eldpollard

I've developed something of a tradition, in Decembers past I have written Christmas stories that have been shall we say less than joyous and entirely devoid of seasonal cheer.
Previous entries are The Loneliest Christmas Tree and Rudolph the Unhappy Reindeer.
This December shall be no different and I present for your reading pleasure:
A Very Chemo Christmas:
It was early December, a fluttering of snow had laced the ground, briefly transforming concrete into some kind of picturesque card. This lasted for about one hour before the rain came and transformed the snow into slush, a slush which froze into hardened, back breaking lumps. It was a traditional British winter, the type of which no songs have been wrote. By this point in the year most people hadn't succumed to Christmas hysteria and the houses were bereft of decoration. But let us zoom the eye of imagination to one house that looks more festive than most.
The kitchen of the house is decorated from head to foot in tinsel, streamers hang from the roof, and the Christmas tree seems to have more ornamentation than tree. It is a monument to tack, a shrine to chintz, a bastion of poor taste. There is a turkey in the oven, various pans boiling on the hob, and crackers laid on the table. It's a scene of domestic bliss which is marred by just one thing. A wheelchair bound girl with pallid skin and a bald head. She does not look like she has long left to go, judging by her laboured breathing, perhaps a few days, far too early for a Christmas miracle. Suddenly, the early festivities make sense, they're going to give the girl one final, early Christmas before the cancer overtakes her.
"Right! The food's ready!" Called the rosy-cheeked mother. The extended family descended to the kitchen. If you're going to give a dying girl a final Christmas you may as well make it as festive as possible. The family squeezed around the too small table, with Sarah the cancerous girl sitting at the head of the table. The food was laid on the table, the turkey glistened, the gravy was rich, mounds and mounds of vegetables and stuffing. Soon everyone had a heaped plate of traditional Christmas faire, everyone barring Sarah. "Sarah, love. I'm afraid you can't have any of this meal, your stomach's too weak after the chemotherapy for all this rich food. But, it's still Christmas as fair as we're concerned so don't worry. Here's some porridge. It's nice and bland for you, but as a treat there's a cranberry in the centre!"
"Thanks Mum." Sarah said weakly "I know you're doing what you can, I love you."
"Okay everyone! Dig in!" said Mum. Soon the kitchen was filled with the sounds of chewing and drinking, Sarah ate her porridge in silence. Soon the conversation turned to people's plans of the new year.
"I'm going to go skydiving!" exclaimed one uncle "It's one of those things everyone should do before they die... Oh... sorry love."
"It's fine. I've learned to accept there are lots of things I won't get to do. I'm ready to die."
A brief and uncomfortable silence was left in the wake of that statement, but soon the conversation picked up with as much joviality before, after all Christmas is supposed to be joyous, not a morbid affair.
"I think it's time we pulled these crackers!" said dad to a chorus of cheers. Soon everyone had one in hand ready, to be pulled simultaneously. Everyone tugged sharply, except Sarah who barely clung to her cracker with her weakened grip. After all the crackers had been pulled Sarah was left with just the short end of the cracker. "Oh sorry love. Looks like you didn't win. Better luck next time though eh?"
"There won't be a next time." Sarah mumbled, but no one listened.
After everyone (barring Sarah) had finished their enormous meal the Mother brought out a massive Christmas pudding. A pudding that overflowed with sultanas, sugar, suet and brandy. A glistening monument to decadence and indigestion. The Rennies were going to be out in full force tomorrow. Dad got out a bottle of brandy and liberally doused the pudding before igniting the pudding. Once it burned itself out the pudding was served to everyone with custard if wanted. "Sorry love. We can't give you any of the pudding. It's got alcohol in it, and we daren't give you any just in case it reacts badly with your chemotherapy. Here's an orange though, that's Christmassy, and look! We even peeled it for you!" Much like the main meal, Sarah quietly ate her orange while the rest of the family stuffed themselves.
"Mum?" Sarah asked "can we turn the heating up? I feel really cold."
"Sorry love, but the rest of us have just eaten a giant, hot meal. Can you not see how red your uncle is?"
"I think that's just the brand..."
"It wouldn't be fair to turn the heating up just for you would it love?" interrupted Mum.
"But I'm shivering..." Sarah quietly said.
"You're just being selfish! Get in the Christmas spirit!" Sarah's mother chastised.

After everyone (barring Sarah) had satiated themselves it was time for what many consider the focal point of Christmas, the presents. "Would anyone mind if I gave out my presents first?" Sarah asked. No one objected so she wheeled herself over to the tree and picked up the presents she'd painstakingly wrapped. The wrapping was a work of art. Creaseless hand-decorated paper with a perfect bow on both presents. "Sorry everyone. I don't have much free time because of all the chemotherapy I've had at the hospital so I only had time to make two presents. I don't have the pocket money to buy anyone anything either. Mum, Dad, these are for you." Sarah's parents eagerly grabbed the presents and tore open the wrapping paper. Mum got a sweater. "Mum, I know how cold you usually get in Winter so I knitted you this sweater. I hope you like it."
"Thanks love, it can go with all the other sweaters I own." said Mum. Once fully unwrapped Dad's present was revealed to be a snow-globe.
"Look Dad! It's our house, and there's you me and Mum outside hugging each other." Sarah said, with pride in her voice.
"I'm sure I'll find somewhere for it." Dad said with disinterest. "Shall we give out our presents then?" Everyone rushed to the tree and picked up the presents they were going to give out. It was a joyous flurry of paper ripping exclamations of thanks at the gifts received. But one person was rather bereft of presents. Sarah had a distinct lack of presents, not even one gift was sent her way. "Sorry love. We didn't really see the point in getting you presents. Hell, there was a good chance you weren't even going to live until now, with this early Christmas we held for you. It would have been a waste and it would have made your mum and me upset to throw them out later. We suggested that everyone else do the same. And even if you did live until this fake Christmas you wouldn't have had the presents for long. It seemed a bit silly really. But hey! Look at this camera your mum gave me! Isn't it lovely?"
"It's fine dad, really. It's the thought that counts." Sarah said.

It would be the last Christmas Sarah would ever have.

So Jeremy Clarkson is once again under the media spotlight for things he's said on TV that have sparked indignant outrage. With regards to yesterday's public workers pension strike he said "I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they've got these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?"
So yeah, I completely disagree with his statement, I support striking as a matter of principle. On the other hand, I find the whole media shitstorm that's emerged to be entirely overblown. Clearly his statement was a joke and complete hyperbole. There is no way that he actually advocates the killing of strikers, it was made in jest and designed to provoke this EXACT reaction (especially when he has a new book just coming out). Was it a good joke? Absolutely not! It was a piss-poor attempt at humour that fell on deaf ears and the morally righteous. But am I offended? Hell no, I take my usual approach of ignoring anything Jeremy Clarkson has to say. I certainly don't take the approach that Unison or Ed Miliband have taken (one of affronted anger). To quote Miliband, Clarkson's comments were "absolutely disgraceful and disgusting". Yes Ed, indeed they would be if he was serious. As a hyperbolic statement designed to grab attention it's just fucking stupid. But of course, when one's the leader of the opposition, reason takes a backseat to garnering favour with the public who are angry with Clarkson after the media blew it way out of proportion. But it's Unison (the public sector workers' union) that has really overblown the comments and their reaction to it.

Unison seems to have had any perception of hyperbole and irony removed "Clarkson's comments on the One Show were totally outrageous, and they cannot be tolerated. We are seeking urgent legal advice about what further action we can take against him and the BBC, and whether or not his comments should be referred to the police." Oh shit! Call the police! Someone has a contrary opinion to us and made a joke! Clearly he wants to round up every striking person and shoot them, there is no possibility he was exaggerating! People are always serious all the time! This is like the fucking Twitter bomb threat thing. The country seems entirely devoid of humour now. Oh and the bit about taking action against the BBC? Yeah, sue the BBC for having a live show where someone might (godforbid) tell a fucking joke. Clearly the BBC complicitly agrees with everything said on all their shows by everyone.
And then we get the THINK OF THE CHILDREN line "The One Show is broadcast at a time when children are watching - they
could have been scared and upset by his aggressive statements. An apology is not enough – we are calling on the BBC to sack Jeremy Clarkson immediately." Because children are of course the primary target audience of the One Show (actually considering how devoid The One Show is of intelligence this may be true) and are going to watch an interview talking about large strike movements. I remember when I was a child being totally enthralled by TV shows about striking, man the Miners' Strikes made great kids' TV.
It wouldn't be one of my blog posts without me drawing to attention to shitty journalism though would it? Here's how The Guardian finished off the article "Clarkson earns over £1m from his BBC related activities – including an estimated £400,000 directly from the licence fee and a further sum from his commercial activities. Last year he took home £854,000 from his company, Bedder 6, which exploits Top Gear commercially and internationally." Thanks Guardian for those entirely unrelated facts! And thanks once again for keeping bias out of journalism, especially with the "exploits Top Gear" part. Yes, it certainly is exploitation to sell TV abroad, clearly once the BBC makes a show it should just be shown in the UK for free and never again.
Seriously fuck this age with its dearth of humour and common sense, and if people don't change I will personally strangle every one of them.

Imagine my blog as an abandoned lab. A lab left alone for many months; dust has collected in every corner; cobwebs hang from rafters completely bereft of spiders any source of sustenance having long since expired. It serves no useful purpose, its last activity was several months ago. It is merely a shell of its former self; a space that waits to be demolished. But finally! A gust of air comes sweeping through, cleaning away some of the dust, a few of the cobwebs blow out of the window. Power enters the lab, computers which have long since become obsolete flicker on with electricity and life comes back to the lab once more.

This is a bugbear that I have shared many times before, but one which still irks me like almost no-other. It's time that I wax lyrical on shitty and misleading journalism once more. This time the example of journalistic ineptness comes from that bastion of slightly leftist views The Guardian with a headline titled "Harry Potter course to be offered by Durham University". A title which immediately conjures up thoughts of "What nonsense is this? Frittering away university fees with something so frivolous as a Harry Potter course? What possible point could this course have? I am angry at further education now."  The headline is then instantly contradicted by the subheading "Module will focus on 'social, cultural and educational context', but no word on whether Expelliarmus will be applied to students with poor grades" So it's in fact not a course about Harry Potter but a module for an existing Education Studies BA course which focuses on the impact of the Harry Potter books in the context of education. At least the subheading goes some way towards correcting the falsehood in the heading, and it then immediately ruins that by making a Harry Potter "joke" which is entirely spurious and entirely lacking in humour.
Apart from the headline and subheadline, the article itself is fairly well written and describes the content of the module with plenty of quotes from a relevant professor. Until the last paragraph which for no reason other than that it's Harry Potter related talks about the "International Quidditch Association", leaving the reader with a final impression that the course is pointless.
Actually, saying that this is an example of poor journalism may be somewhat spurious, given that the main fault of the article is in the heading and subheading I fear the root cause of this is shoddy editorial practices, which mitigates the author of the article but may hint at a problem that's more endemic of the guardian as a whole.

So... it's been a cunt-ton of months since I last blogged. LJ says it's been since the 20th of March, so four months and a week. I think that takes the record as longest blogging gap since my bog began. This blog post is in relation to a huge bugbear of mine, namely shitty journalism. Few things anger me more than people who, when given the trust to inform the public either do a poor job in terms of research, or deliberately have articles littered with errors in order to promote their own ideals.

 I've mentioned my ire to shitty journalism before, far earlier than the furore surrounding the rage generated by the News Of The World phone hacking cuntery. In my mind the purpose of a journalist is to inform the public of recent events in an impartial manner. Impartiality is crucial if the reader is to form their own opinions with a minimum of outside bias, needless to say most journalists pander towards a certain partisan line, as such cuntery as abound. I've previously gone on about mainstream game journalism, but that pales in comparison to the cuntery displayed during the very recent Norwegian attacks.
 
 At the time of writing, four days ago Oslo suffered some brutal attacks by a self proclaimed "Christian fundamentalist" (oh how I could go on about fundamentalists and religious people as a whole) . Needless to say I mourn for their losses, this was a cruel, callous and illogical attack. So as such the world's media should try and keep a neutral approach in this instance and condemn the attacks naturally right? Well, looks like someone forgot the innate cuntery of the press. The American media especially (the rights specifically) have to capitalise from the atrocity, or if not capitalise at least distance themselves from it. I quote Glenn Beck here "There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."

Let's break down this sheer cuntery bit by bit. “There was a shooting at a political camp” is Beck's first point. Who gives a flying fuck where the shooting took place? People died to a mass murderer. It doesn't matter what they were doing. They could have been in a giant orgy, it wouldn't have lessened the tragedy, unless Beck feels that only certain people are worth mourning after a tragedy. Perhaps as it occurred outside of the US it's less worthy of note.

His next point in this poison loaded sentence is “which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever.” OK. I know this is clichéd, but I call Godwin here. A baseless comparison to Hitler does not an argument make, especially when it's a spectacularly poor comparison. Firstly the Hitler Youth was a compulsory organisation, kids had to join, already differentiating the Norwegian organisation from the Hitler Youth. The allusion to Hitler is designed to sway the audiences opinion “Hey! You guys hate Hitler right? Well you'd best hate this organisation (thereby lessening the import of these kids' deaths) or you're racist, an anti-Semitic, and basically Hitler” Beck tries to lessen the tragedy of the mass-murderer. He becomes more of a hateful, spiteful cunt than he already is. Man, fuck Glen Beck. It's an entirely baseless argument designed to generate a gut response without engaging higher brain functions.

And the final part of this hate-pie “I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." Yeah... because in no way does the US have Young Republican/Democrat camps for kids. Or is it only disturbing when these camps are outside of US borders where nothing bad happens ever unless the Democrats cause it?

Basically, Beck uses the tragedy to capitalise on the death by basically saying it was the kid's fault for trying to be politically aware.

But of course, Beck was not the only person to try and profit from this, take Bill O'Reilly for example. He said that at Breivk (the man who did the shootings) couldn't have been a Christian. It was “impossible” because “"No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder,” Yes, that's right O'Rielly, the belief in a dude who came back from the dead and whose flesh you can literally eat on a Sunday due to transubstantiation is actually incapable of mass-murder. I mean dudes like the Yorkshire Ripper who said they were on a message from God to kill people, I'm sure they didn't believe in Jesus at ALL! And of course the bible is very much against murder. Unless of course one reads any part of the bible, where God waxes wroth. Hell, he kills kids for taking the piss out of a bald dude. Kings 2:23-25.

O'Rielly says that “the left wants you to believe that fundamentalists Christians are a threat just like crazy jihadists are.” the left only want people to believe that because it's true. Fundamentalists of any religion are crazy motherfuckers whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or even fucking Buddhist. Note, I'm talking about fundies here, not the majority of religious people, especially in the western world who gloss over most of the bible (after all, why believe in most of god's dictions when one can choose certain parts to believe and justify hatred while happily ignoring the rest). Basically what I'm trying to say is that shitty journalism is a bane to us all. It misinforms the public, and arguably, xenophobic articles like in The Sun saying that the UK will implement law from the Q'ran only serve to spur on hatred and justify acts of aggression.

I've gone this far without mentioning the whole News Of The World hacking stuff. Frankly it's been covered far better than I ever could and at length. Suffice to say cuntery abounds.

Finally, it behoves me to mention that terrible journalism is abound on all sides of the political spectrum not just the right. It just seems that the right-wing press has the most abhorrent of examples, especially in light of current events.

 

Soon I will find worse examples I'm sure.

*NB* LJ lost the post, so I restarted but LJ rediscovered the post This may he a hodgepodge of shite now. (Totally different to the rest of my posts)

  Well I guess it's been over two months since my last post. That said, I'm pretty sure that next to no-one reads this anyway, but hey, posting time.
 This weekend I went to London to see what may possibly be my favourite band, CAKE. Cake are a hard band to describe, they certainly fall into the indie category of music, however they really do span the genres, ranging from country to jazz, rock to pop. Also mariachi band type stuff. A quick glance at my last.fm profile shows that I've listened to then nearly double my next most listened to band, on the other hand they have a large library of songs to listen to extensively so that's going to skew the play count somewhat. I highly recommend those blessed few that read this to give them a listen.
 This gig is the first time they've played in the UK in about 7 years, which was when their last album came out. I thought that if they were playing this infrequently then I'd have to make the trip, as London was their only UK date then London it was. Currently I live in Aberystwyth, it's slap bang in the middle of Wales, which is to say, near absolutely nothing. So that meant a 5 3/4 train journey to reach London. Still, I had company in the form of Jack who made the journey far less dull than it could have been.
The gig itself was fucking rad. Packed crowd. And they were for the most part pleasant, I had a chat with a chap before the gig started, about Cake unsurprisingly. That said the gig was something of a hipster mecca, so many thick rimmed glasses and flannel. I'd say the second half of the gig was better than the first. There was far more crowd interaction, to the extent that they gave out a tree. Lots of dancing and we were near the front which was awesome! Plus I saw one guy have a sneaky joint, it was a good gig.
 Then we had Saturday free to dick around in London, so we went to Camden Town where I bought a hipster bear t-shirt, a throw, some round blue sunglasses, and a rather pretty and patterned trilby.
Is the t-shirt and throw. I also bought two t-shirts at the Cake gig, I now have far less money but I'd say it was worth it.
 Except that I am now left with the feeling of wanting to go back to London.
 In a couple of days (not months I hasten to add) I'll blog about books and stuff, I really want to keep blogging as a habit, but for the most part it never occurs to me as something I could do.

  Right I have an essay due tomorrow, naturally I haven't done it yet. I am instead engaging procrastination mode to full effect. Oh how things have changed since I was in college doing my a-levels. Basically I figure if I treat writing a blog as a warm-up thing it'll all be good.
 So in my procrastination I've started playing Deus Ex, a game that came out in 2000 I think and I bought a couple of years back, so with an essay due I figured this weekend was the perfect time to start. Basically, it's a good game. A really good game. It has such a different feel to modern games.
 As a forewarning I'm only about two hours into the game, so my insight may be somewhat limited. Deus Ex is a classic cyberpunk game, a genre which really does lend itself well to video games (so why aren't there more cyberpunk/steampunk games? But I digress). Cyberpunk allows for easy character upgrading without it seeming weird and arbitrary. Your character gets better by augmenting himself with nanobots, instead of just getting stronger by shooting dudes in the face, which really is nice. You play as JC Denton, a UN operative for a section that seems decidedly dodgy, who so far has the ability to light up areas with his eyes and lift up heavy objects. A hero to us all!
 This game just feels like an entirely different beast to modern first person shooters. It's much slower paced, which may sound as a downside but it really isn't. The pacing feels correct, you explore at your own speed, you can do missions in whichever order you feel. You can approach missions in whatever method you feel fit. Guns blazing killing everyone, or the stealthy approach unlocking doors, knocking people out.
 The story develops through the player's exploration instead of one giant exposition dump. For example you can find datacubes that have log in details for people's email accounts, allowing you to discover information your character isn't allowed. And the best bit? You write them down and type them in, likewise with ATM accounts. I already have a page filled with notes for various passwords to accounts and snippets of information. Honestly? It's just great. I highly recommend it. Plus as it's 10 years old pretty much all PCs are  going to be able to run it. I'm just sad I've waited this long to play it.

 In other news: I'm off to see motherfucking CAKE play in motherfucking London in motherfucking March. I am fucking stoked for this. Now I just need somewhere to stay in London overnight. Oh yeah, I also have Cake's new album on motherfucking vinyl,motherfuckingly signed. Some people say excessive swearing is a sign of a dullard. I say some people are motherfuckers.

 Way back when in 2008 I wrote a jaunty little tale entitled The Loneliest Christmas Tree. I am now going to give you all a spiritual successor if you will called Rudolph The Unhappy Reindeer.
 
 Rudolph was a reindeer who lived in the North Pole. Alas for poor Rudolph this was not a cause of joy at all. You see, the north pole is a very cold place. Even in the peak of summer where the sun is at its zenith and at midnight it will never set the north pole is freezing cold. Could you imagine living in the northern hemisphere in August and having snow on the ground? Rudolph did not like the cold at all. Even worse was winter. In winter the cold was a constant source of pain for Rudolph's poor hooves. And poor Rudolph couldn't even do that act we all do to get warm. Rudolph could not have hot reindeer sex.

 You see, Rudolph had a horrible facial disfigurement. His nose glowed bright red. I don't mean the red Daddy's nose gets after one too many and gets in a hitting mood. I mean it literally glowed. Like a traffic light. That alone was bad enough but the way his nose shed light meant his face was perpetually illuminated poorly, it was a face of glowing highlights and shadowed sunken recesses. Rudolph was not a pretty reindeer. Reindeer are a vain lot. No matter how hard Rudolph tried with all the female reindeer of the north pole he got nowhere. They would shun poor Rudolph "No Rudolph, get your penis away from me you freak. Your nose is so offputting I feel my reindeer vagina actually becoming drier when I see it. Rudolph you sicken me get away. I swear you're one drink away from being a rapist."

 So winter once again rolled around and bringing with it Christmas. At Christmas the North Pole was a magical place. A hive of activity, elves making toys, Santa writing his naughty and nice list, and the reindeers were getting ready for the Christmas journey. Well they all were except for Rudolph. Not even Santa, benevolent master to us all liked Rudolph. He was, in Santa's words "One creepy arse mother fucking horned lightbulb." So Rudolph lay in the hay of the stable and wistfully stared out at the other reindeer getting ready for the great adventure. Rudolph went to a dark place, feeling neglected and unloved.

 So that night Rudolph resolved to change everything. Rudolph went to Santa's library, where a copy of every book ever given to a child was stored. He went to the medicine section, he knew what he needed to do. He flicked through the pages (no mean feat with hooves) an eventually found a spinal numbing potion. Not strong enough to murder of course, Rudolph is one of Santa's reindeer, he could never be a killer (unless they'd been a particularly naughty boy). The potion called for the juice of crushed mistletoe, ground holly berries, elf tears, and the bark of an ancient yew tree. The elf tears were going to be easy to get, but where the hell was he going to get yew tree bark on the north pole. Thankfully for Rudolph the Santa library had free to use computers and google earth showed him where he could find it. So Rudolph collected the ingredients, he particularly enjoyed getting the elf tears. He mixed the potion up in a brandy snifter and snuck into the stable. He crept behind Dancer, he slinked behind Dasher, Donner, and Prancer, and he mooched behind Vixen, Blitzen, Comet, and Cupid. On each Reindeer he rubbed the potion onto their tongues, destroyed the brandy snifter and hit in the snow. Then he went to sleep, tomorrow would be a busy day.
 
 Early that morning Santa bustled into the stables "Rise and shine you lazy reindeer! Today's the day we give presents to all the good girls and boys of the world." Donner opened his eyes and looked at Santa, panic spread like a tidal wave across his face. "Ssaannta" he slurred "I caaann't moove. Heellp meee."  This horrible screeching woke the rest of the reindeer. They all soon realised that they couldn't move either. I maintain there is no sound worse than eight reindeer crying out in terror over their sudden paralysis. "Oh no!" Santa cried out "What will I do? I have to deliver these presents, how will I do it when all my reindeer are paralysed?"
"Not all of them are Santa" Rudolph said quietly. "I'm okay. Last night all the other reindeer were out drinking and having orgiastic reindeer sex, I think they caught something." All the reindeer cried out protests against Rudolph "They're lying Santa, they don't want to shame themselves." Santa didn't quite trust Rudolph but he conceded that he had no choice but to use Rudolph if Christmas was going to be saved. "Okay lad, get strapped up to the sledge, we'll have to do our best."

 Soon Rudolph was harnessed up and ready to go. "Come on Santa! This will be the best Christmas yet! You'll see." And so they set off, slowly. You see, when a sledge is designed for eight reindeer one simply can't pull anywhere near as quickly. Rudolph struggled to take off, but take off he did. "Hurry up Rudolph. If you don't move quicker Christmas will be ruined."
"I'm doing as well as I can Santa, this is hard."
"Well you'll have to pull harder Rudolph we have a long time to go yet."  This continued for quite a while until Rudolph finally snapped and said "You know what Santa?" I'm sick of your shit. You cocky, fat, wanker. I've been carting your fat arse around all day so you can sneak into children's bedrooms, that's just not right. Honestly Santa? I've never liked you, and I know you don't like me. So this is where I get off." And with that Rudolph unbuckled himself from the sledge and Santa went plummeting to his death along with the world's presents. Rudolf stood on a cloud and looked around. "I am now the king of Christmas with Santa dead. Time to head back to the north pole, I think I'm going to sleep in the warm gingerbread house." So Rudolph merrily skipped back across the sky to his home.

 He landed lightly in the snow and went back to the stable where the reindeer were still paralysed. They reindeer looked at him blankly, having long since tired themselves out by screaming in terror. "Everyone I have distressing news. Santa is dead. We were attacked by Jack Frost and Santa and his sledge fell to the earth, I was lucky and escaped. This means there's going to be a few changes. I am now the ruler of the north pole and I will rule with an iron hoof, and it's time for my revenge."  Rudolph walked around the paralytic reindeer stomping near their heads and terrifying them to their wit's end. He knelt down next to Prancer. "Hello Prancer, you can't move at all can you?" Rudolph whispered in her ear "Well just keep still this won't take long." 
 
 And that's the story of how Rudolph got his Christmas wish.

  So today I've been struggling to do an essay. It's not so much that it's a hard or long essay. In fact it's neither. It's only 1500 words about the value of archives in terms of the UK's heritage. I just can't seem to get down and actually typ out sentences. I've been trying to do this since 11AM this morning. It's now 10PM and I've written around 400 words. My attention span is shot to fuck. I'm finding this blog far easier to write than the essay. I'm just so unused to writing essays. I know I've mentioned this before but it really has been three years since I've had to write one and I procrastinated to fuck back then as well. So I know several of you that read this have finished uni so I'm imploring you, how the hell do I write stuff without going "I dun wanna. Ooh shiny internet!"
 Anyway, apart from that uni's fine. And soon I shall be sallying forth in my magnanimous return to Yorkshire for Christmas. Where there will be tree decorating ahoy. If the tree is anything like previous years' efforts it will be a monument to gaudiness, distaste, and BAUBLES. There will be pictures, and you will marvel before you're blinded by the beauty.

 Anyway, back to failing to write an essay. Toodles.

 For today's first and only (cough) post I thought I'd talk about PC gaming's latest indie gem Minecraft. "So, what is Minecraft?" you may be wondering. Well, wonder no more.

 This is Minecraft:
:

This is Minecraft:


Yes, it's the law of me. Give me something I'll make a pun. Also, this is minecraft:


So Minecraft is a game where you hide in a ramshackle hut from zombies, spiders, skeletons, and exploding things called creepers at night. It's a game where you dig through the earth hunting for minerals and drowning in lava. It's a game where you build gargantuan structures or huge dicks made from sand. It's a game made by one person, and it's a game that only costs ten euros.

 I can't put my finger on what makes minecraft such a good game. It's just so very different to any other game I've played. The aesthetic quality is spectacular. Also I can make huge sand dicks. I like this game.
 Also you can go to hell which has fire breathing cubes that cry like children.

 So I suddenly realised that it's November (the hallowe'en thing sort of gave it away) and that means tht along with NaNoWriMo it's also NaNoBloPoMo. I think. The posting a blog every day in November thing, I've done it the past three (I think) years. So it makes sense to carry it on right?
 Currently I'm using this as a warm-up/procrastination device for my first uni assignment, this one's about the use of certain archival material. And I'm slightly worried. It's the first thing I've wrote that's even remotely academical. And hell, three years ago when I was in uni I wasn't exactly what you'd call the most scholarly of people. That's putting it lightly. Back in college I was lazy as hell, hence my three Ds. And now I'm at uni which requires far more self motivation and work I'm finding myself back in the same rut of doing as little as possible. I'm trying to break out of it. Which is why I'm doing this assignment a week before it's due.

 So anyway, enough about me worrying about how I'll do. I need to reach a zen like state of calm, I fear the copious amounts of tea will not help much/at all. But I haven't had any coffee today. Clearly I'm growing as a person. As opposed to growing as what I have no idea. So yes, I'm enjoying myself at uni so far. The anime society is pretty rad. We had a hat social. Which is the same as normal except we all wore hats. Alas I'd left all my hats back in Yorkshire so I scowered te town's charity shops and oxfam yielded me a rather lovely specimen. It was a bobble hat that said about the forehead "cool" This means the hat is cool I will attach a picture if I can find one.

 See, it's a cool hat. Slightly related, the t-shirt is from the band Kid Canaveral. Guys! They are super-fucking-rad. And they played in Cardiff last week and I had to miss them. Also they played in Leeds, good time to come to the arse end of nowhere. Luckily I really do like Aber. Getting back to the hat social, it was a perfect source of  puns. And so I will copy and paste my pun laden retelling.

"Oh no!" I thought "This is a hatastrophe. I shall have to purchats one at once. I just hat to. So I went to oxfam and found a hat for the princely sum of £3.99 for such a price I doffed... my cap to them.

So hat past 6 rolled around and I went down to A12 and the place was awash with hats. Hats as far as the eye could see. I feared that if we hat any more hats we'd reach critical hats. It would be hatastrophic. Thankfully my fears went unfounded.

So I did what any normal, decent, hat wearing person would do. I made hat puns. Lots and lots of hat puns. Alas some people didn't take to them that warmly. So I went quiet, nearly hatatonic. 
Then anime was watched, starting with Strawberry Marshmallow. With characters such as Nobue Hato, Chika Hato, Miu Hatsuoka, Hatsuri Sakuragi, and Hatta Coppola.
A fun time was hat by all.

And then hats always we went into Haterystwyth for ...the usual drinking. And we all had a beret good time. But I was surprised that no one had a straw hat, I guess they've had their hay day."

 Hatshatshats.