I Have A Confession

Brace yourself because something is rare is about to happen. In fact, I’d suggest you sit down. Done it? Settled? Well, here goes. I, Gregory Peter O’Hara of Warrington, Englandshire have a confession to make: I got something wrong.

Gasp! Shock! Horror! There, I said it. It’s not something that happens often – or at all for that matter – but alas, there it is! I finally admit that I got something wrong.

What did I get wrong you might ask? Well bear with me a second and I’ll give you some context. A few years ago I read The Great Gatsby at college and hated it. Now when I say hated it, believe me I hated it. Loathed it. Despised it. Deplored it. Wished death upon it. I really did. As with poetry and Shakespeare, it was one of those things that the crushing omnipotence of pre-University education seeks to break down into a series of images, motifs, characters and quotes for us to regurgitate in exams, get many millions of marks and progress further on the path to the real world.

The problem with this however, is that intense learning of one particular thing can, in the most part, lead to irrational hatred for that one thing. In secondary school it was Shakespeare and poetry, as before mentioned, and in college it was very much the life and times of Mr. Jay Gatsby (all three of which, having returned to them with a fresh and open university-student frame of mind, I found a real passion for). In fact, my recent re-reading of The Great Gatsby made me almost want to punch myself in the face for ever thinking negatively about it.

I was reminded of my hated of the book after I had spoken about the upcoming film adaptation with my Mum whose precise words were, “you hated that book and said that there was literally no point to it” and I cringed with embarrassment in hindsight after having experienced it again.

Individuals may disagree, but I certainly don’t think of myself as an ignorant person. I may be many things but ignorant is not one of them, especially when it comes to the appreciation of anything under the gaudy umbrella of ‘culture.’ In this instance however, I will hold my hands up and completely agree on how ignorant I was about that book. At a time when my literary chops weren’t really there, I saw it as nothing more than a boring expose of high-class culture during the Jazz Age of America. Of course, I’m not for one second trying to say that my chops are fully developed now, just slightly more on their way.

And although that summation is essentially the crooks of the novel, this time around I saw much more of a point to it. And rather than trying to break it down into the component parts of the green light and the bespectacled eyes, when it is viewed as a piece of literary art, it exposes itself as a magnificent critique and exploration of that free-living, 20’s lifestyle – something that other people around me had seen and appreciated and that I had despised. I don’t know, I guess there can sometimes be something really uninspiring about the sterility of a classroom.

Now, dear reader, here we reach the meat of the point. Apart from trying to make myself come to terms with my ignorance on this subject, I suppose it was also a way of trying to instigate some sort of passion in you. Trying to restore your faith in perhaps returning to a book or film that you hated and never watched again. Just try and either read or watch it again now that you have a few more years under your belt. You just might discover a lost treasure; something amazing that you’ll cherish forever having previously wanting to kill it with fire.

I appreciate that this won’t work for everything (for instance if your hated film is Titanic or any of the Transformers I wouldn’t bother, they will always be terrible), but if not, give it a go.

Try something old today. Give it another go; you never know what you might find.

 “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

A Letter to My Seven-Year-Old Self

Dear Greg,

If you’re reading this I can only imagine that you are sat on the sofa wearing your Superman costume and cape that you made Mum make whilst studying meticulously the end credits of The New Adventures of Superman for reference. It looks good. If that’s the case, and I have no doubt whatsoever that it is, then I’ve got some incredible news. I’m writing to you from the year 2013 – crazy right – and I’ve just seen the trailer for a new Superman film. I know that you’re years and years away but already we’ve had three amazing Batman films that make your favourite film, Batman Forever, look a bit old.

I know how much you love Batman Forever because, well, I’m you, (work with me here) but it gets so much better trust me. I know that you’ve nearly worn out that video that Mum and Dad taped for you off Channel Five but never fear, in the future you treat yourself to a reissued, 2-disc collector’s edition when your first block of student loan comes through. That’s right, in the future you go to University and you still spend your money on Batman films.

Anyway, back to Superman (the cape still looks great by the way, remember to thank Mum profusely again and again), it’s a fantastic looking thing and puts the 2-video set, animated collection in its place (oh and by the way how weird and creepy is the Toymaker on that video!?)

Right now I’m sat at my desk in my room in Leeds with a Batman poster on the wall in front, to the left and to the right of me. I’ve also got a Justice League poster on the back of my door (and very soon you’ll come to learn the wonders of the Justice League). I’ve got a stack of comic books by my bed and I’m drinking out of my Batman mug.

I’m telling you this because I want to reassure you that you never give it up. You’re concerned that at some point you’re going to have to grow out of it, but you never have to and you never will. These new Batman films that I told you about continue to make it acceptable for grown men and even older teenagers to still love their childhood heroes, even if their childhood heroes wear their underpants outside of their trousers.

There’s a shop called Forbidden Planet. There’s one in Leeds. You go there often. There’s Star Wars stuff, Batman stuff, Superman stuff and all sorts of stuff that excite you equally as much in 2013 as they do now, only the stuff has got a million times better. You’ll love it.

Try and give Mum a break from time to time though, she has other things to other than back pictures out of your superhero magazines on to cardboard.  Just make sure you let her know how much you appreciate it.

Oh and by the way, the cape survives. I’ve got it now. It still fits.

Love,

Greg

Thud! Thud! Thud! The Sound of Students

Music is one of man’s great inventions. Up there with the telephone, the computer and the spork. But, as usual, man is seeking to defile its own creation. The irrevocable THUD THUD THUD of a pounding bass drum through a wall, for me, indicates the approach of the apocalypse and I’ve had enough.

            Admittedly I’m the least ‘studenty’ student in all of human history. If I could, I would sit in a wing-back arm chair wearing a smoking jacket and smoking a Churchill with a large tumbler of 18-year-old scotch in hand, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m living in what is basically Satan’s arsehole complete with this incomparable THUD THUD THUD coming from every direction at quite literally all hours of the day and night.

            It starts at about 9am and doesn’t finish, on and off, until about 1am the next morning, on a good day. The problem not only lies in the repetitiveness of the ‘beat,’ and I can’t understand how anyone can listen to the same song straight for 12 odd hours anyway, but the basic disregard for the fact that these un-insulated, paper thin, toy terrace houses are clearly not the most soundproof buildings in the world.

            This problem is not new. For decades music has pumped out of student houses louder than a bunch of pre-teen, mini-humanoids at a One Direction concert. In the 70’s it was Punk; in the 80’s it was New Wave; in the 90’s it was House and unfortunately in the 2000’s and beyond we’ve reached a stage where manufactured electronic bullish faecal matter is the norm.

            This problem is also, sadly, unsolvable. For as long as there are students, there are arseholes. I cringe when I see the bio tag saying ‘student’ on a television show because you know what you’re going to get; some fleshwaste who is apparently the epitome of the British student but someone you’ve never seen or heard anything like before.

            But there are some students who never seen to account for anybody else. I wear headphones around the clock to prevent people from having to listen to my music, because that’s exactly what it is, my music. Sometimes I’ll put it on my speakers, but quietly and generally when the house isn’t full or tying to get to sleep.

            It’s the same on trains. I’ve taken more train journeys these last couple of years than in my entire life put together and the ratio of journey to wanting to strangle the person next to me with their own headphone wires is incredible. Last week I was listening to a strange hybrid of a Christopher Hitchens audiobook and, thanks to the nihilistic schoolgirl next to me, an electro mega mix of Rihanna for an hour and a half. All these people are doing is making the death penalty sound like the more humane option.

            Of course this discourse is futile. What do I hope to achieve by singling out these out these ‘bloody students?’ Well, nothing really. I just wanted a moan. And besides, there’s nothing really that can actively be done about it. You can’t stop people from listening to music, and I wouldn’t try to, you can only tell them that if they don’t turn it down you’re going to force-feed them bleach straight out of the bottle. You have been warned.

            It’s just approaching 10am and the thudding has commenced once again. 

Being Cynical Never Hurt Anyone

My general cynicism towards most of the world and its inhabitants is something I’m often questioned about, either by people who know me or read the words that I occasionally organise into sentences and throw at the interweb. Most people get it and share my views on things, often revelling in the fact that I say what they think. But some evidently don’t, seeing me as both the visual and altogether literal version of the old dude from Up.

My problem is however, that I can’t believe that more people aren’t so cynical. There’s plenty to get annoyed about and in a world constantly branding all 13-20 year olds as mindless drunk thugs or, and I really hate this, youths, I think it’s much worse to sit back and let it happen than to question it and, at the very least, write occasionally humorous articles about things that really tick you off.

Take for instance the now accepted epidemic of fame that we encounter on a daily basis. Now it seems that you only have to appear on camera, pout and/or be an airhead from Essex to be famous, rather than having any concrete skill or talent (apart from being a raging great douche).

Back in the day, even when I was a nipper in the 90’s, you generally had to be talented to be famous; musicians, actors and sportsmen and women were flung into the public arena because of a skill they had and not because they were willing to release pictures of genitalia or create a viral video where they devoured feminine hygiene products. Of course this rule wasn’t always adhered to, but more often than not, this was the case.

However, with the exception of the odd person here or there nowadays who has a genuine talent, the dross of the celebrity Z-list are becoming an increasing problem; especially as people younger than me are led to believe that people like rejected X-Factor contestants and plastic reality-TV fleshwastes are people to aspire to.

Take Rylan Clark for example, who I was introduced to through the power of the arseholes who run TV, who is famous for being gay, flamboyant and not winning X-Factor. That’s it. That’s pretty much the pinnacle of a modern day celebrity; if you get enough consumerist teenagers behind a cause, the cause is instantly famous. It’s sickening.

Nobody questions this and when you talk to a large percentage people about him or, for example, Jedward they’ll say “oh, but they’re really funny.” And people ask me why I’m so cynical.

Then there’s people who are famous for a reason and really, in a modern context, shouldn’t be; like the Royals. Good luck trying to escape coverage of that baby in the latter half of this year. But that’s another rant for another day.

The world needs cynicism. If it wasn’t for a delightful injection of cynicism into the vein of the world, we’d all wander around with paperbacks of Jordan’s autobiography in one back pocket and a copy of the Royal Wedding Hello special in the other. We’d aimlessly walk down the street with a vacant look in our eyes as we pay £200 a ticket for a plastic American teenager to mime to autotune as he/she saps the very life from our brain and leaves us collapsed on the street outside, an empty shell of a consumerist monster with no money left and absolutely no taste.

The sad thing about this is that I can’t seem to imagine the end. For reasons unbeknown to me, a large majority of teenagers like ‘talent’ shows. Britain’s Got Talent’s coming up next, presumably with Amanda Holden complete with her face that looks like Ronald Lacey’s melting death mask at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. This upcoming series will no doubt spout another stream of talentless but nonetheless ‘quirky’ brainfarts and pusbots, who will then inherit all ITV2 and BB3 presenting jobs for the next million years and will appear in pulp, teen pop magazines telling us what flavour of ice-cream they like or what crap, consumerist nonsense they “can’t live without”.

I’m done now, I’m sick of this. Call me when it’s the Apocalypse or when Rylan releases an album. Same thing.

Ooh, Facebook Friend!

Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter. Scarcely a day will pass that I haven’t, at some point or another, logged on to browse and click at the screen like a demented, technologically dependent sloth. We all do it.

The thing about Facebook is that you have people on there that you clearly don’t give a rat’s ass about. People who you met once five years ago who constantly post pictures of themselves in the mirror, so much so that you start seeing their face in a nightmare that involves you being permanently wired up to a monitor as someone quite literally ‘pokes’ you until you cry.

I have nearly 600 ‘friends’ on Facebook. I have no way near 600 friends in real life (in fact I find it hard to believe that I've met anywhere near 600 people throughout my life). Everyone has their closest friends, not hard to distinguish. After that you have tertiary friends then acquaintances and, in the case of Facebook, everybody else. All the people who sent you friend requests which, if they had been rejected at the time, would have caused unnecessary friction, but now no one cares about. Chances are, you and I are other people's 'everybody else.'

The great thing about Twitter is that there are programs that allow you to check who’s unfollowed you. It gives you quite a rush to see who the guilty ones are under the knowledge that they thought they’d got away with it; even if it’s someone you know personally. Recently I lost two followers; one person I knew from primary School and one from High School. Not that they care that they didn’t ‘get away with it’ and not that I care that they unfollowed me. To be honest I’m quite glad they made the first move because they were both boring as hell anyway. Also, it’s quite sadistic the way you feel as you unfollow them back, as well as trying to distinguish which tweet it was that sent them over the edge.

That aside, the social browser syndrome epidemically sweeping the nation, looks set to grow faster than the norovirus on a cruise ship and the impending start to the second semester of year number two doesn’t bode well in helping me to eradicate this monster, much like the Mexican mucus thing from the Lemsip adverts, that sits on my shoulder and bids me to browse Twitter two seconds after the last time I looked and there wasn’t anything there.

My course has very limited hours which allows more ‘free time’ than other, much more lecture based subjects. Although University adverts lead you to believe that students with spare time go kayaking in Australia and dancing with kids in Africa, the reality is that most are in their rooms, browsing social networking sites, trying to avoid the essay they’ve had four weeks to do that’s due in tomorrow that currently has only a title. A title they neither understand nor care about.

The fact is that Facebook is rubbish and Twitter is good. To be honest, with the odd exception of a few people here and there who aren’t on Twitter but are on Facebook, I could quite easily get rid of my Facebook account.

But then I wouldn’t have anything to help me avoid doing work.

Our Dependency on Technology

For someone who has been described as very much a person who behaves and has the attitude of someone much older than himself, technology is an inescapable part of my life that I ashamedly struggle to function without. A last minute change of unexpected circumstances led me to head home for the weekend just gone as I had a work induction for my Christmas job. As it was late notice and the day I was to leave on was ridiculously busy, it meant that I couldn’t take my laptop home with me. Well.

            For the first day the problem didn’t seem to rear its head; I checked my e-mails on my phone, sent and received some tweets and Facebook comments and occasionally just filled some time by browsing on various useless apps I happened to download that really are nothing more than battery-sapping wastes of space. My sudden realisation that I was missing the instant satisfaction of my laptop suddenly smacked me in the chops on the second day, when I realised that I had wanted to print some things off using the printer at home. Resorting to using my parents laptop made me realise straight away my pathetic dependence on a 15” slab of plastic filled with electronics. It made me realise just how much of my day I am spent researching seminar prep, researching course books, browsing useless websites or watching videos on YouTube, if those last two things are even mutually exclusive, and made me feel quite strange.

            When did this happen? When did I let my life be dictated to me by this object that I’m supposed to own when it looks like the ownership is opposite to what I perceive it to be? Will this relationship with technology ever even die? I just don’t know. All I know is that after just three days I felt like what I imagine it might be like for smokers to go cold turkey or for an alcoholic to set every drop they own on fire. Perhaps not to that extent but there was a definite yearning for something I didn’t have that I wanted and felt I needed.

            The thing is that everything nowadays is so much easier because of computers, like it or not. I still haven’t bought into the idea of EBooks. Not because I don’t like the concept, but because I prefer a physical printed page; it’s a preference rather than a dismissal. But technology allows us to communicate faster and more frequently, to shop online (and be financially rewarded for doing so) and gives us access to views and opinions from all over the world that books, either printed or not, cannot give us. Plus, the internet also has digital comics and what’s not to like about that? Only me? Oh, okay.

            That said, I know most of the audience of this blog will feel the same. Those of all ages. See, It’s not just those under the age of twenty who have fully embraced new technology, it’s spreading across each generation – my Grandma has just created a Facebook account for god’s sake! It makes me wary when some people are so oblivious of the generations behind them embracing modern things; it displays an inherent ignorance that I find it hard to comprehend.

            We are becoming more reliant upon modern technology; it’s just the way of the world. There are plenty of traditional “technologies” still in play, some of them working better than their modern day equivalents and some of them are just preferences (straight razors and turntables spring to mind straight away), but we shouldn’t be afraid to embrace what’s coming. Every new technology has instilled caution in the public that received it, but if they hadn’t have received it, where would we be? Saying “ug” and wearing loin cloths is my bet.

The Humble Differences Between Some of My Housemates and I

 The origins of this humble little blog were born in my general annoyance at mundane things and my incessant need to write things down rather than verbally spill my guts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m no good at arguing verbally, I just feel that I can express my opinions more eloquently in writing; maybe it’s that I’m no good at? I’m sure you’ll be the judge. Anyway, my point in bringing this up lies in the fact that on this occasion, this post comes as a result of me being somehow commissioned into writing it. It was a good few months ago when a couple of my housemates suggest I write a post on the differences between us. My first thought was “well how much spare time do I have? Probably not enough to complete it!” But after weeks of carefully weedling my way around the issue only to be constantly ambushed with conversational taunts of “have you started the blog yet?” to end any and all conversations I have with them, have led me to this; sitting in my room, plotting our differences as they sit downstairs ‘doing’ physics; crunching numbers and letters with a few brackets and Greek symbols in a way that somehow constitutes an answer to a question.

            Right, they want differences? They’re going to get them. First, stuff. Just how much stuff is it physically possible for one person to have? I’ll tell you how much: A lot. But where can we store all this stuff? What about the living room floor? Of course! The living room floor. Genius. Try negotiating your way through our living room and my bet is you’ll come out with some kind of disease or a broken limb, or both. It’s an assault course just making a cup of tea. For months, in fact only just moved today, was a bag full of god knows what. Clothes I think, but it could just as easily have been a portal to Hades, I never had the guts to stare at it head on. None of my stuff has even really been in the living room. The only thing I ever had in there was a Big Bang Theory poster that pretty disintegrated as it touched the wall. I swear that room is cursed.

            Rugby balls. Rugby balls everywhere. There were rugby balls in the washing machine once. What? It might not surprise anyone who either knows me or has seen me that sport was never, is never and will never be my strong suit. I love football; actually, correction, I love watching football, but playing sports? Not so much. Again though, walking across the living room is like walking across a rugby pitch: rugby balls flying this way and that way. But not just rugby balls, rugby balls with names. Rugby balls with names that get hugs. I forget what they’re called now but I swear there’s some kind of family tree forming currently.

            Excuse my seemingly incoherent trail of thought, but I must move on to another point, an important point, before I forget it. Quite apart from the fact that their interest in books was very much set out initially as just textbooks and even them as a chore (quite a difference there in itself), I must move on to films. Not so long ago I was sat down by them and told to watch 300, a film that I had heard a lot about and was intrigued to watch. Now I am a person that likes a good Tarantino, a Nolan, a Mendes, a Coen Brothers’ and am not immensely impressed by a film full of showy stuff for the sake of being showy; something that, with a certain degree of inevitability, 300 was.

            I set my stall out quite early; I thought 300 did what it set out to do, well: Provide two hours of gore, guts and violence in an unbridled, bloody fashion. Now I’m not averse to gore, guts or violence (see point about Tarantino), but only if it’s done well alongside a compelling story, good dialogue, notable acting and an altogether decent bit of filmmaking. To say that I didn’t like 300 in this house however, turned out to be a big mistake. Never before have I disliked a film only then to be asked whether or not my genitalia was still intact, or in fact, if I had any genitalia at all. It was not my understanding that genitals and films were intrinsically linked, except of course when Hugh Grant makes women’s ovaries twitch by mumbling in posh.

            So tidiness, sport, books and films: that’s all I have for the time being and I hope that suffices. Apologies at the singular nature of this post, I realise that it is very much for a select audience; a select audience that will hopefully let it lie now that I’ve written something about them. It might appear harsh but it’s deliberate, I know they can take it and they won’t be arsed (you know who you are). For next time, either part two of this, or something completely different. Let’s see how well this goes down first...