A couple of nights ago, over a drink with friends, we started trying to think up humorous funeral songs. Forget the meaningful, beautiful songs you’ve been planning to go out to your entire life – we wanted pure humour. After deliberating over fourteen minute long songs (your funeral guests getting bored and impatient, while still flushed with sadness writes its own jokes), we came up with our winner. Hit it!
It’s good, but we reckon there’s better out there. Leave links and suggestions in the comments below, and help us put the fun back into… well, you know the rest.
Two months into this website comes the first ‘Sorry for taking it slowly recently’. They’re not bad odds, and I have genuinely been busy. Did everybody have a good new years? I was here -
To get the ‘full picture’ of my amazing view, imagine watching this video from the opposite side of the river with one hand over your left eye, and the other hand obscuring most of your vision on your right eye. We were stood under a bridge.
Still, it was a great night with some amazing people. at 12.10am it snowed solidly for ten minutes, prompting cries of “It’s magic, it’s beautiful, it’s 2010″. In the spirit of things I may have commended on the snow being the work of Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) thanks to our recent steep rise in transport charges, but this was met with stern looks by the British public – and so it should have been. 2010 is exciting. 2010 is everybody’s ‘best year yet’, and with good reason. Let’s see what April – June has in store for us…
April 2010
April saw heavy snowfall across the UK in what could only be described by the Daily Mail as “Completely down to immigrants”, by the Guardian as “SNOWBLOG, LIVE BLOG, ROUND TWO!” and by the Express as “Completely intolerable, Diana wouldn’t have stood for it”.
Massive idiots complained across popular social networking sites, Twatter, Facewank and the BBC’s Have Your Say forum, displaying disbelief that the country had once again gone into standstill due to a ‘tiny little bit of snow’. One such idiot, Chelsea from Hackney, said “BluhsdasdasdjKAD”, while this utter moron, Benjamin from Streatham Hill said -
Benjamin needs to learn that Narnia jokes haven't been funny for several years, if they ever really were at all
May 2010
A second series of Surgery Live on Channel 4, hosted by your friend and mine, Krishnan Guru-Murthy came onto our screens in May. Following on from last years successful first run, the second series of Surgery Live, subtitled ‘the Switch’ saw real life surgeons handing over the reigns to Guru-Murthy as he attempted to perform life-saving surgery on several unaware patients over the course of the series.
However don’t look over this series as a simple gore-fest. Each week the surgeon involved in the programme has to present the show while Guru-Murthy works, creating just as many amusing moments as they mess up their auto-cues, as Guru-Murthy makes when he accidentally cuts the blue wire. Compelling viewing.
June 2010
In June Gordon Ramsay returned to our screens with his most controversial series yet, The C Word. Ramsay said the decision to ramp up the show (previously titled The F Word) came after it became apparent that the British public had become desensitised to regular levels of swearing.
“It’s all “Fuck this, fuck you, I fucked your mum, she fucked me back” nowadays, said Ramsay in a statement. “It’s no longer shocking, it’s no longer hip. If I ask my son if he’s done his homework he tells me to fuck off – not as an act of rebellion, that’s just the way the world speaks now. The little cunt”.
Waking up bright and early Tuesday morning I was distraught to discover that it was December 1st. The first of December. 01/12/09. In summary; THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS.
Where did 31st November go? I thought I had one more day, just one more day before the pissing tide of Christmas joy became acceptable once more.
But no. The real reason for my confusion lies in the simple fact that none of us really know how many days are in each month. “But you’re wrong, what about the rhyme?” I hear you snear. Well yes, Thirty Days hath September certainly has its uses, but you are remembering the (not so catchy) rhyme itself, not the actual content sitting within it.
We’re all guilty of it. It’s one of those things that we as human beings just simply never bother to learn throughout our entire lifetimes. We don’t act this way with anything else important in our lives. “Shall I learn how to walk?” Go on then. “Should I get into this whole business of ‘brushing my teeth’ twice a day?” If I must. “Should I try to remember how many days each of the months hold?” I’ll give it a miss.
Despite this, I am ridiculously judgemental when it comes to April. My birthday falls on 30th April (each year) – the last day of the month.
Because of this, I have always been fully aware of how many days April holds – it would be hard not to be. Throughout my childhood and now my young adult life, if a friend, relative, or indeed parent was trying to remember my birthday, I would snear and scold them for even beginning to suggest that it could be on April 31st. “April the what? How long have you been living on this planet that could make you possibly think April has 31 days. You’re a fool, Mum, a fool”.
So it seems we’re all as bad as each other. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to discover the principles behind daylight saving. Which is ‘the good one’ again?
It leaves you feeling all sorts of conflicting emotions on completion. After several long months you feel overjoyed, disorientated, and even somewhat beaten down. You have reached the end of the road, giving in now is the only way you can be at peace again.
You have just signed a contract on a new flat.
I’m not referring to the buying market here. I’m sure that has problems of its own. The rental market however, in the UK, in particular (from personal experience) London, is staggering at this moment in time.
This summer I moved flat. This wasn’t a rare occurrence for me – I have moved year on year since starting University – but this was certainly the most difficult move to date.
They say the two most stressful events in your life are getting married and moving house. On that token, this summer I married, divorced, and fathered four kids in the space of a month.
If it wasn’t the slimy estate agents, it was the impossible viewing hours, unnecessarily forceful negotiators and – in several cases – criminals in our mists.
Take this one email I received from a lovely con artist called ‘Olive’.
Hello,
Thanks for the email and nice to read from you,i can assure you of the viewing but i will like to discuss some thing with you, as you know am in Liverpool currently and before i can come down to London for the viewing i will like to see a proof of your financial capacity and to know how serious you are in need of the property… You will pay 3 months rent cash (£1890) to any of your friend, family,after you’ve made the transfer finish you will be given a receipt from the western union agent,you will have to scan and email me the receipt…
You can view the property next day after you prove the payment or when you have time.
Best Regards…
Best Regards Olive? Best regards indeed. Your poor attempt to con me may have put me off the delicious fruit (I looked it up) of your name for life but you didn’t get any money out of me. In all seriousness, I know it seems somewhat obvious by the terrible spelling and wacky concepts (at one point Olive complained that prospective tenants always “banging the phone on me”), but if you request details in a property and get anything along these lines, just ignore it. Or write a sweary blog about it, highlighting what a repugnant coward somebody like ‘Olive’ is.
Interestingly, Olive has my phone number.
But enough from the faceless, looking for a flat wouldn’t be the same without the estate agents. You feel dirty after being in their presence for more than a couple of minutes. When you shake their hand you swear you can feel them melting into you. They could have been doing anything with that hand prior to you happily marrying yours with theirs for a few short seconds – but that’s the nature of the game. The only requirements you need to be an active estate agent are:
Own your own car.
Be a total tosser.
That’s it. And if you can chew on gum throughout the day without at any point feeling a little bit sick you’re promoted within an instant.
So yes. It may be that I just didn’t go to the right places, or see the right people. But to be honest, they all seemed the same to me (save a couple of genuinely nice estate agents I met along the way… if you’re moving to SW16 or SW2 any time soon get in touch). They’d sell a burning building to a granny if they knew they’d be able to rush a payment along in time. And as for dear Olive, or Clive, or Dave, or whoever she is, I wish you every failure in all that you do.
Have you strapped yourself in? Well do it, it’s important. For here marks the obligatory first article in anybody’s blog – the article that promises so much, yet has every promise picked apart, piece by piece, over the coming weeks and months of it’s online presence.
What is a blog anyway? A collection of words strung together by an adolescent who dislikes everything save ‘the concept of misery’? I used to write a blog as a teenager. To read it now would undoubtedly bring back similar emotions to those of looking back on video footage of my childhood magic show – hideous embarrassment followed by resentment for anybody that didn’t play a part in stopping me at the time.
Needless to say I’ve grown up since then. I am no longer a self-loathing, people-loathing, world-loathing imbecile, I am a twenty-one year old man with, in my humble opinion, a good grasp of human nature, intelligence, and lack thereof.
To find out more about myself, Benjamin Spall, visit the about page. Please excuse the lack of content – I spent the majority of the time looking for a good photo of a cat to put alongside my details – eventually settling on no photo at all. Also, feel free to subscribe to my upcoming ramblings using any of the means placed under the ‘connect’ header opposite.
About
Benjamin Spall lives to laugh. He does little else. Only Logical compromises of commentaries and compositions written on a semi-regular basis. For further information, visit the about page.
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