I’ve just come back from a weekend in fantastic company. On Saturday night I went over to Darlington to visit my mate Ben who I haven’t seen for far too long and I had a great time. Not only did I spend the time with Ben, and indeed his girlfriend who’s house it was, but I was also in the fantastic company of Ben’s girlfriend’s four year old Son, Joshua.

Being in the company of kids is fantastic, isn’t it? I’ve never really had much contact with younger kids, even relatives really. Apart from me, my sister, my mum and my dad, the rest of my family live away in London, so it’s not like we’re surrounded with even the new born relatives, let alone other younger members of the family.

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0059 – Sunday 28th February 2010

So yesterday, as you know, was pay day and thankfully that meant I could finally get my haircut. Now I don’t know about you, but I always feel nervous when I’m getting my haircut, like I’ll go in there and ask for a trim only to come out with a skinhead. Although thinking about it, that’s probably due to the time I asked my mates to shave my hair to grade 2 but they did it to grade 0.5 because they didn’t put the correct blade on the razor.

I hated my new haircut, and I desperately tried to hide my newly-bald head where ever I could. At the time the only hat I owned was a red Senate cap which was stretched thanks to my usually flowing locks. This meant that when I wore it with my shaved head it was so big it looked as if Prince Charles had given it to me on a Leukaemia ward, I looked that ill. Not only that, my mum hated the skinhead-look and made me wear a woollen hat in the house at all times for the first 8 weeks. I even wore it to bed.

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0058 – Saturday 27th February 2010

Oh thank the Lord; it’s pay day. I’m able to enjoy pay days now, but for a long time that wasn’t the case. I was really bad with money when I was younger, like actually awful. I think I went to Uni with minus £80 in my account and that was probably the high point of my financial career.

Since then I’ve been to uni, which resulted in another £10,000 in student loans and probably another couple of thousand in credit cards on top of that. But as I’ve told my mother countless times, it was well worth the ten grand and I’d do it all again! I would! I really would! And there’s nothing you can do to stop me! Aha! Haha! Ahahahahahahaha! (she didn’t look pleased).

I left Middlesbrough in 2004 and when I moved back home to Bognor Regis Town. It took a mere 48 hours to realise I couldn’t possibly stay any longer and three years later I finally moved to Leeds. But not before I set my credit cards ablaze and amassed more debt that you can shake a poo-stick at.

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0057 – Friday 26th February 2010

I think I’ve lost my blog-writing mojo, and it’s all my girlfriend’s fault. No, really. It really is. Yesterday I recorded a very touching, very loving Audioboo which gave an in-depth appraisal of the whole Cheryl Cole affair and it got some quite unexpected feedback. David Turners’ response was one of surprise, and other people on my Facebook commented that it made them think about life in a whole new way.

The Boo in question is embedded below, so you can give your views later and tell me what it made you feel; be it love, anger, or just simple confusion, I’d still love to hear from you. Let’s go mental and try to break the ‘4 comments’ barrier eh? Yeah, let’s do that.

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0056 – Thursday 25th February 2010

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A story on the BBC News site yesterday reported that the new version of Alice in Wonderland won’t be playing at Odeon cinemas when it opens next month on 5th March. Odeon won’t be showing the film because they’re annoyed at Disney’s plans to limit the usual 17-week cinema run to a meagre 12 weeks so they can release the DVD at the end of May.

So Odeon are crapping themselves [citation needed] over the shortened cinema run, saying “12 weeks will become the standard” and I think they’ve got good reason. I think unless you’re desperate to see certain films, most people will wait for the DVD or Blu-Ray release in 3 months time. Disney have said that one of the main reasons for the decision was to stop piracy. The thought being, if it’s out on DVD sooner, people will be less likely to pirate it.

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0055 – Wednesday 24th February 2010

Bookazine. Book-a-fucking-zine.

Tell me I’m reading that correct. Tell me I’m reading a made-up word. Tell me you can’t quite believe someone, no no, not just someone, not just anyone, but WH-fucking-Smiths has gone and done the impossible. Tell me they haven’t just created a word to sell a new product. Not only that, but the word they’ve gone with is so mental, so abstract, that I blacked out as I was walking past the magazine section today.

Seriously though. I know the whole world wants to know what Cheryl Cole’s ladybits look like, and everyone’s obsessing about her marriage problems with England’s Ashley Cole, but Bookazine? Book-a-fucking-zine? Come on now. This isn’t right, this just isn’t cricket. You can’t just create a new word because you need to sell something. You wouldn’t see Asda start selling ‘Condomince’ because people not only love Lasagne but they also love touching each other until stuff comes out. No Smiths, you don’t.

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0054 – Tuesday 23rd February 2010

This weekend I encountered my first real challenge of blogging each and every day. It was the first time I would have to write away from home and it took a different way of thinking. For all my previous #oneaday posts I’ve been at my flat in Leeds, with the internet and sat down all relaxed. I can always take an hour or so out of whatever I’m doing to write without worrying about what other people think, but this weekend was different.

As you well know, I was down in London visiting my girlfriend’s family and being with the in-laws is pretty much a full-time exercise when you’re with them; trying to be funny, acting like the good son-in-law, trying not to swear, and generally trying to impress. So sneaking off to write a blog-post about your life with their embarrassing daughter probably won’t go down well. But having said that it needed to be done, so I when the brother and mum went of to buy a microwave, I took my chance and darted off to the bedroom to write (and knock one out).

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0053 – Monday 22nd February 2010

Got back from London earlier this evening and I’m utterly shattered. I had a great time, but I’m really looking forward to bed already even though it’s only 19:00. Meeting your girlfriend’s parents can be stressful enough, but couple that with having to drive to London and back and it’s pretty knackering.

I had some late nights last week which didn’t really help matters and I think they’re catching up with me now. Not only that, but I was due to get up at 6am on Saturday to leave for London but slept in because I was still up till at 2am watching Amy Williams take Gold for Great Britain in the Winter Olympics. Still, it was worth it though, Williams was fantastic, and it was great to see us get our first (and possibly only) medal of the games.

Continue reading Daily Blog # 0052 – Sunday 21st February 2010