"Cold Beer One Euro": Tales of Barcelona (Part I)

As I sit on my bed electronically penning this blog the skyward view outside my bedroom window is far from enticing. On any normal day the view of a dreary British summer evening; a sky enveloped by ominous grey clouds, would be ever the acceptable norm. At this point in time however it only seeks to give me a slap in the face. The reason being that on Saturday I returned from a ten-day trip to Benicassim and Barcelona on my first ‘Lads Holiday’ with, if you know them or not, Joe, Jake and Dorsett.

          Undoubtedly some of the best days I’ve experienced on this earth; gaining stories, catchphrases and memories that I’ll take, excuse the morbidity, to my grave. Ah, surely now you understand my reticence at the Great British weather. So much happened throughout the course of this trip that inevitably I’ll forget to include some events that no doubt I will be reminded of when I put this out, but what follows is a collection of some of those stories. It’ll be full of inside jokes and jokes that’ll make no sense unless you went but, y’know, so what.

Part One: “You Want Buy Weed? Coke? Meth?”

If any of you reading this have ever watched the film Planes, Trains and Automobiles you’ll have some sense already of the magnitude of transport we had to use to get to Benicassim. We had decided in advance not to book train tickets for when we landed in Spain, mainly because we were flying with Ryanair, but also because I had tried to negotiate the Spanish train website before we left and there was no option to change the language to English.

          Anyway, long story short, and somewhat inevitable, we arrived at the train station for 12 noon only to be told that all the trains up until 8pm were booked up. We deliberated for a while, too pumped up on adrenaline from arriving to really be bothered particularly, before deciding to get a taxi for the 2-hour drive to Benicassim. And yes, it was expensive. I won’t tell you how much. It was at this point however that we stumbled upon a gentlemen and a scholar by the name of Rob who became our inherent brother in arms throughout our festival experience and who, if he is reading this, can only be congratulated for sticking with us through thick and thin and providing us with so many laughs. Cheers Rob.

          Through some kind of Spanish miracle we eventually arrived in the lovely little town of Benicassim and were dropped off at the bottom of a vast dirt track next to a go-kart course and a makeshift bar. We were directed up the path and were told to go and check-in at the very top. The heat was much more intense than in Reus where our flight had landed and lugging two heavy and mightily awkward hold bags and hand-luggage wasn’t a welcome addition to the trip itinery. On our way up the main arena we witnessed a lad spewing up his morning dose of beer and immediately knew what kind of thing we’d gotten ourselves into. Yes. A good thing indeed.

          Our plan was to dump our bags at the campsite, unpack and erect (calm down) our tents and then go off to get some beer-based supplies, which sounded like a decent plan on paper, but turned out to be a little more complicated in practice. The main problem being that after the morning we had had, the campsite felt a million miles away. Sweltering and sweating our proverbials off, we arrived at the campsite entrance only to be told that first we had to exchange our tickets for wristbands. Only then could they grant us entrance into the site. With unimpressed but surprisingly upbeat groans we returned to the main entrance to check-in and walked back up the campsite (a walk that got quicker and less annoying with every trip).

          The next hour was spent looking for a spot to set up, setting up and having a sit down to just refresh after the hectic morning. This sounds, all told, fairly simple but the lads will know there is no way of expressing with words how much of a nightmare that was in the blistering Spanish heat. But having said that, “we’re on ‘oliday!” (Inside joke #1).

          That done, to the shop it was. Cheap beer, cheap “food.” It is at this juncture however that the subtitle of this passage comes into play. Having been on the go pretty much all day we decided that we’d have a bit of a scran at a small cafe in Benicassim which, incidentally, we did not return to (there’s only so many times you can dodge suspiciously pink looking flecks of meat in a burger). Now I have a tendency on the odd occasion to go ever so slightly British or ‘go all Stephen Fry’ as it has now seemingly been redubbed. None so more than this occasion. Whilst we were eating, a Spanish man approached the table and within a flash had bent down to eye level with me, stared me straight in the face and before I really had time to clock him said

          ‘You want buy weed? Coke? Meth?’ Within literally two hours of arriving in Benicassim I had been offered Meth. Going into British mode I said:

          ‘Sorry? What?’ The offer was repeated and when I was sure what he had said I answered:

          ‘Oh, oh no, no thank you’ in an accent I have never used before and am likely to never use again.

          Needless to say, even on the first day, we had got our first holiday phrase which, even up until this day we haven't forgotten and unbeknownst to us would be the first of many. Many many.

The Plight of All Students

Waiting for the release of exam results is right up there with the diagnosis of pubic lice, the loss of a limb and being subjected to Nicki Minaj on the radio in a list of things that could be described as slightly more than a bit bothersome. Not least when those exam results are the sole indication of whether or not the last year of your life has been at all worthwhile. All that said, the other day I received my results for the first year of University. Through some sort of ancient witchcraft, I conjured myself up a 2:1, and quite a substantial one at that, making me, forever your blogging friend, a very happy bunny indeed.

          Sitting the relative exams for these particular results was no less strenuous than any other exams I had previously sat, in fact, actually slightly more. Now, I imagine most people would agree that one of the worst things about exams, bar the actual exam itself, is the head invigilator. Anybody who has sat an exam in any capacity before will know how power-mad the head invigilator is; they get to read out the exam rules, allocate other invigilating minions to particular spots in the exam hall and co-ordinate the dismissal of the students afterwards. These crazed, I.D. wearing super-dictators, you would think, could not get any more mental if they possibly tried. Think again. Because university invigilators get given a weapon; a tool of majestic supervision, a piece of equipment to aid them in their almighty task of telling students to stop talking. I talk of course, of the loudhailer.

          Christ they’re terrifying. Which brainiac thought that would be a good idea? Picture the scene: You’ve been sat in an exam room for one hour and fifty-five minutes; it’s a two hour exam. You look up frantically at the large sports clock suspended in front of you and will the minute hand to slow down from the seemingly rapid pace it has suddenly picked up. You are deep in concentration, trying to jot down, in any capacity, your final point; it’s the point that’s going to get you the first, it’s the point that’s going to give the examiner a hernia as soon as he reads it, it’s the point that even the great bard himself would congratulate, then, suddenly, your deep concentration is shattered:

         ‘YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES REMAINING. FIVE MINUTES REMAINING!’

          The noise reverberates around the hall, echoes in your ear and the point is lost. Goodbye first. Goodbye herniated examiner.

          This has happened in both of the exams I have taken in the large sports hall during my first year and blimey that loudhailer grabs you by the jugular. It seems to be the primary source of amusement and annoyance for everyone when they walk out (apart, of course, from exclaiming how badly they’ve failed) and long, I imagine, it will be so.

          My next blog, in case you’re interested, will come after my imminent holiday to Barcelona/Benicassim. If my anticipation serves me I would imagine I’d have enough stories to write an epic novel upon my return, so look out for that. And with that said I’m bereft of anything witty or clever to say to round this little scribble off, so go away. Ta.

A Letter To A Religious Nation

I have thought long and hard about whether or not to write a blog on the subject this blog entails. The large quote from the writer and dramatist Douglas Adams I include below goes some way to highlighting both my initial doubt and subsequent decision to write upon the subject of religion. Before I begin however, read and enjoy this fantastic quote:

“Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? – because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'I respect that'. Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows - but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe ... no, that's holy? ... We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard [Dawkins] creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.”

          I am an Atheist, and although I do not spend my days knocking on doors preaching (I choose the word advisedly) my non-beliefs and forcing others to adopt them for their own, I admit I am not entirely silent in publically airing them. And why should I? Religion is, somehow, the default position society finds itself in. Someone writes a tweet exclaiming their love for Jesus, someone else walks around with a Jesus tattoo adorning their arm, no one says a word. Someone writes a tweet exclaiming their non-belief or walks around wearing a t-shirt saying “God Does Not Exist” (which I don’t by the way) and society looks down upon them and berates them for expressing their thoughts. Something which, wrongly, does not occur in the opposite sense.

          I don’t believe in the existence of God, I also cannot see how religion is a force for good in the world. People claiming the Bible contains a blueprint for a successful moral compass have clearly not read it. There are countless examples in the Bible of tales that if we were to adopt them as morality guidelines, society as we know it would fall into disrepute. There is a rather large passage of writing by Professor Richard Dawkins in which he works his way through dismantling each and every one of the ten commandments. It is too long to reproduce here but I will give you a short snippet:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy": this commandment is regarded as so important that a man caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath was summarily stoned to death by the whole community, on direct orders from God.”

          This in turn goes on to explain how the ten commandments lay no orders against rape, torture or the selling of one’s own children; acts that are rife during the time in which the bible stories allegedly occurred. We can only presume that God was fine with these things happening as long as everybody worshipped him and no one else. Of course, anything other than that would be barbaric.

          My final quote comes from, as ever, the eternally erudite Mr. Christopher Hitchens, the late hero of mine. One of his many splendidly phrased anti-theist quotes reads as follows:

“In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks "That's enough of that. It's time to intervene," and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't let’s appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person.”

          But alas, my aim here is not to berate religion as much as I can, and guiltily love to do. No, it is simply to address this damning of non-believers expressing their opinions. Mentally I am a militant Atheist, publically however I haven’t the platform or the status to express my non-beliefs it seems to a willing public (something which I grasp and many religious people seemingly do not).

          My hatred of religion however isn’t, as some people would refuse to believe, on a personal level. People want to pray, that’s fine and no one including me can stop them even if they wanted to, which I don’t. My opinions are loaded more towards the institutions and central bodies of religion; I have no problem in people believing what they want to believe, I just want to be afforded the opportunity to be able to voice my opinion without getting both barrels every time I do.

One, Albeit Sad, Positive of Student Life

Quite apart from enjoying the obvious fruits that University has to bear, one perdurable positive about the student lifestyle is, irrevocably and as well as countless others, the opportunity afforded to me to be able to watch whatever films and television programmes I choose to. Even writing that down it sounds sad, but sadly for me it is something that has mutated itself to be rather more important to me than I would have at first given it credit for over the course of the first year. It’s only a very small thing I grant you, but frankly never has it shown its importance more than the way in which it did this weekend.

          Firstly, allow me just engage you in a small amount of scene-setting for those not currently aware of my family arrangement, it’s really not that hard to understand so stick with it. When I’m not at University I live with my Mum, Dad and two younger sisters, (avec the Cat, the Dog and two Guinea Pigs all of which are not strictly, if in any way relevant here). With two younger sisters especially, you can probably imagine the amount of remote control turf-wars that occur on a daily basis, a living room Civil-War if you will. Sometimes, and I stress only sometimes, I will win and the television will play host to some top quality broadcasting of my choice, and sometimes Road Wars.

          On the other occasions, I am sad to say, I lose. Mainly, I must add, this comes as a result of one or both of my sisters appealing to Mum and Dad for help. Well, I say help, I mean “Muuuuum. Daaaaaad. Tell Greg to change the channel.” Trust me; it’s not worth fighting against that, even if you have the time of effort to spare. On these occasions, the television is subjected to a veritable plethora of bum-dribble, the likes of which, I fear, has never been seen (or at least has never been subjected to one human being in one sitting). I talk of course of television ‘talent’ shows.

          Now, it is that this fitting juncture where the point (yes there is a point) of this article comes into play. This weekend I returned home to witness my beloved Manchester City scrape through victorious to lift the Premier League trophy. Quite apart from the fact that I feel that I’ve aged about thirty years over the course of the weekend, my throat is now pretty much non-existent and my heart feels like it could give way any second (although that’s probably as a result of my ‘diet’), that side of my weekend activities probably deserves its own article, alas another story for another time. No, back to the point. This weekend was the final of Britain’s Got Talent. Now normally, living at home, I would know, or at least be aware of, every act in the final. Unashamedly, this would be the result of twitter around the house and other advertised plugs on the television. However, this time around I knew absolutely nothing, and it felt fantastic.

          Living at University meant that I was completely sheltered from the shower of crap that was going on on television. I literally was not in any way aware that Britain’s Got Talent was on, because I had never been subjected to it. During the course of the first year I have missed two runs of Britain’s Got Talent and one run of the X Factor, all the while I will willingly be watching Horrible Histories, Qi, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, That Mitchell and Webb Look and all manner of other programmes chosen by me, for me. For years I have wondered what the secret was for avoiding all mention of these terrible ‘talent’ shows and other dreadful incarnations of pixels that John Logie Baird would be ashamed of. Now, finally, I know the secret: go and get a degree.  

Things I Learnt In First Year

After the stresses, strains, trials and tribulations that took place over the course of 2011, thankfully amounting in me being offered at a place at University, it seems ludicrous to be able to say to myself that the end of my first year is just two exams away. The start of my course seemed such a long way off at the time and although, granted, most of the time that I’ve “been at” University I’ve spent at home (thanks to the monstrously long breaks that I do not in any way criticise) I thought it might be quite nice to record some points; some of the things I have learnt during the course of my first year as a student (a couple of which I stole from the web but that are applicable and simultaneously more funny than what I can come up with). Here is a little, hopefully humorous, hopefully relatable, list of things I have learnt:

1.     It is possible to survive the entire day on a piece of toast or a mars bar. Or both. Or neither.

2.     Caffeine is a food group.

3.     Never, ever, ever, refuse free food.

4.     Yes, that is the guy upstairs weeing. Just turn your iPod up and try to ignore it.

5.     The Maintenance man’s door-knock is merely a formality. He will walk in no matter what state you’re in.

6.     If you wake up and your shower head has been changed, the Maintenance man has done it when you were asleep.

7.     Fear the Maintenance man.

8.     Upstairs will make the entire block smell like weed and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just go with it.

9.     People wear onesie’s without a trace of irony. Avoid these people.

10.    Apparently flip-flops are a socially acceptable type of footwear at all times of the year, as long as everything else you’re wearing has Hollister written on it.

11.    Hipsters are a race.

12.    Charity bookshops are dangerous places for book nerds like me.

13.    Reference everything. Reference your name. Reference the date. Reference your tutor’s name. Reference you references.

14.    If it’s a bad lecturer, it’s okay to skip the lecture.

15.    Pre-lecture reading is not compulsory and should be treated as such.

16.    Pre-seminar reading is compulsory and should be treated as such.

17.    Unexpected double-sided reading is about as fun as it sounds.

18.    No matter who tells you otherwise, when a tutor says “this isn’t something that can be done the night before,” it is most definitely a challenge.

19.    Remember that thing? Oh, what was it called? Hang on... Don’t tell me... Oh yeah! Money!

20.    You will take a flyer. There are no other options.

Facebook: The Idiot Magnet

There is no denying that Facebook, in all its technological totalitarianism, is one of the most significant creations of however many years, (and I do stress my use of the word ‘of’ rather than ‘in’ in an attempt not to undermine other significant creations that pose an equal, if not greater, impression on the world). However, with its usefulness set aside, let us acknowledge the second face of this Janus-like creature. Since its inception it has also emerged as one of the great evils and annoyances in the modern world. Now don’t worry, I don’t intend to rehash one of the now age-old arguments on internet safety (put a lock on it, or don’t publish it at all – how hard can it be?), I intend to rehash another problem that Facebook seems to attract. And I’m going to pounce upon it like a pigeon on a chip. I talk, of course, of the idiot users of Facebook.

          Now I use that term exclusively; I do not mean ‘users’ in a universal sense, I mean to emphasise the users of Facebook who are, fundamentally, imbeciles. Obviously not all users are idiots and everyone knows who these imbeciles are. These idiots manifest themselves in a plethora of forms; there is the “I’m so deep and brooding only song lyrics can successfully convey how deep and brooding I really am” idiot, the “I’m angry/sad and although I have broadcasted this on Facebook I cannot, in fact, inform you as to why I feel this way” idiot (also known as the sympathy-baiter), the “I’m going to tell you literally every turn, twist and event encompassed in my day whether you like it or not” idiot and the “behold my incredibly unfunny and pathetically stupid post that I think emphasises what I believe to be intelligence and wit but is really just a misplaced and undeserved self-assurance” idiot, to name but a few.

          Every Facebook user will, at some point in their time on the website, have come in to contact with most, if not all, of these idiots. It was my encounter, for example, with a sympathy-baiter not five minutes ago that compelled me to write this. The baiter in question simply wrote that they were angry, with multiple exclamation marks to further emphasise their emotion just in case some people were compelled to brush past their post and therefore not afford them the attention they, evidently, so badly crave. Alas though! Praise be to Allah! A comment! An enquirer! “What’s wrong?” the chivalrous and attentive comment reads. We wait patiently for our response and it finally arrives: “nothing, I can’t tell you.” And humanity weeps, asking where it went so wrong.

          The biggest shame is that we can do nothing to prevent these idiots from taking over; we must simply grin and bear it. In a sense, this post writes itself. It could potentially continue in a Penrose triangle of continuation. There is, and will continue to be, a never-ending supply of idiots to litter our news feeds until the demise of life as we know it, or at least until it regenerates into another internet-based craze. Until then comrades, stay strong. 

Role Models or, An Excuse To Write About Christopher Hitchens

Most profound apologises yet again for my lack of blogging over the past month or so; naturally would I put it down to my busy lifestyle, but then I realised that it was more to do with the fact that I have just simply got progressively lazier, and that my lifestyle can be described with a multitude of adjectives, but busy certainly is not one of them. Alas, I am back.

          As I sit at my desk writing this there is, in front of me, a copy of Christopher Hitchens’ Autobiography Hitch-22: A Memoir. Now for those of you not currently aware of the life and work of this great man, get exploring. I promise you, he certainly won’t leave you bored. Christopher Hitchens or Hitch as he was affectionately referred to, was an Anglo-American author, essayist and journalist who, amongst other things, was world renowned for his confrontational style of debate, often on the subject of religion, of which he had a famous disgust for; writings such books as The Missionary Position, a scything critique of Mother Teresa and perhaps his most famous book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, which I read a couple of years ago and which helped me to affirm my religious non-beliefs by pretty much listing everything I thought was wrong with world religion. I felt like he was on my page (pun intended). In fact, it is from his religious critiques that the quote “that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence” is taken from; forever one of my favourites.

          Now, whilst writing his autobiography, that which is sat in front of me, he was diagnosed with stage-four esophageal cancer (his never-faltering quick wit and humour always led him to point out that there was no stage-five). It is strange reading the book knowing that when the author was writing it, he was dying, and had no idea himself. It was this, or rather the pneumonia he developed as a result of this, which unfortunately took his life on 16^th December 2011. On that day the world lost a great writer, public speaker and all-round gifted intellectual.

          ‘Woah’ you may be saying, ‘this is a bit deep for this guy; he normally talks about noisy neighbours or University life or something. This is bullcrap.’ Well that may be so but I thought that this week I would use this platform to tell you about my favourite writer. As self-indulgent as it may seem, there is logic and reasoning concealed behind it. As an English student, and a keen writer, I consider people like Christopher Hitchens, as well as George Orwell, Cormac McCarthy, Ian Fleming and John Le Carre as my literary heroes. I say this because last week I read an article that suggested that we shouldn’t have ‘heroes,’ that we should do everything of our own accord. The blatant stupidity and arrogance of such an article makes me angry that so many people like that are working regularly, whereas some incredibly talented people struggle on their arses.

          I think people need role models to get a sense of perspective in their lives; whether their role model may be such flesh-wastes as Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga, any or all members of the members of sickly One Direction, or terrible, just oh so terrible ‘actors’ such as Hugh Grant, Hayden Christensen or Kirstin Dunst, role-models give people inspiration. Feel free to tell me who your role models are in a comment below if you like. 

            A long history of journalism and writing for public consumption allowed for that journalist to write that article and so for him to dismiss any kind of influence on himself or the people around him shows, frankly, an obscene arrogance and mis-placed self-assurance that I find hard to comprehend, even on a basic humanistic plain. I won’t even get started on an article that was brought to my attention the other day entitled “Why One Direction are Better Than Beatles.”

          So some people may find this post boring (to be honest, I bet most people saw the title and strayed away), so some people may dismiss this blog out of hand for the foreseeable future. I’m not bothered, they can do that. If you however have read this far, if you are intrigued about Hitch’s work, about where this post was going but are now bored and feeling betrayed, or even if you thought you’d read it because you have nothing better to do, I thank you. I thank you for indulging me just this once. Normal service will resume next week, I promise.