I feel a bit cold and sniffly today, so I’m back to my two Lemsips a day diet. Blackcurrant if you must ask. I’m not really a lemon sort of a guy really. It would always be my last choice in a pack of fruit pastilles, and I always preferred Apple Tango over Lilt. It goes even deeper than that; I think it’s just a disdain for citrus colours in general. Any sweet, no matter what it is, I’ll always go for the black, purple or deep coloured sweets. Every time. I never go for the green or yellow sweets. I might go for the orange ones, but only if any of the darker colours have been eaten already.
But I digress, luckily the cold wasn’t enough to keep me from going to the shops at lunchtime (or in fact ringing in sick for work in the first place)
I went round my mate James’ house last night to stay up late and watch UFC 109. UFC didn’t start until 3am though, and the main event not until 6am, so it was a pretty long night.
Thing is, and we do this all the time when we stay up late for UFC or Boxing, but we started drinking early before the UFC had even begun. Well I say early, I started at 9pm, which I know isn’t early by most people’s standards, but it’s pretty early if you intend on staying awake until 6am.
Even after yesterday’s eventful shopping trip, I went shopping again today. I’ve wanted this pair of Adidas trainers that I’ve had my eye on for a while and I finally got them today. I also bought a new pair of jeans using the money I got given for my birthday by my parents and sister, so I managed to get two nice things today, and only spent a fiver.
All in all it was a nice afternoon spent lazily walking round the shops but one thing left a sour taste in my mouth. No, it wasn’t the 1400 students you’ve got to beat off (steady) to get round town, it was something that happened in the changing rooms in Topman.
Another day and another couple of small embarrassments. Neither of which will come as a surprise if you’ve been keeping up with the blog.
Firstly, I was bombing round town at lunch trying to find a Barbour jacket (I found one in the end but it was £160 so I might have to get a 2nd-hand one) I was going round town on the way to Millets and I see that Gamestation has moved to a brand-spanking new store around the corner. That’s really good because I think the old store used to be a pub or something and it was u-shaped (plus the bouncers asking for ID to enter was a bit off)
I watched this fascinating programme last night on BBC 2 called Don’t Grow Old. The most interesting bit was when they talked about an experiment which took place in 1979. The experiment featured male volunteers, all over 75, and they were going to be taken back in time.
They were going back 20 years, to live like it was 1959. But this meant they wouldn’t have carers, and they would have to survive by their own means.
Professor Ellen Langer from Harvard University created an environment which totally immersed the volunteers. They lived in a house which had 1950s decor, 1950s papers and 1950s television. The television had old adverts, and old news reports. They were, for one week, living 20 years earlier in a 1950s world.
A study, found in the journal Psychopathology, has found that there is a strong link between heavy internet use and depression. The study carried out by Leeds University and posted on the BBC News website found that 1.2% of people surveyed were “internet addicts”, and many of these were depressed.
For a kick off, to find their results they used an internet questionnaire. Hardly seems fair; it’d be like holding a Weight-Watchers class at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
After yesterday’s self-referential post where I talked about how much I’ve improved since the first week’s posts and how I’m gradually finding things easier, I’ve now hit a wall. I guess it was always bound to happen. Sometimes it really is impossible to extract any humour from the most mundane of days. Today is just one of those days. In light of this, the following text was found at the bottom of my brain after scraping the ground where the barrel used to be.
Yesterday I went to the post-office. Have you been recently?So what’s the deal with post-offices these days? They’ve got a new ticket system where instead of queuing up in a big line to post your parcel, you now take a ticket – not unlike the Delicatessen counter in Tesco. Once you’ve got your ticket you stand up for 97 hours and wait your turn. Usually it’s not too bad. You might have only 10 people in front of you, maybe 18 on a bad day. But do you know how many I had yesterday? If so ring the number on the screen now. Don’t call after the lines have closed because your vote won’t be counted but you might still be charged.
Yesterday signified my first full month of writing this daily blog, and I can’t believe it’s gone so fast.
I had three things I wanted to achieve when I originally had the idea of starting the blog. Firstly it was to improve the quality of my writing. Secondly, I wanted it to improve my observation skills and lastly, for it to just simply increase the amount I wrote each day.
And I would say that since starting on New Year’s Day, I can already feel the difference. I’m only 31 days in but I feel like I’ve alaready come such a long way in this first month, and I’m only just getting started.
Yesterday my girlfriend and I treated ourselves to the modern-day banquet that is the Marks and Spencer ‘Two dine in for £10′ meal. I bloody love the M&S meal deals. I guess that’s a sign of showing age, but fuck it, they’re lovely. M&S food is probably the only subject I can think about which everyone agrees on; M&S food is the best. I’ve never met anyone who even thinks their food is “ok” and “not bad”. They’re always “OMG have you tasted their milkshakes” and “Percy pigs FO LIFE man” and of course “Even their ice tastes fucking gorgeous”.
