Blind Dates...

I rang Radio 1 once. I was quite hungover and it was to enter a competition to go on a blind date at their One Big Weekend in Preston. The girl didn't pick me, for reasons this recording probably explains.

Radio 1 rang her back later that day to see how it had gone. Apparently the guy she chose told her he was going to the cash machine and never came back.

Also, I never said the bit about liking women to be good in the kitchen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tbK4_WvJ4

3 Things... I've done instead of what I was meant to.

I'm currently in my last couple of months of university. Needless to say then, there's plenty of work to be in. I spend a lot of time throughout the year eating crisps and pizza in bed and generally being unproductive, and as soon as I have a deadline or something to do I always find more interesting things to do.

Cleaning

As a tactic of doing literally anything but work, I've cleaned a lot. I've cleaned in the morning when I wake up. I've cleaned when I go home for lunch. I clean a lot before I go to bed. Eh, lads?

Facts

I got to the point this week where I was trying to put off doing work so much that I decided to work out how many weeks there were in my life instead. I worked out that 80 years is only 4000 weeks. 80 years sounds like a lot longer than 4000 weeks. (I told you I was bored.)

Games

While the mind wanders, so does the imagination. I've come up with some games to
relieve the boredom.

This one involves Facebook and boring status updates and goes as follows...

• They update a boring status,
• You comment under their status,
• They comment,
• You comment,
• They comment,
• You comment,
• They comment.

You then delete all your comments and they look mental.

The finished result should look something like this...

Now... Back to cleaning.

3 Things… I love about Bold Street

1. Broken Clothes.

There’s a shop called Take2 that sells clothes that are a bit broken for really cheap. It’s about as close as Liverpool comes to having a charity shop. The only problem is I always buy things with intentions of fixing them before wearing them but never do.

I once went to a party in a shirt I bought from there that had two buttons missing from the chest area. All I needed was a medallion and I could have justified a disco.

2. An Entertaining Haircut.

You remember all them times you’ve looked at me and thought, “Wow, I wonder who cuts his hair?” Yeah, you know. That time. No? Not once?

Well, anyway. I get my haircut on Bold Street.

Just at the top there is a small arcade that mainly contains shops that sell hats. Having a thriving hat shop right next to a barbers is about as good an advert as seeing the barber with a white stick, but I still go there.

There is a reason for this other than a haircut though. The guy that works there has the most hilariously twisted logic of anyone I’ve ever met. He throws away the usual clichés of boring hairdresser conversations and replaces them with conversation that leaves you holding back laughs in fear of him cutting off your ear.

I could have done a “5 Reasons… I still go to a bad hairdresser”, but for now we’ll just limit it to a couple of the best.

One of the first times I noticed he was slightly mental was when I sat down and saw one of those signs you find in workplaces ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!’ This is fine if you work in an office with a few people you think are wankers, but for professional purposes call them ‘characters’. My problem here though is that this guy works on his own. This takes away all possible humorous undertones that were intended, and just makes me think he bought it himself, probably putting it up and saying to himself ‘What am I like, eh?’

My favourite incident to date however was when my flatmate went to see him after Christmas. We’d both been for a haircut before the festive break and he had gone to great lengths to tell us that this was the year. It was the big one. Time for a life change; he was going to give up smoking for his new years resolution. When my flatmate went down for his first cut of 2011, he brought this up. The barber explained it was going well and had a novel way of keeping off the fags. He kept a packet on the desk in front of him to remind him what he used to be tempted by! That’s like holding AA meetings in a pub. Brilliant.

Needless to say I went a few days later to find him smoking outside the arcade. All was right with the world again.

And so, if you ever see me and think my haircut isn’t quite up to scratch, I get it done for the entertainment.

3. Money

Although I mainly go there in the day, Bold Street also has the nearest cash machine to concert square. This has the double effect of not only meaning it is nearly always surrounded by drunken students, but that tramps and buskers also congregate there, giving it it’s own little eco system of young males begging for females attention, tramps begging for the young males attention (and money), and the buskers craving everyone’s attention (and money). All serenaded beautifully by a verse of Wonderwall… And whatever the busker is playing at the time.

Up and out

I made a New Years Resolution this year. It's something I usually think is pointless as they always get broken. In previous years I tried to trick fate by making a resolution that I wouldn't become a millionaire that year, waiting for it to be broken.

This year I chose something achievable; To get out of bed everyday. I know this sounds ridiculous, but seriously. I've often revolved around only getting out of bed if I needed to. And often that would only be to put another pizza in.

It had more to do with the fact that I'm trying to be more productive. I've been helping a friend out with his uni Sports Science project which involved boxing 3 times a week. That was more times a week than I got out of bed last year.

It was something that I needed to do for exercise more than anything. In a totally stereotyping move, I'd left my bike in Liverpool town center one day, only to come back and find my bike wheels had been stolen. It was such a cliche I was half expecting to bump into one of the Beatles on the way home. At least then there'd be someone to help me carry my bike frame.

Needless to say then, exercise hadn't been top of my to-do list. Nevertheless, I've been enjoying it so far even though my heart rate often exceeds numbers.

I like to do lists. Something that's been on one of my many lists was to go and see Anthony Gormley's 'Another Place' down at Crosby beach.

I went today and this was the result. I don't really do the whole video thing, but took this on my iPhone.

Over and out.

Rotten Apples

At the risk of this 'blog' becoming an anual thing, I'm going to try and revive it. The main reason I generally find it hard to update it on a weekly basis is rooted in a general belief that if you don't have anything to say, don't try and say something interesting. Let alone write it down for public consumption.

I've had an iPhone for just under a year now. At first I literally couldn't hide my technological erection at how amazing it was. It's all right though, there was an app for that.

After a few months, however, the novelty had worn off and I soon realised I was relying heavily on it for general entertainment when I should have been doing something else. I'm 22 (incidentally the level I'm stuck at on Angry Birds) and should be doing far more productive things with my life than cutting a rope to drop things in a frogs mouth.

This then, was the reason I wasn't overly heart broken when the 'home' button on it stopped working one day (who am I kidding? It was Cold Turkey for the first week and I worked out I could still use it by turning it off to change app's). After I while, I was back enjoying using my old Nokia B-rick.

I've been gigging further a field recently though, and knew it would be much easier to find train times, venues etc if I got my phone fixed. I went to the Apple Store to explain my problems, only to be told I would have to book an appointment in at the 'Genius Bar'. The only problem was the booking system was broken. Genius. Bloody genius.

And then it snowed. And then it was Christmas. And then their booking system was broken again. All in all it took my around 5 months to actually make the walk into town. I made an appointment for the following week.

On returning I was greeted by a man whose fringe could present T4 on it's own, and whose trousers were so tight he literally couldn't walk in a straight line. They made his feet turn inwards slightly that made me wonder whether he actually had a physical disability. It was definitely his trousers though. His bollocks must hate him.

He told me I'd have to wait for about 45 minutes. Surely this is the most inefficient form of customer service ever. You can't actually see an assistant on the day you're in town. You have to make a specific appointment. Then you're kept waiting?

He proceeded to treat my iPhone like a human being and gave it more care than the NHS gives pensioners. He pulled out a small instrument usually used by doctors for checking peoples ear infections, and told me there was no sign of water damage. Phew. (If anyone from Apple is reading this, I did spill water on my iPhone.)

Anyways, squashy bollocks told me he would be able to give me a new iPhone (in a slightly higher voice than if he'd been wearing normal trousers) but that I'd just have to wait 10 minutes for it. So I did.

Next my sim card was rejected and he told me I'd have to go to the Orange shop for a new one (even though it'd been working in my Nokia). So I went to the Orange shop only to be told I'd been given an O2 iPhone, apparently something the Genius Bar do regularly. I must have found the only genius with the IQ of a yoghurt. I was starting to get the impression this man used to practice headers with a brick.

I went back to the Genius Bar to find I would have to wait again. I was astounded to find an attractive girl in front of me was being given a whole new iPhone by squashy bollocks because "It sometimes doesn't connect to Wi-Fi at home," even though the screen was smashed. I wish I had breasts sometimes.

Anyways, after only a few more days of standing there he gave me another iPhone that worked. He was in a bit of a rush though, as he was filming as an extra on Hollyoaks later.

Food for thought. Or ducks...

When I came crawling gently out of blog retirement about a month ago, it was with the intention of writing weekly. I would keep the people back home informed of the happenings whilst I'm studying in a foreign land, tell of the cultural changes I have noticed, the language I have picked up and the exotic cuisine I have sampled.

I've since realised it's much easier just to post every time something funny happens, so here goes...

I've been here about a month now, and feel properly settled into life. The first few days were a bit shaky, if not amusing to look back on.

I went out to buy some bread the second morning I got here. I walked into the bakery across the road, picked up half a loaf and walked to the counter with it, where the woman serving started shouting at me and pointing at the bread. I had no idea what she was saying, and so apologised and said I didn't speak much Dutch (which was a lie, I speak none).

She told me this was 'bread for animals'. It was really cheap, and there was a long queue behind me, so not wanting to lose my place I replied, "Yeah, I know. I'm going to feed the ducks." At this point she smiled, looked down to what was in my other hand and said "Are you going to butter it for them as well?"

When I had finally got over the sheer embarrassment of being mocked out of a shop by a group of mothers, it was winter. Or at least it felt like it, the South-Easterly wind blows across Holland pretty hard most days. It gets bitter at times.

Anyways, a few days later I went for a walk into the city centre. I hadn't quite worked out the tram system yet or acquired a bike, the preferred choice of transport over here. This meant walking. I knew roughly where the centre was, but by the time I'd got about half way there it had already take me about eight days.

With this in mind, and wanting to explore a bit, I decided to take a shortcut. I took a right off the canal and was immediately down a small side street. I was sort of following an elderly man in front of me. He was wearing a suit, and so something in my mind told me he would be heading back into the centre. He stopped about 10 metres in front of me to look in a shop window, and just out of curiosity I went for a look after him. Suddenly, realising I'd inadvertently wandered into the red light district, I jump back in shock. It was less the shock of seeing four semi-naked women behind a window, but just the fact I wasn't expecting to see anyone at all.

I've never seen such a ridiculously shameful situation as being laughed at by four prostitutes. Four women who sell their bodies for money, mainly to fat, old, seedy men were laughing at me in mockery. If I could have got over the shame, I would probably have confronted them about the contradiction of the social situation.

I decided maybe I would go back one day and do so.

Instead I just took round some sandwiches. Joke's on them, the bread was made for ducks.

BMI: Baggage Mislaid Indefinitely

I left you in the last blog gripped in suspense after revealing that my bag had been lost on my journey from Manchester to Schipol Airport near Amsterdam. I've come over to study for 4 months in The Hague in the south-east of the Netherlands, so it wasn't off to the best of starts.

Firstly I arrived at the airport and was informed by the woman behind the counter that because I hadn't checked in online I would have to pay an extra £10 to register my passport. I asked if she would accept a song instead. She didn't laugh. She then asked if I had any baggage. I told her I had 2 children from a previous relationship. Not even a smile. Finally she wanted to know if I'd packed my bag myself. By this point I was fairly sure she'd had a humour bypass recently so resisted any further temptations involving my terrorist butler packing it for me.

Then I arrived and my bag wasn't on the carousel. I was starting to regret joking around with the one woman who had the power to control the destiny of my belongings. Had the baggage joke been a final straw? Had she snapped and sent my bag to Africa?

In the end it worked out as a bit of a blessing in disguise, as although I couldn't shower or change clothes (whats new?), I didn't have to lug my bag around and it was delivered the next day by a man in a small white van smoking a cigarette. (The man, not my bag.)

And so, the moral of this tale is if you fly with BMIbaby from Manchester, and need to deliver, say, a new heart to a dying child in the Netherlands, buy a ticket to Peru. It's probably got more chance of getting to where you wanted it.

Either that or just don't go to the check in desk where Eva Braun is the assistant.