JournalJournalhttp://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2013-02-18T13:30:42ZSquarespaceI was so hungry I actually did just eat a horse....http://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2013/2/16/i-was-so-hungry-i-actually-did-just-eat-a-horse.htmlDPC2013-02-16T10:40:22Z2013-02-16T10:40:22ZSo this week we've been subjected to more headlines about horse meat than I've had hot, and potentially horse infested, dinners. The Sun in particular has gone to town on this story, having day after day of horse related articles and their pun machine going into overdrive with headlines such as; "A load of old Pony" after one of their journalists visited a Romanian slaughterhouse and "Neigh Levels" after horse meat was discovered in school dinners. Yep that's right, The Sun has covered this story with as much tact as ever. I'm just amazed they haven't linked the puns together with the Oscar Pistorius murder case yet. There's always next week I guess.

My favourite report so far however has been about the horse meat that was found in....wait for it.....kebabs! WHAT a revelation that one was aye? Personally I am actually astonished it was as good as horse meat that they discovered, as I always pressumed Kebabs were made from the remains of dead badgers and drowned kittens. In fact, having horse meat in it has actually made me more tempted to go down the local Abbra Kebabra and rekindle my love for what once used to be my drunken after pub stable, err i mean staple.

Now personally I don't really see what all the fuss is about. Okay so the burgers you bought for about 5p had something other than the finest cuts of beef in them? Who'd have thought it aye? What next, the 'Roof Lauren' jumper you bought for £2.50 down the local market wasn't the high quality 'Ralph Laurent' knitted beauty you were expecting? At least we know where the Horses missing 4th leg on the logo went now I guess? Every cloud and all that.

Obviously this horse meat issue is bad and yeah the stores suppliers certainly shouldn't be hanging about down the local race track like it's an all you can eat buffet, but to me it's all getting a bit boring now. No one's died as far as I am aware - well other than maybe poor old Seabiscuit - and in other countries they eat horse like we eat beef (which ironically might be horse) so let's just get on with it and as long as it gets sorted urgently then surely we can stop with the daily updates and scaremongering?

Even the revelation that some horse meat contained a painkiller called 'bute' hasn't really stacked up to be anything to worry about, as according to doctors you'd need to eat around six hundred horse meat burgers in one sitting for it to have any effect on you whatsoever! SIX HUNDRED!!! Now there's an episode of Man Vs Food I wanna see. Seriously, if that's the amount you're eating then having a painkiller in your system is probably a bonus, as the aftermath of that monstrosity is not going to be pretty.

Anyway as this continuous voice of doom in the papers doesn't seem to be shutting up anytime soon I've decided to have a think about what the potential benefits of eating horse could be, as I want to try and alleviate anyone's concerns if they are feeling particularly worried. Before I do go through these thoughts however I'd just like to tell any nutritionists, biologists or even horses reading this article that I have NO idea what I am talking about, so please don't take it too seriously. Still here we go:

1) It might make you run quicker and become stronger - Cows are slow, lazy animals who spend most of their day eating grass, having their udders squeezed by strangers and when laying down, giving people the chance to make outrageous assumptions about the weather. Horses however run around, jump fences and pull gypsies along the side of the road like it's nothing, so shoving a few of them down your neck might improve your athleticism. When I say 'them' I mean horses by the way, not gypsies - eating those cheeky buggers might just make you really bad at laying driveways or something.

2) It could make you cooler. Have you ever seen anyone riding a cow? No, that's because it would make you look mentally unstable. Riding a horse however is pretty cool, so eating something that John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and recently Jamie Foxx casually trot around on in their movies could potentially have the same effect on you. Obviously if after a year of eating it you find yourself roaming around a field on all fours with a fella sitting on your back and shouting giddyup then it's probably wise to re-think your eating habits.

3) It might make you 'Frencher'. Now this can be seen as a positive or negative, depending on your view of the French, but the Frenchies love a bit of horse and their food is meant to be the best in the world, plus women LOVE their accent. So if you want to up your game in the culinary sense and maybe add a little bit of a French twang to your current rough English tones then eat away. Admittedly the whole 'eating what the French do might make you sound French' theory is a bit far fetched, and if that was the case then considering my curry habit I'd be sounding 90% Indian, but hey give it a go, you never know, it might work.

4) It could make your manhood bigger. No one ever says 'Oh he's hung like a cow' do they? Well maybe on that show 'Embarassing Bodies', but I don't see that as a positive. So I say if you get the chance gorge away on a bit of horse meat and by this time next year your little fella might be swinging around like an unmanned fire hose.

5) It won't turn you loopy. I mean have you ever heard of mad horses disease? Nope me neither, cows however? Big time. Fifteen years or so ago Britain was seemingly full of cows going bonkers. I'm not saying they were heading down the local Lidl dressed in their pyjamas like mad humans do, but they were still causing a lot of problems. So tuck into horse, at least you know (at this point) that it's not going to send you over the edge.

6) If we eat all the horses, then any sport that previously involved them might have to swap to using cows instead.  Just imagine The Grand National, it would be incredible!  Or it could actually make Dressage at the Olympics even funnier?! 

There you have it, just a handful of scientifically dubious but theoretically possible positive results that could come from eating horse! Actually who am I kidding? Even theoretically this is bollocks, but as long as dairy farmers don't start using horses "milk" instead of cows then I'm fine with the rest. Seriously, someone showed me the infamous Animal Farm tape at school and you DO NOT want to be pouring that on your cornflakes....

]]>Django Unchained - Controversial, crazy and classic Tarantinohttp://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2013/1/12/django-unchained-controversial-crazy-and-classic-tarantino.htmlDPC2013-01-12T14:48:13Z2013-01-12T14:48:13ZLast weekend in the UK saw the release of Quentin Tarantino's new movie 'Django Unchained', a film that sits pretty on 81 out of 100 on Metacritic, is described by the Newspaper 'USA Today' as "dazzling, daring, gruesome and astonishingly funny" and has now been nominated for four Oscars at this years Academy Awards.  All of this had meant that prior to the release I was probably the most excited I had been about seeing a film since I was a horny teenager and a school mate leant me Basic Instinct.

My excitement about Django however was not purely based on the reviews, the trailer, or even the fact that Leonardo Dicarpio was playing against type as an evil plantation owner with teeth so rotten that he would have probably fit in quite nicely down my local Lidl.  No, my excitement stems from a love of most, although admittedly not all, Quentin Tarantino movies.  From the brutal brilliance of Resevoir Dogs and Kill Bill, to the tension, humour and genius performance of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds; Over the years Tarantino's films have arrived like a breath of fresh air in an industry that seems to be increasingly obsessed with releasing sequels, remakes and 3D versions of films that weren't worth going to see in the cinema the first time around, let alone after a bit of mediocre 3D has increased the ticket price by about five quid!  Fancy paying £12 to see Jar Jar Binks being an irritating shit again in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 3D anyone?  Umm let me think - nope I'd rather wipe my bottom with stinging nettles too.  

Anyhow, so as I walked in to the cinema to watch Django my expectations were at an all time high and I was filled with hope that like Inglorius Basterds did partly before it, Django would lead me to forgive Tarantino for the absolute shite fest that was Death Proof.  Of course, I'm sure getting my forgiveness is about as important to Tarantino as getting a Christmas card from Lance Armstrong is to Bradley Wiggins, but I was still hopeful that the film would fully restore my faith in a man that I feel is one of the greatest directors and screenwriters in modern cinema.  

Having now seen the movie, I can categorically say my faith has been restored.  Now I am not saying this is his best work, as it certainly isn't.  But is it up there?  Well I'd argue most definitely yes as it has all the hallmarks of what makes Tarantino's films so entertaining; Dark humour?  Check.  Cracking dialogue?  Check.  Great acting?  Check.  Brilliant soundtrack?  Check.  The ability to offend just about anyone and everyone and make your mum question what on earth has happened to peoples morals in today's society?  One big massive CHECK.  Like the 'bring out the gimp' scene in Pulp Fiction, there are moments in Django that leave you wondering whether that was something you should have been laughing at, and now that you have, whether you should be sending yourself straight to hell.  I can just imagine the conversation at the Pearly Gates when my time is up:

Saint Peter: "So you feel you deserve to go to heaven do you my child?"

Me: "Oh yeah definitely big dog.  I've led a good and honest life.  I've never stolen anything, I've never cheated on my missus, have always had my suspicions about Jimmy Savile and I never swear, blaspheme or anything".

Saint Peter: "But didn't you laugh when John Travolta 'shot up Marvin in the face' in Pulp Fiction?"

Me: "Err yep, but I can explain, I...."

Saint Peter: "And when those racist guys were complaining about the eye holes in their hoods as they were preparing to try and torture and murder an innocent black man in Django Unchained?"

Me.  "Again yes but again I can explain, I..."

Saint Peter:  "And consistently at Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds even though he was 'The Jew Hunter' who killed innocent people for no other reason than for being Jewish?"

Me:  "Err yes, but O M actual G S to the P, I wasn't laughing at what happened, it was horrific, he just had some funny lines that's all!  Anyway I thought you and the Jewish communtiy didn't get on?"

Saint Peter:  "You really know nothing about religion do you?  Anyway, you're going to spend the rest of eternity in damnation.  Oh and don't ever call me S to the P again, it's Saint Peter you idiot" 

Me: "Sorry Pete, no I don't know about religion, but Damnation, is that a night club?"

Saint Peter: "No it's hell"

Me: "Bugger"

That's the thing with Tarantino films, they are undeniably offensive and I can totally understand why a lot of people detest his movies and the way he frequently seems to make light of something that is completely abhorrent.  Django Unchained is no exception; It's sadistic, it's vulgar, it's occasionally self indulgent and it's frequent use of the term 'nigger' makes for uncomfortable viewing.  However it is also full of incredible performances, is consistently hilarious, undeniably intense, hugely provocative and all in all thoroughly entertaining throughout it's 2hr 45minute running time.  

Admittedly it does also contain Tarantino's worst cameo to date, playing an Australian mining company worker but with an accent that goes from bad Australian, to Irish, to South African and finishes with what seems to be a hint of Indian.   Still, dodgy accent aside, in my opinion Django Unchained is Tarantino's best movie since Pulp Fiction and the most fun I've had in the cinema since watching Toy Story 3!  Now there's a comparison I didn't think I'd be making when I sat down to write this.  Woody as a racist sheriff in Django Unchained 2 perhaps? Now that would be controversial...

]]>Gym'll fix it for you....http://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2013/1/5/gymll-fix-it-for-you.htmlDPC2013-01-05T12:04:42Z2013-01-05T12:04:42ZChristmas; The time for giving, the time for getting together with your family, the time for drinking and eating so much crap that if your vital organs had their own legs and weren't so wrapped up in their role of keeping your ass alive then they'd have left you long before Santa came a calling.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the festive period. For me it's the most enjoyable part of the year and not just because my birthday is two days before big JC made his first alleged appearance on this earth. No it's also due to the fact that everything is just so much more damn fun!

Not only is there less stress at work (well unless you're an elf of course), there's also generally a better mood out on the streets, and due to the fact that you can say "I'm going to give that up in Jan" you can practically do anything you like for the entirety of December and not feel guilty! What was that? You have a cheese platter, a selection of cold meats and a chocolate variety pack leftover in the fridge after Christmas? Oh yeah why not, this might be the time of day when I would normally eat my cornflakes and go for a shower, but I can start that again in Jan. Plate me up the Wensleydale, a Curly Wurly and a piece of crackling the size of my head please baby, I'm about to put the 'die' into diet.

This fun and lack of self respect of course comes at a cost; By Jan 1st, if you're like me at all, then you have developed a chin that is heading south quicker than Santa on Christmas Eve and a belly that when touched feels like you're sticking your fingers into a bowl of mash. Therefore it's normally at this point every year I declare enthusiastically, "I'm going to join the gym" in the hope that just saying these words will instantly make me fitter.

Unfortunately, due to me being about as demotivated in January as a Turkey is as he wanders nervously around a field in early December, every year that I make this declaration I never actually proceed with it. However in 2013 I've convinced myself that I will. So on Thursday last week I went to the gym for the first time in 6 years, having signed up as a guest at the gym my girlfriend uses to to do a 'spin' session with her and hopefully a group of other people who had let themselves go over Christmas.

Ahh 'spinning', the activity that when I first heard it's name I assumed just involved loads of weirdos rotating on the spot like Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music. An activity that whenever someone mentions it, another person always follows it up with something like "woah that's hardcore" or "you must be mad, that's a killer". So perhaps not the logical choice to go for considering I have a history of asthma, only rode a bike once since 2006 and hadn't ran for anything other than leftover pigs in blankets in nearly 5 months. Still it's good to throw yourself in at the deep end, that's what they say isn't it? Not if you can't swim in my opinion, but what the hell aye, you've got to try these things.

Anyway, as the day arrived panic began to set in for a number of reasons.

Well firstly, after the Christmas excesses, my body was in such ill health that if I were a horse I'd have been taken out to a field and shot (or at least sold to gypsies), so launching into a spin class seemed foolish.

Secondly, I have this unjustified belief that 90% of people in gyms are arrogant nobs. In all honesty, I have no scientific data to back this up, just my own prejudice and insecurities, but even so, it has always put me off going.

Finally, and probably most importantly considering it was the day I was going, I realised I had no 'gym appropriate' clothing. I mean my casual clothes are 'lounge pants' with a hole in the crotch and a set of slippers designed to look like a pair of sharks are eating my feet, neither of which seemed ideal considering I'd convinced myself that everyone else in the place was going to look like they'd just rolled straight out of the Olympic village. So, due to my own lack of foresight and a classic case of blind panic, I went with a pair of Converse style trainers that I normally wear to work, an oversized T shirt that I don't normally wear as you can see my nipples through it and a pair of aluminous ORANGE football shorts that I shouldn't really wear anywhere. Ever. Even on a football pitch.

Anyhow, on entering the Fitness First gym in Victoria, it quickly became clear that this wasn't exactly 'The Ritz' of health and fitness establishments and in fact it looked a bit more like an underground car park that someone had thrown a few running machines and mats in and then charged £35 a month for people to enter it. This was fine by me as the worse the place looked, the less concerned I was with how I did. However, after leaving my girlfriend to go and get changed in our respective changing rooms I soon realised that I may have been either A) completely out of my depth or B) potentially in a gay bar as the first person I saw in the men's changing room was in a tight vest top, short shorts, fake tan and had more muscles than the local fishmongers. Still I had my nipple exposing T shirt so maybe I was in the right place.

Luckily, someone else then poked their head around the corner who looked a bit unhealthy and maybe, like me, had let themselves go over Christmas. Encouraged by the fact that I may not be the only one dying mid session I proceeded to put on my "this man clearly hasn't thought this outfit through" gym gear and wandered out into the main gym area to wait for the missus.

Now, in hindsight I would have just waited in the changing room and asked Nai (my girlfriend) to call me when she was ready. The reason? Well because I quickly discovered that being dressed as a young Jimmy Savile and gormlessly standing in the middle of a gym where women are doing stretches and what not kind of makes you look like a massive pervert, which is something that I normally like to avoid. Thankfully Nai came out a few minutes later and lead me to the spin area before the guys from operation Yewtree could turn up and take me in for questioning.

Entering the spin room nervously we searched for a pair of bikes near the back. This was in the belief that like when at school, being as far away from the teacher as viable would make it easier to do as little work as possible. That's the spirit aye?! Anyway having found a pair of bikes one row from the back we strapped our feet in and got ready for action. Now to Nai this wasn't a big deal, she'd been going to spin classes regularly for over 2 years, but for me, I knew the next 45 minutes were potentially going to be my last on this earth so I was somewhat anxious about what was about to unfold.

The good news was that everyone in there seemed normal and the spin instructor was a very enthusiastic and genuinely friendly American fella. The bad news however was that said gym instructor immediately advised everyone that he was going to push us 'very hard' due to it being one of the first sessions back post Christmas. Obviously this is exactly what mine and everyone elses bodies probably needed, but it was certainly not what I, or my frequently abused heart, wanted to hear.

The instructor then advised everyone to turn the resistance on their bike slightly up, started a count down, whipped on some dance tune and off we went. He started us off in a standing position, getting us to pump our legs up and down to the beat, whilst consistently shouting 'up' and we would stand up straight, then 'out wide' and everyone would drop down so their arms were in the normal cycle position, but still with our bums off the seat. I'm slightly ashamed to say it, but this was the hardest ten minutes of my life. Seriously. And I've been to an 'Another Level' concert, so you just know I'm not lying.

There were two reasons for this - neither of which were down to our clearly excellent trainer but they were still causing me major problems:

The first was that I have absolutely no rhythm. I mean I'm the sort of person that when everyone is clapping in time at a gig or something, I'll be the one who's always just slightly off sync and slapping my hands together just after the event like a moron - so the instructor asking me to 'keep to the beat' of the music was like asking Lenny Henry to do a stand up set where he doesn't do an impression of his mum telling him off. It was just never gonna happen.

The second problem was that as I had no idea what resistance to put on my bike I just went for as little as possible, presuming that this would make the experience easier and therefore make me look like I was working my arse off, even though I wasn't. This naturally had the opposite effect and as I had no resistance on my pedals, every time I pushed down my whole body would flop forward to the side of the leg that was pushing, then flop to the other side as I pushed the other leg down. I must have looked more like I was trying to ride a frickin bucking bronco than taking a spin session. What a dick head, especially as this was all my own fault for being a lazy bastard. Still at least my aluminous shorts helped me to blend in.

I did, eventually, work out what I was doing and adjusted the settings on my bike and to my surprise it actually became much easier. Now when I say "easier", I don't mean "easy", as physically this is still one of the hardest things I've ever done it just meant that I didn't feel like I was on the verge of a heart attack throughout. Anxiety, panic, asthma and every other type of attack, yes, but just not the heart.

The session continued for a total of 45 minutes and despite a few wobbles, I have to admit it wasn't as bad as I had first feared, even if the walk back through the gym to the changing room was somewhat traumatic as my legs were constantly going into spasm. I did of course try to keep my game face on as I went, but this was completely undermined by a set of legs that seemed to be trying to leave my body and run away following the horror of what I had just put them through. Which I think was fair enough.

So that was that, my first proper gym session done without too many major dramas and although three days later my thighs are in their own personal hell and I'm walking around like I've got a shocking case of piles, I'd still say it was 100% worth it.

As for me thinking 90% of gym goers are nobs? Well from what I could tell after my first proper visit that didn't appear to be the case. Well unless you include me in my 'Saviles' of course.

]]>Retweet retweet the trolls are coming...or Ten things I've learnt about Twitterhttp://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2012/10/16/retweet-retweet-the-trolls-are-comingor-ten-things-ive-learn.htmlDPC2012-10-16T07:20:16Z2012-10-16T07:20:16Z

1. Apparently people are queueing up to say bad things about me.

I think I'm a good person. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly Mother Teresa; well other than that one time at my mates house, but I was drunk, there was a blue and white tea towel left on the side and things just got, well, a little bit silly really. But on the whole I think I am a decent human being. Yet, if I believed what the consistent stream of DM's I received on Twitter suggested to me each day, I'd presume I must be a horrible individual, as apparently I've got half the worlds population queueing up to give me abuse. I guess it's kind of like how John Terry must feel, but with far less justification.

Now I'm no Columbo (well other than the lazy eye), but like 99% of other people on Twitter I'm fully aware that these messages are nonsense, so have yet to click on the link to the abuse that's conveniently provided. However if I were to guess, I'd imagine their nasty words will somehow end up with me being asked to give over my bank account details for no reason whatsoever and then them buying themselves something incredibly nice with my money. Beautiful.

2. People really do love a quote on this thing.

Every day my time line is filled with inspirational words about love, forgiveness, hope, Justin Biebers' face, etc etc. Now I don't mind a good quote at all, but occasionally they are so ridiculous it's almost like someone's found the script for Anchorman 2 and assumed it was the writings of Aristotle.

My favourite one recently was "The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings". Pardon? Of course theoretically it kind of makes sense. However think of it again, but this time imagine how Ron Burgundy would say it;

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to. count. our. blessings".

Or to put it another way;

"When. In. Rome".

To my uneducated mind, Ron Burgundying any quote usually tells me if it is good or nonsense (funny nonsense, but still nonsense) and by doing this I've come to realise that, quite simply, sixty percent of the time, the quotes on Twitter are gibberish, every time.

3. Not everyone seems to know Twitter is public.

There are a lot of tweets that appear, normally by professional footballers, but also by your regular user, that make you wonder whether the individual has stumbled blindly onto Twitter and started writing outrageous things after being told by a not particularly good mate that "Oh yeah you can say what you like on here, no one will ever know" *nod, wink, nod, wink*.

Err well unfortunately Twitter isn't a confessional, or a visit to the doctors, so unless you want 500 million people baying for your blood keep those crazy thoughts about race, religion, Justin Bieber or your love for Jimmy Savile to yourself. My rule of thumb is simple; If it could lead to me getting sacked, dumped, or potentially put in a prison cell with a lunatic that's got a fetish for young men with silly haircuts, then it's probably worth me keeping those 140 characters tucked away firmly in my head. If it doesn't fall into this criteria however, then I'll Tweet away.

4. Attention seeking is rife.

Like Facebook, Twitter by its very nature is rife with people trying to get attention. I do it myself and it's what Twitter, to some extent, is all about. Especially if it's for something justifiable like trying to get people to read your blog, watch a short film you made, or laugh at a picture of a cat wearing a bow tie. These things are all totally acceptable (especially the cat one).

However it's the "I'm so ugly" type tweets that I find a tad infuriating. Now of course people can Tweet what they like (within reason), but what is normally annoying about these kind of tweets is they are rarely by someone who appears to genuinely feel the way they've tweeted. No, they are usually by someone (often a minor celebrity) who is posing half naked in the mirror in their profile pic and are clearly just chucking the comment out there like an emotionally baited fishing line in the knowledge that someone will take a bite and tell them how great they are. Which of course they do. Over. And over. And over. I'd try it myself, but I'm slightly concerned everyone will come back with "OMG, you really are" or "LOL, true dat, you look like Edward Scissorhands on acid", which would of course kind of defeat the purpose of the tweet.

5. There's a lot of kinky bastards on Twitter.

The other day I looked at the 'View all activity' section on Twitter just to see what it was all about. Wow! What I discovered is that I am actually followed by a handful of absolutely MASSIVE perverts! I mean each to their own, follow who you like, be a pervert if you so wish, doesn't bother me. But I just wonder if they realise that everyone can see what they've be micheviously up to? I mean if it was me and I'd just followed about fifty blatant porn sites and favourited tweet after tweet by someone called @watchmycrotch69*, I'd probably want to keep that shit kept firmly under wraps.

*Please note '@watchmycrotch69' is a made up Twitter name by me, just then, so any likeness to anyone, alive or dead, kinky or not kinky, is pure coincidence. Although hopefully they don't exist, as this could get awkward.

6. Not everyone understands the principle of a trending topic.

I love it when I have a look at trending topics and see multiple complaints about said trend by people saying something like;

"Why is #Ilovejustin trending? I hate him".

Now I'm assuming they do know that by saying this they realise that they've inadvertently helped keep the trend going? It's like saying "Bloody hell, why is it trendy to wear Ugg boots? They're so expensive and it makes you walk like you've got a carrot up your bum?" Then jumping up, re-mortgaging your house and running down the shops to buy a pair. If you don't like the trend, the best way to stop it is probably to steer clear of getting involved with it in the first place.

7. I've allegedly been in a lot of shocking photo's and videos.

I'm a man who doesn't get up to a lot of mischief, well unless you go back to that Mother Teresa incident again, but let's not, she's a legend and I'm a tad ashamed, plus probably now going to hell. But anyway, I'm the sort of person that tries to avoid trouble at all costs and like Kate Middleton's boobs on a balcony, I have no interest in being on camera.

However if my DM's are to be believed, I've been up to all sorts of shenanigans, with mail after mail stating;

"OMG what are you doing with him in this video. Mega LOL".

Now initially my thoughts when this happens is usually; "But Father Murphy said no one would ever know?" Luckily however I always quickly come to my senses and realise firstly that never happened and secondly that I've no idea what this infamous video could be. Not that it matters if I remember the video in question of course, as they offer me the chance to see my apparently outrageous antics by adding a link to the infamous tape itself.

Naturally, like the "People have been saying nasty things about you" mail, I've yet to click on the link provided, not just because I don't fancy giving my computer more viruses than a 50 year old German in Bangkok, but also because I know I'm far too boring for anything shocking of me to ever be caught on tape.

Well unless it's footage of "Mother Teresa-gate" of course. But if that is the case, then I'd rather leave that particular film viewing to the Lord himself if you don't mind. Although, I've got to be honest, I'm not exactly expecting rave reviews from the big man for my portrayal of Momma T. I mean for one my accent and my lack of acts of unquestionable kindness were way off the mark.

8. If you say something slightly negative about Justin Bieber, 'Beliebers' will wish you dead.

I've never done it myself, as I don't agree with abusing anyone on Twitter, celebrity or not, but I've seen people who have tweeted abuse about the worlds favourite teenager and then witnessed a 'belieber' attack on a 'Non Belieber'. It wasn't pretty, kinda like watching a pack of lions take down a gazelle one tweet at a time. So if you want to say something bad about the boy, keep it to yourself as the response can be quite simply 'unbelieberble'. Sorry, that's the worse joke I've ever written. No seriously, Belieb me it is. Sorry again, that one may actually have been worse. *Backs away from laptop and hides behind sofa*.

9. It's impossible to know what will get retweeted.

Now I am sure that most people who tweet something that they feel is interesting, funny or remotely entertaining wants, deep down, for that tweet to be shared with as many people as possible. So I am sure I'm not alone when I say it's somewhat frustrating when you've spent a few hours writing what you think is a good blog post, or you've dropped a particularly witty comment and not one person shares, replies or favourites what you feel is your 140 character masterpiece.

It could of course mean your/my writing is absolute rubbish and doesn't deserve a response, but then suddenly you'll see a celebrity tweet something like; "I really like cats" and Twitter immediately erupts into life; "I love cats too! Please follow me....and my cat" someone will reply or "@ladyGaga fu**ing MEOW's - Makes Everything Outrageously Wicked. LOL!" another person posts, whilst your comment is just left there, ironically floating around in cyberspace like some unwanted kitten. Still, I say carry on regardless and just hope one day your/my time will come. It probably won't, but hey you never know.

10. Twitter abuse is pathetic.

There are certain individuals who, for some reason (presumably because they have no friends, live in their parents basement and masturbate 24/7) seem to find it okay to constantly abuse people and especially celebrities on Twitter. I find this 'trolling' so bizarre. Seriously if the highlight of your day is to wish some celebrity catches AIDs, or to tell some girl you don't know that she's "fuc*ing ugly", then I'm pretty sure you need to step away from your laptop, pull up your trousers and get out and live a little. Seriously, the outside world is pretty nice, there's trees, real life humans, people of the opposite sex, everything! Plus if you're lucky you might even get to see one of those things flying about that looks like your beloved Twitter logo. I believe they're called birds. I think you'll love them.

The end.

]]>How to avoid an uncomfortable silence.http://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2012/10/1/how-to-avoid-an-uncomfortable-silence.htmlDPC2012-10-01T22:57:44Z2012-10-01T22:57:44ZNow everyone has had one those awkward silence moments. Whether it be on a first date, in the work lift, or when someone you once went to school with sits down next you on the train, everyone has been through it, and I'm assuming unless you live in a monestary, or with Jedward, this type of silence is not something anyone enjoys. So I have decided to detail 10 ways in which you can either stop that silence in it’s tracks or totally avoid the situation in the first place. Here goes:

1. Whistle.

Now whistling is a bit like clapping; do it at the right time and it’s totally acceptable, however do it at the wrong time, say at your bosses funeral for example, and people assume you are a crack pot. However whether it is the right time or not, whistling is always a good method for breaking an uncomfortable silence. In fact, I still remember how my dad, who used to work night shifts at the post office, once told me how whenever he was walking behind a girl at night on his way in to work, he would whistle loudly in to the air in order to break the silence and make the girl feel at ease as she’d know exactly where he was.

Umm, I’m not sure about this one. Yes it would have broken the silence, but if I was a young lady walking along the road in the dead of night and a bearded old man like my Dad started whistling behind me from the shadows, my first thoughts would not be;

“Oh what a lovely fella, whistling away so I know he’s just going to work rather than out on the hunt for a sex crime victim. I wish more people were like him”.

Nope it would be;

“What the HELL is this whistling lunatic doing? God, I’m 100% ending up on Crimewatch in the not too distant future. They better bloody use someone good looking in my reconstruction”.

Still fair play to my Dad, the whistling certainly would have broken the silence, although I'm not too sure whether it would have made the girl in question feel any more comfortable.

2. Ask about their family.

This is always a good tactic as it means you can spend at least a few relatively entertaining minutes hearing about how little Johnny took a poo on the rug or ate one of his Dad’s cigarettes, before then wandering off and carrying on with your day. However, this reliance on the persons family being fit and well can on occasion backfire massively.

For example, I can remember once when I was on a bus in America and got into a discussion with an older, relatively posh lady, who was also a fellow Brit. After a minute or so of talking about the weather and the occasional whistle, things started to get somewhat awkward, so I enquired if she was with her family in America as I knew this was always a good way to get a conversation going.

As I prepared myself to hear what I hoped would be an amusing ditty about how her grandkids had been sick on Donald Duck at Disneyland or something similar, what actually occured next was somewhat different;

“So are you with your family over here then?” I quizzed.

“Oh yes, me and my husband are staying in our sons house by the beach in Santa Barbara”.

“Oh lucky you! Jesus, your son’s doing alright for himself then aye!?” I responded, with a jovial tone in my voice.

“No not really” she replied looking emotional, “he died last week and we are in the States to look after his home until the funeral”.

Naturally, as I had no idea how to respond to this earth shattering revelation, I did what any mature, grown up individual would do. Yep that's right, I frantically rang the bell to get off at the next stop whilst desperately trying to yank my foot out of my mouth.

Anyway my advice is still go with the ‘how’s the family?’ question during awkward silence moment, but make sure you are within a few yards of an escape route just in case one of their offspring has gone the way of the dodo the previous week.

3. Talk about the weekend.

This is normally a good one because if it’s a Monday or Tuesday you can use the old “how was your weekend?” opening gambit, or if it’s a Thursday or Friday you can go with “what you up to at the weekend?”, and then just sit back and wait for a quick run down on what they did or are going to do.

However there are two ways that things can go downhill from this point. The first is that they respond with “Err nothing really” and don’t follow it up with a “how was yours?” or “what you doing?”. This is awkward as in order to break the silence you are left to just come across all arrogant by talking about your own weekend as if responding to a question that nobody has even asked and are probably therefore not remotely interested in hearing the answer to.

The second problem can arise if it’s a Wednesday, because at this point it’s too early to chat about the upcoming weekend and too late to ask about the last one. In this situation there are still choices; you can go with the obligatory "yay it's hump day" line and end up looking like a bit of a pervert, or alternatively go for the “how’s the family” tactic and then just hope one of them hasn’t recently dropped dead.

4. Drink excessively.

When sitting face to face on a date and you realise relatively quickly it isn’t exactly going swimmingly, I am sure many of us have tried to liven things up somewhat by drinking quicker than one normally would. This can of course work well and as the booze starts to flow then the silences that were previously abundant are often replaced by two people delivering more waffle than an American diner and chatting away as if they’d been best friends since birth. However the problem with this can be of course that unless you stay drunk for THE REST OF YOUR LIVES, at some point you are both going to have to realise that a second date would be a massive waste of everyones time. Still as a one off then it's most certainly worth it.

5. Talk about the weather.

This is pretty much us Brits default technique to break silences. You see no matter if the weather is good, bad or indifferent we have an opening line for any occasion. If it’s raining and you get in the work lift with Colin from finance you can go with;

“This weather aye? Bloody rain, it’s meant to be summer, what’s going on?”. This will then lead to a brief and rather dull discussion between you and your uncomfortable silence fearing counterpart about how shit the weather is in the UK and how it makes us all depressed and not want to get out of bed in the morning. A bit like Jeremy Kyle you could argue, but probably slightly less irritating.

Or alternatively if it’s sunny you can go with;

“This weather aye! Great isn’t it? The sun makes such a difference, it actually makes me happy to get out of bed in the morning”. The only problem with this one is that sometimes, if you’re in the work lift with one of the more miserable or portly members of the office, the response can come back as “yeah it is roasting out there, but it’s too hot if you ask me”.

Too hot?! We are in England, the only time our streets get too hot is when the hood rats are out rioting and burning down furniture shops for no reason, otherwise “too hot” is an impossibility. Still, no mater if the person is talking drivel or not, you can’t deny that having a weather system with more highs and lows than a night in with Bruce Forsyth really does help us Brits out of any silent predicament we may be in.

6. Lie.

It sounds bad, but when things are getting desperate, in sheer panic I have been known to whip out the occasional white lie just to fill time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not something I am proud of and I’m not declaring something ridiculous like I can turn water into wine or perhaps get Michael Owen fit enough to play two games in two months, but when required, I will say whatever I need to just to break the silence.

Now this isn’t something that happens in regular situations. No it is reserved purely for those moments, like a terrible date, where the silences are so bad that you can actually hear the footsteps of your thoughts as they run desperately through your mind. It’s at this point a quick lie such as "Sorry but I need to leave immediately, my Cat 'Scurvy' has text and he's only gone and locked himself out" is totally justifiable.

7. Pretend you need the toilet.

Now I am pretty sure everyone has done this one. You’re at the work christmas party, or on a night out with some mates and end up stuck chatting with someone who, although nice enough, you have literally nothing in common with. So after about half an hour of awkwardly chatting about the weather, work and their hopefully healthy family, you get to a point where you need to escape without hurting their feelings. The problem is of course that once you’ve declared the need for the toilet you then have to go or they’ll spot you’ve just snuck off and started talking to someone else. This is of course fine if you need to go, but if you don’t then you could potentially end up standing in a toilet with your wee willy winkle out for no reason whatsoever. Well not one you can successfully explain to the guy in the urinal next to you anyway.

8. Kiss.

Now I have never been the perpetrator of such frivolous behaviour myself. However I have been on an appalling date before where the girl kept swooping in for a kiss in what I can only assume was her ill advised attempt to break the monotony of the evening as we’d spent most of the night in silence, frequently looking out the window and probably both wondering where it all went wrong. I could have maybe understood the attempted kissing if I was some kind of irresistible fella with come to bed eyes and a body to die for, but I’m not; one of my eyes is occasionally lazy and my body has all the tone of an X factor reject, so her attempts to lock lips seemed both misguided and foolish. It did break the silences however, so well played Madame, well played.

9. Hide.

It sounds ridiculous and like the actions of a child, but one way to avoid an awkward silence is to keep your wits about you as you approach the train station, bus stop, work lift and if you spot someone you know that you don’t want to talk to, then just hide from them! Now this can be behind a newspaper, up a tree or a quick dive into a bush, as any of these will be better than the silence that will no doubt ensue if you get stuck with your nemesis on a thirty minute train ride to work. Also you can be sure that they are just as happy not to see you as you are to have seen them. Just be careful however that you don’t see each other at the same time and end up in the same bush, as then things can get weird.

10. Run.

Similar to hiding, running is also a good idea in this situation. Again it’s a tad childish, but if you leave somewhere at the same time as someone you have little to talk to about, then running away whilst declaring “gotta dash, I have a train to catch” is always a good shout. The only problem can be if you both have the same idea, as then you are left running together whilst both knowing deep down that neither of you really needs to doing what you’re doing but can’t stop as then you know you’ll be rumbled. It’s most certainly worth a go though.

The End

]]>Ten of my favourite ever filmshttp://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2012/9/22/ten-of-my-favourite-ever-films.htmlDPC2012-09-22T17:00:28Z2012-09-22T17:00:28ZThe films that appear in most top ten movie lists are like the England football team during any major tournament; Inconsistent, frequently overrated and a stimulant for great debate and disapproval amongst anyone who sees them. My list of course will be no different, as any individuals top ten film list is naturally very personal to them and them only. In my opinion it's also quite often, but not always, influenced by the movies you saw in your early teenage years, as these films have a sense of nostalgia about them that modern films just cannot provide.

I also feel any top ten list should really be based on replay value to some extent. I mean Schindler’s List is a great film, but it’s not one that I’d watch again and again, so I won’t be putting it below. Therefore all these films below are to me the type of ones I feel you can watch over and over as there is just something about them that makes you keep coming back. Some of these you may agree with, the vast majority of which you will not, but rest assured in my mind I feel I am correct, as I am sure you do in yours, so lets not fall out over it! Well unless of course the list in your mind contains any of the Twilight movies, as then I’m afraid you’re wrong, potentially mentally unstable and we are no longer friends. But anyway here we go (please note the below contains spoilers):

1. Jaws (1975).

A pretty major and incredibly selfish reason as to why I love this film so much is that growing up it scared the bejeebers out of my older brother. So much so that by the time the travesty that is 'Jaws: The Revenge' had entered the cinema he’d become so on edge every time he heard the first few bars of ‘Dur na, Dur na’ that he actually ran out of the theatre about 15 minutes into the movie. In hindsight he probably made the right choice, as this sequel was an abomination, but this terror was only present due to the number of times the original movie had left his bum hole twitching throughout the majority of our childhood.

You see that’s the thing with the original 'Jaws'; Yes it can be argued that the shark looks like it’s covered in more rubber than a politician at the weekend, but other than that the movie, in my mind, is both terrifying and faultless. It has an incredible script, three fantastic actors delivering potentially their greatest ever performances and a story directed by a cinematic genius that hones in on the primitive fear of the unknown better than any other movie. Just like 'Psycho' stopped people wanting to get into the shower, or 'Twilight' stopped people wanting to ever watch a movie again, 'Jaws' had the same effect on people going into the water. As my brother will testify a lot of this can be put down to the incredible John Williams score for the film of course, which to this day has often been imitated but certainly never bettered and is another reason why to me 'Jaws' is the greatest movie ever made.

2. Pulp Fiction (1994).

Now this is actually a film that on first viewing I thought was fairly mediocre. Looking back I am not sure why this was the case, but it was probably because it’s a movie that needs your full attention to truly appreciate just how great it is. However as I was a horny teenager at the time, 2hr and 34 minutes sat in front of a screen without seeing any significant boobage was probably just too much, so I switched off and in turn dismissed the movie instantly. I could not have been more wrong of course.

The next time I watched the film, which was probably 2 years later, it became clear to me that this was a classic movie. What had changed in those few years? Potentially the fact I could last over 2 hours (just) without the need to look at boobs perhaps? Anyway whatever happened, after seeing the movie for the second time I just could not believe how great it was. From a script so good that it has given the viewing public more quotes than an overworked builder to it’s two (kind of) leads being so cool they could probably reverse global warming, 'Pulp Fiction' just requires repeat viewing more so than almost any other movie. Add to this a plot that intertwines four original and unique stories into one seamless and clever tale and you have in my mind one of the greatest films ever made, by one of the best directors and screenwriters of his generation. Oh and would you ever give a guy a foot massage?

3. Se7en (1995)

I don’t think I have ever been as disturbed, horrified or astonished by a movie as I was the first time I saw 'Se7en'. Well unless you count the time I first saw '2 girls 1 cup' of course, but I think I’ll save that one for another blog. You see to me 'Se7en' at the time was a movie that did things other mainstream movies just didn’t do; It was, from start to finish, unrelentingly grim, having been shot in a way that made every aspect of the film look dirty, seedy and downright vulgar. It also had a bad guy that was not seen for probably ninety five percent of the film and even then, when he was finally revealed, was he there just so Brad Pitt’s ‘Mills’ character could give him the type of beating his crazy antics deserved? Err nope, it was in fact so he could taunt the police a bit more and then declare with glee how he’d merrily cut off Pitt’s pregnant wife’s head whilst she begged for hers and her unborn babies life! 'Mary Poppins' this was clearly not.

It should have been one of those films that I came away from thinking “what a load of disgusting drivel” much like the pointless ‘Saw’ sequels these days. However the difference with 'Se7en' is that underneath all the horror, filth and vulgarity is a movie that has a superbly crafted and clever story, is brilliantly acted and directed throughout and in Kevin Spacey has a villain that’s so unstable If he were an economy Angela Merkel would be all over him like a fox on a rubbish bin. What a film.

4. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)

Clearly it’s quite possible that all the Indiana Jones films could have made it in to this list. Well other than 'Kingdom of the crystal Skull' of course, as that was all a bit too silly, especially as for most of the film Indie looked more like he should have been hunting for a good hip surgeon rather than some extra terrestrial mumbo jumbo. However I have gone for ‘The last crusade’ in my top 10 list as like 'Raiders' and 'Temple' before it the film had the perfect mix of action, comedy and adventure, but what it also had was a cracking relationship between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery at it’s core that just made everything that little bit more fun. Add to that the consistent beating of Nazi’s throughout and you’re clearly on to a winner.

5. Aliens (1986)

Now the original ‘Alien’ was also a fantastic film, but it’s sequel to me just about had the edge. Plus I still haven’t forgiven Ridley Scott for 'Prometheus' so simply for that reason I can’t be putting his original classic in this top ten.

Anyway to me 'Aliens' is one of the best, if not thee best sequel ever made, as it manages to take everything that was brilliant in the original movie and just push it to another level. It still had that claustrophobic feel and unrelenting sense of dread as the first one of course, but in the sequel James Cameron placed marines with huge frickin guns in to the equation, which to a teenage boy like myself at the time just added to the greatness of the film. He also upped the ante somewhat by having what one can only assume was a slut of a Queen alien giving birth to baby face-huggers left right and centre, so the film was packed to the rafters with acid dripping, chest busting xenomorphs intent on killing anything that moved. Again to a teenager like myself, this was movie heaven. Add to this possibly the most iconic final set piece to a sci-fi movie ever made and for me you have an instant and undeniable piece of genius film making.

6. Die Hard (1988)

As a man how can you not love 'Die Hard'? It’s Bruce Willis at his wise cracking, bad guy beating best. Plus it has Alan Rickman delivering a performance of such witty evilness that by the time Willis’ John Mclane drops his ass out of the Nakatomi Plaza you can’t help but wish someone would catch him at the bottom so he could go on and become the baddie in EVERY MOVIE EVER.

What I also love about 'Die Hard' is that although it is pretty much relentless in delivering scene after scene of cracking action, it also has a script packed full of great banter which allows Mclane and Gruber to form the best American/German rivalry since Roosevelt helped give Hitler’s boys a hiding in World War 2.

7. Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi (1983)

Now a lot of people will look at this list and see 'Return of the Jedi' and wonder where the hell is 'The Empire Strikes Back'? Well unless they hate Star Wars in general of course, as then they'll be thinking "oh God the dude writing this list is one of those geeky guys who spends all his time playing computer games against Chinese teenagers dressed in just his underpants". But rest assured I am not. I wear shorts. And some of the kids are French.

Anyway, to me, 'Jedi' is better because firstly it doesn’t contain what feels like that never ending part from 'Empire' where Luke goes to visit Yoda and then the little green OAP presumably uses the force to convince gullible Luke to carry his lazy arse around in a backpack. I also prefer Jedi' because it has my favourite scenes from any of the movies; the speed bikes, the escape from Jabba’s lair, Princess Leia dressed as a stripper, I mean what’s not to like. Hell, I even liked the Ewoks. Yes they may have just looked like a bunch of teddy bears running around throwing rocks, but to me they helped bring another element of fun to the proceedings. A bit like Jar Jar Binks in the prequels you might say? Oh no that’s right, no you wouldn’t say that, as he was just an annoying, unfunny, loose lipped *%£^ (feel free to enter your own four letter curse term here).

8. Goodfellas (1990)

This is my favourite ever gangster movie (well unless you count Pulp Fiction of course). There are other great ones obviously, such as Scarface, Resevoir Dogs, Mesrine, City of God, but Goodfellas to me stands out because it was Scorcese at the very top of his game. Directing great actors through a true story with an incredible and instantly quotable script and featuring some of the best uses of music ever in a movie. Plus as soon as I watched it I felt like I just had to see it again if for no other reason than to see Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro showcase just how brilliant an actor they both are.

To me it’s Pesci who steals the show. His performance is of such unpredictable ferocity that every time he was on screen I wasn’t sure whether he was going to hug someone or stick a knife in the back of their head. Nothing sums this up better than the "funny how" scene of course, which to me is one of the greatest moments in any movie ever. What makes this scene brilliant is that even when Pesci's voice goes a bit Joe Pesquale towards the end, he looks so menacing throughout it that you still can't help but be transfixed and on edge about what's about to happen. Incredible.

9. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Shawshank redemption is an astonishingly good film. It is, as my girlfriend has rightly pointed out, possibly the best 'bromance' ever put on screen, with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman brilliantly delivering the kind of consensual man on man prison love the films 'sisters' could only dream of, or not as the case may be.

It's also one of those movies that is consistently horrific for pretty much eighty five percent of the movie, but finishes so joyously you almost fancy getting yourself banged up just so you can feel the elation Andy Dufresne must have felt when he spilled out of that crap pipe at the end. In fact it’s so joyous that if the finale of 'Se7en' left you feeling like throwing yourself off a cliff, then Shawshank is the kind of movie that could not only talk you down from that cliff but also leave you pondering why the hell you we're up there in the first place. Well unless you'd had a run in with 'the sisters' too of course, then I can totally understand your predicament.

10. Toy Story 3 (2010)

I have never left a cinema happier than when I watched Toy Story 3. Okay maybe the time my brother ran out the movie theatre during 'Jaws: The Revenge' made me smile slightly more, but other than that moment of sibling rivalry victory, 'Toy Story 3' has to be the one movie that kept me smiling more than any other. To me it’s the perfect animated film.

Firstly and unsurprisingly, it looks fantastic. Then there’s the humour which, like the previous two films, is a great mix of both visual slapstick and jokes kids won’t get but parents most definitely will. It also has an ending that nearly brought grown men like myself to tears. Not quite fully to tears of course, but I tell you if those aliens hadn’t swooped in and saved Woody and co from that inferno then my already limited manly qualities would have taken one serious step backwards. It also helped that unlike the evil toy collector in 'Toy Story 2', Woody and the gang in 'Toy Story 3' didn’t have a blatant sex offender on their case throughout either, which is always a bonus.

So there you go, that's my top top ten movie list. To be honest it's only the top three I am certain of, the rest of the order can be switched around at will. In fact there are actually a host of other films that could switch places with the above at any point depending on my mood, including:

Fight Club, Snatch, Terminator 2: Judement Day, 500 Days of Summer, Robocop, The Goonies, Predator, Blood Diamond, Saving Private Ryan, Anchorman, The Social Network, Stand by me, Raiders of the lost ark.

I may even write about some of them next week.


Anyway hope you enjoyed it and feel free to comment on your top ten below, as I do love a good movie debate. Or if you include 'Twilight' in yours then i'm just as keen on a bad movie debate too, so fire away!

]]>A night at the movieshttp://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2012/9/8/a-night-at-the-movies.htmlDPC2012-09-08T14:20:43Z2012-09-08T14:20:43ZI am very much a cinephile, and no not in a channel 5 ‘The man who sleeps with cinemas’ documentary type way, but in the fact that I love watching a movie on the big screen. I love being engulfed by the volume of the surround sound and I love spending a few hours transported into a world where it’s completely acceptable to shush a stranger in public. However this frequent cinema going over the years has made me notice quite a few things about my movie going experience:

1. Finding seats.

Now as a man who spends most of his time feeling more anxious than I imagine a stray dog feels as he tip toes past a kebab shop, I in turn like to plan my trips to the cinema, so will always book tickets before the event to make sure I don’t have any nasty surprises when I turn up. The main reasons for this of course is because I want to get the best seats possible, but it’s also because I have this irrational fear of walking into the cinema, not being able to find two or more seats together and then having to shuffle my 6ft 2 inch frame around in the darkness whilst everyone shouts “sit down you lanky idiot” and throws popcorn at my head.

2. Food prices.

The price of food in cinema’s is, as everyone knows, a disgrace. Whether it be the £6 you’re charged for nacho’s covered in an aluminous cheese sauce that looks like it could set off a Geiger Counter, or the £5 for a hot dog that’s so greasy you could probably swallow it whole and catch it completely intact out of the bottom of your trouser leg a few seconds later, there is simply no avoiding the fact that cinema food is both awful and over priced.

What also amuses me is that the cinema’s put ‘ONLY’ in front of every meal deal price tag. “1 box of Nacho’s, 1 x 500ml drink and 1 x foot long hot dog, ONLY £12.99”. Now I know it’s the oldest marketing ploy in the book to put this ‘only’ pre curser before any price as it’s meant to trick you into thinking it’s cheap. But seriously, when the food looks about as appealing as a game of ‘hide the sausage’ in a prison shower I cannot fathom for the life of me why anyone would consider paying it.

3. Chatters.

I really do HATE people who talk during films, well other than the cast of course, their more than welcome. You see to me there is simply nothing more irritating at a cinema than sitting down to watch a film and some chump decides that rather than watch the movie he’s just paid a small fortune to see, he is instead going to add his own commentary and garble on to his girlfriend or mates about every little bit that happens;

“Oh my days did you see that, he just blew up the helicopter. Oh my days did you see that? He just fell down the stairs”.

“Err well yes I did you silly fucktard, I’m watching the movie, so if I didn’t see it then either I’m A) blind, so I probably shouldn’t be in here anyway, or B) had some kind of seizure, so in which case you should probably stop flapping your gums and call me an ambulance”.

4. Over enthusiastic laughers.

Now these types of people don’t offend me in any way as everyone has their idiosyncrasies and it’s certainly better than sitting there talking, but I’ve noticed that whenever I go to watch a comedy in the cinema there is always someone there who will laugh far too loudly and for far too long to be of sane mind. It’s the type of laugh you’d imagine George Osbourne does when he’s putting taxes up, or Andy Carol’s agent probably did when Carol went to Liverpool for thirty million quid.

Quite often it doesn’t even need to be a good comedy, say anything by Adam Sandler in the last 10 years for example, it just has to have some attempted moments of humour in it and then suddenly out of the darkness a roar of laughter will roll over the top of you like a tsunami wave of over excitement mixed in with a hint of madness. You and everyone else just kind of sit there pondering “whatever happened to Adam Sandler? I’m sure he used to be funny”, whilst chuckles behind you just carries on in his own little world, laughing hysterically and presumably thinking “and people say Sandler hasn’t done anything good since Waterboy, but this Jack and Jill is incredible!”

5. Phone users.

As I said earlier I have a strong dislike for people who talk in cinemas. However, compared to those who use their phone during films, talkers and me are practically lovers. Now obviously to have to answer the phone in the cinema you’d assume it must be something urgent and the conversation would probably go something like this:

“Oh God Mum, I’m just in the cinema watching Dark Knight Rises and Bane’s about to blow the shit out of a Football Stadium, so unless you’re calling me to say Dad has taken a turn for the worse and has under 165 minutes to live, please go away?”

But nope, it’s never that, it’s always just some general chit chat about what they’re doing after the cinema, or how the films shit and they can’t wait for it to be over, whilst you are just left sitting there shushing quietly and hoping someone with more courage than you will tell the person to shut the hell up.

6. Late comers.

I don’t understand how people can be late for the cinema. This is probably because I like to turn up early due to the irrational concerns I pointed out earlier, but also because it’s not like you don’t have a massive window of opportunity to turn up before the film kicks off? I mean usually there’s what seems like several days of trailers before any movie starts, so I don’t understand how you can get your timings so wrong. But yet every time there will be a couple who will walk in about 15 minutes into the film and then wander around trying to find seats whilst your viewing pleasure is in turn hindered by the silhouettes of Mr and Mrs Late Von Latersson roaming around in the dark.

To be totally honest, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest, as it’s only a few seconds of the film they are blocking out and I am sure they are feeling worse about it than you are, but it does always baffle me why on earth they are always carrying what appears to be the entire contents of the snacks counter with them? Now If you’re arriving at the cinema and the screening start time has already been and gone, then my last thought would be;

“You know what, I may have had to remortgage my house to afford this ticket and the films probably already started, but I really can’t go for 2hrs without a footlong hot dog, a drink the size of my head and a plastic tray of nacho’s covered in radioactive waste, so let’s check out the snacks counter before we go in baby”. Bonkers.

7. 3D

Having grown up as a lover of the movie ‘Jaws’, my first memories of 3D was when Jaws 3D came out and I was left pretty much underwhelmed by the experience, both because it looked pretty shit and because you had to wear silly paper glasses with blue and red lenses that made you look like a mad person on day release.

However fast forward 20 or so years and now pretty much every big budget film that comes out is marketed as a 3D epic and personally I think it’s nearly as shit now as it was back then. Yes there has been slight improvements, but unless the film has been shot in 3D like say Avatar (which was awesome), then the results are about as inconsistent as Nicolas Cages back catalogue. Plus you now have to pay an extra quid or two to wear the glasses? Seriously if I wanted to pay money to be in the dark, look like a clone and get a headache then I’d have just gone shopping in Abercrombie and Fitch, so charging me to do it to watch a film that’s actually being hindered by some half arsed post rendered F/X is bloody disgraceful.

8. Staff.

When I was younger my dream job was to one day work in a cinema because, as a lover of film, the thought of being able to go to work everyday and watch movies for free seemed like the best thing in the world to my clearly unambitious self. This dream unfortunately never came true (don’t worry, I’ll get over it), but when I go to the cinema these days I always think to myself “I’d have loved to work here, you lucky little buggers, getting to spend all your time watching movies and getting paid, you must love your job”.

However when you actually see the staff, I don’t think on the whole you’ll ever meet a more unenthusiastic and unmotivated group of people in your entire life. From the guys serving the snacks who move so slowly it’s like they’ve raided the medicine cupboard from ‘One Flew over the cuckoo’s nest’, to the ones in the auditorium whose only job is to show you to your seat but find that too much effort so just point the flashlight in the general area and send you on your merry way, the lack of enthusiasm of most staff within is pretty much astonishing.

I even remember once when I went to watch ‘Chronicle’ and the sound didn’t work, so after about fifteen minutes of nothing I went out and told a member of staff about the issue, to which she responded “yes we know, go back into the auditorium and announce to everyone that we will sort it soon”. Err, me go in and announce it to the entire cinema? Me, a man who gets nervous talking in front of a group of about five people, go in and tell a gang of three hundred angry cinema goers that someone is going to ‘sort it soon’ whilst you just hang about outside the doors and chew the fat with your mates? Yeah that was never gonna happen. So back in I went, sat down next to my girlfriend and just wondered to myself how someone who has my dream job could be so fucking lazy.

9. Singletons.

Now I don’t believe for one second that everyone who goes to the cinema by themselves is odd. I mean one of my mates does it and he is pretty normal, but I can’t deny feeling a little bit on edge when I see someone sitting there by themselves, popcorn in hand and seemingly unaware that everyone else in the cinema is giving them a very wide birth just in case they decide to go Postal or start touching themselves inappropriately.

I think my concern stems from when I went to watch a re-release of Star Wars in Croydon once and about three rows in front of me in the relatively empty cinema was a lone woman who recited out loud the entire prologue that comes up at the start of the movie; “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away" she read before giving herself, and I assume the opening of the film, a massive round of applause. So since then I have always looked upon lone cinema goers with the suspicion that they are loopier than a day out with the red arrows.

10. Toilet breaks.

Clearly when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, but seriously, as an adult, it must be possible to have at least a hint of control over your bladder in every day life? Now don’t get me wrong, when i’m on the booze I have the Kim Jong-ill of bladders, dictating every move i make, but in the cinema? Surely, if what is unravelling before you seems to be a key scene in the film then the last thing you should be doing is springing up from your seat and hot stepping it to the toilet? But yet that is what seems to always happen, some dude in the row in front will launch up just as an action scene kicks in and waddle off slowly to the toilet, stepping on peoples toes as he goes and blocking everyones view as his irritatingly impatient bladder drags him sheepishly out of the auditorium.

]]>10 things about festivals....http://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2012/8/26/10-things-about-festivals.htmlDPC2012-08-26T17:14:39Z2012-08-26T17:14:39ZI love festivals. I love the vast array of music, I love the crowds of like minded people and I love the consistent flow of booze. Hell, I even love spending three or four days in a field with more tents but less facilities than a refugee camp. Therefore, because of this love, I have put together a list of ten things that tend to happen at festivals. Not all are good, not all are bad, but all do make festivals what they are and on the whole I wouldn’t change a thing. Well maybe a few things, especially the getting covered in piss bit, that part can certainly fuck off. But anyway here we go:

1. Getting tickets.

As most people I’d imagine will testify, trying to get tickets to a festival is about as easy as getting Julian Assange out of an Ecuadorian Embassy. You get yourself to the computer as the 9am ‘on sale’ time approaches, full of hope and confidence that you and your friends are about to get a batch of tickets that will enable you all to spend four days in a field somewhere with nothing but booze and music for company. Unfortunately quite often the ticket websites don’t seem to have got the memo about the 9am kick off, so whilst your hitting ‘refresh’ more frequently than an overambitious guy on a dating website, the site itself just taunts you constantly with messages about ‘busy servers’ and a ‘slow internet connection’.

After multiple hours of this button pressing madness, you are then either lucky enough to have your tickets booked, or unlucky enough that even though you’ve just set a PB for your longest ever time on the internet without looking at porn, you have absolutely nothing to show for it other than soaring high blood pressure and a serious case of hand cramp. I won’t suggest that this feeling is similar to when you do watch porn of course, as that would be disgusting.

2. Carrying your gear.

One thing that always happens at festivals is that due to your over excitement about the event, you end up buying far too much alcohol to take into the campsite. There’s always that moment where you’re in the supermarket and you and your mates will start to quiz each other on how much to take;

“What do you reckon, two crates?”

“Well it’s four days, so I reckon one per day, so four each in total?”

“Four crates? That’s forty eight beers each? You do know we can’t even take them out of the campsite area don’t you?!”

“Yeah that’s true actually, let’s get five crates just in case”.

This over excitement of course turns into despair when you arrive at the festival and realise just how far you need to carry all your gear, as the campsite is normally about a good mile or so away from the car park. This is inevitably made worse because, along with the booze, due to the weather in the UK blowing hot and cold more than a menopausal woman, you have to pack something for every eventuality. Unsurprisingly, due to you therefore carrying more baggage than a guest on Jeremy Kyle, this gear carrying lark is always a challenging experience.

3. Pitching your tent.

The problem with trying to do this is not that tents are in general that difficult to put up, it’s just that when at a festival, unless you get there as it opens, you are left trying to pitch something the size of a car in a space the size of a cat. It’s also tricky in that you are usually left a few helpers short as any girl you are with will declare instantly that they ‘don’t know how to pitch a tent’ as if suggesting that this is something that men can just naturally do, like peeing on the toilet seat or forgetting anniversaries.

4. Drinking to excess.

The simple fact that you have live music, a group of your mates, a field full of the opposite sex and no work in the morning means, inevitably, that when at a festival people will always get up to stuff that is likely to shave at least a few years of their lives. Whether that be doing some random drug simply because you’ve heard It can “tranquillise a horse” (now there’s a selling point aye?), exchanging bodily fluids with someone you’ve just met, or maybe just listening to NDubz perform live, festivals are a place where you do some extremely silly things. This excess, of course, includes the mass consumption of alcohol as you feel terrified that you won’t be ‘in the zone’ when your favourite acts come on stage.

Of course to get in the zone, you decide that you need to be in close proximity to booze at all times, so order two drinks whenever you go to the bar as you’ve convinced yourself that if, God forbid, five seconds went by and you weren’t drinking, your whole day would be entirely ruined. The problem/bonus with doing this of course is that holding two drinks is a massive pain in the rectum, so you just end up downing the first in order to free up a hand and in turn drink two beers in the time you’d usually only drink one.

Inevitably, this two drinks at once tactic means by the time your act has come on, not only have you found “the zone” but you have sometimes already gone through it and are staggering drunkenly out the other side, declaring to people you’ve just met that you love them and desperately trying to control a bladder that’s expanding quicker than a new brides waistline.

5. Toilets

As anyone who has been in a festival toilet will tell you, the facilities are quite simply an abomination. Although to be fair, for men it's not too bad if all you need is to relieve your bladder, as then you can either do it where you stand (I’m all class me) or do it in one of the open air urinals spread around the site. Of course there is the issue in the open air urinal that you quite often end up taking a piss standing face to face with another man doing the same thing. When this happens, in order to stop things getting weird, you desperately try to avoid making eye contact with one another, so you both just look upwards, swing your head from side to side like Stevie Wonder and pray that at no point your eyes meet.

However when it comes to the other type of toilet stop, this is just as bad for men as it is for women. Although, suspiciously, most women seem to declare that they never do a number two at a festival?! Now considering most festivals are three or four days long I have a feeling these girls either need more fibre in their diet, are wearing nappies or are literally full of shit. I am hoping it’s the first option of course.

Anyway, when you do need a toilet break, you tip toe inside and survey your surroundings whilst praying that everything that was meant to be in the toilet is in the toilet and that there’s nothing sitting on the seat waiting for your arrival. I mean seriously, I'd do anything for a bit of colour in my cheeks at a festival, but certainly not that, and definitely not those cheeks.

However once you've done what you need to do it's then a case of getting out of there as quickly as possible. So you dispense as much hand sanitiser as the pump will allow (so usually none), then slide out of the door hoping no one sees which one you came out of as you know, despite there being 5,000 other people who used the toilet before you, it will still be you who gets the blame for any smell or mess that remains.

6. Festival food

Nine times out of ten the food you eat at a festival is so unhealthy you may as well just pull your heart out of your chest, put it in a bag and beat it with sticks. Whether it be the bacon that’s got more fat wrapped around it than a sumo wrestlers jock strap or the hot dogs that taste so bad you start to genuinely believe they are literally what the name suggests, festivals just aren’t a place to eat well. But then as you spend about 90% of your time either drunk, hungover or both it doesn’t really matter what’s being sold as you will just eat it anyway.

7. Making up lyrics to songs.

Due to the consistent flow of booze at a festival, as the day progresses you begin to find yourself getting increasingly confident with singing along to songs that you have little or no knowledge of and from bands who you have little or no interest in. Once this starts it usually goes one of two ways;

The first way is you just make up whatever lyrics you like simply because it rhymes with the previous line in the song (a bit like Des’ree used to do, but without the royalties). I mean I even once sang the following lyrics to the Tinnie Tempah song “Pass Out”;

“I’m pissed I never got to fly on a concord,

I've been to Southampton but I've never been to Scunthorpe"

What a moron hey? Why would I sing that? Err? What? You mean those are the lyrics? Fuck me. Come back Des’ree, all is forgiven. No wonder she’d rather have a piece of toast and watch the evening news.

The second way is you’re so drunk you don’t sing any lyrics in particular, you just hum and mumble at the same time (let’s call it a ‘humble’ if you will) whilst thrusting your hand in the air enthusiastically and hoping nobody notices that nothing you are singing makes any sense whatsoever.

8. The weather.

A festival wouldn’t be a festival without the mud. Well actually that’s a lie, it would still be a festival, just a lot cleaner and without the possibility of developing trench foot. However this 90% probability that at some point you will be at least ankle deep in a mixture of rain, beer, urine and drunk girls tears still doesn’t encourage you to bring anything but your best clothes to the event as you know deep down that those pictures of you looking like a drowned rat are going to end up on Facebook, so you whack on your best gear just for the hell of it.

9. Piss throwing

Increasingly common these days at festivals is the desire of some people to throw cups of piss. Now I’m assuming, like myself, 99% of the population think this is disgusting and completely and utterly unnecessary. I mean it’s bad enough being hit by a cup of beer, but when it’s a cup of the yellow stuff it’s horrific as you don’t even get that moment of refreshment a cold beer might give you.

Of course when it hits, at first you do try to convince yourself it was something else and turn around in the hope of seeing a granny or a girl with period pains searching for the hot water bottle they just accidentally lobbed into the crowd. Quickly however you realise this wasn’t the case at all and in fact you just been clobbered by the contents of some bastards bladder and ‘urine’ a lot of trouble (is that the worst pun you’ve ever read?).

The bizarre thing with this scenario, other than being covered in a strangers urine of course, is how quickly you seem to forget it happened. Yes initially you will be furious, declaring that you will kill the person who threw it and that your day is ruined. However twenty or so minutes later you’re back on form, jumping up and down and singing the wrong words to the music like nothing ever happened, even though just a few moments earlier you were effectively at the business end of a golden shower.

10. New friends.

One of the things that music does is bring people together and quite often you can guarantee that if you bumped into someone whilst listening to a song both of you love then there is a good chance that you are going to get on. Add into this mix enough booze to make Oliver Reed rise from the dead and you have a recipe for a very short but momentarily real friendship. That’s what makes festivals so much fun, you get to meet like minded people whilst drunk and listening to music you enjoy.

]]>10 things about amateur football....http://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2012/8/17/10-things-about-amateur-football.htmlDPC2012-08-17T05:45:06Z2012-08-17T05:45:06ZWith the Premier league back and girlfriends all over the country getting ready to moan at their boyfriends with the seasonal words of "you love football more than me", I thought this would be an appropriate time to write a blog post about the subject of 'footie'. However as I, like 99% of other men, aren't good enough, fit enough or promiscuous enough to play the sport professionally, this blog will focus instead on the amateur level of the game and details ten common occurrences that most amateur footballers will face week in and week out as they go through the season.

1: Drunkenness.

Due to the kick off time for Sunday football matches quite often being as early as 10am, the potential for players to not exactly be at their best as the ref blows his whistle for kick off is pretty damn high. Whilst your completely under appreciated manager will be telling you on Saturday to “make sure you get to bed early tonight, we have a big relegation battle on tomorrow”, the vast majority of the team will completely ignore his very wise advice and instead go out and drink their own body weight in booze. Unsurprisingly therefore, come Sunday morning your star winger’s only visible dribbling skills seem to be solely coming from his mouth rather than his feet, whilst the only battle you and the rest of the team appear to able to focus on is the one to stop the kebab they ate just 6 hours earlier from leaping out of their stomachs and on to the pitch.

2: Ringers.

Now for those who don't know what a 'ringer' is, this is a player who will be a friend of a friend of a friend who hasn't signed for your team but because you have heard he's “mustard” your manager will get him to play under someone else's name in the hope they will fire your team to victory. This is of course highly frowned upon in the world of sport, but is pretty rife at amateur level. I mean I lost count of the amount of times where one week we would have a 6ft 2 white striker playing under the name of one player and then the next week a player with the same name will be playing, but will have miraculously turned into a 5ft 4inch black midfielder. It’s incredible what can happen to a person in seven days hey?

Although this is, as mentioned, highly frowned upon, it is also very rare that these kinds of shenanigans would be discovered, even if the player had seemingly changed height, race, position and ability in just one week. It was also very rare that using a ringer would work out best for the team also, as the friend of a friend of a friend normally turned out to be either useless, or worse still, a raving lunatic who, because he was effectively playing incognito, saw it as an opportunity to attack people with impunity.

3: The kid who had 'Trials’.

It's almost guaranteed that every few games you will come across a player who, according to one of your team mates, has had 'trials' with a Premier League team. Instantly everyone will assume he is some kind of footballing genius, without even considering to question why he is now playing against ‘Butcher Barry’ in the 3rd division of the Bromley and Kent district league, rather than Robin Van Persie in the Premiership. When this ‘ringer’ situation happens it normally goes one of two ways; The first way is that after about 45minutes you will be 3 nil down as ‘trials’ kid, who didn't look old enough to be out without his parents, has scored a hat trick and left you on your arse more frequently than a granny on 'You've Been Framed'. Whilst the second, and more common occurrence, was the kid turned out to be absolutely terrible and you are left wondering if the only trial he should have been facing was one at Croydon magistrates court for falsely impersonating a footballer.

4: Players in their 'twilight' years.

This is the big difference between Sunday football and football at a higher level, as most Sunday footballers that I played with or against weren't exactly at their peak of physical fitness (including me). I remember at one point we had a goalkeeper who was about 65, a centre back in his late 50's and a midfielder who’d just turned 60. I mean there's a lot to be said for experience, but when some of that experience included storming the beaches at Normandy you have to start questioning the selection policy.

But that's the thing with Sunday football, there is no age limit, no fitness level required and no rules saying you can't play just because you're pushing 70 and outside of football you sharing a shower with a bunch of teenage boys would be illegal. Effectively if you turn up with a pair of boots and a pulse (no matter how faint) then there is a good chance you’ll get a game.

5: Violence.

Anyone who has played amateur football knows that the task of being a referee at this level is nigh on impossible, as effectively you are trying to control 22 unfit, hungover, relatively unskilled and in turn angry individuals who half the time seem more intent on kicking the crap out of each other than they do on enjoying the game. In turn what usually happens is the referee spends most of his time turning more blind eyes than Jesus, whilst the two teams attempt to try and out fight each other to victory. This was the main reason I quit playing; I just couldn’t face waking up on a Sunday anymore and having to not only fight off booze induced heart palpitations, but an hour or so later have to fight off a disgruntled 45 year old pub landlord whose hatred of being tackled was almost as high as his cholesterol.

6: Anomalies.

During a Sunday football match you are almost guaranteed that someone in either yours or the oppositions team will make a terrible footballing decision. Now this can also happen in professional football of course, but in amateur football this occurrence is both more regular and also quite often far more ridiculous.

Take for example a goal I once conceded for my local team ‘Leeford Athletic’ when I was playing in the under 12s league. We went 1 nil down because…… wait for it..... our goalkeeper had decided to sit down by the post during a lull in the action and make himself a daisy chain! So as the ball went rolling towards the net Joe, our keeper, was just sat on the ground, linking daisies like some kind of overworked florist, unaware he was about to concede one of the worst goals in the history of football. Now that’s something you don’t see in the Premiership.

7. Changing rooms

No not the programme that good old laurence llewelyn bowen used to present on telly, where he snuck into someone's house whilst they were out and vandalised the property with whatever horrific colour scheme he fancied. No I am talking about the problem in amateur football where quite often one of two things will happen;

-The changing rooms will be so small that every time you bend down to pull up your socks or tighten your boots you have to be careful not to be inadvertently tea bagged on your way back up by one of your unsuspecting team mates getting changed practically on top of you.

Or

-Even though the changing room is big enough for your team, due to a lack of space you have to share it with the opposition. Now this also has the same problem as the point above, but on top of this it also has the added issue that after 90 minutes of Sunday league football there is a 50:50 chance one or all of your team will be embroiled in a fight with the opposition, so sharing a changing room isn’t exactly top of the ‘to do’ list. I even remember one time where one of our players got into a row with the opposition and on returning to the changing room one of their team was standing at the door waving him in whilst carrying a baseball bat. God knows what the fella would have waved if we got into a row during a baseball game? Maybe a pair of shin guards? Either way, our player wisely chose to get changed elsewhere before Babe Ruth could give him a beating.

8. Awful pitches

I often wonder when watching the England football team as they struggle to control the ball on a pitch that’s as flat as Joleon Lescott’s forehead, how the hell they ever coped on the sorts of pitches you play on at amateur level. There would be the pitches that are covered in so much dog shit you spend the pre match warm up tip toeing around the ground like a soldier searching for an I.E.D, or those where the grass has got so many divots in it that you feel like Tony Robinson and his crew from Time Team must have turned up just before kick off on the hunt for an old Roman Baths. This of course in turn means that trying to control the ball or pass it with any kind of accuracy was always nigh on impossible. Well that was my excuse anyway.

9. Bad Refs.

Professional footballers and supporters spend much of their time each weekend complaining about the awful decisions made week in and week out by officials who seem to have little to no knowledge of what goes on on a football pitch. However if you really want to see bad decisions and ones that are not only influenced by their own lack of refereeing ability but also by the fact that quite often their son is playing for the opposition, then go along to any grass routes football match on a Sunday morning, as there you are almost guaranteed to find more cheating Dads than on an episode of Jeremy Kyle.

10. Fashion

Whilst in the professional game a player can just about get away with wearing what sounds like the outfit of a 18th century prostitute; namely a pair of bright red boots, gloves and even more disturbingly, a neckerchief, in amateur football, sticking any of these types of garments on your body is like putting in a personal request for the opposition to kick the shit out of you. You see the difference is most pro footballers have the ability to let their feet do the talking and in turn silence their footballing and fashion critics. In amateur football however, as most players are pretty much useless, unfit, or both, wearing something that suggests you think you have even a hint of natural ability is like painting your testicles red and running naked into a bull ring. It’s just never going to end well.

]]>Why the Olympics are brillianthttp://www.bozblogs.com/journal/2012/8/12/why-the-olympics-are-brilliant.htmlDPC2012-08-12T10:35:12Z2012-08-12T10:35:12Z1. It makes previously uncool sports acceptable.

Let’s be honest, in the UK, up until the triumph that has been London 2012, most of the sports that people take part in during the olympics are the ones that would have probably got you bullied at school. I mean I can only imagine the number of wedgies, peanuts and, well, punches in the face I would have received if I’d rocked up to class at my old school in Lewisham, walked up to the gang of rude boys rap battling in the corner and declared that my weekends were not spent chasing girls or petty thieving, but instead were spent practicing the ‘Pommel horse’ or ‘dressage’.

I’d imagine their response would probably start with “Your mums a Pommel Horse” or, taking it one step further; “your mum gets pommeled by a horse, I’ve seen it on the internet” and finish with a book or ten flying at my head. Although clearly if I were that into the beloved Pommel then my response to the book throwing would probably be to nimbly lift myself up between two tables and dodge the projectiles by swivelling and spinning my way around the classroom before dismounting gracefully to my feet. Realistically however I’m pretty sure that would just add fuel to the bullying fire….

But that’s what I love about the Olympics; it allows people to excel in sports that don’t usually get noticed and brings to people’s attention all the great things that can be achieved if you have a bit of discipline, focus and desire to work hard.

2. One mistake and you're out.

Now I know that there are numerous other sporting competitions that run every four years, such as the Football and Rugby World Cup’s, however the difference with the Olympics is that it, unlike these other competitions, can be over for an individual almost instantly. For example, one false start in the track event is enough for you to be disqualified. ONE? That’s not one and then on your next one you’re out, that’s one and off you go home.

“Yeah thanks for the four years of hard work and running around some mountain at high altitude in the arse end of nowhere for months on end, but you accidentally fell forward before the gun went off so please leave the track, pack your bags and get on the flight home, you’re not welcome here any more”.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s brilliant and certainly makes things more exciting, but can you imagine if that happened in your day job?

“Clive, I know you have been here 4 years, you’ve given up your friends, family and girlfriend to dedicate yourself to this company and even carried on when we made you work up the top of that mountain in Kenya for six months. However, it has just been pointed out to me that you left work 1 hundreth of a second early the other day, so I’m afraid we’re gonna have to let you go, but please feel free to apply again in 2016".

3. The events are bonkers.

This is something that has always intrigued me about the Olympic games; where on earth did someone come up with the idea for some of the events? Take the modern pentathlon for example.

This event has the athlete show jumping on a horse they have never ridden before, swimming 200m, fencing all the other competitors in a round robin where the first person to hit their opponent wins, running several thousand kilometres and then pistol shooting, with a laser beam no less, in pursuit of gold. WTF as the kids say! It really is crazy how some of these events sneak in, but again I love the Olympics all the more because of it. Who knows what’s coming next? Egg and spoon racing? Three legged 400m hurdles? Pin the tail on the donkey? Fuck it, how about I spy? Yes they would be ridiculous events, but any more crackers than the modern pentathlon or dressage? I’m not so sure.

4. It seems that almost anyone can enter.

Clearly this isn’t the case, but every time the Olympics comes around there is always a race or two that appears to have a participant in it who is so out of his depth it’s almost as if they have managed to sneak in under a fence, chuck on an outfit and just join in. Take Sydney’s 2000 Olympics. There was Eric ‘The Eel’, a guy from Equatorial Guinea who managed to get himself into the 100m freestyle event even though he had never even seen a 50m pool before turning up at the Games!? Can you imagine? He was probably sitting in the changing room psyching himself up, planning his race stroke by stroke, then walked out to the arena to be confronted by what must have looked like a fucking ocean in front of him and just thought, “Ohhhh bollocks”.

What makes this even more brilliant is that his time for the 100m was so slow it was even outside the record time for the 200m, but yet the crowd cheered him on just as hard as they did the winner. That’s the thing with the Olympics; even if you are rubbish, the fact you have the dedication, heart and pride to turn up and put in every smidgeon of effort you’ve got, the fans will bloody love you for it.

5. Olympians are astonishing.

Clearly it goes without saying that Olympic athletes are at the top of their game. However when you really think about what it is they can do, it is truly astonishing. Take Usain Bolt. As everyone knows, the man can run the 100m’s in under 10 seconds. Or to put it another way, and in a way that actually impresses me even more; the man can run on average 10 meters in under 1 second, which is apparently also quick enough to out run a hippo! My good God. I had trouble out running one of my own farts the other day but that dude can outrun a hippo? What an absolute legend.

6. The athletes make you proud.

Watching the likes of Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and the various other members of Team GB performing at the 2012 games cannot help but make you feel proud to be British. Even those who haven’t performed as well as they’d liked have still come across in interviews as people who are just so excited and overwhelmed to be performing for their country and have clearly given everything to try and win. It makes you realise who are the real sports people we should be idolising in this country, rather than the likes of say some of the England football team, where the only time you tend to feel any sense of pride is when a rare week goes by and one of them hasn’t been caught cheating on their wife, accused of racism, or slept with a prostitute old enough to be their grandmother. Although even then I don’t think pride is probably the right word.

7. We are actually good!

There are many things us Brits are good at doing; moaning, obesity, rioting, to name but a few. But in the Olympics, like cricket and Rugby beforehand, we have actually found something else we are pretty awesome at. Consider the size of our country and the niche nature of some of these sports for a second? Actually you don’t need to, as I have come up with a highly flawed formula to work out how brilliant we are considering there isn’t that many of us here in Blighty and even those of us who are here, the vast majority have never even heard of, let alone attempted, any of these sports, so realistically we shouldn’t win hardly anything. Here's the formula;

(Number of people in the country / No. of people regularly taking part in the the sport) / 1,000,000 = The chance of winning an Olympic Medal.

So for Sprint Kayaking It would be: 61.8m / 500 (I’ve made that figure up FYI) / 1,000,000 = 0.12%

Now, before you start to look too deeply in to the many, many intricacies of this equation, I am happy to point out that other than the population part (which I Googled), all the other figures are completely made up. Especially the final ‘divide by 1m’ bit. That’s purely there to make the final percentage smaller! But anyway, even if this equation has more flaws than a skyscraper, it still “proves” (incredibly tenuously) that we have done brilliantly!

8. The opening ceremony is awesome.

I was extremely sceptical about the opening ceremony, as following the farce that was our acceptance of the Olympic mantle at the closing of the Beijing games, where all that happened was we drove a red bus into the stadium, Leona Lewis sang, David Beckham kicked a football and Boris Johnson waved the Olympic Flag like he’d stolen it from someones garden after a drunken night out. However as soon as the 2012 ceremony began I was instantly hooked. Yes it was still all a bit silly and yes it had moments where I felt like I must have inadvertently smoked a crack pipe before seeing what I was seeing, but it was still spectacular, and as with the athletes who followed it, made me feel pretty proud of being British.

9. It takes all sizes, shapes and sexes.

Now it’s not often you can watch a sport and spend as much time wondering if the athlete taking part is male or female as you do about who is going to win or lose. However, because the sports in the Olympics are so varied and quite often so bizarre, this can occasionally be the case. Especially in the women’s throwing events, where some of the athlete’s seem to have more testosterone running through their bodies than I’ll ever achieve and haircuts they seem to have stolen from Boris Johnson. Clearly the governing body also see's this a problem as apparently every athlete is tested to check their gender before the tournament?!

I am assuming these tests are done using a medical procedure rather than a quick bit of ‘cupping’ and it’s carried out just to stop a seven foot tall Ukrainian fella called Bryan from rocking up in the women’s basketball, but again it all adds to the craziness of the event. Also the fact that no matter what shape or size a person is, or the amount of facial hair he (or she) has, a competition that allows you to still potentially become a champion at something you are good at is still a fantastic thing.

 

10. Oscar Pistorius.

Oscar Pistorius is an inspirational and brilliant athlete. The fact that having both of his legs amputated at a very young age has not held him back from appearing in the olympics is a magnificent achievement, sending out a very positive message to people about what you can achieve when you set your mind to it and that everyone is equal no matter what disability they may have. I think it’s great that he has been allowed to compete in the able bodied games as well as the Paralympics and again is another reason why the 2012 Olympics in particular has been incredible.

I do wonder however at what point the governing body will draw the line about how much prosthetics you are allowed to have whilst still being allowed to participate? I think at this point, allowing Oscar Pistorius to perform is most definitely the right thing to do as he has earned his right to be at these games, but if in 4 years time in Rio some dude turns up at the high jump wearing a set of stilts they are definitely going to need to re-look at it.

 

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