Censorship

Do we love or hate censorship? I guess as a writer, although up to this point in time, never have I really worried about censoring my writing, I guess it's something I should start to think about.

I think I'm mostly against censorship, contradictory to what I said about computer games needing to be censored, but that's a little different. As far as I know books never have a sticker on the front with 15 or 18. I can't imagine Waterstones asking people for I.D before they can buy The Fermata, though perhaps it would be appropriate. I'm not sure a child would chose that book, it's hardly going to be on their primary school reading list.

In some catholic schools, science books are censored, the images of the sex organs in the biology books are completely blanked out with all the information removed. That's just senseless, is it not? Do they have to cover themselves up when they take a bath or a shower?

I know where I stand on writing being censored. I think everybody has the right to write and publish whatever they want where they want. I'm sure that writing would offend people, there would be homophobic writing for instance. If I can say how proud I am to be gay, somebody else can say how much it sickens them that i'm gay, can't they?

As long as they're not verbally or physically personally assaulting people I don't see the issue. I wouldn't have to read what they wrote and if I did I would probably just counter argue it on here. As I usually do. Remember when Newsweek were being homophobic? Then again, I'm not sure I would tolerate it, maybe I would be one of the ones complaining? Freedom of speech can never be that simple and I personally can't make up my mind whether or not everything is fair game.

Where I cannot make my decision mostly is over image censorship. Nudity in films often makes the film more powerful and usually is left in. Having a watershed in place helps tackle that. I see no reason to censor any nudity there may be in a magazine.
Okay, yes, a child may pick it up and see it, which would be inappropriate. Then again, many newsagents have pornography on their top shelves. Children can tilt their heads upwards, you know. I'm not talking about pornography, i'm talking about artistic nudity. For whatever reason it might be, if there is need for a character to be naked, on screen, in a book, or in a magazine then put it in.

Let's just not put naked men and women on every page. Having them pointlessly on every page 3 is irritating enough.

It's a difficult subject. You decide. Censorship, or no censorship?


Did anybody notice the maths problem in that photo?

No, I thought not.

Cheerleading

Yesterday, my editor type friend forced me to go cheerleading. She put me in a women's cheerleading outfit and everything.

I'm not going to tell you about it though. You'll have to somehow get a copy of this month's Dusted to read about it. It comes out 25th October, sorry none Derby readers. If there's an online issue i'll put the link here!

Shmoolio Foolio.

“You’re interviewing Aled Jones tomorrow aren’t you.” My editor type friend said to me at midnight. “Who? What? When?” I asked confused and suddenly worried.
“I told you this weeks ago!”
“Did you?”

I’m not convinced she did. I got up early the next day to listen to the Chris Moyles Show and do some research into Aled Jones. Within 12 hours I loved him. “Be there at 9.15” we were told. So we arrived early. 9 hit and I was told I would be interviewing let’s call him Shmoolio (so i don't get in trouble for defamation of character) as well. I knew nothing about him and we had no Google at our disposal. We quickly rustled up a few generic, but thought out, questions. 9:10. “We’ve lost the Aled interview.”

“Oh.” Disappointed face.
“But you can still do the Foolio interview.”
“Great…”

After aimlessly standing around for a good hour we were ushered down some corridors up to some offices where we found Toolio. He handed my editor type friend a lint roller. She uncomfortably rollered his back. He sat down and I asked my first question.

“Why do you care?” He answered. I made up some bollocks about how I enjoyed his music and a lot of students enjoy his music too. He looked at me blankly. I asked another question and got a similar response. I asked a third question, to which he span around in his chair and turned on a nearby computer.

I watched him dumbstruck; I looked to my editor type friend who mimed. “Carry on asking questions.” So I did, I carried on asking questions, with his back turned to me as he tried to hack into some poor soul’s computer. “I want to get on the internet.” He said. At this point I was pretty sick of flattering tired old Shmoolio and was uncomfortable playing to his ego. I carried on. He still tapped away at the keyboard with his back to me. “It’s time for you to go on Foolio.” A woman called from the corridor and he left without so much as a thanks, g’bye.

The second he left the room the only words that could escape my mouth were.
Oh. My. God.

It gave me some sordid satisfaction to see as we went downstairs not a button was interested in hearing him perform though. I think I would have left angry, though some G-Star models with their pristine abs out helped cheer me up.

Nothing like some hot men to take your mind off washed up talentless rappers.

Life Story

"Hiya!" I said to the passing attractive boys, "Would you like to..." they had already blanked me. I saw a well dressed girl wandering around on her own. I preyed on her. "Hi! Are you interested in contributing to the student magazine?"
"Oh hi. Sorry I look so rough, you see, I'm not feeling all that well to be honest with you. What happened was I think I picked up that, what do you call it? That fresher's flu! You know what with being surrounded by freshers for a fortnight, you're bound to get ill aren't you! The thing is, I'm thinking about having a party, wouldn't that be great? My Birthday is coming up so I thought I could invite everybody from the University and have them all dress up. We could have a theme and everything. Have you seen my earings by the way? Do you think they're nice? I went into Zara today and they had all these new earrings so I thought i'd get a pair. Nice? Oh and have you seen that man over there? He's quite good looking, isn't he? He's going to get me a t-shirt. Well, it's not for me. It's for my little sister. Well, I say little sister. She's 16! I'll always see her as a little five year old though. You know what I mean?"
"Uh huh." I said with bewilderment. "And do you want to write for the student magazine?"
"Oh. No, but could you put that in the bin." she said handing me some rubbish, taking a handful of compliementary sweets and walking away.

It was no surprise that we gave up five minutes later. "We're going to get pizza" we chorused in unison and left our friend to man the magazine desk on her own. "Don't be long!" she called back. We were gone less than 30 seconds when we were distracted by a smiling lady with scissors. "Would you like to make something to put on the love tree?" She handed me some scissors. I looked back at our friend, stood on her own, waiting for us to come back. I looked at the pizza stand. I looked at the scissors.

Ten minutes later, as I was attempting to cut a love heart out of brown fur, my friend turned to me and said. "Cal. I think we're off task."

No Such Thing as a Selfless Good Deed.

As you may have read, yesterday I decided to do my best to be overly generous towards the world. I tossed every item of clothing I’ve not worn in the past 6 months into two big bags and put them by the front door, ready to be donated to the charity shop when it opened on Monday. I found my change jar and counted out the, 1ps, 2ps, 5ps and 10ps. £5.80 total. I decided I would bring it to the church, after I did inadvertently steal 30p when I was 5, I felt with interest that was probably about how much I owed them.

I did the usual things, made Lee breakfast in bed, nipped out to buy him some chocolate and pain killers to nurse his hangover, but these things were nothing out of the ordinary. I was trying to think of a selfless good deed. As I racked my mind I began to realise that there really isn't such a thing. Giving clothes to charity, freed up my wardrobe, I had some of the chocolate I bought Lee, as well as making myself breakfast and bringing money to the church would make me feel good, or so I thought.

I left the flat and went to the church on my street. Closed. I walked to the City Church. Closed. I walked to the church in town. Closed. Sundays aren't what they used to be. I could hear church bells in the distance coming from the cathedral so I followed them and surely enough people were queuing outside to go in.

I waited patiently behind the masses of slow moving elderly people until I got inside. A smiling woman greeted everybody and handed them a booklet of some description. "What do you want!?" she said infuriated as I reached the front of the queue. "Oh, sorry. Am I doing something wrong?" I asked, out of natural instinct, like a child being told off. She said nothing. "I've just come to give a small donation." She shook her head and waved me away.
"It's over there." Her choice of words confused me. The box was next to her, she was touching it in fact. I looked at the box, the slot in the top looked like it was for notes only. "Excuse me, is this for notes or coins?" She didn't answer. I waited patiently as she greeted more church-goers. "Why are you just standing there?!" she practically screamed, getting really irate with me. "This looks like it's just for notes, is there anywhere I can leave this."
"Just put it down, put it down!" she turned her back on me again. I left the money on the side and went to leave. "Oi! What are you doing?"
"I just left it on the side." I said puzzled.
"WELL CAN'T YOU EMPTY IT!?" she bellowed, frightening the elderly people at the front of the queue. It made me feel so small. Never has anybody treated me with such disrespect in my entire life. I stood at the donation box, forcing 10ps into a slot that was far too small. I felt like a fool. I finished emptying the coins and went to leave. "Thanks very much." I said with a smile as I left. The woman dropped her arms down at her side and rolled her eyes in forfeit.

I left the church with a feeling of sadness and depression. Not the happy feeling I was hoping for. Never will I donate money to the church again. I guess I must remember that the money doesn't go into that woman's pocket and it will go on to help in some small way. That's a wonderful thing. Thinking of it makes me pleased.

Sadly, this proves there really is no such thing as a good deed. Or is there? Let me know your thoughts. I hope yesterday's readers were inspired to do something generous. If you did, leave a comment.

For every comment on this post I'll donate an extra 10p to http://www.stonewall.org.uk/.

Forever Young

I do wonder what the big excitement around youth is about, I feel it myself, of course. But why? A gay barman, who thought my name was Hayden (a story for another time), once told me that a gay man's mid-life crisis is at 21. That leaves me only 8 months. Ouch. I don't consider myself old though, i'm not that naiive and blind. 20 is young, 29 is young in my books.

So, what is the secret behind youth? What is it that we all desire in youth? When we have it we don't want it; when it's gone, we do. Youth is perception, you really are as young as you feel, your Grandma is telling the truth. She can pull some hot tricks on the trampolene.

Not only do we desire to be young ourselves, we desire young partners. Last night's X Factor evening proved this. The five of us gathered around the T.V lusting after the barely legal singing, dancing, bags of hormones. It's a very rare occasion that I find a 16 year old attractive, they would have to look old for their age, 19-21 is my preference at this point in time. If you are sitting at home right now judging me. He's legal, what do I care what you think?
*swoons*

It's not the same for all of us though, I do know a choice few people, my age, who find Richard Nixon and Richard Madeley sexy. Ew. Just ew. I should hope that as I age myself, my taste in men will age with me. I can't ever imagine finding a middle aged man attractive though. Urgh.

I guess we should always look forward, no matter what your age. 16, 20, 29, 40, 60, 122. We're always going to be looking back and reminscing. Those memories keep us young. No matter how much you wish it, you will never be able to go back and live them. That's why they're memories. A film is never as good the second time around, so what makes you think life would be?

I know what some of my older readers must be thinking right now. Yeah, right o, Cal. Give it twenty years and then say that. They're probably right.

I look back sometimes to when I was a child and wonder how I was so ridiculously, in lack of a better word, stupid. When I was about five I was sat in church on a Sunday as the collection plate was being passed around. The woman next to me passed it to me and said. "Do you have any pocket money?" I looked up at her slightly puzzled, said "No, thank you." and took 30p from the plate. I wish I still had that same understanding of life. Then again, I guess when you're young it's all about taking and not giving, that changes with age. Adults love to give, not take(there's a joke in there somewhere), which is undeniably a desirable trait. A reason we should appreciate our age and not always want to go backwards.

In honour of that thought, today is a day for giving. I'd like you to join me in being generous today, small or little.

First thing on my list is to return 30p I unknowingly stole 15 years ago. I'll let you know how I get on.

Watch this space!

Paper Trails

As tempting as it is to write about snail trails rather than paper trails, I think that would be an incredibly shallow thing to do.

*cough*

This world is full of lies, it's unavoidable. However, with modern technology where there is a lie there is always a trail. We all tell our little white lies, "No! You don't look fat in that dress, don't buy it though. You ought to save your money." Some of us tell black lies too. "No, i don't have a girlfriend. Come back to mine!" Those are the types I'm here today to talk about.

Why do people feel the need to lie? Why can't people be more open and honest? I'd like to think I'm pretty open about every part of my life. I'd like to think. But come on guys, if you are going to go off and do something terrible, (No judgement here!) could you at least try to cover it up propperly?

There's facebook and emails and texts and call histories. There's friends who will keep it 'secret' and eyes in every corner. We hear things from friends of friends, we find a suspicious receipt, a questionable red wine stain on your jeans, or lip stick on your colar. Regardless of what you say or do, we are going to find out.

So why do people cheat? We look in the celebrity world and we find they're no better for it. LeAnn Rhymes, Britney and J-Lo. Brad Pitt, Jude Law and Ryan Phillipe.
Why can't they keep it in their pants for five minutes? Have they not looked at their husbands/wives?


Oh yeah, I'm married to an underwear model, but look, that boy is wearing a hat. *gets distracted and has sex with him*

... Have a little self respect people!

Oh and BTW - For those of you who have alarm bells shooting off. Lee and I are fine, this was spurred on by a conversation about celebrities last night.

Now be good.



I don't care how big he tells you it is. You have a boyfriend. Behave!