Posts by craig2501:
- Unless you are tall enough to eat leaves of the tops of trees then you will inevitably be stabbed in the face at some point on a rainy day by someone walking along oblivious to what is going on.
- Once people have opened them then they quickly become an object of lethal warfare as people use them as a form of weaponry to clear the path in front of them. As I not the tallest man in the world then I usually get ushered into the middle of the street by an umbrella wielding mum of 3 who looks like Mary Poppins on crack as she sweeps through the streets at full speed with her umbrella and soaking brood.
- Umbrellas don’t actually work. You only have to walk through any city after a rain storm and it looks like a graveyard following an umbrella apocalypse. People walk around with their umbrellas as proud as punch until a gust of wind catches it, turns it inside out and then all of a sudden it makes them look like they are having a dual with some sort of fabric monster and ferociously fight with it and wrestle the bastard thing until they have had enough and then seem to just throw it to where ever it lands.
- Not only do they not work, but when you are the person without one and you get invited to come and under someone elses, don’t do it. You will not be protected from the elements, instead the umbrella owner is only showing off their power by making you stand slightly on the periphery of it so every single drop that cascades down off the umbrella seems to magnetically find its way to the back of your neck and trickle slowly down your skin.
Umbrella Rage
May 2nd, 2012
Southern Britain is officially in a state of drought. We have had two of the driest winters since records begun and it is now an offence to use a hosepipe or to wash your car with anything less than the dirty bath water your gran has just used.
Oh, and also April was the wettest April in 20 years. Don’t you love it when you watch the news and they justify the state of the economy or weather by using data from 45 years ago as a benchmark for how the daily precipitation rates have changed.
It has now rained non stop for about 2 weeks and approximately half the country is in a state of flash floods and cars are racing ducks through the flooded streets – oh, and we are still in an official drought!! Only the British! Not only do we love talking about it, but we love fighting with ourselves as to whether it is flooded or drought.
Let me tell you one thing I hate though - Umbrellas. I absolutely despise them. This is not just some irrational homo rant, I really do hate them.
Here is my rationale why, I am almost positive most FP readers will nod along with some of these:
I understand the desire of an umbrella, and that people simply don’t to get wet, however for every one person who is saved from the rainfall by an umbrella, there are at least 5 other people in the near proximity who are being raped by the bloody thing!
Evil
April 25th, 2012
There has been a story which has captured the attention of most people across Europe over the past couple of weeks – the prosecution of Anders Behring Breivik. This is the white supremacist who on 22 July 2011 detonated a bomb in the Norwegian Capital Oslo, killing 8 people and injuring 209, before dressing as a police officer and travelling to a small island on a lake NW of Oslo and saying he had been sent to protect all the children on a Youth Camp before slaughtering 69 young people with an arsenal of firearms.
What has particularly caught the attention of so many Europeans is the detail by which Breivik is openly discussing the reasons behind his decision to create the worst peacetime atrocity in Norway’s history. His graphic explanation of his desire to teach the nation of the risks of multi-culturalism has not only shocked but sickened anyone following the story.
This has really got me thinking about what makes people evil. Is it something you are born with or is it something that permeates your soul as you go through life with societal influences compounding how you think.
You only have to look at modern history to see a back catalogue of infamous ‘evil’ people, intent on showing the world audience their views through manipulation, violence and ethnic cleansing.
Hatred and prejudice are evidently taught. Young children shouting ‘Poof, Faggot, Nigger’ and other terms of hatred to people in the street can surely only have inherited this behaviour from those living around them, but what is it that causes the catalyst that escalates people from the levels of ignorance and prejudice to wanting to carry out crimes so horrific that they create history?
People that choose to chase a dog down the street before kicking it so violently it dies or abducting and murdering a child surely are born with the gene to be evil. What is it in society that creates this kind of mindset that even tells this person that this kind of behaviour is anything but abhorent?
Thankfully these kind of people really are few and far between and these kind of atrocities rarely happen which I hope this is in part to society becoming more accepting of the human race no matter how diverse it is. There will always be evil I guess but lets just pray that this gene pool eventually becomes so weak that it can’t survive how fast society is changing.
The Final Countdown
April 18th, 2012Today marks the 100 day countdown until what is being termed ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’, the 2012 London Olympic Games.
There is a real palpable feeling of excitement and anticipation throughout not only the city but the entire country as the 30th Olympic and Paraolympic Games hits our shores and spreads throughout the UK.
To mark the 100 day countdown I thought I would share with you the 2012 Olympic Firework Display on NYE which showcases the best in British music and will give you a little taste of what to expect throughout July and August in this years celebrations.
I know I am a bit pathetic but I actually got really emotional when I saw this. I am so excited about the world seeing London at its best this summer and this little show just only goes to show why we are called Great Britain.
Bikini Body
April 11th, 2012
Why does shit food taste so good? Seriously, I don’t think there is one reader of this blog who would not agree with me.
Shit food that is so bad for you tastes so bloody good! It’s true. I would happily have a stand up argument with any nutritionist/dietitian or personal trainer who argues that a mung bean salad and tofu crumble is way more delicious than a huge juicy burger and bowl of chips with a nice cold coke.
I bet some of you have just licked your lips and can actually taste how good that would be!!
Yes, granted it is massively more unhealthy than a tasteless bland beige salad, but the worse it is for you the better it tastes!! Imagine if they could genetically engineer a carrot to taste like a Krispy Kreme, then surely to God we would all be stick thin?
It is now the time of year to get my ass into gear.
January is the post Christmas bulge where that bit of extra fat acts as insulation for the winter months.
February is a miserable month and so a few extra bars of chocolate and bags of chips wont really show as it is still baggy sweater and jacket season.
March is in-between Winter and Spring so the beaches still seem like a long way off.
April is ‘Oh Fuck’ where did that extra roll of fat come from, and ‘I have HOW many weeks to try and get a six pack?’ .
This happens every year. Every single April I seem to be surprised that the summer is around the corner and that I am going to have to put on a small pair of swim shorts and soon be visible to the public and without a pretty intense few months of gym work it ain’t a pretty look!
Any gay guy will know that there is a gay summer uniform. It is all about the body beautiful, and nicely tailored shorts and a firm ripped stomach is order of the day. This summer I have decided to spin it around a little and so have ripped shorts and a round tummy. I think the Europeans are probably a little more vain than Americans – don’t forget we have the Spanish and Italians and you only need to head to any beach on either country to know it is all about image.
The saddest thing is that I am writing this whilst eating a bar of chocolate and convincing myself that it is a carrot and I don’t need to go to the gym today. A day off will do me good!
US Gun Law
April 4th, 2012
Tragically news has hit our screens this morning that seven students have been killed by a gunman on a Californian campus, which follows another college shooting late February in Ohio where 3 students were murdered.
Violence seems to be an integral part of modern society and whether this is exacerbated by horror/violent movies, video games or violence on television is for criminologists and psychologists to investigate. However I can’t help but think there is one massively influencing factor, the ease of access to guns and what appears to be incredibly relaxed gun laws in America.
I am sure some of you reading this will be thinking that I have no idea what I am talking about, and you are absolutely right.
I have no idea on American law and particularly gun law, however I am addicted to world news and always like to know what is going on and why it has happened. I blame my mum for this trait.
I am an outsider looking in and sometimes this is the best place to be to get a clear picture on how things are working, and it seems that news channels regularly carry high profile stories of shootings in America. I am not naive enough to think this is isolated to one country and in deed we have our own fair share of shootings in London, though these tend to be gang related where the crime perpetrator has acquired the firearm illegally.
My issue is how it can be so easy to legally own a firearm and how so often now it seems to end in tragic circumstances.
In Australia in 1996 a gun massacre in Tasmania resulted in a very conservative government to push through considerably restrictive gun laws to minimise the risk of such an attack happening again. However the change of US law on such topics seems to be a far more complex issue which purely from my point of view needs immediate attention.
A very simple question – How many more of these atrociousness attacks need to occur before things change?
It is incredibly difficult to own a gun licence in the UK and in no city throughout the country would anyone hold a gun, there is no need to. If you are caught with a gun it is an immediate prison sentence.
Unless you are a farmer or an avid hunter (which is a whole difference subject and also sickens me) I fail to understand why you would want to, or need to, keep a gun. Surely the saying Fights Fire with Fire is a sad reflection on why gun crime seems so prolific?
Knock Knock
March 28th, 2012
Today’s blog comes to you live from the Republic of Ireland where I am on a 3 day business trip.
I know that a lot of FP readers have some long lost distant relative in Ireland (just like Obama supposedly does?!?!) so I will have to be very careful with what I write as I don’t want rotten potatoes lobbed at me by your grans, brothers, nephews, 3rd cousins sisters friend!
Trust me, in Ireland everyone knows each other.
I landed in Knock, County Mayo on Monday and it was literally like landing in Lord of the Rings. The airport is absolutely tiny and when you exit you are instructed that if you wish to fly out of Knock then you have to pay a charge at the departure gate (on top of your ticket price) to ensure the functioning of the airport.
WTF? I am flying here on business to try and support the economy of a country which is officially bankrupt and they are charging me to leave? OK, perhaps I will just stay then. It is only 10Euro, but it is the principal of the matter.
Ireland really is beautiful, stunning in fact. There is fuck all here, but it is beautiful.
When I flew in to land in Knock I honestly didn’t see anything other than fields and trees the entire flight from the East to West Coast. The Emerald Isle really is just a vast space of green, but as far as fields go they are pretty spectacular.
My colleague picked me up from the airport and reminisced as we drove through the country roads down to Galway about where the IRA had murdered people and planted bombs, and my nervous laugh and retort that it doesn’t really happen anymore was quickly replied with;
“Oh sure to be sure like, it still happens now like, sure, yes sure”
Later that evening the conversation quickly came back into my mind when I went for a run along the coastal path and looked down to notice I was wearing England football shorts. I run like the love child of Forest Gump and Roseanne Barr and am pretty much a moving target for any terrorist wanting to take a pop at a fairly little English man, so ran as fast as I could and ran back to my room.
This isn’t the first time I have been to Galway, and I would urge any of you who are in Europe to come and pay this small Irish city a visit. It is magnificent. You can keep Dublin, it’s rubbish. A dirty let down of a city, but Galway is great. If I left my hotel here and decided to go for a swim, 3103 miles later I would reach New York. I hate swimming and am not a great fan of the cold, so would probably fly, but the option is there I guess.
Galway is the third largest city in Ireland, but still with only a population of 75,000 and truly feels like a small Irish community but surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and fields, mountains and castles on the other.
I can’t understand a word of what anyone says as they literally have their own sayings and phrases which make no sense to anyone other than themselves. I thought there was a language barrier with Americans, but Irish people are a whole different story. To hear that someone likes the crack doesn’t mean they are sat with a syringe, spoon and cooking equipment, they simply like having a laugh.
Tonight I am being taken to a traditional Irish pub by some clients to experience a traditional night of Irish music, food, drink and frivolities and I have to say I am really looking forward to the crack.
The only bad thing though is that being a homosexual is Ireland can become pretty obvious. I have a feeling that tonight I might be the only man sat in the pub with a mango and passionfruit Mojito or Woo Woo in my hand rather than a pint of Guiness. Oh Well,
Easter Egg Hunt
March 21st, 2012
If I were to invite you on an Easter Egg hunt, you would think I was going to ask you to hop around the garden in an ill fitting bunny outfit with a pink plastic basket and trying to find the chocolate eggs hidden amongst the slugs and rotting vegetation before your children do, right? Wrong.
Replace your garden with the entire city of London, and replace the chocolate eggs with giant eggs beautifully designed by some of the world’s top artists. Welcome to the Faberge Big Egg Hunt.
Hidden across London are 200 giant eggs which have been individually designed by famous and local lesser known artists, all of which have a keyword which must be text to a stated number by the hunter before moving across the city to find the next one.
Why would you want to do this? Well only to win a £100,000 one off Diamond Jubilee Jewel encrusted Faberge Egg, that’s why.
Every single bit of money generated from the texts are given to appointed charities and each of the eggs are auctioned off and proceeds also going to the same charities.
I could be having the worst of days at work and walk round the corner to see one of the eggs and instantly a smile comes to my face – some of the eggs are incredibly beautiful and so clever that you can stand and watch people walk past and the beauty and humour is infectious as you see people smile as they walk past.
Visit the hunt websiteto view all the eggs and where they are scattered around London, and click on the Eggs and Artists tab at the bottom of the page to view the Eggsalent hidden gems. (Sorry, I had to do it).
Time Anxiety
March 14th, 2012
As far back as my memory stretches I seem to remember always having this peculiar fear of being late to places or meetings.
Us guys have this pretty easy routine before going out to an event – shit, shower, shave. Simple. We are done. My Mum seemed to always a routine which included anything and everything that she walked past and needed tweaking. Then she would do a fashion show and check that we like her outfit. If we said yes we love it, then she would go and change into the alternative to show us. I never got that. I never will. But all the time the clock was ticking and I would be getting more anxious that we would be late. Even if it was to a Parent – Teacher Day at school to find out just how stupid I was I still had an inherent fear that we would be late for this.
As a child the anxiety was fairly containable as I had very little control on what we did, but this has now seemed to take on a life of its own and manifest itself on a grand scale as I have matured into adulthood.
I am absolutely not exaggerating when I say that this anxiety consumes me.
It is not a case of me just wanting to be at places on time and to not appear to be rude or late, but I actually begin to get physiological changes when there is even the remotest chance I wont be somewhere on time. My hands sweat, my heart starts to beat a little faster and I get those horrid pangs in the stomach.
If I have a meeting that is perhaps an hour away, I will always give myself a minimum of 2 hours to get there, sometimes a lot more. And if I have a flight to catch, well I will happily allow myself a good 5 hours to get to an airport and check in. It’s fucking ridiculous and I know how irrational it all is. In my complex little mind I need to prepare for all eventualities and you never know whether a lorry of rubber ducks might have overturned on the highway leading to the airport, or perhaps the train might break down and I need to factor that into my preparation.
I would much rather sit in an airport lounge and drink all the free alcohol and munch on enough peanuts to feed the worlds monkey population than be sitting in a traffic jam sweating like a man on death row and getting angry with myself for not predicting it.
At parties I am ALWAYS the first one there. Stood on my own pretending to text people on my phone and just looking like I have been stood up on a date, and when it comes to work meetings I am renowned for people seeing me reclining in my car seat and resting as I had to get up at something like 2am to ensure I could shower, change, get in car (hopefully it hasn’t been stolen) and get there on time.
Time Anxiety is horrific. As far as I know, no one else in my family gets anxious about being late. Maybe when I was born I was super late and this is just me trying to make up for it, who knows!
I rationalise with myself and try to leave a little bit later, but it just isn’t worth the stress. I am quite content at 5am to be sat with a bottle of wine and a packet of peanuts on my own in an airport and find that I get on really well with cleaners and night staff as they are the only people to talk to.
Now where did I put that watch?
This is what crazy sounds like
March 7th, 2012Every time I listen to this I end up rolling around laughing so hard.
I think we have all met someone, or been a little bit like this poor girl at some point in our lives!
Enjoy. It is truly brilliant.
This Is What Crazy Looks Like Via Text Messaging… by Fletch And Vaughan
Gender Identity Disorder
February 29th, 2012
One of the great things about writing on Friday Puppy is that it is a medium that allows me to discuss something with myself and then within hours of posting it there is usually a response from someone who might have a completely different perspective on the topic that I have, and it allows me to re-evaluate what I think.
Today’s subject is very much for this purpose as it is a subject in the media spotlight in the UK at the moment, and for once I am not sure what to think about it.
I truly believe that everyone is born with a unique identity, which combines personality, sexuality, physicality and emotion and this shapes you as a human, which in turn gets influenced by external factors.
I know this from first hand experience having lived the first decade and a half of my life as a happy child but a child who was confused because I was a young gay teenager growing up in a straight persons world. I knew I was gay, and knew this from a young age. There were times when I was desperate not to be, but as an adult I feel blessed to be born the person I am. I couldn’t be happier with who I am and feel that my sexuality has helped shape me.
I knew who I was, and was always very comfortable with the body I was born into. Personally speaking sexuality doesn’t make you unhappy with your body, just the emotions that controlled how you thought, felt, loved and lived.
But imagine being born into a body that just didn’t seem yours. You’re personality didn’t match your physicality and looking at your body every day would sicken you and drive you to desperation. The desperation so chronic that it drove you to attempt to cut your own penis off. Now imagine having those feeling when you are only 4 years old.
I am also positive that for some of you reading this might you not need to imagine, as some of you may have experienced this. Gender Identity Disorder.
Vogue Hypocrisy
February 25th, 2012
I love Adele. I don’t love Vogue – Unless I have necked a Tequila and am throwing some moves on the dance-floor.
The latest edition of Vogue screams hypocicy to me.
Adele seems to be the worlds sweetheart at the moment. 6 Grammys under her belt, 2 Brit Awards (think of them a Grammy’s baby cousin), plus a whole wall of Gold and Platinum discs. So she is truly hot property.
Therefore it doesn’t surprise me that every man and his dog is trying to get a piece of her and find out more about who she is, her life story and understand this phenomenal talent.
But what has pissed me off today is seeing Adele on the front cover of Vogue. Adele is truly beautiful, and the fact she is comfortable in her own skin only makes me love her even more. She is a rough diamond, and does not want to be polished.
So Vogue has made her a cover model and she looks incredible, that’s brilliant for her. But I challenge anyone to tell me when they have ever had any model inside their magazine who is ‘plus’ size and represents the majority of women in any country in the world.
Obviously even Adele is a little too large to appear natural on their cover as she has clearly been airbrushed to remove a few pounds. Really? Did they really need to do that?
It is obvious to the editors that if they put Adele on their front cover just after her scoop of the greatest music awards in the world then it will shift copies – lots of copies. So if it is good enough to put a famous large lady on the front cover then why can’t these magazine put larger ladies in clothes inside their magazines who are the same size as most women who read it.
Isn’t this sheer hypocrisy or am I just being precious and actually need to get a life?
London fashion week has just finished and you couldn’t walk down any street without seeing a washed out model shuffling around looking like she needs to have an intra-venous glucose drip inserted before taken to McDonald’s for a happy meal.
The is an age old debate about whether or not the fashion industry should be putting real women in their magazines and on the catwalk, but surely if it is good enough to put a very famous large lady on the cover of the magazine as they know it will sell lots of copies, it is good enough to use this same image of a larger lady to sell clothes.
Pancake Day
February 22nd, 2012
Despite having reached 33 years of age, though I often get mistaken for a 44 year old, I still struggle to contain my excitement when it comes to national holidays or celebrations that are predominantly aimed at children.
As I write this I am busily receiving text messages from friends asking what my plans are for tonight, because as a child tonight was one of my favourite days after Christmas and Bonfire Night.
The reason I loved it so much was because today is Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, a day when the majority of households throughout the UK make pancakes and competitions occur to see who is the biggest ‘tosser’.
Unlike the US, Pancakes really are not eaten much over here, you would rarely find someone eating them unless it was pancake day, and so for most of us it is a real treat. And IHOP to me sounds like a food palace! Then again, one of my favourite places in America is The Cheesecake Factory.
The origins of Shrove Tuesday link to the Christian Calender and that today is the last day before Lent/Ash Wednesday. Because Lent is a 40 day period of abstinence and of fasting, tradition was that all rich foods such as eggs, flour, milk and sugar are used up, and what better foodstuff to create, than a delicious pancake.
I have beautiful memories as a child of getting excited about Dad coming home from work as Mum strictly stipulated that this was the moment on Pancake Day that we were finally allowed to mix up the pancake batter and start tossing pancakes. Squirt on some lemon juice, add some strawberries, throw on some chocolate, or even just leave plain, the choice is yours. I would have competitions with my Mum, Dad and sister to see who could toss the best pancake and how high they could go and then the entire process begins again and I would just keep on eating them until the batter ran out.
So tonight’s plan is this – head to the gym, just so that I can justify eating a few hundred pancakes, then when I am tired of walking round the gym and chatting to everyone then head to a friends house, where we are all set for a tossing competition – strictly of the food variety.
Advert designed for dogs.
February 15th, 2012The advert in this video claims to be the first advert in the world to be specifically designed for dogs.
Containing bells, whistles and noises which are not audible to the human ear, it was screened last night on British TV, and the reaction seems to be mixed. Some videos are being uploaded showing dogs going absolutely bonkers and running towards the TV barking and spinning in circles, other viewers noted that their dog just slept right through it.
So let’s do a Friday Puppy poll and see whether this doggy advert actually catches the attention of your dog.
Crank the volume up, play the video and feed back the responses:
The Dubai Fountain – A tribute to Whitney Houston
February 13th, 2012Manscaping
February 8th, 2012
Despite the fact I am often quite vocal about many things and tend to voice my opinion without anyone asking for it, caring much about it, and tending not to want to hear it, this subject today is something I am a little nervous to discuss – but I feel I need to get it off my chest.
Before I do, I would advise my Mum and Aunty Maggie to stop reading now – (I welcome Aunty Maggie as a Friday Puppy reader after her confession this weekend that when she is bored at home she logs on to see what is going on).
Back to my quandary, I am thinking of this as almost a form of blog therapy and hopefully will make me a better, and tidier person.
Pubic hair.
We all have it….unless you are a porn star, playboy bunny or have alopecia totalis (and therefore actually desperate for a sprout of hair down there) , and I would put my neck on the line and say I am suspecting the percentage of FP readers in the porn industry is fairly slim.
But it is still seems such a taboo subject to talk about.
The issue I have is this: I like to look neat ‘down there’. The advantages are endless and quite frankly we don’t live in the 1960′s and therefore I don’t expect to see to see a whole eco-system down there when i am getting it on with somebody, and certainly don’t want a family of forest mice living down mine.
