50 things that are worse than gay marriage (part 2)

So here is the unanticipated second installment. Hope they inspire you to take action against these injustices.

26. Graphics over gameplay

As a nintendo fan, this one was inevitable. But I can play an 8 bit game with great joy and affection, so I'm not sure why graphics is an important factor in games. Provided the game flows smoothly, it doesn't matter. Plus the point of videogames is often to take us away from the dull reality of our dull lives in our dull settings by giving us colourful and imaginative worlds for us to play around in. However, many games sacrifice this imagination in exchange for a gritty, brown and grey environment that is super-realistic. Douchebags the lot of them.

27. People saying south park is ignorant

If you say this, you clearly just don't get it. You are allowed to not like it, but in the same way that I admit that rappers have talent (I just don't like it), people need to realise that South Park is clever and witty, even if they don't like it.

28. Good, nice, kind and cool

The least imaginative words in the english dictionary. It now says to me that the person saying it couldn't think of an actual adjective to describe something. That isn't necessarily insulting their intelligence if they're talking in a hurry, before anyone cries.

29. When your phone breaks the train ticket

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I don't like buying another one... for fuck's sake.

30. Footballer’s salaries

There are people being paid less than minimum wage or even nothing at all who work harder than many a footballer. It doesn't help that many of them (JOHN TERRY) are complete arseholes.

31. That plastic packaging that is impossible to get into without scissors, yet when you do cut them open it cuts your FUCKING HAND!!!

(see title of thing)

32. How my phone autocorrects tgat to Tgat

Come on apple, what the fuck is that about?!? Also happens with wgat...

33. Facebook emails

Another example of evil genius: every time something is altered on facebook, or a new feature is introduced, they automatically start sending you emails whenever someone you know uses it. I'm so tired of endless lists of boxes I have to uncheck just so that they can leave me the fuck alone!

34. People who are happy after arguments

I had a friend (note the use of past tense) who after an argument would suddenly be very cheerful. No. Post-argument feelings are anger, frustration, guilt and sorrow, and the last thing you want to happen is the person you are feeling those feelings towards/about is as happy as Larry.

35. People who don’t let other people out
When you are driving, you are an arsehole, provided your metal machine of death combusts some fraction of crude oil that we're losing in case you've noticed. A miniscule compensation for this strangely ubiquitous sin is to let other drivers out at a junction or pedestrians cross if there is a big queue behind you. There's little more irritating and grinding than being stuck at such junctions with fellow arseholes driving straight past either giving you that "well I don't know what you expect me to do for you"or not even trying to catch your eye. I'm not sure which is worse, so I guess I'll have to burn them all. In my mind of course. Yeah.

36. Adverts that flog dead horses

The meerkats of the now infamous advert and the little edf energy owl/flame/turd have gone way too far now. They were sweet initially, I even went on the compare the meerkat website and downloaded the human league song featured. But now it's just got irritating. It's this problem that people don't like new things, they like things that they already know and adore. This cautious method of advertising is safe for the mass-pleasing companies, and is probably an easier job for the advertising department, but I always find the more ambitious adverts that are highly original always catch my eye more.

37. Kerrang

3 words: Utter emo trash.

38. Sore winners

Considerably worse than a sore loser, because a sore winner catalyses sore loser behaviour. Thus by simple logic they must be worse.

39. Hollywood

Known for releasing films (apparently) the hollywood film industry is full of paranoid cocksuckers who only become 'attached' to a project if they can guarantee it's success in the public. This is all well and good on paper, but in reality this means the dreaded word: sequel. Rather than release a new and original film (which can do quite well you know==> see inception), producers and writers and all the rest prefer something that they know will maintain their reputations. You're only as good as your last film!

40. Bitching

I must admit I am a veteran at what has become 'bitching'. I am afraid to admit it is more common amongst teenage girls than boys, although saying that I have heard some nasty bitches from the male pool of life. Sorry women that was unnecessary, but I digress. In year 11 it ruined many a friendship group and split the school in 2 to the extent that I left to go to a (better) sixth form. At university it started again a bit and I had flashbacks. Fuck's sake it follows me...

41. Inside jokes where you are the only one who doesn't get it

Inside jokes are great! But don't fucking think about doing one where it involves alienating only one of the people in the crowd of friends around you. That's not being cool. That's being a cunt.

42. Genocide

Because it is worse, duh.

43. Pseudo charity fund raisers

Twat: Hey would you like to buy a doughnut for our cause?

Me: Sure, what cause is it for?

Twat: [fishing out a doughnut] It's for our drama society so that we can buy a new backdrop for our production of Jul...

[Twat's voice is stifled as I throw a fucking bench at him]

44. GCSE science

Why does it lie?!?!? WHY?!?!?!? Now when 16 year olds try and talk biology with me, I end up using the phrase "weeelll... sort of true but not quite the full story" way too often.

45. Those games that always causes arguments

I have lost more friends to monopoly than the westboro baptist church loses respect day by day for being insensitive towards mourners.

46. Things that could ruin a heterosexual marriage

Just a smart-arse note here: cheating, domestic abuse, just falling out of love. Aren't all these things worse than just letting two people love each other regardless of man:woman ratio? I would much prefer to live in a world without even one of those things above and instead have gay marriage.

[Note: I understand these things could ruin gay marriage too, but until gay marriage is legal I'm not allowed to call it that]

47. Slow walkers

In all seriousness, you guys should have a separate lane on the pavement! There is nothing more frustrating than being in a hurry to catch a train, escape a planted bomb etc and having some bastard taking up the middle of the walking space sauntering like he's collecting his fucking lottery winnings.

48. Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning’s DNA being merged to produce a child

An ugly fucking racist spawn of satin. Pass the shotgun quick!

49. Benefit frauds

It is absolutely sick to take advantage of a decent and merciful system that helps the less fortunate just so you can get some extra cash you don't deserve. If you want extra cash go be a footballer!

50. People who accuse wrongly of benefit fraud

This happened to a good friend of mine and his family recently. They are the nicest family you'd ever know in terms of hospitality and having a laugh, but they have the misfortune of disability and low income hanging over them. What they don't need is some bitch to suggest they don't deserve that! They use the money better than most so leave them alone!

50 things that are worse than gay marriage (part 1)

As much as I would like to just stumble straight into the 50 strong hastily thought of collection of pet peeves and unpleasantry with the decorum of a train on giant skates going down a glacier, it suddenly occurred to me that the title mildly suggests that I think gay marriage is bad. I do not think this, in fact, I believe that if you truly want to display your undying love for another human being in the form of a ceremony of some sort and some rings, then who gives a toss what the proportion of men to women there are in the couples. Except for the odd exception (see number 42), most of these 'things' are little objects or scenarios that can be described as "slightly annoying but on the whole tolerable in small amounts", and thus that these things warrant a petition against them much more than gay marriage. In fact, can we legalise gay marriage, and in return, make illegal any of the following that isn't already illegal? Here are the first 25 joyous bites of 'wisdom'

1. Oasis

There could be many different bands here, but my reasoning for putting the pioneers of britpop dulge shit on this list is less my subjective hatred of this band, but a more objective annoyance, although that is my subjective opinion (aaaarrrgghhhh). It is thus: the band has a reputation for being controversial, what with the charming Liam giving away his various awards. You see this and think firstly "what a prick", but then soon afterwards "they must be hardcore punk or hip hop or something provocative". However when you actually listen to their stuff, it's really light and fluffy. "What the fuck?", you tend to say as you quickly attempt to stop the dreadful whingy shit.

2. Standing on a snail

It is night. about ten minutes ago it was raining heavily but all is clear now. You are walking along with a friend. You are chatting with them, unaware of where you are placing your feet. There is a sickening crunch. Guilt. Guilt. GUILT!

3. Children’s drama series

I understand that Alan Rickman and Judie Dench are unlikely to want to sign up to entertaining an easily pleased child audience on a tiny set with a £2.46 budget, yet the acting is so bad in certain shows (the new tracy beaker comes to mind) that you cannot watch this without cringing. Cartoons are still safe, as they are still immensely entertaining. Some other shows such as Drake and Josh are also acceptable.

4. Waking up to a numb arm

Ever woken up to seeing a random arm in your bed, then after a few confusing and frightening minutes realising it is in fact your arm but it's so numb that you cannot move it, then frustratedly trying and failing to wiggle your fingers? If so, then you see why it's on this.

5. Green crisps/chips

You find them in the packet, or at the fish and chip shops. Are they edible? Are they tasty? Are they poisonous? Not sure, better not eat it anyway. Wasted a crisp. Feel like a bastard.

6. Spiders that hide in blackberries

As a child I used to pick blackberries with my grandmother, which was lovely until the beige monster emerges, terrifying me into never eating blackberry crumble again. Bad memories.

7. Iphone email

I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets irritated when my phone seems to want to slap an advert under every email I ever send to anyone. As if a potential employer or lecturer on my course will read "sent from my iPhone" and think "fuck everything I need to do right now, I need to get this phone. I mean, it sends EMAILS," and then jump through the window, run down the fire escape and straight to the apple store so that they can send an email back.

8. Fan fiction

This includes anything written by stupid people who fantasize about being intimate with their favourite character from what can (sometimes) be an acceptable or even decent book, film or TV series, then just smack various body parts against a keyboard excitedly in their own delusion until some wank appears on the screen for us to suffer reading.

9. Sand in your clothes after a trip to the beach

It certainly gives me a moment of hesitation before setting foot on the beach with no shoes on. But then very soon afterwards I think 'don't care about future self, have fun!' I hate my past self sometimes.

10. No loo roll at the wrong time

No matter how high or mighty you may be, or think you may be, you've still had that panicky situation where you just didn't look to see whether you had any toilet roll before you went. After the ubiquitous outbreak of silent but strong anger and regret, each and every one of us have our own strategy for dealing with said situation.

11. Happy endings in horror films

Just why? The whole point of these films is that either there is a small chance that everything is fine again and the dream is crushed just before the credits role, or there is no hope throughout the film and everyone including half the crew filming it have been brutally killed. A happy ending at the end of a horror film would be as appropriate as Tony Montana pulling a different expression from disgust mixed with constipation.

12. People who hate a film or television show, yet haven’t seen it

Typical conversation that frequently concludes with a death:

ME: Have you ever seen [show or film that I quite like]?

ARSEHOLE: No it's shit.

ME: But, have you ever watched it, or seen any clips of it before?

ARESHOLE: No but I don't need to 'cause I know it's rubbish.

ME: Whilst stabbing them ferociously with a knife WATCH IT FIRST, THEN FORM AN OPINION!!!!!

(I am not a hypocrite: I have watched glee, high school musical and Twilight. All shit.)

13. People pronouncing the letter H “haitch”

It is pronounced "aitch". That is all.

14. Gristle in sausage rolls

It can ruin any sausage roll, no matter how tasty it is or how much you had eaten already. It also reminds you that you are eating the bits of pig rejected by rich and snobby people churned up into paste and injected in pastry. This is a fantastic reason to become a vegetarian: mycoprotein contains no horrid bits of semi-broken cartilage.

15. And pork pies

See number 14, but replace the words sausage roll with pork pie.

16. People saying I can’t like chicken because I'm a vegetarian

Many people became vegetarian because they didn't like the taste of meat. Say this to them, because it's true.  I made the decision to stop eating meat for various reasons (see previous attempt to entertain my 4 readers), but taste wasn't one of them.

17. People who treat their pets like children

This was one of the most surreal moments in my life. I once met some people who refer to themselves as 'mummy' and 'daddy' when talking to their pets.

18. Debates on the internet

They don't go anywhere. Simple. It ruins any youtube video that even mentions the word God with pointless arguments about whether He exists that have a few interesting points either way but ultimately descends into misunderstanding and petty insults. This ends up irritating everyone else, because believe it or not some people just want to put a sensible, inquisitive or even genuinely funny (some are!) comment, which is immediately drowned in a sea of pointless fuckwit comments. To quote someone I spoke to once (and heartily agreed with) "anyone who enters a youtube debate should be sterilised immediately".

19. Covers of THOSE SONGS
School bands are always a bit hit and miss, but any band that covers one of THOSE songs that everyone does slips down the grease-lined funnel of ignorance straight into the miss-box. Anyone who's seen a school gig knows what I mean: All The Small Things by Blink 182, Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns n Roses, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana and so on. I'm not sure entirely why some of these songs are covered. Nirvana and Blink 182 are probably because they're easy, but Guns n Roses isn't particularly: difficult singing and a rather complicated guitar riff, or at least to a pubescent arrogant little show off twat.

20. A cut that only hurts when you notice it
It's interesting psychologically, but my goodness do you hate yourself for looking afterwards.

21. 3D films
Please can someone confirm that I'm not the only person who finds these pointless? When I go see a movie, there are several prioritised criteria that I judge the film on: acting quality, writing, soundtrack, etc. Visual effects is pretty low on that list, thus I'm not paying extra cash on seeing the same acting/writing/etc just because every now and then a piece of confetti blowing from Mel Gibson's left nostril will look slightly closer to my face than the confused vicar behind him.

22. Alternative genre
It appears that if you cannot be bothered to identify an artist's genre, it is placed under the pointless heading 'alternative'. Bands described as alternative on iTunes includes coldplay, florence and the machine, Linkin park and the white stripes, all of whom can be put under much more logical and descriptive genre headings. The only band I can think of who are truly alternative is Primus (also known as funk metal).

23. Di Caprio being romantic
Gangs of new york, inception, catch me if you can. These are great films where Leo works very hard and pulls off his roles superbly. But stick him in a romantic film and suddenly he is just one of those awful gooey actors who make me do one of those mini sicks that Michael Macintyre so eloquently describes. It also saddens me greatly to think of how much he sucks in these films relative to how well he portrays other roles.

24. The use of tradition as an excuse
In Spain, bulls are tortured and often killed for people's amusement. Why? Because it's tradition. In England, people would chase down and rip apart foxes with guns, horses, dogs and a bugle. Why? It's tradition. The plantations in southern USA and central America used slaves imported from Africa as their main workers. Why? It was tradition.

25. Simon Cowell
This man is an economic genius. An economic evil genius. He may well be the single-handed reason as to why the music business could fuck up at any moment. In his (reluctant) defense, he makes his money by providing the public with talent, but with the extra filter added on of 'talent that the public will like', thus his artists never progress, they just copy the previous artist for the 10 seconds of fame they receive. He's also a complete wanker to people: he does "tell it how it is", but there must be a nicer method of criticising people.

The Amnesty Arms Trade Treaty Conference

Although this is a little late, and much more serious than my usual durge, here is my article-esque piece on the arms trade treaty conference in Westminster:

The conference on the 20^th June was certainly an eye-opening experience for me. Before then it hadn’t occurred to me that the global arms trade isn’t currently regulated at all by the UN, thus I was more than supportive of a solid arms trade treaty (ATT) to be brought about. The event, which included displays of other students’ campaigns for the ATT, really inspired me to take a more active role in Amnesty events, making me more determined to make RHUL a much more activist university.

The most emotional and attention-grabbing parts of the day were the two speeches by David Grimason and Emmanual Jal. David lost his son as a result of an argument in a Turkish café that got out of hand, a situation that would have been much less likely to happen if arms trading was regulated properly. There are around 8 million handguns in Turkey, yet only 1 million are licensed. This fact surprised me, as even relatively developed countries such as Turkey can still have such unnecessary brutality due to easily obtainable and importable arms.

Emmanual Jal is an ex child soldier who has been writing and performing music to raise awareness of the troubles in his country. His ideas and definitions of peace and his experiences gave us a personal and deep example of how a proper ATT could assist in preventing such abuses of human rights.

The UN will meet for the majority of July in order to discuss a new ATT in order to tackle the arms trade issue. I was proud to discover that the UK at the moment is one of the leading countries in favour of a full, ‘bulletproof’ arms treaty, giving the conservatives at least one thing for me to be proud of them for. However, some countries are currently pushing for ammunition to not be controlled, but this is ludicrous. If it weren’t for the ammo, the guns would be nothing more than sculptures. This is why we as a nation should really pressure our government into pushing forwards the best, the most sound and the least loopholed ATT so that crimes against people such as Emmanual and the Grimasons can be lessened significantly in the near future.

My first internet quote.

I have decided to become a vegetarian. This has followed a week trial session in which I have been vegetarian, which I managed with a fair amount of ease, except for that Maoam sweet I ate before finding out they contain gelatin (my girlfriend hasn't forgiven me since...). This proved to me that I don't really need meat or gooey sweet things that have frankly lost their immense flavour promoted by shitty adverts with irritating children.


On a small digression, that Haribo advert where the kids have to avoid a sweet in order to get two (not exactly swimming the channel is it?) there is a clip that shows two children taking the challenge at the same time, each with their own sweet. Why doesn't one of the kids just take both sweets, then he wins? Anyway...


There are several reasons as to why I became vegetarian, and I'd like to point out from the start that one of them is NOT because my girlfriend is one. This misconception has been suggested in the past in both accusing and friendly ways, and my increasingly exasperated response has been to indicate that I have debated this before I met her at university last year. I will agree however that it makes things much more convenient for us both to avoid beef so that we can get the same pizza. A much bigger reason would be that as of the end of April, all of my best friends from back at home are vegetarian, and I cannot be bothered to cook myself something separate every time we eat together, which is interesting since that is often a problem with a family suddenly having a vegetarian in it.


Despite all that peer pressure crap above, the largest reasons I have for vegetarianism are biological. Should all of humanity become vegetarian or vegan (and I understand that for some people "meat is just too damn good" for this incredibly difficult conversion, I mean, do they know bacon tastes shit?), and thus every meat farm in the world was used for other purposes, it is thought that there could be enough space freed up to feed everybody alive. If this is true (and it seems plausible when you think about it) then vegetarianism does sound appealing. Plus, as most energy and pretty much all energy we obtain originated from the sun, and at each stage of the food web where an organism consumes another some of that energy is lost in undigestible matter and respiration, it makes sense that you will gain the most energy from the earliest stage of the food chain (i.e. the producers). Thus vegetarianism is more efficient.


There are some interesting points against vegetarianism (we've already covered the "meat is good" or neanderthal argument), and one of these is definitely not that it is difficult to get your daily amount of each nutrient without meat. This is wank. There are plenty of reliable online sources that can assist you in creating a balanced diet with everything you need, including the NHS website. According to NHS choices, these are the foods that contain iron, essential for blood cells and electron transport chains: "Good sources of iron include:

• liver
• meat
• beans
• nuts
• dried fruit, such as dried apricots
• wholegrains, such as brown rice
• fortified breakfast cereals
• soybean flour
• most dark-green leafy vegetables, such as watercress and curly kale"

Notice that apart from meat, there are at least 7 other things there that contain plenty of iron. Plus science trivia pursuers, soya beans contain every essential amino acid, so protein deficiency is far from a problem. So that argument has failed to impress me much. 

Note that I haven't mentioned any ethical reasoning behind my choice for vegetarianism. This is not because I don't agree with them: I do. However, I think you'll find that if you search reasons for becoming a vegetarian or vegan (which I just noticed is like the word vegetarian, but without some letters, which is sort of symbolic to what they eat) most of them will drill animal rights into you. This blog was more about the other reasons, as it's nice to have more than just one point to bring up to others in arguments. 

The biggest reason by far as to my sudden avoiding of the meat industry came with an epiphany I had about Wednesday. I was in the canteen and my friend had bought some chinese honey chicken. I found myself wanting to try the dish, but then it struck me that I wasn't missing the chicken. I was interested in trying the sauce, and from this I deduced that any decent meat meal out there can easily be converted into a vegetarian alternative. Therefore meat has, unfortunately, become redundant. 

Democracy makes me feel like a dick

One thing that I find annoying of the many is when I get talked down by the majority. I am behind democracy (or at least I think I am) but it can be incredibly upsetting when everyone I'm talking with disagrees with me. It happens so often now, with everything from politics to whether Ricky Gervais is a twat (I think he's very good, but few others seem to), that I begin to doubt myself and wonder whether I actually know anything. This can be very oppressing, as unlike the whiny little bitch bags that many refer to as teenagers I am happy to admit that I enjoy it when people appreciate the same things as me, as it means I can have at least a little social life. Thus when no one agrees I feel isolated, like a Sikh in a mosque.

This is the main reason why I tend to avoid politics. My sister can tell me off all she wants, but I don't want to vote until a) I can find the time to feel incredibly strongly about a certain issue being brought up and b) I can find a candidate or party that blows me away with their appealing if a little flawed policies. And it's hard to do this when the only thing I have ever got right in politics is when I commented that I can never be right in politics; someone will always attack my opinion and make me feel like a dick for even trying to sound like a give a shit about what I was trying to argue. It was proven when my sister had a go at me for not wanting to vote yet: if I decided to vote then someone else would say I was wrong to do that. My response, therefore, is "fuck that".

Is the glass half full, half empty, or somewhere in between?

Hello,
I have decided to start a blog, not because I want attention for all the potentially witty things I may say on current affairs, but just to clear my head every week or so. People are welcome to read this (and I guess as I'm writing this on a public medium there is a part of me that would enjoy people reading this) but I won't get massively offended if you don't, as I appreciate that you may be preoccupied with better things to do.

I'm currently at home for my easter break from university. I had been immediately struck with a dilemma on my return from university (and no, it isn't 'uni') which perfectly defines whether I am an optimist or a pessimist: I have my 3 best friends back here in Attleborough, and my girlfriend goes to my university. This becomes a pessimistic issue if you were to think of it as "when I'm at home I won't see my girlfriend, and when I'm at university I won't see my best friends", however thinking of it as "At university, I'll get to see my girlfriend and at home I get to see my best friends" is marginally more optimistic. So what am I, I asked myself. Both. You may find through these blogs that I have many opinions on certain subjects. One of these is that I hate abbreviations (see above uni comment) and another is that I don't like to see things as black and white, but as a nice spectrum of grey.

An example is above: sometimes I get very sad over the issue of not seeing my friends/girlfriend (pessimism), but sometimes I think "well at least I have at least someone for both locations". I mean, if they weren't this equally distributed, a whole section of my life would suck, and that wouldn't necessarily be compensated by the good sections. Another example is when I look in the mirror. On certain days I will admit that I think I look fairly attractive, and this cheers me up. But on other days, I look like a rucksack of porridge and spots has been ripped open by oat (and possibly pus) loving savages. I like to think most people have this, you'd have to be pretty depressed to always hate your own reflection. This is why I hate emos, for they claim that they don't like themselves, and this draws some of the attention (which is what they're looking for) away from the actual depressed people: unfair. Thus I think you cannot just have one adjective or the opposite, but a sort of mash up of the two. You can tell I'm a scientist.