The Theory of a Bunch of Really Interesting Things

I have a lot of theories. Some of them contradict one another, and others are so ridiculous that often people tell me I should try my hand at writing science fiction and incorporate these theories into my novels. Maybe I should. I dunno, should I? When I was about 7-years-old I started writing stories of domestic violence and substance abuse, so unless I write about aggressive aliens and alcoholic vampires, I wouldn't really be staying true to myself, would I? I wouldn't be, as they say, "Keeping it real." Yo.

A wiser person might get some copyright on their theories before they go blabbing them out to the whole World Wide Web. (Y'know, when you actually say the words "world wide web", it sounds super scary. The whole wide world can read this. Agh?) But I can't be bothered, to be honest. So here are some of my theories.

The "We're already dead" theory

Or at least, most of us are. We've already lived our lives. First steps, first words, school, marriage, kids, blah de blah de blah... All of it's already been done. And we're dead. We're lying in some coffin somewhere, with some vacant (i.e. dead) look on our faces. But when you die, your memory lives on, and as you lie there, that memory replays your life over and over and over again. You just don't remember it and thus think that it's happening for the first time. How many times have I written this sentence already? For all we know, it could be the year 3044 and I'm living this random day in the year 2011 for the (*does some quick Maths... can't be bothered to work it out*) nth time.

The "We are like atoms" theory

Think about it. We're pinpricks on Earth, and Earth is a pinprick in the solar sysem, and the solar system is a pinprick in the galaxy, and the galaxy is a pinprick in the universe, and the universe is... probably like a grain of salt for a really massive giant. Maybe we are to giants what atoms are to us.

The "You never really die" theory

OK, religious people have been saying this for ages, but what if our souls (if we have one) don't automatically detach from our bodies and float off into heaven or hell or get stuck hanging about with all the living people? What if you die and your soul stays put, and the only thing that stops working is your body? Maybe it takes decades or even centuries to master the art of projecting your soul out of your body, and most people only bother to master this art when they're dead because, well, what else are they gonna do? Trust me: those freaks rocking the astral travelling business have got their shit sorted already. Well done, I say. Well done.

I swear I should have been a scientist. Have some of that, Darwin.

Series: Pet Peeves #1

I thought I'd start a series. Not for any particularly clever or interesting reason; I just think I should. And I'm calling this series Pet Peeves. If you can't work out what this series could possibly be about, you might just be featured in it. Keep your eyes peeled.

I think I should stress before I begin that these are, as the title suggests, pet peeves, rather than actual keeping-me-up-all-night concerns. I recognise that there are far greater and more worrying issues in the world beyond what I am about to moan about, so don't go complaining about my petty complaints.

Pet Peeve #1: Facebook

Or rather, not Facebook, but people on Facebook. Constant status-updating and 'liking' every status that falls within a Facebooker's line of vision is irritating enough, but let's face it: this is what happens on Facebook, and you know this when you sign up (or, at least, you find out very quickly upon signing up). If you don't want to hear about what the kid you used to sit next to in Science ate for lunch, don't accept the kid you used to sit next to in Science's friend request. Or don't join Facebook. Or comment on their status telling them to shut the hell up. Any of the above will do. If a person on Facebook feels it is important that they share with every last acquaintance of theirs the contents of their sandwich, cool. Go for it. But I can not excuse the following Facebook faux pas:

1. Airing your dirty laundry in public. Telling everyone you've ever known (or walked past) what you ate for lunch is kinda sad, but surrendering to them the intimate details of your personal life is embarrassing. For everyone. Your best friend and your mum might want to know when your boyfriend has cheated on you, but your next-door-neighbour's teacher's hairdresser's aunt doesn't really give a shite. She just thinks to herself, "Whoa, calm it, fruitcake." Don't get me wrong: I understand that you feel the need to vent your frustrations, which is why I believe someone (not me, however) should set up a site called Fake Facebook. It looks exactly the same as the normal Facebook, except when someone posts a status along the lines of, "i jst found ma bf in bed wiv a goat he aint gnn@ hve no ballz left wen i iz fini$hd wiv hm!!!!", Fake Facebook automatically detects "angry" mood, and comments on the status with a heart-felt response along the lines of, "He's not worth it, babe! You're so much better than him anyway!" Angry Facebooker feels consoled, every human they've ever encountered doesn't have to hear about it, and they can resume their life the following day, without everyone looking at them with the following thought bubble emanating from their heads: "What a loon."

2. Snogging pictures. No one wants to see you with your tongue down someone else's throat. I don't care how in love the two of you may be: some people eat at their computer; we don't want to be watching tonsil tennis as we eat.

3. Farmville. And even worse, people who spend money on Farmville. Why the hell? If you love farms so much, go be a farmer.

4. Random friend requests. I don't think it's a coincidence that these random friend requests come from either a) women with impossible bra-sizes, or b) sweaty middle-aged fat men taking pictures of themselves from their webcams. The only difference between the two perpetrators is that at least the latter has the courage to admit who they actually are; God only knows how sweaty, fat and old the former of the two perpetrators has to be for them to feel the need to hide behind the guise of some random page 3 model they found on some seedy website somewhere. I don't get their intent, though. Do they think that just because they happen to say hello, or because they happen to have boobs bigger than two sleeping hippopotamuses, that I'm going to invite them into my own little private world? Honestly.

5. Liking everything under the sun. Go ahead and like your favourite band, actor or football team; that's what the like button is there for. But think twice before you like "Dropping my phone on my face when I'm texting." I mean, really. Do you really like that? Do you drop your phone on your face and think to yourself, "That was really nice. I really liked that." I didn't think so.

6. Excessive notifications. Notifications are useful: they let you know when a friend of yours has something to say to you. Without notifications, Facebook would be somewhat like millions of people banging on sound-proof windows trying to get someone's attention, and no one else hearing. Excessive notifications, on the other hand, are downright irritating. Your friend tags you in a picture of a chair (I don't know why; maybe your friend thinks you look like a chair), and you think to yourself, "Hmm, that's odd", but don't really give it much thought beyond that, and forget about it. Two weeks later, you log into Facebook and find you have 31 notifications. Apparently, 31 people you have never met before have commented on a picture of you. You freak, think that someone, somehow, has uploaded a picture of you naked or on the pan (what else would legitimately invite 31 notifications, someone please tell me), and click on any one of the 31 notifications, eager to check out the damage. There is, however, no damage. It just so happened that the first person to comment on the picture of you as a chair said something "Yo mama"-ish, thus inviting an argument that entailed a further 30 comments.

7. Relationship statuses. OK, it's not so much the relationship status as it is the attention that relationship statuses attract. If you're in a solid relationship and lots of people know about it, cool beans. What gets to me is when people 'like' it when someone they vaguely know goes from being 'single' to 'in a relationship'. Why should we all like this? They could be in a relationship with a woman-beater, or someone with really bad breath. Don't like the change in relationship status until you have assessed the relationship itself (in as non-creepy a way as you can; I don't endorse curtain-twitching and eavesdropping). Likewise, what is it with girls 'marrying' their best friend? I'm sure it was funny the first 100 times, but now it's getting so old that I'm gonna start assuming it's true and that your friendships know no bounds.

8. Pokes. I'm sorry, but it sounds dirty. I don't poke just anyone, and I don't want anyone to poke me unless they truly mean it.

9. Political apathy. If you don't know where you stand politically, leave it blank. Don't tell me politics is boring just because you don't understand it.

10. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! It's nice when people wish you a happy birthday. (I was once wished a happy birthday by Cesc Fabregas. Have some of that.) It's nice to wish other people a happy birthday. But I have no idea where to draw the line. It seems rude to wish someone you haven't seen in 5 years a happy birthday but then not wish a happy birthday to your best friend, even though you're sitting in the very same room as them and that would be weird.

But then again, everything about Facebook is weird, isn't it? It's this weird virtual world full of drama and marital frivolity, of 'liking' things you wouldn't ordinarily like in the real world, of exposing more about yourself than you ever would have thought you were capable of exposing, and where everyone appears to have taken up farming as a hobby...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, all!

I didn't really intend to blog over the holidays, but after about 48 hours of no internet exposure I begin to experience withdrawal symptoms. I'm not really sure how I ever survived without an internet connection when I was a child; my home first got the internet when I was 11, though for several years I had to endure a painful dial-up connection, and the only thing I had the patience to use it for was homework and browsing Amazon's book catologue with lust. (Yes, lust. I loved my books when I was a kiddly-wink.) Now we have Broadband and stupid addictive sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter... and, for me, some random game in which you're a cute little bear and you have to knock bricks over with a sword.

All this is beside the point, though. I only came on here to wish you all a merry Crimbo and to tell you all the mundane exciting things I got up to yesterday. Mostly, those things consisted of drink, and knitting. (If anything, at least I'm not predictable.)

I'm not a big drinker (I'll have a glass of champagne for special occasions and maybe the odd vodka and coke when I'm out and feel obligated to drink because everyone else is), and yet I struggle to get drunk when I do drink. The most drunk I've ever been has been room-wobbling-drunk, but it wore off after about half an hour and I didn't even get a hangover. I'm a lucky sod, aren't I? But yesterday all my drink-mixing must've done something to me, because this morning I woke up, looked over at my knitting, and thought to myself, "My scarf looked like it's been mauled by a lion."

Thankfully, my mother is like one of the Shreddie-knitting grannies, and she managed to undo all my drunk-knitting and leave me with a tidy (if slightly thin) scarf. Apparently my tension is tight. You're freaking well telling me.

I think I'll lay off the drink today. People tell you to have a merry Christmas, but no one ever suggests you have a merry Boxing Day.

Seductively picking my nose.

You know those music videos where you've got some guy in his house singing about a woman he's got the hots for, or where the woman is singing about some guy she's got the hots for? Well, why is the woman always lying on her bed half-naked? First of all, if this is happening in the middle of the day, what is she doing still at home in her lingerie? Doesn't she have a job to go to? Or perhaps some errands she needs to run? And if this is happening in the evening, surely she'd be cooking herself some dinner (or at least heating up a Pot Noodle) or watching EastEnders.

Secondly, why doesn't she have any clothes on? Is it hot? Why doesn't she turn the heating down, or open a window, or get herself a glass of water? Maybe she's too poor to afford any clothes, but again, if she went to her job, rather than lazing about on her bed doing random over-elaborate arm movements in the middle of the day, chances are she'd be able to afford some clothes. I reckon she does have the money to buy clothes, though; judging by the state of her bedroom (which looks like a page torn out of the IKEA catalogue - hello, where are the dirty socks on the floor?), she's got a spare bob or two.

Maybe she does have a job, and errands to run. Maybe she does own clothes, and maybe the temperature of the room is perfectly reasonable. Maybe she just makes an effort, once a day, to lie on her bed in a seductive fashion. Maybe it comes right after cleaning the toilet and right before writing out a cheque to her gas company.

Oh yeah, and that whole scenario where a guy's on the phone to a woman, and she happens to be either a) half-naked in the kitchen, b) half-naked in the bedroom, or c) fully-naked in the bath? Yeah, she's probably not doing any of those things. She's probably either a) in the kitchen, eating cake, b) on the bed, picking her nose, or c) in the bath, cleaning it.

Reality is harsh.

Chat-up lines of the 21st Century

I'm sure chat-up lines are getting worse. Yesterday I found myself in a scenario whereby a man was boasting to me and another woman that his ex-girlfriend wore a "600 cup". What that's supposed to mean, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it has something to do with her bust measurement. For the man's sake, I hope he was taking the pee. If he was trying to be funny, nobody laughed; if he was trying to be impressive, we were not impressed (I know the general rule of the thumb is "the bigger the better", but there have to be some exceptions, surely), and if, heaven forbid, it is true that his ex-girlfriend had a bust measurement of 600, I can only presume that she ate A LOT of pies and that the woman has, by now, serious back problems. Him taking the pee out of us is the only feasible excuse for coming out with such a weird confession, I'm sorry.

Things didn't get any better for the poor soul who was trying to being smooth, either, for after making statements about his ex's alarming boobage, he then went on to inadvertently admit to wearing women's clothes - which might not have been such a bad thing, if it weren't for the fact that he didn't look like the most 'secure' of men.

I'm curious, though: is there such a thing as a good chat-up line? Did all the good ones become cheesy clichés, and all the bad ones, by default, become ridiculous? Even my cat has more class than most men these days: about a week ago, our tom demonstrated great chivalry in bringing a leaf in from outisde and placing it at our female cat's paws. This was right before, y'know, he jumped on her back and started biting her neck. But at least he was gentleman enough to bring her a gift first.

Ooh, to be a Gooner

OK, here's one very important thing you need to know about your blogger: she's a HUGE Arsenal fan.

That's not to say that I am both an Arsenal supporter and morbidly obese; rather, the severity to which I am consumed by Arsenal FC is quite huge. For instance, as I sit here now, typing away at my desk, I can see the following:

1. Framed photograph of Arsenal captain, Cesc Fabregas. He was the third man ever to steal my heart, after Michael Jackson (a sentiment I have since retracted ...R.I.P btw) and former Arsenal player, Marc Overmars. He's a quality player, but I fear I may have to take the picture down in the summer, should he decide to go to Barcelona. (And Cesc, if you're reading this, don't go to Barcelona, please. They'll stick you on the bench and you'll be doomed to forever exist in Lionel Messi's shadow. Even though, y'know, you're taller than him and all that.)
2. Tiny replica of the Arsenal bus. But shh: I stole it off my brother several years ago and he still hasn't noticed.
3. Thierry Henry: The Biography, by Oliver Derbyshire.
4. Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby.
5. A stationery box, upon which I covered with Arsenal stickers when I was about 10-years-old, including the old Arsenal crest and Patrick Vieira's former no.4 shirt.
6. The Arsenal Enclyopedia, I kid you not.
7. Two Arsenal matchday programmes.
8. Vieira: My Biography
9. Three other random Arsenal books.
10. An Arsenal blanket.

Also scattered around this room you'll find an Arsenal calendar, canvas prints of Dennis Bergkamp and Tony Adams, an Arsenal flag, several Arsenal shirts, an Arsenal beanie baby, an Arsenal hoodie, an Arsenal hat, Arsenal gloves, ticket stubs to Arsenal matches, Arsenal pyjamas and a couple of posters of the Arsenal team. Oh yeah, and I'm wearing a 1970s-style Arsenal shirt right now. Not to mention the wallpaper on my phone is a picture I took last year, while at an Arsenal match.

So you get that I like Arsenal, right?

That doesn't mean that if you don't like Arsenal you have to stop reading, though, nor will I hate you if you tell me you support Manchester United (though I will probably roll my eyes and mock throwing up; I should probably warn you now). However, it does tend to mean that I will like you considerably more if you tell me you happen to be a fellow Gooner. I'd make a totally crappy judge; I mean, can you imagine the scene in court?

Me: Mr So-and-so, you robbed seven stores, then ran over a pigeon and left it for dead. I hereby sentence you to six years in...
Defendant: Wait! The only thing I stole from the stores were Tottenham magazines. I was trying to save the small boys and girls the torture of seeing Robbie Keane's judging face staring down upon them as they peruse their favourite comic books. I ran over the pigeon because it called Fabregas overrated, and I only left it there because I had an Arsenal match to get to and I was late. Don't you understand!?!?
Me: Oh. [Long pause] Community service should do it, I would think.

Anyway, there was a point to all this. I'm just trying to remember what it was.

Oh yeah! I went to an Arsenal match last night. Anyone who caught the Arsenal vs. Partizan Belgrade match on ITV1 would surely remember seeing me (the woman looking cold) screaming at the pitch and declaring that "You [the Partizan Belgrade fans] are not singing anymore." Though, actually, they were. At one point one of them whipped off his shirt and waved his pie-gut to and fro, as if it were a football scarf. I'll never know.

[This is my evidence that I was actually there. Don't like it? Well, screw you: I'm a writer, not a photographer.]

I'm beginning to think that fans should get tickets on the basis of how noisy they are. I mean, I'm a quiet person, but stick a football scarf in my hand and chuck a few players on the pitch, and I'll have lost my voice by the morning.

I urge anyone, football fan or not, to get to a match at some point in your lifetime. There's nothing like getting away from it all for a couple of hours, and asking a complete stranger earning 100 times your wages, "Who ate all the pies?"

Let it snow, let it snow... then let it go.

I don’t really get why people like snow. Especially people who, like me, live in a fast-paced city which literally grounds to a halt whenever the temperature drops below zero. I suppose I can forgive the children for revelling in it; after all, they haven’t seen a lot of snow in their lives, making a snowman is fun for about fifteen minutes (five minutes longer than any other activity they might choose to embark upon) and there’s always the possibility of school being closed. But adults? I am ashamed of the lot of you.

Falling over is not fun, being cold is not fun, walking like a constipated penguin is not fun (finally it makes sense why penguins hobble the way they do; if their strides were any bigger there’d be a lot of bruised penguin bum-bums), travelling for hours longer than you should have to is not fun, and having some random idiot chuck a snowball at you from across the road is only fun if you are alert enough to retaliate within five seconds and chuck one back, in which case it is extremely fun. But that is the only exception.

I feel slightly conned. My favourite season is autumn, and with it snowing in November (yes, I’m aware it is now December, but it was snowing yesterday, OK?!?!), my favourite season has therefore been cut short. The owners of all those gas-guzzling 4x4s have a lot of explaining to do. (Yes, I am single-handedly blaming them. It would take too long to cite everyone else responsible.)