Australia

My work colleague has brought in her friend's Australian kid who's about 9 (she's looking after him for a while) and I tried to help him settle in by saying 'Alright little tigger, you wan' me to fire up the barbie?'. He looked really shocked and kind of scared. Realising that I was scaring him I tried to reassure him by saying 'Australia is a really interesting country, it's full of amazing but deadly creatures like the Sydney Funnel Web Spider, that can kill a child in a bite!!', then my colleague asks him where he lives in Australia. He replies 'Sydney'. The room goes silent. Then after a while I said 'Cool, also out of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world, 8 are from Australia! Isn't that cool'. He didn't reply. I then turned to my other colleague and whispered 'Tough crowd'. Turned out the kid hates living in Australia.

Film ideas

I have just returned from a trip to Tescos Metro. I went there to get some white chocolate cookies but annoyingly they didn't have any. Realising that I had driven all that way for nothing, I wandered around the store trying to think of something to buy. I settled on a pack on Starbusts, 5 ring donuts and some chewing gum. I'm now sitting at my desk writing this, whilst also watching a youtube video of would-be officers at West Point Military Academy. In one scene, they're all sitting in some sort of speech day style thing, like a school assembly. I then started thinking about wouldn't it be annoying if you're sitting there with everyone when you feel the need to do a poo. That would be so awkward because you'd have to stand up, in front of everyone, and try and discretely walk off. I wonder if you'd be allowed to go. Hmm probably not, maybe because it's 'macho' to hold your poo in. I don't know. I always wondered about that. Do the military give training about resisting the need to use the loo? I guess so, because you see those soldiers outside Buckingham Palace just standing there and I doubt that they'd be allowed to go off to use the loo. That would be a good idea for a film - a hardcore ex-delta force soldier who has a persistent bladder infection. The film would be about him (Larry) trying to fight terrorists whilst also having to deal with the bladder infection. In one scene, all of the CIA chiefs are being briefed about a situation when one turns about and says 'Where's Larry?', another would reply 'Oh, he's just nipped out to the loo again'. And if he's in combat with his team, under fire, and he just shouts out 'Oh crap, I need a wee' and his team mates (who'd know of his condition) would go 'Ok, you go and we'll cover you' and he'd be like 'Ah, it's really painful and nothing's coming out, all this gunfire is ruining my concentration too, aahhhhh damn this persistent bladder infection'. Not sure how the film would end, maybe with him finally going to the doctors and getting the suitable antibiotics. And then in a post credits scene, you'd see him at a mate's bbq, eating some food, and he says 'This chicken doesn't look fully cooked, oh well, still rather tasty'. When suddenly the phone would ring and it's the government saying terrorists are going to attack the country within the next 12 hours and he'd say 'Uh oh'.

This is the youtube video that made me think about using the toilet and stuff. I think the root cause of this line of thought is that when I was at school, during my pre-teens, I got really scared that I'd shit myself in front of everyone during school assemblies. And that led to me getting addicted to codeine phosphate for 3 years.

Pain

My arms hurt because I've been training a lot and I think I have strained them. I went to Westway on Saturday and I climbed for a bit (1 hour) and then said to Nick (who was there) 'Ahh, Nick, my arms really hurt, I'm going to stop', to which he replied his ever present condescending tone 'Ok'. As I was preparing to leave I saw Adrian and had some banter with him about being addicted to crack cocaine and steroids. This was funny because I haven't tried neither and I doubt I ever will. We both laughed and I walked away happy. I then packed up my stuff and left via the main entrance.

I like to organise my time efficiently so I had other motives for going to London to climb: I was going to see Liam's band play in Camden. I have never seen his band (Lieutenant), but I felt that then (last Saturday) was the best time, since it was on the weekend and I could go climbing beforehand. Getting to the gig was most vexing since it was in Camden (as mentioned) and the tube always seems to be broken on the weekend. I thought to myself damn it why is it always broken on the weekend, when all the tourists use it? and then I thought Ahhhh of course Will, the money that tourism brings in is nothing compared to what banks and stuff do, so that's why! YES! I then kept on walking with a bemused look on my face when I figured out the truth. Finally, I reached Camden town station and marched over to the venue (the journey took longer than I thought because I got lost around the estates in Camden and went up the wrong roads. Fortunately, I didn't see any hoodlums with knives otherwise I would be writing this in a cybercafe in Coventry (If the hoodlums had tried to attack me, I would have defended myself using my brutal hand to hand combat skills which would have led to my would-be attackers dying from my violent onslaught and me having to go on the run for a while, until the law give up the chase)). I must add that this has never happened in all my 26 years thinking it might (touch wood, I don't want to go on the run). I always wondered how effective I would be in a fight. Once my friends and I were attacked by some chav kids in Wycombe, when I was 14. My survival instincts kicked in straight away and I ran off. Most of my friends weren't as fast as me so couldn't keep pace, if that was a live or die situation I would have survived. I'm slightly stronger now and have more knowledge about hand to hand combat. Hmm, maybe I should go around seeking duels with other people in order to get more experience about combat, like what (some) ronin did during the feudal era in Japan (1185-1868). Maybe I'd start in India or somewhere, where the population are small and malnourished. Then I could work my way up to more affluent countries. Not sure how I'd start the duel, perhaps I should advertise it on a lamp-post or something. Hmm. This definitely needs more thought.

I'm actually a bit tired of writing this now, in might summarise what happened after (when I got to the venue).

1. Got to the venue
2. Eat a bag of chips and went to the Jon's flat
3. Went back to the venue
4. Saw old friends like Jon, Tom, Liam, Brian, Rory, Alice, Alex, Neil, Alex, Kelly and Tom.
5. I parked my car at Westway and missed the last train so had to get a taxi back to it. Alex was annoyed but I was expecting to miss the last train and I liked the walked from where I left it to the station, I forgot about the whole 'getting back to the car' thing.
6. Got home at 2am. My ears were ringing from the music. That really annoyed me. Next time I'll bring ear plugs.

Amendment

I have found one survivor of the destruction of my MSN Spaces blog - my photos plus inane captions. I think you can see how my humour has changed over the years. From being really crap to just crap.

If the link doesn't work, can someone write it in the comments? I have no idea who I'm writing that too. I'm the only person who reads this thing.

https://skydrive.live.com/?sc=photos#sc=photos

End of the Road festival, it was fun, but why?

I have just returned from the annual music festival called End of the Road. It was the third time I went and it was a lot more busy. There were about 10,000 people there this year, compared to about 5,000 in the preceding years. A lot of really cool people were there too: one chap had really long hair on top of his head and shaved hair at the sides. Tot'num cool.

I have just remembered that I used to have a blog on MSN Spaces, but they closed it down (complaints). Turned out the backward thinking philistines at Word Press (who bought out MSN Spaces) couldn't transfer over my old blog to the new Word Press site*. Hmm, I'm not overly angry, just frustrated I guess. Ah but I do have an active blog on my old Myspace (stylised as My _____). I have just had a quick read of it. Hmm. Not particularly good, but it does detail my slightly inane life after leaving uni. Please. My MSN one was better. It had pictures and emotion. Though the Myspace one does go back to '06. And it details my early beginnings into the world of rock climbing.

The End of the Road festival didn't feel as good as last year - it was rather cold on the last night and I felt that the line up was a bit of a mash up. They finished with Joanna Newsom, who is one of my favourite harpists. It was a pity that it was so darn cold. Three Trapped Tigers didn't play either, which basically made last years festival for me. Boom ticky.

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I am currently at work, eating a lovely spaghetti bolognese. It tastes like spaghetti bolognese should taste, so that's good. I don't particularly like the branded chef ones like Lloyd Grossman's sauces. Hmm. I'm getting a bit bored now and running out of things to write about. Actually, I have run out of things to write about. I think I'm going to use italics and other fancy word processing tricks more often, I think it makes this blog thing look more pro'.


Here are a couple of links of interesting things to read/watch:

The Battle of Jacob's Ford - an interesting battle of a crusader army vs a massive muslim army commanded by none other than Saladin. People died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jacob%27s_Ford
Fail compilations are always fun to watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrYQpMeHmMY
Saw this chap live, he's good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duPxXtW4RKE
Thug life, street life, other peoples lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDoFyZ5uH8I