Snails in their armchairs...

We've all heard of facebook rape, no? Well it's where somebody gets hold of your password and adds a status just like. "I like boys." or "I'm gay" or something like that. After fighting off Lee from my facebook account, he somehow got into my blog account, and before i edited this foreward and title in, it read as follows.

"I like flowers, and cameras. I follow the tracks of snails to find them in their armchairs. I like to sit and let off cannon balls in to the sky to fight off evil rain clouds!"

I don't know why. He's gay too. Can you tell?

An Online Intellectual Discussion...

"Why do you feel the need to be-little me in every way you can possibly think of?"
"There's no hyphon in be-little..."
"You can't even spel 'hyphen'."
"You can't even spell 'spell'."
"Yeah... Well... So's your face"

When logic declines into nonsensical farce you just can't argue with it.

Homophobic Tilers? Surely Not!

We come home from a day out and find our front door wide open. We go into the entrance hallway, up the stairs and up to our inner door, which also is wide open. Feeling slightly nervous we go inside to find a shifty looking gentleman, wearing track suit bottoms and a baseball cap.
"Ar, yaright lads. Sorreh I'm just like doing your tiles and shit aren't ah"
"Okay." we say going past him upstairs. I peer into the bathroom as i pass it, and find he is telling the truth, and has taken all of the tiles off the wall. Making a mess of the bathroom only cleaned that morning. He goes back to work and we sit uncomfortably watching TV in the front room. Another man comes in and they start talking to one another really loudly.

"Can't be doing with these fucking tiles."
"I know. Fuck sake. If people didn't spend s'long in't shower this wunt happen."
"Look. They've got little baff ducks n' everyfin. They must spend all day in't bath playing with their ducks."
"Yeah. Faggots. They need to grow up propper. Like real men. Some good women'll sort 'em out."
"Yeah. A good woman. It'll help 'em grow up."

I'm extremely offended as they are refering to the bath ducks, 1, I recieved from my Grandma, as a leaving present, and 2, that Lee bought me for Christmas. Interior designers use bath ducks these days i'll have you know! I felt like saying to them... but didn't.

Besides I thought. How the hell do they know we're gay? While i'm thinking this my friend sends me a link over facebook. "Watch this!" I click it. It's a Sophie Ellis Bextor song, I quickly close it.

"Sorry, I can't listen to that now. We've got some really manly homophobic tilers in."
"Oh sorry." [A few moments later] "How about this one?" He sends me a link to a gangster rap video. I close that quickly as well, only to hear the tilers singing it a few minutes later.

"Orite lads, finished naa, you got a bag for ma roller?"
"I look in the cupboard. There are a few Tesco bags, and a H&M bag at the back. I give him that, hoping to in some way it'd diminish his manlyness. "Nice one. In a bit lads." He leaves and his friend follows him. Once they've left I go downstairs to lock the door and as I pass our bedroom, I notice the door wide open, clearly exposing the two framed pictures we have on the wall, with our gay pride flag hanging between them.

The first: A male Pacco Rabanne model.
The second: A male D&G model.

Lee comes up behind me. "And you wonder why he knew we were gay?"
"They're your pictures."
"Yeah... you bought them me."

In hindsight I think we were equally to blame.

“Were The World Mine” – (A Very Casual ‘Ranty’ Review)

Aside from the confusing title, this film was terrible, but bare with me, because I really, really, really enjoyed it. Slap me aside and tell me to grow up for going all light-headed and happy at a gay romance story if you want, but it was a real feel good film and very enjoyable to watch. It told the story of a young homosexual boy in secondary school performing in the school play. The whole thing is very much ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ orientated, twisting the conventions of Shakespeare very slightly to make it very homo-related. The protagonist is very much a real life ‘Puck’. From reading ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ he concocts a love potion and goes around the town making everybody fall in love with same sex counterparts. He also uses the potion on the ‘Hot Jock Boy’ (Their words not mine) he is in love with, little does he know the jock already loved him back and the whole story unravels in a tedious, yet somewhat cute way. There is a lot of comedy in the film: the homophobic P.E teacher pursuing his new found love for the male elderly principle; the homophobic bullies falling in love with one another; accidentally causing his best friend to fall in love with him, much to the displeasure of his best friend’s girlfriend and causing a middle aged woman to fall in love with his own mother are but a few of the interloping side stories

The film has some sad parts too, watching the mother struggling with her son being gay, and watching her try to uphold the families survival with no money are both heartbreaking twists. Watching her sat up in the middle of the night cutting up her wedding dress, to make her son wings for the school play, really shows her affection and dedication to him, even though she is having trouble dealing with his homosexuality. The story briefly touches upon religious beliefs over Christianity, but it moves away from that very quickly to get back to the comedy. Two women driving down the street, seeing same sex couples ‘getting it on’ everywhere they look is pleasing to watch, however when they start getting chased by women it has a ‘zombie film’ feel to it and it’s all very strange.

I died inside at the end when the bully puts his hand on the gay couples’ shoulders and says “I want to see you two lovebirds at my party tonight”. I was sat thinking. “That would never happen”. It ruined the whole thing, which is why I previously deemed it terrible.
There’s some weird basketball meets ballet moments too. Topless men floating around playing basketball and doing ballet. It sounds too good to be true. Well it is. To be quite honest with you, it’s somewhat scary, and incredibly weird.
Oh, and like I probably should have mentioned at the start of this review; it’s actually a musical. Not that you would know. It features a limited number of songs, which are awful and confusing and all sound the same. This film is really for lovers of films like ‘The Notebook’ (Which I haven’t seen but I know the jist of it) and ‘A Walk to Remember’. It’s all very American, cheesy and full of bad romantic gestures, but it makes you feel slightly fuzzy inside none the less.

Malayalam

Just over two years ago whilst I was still in sixth form we had a girl from Saudi Arabia join our school. We quickly made friends with her, she taught us some phrases in her language: Malayalam - (It's a palindrome!). In exchange we taught her slang and explained some parts of our society that she didn't understand.

Lee's 18th Birthday was approaching fast and I had gone to a lot of effort setting up a big surprise party for him. Nearly everyone was invited and I thought it appropriate to invite our new friend.

"We're throwing a huge surprise party for Lee next week, I'm sure he would love it if you could be there."
"What do you mean by surprise party?"
"Oh. It's just a party but he doesn't know about it till it actually happens. We all jump out and shout surprise."
"Oh. Like a secret party?"
"Yeah. So don't tell Lee okay?"
"Okay. I don't know if I can come though. I will let you know."
"Okay. Remember, it's a secret so don't tell Lee."
"I won't!" She puts her finger on her lips.

The day before his party, Lee, our bear-look-alike-friend, and me are walking down the street, we see our Saudi Arabian friend on the other side of the road. She waves. We wave back. She shouts across the street at the top of her voice.
"Lee! Lee! I'm coming to your surprise party!" Luckily the passing traffic is quite loud and Lee doesn't hear what she says. "What?" he shouts back. My bear-look-alike-friend begins singing 'Oh Fortuna' really loud to try and stop him hearing.
"I'm coming to your surprise party!"
"What?"
"I'm coming to your surprise party!"
"LA LA LA LA LA LA" I say in Lee's ear trying to distract him, my friend changes song to 'Ride on time'.
"Shut up. Stop singing. I can't hear what she is trying to say."
"I'm coming to your surprise party!"
"What?! What is she saying?"
"I think she is just speaking Malayalam again. Come on."
"No, I think she is saying something about a party."
"Lee!" she shouts again. I look at her and put my finger on my lips. "Oh yeah! It's a secret! Nevermind."
"She's very perculiar that one isn't she." Lee says as we manage to get him around the corner.
"So, any plans for tomorrow? What are we going to do for my Birthday?"

I like a woman with junk in the trunk...

Yet another post about the supermarket.

I've got to stop writing these...
I really have to stop writing these...
This is the last one...
I promise...

Standing at the self check-out at 9pm, the shop nearly empty, a woman comes up to the check-out next to me and starts scanning on her shopping. The security guard walking up and down between the check-outs turns to her, kisses his teeth and says over her shoulder.

"Arl-riy-eet big tits."

She smiles awkwardly but doesn't say anything back.

"I like a woman with junk in the trunk."

How inappropriate I think. A middle aged woman opposite has the exact same sentiment. The only difference is that I keep my mouth firmly shut and she decides to voice it.

"Excuse me. I don't think it's appropriate for a staff member to talk to a customer like that."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Chill out Grandma... She's ma sister."

"He's ma brother."

"And that makes it better? If anything that's worse. It is worse. You really talk to your sister like that?"

"Yeah. We close. We reeeel close."

He stands behind her whispering something into her ear. They lean their heads back and cackle in unison, revealing their countless gold fillings. The woman opposite takes her shopping and leaves.

"Next time i'll go to 'M&S'. If I wanted to assosiate with your sort i'd have gone to 'Netto'."

Shall we have a pine cone fight?

Satnav: Turn right.

We turn left. 15 minutes later we are back in the same place. Our friends following us in the car behind don't look amused. I get a text. "Loving the big circle guys. Shall we lead now?" They take over; flipping us the bird in the maturist of ways. Laughing as they go.

We reach our destination. An extremely steep car park. Our friends get out of their car. They look at us puzzled still sat in our car, daring not to move. They wave us over. We stay in our seats. They look confused so I ring them. "We can't get out..."
"Why?"
"The handbrake doesn't work and we'll roll down the hill. Watch." My friend takes her foot off the brake and we slowly roll backwards. They laugh. They don't help.

We play hide and seek amongst waterfalls and watermill ruins, drinking ribena and eating black jacks.
"Ruined water? What does that mean?"
"Ruined water mill. Did you get bored halfway through the sentence?" She doesn't answer.
"Shall we have a pine cone fight?" She proffers.
"I think you're conveniently forgetting the pine cones..."
"Then a rock fight?"
"That would hurt."
"Twig fight?"
"We're not having a fight!" She looks upset.

On the way home my friend turns to me and says. "Do you feel grown up?"
"Like an adult? Not really. Why?"
"Well it's just. We've had a really grown up day. We're like adults now."
"Are you serious?" I ask with utter disbelief.
She nods.

[The lovely photos featured above are from the work of the splendiferous Hannah Millard. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hannahmillard/ Pay her a visit, you won't be sorry!]