“Well, I’ll give it away on Twitter”

Lots of fun has come from this, so I presume it will for this to. I thought about it for a little while and realised I had a few other good comics I wouldn’t mind giving away. So…have decided to throw a…

Follow Friday competition!

Yes! a follow friday competition! I’ve been occupying my creative side in recent weeks by making more and more ornate follow fridays and I have decided to extend the challenge to you.

The rules are

• Make a follow friday thing, it can be a video, a picture, some music, anything!
• You can only suggest 5 people who you feel are under followed and can brighten the lives of their fellow twitterers
• You can’t suggest me as I have more than my fair share of followers already
• You have until midnight on the 23rd of July 2010 (tomorrow)

Make me aware of it and I’ll pick which one makes me smile the most. Now go! create! for narnia!

Note: I shall update this to be a proper blog later tonight, I just wanted to get this out there.

• The 2010 World Cup
• My new sense of football perspective
• Podcasts
• My beloved Southampton’s chances of promotion from League One
• My steadily declining opinion of the Premier League
• Whether or not to buy a season ticket for Fulham this year

But this is pub talk. If I tried to cover everything then I’d cover nothing. Plus, this kind of stuff can get really quite boring for those who don’t care about football, they do exist you know, weirdos. With this in mind I have decided to write about a facet of my football life that is at least mildly accessible

My football playing career

Oh yes! and what a career it was. Dizzying highs, sickening lows and bog standard middles. First of all, we should get one thing clear

I am awful at football

Mmhmm. I was one of those kids. Loved the game, couldn’t play it for toffee, not properly anyway. Any skill I had was attained via sheer dogged persistence rather than any natural flair for the game. I was Rock Lee.

The Springtime of Youth!

The story of my career starts (and ends) in Netley Abbey. The village I grew up in. Netley Abbey is a lovely spot, situated in the suburbs of Southampton. Home to the world famous Abbey Ruins, which despite what you might think is actually an old ruined Abbey. And lest we forget the Royal Victoria Country Park, site of the old military hospital during World War II. If you’re looking for a quiet village for a holiday this summer then look no further than Netley Abbey, that’s Netley Abbey. Sorry, I seem to have wandered a tad.

I lived on a middle of the road estate called Ingleside. It’s really quite a charming name now I think about it, kinda took it for granted when I was an idiot (child). All of my friends lived in and around Ingleside so games of football would start ad nauseum. I was very lucky because I lived right next a nice large patch of grass about half the size of a normal football pitch. Now it did have a footpath carving its way through the middle of it, but that only served to make things more exciting. Slide tackles were like Russian Roulette. Well they would be if I did them but being a total wuss I never really commited to a challenge.

The pitch, such as it was, was surrounded by people’s back fences. For us they were actually very robust goal nets. We would regularly smash people’s fences to bits in the name of the beautiful game. It was never intended, just collateral damage. I did a blog a while ago about our adventures smashing people’s property so I’ll refer you to that (link!) and move on.

This pitch was where my fledgling career began. Chasing the ball around, no guile, no grace. But hey, we were 9, bugger off. We spent the majority of our time playing a game I can’t remember the name of, but it involved 1 goalkeeper and a bunch of kids taking shots. We’d set it up so there were two professional teams playing and we’d imagine a game, shouting the names of our favourite players and such. It was brilliant.

As we played we kinda sussed which players we were most like. For example the little kid Stew emerged as Andy Townsend. This was mainly because he just tackled people. He was quite good at it but that was it. Tackle tackle tackle. I don’t know what Stew is doing now but I don’t think he’s an ITV pundit. He could probably do it, the only qualification necessary that I can see is to have a face.

Anyway, for some reason it emerged that I was

Teddy Sheringham

Terry Shedingham

Now our rationale at the time was that I had a tendancy to toe punt the ball and subsequently hit it fucking hard. Now I really don’t why it was Teddy Sheringham. He was quite a cultured player and never one to just lamp it. On reflection I think I’m more like

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink

That's me. Definitely.

That’s more like it. He was pretty good, didn’t do *that* much but in the words of Alan Partridge “had a foot like a traction engine”. On numerous occasions I would get frustrated and or bored and just leather it. It didn’t always (or often) go in but by christ it went somewhere far away. Over a fence normally. Though it’s a do or die mentality, if a shot of that raw brutal power goes in from distance, it’s a thing of beauty. I seemed to be pretty good at crossing too. Well sort of. Not really.

That’s how it was for what seemed like decades, in a good way. We played football pretty much every available second of our lives. Kicking balls over fences and into bushes, scoring screamers and such, happy days. If I gave those years to Peter Kay, he’d get a good 25 minutes of material out of it. But it didn’t stay this way, back off Peter.

Up until now I’d only played casual football. You know, small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts. Rush goalie. Two at the back, three in the middle, four up front, one’s gone home for his tea. Beans on toast? Possibly, don’t quote me on that. Marvellous. But being a football fan you know there is more to it than that. Not much mind, but a bit.

Occasionally we would play on full size pitches, rarely with goalposts and perish the thought, A NET. Once you get a taste for that you can’t go back. We would always have silly knock around football but we all yearned for something a bit more. Something with rules and scores and numbered shirts and oranges and shouting parents. It was time to join a team.

I realise now that this blog is quite a bit longer than I thought it would be, so I’ll wrap it up for now and continue the next chapter (Going Pro) in the not too distant future. If you’d like to go on holiday to Netley Abbey, then go here for more details. You never know, you might bump into me. *

* You won’t bump into me, I live in London.**

** If you do live in London you might bump into me, I’m always looking at my phone while I walk. I’m a danger to myself. Beware.

Jason - Aged 27

Sometimes you tweet something and you could never guess the consequences of your idle warblings. I’ve already blogged about the Giraffe thing but I felt the whole adventure was also note worthy. I’m no stranger to the power of getting people enthusiastic about an idea. The whole #ratm4xmas thing was the perfect example of that and I blogged about it at the time. As per usual, this all occurred on twitter, where fun stuff always happens.

Twitter tends to work like the ocean. The sea ebbs and flows with the tide, occasional blips will stir up a storm or two. Whatever starts will eventually fade away into forgotten memory. We people sit on the beach and react differently to these developments. Some get on their surfboards and ride those waves while they can. Some have a paddle in the shallows dipping in every now and then. Some will be in a meteorological office plotting maps of the occurrences, comparing them to old occurrences. And some sit on the beach laughing at everyone else. I’m kinda a mess of all of the above. I can be quite reactionary/band wagony which I’m trying to address. More often than not some wise older than me thing will point out the wider issue and I’ll be left looking like a puppy covered in mud. I want to be wise old labrador. Maybe one day…

Recently a storm started which didn’t stop for so long that I’ve forgotten when it started, it’s only just falling away now. I refer of course to the UK general election. Twitter was ablaze with election based jabber for weeks. Links, jokes, hash tag games the whole shebang. This whole thing has been quite good for me because it finally helped me breach the world of politics and gain a better understanding of the whole process. It showed me why it was important to vote and all that.

The problem for me was the doom laden inevitably of it. If I was of the tory way of thinking it might have been better but due to my silly beliefs in compassion and such like it wasn’t to be. Thing about twitter is you tend to gravitate towards people who think similarly to you, unless you like looking for an argument, but I don’t. Consequently, most of the people I follow were lefty types and were all getting very down about the numbing inevitability of an impending tory government.

This really reached critical mass on election day and it was all getting a bit much. I could see that people needed a little distraction, just a little reminder that even on days like this of enormous consequence, we can still have a giggle. It could have been anything, just something to take your mind of the thing that had dominated your thoughts for so long. So I had a quick think and then it just popped into my head.

Draw a Giraffe

It was obvious to me immediately how it would work. No competitions, no talent requirement, nothing that would make it stressful or competitive, that was the last thing everyone needed. People just needed a little release, a little sunshine. So I tweeted a request for people to draw Giraffes and off we went. I drew mine first and people got onto it straight away. The seed had been planted. All you need is about 5 other people to have a go and the inspiration spreads like a forest fire. As time rolled merrily forward over the course of the day the entries were rolling in. Each one a thing of beauty. You could see in each picture how much fun they’d had drawing it.

Just as quickly as it had started it had finished. I wasn’t going to press the issue as there didn’t seem to be any point. It was always intended as a little distraction and on those terms it was very much mission accomplished. By the end of the day the collection stood at 125 giraffes! I was so proud of everyone. I made a little gallery for them and thought that was that. But there was one last thing…

People ask me about twitter a lot but I’m never able to truly explain why it’s brilliant. I guess it’s brilliance is the sum total of the people you follow and interact with. I follow the best bunch of guys in the world so everyday is a joy for me. The one thing I will say to people is this

You get out what you put in

I tweet a lot, I make very few apologies for this as it has given me so much. This Giraffe thing was no different.

A guy I’d met a little while ago, Mike (@mikewinship, follow him), was at a festival called ATP. The special curator (or something) of the event in question was none other than Matt Groening. Anyone who knows me, knows that the Simpsons is truly one of my favourite things in the world. No matter what it does now, nothing can spoil the memory of the golden age. You can imagine my excitement when Mike tweets me this:

@mixmasterfestus Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to get Matt Groening to draw a giraffe. This is a good plan, yes?

Now, Mike was delirious with Giraffe fever and had declared he was going to attempt to get a Groening giraffe. I didn’t want to get my hopes up so I wished him all the good luck in the world and watched with eager anticipation. It was like chinese water torture for me so I can’t imagine what it was like for him. Here’s how it went down:

@mixmasterfestus @mapsadaisical I’ve been in the signing queue twice now & he’s stopped before I got to the front. Won’t fail again… (1:32 AM May 9th)

Waiting in line to try and get Matt Groening to #drawagiraffe – he’s not here yet tho… #ATP (3:43 PM May 9th)

@mixmasterfestus @mandrewb have been told he’s not signing til 6. Queue disbanded. I now have no purpose for an hour or so. (4:29 PM May 9th)

Then nothing, until 2 hours later…

7th from the front for signing… #drawagiraffe happening real soon! (6:39 PM May 9th)

Then it happened…

Matt Groening: “Giraffes are hard!” #drawagiraffe http://twitpic.com/1mh5g0 (6:55 PM May 9th)

:O:O:O

Mission accomplished!!! #drawagiraffe http://twitpic.com/1mh5v4 (6:56 PM May 9th)

Mike Winship, a king among men

I was so proud. To think a single tweet could reach so far only goes further to prove how much fun can be had on this earth. It was the best end to this saga I could have possibly hoped for. It was perfect. We should all thank Mike for his dogged persistence and for just capturing the spirit of this whole thing so brilliantly.

Now all that remains is the question of what to do with these Giraffes. People have suggested donating them to the marvellous Onemilliongiraffes.com project. Thing is I can’t donate them as they aren’t really mine. This whole thing wasn’t about drawing them for me, they were about drawing them for yourself. The One Million Giraffes thing seems like a nice idea, but it’s not my place to just giveaway other people’s lovely pictures, that’s their decision.

People have suggested making a book of the pictures or something. At first I thought I might be stepping on the Onemilliongiraffes chap’s toes but he’s doing this for a bet whereas I’ve been doing it for no real reason whatsoever. I’ve come to think thats there plenty of room for Giraffe based hijinx so it would be fine for me to do something with the election collection, as long as it’s a force for good it doesn’t matter. If they find their way into the million too, all the better. I’ll pitch it to the guys who drew them and see if they can think of anything cool. Something might come of it, who knows?

So there you have it. This whole thing has gone to prove that it’s really not that hard to enjoy yourself. People can be great fun when you give em a chance.

You can find the gallery here: http://www.thinktanktoybox.com/2010/05/drawagiraffe/

You can find the One Million Giraffes project here: http://www.onemilliongiraffes.com/

Look how pretty they are!

(Press play on the audio player first and hover your mouse over the bottom of the slideshow to see the names)

It can come in a variety of flavours, emulating something note for note, dropping easter eggs into the background, stuff like that. The key point of fan service is presenting things in a fashion that fans will go nuts for (when done right). It is a very odd phenomenon indeed.

I watched Iron Man 2 recently and it has left me dwelling upon fan service, it’s application and consequences. I’ve thought about it for a while and I think I’ve figured out what fan service is like.

Fan service is like spice

Adding spice to food can make it better but the more you add, the more people you exclude from it’s appreciation. It’s exactly the same for fan service. The more you add, the more specific the medium in question becomes, relevant to only the select few who are passionate about the it.

Now it’s not like adding salt & pepper. That is a decision you make. Fan Service is grounded in the core ingredients used by the chef. If you don’t like it there’s very little you can do about it. But if you do like it, YOU’LL LOVE IT.

Through the this thought process I’ve been able to establish a scale of Fan Service based on an episode of the Simpsons. The episode in question is

El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer

An episode from the golden age of the Simpsons where it was truly unbeatable, keep your Family Guys and dare I say it South Parks, when The Simpsons was this good it was unrivalled. We’ve all seen it a million times. Homer engages in a search for his soul mate after eating chilli so hot it makes him violently hallucinate. It guest stars Johnny Cash as a talking Coyote and has this scene with a dog barking which I find staggeringly funny and….sorry. Look what you made me do?

Anyway, the scene is question is the chilli cook off. Homer, as a veteran chilli enthusiast, is only satisfied with the very hottest chilli Springfield can provide. You see where I’m going with this?

The three different chillis that Homer samples can be compared to a film that implements fan service and how it turned out.

Firehouse Ned’s Five-Alarm Chili

Daddy? are you going to jail?

Homer’s first stop is Firehouse Ned’s Five-Alarm Chili. As it transpires it’s not five alarm at all

“Oh, I admit it. It’s only two-alarm, two-and-a-half, tops. I just wanted to be a big man in front of the kids.”

A chilli that was made for all the wrong reasons, to be a big man. Showing a lack of understanding about why a chili is great, you think you can make any old chili and people will like it. Chili doesn’t work like that.

The best example of Firehouse Ned’s Five Alarm Fan Service was the colossal turd that was…

Two alarm tops...

Yes, Spiderman 3. I could rant at length about how crap this film was. When I left cinema having watched it, I was trying to talk myself into not hating it as I felt I’d invested so much anticipation, I couldn’t face the reality that it was terrible. As time passed I’ve come to dislike it with Venom (see what I did there?). Too many cooks spoiled this broth, trying to fit at least 2 films worth of story into one bloated, diluted mess. It was an utter shambles.

Sony tried to harness the power of fan service whilst showing a fundamental lack of understanding of what makes the content so loved among the faithful. The symbiote and Venom are very very strong Spiderman storylines and if done right could have been the something truly special, but instead they shoe horned it in there with 3 other half arsed storylines to get as many faces in there as possible. It was a cynical joke.

I don’t blame Sam Raimi for this as when left somewhat to his own devices he made Spiderman and Spiderman 2 which were gorgeous films. But the level of studio intervention in Spiderman 3 was glaringly obvious. So much so that when 4 was going the same way he walked away. Fair play to you, Sam.

Spiderman 3 was fan exploitation dressed up as fan service. The thing about fan service is you have to want to do it. With Spiderman 3 they didn’t want to do it, they didn’t care. They tried to exploit it and went horribly horribly wrong. Shame on you Ned Flanders.

Moe’s Chili Bar

Poor Moe...

The next stop for Homer is Moe’s Chili Bar. Once again Homer is not impressed.

“A bland, timid entry, suitable, perhaps, for patients recovering from surgery”

This showed a very basic understanding of chili. A chili that Adrian Chiles would be happy to eat and recommend to his elderly grandmother. A middle of the road, simple, accessible chili that anyone can enjoy. Anyone that’s not Homer of course. A good example of a meal from Moe’s Chili Bar would be

Timid Entry

Xmen 2. Yes. It was alright I guess. It just didn’t mean anything. They put just enough spice in to say they put spice in. In fan service terms it did the bare minimum to get people interested. There was nothing inherently bad with it really, it was just dull.  It’s perfectly fine to do something like Xmen 2. But to the proper fans such as they are, each one of these films is an opportunity missed.

There are countless films like this where trying to appeal to broader spectrum of viewer has bleached out the potential for something good by the fans. With such a rich universe to plunder you’d think they’d go for something a with bit more gravitas. But with this comes the risk of alienating “normal” people and this isn’t a risk producers generally want to take. Cowards.

They don’t owe us anything really but this is a point I shall cover later. Next!

The Merciless Pepper of Quetzalacatenango

Care for some chili?

Homer’s final stop was to be his undoing. He severely underestimated the power of this one

“Grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum.”

This chili was made to be so spicy that only the choicest few could possibly enjoy it. Made in a fashion that completely ignored and almost poured scorn on those that didn’t understand hot food. Taking fan service to an unknown extreme that challenges even the hardcore. It’s like “you want fan service? we’ll give you fucking fan service”.

There aren’t many that achieved this level of fan service but one springs to mind immediately.

Whats a Bahamut?

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. The key point of this film is, if you don’t like/haven’t played Final Fantasy VII, this film makes absolutely no sense. It goes so far out on a limb for that only it’s most loyal fans can possibly enjoy it.

This takes it to the level of ultimate fan service. Where they gear the content to the fans so much that effectively say fuck off to everyone else. That’s quite a statement to make. Now as a fan of Final Fantasy VII, I love this stance and that’s kind of the point.

By making something like Advent Children, we (Square Enix, yeah I’m taking credit for it, ha!) you cement the love of the fans and they’ll turn up in droves for whatever you do. Remembering and treasuring it forever.

And now…the point

Brought to by the good people at AC/DC

I originally thought this was gonna be a review of Iron Man 2, but the nature of the film has lead me to consider fan service as it encapsulates for me everything about the film and the driving force it is a part of. I think what Marvel Studios is treading perilously close to the Merciless Pepper of Quetzalacatenango with what they’re doing and I really saw this in Iron Man 2.

To be honest if you look at Iron Man 2 as a film, it’s pretty tame with a distinct lack of consequence. I don’t wanna blab about it too much because I don’t like spoilers but if you’ve seen you might agree with me. Iron Man and War Machine aren’t put under any massive pressure throughout it’s all about setting things up.

It was an establishing film just like the first one was. Nothing of any true weight happens. It felt exactly like reading a short graphic novel, like a 6-10 comic run.. It showed a patience that I’ve not seen before.

The reason for this is peppered throughout the film including a lovely (and I don’t care what @Twistedlilkitty says :P) little nod to the next film right at the very end. Marvel Studios are building all this as part of the Avengers project. Bringing together Iron Man, Captain America, Thor etc etc for something which stands to be pretty amazing if they do it right. The good thing is they are doing it right.

Now I’ve been saying that Iron Man 2 is patient and not a massive amount happens like it’s a bad thing. But as a fan, who loves fan service, it’s completely the opposite. This is possibly the most well done fan service saga that could ever be. Each of the films building to this glorious whole. Taking the time to bed characters in so when it all comes together and kicks off, it could be truly truly stunning. So while I’m watching Iron Man 2 I can just see how its spanning out, enjoying them taking the time get things right.

“Never Compromise. No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise” – Rorschach

Now the argument is there that this stuff should be made accessible but I just don’t agree. As a idiot fanboy type, I love this kind of selfishness. There are plenty of films out there for everyone. A compromise in this situation would be an awful thing. Spiderman 3 proved that. This project should be made for the fans, they made Marvel what they are. Enough people love it to show there is a treasure trove of fine characters and stories out there for people to enjoy and these movies should be an introduction to that.

I love what Marvel Studios is doing. It knows what its fans want and it knows how to do it. They’ve been pleasing us with this daft stuff for decades in the comic realm and I really can’t see them messing it up now. The idea of studio intervention to make it more accessible just doesn’t exist because they are the studio. It really does make me smile to know that everyone can be pulling in the same direction for something like this.

So there you go. Iron Man 2 is quite a spicy film but I bloody love spicy food so I adore it.

Note: I couldn’t find room in my analogy for this picture so I’m just chucking it in there because it’s brilliant.

Well, Chief, don't quit your day job... Whatever that is.

Dr Rasczak

This blog is a tribute. A loving, heart felt testimonial to a film that gave me so much and asked so precious little. It brought a lost child from the darkness to the promised land in which he now proudly presides. The film I refer to is, of course

My saviour

Yes, it’s Starship Troopers. Paul Verhoeven’s brilliant brilliant brilliant feature film retelling of a book I haven’t read (go figure). I’m sure the book is delightsome. I watched it again recently and felt it prudent to write down why it means so much to me.

Now, I treasure this film because it taught me something, something I needed to be taught. All of Verhoeven’s great films have a core message, they’re a sci fi tilt on an underlying idea. Robocop, Total Recall et al were very idealistic films which complimented his visceral style with a strong commentary on a given subject, I thought so anyway. Whilst Starship Troopers has a great commentary about the folly of human’s brute force approach etc, it wasn’t about that for me, not when I first watched it anyway. Let me take you back…

When I was a kid, I had a problem, something I could not overcome and lead me to miss so many great things growing up. Now this wasn’t any kind of depression, anger issues or any of that stuff. My childhood was a delight. No, my problem was something a lot more silly and baseless.

I was terrified of gory movies

I could not stand them. They very idea brought me out in cold sweats. I would avoid situations when there was a chance people would want to watch them. Terrified.

A good example I distinctly remember would be a Cub Scout 24 hour charity darts marathon. How could you forget something like that? It’s the scene, man. During this event the Cubs had conspired to watch Nightmare on Elm Street {insert number here}. My gore alarm went off big time and I fled like a fleeing thing. I’d never seen the Elm Street films but I’d heard enough to know that it wasn’t for me. I only remember seeing a bus teetering on a mountain. I now know the key to the problem could be found in this sentence

“I’d never seen the Elm Street films but I’d heard enough to know that it wasn’t for me”

I’d never seen it. None of it. I had no experience to base my opinion on, so the idea I had formed in my brain was that if I saw some gore I would die the death of dying. This is how the irrational fear, a phobia if you will, was built. It was the product of an overactive imagination.

I’m ashamed to say this quite daft situation I found myself in lasted till I was about 14-15. I would take steps to avoid seeing anything remotely gory, I even shyed away from playing Mortal Kombat II. It was a sorry state of affairs.

I also remember looking at a book in the library about cinema, in particular a picture from Robocop. It was Alex Murphy just after he had been shot to bits. I was looking at it, it wasn’t very gory but I was thinking, “I can never watch this, ever”. Even films like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park were a no go. Looking back now it was all very very silly.

My lowest point came when watching the film Glory, a 1989 film about the American Civil War starring Ferris Bueller (Save Ferris!).

My lowest point

It was a school History class and there were roughly 40 of us sat in a small room on a blazing summer’s day. I was already a bit shaky when someone’s head was blown up by a cannon when it happened. A man was having his leg amputated, screaming and shouting, the whole shooting match. Then it happened, as a shower of blood hit the curtain there was an very loud *bang* in the classroom.

I fainted

The bang was the connection between my head and the desk. Oh what a silly billy I felt. Imagine feinting whilst watching a film about the American Civil War. It still shames me now, but all was not lost. From my squallid pit of baseless fear, I had a presto chango revelatory moment.

I remember it like it was yesterday. My dad, my mate Rich (who was the complete opposite of me gore wise) and I settled down one evening to watch Starship Troopers. I’d never seen it, heard of it or about it before. Little did I know my self respect was going to rise like a Phoenix. The film started and after the first little propaganda splash, this happened

The Moment

Suddenly everything, everywhere, was gore gore gore. The thing about Starship Troopers for those that haven’t seen it (shame on you) is it, so gory, so quickly that you don’t really have a chance but to watch it. Well I say ’so gory’ it’s not that bad really. But that’s kind of the point, I saw it for what it was.

As the film went on. I learned what movie gore was all about. Moments like this

Sunshine

this

Lollipops

and this

Rainbows (they sucked out his BRAINS)

I think it’s Verhoeven’s visual style. It’s quite exaggerated but and feels almost comic like in it’s application. Moments in Total Recall and Robocop are quite the same, it’s really fierce but so overblown that it makes it hard to take it truly seriously. The brain sucking bit still creeped me out but hey, dolly steps.

The main thing was the immediacy. It was as if someone had strapped me down like Alex in A Clockwork Orange and forced me to face this thing. When I saw it in the clear light of day, saw the limbs flying everywhere, I realised there was nothing to be afraid of. It’s just effects. I was free. Free as a bird who’d just watched Starship Troopers. I think we can all agree, that’s pretty fucking free.

I equate the feeling to like having just had a really good vomit. It is such a load off. You don’t feel great but you know everything is going to be ok.

It was the beginning of a remarkable transformation. I now find all that I had feared as completely hilarious. During the Devil’s Rejects, I laughed like a loon when the woman got hit by the truck. Sweeney Todd, I was crying with laughter every time someone’s lifeless body crunched in a heap when dropping into the cellar. Most recently watching Kick Ass I guffawed as the gizzards flew. I might have a problem.

A good one to look out for is

Dead Snow

Dead Snow, a Norwegian film about Nazi Zombies and the glorious gory dispatch thereof. It’s not so much a film as a showcase for new and innovative dismemberment. Suffice to say I laughed more than I should have done. You know it’s going to end well when a guy has his head torn in half.

I still shy away from some gore, but it’s all to do with context. I’m not interested in films like Hostel and Saw which equate to torture for me, it’s uncomfortable to watch and tend to avoid it. Though saying that, I’ve been forced to face it in films like 28 Weeks Later and Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and I’ve come out the end having enjoyed it. So I guess I should learn from my own experience.

The point is, a whole new world of cinema was opened to me by Starship Troopers. I watched it a couple of nights ago and whilst the violence seemed a bit tame compared to some stuff I’ve now seen, I still loved it to bits. It shall stay with me forever. It opened my eyes to the glorious fountains of corn syrup and red food colouring, showing me that it is nothing to be scared of and for that I am forever thankful.

Now I am not a wise person. I hope to one day have some degree of wisdom. It’s easy enough to gain perceived wisdom, this can be obtained by smoking a pipe and rocking a rich, full beard. That’s not to say those with pipes and beards are not wise, this is usually indicative of wisdom. But wisdom can be faked with these trinkets also. I wouldn’t want to betray people’s trust by adorning myself in such a manner until I am wise enough. I digress, I apologise. As I say I am not wise. I have not travelled far, I haven’t met many people, but if I have learned nothing else I have learned this

Estate Agents are weasels

Vile little beasts they are. Slithery, pointy faced, contemptible vermin. Writhing across the land in a Smart car with a twatty haircut and ego that can be seen from space. Providing a front for house owners obviously too evil to conduct business with us blameless, lovely, superstars of, well, pretty much everything.

I find it’s no coincidence that of all the land lords/ladies I have had in my time, all of the cool ones have either cut estate agents out of the loop after we moved in or didn’t use them at all. Only those of questionable valour used the Confederacy of Weasels to do their dirty work. Together they make quite the allegiance of douchebaggery.

Allegiance of Douchebaggery

In summation, they have a WKD side. Anyone with a WKD side is an intolerable, unbridled wanker.

Our particular pack of weasels were a company called Roberts. They have the monopoly on student housing in Bournemouth which gives them the ability to be completely feckless mugs at all times and get away with it. A shower of cockholes. All my housing woes have involved them in some way. I was convinced Robert was a vampire, I called him Count Robert. Count Robert and his horde of leathery skinned goblins.

I’m sure we all have our own horror stories, I have a few of my own. Some of the fun things encountered during my time

• Inexplicable “Admin Fees”
• Leaking bath causing a bedroom ceiling to cave in
• Double charging the deposit for a broken bed
• Leaking bath causing porch to cave in
• Washing machine that blocks if you use washing powder

Oh the fun I have. Maybe I’m being too harsh on Estate Agents. Not all of this is really their fault directly, but dealing with them to get it fixed is always such a chore. Helping you get this stuff sorted is always the last thing they want to do. After getting you to pay staggering amounts of money to move in they just don’t care anymore. When the guys bedroom ceiling caved in they replied “well we’ll call the Landlord and let you know…” and that was it. We went for a few days without anything being done about this gaping hole in the guys room. Useless turds the lot of them.

I realise at this stage I haven’t told my story yet, but part of the story hinges on another story which I will tell quickly as it also sets the stage for the main tale. This is going on a bit. Anyway. The story concerns the last house I lived in whilst at University. I won’t tell you the address as you’ll all be going there with cameras, knocking the door and annoying the current tenants. You’re a nightmare you are.

The guys I was moving with are my best friends to this day and we all go under the collective noun of “The Sandcastle”. This derives from the house they lived in before we moved into a house together. The house as you can see

The Sandcastle!

Looks like a sandcastle. What? course it does. Shut up. It was in the actual Sandcastle that my friends and me by proxy (I watched) experienced the true wrath of an Estate Agent and their evil dickhead overlord.

During their time living in the Sandcastle there was a leak in the kitchen the guys weren’t aware of . When they came to claim the deposit they got back precisely fuck all and the Estate Agent/Landlord wanted extra money on top to completely refit the kitchen. Now the guys admitted some liability but they were being made out that they’d done it on purpose, which they clearly hadn’t. It all got quite messy with courts and things. Our brave heroes eventually lost and had to cough up. But they fought the law and that was enough, honour had prevailed.

Now the main thing we learned from this was to report problems as soon as you see them. They might not get fixed but at least you’re not liable for prolonged damage.

This brings us to the Fantasmical Sinking House. The guys time at the Sandcastle was coming to an end as was my time in my house at the time (too many times in that sentence, ah well, must press on). The guys asked if I wanted to move in with them and I was all for it. We had a look and found this beauty

Spooky house!

This night shot looks a bit creepy doesn’t it? Here’s a daytime picture

Lovely house!

Isn’t she pretty? We tried for some time to find a new name as good as the Sandcastle but it just wasn’t happening. It became clear that the Sandcastle is more than a house, it’s a collective noun.

We are the Sandcastle.

A group of sexy heroes, battling for honour in a world of Estate Agents. The actual Sandcastle wasn’t the Sandcastle anymore, it was merely an orange house with a new kitchen built on lies. Fuck them.

With this established we moved in the new Sandcastle HQ. The Sandcastle’s ranks were as follows

• Me
• Chris (@quii)
• Dan (@shinyhappydan)
• Shaun (@Mr_Sands)
• Mike (@mikehjapan)
• Ming (@mingkliu)

Not pictured: Shaun

Pictured: Shaun

We settled into our new home, learned the houses ways, sussed out it’s nuances. Slugs visit in the night, the washing machine clogs the drain in if you use washing powder (call back), those cracks were here when moved in. Yes, you read that right, cracks. The front half of the house, my room especially, had more than its fair share of cracks running across the ceiling. The Estate Agent assured these were normal and for some bizarre reason we accepted this as perfectly reasonable. The Sandcastle is quite notoriously lazy and therefore we tend to let shit like this slide somewhat.

So we carried on with our lives. Getting up at 3pm, watching the Ashes and making mid to low quality cheap meals for each other with the agreement that the meal will be reciprocated. These were the general happenings of the Sandcastle at the time. I remember around that time the craze in the Sandcastle was Caesar Salad. Annoyingly our closest supermarket was Waitrose so we were compelled to go there due to it’s unquestionable promixital benefits. The frightening prices didn’t sway us for some reason, so we spent many a meal sampling the various different Caesar salad dressings they had on offer. We’re so cool.

After a few weeks of living in the house, something quite odd was happening

The front door was becoming increasingly difficult to use

What started with a tug to open, culminated in using a network cable through a hoop in the top of door to pull it open like a mighty Trojan army. We’re nothing if not resourceful geeks. Closing was similarly grief ridden. A solid shove eventually became a Street Fighteresque ULTRA SHOULDER BARGE. We knew there was a proper problem when Shaun managed to break the window when closing the door.

Now the lessons were had learned from the Sandcastle debacle were fresh in our minds. There was obviously a big problem as it was we all knew doors don’t get bigger, you tend to pick this stuff up quite quickly.  Therefore it seemed the hole the door lived in was clearly getting smaller. With this in mind we fired off a chain email to all our guarantors (our parents) with Roberts in the loop. I was able to rummage in Gmail and find the email, how exciting!

Dear Sir,

Please be advised that recently we have noticed some changes to the building which are of concern to us and feel they should be brought to the attention of the landlord and an early inspection by a qualified surveyor is, in our opinion, necessary.

The front door and the door to the first bedroom have become increasingly difficult to shut and open. The doors are jamming against the beam above and scraping quite considerably. There are cracks in the wall around this area where the doors are jamming, but they were detailed in the inventory before we moved in.

We have sent copies of this email to all guarantors involved for their comments and have also sent a copy of this email in the form of a letter to your office.

Yours Faithfully etc

Seemingly as a relief I also sent this to the Sandcastle, no idea why. As I have said, we’re so cool

the email I sent to roberts, have also sent an email to everyone but roberts explaining the situation

on another note….

O LRY?

YA RLY

Indeed. That was us free and clear. No matter what happened, we were not liable. Fuck you Count Robert and your goblin army. This doesn’t address what was actually happening to the house. Now it wasn’t really our problem beyond making the door work. The whole situation became quite funny really.

Our wise (pipe and beard wise, thanks Dad!) suggestion to get a qualified surveyor was taken up and a surveyor of qualification was sent round to inspect the problem. You can probably guess what the problem was…

The house was sinking

If we inspect the picture of the house again (not the spooky one of course)

We're going down captain!

You can see the pipe going over the front door. This was the drain from next door’s upstairs bathroom. This drain was blocked. I’m not 100% sure of the logistics but the blockage was causing a flood under our house to the left of the front door, by that little green bush (weed). Long story, long, it was washing away all of the foundations from this corner of the house. The house was sinking into the ground on this point meaning the door was being squeezed shut by the weight of the entire house. Fun!

The surveyor chap priced the damage into the hundreds of thousands. That’s a lotta dosh. From our position as blameless casual observers, this was all hilarious. For the amount of times we’d been fucked over by twatty land lords and their Estate Agent brood this was glorious to watch. Karma’s a bitch. We urged them to get it sorted as believe it or not, we like opening our front door, it’s something that until now we’d kinda taken for granted. Luckily the landlord paid up and the house was fixed.

Now I say it was fixed, they didn’t sort out the foundations. That’s a lot of money and having never met the Land Lord of that place we can only assume he was a penny pinching, smelly, greasy rat face. Their solution was something a little more cost effective and lot more amusing. The cleared the drain block obviously and…

They planed down the top of the front door

That was it! The master plan! A greater expression of an Estate Agent/Landlord’s shitness I have not found. But as I say, we weren’t liable and the door now opened so we laughed about it.

I don’t know if the house was still sinking after they *fixed* it. I don’t know if it’s been fixed now. The spooky house picture was taken by a friend so at least we know it hasn’t been swallowed up by mother earth just yet.

I feel I should finish this by addressing the Estate Agents. Now, you maybe an Estate Agent (god forbid) reading this thinking I’ve given you an unfair crack of the whip. You’re there, drinking a WKD blue, adjusting your Jamie Redknapp tie, saying

“Hey now Jason, I’ve not shafted people out of there money this week”

or

“Cmon Jason! I helped someone once and only asked for a modest fee”

or

“I gave them some of their deposit back once!”

What can I say? I calls em as I sees em. I have never dealt with an Estate Agent who didn’t annoy me.

So I say to you, twatty Estate Agent, this is your chance. Now is the time. Stop being a twat, be nice and helpful. It doesn’t take much and we will notice. Who knows, we might stop praying to Odin to slaughter all of you (though I wouldn’t count on it).

This blog was brought to you by the League Against Estate Agents. For just £2 a month you can equip one of our storm troopers with a crossbow, they’ll do the rest. Please give generously, praise be to Odin.

I’ve watched all of his documentaries several times and hang on his every silken word. His voice helps us enjoy the joyful parts of our planet and contrastingly feel the sorrow for the plights some of nature’s travellers must endure.

On occasion the documentaries will shine a light on the macabre moments in the natural world. I like to refer to it as

Twatty Behaviour

Attenborough’s commentary on TB (not tuberculosis) is always completely agnostic, and rightly so. This behaviour is part and parcel of animal life and anyone who studies and or comments upon the natural world with any degree of authenticity should maintain this stance. It is survival of the fittest out there and all TB can be rationalised in that fashion.

I however am not burdened by such responsibility. I harbour no desires to make nature documentaries. Why would I? David has that deal sewn up. So in my privileged position of being an unprincipled swine, I am allowed to call the animals in question out for their TB. With this in mind I have created

The Menagerie of Twatty Animals

Here it is, a showcase of the animals in the world that do twatty things in the name of survival. Exploiting their position in a given situation to advance their species in a twatty way. If a human did it you’d call them a twat, an animal does it, I call em a twat. You may know no better, but you are still a twat. There are a couple of rules to aid us here

• The creature doesn’t really NEED to do what it does to survive
• The TB  must be common to the species

I have 4 creatures to start this collection with but I’m only gonna submit 2 in this blog, that seems enough for now. Here goes!

Entrant #1 – The Pelican

The genesis of this whole idea. Until very recently I had no beef with the Pelican. I thought it was a perfectly reasonable animal until I saw them featured in Attenborough’s documentary Life. Go watch the following clip and return here

Why the Pelican is a wanker

For those who whatever reason can’t see it. This video concerns the Cape Gannets living on the Malagas Islands. These little birds raise their chicks on bare rock and fly out to see to catch fish for their young. Until comparatively recently only one of the Cape Gannet parents needed to fish so the other could stay back and guard the chick. Due to low fish stocks (we’re the biggest twats of all, but we know this) now both parents have to go, leaving the chick undefended. This is where the Pelican steps in.

Having noticed this unfortunate turn of events for the Cape Gannet, the Pelicans have started doing something massively twatty.

Eating the Cape Gannet chicks

When I saw it I was horrified. Seeing the poor little sod flap about in the Pelican’s enormous envelope face was awful. How could an animal that until I hadn’t given a moments thought before, go and do something so unfathomably twatty? I thought you were better than that, Pelicans.

As far as I see it, the Pelicans don’t *need* to eat the chicks, but it helps them so they do it anyway. This is not an honourable way to be. Pressures of the environment, whatever. I care not. If I was a Pelican I wouldn’t do it.

Well done Pelicans, you’re in the collection. Assholes.

Entrant #2 – The Young of the Japanese Red Bug

This doesn’t concern the adult of this species, I refer specifically to the young. I again noticed this in an episode of Life. I was able to find this one on Youtube (skip to about 3 minutes in)

The Japanese Red Bug is one of the only insects to actually care for it’s young. This is quite a gesture, especially when you consider the amount of children they have. The children in this situation are complete twats.

Their mother is constantly fetching food for them, all the time, never eating for itself. The kids eat the food and demand more. If they don’t get more quick enough…they leave. They abandon their own parents because the *service* isn’t up to their standards. Talk about ungrateful.

In addition to this, when they join another mother they run her into the ground. They keep eating the food she brings until she dies of exhaustion. They work their mother, foster or otherwise, to death.

The final nail in this particularly twatty coffin is the final act they perform upon the parent that has died to raise them.

They eat her

They kill their own parent with their selfish whiny demands, then as a final humiliation they feed on her exhausted corpse. If this isn’t a grade A example of TB then I don’t know what is.

They are twats, plain and simple and they have thoroughly earned their place in the Menagerie.

That’s it for now. I have 2 more entrants to submit but this blog is getting a bit long and you’re probably sick of it by now. Stay tuned for more twatty animals!

I am mounting a startling body of evidence showing just how lazy people can be. I would write em all down but I can’t be bothered, but I can’t. Maybe I could print it out.

Here lies the nature of this installment of the League of Lethargy. The key word is

Technology

Again I was skeptical as to how many people would go for it, but I’m starting to learn in one of a merry band of lazy buggers. So I asked

“How ya you used technology to aid your laziness?”

The genesis of this idea was, as always, inspired by my own feats of idleness

“During university I had a kettle, toaster and mini fridge in my room so I didn’t have to go downstairs”

CodeNameSommers: I just used the lift down here just to avoid stepping around some stuff that was at the top of the stairs

Theoutdoortypes: Lying in bed I used Shazam on my iPhone to find out what was playing on the computer next to me.

FliesOpen: What’s the time?

Twistedlilkitty: I’ve tweeted for someone to ring my phone because I couldn’t be arsed to look for it

britswitch:  I’ve txtd people who are sat in the same room as me

kev_d: I’ve streamed content online because I’m too lazy to get up and put the disc I paid for into the PS3 to watch on TV.

Twistedlilkitty: I worked in a lab that had no windows, I’d use a web cam on O’Connell street to check if it was raining

jhaywardbenzal: phoning any1 in the house who’s up to get a cuppa so I can stay in bed.

Cautivo: Most of my lounge is taken up by 3-socket multiplugs daisy-chained together as I cba to go out and buy 1 big one

hinjowarwi: Used LogMeIn on laptop to remotely control pc that was in the same room as couldn’t reach the keyboard

each1teach1: A complex array of bluetooth mice, keyboards, remotes & xbmc mean I seldom leave my bed for work or play

specialdelia: I skyped my friend once to ask her which outfit I should wear because I couldn’t be bothered to take a selection round

NickMB: A major reason for my new smartphone is so I can tweet from my bed rather than having to sit up.

TheFagCasanova: I text the missus whilst she’s out, asking where things are in the flat, rather than looking for them.

webstl: Kinda anti-technology  , I used a ten foot bamboo pole to change channels when I lost my remote control

moogyboobles: . I’ve been known to tweet Jon from upstairs asking for a cup of tea

euzie: at 10, i screwed wire hooks either side of my 4 tv buttons, and pulled the wires from my bed as a remote

BobbyLooga: I can’t be doing with the hassle of changing lightbulbs so I use my phone screen to illuminate my way

unslugged: I bought a laptop because I can’t be arsed to go upstairs and use the PC when the telly’s on

So there we go. The League of Lethargy strikes again. I’m building my own private army of lazy JC Dentons.

(If you don’t know who JC Denton is, play Deus Ex)