I hope I die before I get old (seriously, I don't want to go bald). How Pete Townshend cries every night.

The older generations scare me. They wear ties, enjoy horticulture and think that visiting English Heritage sites is an acceptable weekend activity (“oh wow, a pile of stones”). They refer to stereos as ghetto blasters, and in the case of my mother, seem to be on the verge of mainlining tea.

Nary a day goes by (except today, when I’ve managed to avoid almost all human contact) without someone telling me that when they were a lad(ess) they’d be playing innocently in the woods with their pals, frolicking with flocks of cartoon generated bluebirds and often breaking into spontaneous and impeccably choreographed song and dance. This person (if you can’t picture the scene, just imagine Harry Redknapp saying these things. I find him generally representative of this viewpoint in the same way Morgan Freeman is automatically given any wise person role in films) will then go on to bemoan the youth of today’s obsession with X-Stations, Popular Music and Jay-Zed.

What they don’t realise is that, just as they used to sneak out to go jiving with their favourite gal 50 years ago, so we hang around shopping centres and break into cars. It’s the nature of the cultural zeitgeist to generally move towards a more liberal viewpoint, such that I wouldn’t be surprised if in two generations teenagers are regularly creeping out of the house to film hardcore pornography in order to get at their parents. It’s just natural. Well, provided it’s het... (joke).

This was originally part of a much longer piece on the state of society today, until I realised that the first part completely nullified the second and vice versa, creating some kind of terrifying paradox stair loop and instantly putting my laptop in the same bracket as the Large Hadron Collider in the Risk of Destroying the World classifications, which range from Sackful of Kittens to Attila the Hun coming back as a Zombie with access to Nuclear Weapons.

Thanks for sticking with it, and if you’re lucky it’ll be another 5 months ‘til my next post.

P.S. If you haven’t got anything better to do at 10 tonight (you haven’t), then tune your televisual device into the British Broadcasting Corporation’s 4^th channel for The Wave, which promises to be a chilling reconstruction of a 1960’s social experiment gone wrong. I’ve never seen it, but from its Wikipedia page it sounds good.

Hope I didn't mess up the grammar on this one....

An email I received on (strangely enough) Valentine's Day:

"Please permit me to write you for the fact we have no met before. I got your contact from one of our search engines online hence I decided to write you. I would be very interested in offering you a part-time paying job in which you could earn a lot

This Organization is founded to increase employment among the honest, trustworthy and intelligent individuals living in UK and USA to handle some elementary paper work and payroll administration to our clients in UK and USA. Your Obligation is to work for 2hours a day and also listen attentively to given instructions.
Your Job is to take care of all applications with regards to new clients that are willing to register& invest their company in Europe yours is to be filling all documentations from these individual companies which will be sent to you under the companies name.
Salary Terms: 100 pounds/ $150 for each transaction,(each time you render service for the job) Get back to us asap
via email address below if you are interested in the
employment offer.
Get back to us if you are still interested in the offer
Regards,

Dallan Garris"

The reply:

I will consider this job when you learn to write English properly. Your email below should have read:

“Please forgive me for writing to you despite the fact that we have not met before. I (possibly illegally) got your private e-mail address from an online search engine and for some unknown reason have decided to write to you to offer you a morally questionable job from which you could earn money, the origin of which you would be better off not asking.

This "Organization", the name of which I won’t reveal, has the objective of increasing employment among the honest, trustworthy and intelligent individuals in the UK (obviously I can’t include myself in this group), and offers a service handling paper work and various administrative duties for our clients. The job I am offering requires you to work for 2 hours a day and listen to instructions, which will more than likely be issued over a shadowy videolink or via a rasping voice from a payphone cubicle.

Your job is to process applications from new clients who are foolish enough to give the “Organization” their hard earned money for a likely false promise to promote their company in Europe. You will have to file any documentation sent to you under the company’s name

Please be gullible enough to take this (ethically somewhere on the wrong side of laughing at babies drowning) job.

Yours,

Assumed Name”

Please consider hiring the services of a competent translator before contacting me in the future.

Yours,

Dave Cooper

Song of the Day: My Generation - The Who. Note particularly the line "I hope I die before I get old". How did that go Roger?

The Curse of Celebrity. And more about Michael Jackson, the subject that never dies....

Just a quick update everyone. Michael Jackson is still dead. Thankfully. Although for some reason no-one will shut up about him. C'mon guys, when he was alive you all thought he was a weirdo paedophile! You can't change your mind just 'cos he's dead. In fact, now would be the perfect time to admit you always thought he was a freak. He's dead, what's he going to do about it? People can say all they like about him "having his childhood stolen from him" (boo f*cking hoo) but he wasn't complaining about that when he was making millions of dollars on every record.

Celebrities are actually completely stupid, they do not seem to realise that the price for being able to go on daytime chat shows and spout their ludicrously inane opinions is that people want to know what knickers they're wearing and what food they throw in their dustbins. For all that they profess to be "really just normal people", they crave attention more than a fat kid craves chocolate. And to be honest, they make me sick (celebrities, not fat kids. Although I'm not really a fan of them either....). When will they realise that they can't have the world exactly as they want it, that every benefit has its downside?

That particular bitter rant was brought to you courtesy of My Overdraft (it deserves the capitalisation) , which is now growing at a rate usually associated with Chinese cities. Upsetting stuff.

In other news, I've just finished Steven King's "Gerald's Game", a novel featuring light bondage, a dead guy being eaten by a dog whilst his wife is handcuffed to the bed in the same room and a necrophiliac whose arms come down to his knees. Truly epic. Apparently, next on King's list of taboos to break is a man being eaten alive by his work colleagues to celebrate thanksgiving, which is actually based on the real life story of a Japanese body sushi (look it up) restaurant with a twist.

Song of the Day: Two Receivers - Klaxons. Guys, bring it down two octaves, then maybe people will be interested.

You've got the fear, but I've got the remote control for the bomb in your shoes

Instead of my usual pithy contributions on current political and media events, this one's going to be much more based around me. Seeing as how its my blog.... Now come friends, as we delve into the fetid depths of my psyche and compile a list of my fears for the summer/next year/the future.

• The weather continuing to flip between arid sunshine and tortuous rain, causing havoc for umbrella and suntan lotion salesmen everywhere. Until someone comes up with an umbrella that converts rain into suntan lotion, thus ensuring a continuous drizzle of white, creamy liquid onto the bearer of said umbrella, giving them an incredibly unfortunate appearance.
• Michael Jackson comes back from the dead, only to die again, leading to a second media blitz of unprecedented (except for his first death) and unwarranted magnitude. I still haven't forgiven him for dying 2 weeks before Bruno came out, denying us the unparalleled pleasure that would have been the extra 5 minutes of now deleted scenes. However, they could remake the Thriller video and it'd be far more realistic
  
• Football Manager 2010 never being released. A thought to make grown men weep like children
• Everyones' legs falling off simultaneously, leading to the establishment of a new ruling elite amongst gymnasts (the only people able to walk on their hands). Terrifying.
  

In other news....we've got an exchange girl coming from France, meaning (if every sitcom ever is to be believed), we are in for an hilarious week of pronunciation misunderstandings, and possibly even a few "cheese eating surrender monkeys" jokes. If we're lucky.

Song of the Day: You Held the World In Your Arms - Idlewild. If you ever have, literally, held the world in your arms, your arms are abnormally large. You MUST go and get that checked by a certified medical professional IMMEDIATELY.

Michael Jackson: Misunderstood? Probably not.

Michael Jackson is dead. I'll give you a few moments for that to sink in.




Calmed down enough to read? Now we can discuss what such a momentous event means for humanity as a whole. Obviously, anyone under the age of 16 is breathing a massive sigh of relief, and taking their shotguns from under the pillow and putting them back in the cupboard. People within hearing distance of the O2 arena are shouting for joy (I'm sorry Jacko fans, but he just isn't really that good. His most memorable stage event was having his 'fro set on fire as a kid). And everyone else is either shocked, unhappy, or not too bothered. And that about sums it up. Night.

What? You want more? Oh for f*cks sake its like half 11 at night. Fine.

Now, if someone says "Michael Jackson" to me, the first thought in my head is the episode of South Park featuring 'The Jeffersons', aka Jackson and his son Blanket. Its a brilliant episode, and i encourage everyone to watch it, having just had to watch the episode for "research purposes" (its a hard life). The second thought in my head is "I want food". And then I have many other thoughts, all at the same time, mostly involving accusations of paedophilia, high pitched squeaky singing, weird skin/housing issues and Thom Yorke, although as he appears in most of my thoughts (both waking and sleeping) its probably fair to discount him as irrelevant to the other three. Jackson was plagued throughout his later life with various child molestation charges, but not even I dare to make jokes about that (there's a high chance my mum will at some point read this blog, and who wants to have that conversation?). His singing, bringing to mind as it did 27 tiny mice jumping up and down on your eardrums, was a constant pain to me at primary school discos: y'know, the ones that instead of a bar had bottles of Panda Pop, and played the songs off of old Now 52 compilations, such that all the swear words were magically blanked out (which really ruined the Puddle of Mudd song "She hates me", instantly rendering about 20% of an already quite facile song meaningless).

But in all fairness to the guy, he lived in what was basically Disneyland. I mean come on. Who wouldn't give their right arm and one other random appendage to live in f*cking Disneyland? As George Best once said, "I spent a lot of my money on birds, booze and fast cars - the rest I just squandered". And that, ladies and gentlemen, is THE attitude to life. (George Best died in 2005, aged 59, after a liver transplant, of a kidney disease brought on by too much alcohol. Due to the number of Man United fans who might read this (2), I hesitate to use the word irony, but it is massively applicable).

Song of the Day: Beat It - Michael Jackson. The original 3rd word in this song title, "off", was dropped in 1993 after the first set of child molestation charges were brought against Jackson..... I am so sorry. I went through my (admittedly limited) collection of Michael Jackson looking for some lyrics to maliciously twist, and this was the least inappropriate joke I could find. Other examples included Thriller ("And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike"...that joke writes itself) and Black or White, which in light of his later skin colour issues, was strikingly foreboding.

Exams. Done. 'Til August.....

My exams are finished. And one sentence never sounded so sweet. Like most of my university compadres (except Sam, who still has two left, which I'm not letting him forget any time soon), I now have loads of free time. Many people like to use their free time in pursuit of various goals, be they artistic, literary or possibly voluntary work. I'm going to be sleeping, playing Football Manager and practising sarcasm. 'Cos I feel I don't use it enough.....

In other news, the European election results are in, and they reflect the feeling that most people had, that Britain is in fact a country of racists and conservatives. "F*ck you Obama", we seem to be saying, "we're happy to be ignorant". The BBC News coverage of the elections also revealed what I suspected already: All politicians are retarded morons with the charisma of a dead fish. Case in point: the BNP's first MEP, representing Yorkshire and Humberside, Andrew Brons, whose acceptance speech included the quote "I think I can say I am one of the few people in this country who actually understand the voting system". This is a representative of a party who styles themselves as representing the views of the people, yet not even David Cameron has managed to (yet) come up with a quote quite so ludicrously pompous, and one that absolutely reeks of "fatcat-ism".

That's about it for now, as I'm not planning on wasting my "hard earned" free time entertaining you lot. Although given that I now effectively have three straight months of free time, you can expect more posts, which will more than likely be counterbalanced by a noticeable lack in quality, as all that will happen in my life will be a slow spiral into (more) slobbery and general teenager-ish-ness. But until then......

Song of the Day: Quicksand - La Roux. Whatever way you approach this song, its freaky. It describes a relationship, uses the words "obsessor" and, repeatedly, "quicksand". Whatever you do, do not visit this girl's house. She has terrible plans for you. Terrible plans.

Is Andres Iniesta single?

An apology to quite a few of my readers, but, on this night of all nights, I am inexorably compelled to talk about football.

Tonight was the second leg of the second Champion's League Semi-Final: Chelsea versus some team from Spain. I think they're called....Barcelona? Anyway, the game was absolutely fantastic. Chelsea shut out Barca brilliantly, Essien scored the sweetest left foot volley of the season, and going into second half injury time, it looked all over for the Catalans. But as anyone who watches football knows , its not over till the mistake prone 'man in black' blows his Acme Thunderer. And so it was that in the 93rd minute, the ball fell to a certain Andres Iniesta on the edge of the box. With one casual swing of his right wand (foot), he stroked the ball beautifully into the top corner, thus consigning Chelsea to another season of European despair. But in a sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, but mostly atmospheric match, football was the real winner. That and Barcelona. And me, courtesy of Chris' habit of making stupid bets.

Today was also exciting for a non-football related reason (if there can be such a thing). I was wandering around the Student's Union waiting for my more academically inclined friends to come out of a lecture (don't worry Mum, I wasn't meant to be there), when the building was stormed by more Security Operatives than are employed at Fort Knox. Feeling like an inmate at Alcatraz, I managed to look completely unshady whilst standing next to the noticeboard for 25 minutes. The police were called, and then, somewhat suspiciously, all clustered around the men's toilets. But eventually they dragged out someone more white trash than a pile of pigeon droppings. And that was it. Quite exciting really.

Song of the Day: Electric Feel - MGMT. Includes the line "put your circuits in the sea, this is what the world is for." Sorry to disappoint, but that is NOT what the world is for. The world is for watching Barcelona sweep all before them in a tide of the greatest football of our lifetime. Just sit back and appreciate it.

England, and why they definitely might possibly win the World Cup. Perhaps.

The Football World Cup. Unarguably the greatest competition of any kind (barring the Sheffield University Community Olympics). The cup where legends are made. Where nations are united behind 11 men striving to bring home the most coveted trophy in the world. And what better way to focus that desire than a song?

Through the years, England have had some great World Cup songs. Who can forget the inspirational 'Three Lions', or the simply epic 'Vindaloo', featuring the unforgettable line "Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran and a bucket of Vindaloo", which is a recipe for the worst evening watching football ever. However, there have been some misses, most notably New Order's 'World In Motion', which features the most execrable spoken word sequence (including John Barnes exhorting listeners to "get round the back") ever committed to tape.

One of the most vital parts of any World Cup bid (much more so than training or squad selection, or any of that b*llocks) is the song. Which is why, in the build up to England's inevitable qualification (see Euro 2008) for South Africa 2010, we must consider the possible contenders to write the official World Cup song:

• Radiohead: a masterpiece of a song, elegantly constructed and using a variety of instruments. It will be depressing in tone, which would at least prepare everyone for the inevitable quarter final penalty misery
• Kanye West: A hard-core R&B tune referring to "goal tenders", "making the play" and "line judges". Like the US football team, a little bit "sh*t"
• Edward Elgar: A stirring classical piece , much like Pavarotti's rendition of Nessun Dorma. Could be rendered slightly worse by the fact that the composer has, in fact, been dead for some 75 years.

So there are the contenders. Feel free to make your own suggestions. Or, indeed, don't. Doesn't matter to me. But I will leave you with just one piece of advice: Never, ever go to a party at John Barnes’ house without having the police on speed dial.

Song of the day: Flux - Bloc Party. Kele Orekeke takes a break from writing lyrics of witty social commentary to provide medical advice, in the form of the line "If your right hand is causing you pain, cut it off". However, after consulting medical professionals, this blogger has found that if your right hand is indeed causing you pain, DO NOT CUT IT OFF. Seek medical advice. Cutting it off will not only deprive you of a useful limb, it will, if anything, cause you even more pain than when it was still intact.

And finally, I think, a moment’s reflection for the 96 people who died as a result of the Hillsborough disaster. No-one has ever stood up to admit their guilt to this crime of negligence, and I can only offer my support to those families who are still fighting to find out exactly why their loved ones died.

Miley Cyrus, Superb*tch.

I've finally found someone more suited to my hatred than William Webb-Ellis (he invented Rugby): Miley Cyrus (If you didn't guess that from the title, now is probably the time to seek mental health advice). As you may or may not know, my obsession with Radiohead sometimes borders on the psychopathic. And to hear that this stupid little cow has decided to "ruin" them just made me... well, want to laugh really. To illustrate my point, I will compare Radiohead with "superstar" Miley to see who has really achieved more.

Radiohead: 5 platinum albums, mentioned by every band under the sun as "the band we aspire to be like", OK Computer is seen as one of if not the best album ever made, inspired people everywhere, and, in "There There", have possibly the greatest song ever.

Miley Cyrus: Shot to what can only laughably be called fame on the Disney Channel, dated one of those "so totally hardcore rockstars" the Jonas Brothers, has a father who sang country music for a living, and, perhaps worst of all, has been compared in musical style to Hilary Duff.

Cyrus' problem with Radiohead is that they refused to see her before their performance at the Grammy's, which was, by the way, amazing. Even Francesca, the most hardcore Radiohead hater I've ever met, admitted it. Strangely, it didn't seem to occur in what passes for her brain ("her" being, of course, Miley Cyrus, not Francesca, who is incredibly intelligent and definitely not holding a gun to my head) that they might have better things to do with their time than meet some 16 year old "celebrity" whose knowledge of Radiohead begins and ends with 'Creep'. Apparently, she was so upset at their rejection of her that she had to leave immediately, as she was "like, so totally upset and crying and stuff". And, she threatened to "ruin Radiohead", a sentence which should (and when i come to power, will) be instantly punishable my death.

If you think your stomach can handle the combination of pop bitch supreme, the most amazingly stupid DJs in history (choice quotes "Sex on Fire is, like, the most amazing song ever written" and "Who are Radiohead?") and some completely random 11-year old kid going on about how Miley Cyrus is "totally the coolest rock star ever", then I (with much weeping for the state of music today) point you in the direction of
http://www.prefixmag.com/news/miley-cyrus-kinda-hates-radiohead-audio/26644/

However, I do advise you to keep a bucket handy for when it gets to the bit about how Radiohead are "completely my favourite band ever" and how she would "like, quite literally, fall on my knees and cry" if she ever got to meet them.

Song of the day: There There - Radiohead. This song is written from the point of view of a man talking to a sociopathic tree, as evidenced by the line "Why so green and lonely?". But it is still absolutely sh*t hot.

You say party, We say "Oooh, go on then, but I'm not drinking and I have to be in bed by half ten"

Right at this very moment, the planet we are sitting on is whirling round a massive superheated ball of flaming gas at 65'000 miles per hour. Even if you are prostrate in a chair, can of Stella in hand, you are still moving further than most people will travel in their lifetime every hour. Just sit and think about that amazing fact for a moment. Or (more exciting option) move onto the next sentence. Its Comic Relief night, which means for once I actually have time to write a new post. Lucky you.

For those struggling with the new Facebook layout, relief comes in the form of news that you just don't have to spend the whole day sitting there waiting for your interminably boring "friends" to post updates on how their interminably boring day staring at Facebook waiting for their interminably boring friends to post updates is going. So just don't log in to Facebook, and instead spend your day doing things that your friends would be interested in hearing about, were you to log in to Facebook, which you won't be doing because you'll be busy doing things that your friends would be interested in hearing about were you to log into Facebook, which you won't be doing because.....

I'm so sorry. The amount of effort that has gone into this post was minimal. I actually just cut and pasted large swathes of the above paragraph. But then again, I'm not being paid for this. So if you've got a problem, just stop reading. Right here. Go back to Facebook and wait for your.... No. I'm not doing all this again. And besides, seeing as how this post will be going straight up on Facebook, it probably won't do me much good to go on about it much more.

Bloc Party Countdown: 6 months and 28 days until the headline "Mystery Fan impregnates popular London guitar band" hits all your favourite tabloids

Song of the day: Dog Days -Florence And The Machine. The Dog Days may be over, but as anyone who has looked one of these just a bit too clever for their own good creatures in their eyes before, the Horse Days are just beginning. To bastardise The Simpsons, may I be the first to welcome our new equine rulers into power.

P.S The title of this post, far from being a spurious, spur of the moment idea, is a meticulously crafted wordplay on the name of a popular Canadian 5-piece dance punk band. There's a lot of work that goes into this blog y'know.