbage is a lot, but manageable. But complete garbage? No-one wants that. Not even garbage men, ‘cos that’s forced overtime. You see, fresh blog ideas are hard to come by. Everyone else is doing topical posts, which is just laborious and only repeats what others have said, conveying news for the masses but nonetheless, it is news that has already been broadcast in a similar fashion. I suppose in that way, I’m quite selfish. I just write what I feel like. But I always have you in mind; you can always contribute. I’m actually going to write a post about your comments as soon as I have amassed enough of your thoughts in the hope that I can perhaps fashion another blog out of your deep and insightful contemplation.

28 March 2011 - 'Oh, a blog' - Job satisfaction

I briefly touched on Lent in my previous blog. But this time, I’m going to un-Lent (a.k.a. a resolution). I will now start responding to comments. My ignorance in previous posts (particularly my debut blog on bus fares) was somewhat stupid and showed how I can easily slip into the realm of solipsism. And for that, I apologise.

So I pondered over another topic where I can get your valuable opinions. See, the different cultural backgrounds and varying viewpoints of each individual is perhaps what I am subtly expressing in these blogs, that within ourselves, we hold different answers to questions shared by most of us. When addressing these, some of us are parochial, some are broad and others are in between in terms of our outlook on life. I think I bounce from one category to the next, never really settling in one particular place. This nomadic sluttyness is perhaps why my perspective on the existential questions to the minutiae of life is occasionally intriguing to all my beloved readers.

My good friend Raees Khan and I began to record a podcast some time ago, dealing with the questions that perhaps many of us mull over whilst out and about, during a deep state of meditation or even when on the toilet having a number two (or one, depending on your state of relaxation and of your bowel). Our aim was to discuss conflicting ideas in the form of audio, such as ‘Fame vs. Fortune’, ‘Communism vs. Capitalism’ and ‘Tits vs. Arse’ (cheap pun #2: I ‘tittered’ when that came up in our chinwag). We couldn’t be ‘arsed’ with the third one (and there’s cheap pun #3), and the second one was a special one that we would save until later, when we had experienced what it was like to discuss other topics. The first one had been recorded at one point, and we talked about it for a long time. So long in fact, that the computer couldn’t handle the size of the file we recorded and so we had to discard it altogether. You could say it went ‘tits’ up (and there’s cheap pun #4). But it’s a project I still aspire to complete with him. We shall impose a time limit next time. Lesson learned.

Confucius said ‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life’. Concerning my current situation of casual employment, ‘a few days here and there’ is perhaps the most efficient way of describing my ‘dealio’. The goals regarding my career aspirations echo Confucius’ wise words, but how long can a person stay in a state of casual employment, or just plain old unemployment, until he/she is face-to-face with the harsh realities of life? By harsh realities of life, I mean when it comes to the point where you are kipping in your parents house until you begin to enter old age, still wearing apparel that is so old that it can no longer be attributed with the term ‘retro’, donning stone-washed jeans pressed so strongly with an iron that it’s begun to form a layer of dull shiny crustiness, trainers pumped so much that they would burst at a stomp, and a t-shirt of a band you saw when you still had all those dreams of the future, with all their tour dates that happened 20 years ago on the back of this worn out top, only acting as an aged beacon that broadcasts how desperately you clutch onto a time much simpler. A specific reference, sure. Of course, I am referring here to people that I have seen walking around, and formulate these stories with the grey matter encased in my skull. I imagine these sorts of people still living with parents/guardians as they snigger about what they saw on the internet, or fantasise about Hayden Panattiere, wishing they could save the cheerleader and thus save the world, but if only I could tell them that those dreams won’t be achieved by sitting in your bedroom playing online shoot-em-ups or conversing with others in binary. It’s just not a good way to go about life.

It’s those things that get me a little bit worried. A while back, I was a dole earner, in that I signed on at the Job Centre and from experience, I can think of much more fun and less embarrassing things to do. You see people taking quick drags before entering, most of whom seem to go in with bored expressions, as if it has become a tiresome endeavour; an arduous effort to get forty quid. Luckily, I’m out of there now, and I wondered whether it’s just better to do a job for the monetary gain just so you can rub in it in their faces. ‘Ha! I got a job! You didn’t think it possible, but someone hired me! And when I get up the career ladder, I’m gonna be a manager here, that’s right, at this Job Centre, just you watch, and then I’ll laud it over you, constantly shining my ‘manager’ badge with the best polish money can buy, just to emphasise my superiority and manager-ness’. Of course, this is complete fabrication, but my desire to see such an event take place is still as strong as it was. I suppose I’m a sucker for the happy ending (funnily enough, there’s talk of massage parlours in the city that can give you that, though I suppose that’s a different type of job altogether). But I wanted your viewpoints on this as it’s a topic that is becoming more and more pertinent in society. Should one take the plunge for their ‘dream job’ or just settle for money in a craft that one is indifferent to, or even hates? The gains are obvious in the second one, but its side effects are too much for me, that we should be drones, merely existing to sustain the equilibrium in a society slapped by economic recession. When we all know what we want to do in life, should it not be our primary goal? Is there a limit until we say, ‘That’s it, I’ve tried with no success. Let’s just find something to keep me going’? Luckily, I have not yet reached that point and I suppose I will have to cross that proverbial bridge when I come to it, should it interrupt my journey to the ‘getting paid for what I enjoy’ vocation. But for now, I remain a firm believer that both our careers and lives should only be governed by what makes us happy. After all, is that not what we require?

22 March 2011: 'Another blog' - Well, that’s just festive isn’t it?

I’ve always wanted to create a job role for myself. But as soon as reality caught wind of this, it put me in a chokehold and told me that I can never call myself a ‘nothingatician’ because apparently, it ain’t a real line of work. I told reality and told it good, that all the vocation asks is that I simply sleep a lot, wear pyjamas until the clock strikes 3pm, and scratch myself wherever it seems appropriate. The confines of the majestic prison we call ‘home’ is great for that, 'cos it offers us a chance to plunge into a sea of ‘laziness and mucking about’. Nothingatician’s are always talked about in a pejorative context and we are constantly undermined for the lack of work we do, but that in essence, is what the role requires. If we were to constantly work, or do the ‘9 ‘til 5’ lark, it would merely contradict the beauty that manifests itself in ‘nothingancy’. But reality had a point. ‘Cos since taking this job, I’ve realised it don’t pay well.

However, I’ll continue with it as it’s served me well in writing my previous blogs. As many days of my week are treated as holidays, I often thought about the national holidays for banks, who seem to like Mondays (Bob Geldof should’ve got into the banking business, if you ask me) and are quite partial to the first day of certain months. Then you’ve got St. Patrick's Day. According to the well-renowned and sometimes fact-checked Wikipedia site, it’s ‘the lifting of Lenten restrictions on eating or drinking alcohol’, which basically means ‘put all your morals in a bin bag and sling it out of the window’. You’ve got religious holidays like Easter and Christmas (totalling three to four weeks, depending on whether your school is a nob or generous with time off). If World Chiropractor Day existed, it’d probably have people bent and broken into the shape of the letters to spell out ‘Google’ so the whole world can celebrate bone-twisting and cracking. In fact, I do a lot of that on my knuckles and I hear it pays well. So I’m looking into it. For me though, it’s hard to celebrate a holiday. I spend all my time and thought looking forward to the excitement brought by holidays and glorious festivities that when these days actually commence, I’m left with confusion and disappointment. I wake up late (see job role above), see the sun and scowl in the Dracula vernacular, because I haven’t planned anything to enjoy it. Other than my two trips to Pakistan and one in Turkey with some good mates, I have never travelled out of the somewhat safe haven of England.

On my first visit outside Blighty, we landed in Pakistan and I could already feel that things were different. It’s been 15 years since this trip, so I was at the beautiful age of 8, my mind still buzzing and excited at every bit of existence. This fascination with the minutiae of life would soon become a burden to my family whilst I was here. As we picked up our bags and carted off to look for our relatives, I couldn’t help but try to look in every direction and angle that God had made possible for me to see. There were people in traditional garb, greeting family with outstreched arms, and carrying their bags regardless of the weight. Airport security were traipsing around lost luggage, on the lookout for anyone suspicious. When one of them looked at me, I thought him to be some sort of maharaja, his long moustache and stern eyes looking at me, his very being wrapped in professional apparel. I grasped my mum’s hand and walked into the familiar hugs of old relatives, awkward and loving.

We took the rickety old van home as this was, for some reason, the best mode of transport. I didn’t know why at the time, but I kept thinking ‘how come we haven't just gone in Dad’s Nissan, it’s clearly much more reliable and it doesn’t stink of cow shit’. Puzzling over this, I looked over at my two brothers, both of young age, none of us had even started growing facial ‘bum-fluff’ and all of us possessing pre-broken vocals, squeaked at each other in English. My time here was filled with many positives though. We occasionally went to the market, which was bursting with haggling voices, all wanting to increase or drop prices of things I couldn’t care less about. I was busy staring at the gap-toothed merchants (I could fit a tennis ball between those canines), the cartful’s of colourful fruit (maybe they’re plastic like the ones you see in shop windows), the cows walking the street (I wonder if someone cleans up after them, and if so, do they carry spades with them?), who seemed to be scoffing at the prices and scoffing the food for free instead. People were crowding around us, ‘cos we had come from a land far, far away and that meant that we must be millionaires. Oh, their naivety made me laugh. I specifically remember a local shop selling a pack of three biscuits for the equivalent of one pence. I kept saying to my brothers, ‘that’s like a third of a pence for one of these’, impressing all with my maths skills. But taking me out and letting me into all this astonishing culture was a big mistake on my family's part. They should have known by now that I like new stuff. We returned home and I couldn’t wait to go out and be a nuisance.

The first moment of alarm for my family was probably after a week of being there, when I just walked out of the house and out of the garden without anyone knowing. I now imagine them going 'right, let's do a head count. Ok, you're in, he's in the garden, and Adnan is... oh, he's gone to see anything that exists again'. I walked down all the muddy corridors, relishing the squelch and the onomatopoeic resonance of sandal on mud, plodding past door after door of people’s houses. I made instinctual judgements at all possible intervals. I would look ahead and decide. The path ahead splits into a T-Junction. More houses either way. I take my chances with the right turn, and I enter a small patch of land. Again, I go ahead and more houses. I randomly used to choose which door I would go through. ‘This one has a goat in it! Quick, get in!’ was what determined my selection process, and upon entering, these families either welcomed me or thought nothing of my trespassing. When I chose the abode I would stay in until I had to go home, I mainly played one game in particular. I would see how close I could put my hand near a goat’s mouth before it thought I was food (cheap pun #1: ‘finger’ food). I think throughout my time in this wonderful place, I ventured out around 10 different times, and each time, my mum sent my elder brother to look for me. I don’t know how he ever managed it, but he’d find me by hook or by crook. He’d usually burst through a door and see me watching in disgust as people would pat cow excrement in the shape of a chapatti and smack it on a wall. 'Ew, is that real poo? No, it can't be. Why would you touch that? Do they each have a bar of soap they get through after work?'. But it had a horrible charm about it. I was like a grounded Mowgli in my time here, but instead, I lived with the calm wildlife, as I didn’t fancy kipping with wolves.

Nowadays, the thought of forested environments is something I would rather keep away from. I loathe that I think like that, but it seems that with age, we also develop unrelenting cynicism. These early experiences of life are great, where I constantly wanted to know more. And now, I want a follow the career path into the competitive field of ‘nothing’. But I’m starting to combat that desire. With Easter fast approaching, I suppose my thought for the day is do something. Plan something. My brothers and I are hoping to be in Rome soon. I’ll be sure to tell you about it, should anything of note happen. Misfortune and disaster is a great read, and with my track record, expect it in writing soon. So go out and enjoy what you can is what I recommend. Even if it stinks of animal effluent, at least you’ll know what it smells like.

10 March 2011: 'Third Blog Day' - Rebellion can be found in a chair

Right then. If my maths is correct, that’s two blogs done and this is the third. In the first two musings, I told you about how to save money by using your thin underwear as a toilet at the train station as well as notifying you of the tricks Apple are missing out on, so I think I should tell you more about me. I’d let you talk as I am very good at that thing people call ‘listening’, but it wouldn’t be the most invigorating blog if I just left a chunk of blank space and let you talk whilst staring into the abyss inside your computer screen; a vacant page where my ramblings could have been sprawled across the page. So just to enlighten you with some details; I am a human, just to dispel any notion that it is in fact any old creature typing on this keyboard (most of them haven’t got the dexterity. And quite frankly, they’re a bit stupid).

I am from Oldham and I am indeed a man. Again, I’ve narrowed it down even further from the ‘human’ stage and if I have ever displayed a hint of femininity, it should not be confusing to the point where my gender is questioned. I assure you, I naturally have the tools necessary to shoot forth my progeny. I’ve also given you a couple of stories on this page involving a bus journey and computer blocking pornographic content, so you might know the sorts of dull events that seem to plague my existence as I search for something more fulfilling. Those moments of incredible gravitas, tender and fragile, yet euphoric and beautiful all at the same time, as if all other life has come to a complete halt; our entire beings engaged with the events that begin to unfold into a rare and intense life-changing occurrence.

But seeing as those moments don’t come, fuck ‘em.

Don't wait for the moment, create it. This is why 'rebellion' is the topic today. I grew up with very high expectations of life. One of the main reasons for that twisted logic was good nosh. I was surrounded by some of the greatest cuisine known to man and beast. For example, if a random dog had tasted the glorious food I had sampled as a little 'un, it would have developed a ridiculously complex palette after devouring mum's food, thus becoming a 'spoilt mutt'. Good thing I ate a lot as a child and made sure there was no food left for anyone or anything else. I'm sure there's a picture of me when I was around four years old, in a knitted jumper with crazy patterns, eating a samosa. And if more photos had been taken of me eating that veggie-filled delight, you would have probably seen the triangular treat in my throat, very much like Scooby Doo's gullet when he eats a massive sandwich, as I had developed the nasty habit of wolfing my food down as a youth without using the dentition attached to my gums. Life really doesn't get better than that, and I learned the hard way (by growing up). After becoming fixated with pakoras and curry for a few years, I was the chubby kid at school, but back then, chubby meant 'hard'. I was quite a tough kid, accompanied with an 'I'm gonna fuck you up' attitude, and as much of the kids didn't go to the gym or do bodybuilding, my physique reigned supreme over their skinny arms; the rolls of lard acting as armour fit for a Roman warrior. I practiced moves from video games on other pupils for fun. I remember vividly doing a 'power punch' (inspired by Paul Phoenix from 'Tekken') on this kid, which is a normal punch accompanied by a loud grunt. Naturally, he did the right thing and ran to tell the teacher, all teary-eyed. And I think I may have hit him for tattling too. In layman's terms, I was a little bastard. One of my teachers caught wind of my reputation and decided to confront me. Don't worry, he didn't invite to a bare-knucle brawl (the first rule here would definitely be: 'Do not talk about Fight Club... because I'll get done for child abuse'). He instead made a fool out of me in front of the whole class via the medium of name-calling, and he followed on by pushing me into a table. Now, had I known it was against the law for him to do that, I'd have called the cops and got a subpoena to him before class had ended, but sadly, the legal system and all its intricacies had passed me by at the age of six. So what did I do? I did what Superman would have done. I grabbed the nearest chair and launched it with all my might. I remember thinking 'I'll teach him' and giggling coyly in my head, because I had made a joke about teaching a teacher. Clenched teeth and all, the chair flew out of my sweaty grip and I seem to remember it making contact with his leg. He decided to calm down after this (I probably would have done a 'Hadouken' if he provoked me any further).

Soon, I had become popular (it's amazing what throwing stuff at teachers can do) and developed the attributes needed for social interaction. I became the joker and also maintained good ties with the other hard kids, but my relationship with them is how I imagine it to be with the old mafia gangs in that we got along, but we really wanted to kick each other's arses. I think rebellion can be positive if it is to overthrow a controlling force, and to establish ties with other like-minded individuals to do things that are efficacious in stopping the tyrannies that exist in the world. The struggle for the illustrious prize of liberty occurs in all walks of life. So I wondered: have you ever performed any act of disobedience in your life that has resulted in something good? If you haven't, it's worth thinking about. Maybe you could do a standard protest, or do something symbolic, like an Aztec ritual of perching an eagle on a cactus with a snake in it's beak outside of 10 Downing Street, to signal that a new civilisation needs to be built immediately outside Cameron's fort. Please make sure it's symbolic, and that it doesn't go against any human or animal rights (it's best not to do the Aztec ritual actually, it's somewhat dated and bad for the animals involved. Eagles with acupunctured feet? A definite no-no). But just something cool like that.

02 March 2011: 'Second Blog Day' - The sugar appears underneath the technology

It's been around five months since I wrote my previous blog about money saving. I hope you all soiled yourself. Others might be laughing at you (and perhaps vomiting if they're close enough), but remember, you'll have the last laugh. Think of all those shiny pennies that you saved at the train station, not to mention the tips posted in the comments section below in that illustrious blog. But wait... what's that sound? Well, I'll tell you. It is the sound of the country coming out of the economic recession. Yep, all because of me.  

But still, we all have our moments of idiocy. Mine has been going on for nearly five months, thinking about what to write next on this bloggy thing. I started one on reality television, and I was giving some of those shows a great verbal beating, talking about Britain's Got Talent and X-Factor, focusing mainly on the success of SuBo by saying 'She's only made one hit and released an album of work. She could only sing one song. What else did she put on there? A Tiesto remix?!' It was all going so well until The Apprentice came on and ruined everything by being a decent show. So while I was browsing my phone messages, watching YouTube on my computer, grasping an Xbox controller in the other hand, with the television sound clashing against the noise of automobiles outside, a 'Eureka!' moment occured; the onslaught of all this modern stuff provided me with this long-awaited epiphany. If you haven't guessed it by now, your moment of idiocy has not passed.

A discussion on ‘technology’. Viruses have sometimes frequented my PC and I think that's all part and parcel of the computer experience. However, the weirdest moment was when I tried to access msn.com when working for the council, only for the message 'Blocked: Pornographic content' to appear in big, bold letters. I wouldn't have minded much, but it was my second day of work and my colleague next to me just happened to turn her head towards my screen. Who knows, maybe it aided my reputation. But they didn't renew my contract, so I'll let you be the judge of that.

Anyway, I really wanted to discuss the ‘new phone’. There’s the one that sits at the top of the phone chain, also known as the iPhone. Then there’s the HTC, and that other one that’s name after a non-existent fruit (Blackberry, if you haven't already guessed). I mean, I have an iPhone and I’m sure that the person who invented the wheel wanted to make this next but just didn’t have correct tools (e.g. electricity). The App Store has been phenomenal and provided me with great apps, like the Angry Birds game, where you catapult birds into pigs (believe me, it’s a lot better than it sounds), Fruit Ninja, where you use your ninja-like capabilities to cut fruit up. My issue with Fruit Ninja was that whoever was making the fruit salad put bombs in there by mistake. But I suppose without the bombs, it’d just be a cookery app. And of course, there are your social network apps, the perfect way to regularly check how much no-one writes on your wall. So I’ll cut to the chase and present to you, the applications that should be made for the modern phone:

Punch Gok Wan repeatedly until he stops saying ‘girlfriend’

The game involves a fist, and the face of Gok Wan. By repeatedly tapping the screen, Gok will be tucking into a knuckle sandwich. You basically force feed him this delightful punch fest until it says ‘Level Complete’. The levels get more difficult as he puts on masks, until he gets to knight’s helmet.

After much consideration, I think you’d only be allowed to do the level as a female character. Otherwise, as a bloke, he’d just wear a gimp mask and you’d be forever tapping the screen. Deviant.

(I don't know if he actually says 'girlfriend' a lot. I watched the Impressions Show and made that judgement)

Food Tester 2.0

Are you worried that your milk expiry date was two days ago? What about that cucumber that has grown a Mohican? Well, look no further! Simply dip or rub the phone on the expired foodstuff and see if it’s edible enough so that it won’t leave you doubled over for a whole week (‘Food Tester 1.0’ didn’t work properly, you just looked weird when you rubbed your phone on rotten food. And it made your phone smell terrible).

Ice Pack

When you’re getting all hot (and perhaps bothered), just stick this application on and put it on your forehead. It turns into an ice block and cools you down. So if you have an injury, it can be used in the short-term for healing purposes. Sounds great. But when it melts, your phone becomes wet and unusable. And it’s not covered by insurance. I’m still working on it.

Where my dogs at? Bark with me now!

Endorsed by Lil’ Bow Wow (it’s not), it helps you find your dogs via GPS signal. It works by detecting a small chip you place on the dog. As the tagline for the app goes, ‘Pop a fully functional microchip in that ass!’

So there are the apps that I could think of, which I hope, someone will make one day. And again, the comments section is open for any app ideas you have. Something with longevity. Like the Gok app. I could play that whilst asleep. Or even a Lil' Bow Wow franchise. Like online banking on your phone with the young rapper. Tagline: 'Where my dough at? Bank with me now!'. Something cool like that.