The 30 Day Blog Challenge! Well, I'm not one to let a good bandwagon just roll on by.

I'm not starting yet, and I'm going to cheat massively, but nonetheless the 30 day blog challenge is about to get underway. In honesty, I haven't finished the last challenge I set myself. There are still more than a few out there who didn't get their section of my little series of posts about friends, but nobody seems too distraught about it and I don't think the ones I haven't got to yet are readers so it's cool.

Now, I'm not one for the old 30 day challenge, I couldn't be arsed with that 30 day song challenge that went round facebook a couple of years ago. Instead, I created a facebook note and simply wrote all the answers in there. In honesty, this is more my métier:



But I'll soldier on regardless. Anyway, the slight problem I'm having is tailoring my 30 topics to suit. I've got 26 topics covering a range of subjects and writing styles so far - pilfered from fellow bloggers, various 30 day challenges and a couple of random topic generators. I'm going to spend time thinking of some more but any suggestions or requests are welcome. I'll probably start some time next week, or make it 31 topics and just do one every day of July, I haven't decided yet.

My list of topics (with their current working titles) is, in no particular order:

• Famous person I've been compared to (Holy Crap! You're Jesus Christ)
• Childhood pet (Tara)
• Top five places to live (Location, Location, Lo ... w Price)
• What band or musician is most important to me? (This album is literally the reason for my existence)
• Favourite books (Is This Just Fantasy?)
• Dream Wedding (It's a Nice Day)
• If I could have any job ... (FBI Operative, Standard)
• Top Ten Top Tens (Top Ten Top Tens)
• Cats or Dogs (Getting in Touch with my Feline Side)
• My Home Town (Home Town Blues)
• Celebrity crushes (Well, This Will Not be Awkward at all)
• Lyrics that apply (Sad Songs Say so Much: I hope you've got all day)
• Belief in "the one" (Holy shit! It's an Anagram of Neo! Mind. Blown.)
• Inspiration (So, you wrote these questions on the way to the interview then?)
• Fictional Characters (Life Mimicking Art: Or some equally pretentious bollocks)
• Places I have lived (Take Me Home)
• Concerts I've attended (I like that old time Rock and Roll)
• Writing my own songs (Now, what rhymes with pretentious bullcrap?)
• My life from someone else's point of view (Writing in the 2nd person)
• "What if... ?" (What if... ?)
• Pay or Job satisfaction (They hand you a paycheck every week, and steal a piece of your soul every day)
• What I would do with three months off (Unemployment is too stressful, I'll take a sabbatical)
• Brothers and Sisters (Oh, Brother!)
• A time I want to experience again (Took me all of three seconds to come up with an answer to this)
• When other people tell me what to do (Don't jump off the cliff, you say? Well...)
• Going to the movie alone (You know what? I was just running out of ideas)

So, I'll see you soon.

PS. as always, I've sprinkled my work with a light dashing of not-so-pop-culture references. 1,000 points are on offer for correctly identifying all the book/song/movie/TV quotes and references in the titles of these upcoming blogs.

Adios.

Final Nail In The Coffin.

Although graduation is yet to happen, this feels like the final toll of the bell for university: the great move out begins. Well, obviously not right now because I'm blogging not packing but I would suspect that by the time most of you read this I'll be at home in the bosom of my family once more.

This is great because I really do like being with my family, hence why I go to see them every weekend. They are the first friends I had and even though living in such close proximity to three other people can get testing, I wouldn't ever want to move too far away. On the other hand, last night was such a good one that when I finally wandered back to my room with dawn breaking around me, leaving my mates behind me it felt like marching towards death

This room, in which I have now slept for the last time, has witnessed so much emotion. This little hide-away, my inner sanctum, has allowed me to remove myself from the world whilst remaining in touching distance of it. Now I'm going back into solitary confinement in the prison that is life and I've done my share of that. I don't want to be that guy any more.

Random chance has seen fit to land me in a situation where I thought I'd never be. If I had the money I would now be more than willing to move away from Chesterfield. I always envisioned the day when I leave home but I never thought I'd want to go more than a few miles away. Most of my family live in that town and the closeness that comes from this is amazing. The one person who ever moved away was like me in a sense, she's the only one of my family I know who went to uni and when her course ended she just stayed where she was. The major difference is, it wasn't to be near mates because as far as I can tell she's not got any. She also clearly has very little love for the rest of the family, so the only role model I have in this moving away business is a terrible one.

Of course, even returning to the place where I've had such good times won't cease the endless march of time. If I come back to Leeds, a lot of the awesome people I know here will have dispersed, and I can't rule out the possibility of more leaving in the future.

This is the problem with becoming attached to human beings, they have lives of their own and can be wild and unpredictable at times.

You know, a lot of this blog has been how I don't want to leave uni because of being in love with a fellow student, but I'm used to living with a love unrequited, almost from the moment I start playing the game of love I'm prepared to lose. I'm sure someone's using loaded dice. At the death I find the thing I really can't do without is the other people, the most important people to me right now are not the ones I vowed to walk the whole world to find, but the ones I didn't even know I was looking for.

On Being George Lucas. And being friends with Mike Bassett.

Not that I am George Lucas or anything. Just that I can empathise with the pressure he's under. Now I'm not saying that billions of people will read this blog and wait for years in fretful anticipation of the next instalment and then shout at me when I do it "wrong". Of course not. But I've had a request, for the first time ever the task of writing has been placed upon me by someone other than a teacher or lecturer and I can feel some small fraction - perhaps a trillionth - of what George Lucas feels every day.

It is said that observation changes the nature of the thing which is observed and that is certainly true. Just look at my first entry in this blog, which I wasn't expecting to ever show to anyone. It is quite different to say the fifteenth one I did when I knew I had a readership, however small, and both are different to the first blog I wrote on another site, way back last summer and which I never intend anyone to read ever because it really is the most pointless bit of drivel in history. I say that a lot about my writing, but trust me this time I could not be more right. The point is, I'm different depending on who's reading and why. Therefore, when I write the rest of this post, I'm going to be getting that under the microscope feeling somewhat more than usual. And thus, this might not be my most sincere entry, although I'll do my best to stay true to what the fans want. And so, without further ado, Good Friends Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. (Episodes I and II).

Imp.

Based on your football team, of course, your name has been one thing holding up your segment of this mini-series. I really couldn't think of anything better but now you've forced my hand I'll just have to go with it.

Another reason why this has taken so long is that you are an enigma to me. We hang out a lot, largely because we both enjoy the atmosphere of the chaplaincy lounge so even if we weren't friends we'd still see a lot of each other. But despite this I feel like I don't really know you that well and things I do know baffle me. You're a good laugh and never afraid to make a wise crack. Your taste in music is largely tolerable and you're a football fan so it's easy to be around you. But on the other hand, your humour is not always to my tastes, most of the gigs you have been to would make me want to kill myself and our footballing philosophies differ wildly. We are at once so similar and so different and so we probably won't ever be best friends but you definitely have been a big part of my university experience.

In truth I still don't know what to make of you. I'm glad we're friends and I like you, but it seems there's a lot more to you than the man I know and I don't know how much of the unknown stuff about you I would want to find out. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I see how you could feel a little unsure about it. I guess the moral is be careful what you wish for. Many people waited a lifetime for the conclusion of the Star Wars franchise and they were left unsure as to whether it had been worth it, and I guess you might be feeling a little similarly about this.

If it makes you feel any better, you do get this blog entry to yourself.

Arrivederci.

Friends part 2: It's not that I like you less, just that you're less memorable.

First off, that was a joke, of course I like you less. Kidding.

Anyways, this was going to be something else but it got too much like a suicide note and all the random blog generator gave me was stuff that would have led me back to the friend post anyway, so here it is, Good Friends part II.

You Have No Name
Sorry about that but I'm 99% sure you don't read this anyway, so most of what I'm saying will be irrelevant to any reader and for that I don't have time to think of a suitable name. Plus, in the event that you do read it, I feel like only you should know it's about you.

We're friends under false pretences. I'm a lying bastard and you'd do better to forget about me. But no matter how shit a friend I am, you can't seem to give up on me. I thank you for your loyalty but I fear it is misplaced.

And I think I know why you won't let me go. No-one should be this loyal to a scumbag like me and so a small part of me thinks the rumours about us that circulated very quietly for a short while last year may be your secret desire. It feels like narcissism when I think that but at the same time I can't ignore the opinions of external observers who mostly seem to agree with me. I hope I'm wrong because although it will make me look a bit of a fool for writing all this, it would be better for everyone if you didn't love me.

On the other hand, if I'm correct in my assumptions, I know better than anyone the futility of telling you to forget about it. If I tell you to get over it, I'm the biggest hypocrite in the world because I have an immediate hatred of people who use those words to me.

I wish you'd just come out and say it. I know how hard that is, really I do, but you can count on me to handle it sensitively and I'd just like to know one way or another. If I'm right, maybe I can be a better friend in the future, if I'm wrong maybe I should seek help for my obvious narcissistic delusions. Either way, it could only have positive repercussions.

Behind Door #1

The third ex-housemate to get a mention. You've had a passing reference before but you've never read this blog, as far as I know. We were good friends before we moved in together but in all honesty you are the worst person to live with and I won't deny I hated you for a while. This vitriolic sentiment lasted long after we left the house but since Christmas time I've been reminded why we were friends in the first place and I'm willing to forget that you even lived in that house, thereby eradicating those bad feelings. You actually won me back at Grad Ball. Before you were drunk enough to marvel at my height, you showed a more compassionate side to yourself which I must admit I'd never witnessed, even before we lived together.

Still, I can't bring myself to show you as much respect as you might otherwise deserve. You told me about something you encountered on your travels and how you left it behind. Before I came to university I vowed that if necessary I'd travel even further than you did in pursuit of what you found. I was lucky, I didn't have to go to the other side of the world. But you gave your treasure up for no good reason, whereas the majority of my life in the last three years has been concentrated on preserving mine, even though I only know its location and not how to access it. Your lack of reverence for your own treasure and your reaction to me showing you my treasure map, leads me to pity you. You left your bounty for any passing pirate to plunder. At least I know mine is in safe hands, even if they're not my hands.
Behind Door #2

Well, we lived together for a year as well but I probably know you least well of all. It's a shame really, because we got on well but you disappeared when you got a girlfriend. Not that I blame you or her, I would have been exactly the same.

What is there to say really? I love you man, but I never see you these days. Mostly it's my own fault but I do miss your banter and general tekkers.

Oh and you look more like a bespectacled Tomasz Kuszczak than Russell Howard.

Well, that's all for this time. Back in a few days with part III.

Good Friends I Had, Good Friends I Lost.

That's a vague-ish and entirely unrelated to the point of this post Bob Marley reference, by the way. I haven't actually lost any friends. As I've said before I am paranoid about losing some but that's another matter.

Anyway, this is just about friends in general. I keep saying in this blog how much I love you all but I don't know if I say it enough. The specific people I'm thinking of have been in my life for two or three years now and I feel it's time I said a few things that needs to be said, albeit through a blog that only a few of you read. I'm sorry, I'm just not good at the whole face-to-face thing. As always, I'm keeping names out of it. I'm not sure why I do that, it just seems better that way, plus giving you all code-names appeals to my love of spy fiction. And nor will I be leaving any more clues as to who my mystery girl is, some of you know and some have guessed (rightly or wrongly) her identity but that is something that needs to be said face-to-face, or at least privately, and whether I get the brave up for that ultimate act of futility or not, this is not the place.

Only selected friends will be appearing this time around, but there will most certainly be a part II to this entry.

First up, Baby Bovine.

Dude, you were the first friend I made at uni. I still remember us stood a little awkwardly outside AS21 (I think), waiting for our first introduction to the course and we bonded over something that I can't quite remember, probably Star Wars knowing us. I promised you a nickname and that kind of died, but I guess if you are one of my few readers and you see this you can have Baby Bovine. It comes from something you say about your surname anyway, so it's kind of you that came up with it but to be honest, I drew a blank on the whole nickname thing.

Over the last three years we've lived together, laughed and cried together and loved and lost together. There's been times I've completely failed to understand you and times I felt you didn't quite get me, you've pissed me off at times more than anyone else and I'm sure I've done the same to you but in a way I wouldn't change it, it just works so well, you and me.

You were the first person I voluntarily told about my secret love and you read that shitty love-letter type thing that I wrote and in return I'd like to think I helped you in some way on your slightly rocky journey through the troubled land of amore. My advice hasn't always been the best but I'd like to think I never messed up too badly, except for the fact that I get well awkward around your lady friends (no idea why) and the weird coincidence that makes it seem that you can't hold on to a relationship when I go away.

I think I'll probably write the least about you because we know each other well enough that it doesn't need saying. To be fair I don't reckon you'll read it anyway so I guess it doesn't matter either way.

This last year it feels like we've seen less of each other than we should have considering we live in practically the same building but maybe that's because we actually lived together for a while. I'm leaving soon and though I hope to be back a lot, I'll still miss you.

My wish for you is that your current heartache goes away. I'm not telling you that you will or even that you should get over it, because that's the last thing one should wish on a friend, but I hope that there's some solace to be found somewhere or better yet, that the events of the last week can be reversed. I've thought about offering advice but I know how someone else's advice would be the last thing I'd want in your shoes and I'm assuming you feel the same.

And I hope you find everything else you ever go looking for.

Blogger Buddy

Another ex-housemate. We never knew each other too well even when we did live together, and that's my fault entirely. To be honest I met you like twice before I joined the house-sharing party and by then you were my friend's girlfriend - I should point out, I'm terrible with people's other halves: in fact I think I panic more about how my friends' girlfriends see me than how my own would and when I get nervous I clam up. Of course it doesn't help that you're a beautiful woman, and I generally do not cope well with beautiful women. I know you don't like to hear that but it's true. Maybe it's different coming from me, since we're just friends maybe I can say it. I hope so, I wouldn't want to think I'd made you uncomfortable in any way.

You know, of course, that you're not my secret lady. In fact you seem to be one of the few who knows who she is without being told. You're either a much shrewder guesser than everyone else or I've given away more in these blogs than I had intended or you're much better at being my friend than I am yours. Either way, your repeated offers of a chat truly are gratefully received. It's nice to know that you're there for me but for the reasons I've already stated I don't think I could take you up on those offers. It's not you, it's me. However, I hope we continue to blog and to read each others posts for a long time, to be honest you're one of about three or four people who I actually think about while I'm writing and one of only about two who I count as a reader.

If I could go back in time and start uni again, you'd be one person I'd make a lot more effort with because I really wish we had been better friends for the last three years. The little friendship we've built up over the last two years is one that I really treasure, for all that I've learnt more about you through your blog than I have through normal human interaction. I do count you as a good friend and I hope that the feeling is mutual.

Basically, this is me apologising for being one hell of a shit friend. I hope it doesn't hurt our friendship in the years to come that I can't seem to talk to you properly outside of the blogosphere/facebook - I'll try to sort that out if I can - and regardless of this, as someone who's watched your journey over the last two years with interest, I wish you every happiness in the future.

Hermione

The other person who I count as a reader, it's a good job I sent you that text the other night or I would have no idea what code name to give you that's cryptic enough to preserve the privacy you like to have. If you think I've over-stepped the privacy line, by the way, I'll be more than happy to rectify my mistake.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks since you became my new best friend. [Sorry if anyone else thought they had the crown of best friend. I don't usually have a "best" friend and prefer to love you all equally, but Hermione and me have shared some deep stuff recently. If it makes it any better, I'm not actually her best friend, she's just mine.] Anyway, it's like we are almost the mirror image of each other, on the surface the same kind of person with similar recent experiences, but then you look closer and we've taken very different things from those experiences. I'm not saying one of us is right and the other is wrong but how you see your version of our slightly similar stories is very strange to me and I can't deny that sometimes I don't understand it at all. Still, I do my best to sympathise and whilst I don't understand the way you deal with your situation, allow me to again offer my sincerest empathy for the situation you are in. It sucks. But Ron will come round, one day he'll realise Lavender's not the one he wants, needs or loves and he'll quit chasing her.

If it's any consolation, having someone to share this stuff with has made me realise once again just how much I love my Ginny, and even though Dean Thomas shows no signs of falling by the wayside you've given me the strength to carry on when times get tough.

One day, perhaps 19 years later (sorry, stuck in Harry Potter mode), we'll look back on this and laugh. Rose and Hugo will be gearing up for life at Hogwarts (you are so sending your kids to Trinity, if my extended analogy falls apart because you fail to make them love LTUC I will not be happy) and the two of you will not be able to believe how long it took Ron to work out what he wanted.

On an insignificant and possibly too cryptic side note, just because I want to show off my Harry Potter knowledge, when I said earlier that Romilda Vane had possibly misinterpreted the anonymous Valentines day singing dwarf I sent roughly in Ginny's direction, I told you the wrong song, it actually sang the intro to "If I Can't Have You" not "Did You Ever Love Somebody". It doesn't matter that much of course but I mention it because 1) I hate factual inaccuracy, 2) It gave me an excuse to link the latter song - it's one of my favourites - and 3) the song I linked kind of reminds me of you and Ron, although of course I like to think it's me and Ginny too. I'm sure you've got your own song that fits the bill, probably by the Weird Sisters (I clearly enjoy Harry Potter too much), but I just figured I'd point that out.

It's been a crazy two years since we first met and the last two weeks seem to have taken up most of what I've had to say here but I feel I should leave it here because you've gotten much more said about you than anyone else and I don't want to show too much favouritism.

PS. I hope Cormac McLaggen stops bothering you soon. OK, I'll stop now.

[A bazillion points to the house of anyone who spotted every Harry Potter reference. Minus a bazillion from anyone who got only the ones that would have appeared in the films.]

Well, I've written a shed load for just three people. I figure I better leave it there for this post but I'll be back with more. Given that I don't know exactly who reads this blog, I don't know if anyone's going to be feeling left out. In the unlikely event that you want to see my take on you, you know where I am.

Randomly Generated Topic #2: What Would I Do With A Million Quid?

This topic came up on the random topic generator and it seemed like some good old-fashioned escapism and lord knows I could use some of that right now. Most unfortunately I am confined to moving as little as possible by the horrendous pain of multiple sunburn. The one sunny afternoon I'll be experiencing this holiday and it cripples me for the remainder of my time in St. Ives. At least it gives you and I some more quality time, reader.

So, £1M; a million smackers; 1,000 G's; twenty million bob; one almost-not-worth-it hour with Chris Tarrant. In this society we have built for ourselves, where not only is money king but acquiring and spending money is the activity towards almost all efforts are directed, we must all at some time have fantasised about being rich and everyone's got their own ideas about what they'd do with their money. Perhaps the best use of a fantasy budget I've ever heard is this, from TV's Family Guy:

If that were a possibility, it would be right up there on my list and at $50,000, it's an absolute steal.

What you would do with a lot of hypothetical money (especially a lottery win) is almost modern life's standard psychological test. That's pretty terrible, if you think about it: I'll learn about your character by seeing how much respect and reverance you have for the almighty dollar.

Anyway, to "win" the test, one's automatic reaction is to say, "Well the first thing I'd do is I'd give some to charity," thus hoping to give everyone the impression that you are a kind hearted and generous person who can not be corrupted by money. Essentially, you are lying but everyone knows you are, so it's fine: the next thing on your list is what everyone listens to. In truth, giving to charity is probably on everyone's list, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone for whom charity was really the first consideration or who would give most of their money away to a good cause.

Also, a million pounds sounds a lot but in today's society it isn't as spectacular as once it was. Someone said a few years ago that it now takes a fortune of at least £5M if you want to live the always desireable "millionaire lifestyle" and it's true. A nice house can set you back over a million, a few nice cars (because no millionaire ever just has one) can get rid of up to another million and sustaining just these two extravagances for merely a year could be very pricey. And then there's your kids to consider: you don't want to hand life to them on a silver platter but at the same time, being obscenely rich and not sharing it with your own kids is unthinkable. Assuming that this is money you've won or rapidly earned rather than inherited, you'd have to sort out the rest of your family too and suddenly most of the money's gone again.

Since the question is what would I do with a million pounds and I do not currently have a million pounds, we'll have to continue to assume that the hypothetical money is winnings.

Coming from a poor background, my first action would be to distribute the money around my family so they can pay off mortgages etc. I'm no financial genius but I'm going to assume that this would be extremely expensive and would leave me a couple of hundred grand down at least. After squirrelling another couple of hundred grand away for myself, extravagant gifts for friends and family would follow and the remainder would go to a poverty relief concern.

In the space of one paragraph I've just run through ONE MILLION POUNDS. How ridiculous does that sound? I've just casually tossed away more money than most of us will ever see in our lives. This comes from living in a society where the elite want us to do nothing more than work for their benefit. In return for this we are given a little bit of the powerful stuff that the elite control us with, money, and then they use their media outlets to mindfuck us into spending more money than they gave us on their products and their friends' products so they get it all back again with interest while we work for them, chasing after the dream of the millionaire lifestyle.

All this society teaches us to do is want stuff and then it jacks the price up and we want it even more because it has become a status symbol. The worst of this is that we can't escape. There is no alternative system, because we are all conditioned to unquestioningly believe that communism is evil and socialism is misguided. And above all, we have been made to no longer care for anyone but ourselves so a turn away from the capitalist dream of being the richest person in the world is unthinkable.

Rant Over. Sorry about that.

I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues: Random blog generator. Yes, I have sunk that low.

First of all, that's not a dig at anyone who does use a topic generator, either overtly or secretly, but I always assumed I'd have the ability to write about stuff from my own head/life without needing help. I feel I have failed you by needing to seek advice from the internet, but who knows, maybe it will be a triumph.

My random topic (after much re-clicking of the generate button to get past nuclear fusion and American history) was "keeping yourself happy". As we know this is something I struggle with. Not that I'm clinically depressed but without the veneer of happiness that I put on and present to the world beyond this blog I am an unhappy person.

That's not as dramatic as it sounds, really. A mate once said that contentment is far superior to happiness and I would tend to agree, even thought the point he was arguing when he said this was a little less agreeable (more on that another time maybe). Happiness is a short-term emotion, whereas contentment is a more long-term state of being. By the same token, unhappiness is a flash in the pan feeling, whose corresponding long-term state of mind is discontentment. The point is, although I'm frequently unhappy, it's not a constant state and I'm pretty content with life at the moment, so don't interpret this as a depressed cry for help.

Anyway, it's hard to force happiness on yourself, or fight off unhappiness. Friday taught me this very well as my mood swung from happiness at being with good friends and someone special, to sadness that this could be one of our last get-togethers and that I'm not a certain someone's someone special. Either emotion could and did overpower me at any moment throughout the evening without warning, hence the amount of time I spent going from chilling in the reception room to contemplation in the corridor outside.

The best thing you can do is just go with it, and not ignore the importance of being unhappy sometimes. Another mate said something along the lines of a life lived in happiness is a life not lived and I would agree with that too, if you've never done or seen or experienced anything that makes you sad then you've not felt a major part of what it is to be human. And, if you've seen, done or experienced something that should make you sad but you've ignored it so you can stay happy then you're a fool. Perhaps keeping yourself happy was not the best topic for me, in fairness, but it's done now.
Whether happy or sad, the emotion will pass soon and you should endeavour to make the most of both feelings. We learn more about ourselves in adversity than in good times so explore your unhappiness and take away any lesson it can teach you. And if you are lucky enough to find yourself in a happy place, enjoy it and take those memories forward to help you through tougher times.

Dead Sea Soup and Drop Dead Suit-Ups

So that was grad ball, eh? Well, in true Dan style I spent most of it depressed and hiding in a corner but I did sample enough of the event to know that under better circumstances it would have been a great night.

After a major shoe crisis (masculinity in doubt, permission to start calling me Danielle granted), the rest of the day went off without a hitch. A little pre-drink style get together provided the first alcohol of the evening, taking me to a grand total of four pints of lager and a glass of champagne over the course of a week and a half. For me, that is practically binge-drinking. And then, on to the ball in all our finery.

Two things I can recommend based on my evening: 1) Suiting up at every opportunity and 2) avoiding the Marriott hotel's food unless you want your GDA 6 grams of salt to be delivered in one spoonful of tomato soup. Nearly 9 hours and copious amounts of drink later and I can still taste salt! It was like the dead sea with garlicky croutons swimming in it.

An evening with your best friends in the world is impossible to beat, even if your venue manages to combine the worst elements of the school disco with what for the fussy eaters amongst us can only be described as gourmet Hell. Amongst the terrible music (with accompaniment by rowdy sing-along drunks) was the occasional good track though and the £32 one paid for the meal was more than vindicated by the delectable lemon tart dessert.

I'm not used to writing so enthusiastically. This feels way too upbeat to be one of my blog entries, but despite the gloom and despondency that I allowed myself to fall into due to circumstances beyond my control, I still can't help but come out of this with positive memories and feelings. The only downside that I can see (and I have to find a downside, just so I feel like me again) is that this is one more uni milestone gone and I'm fast running out of time before the most painful parting in history.

I depart for a holiday now, dear reader, and may not be back in the blogosphere for at least a week, although when I return I shall hopefully have many tales of sunnier climes with which to regale you. Adios amigos!

An Ode to Sorrow. A poem by D. Lovegrove.

Bear in mind that this was written at around half two in the morning and composed off the back of alcoholic depression, it was never going to be my best work. I apologise most heartily for the poor quality of the second and third stanzas but it's not complete without them.

All These Things

Sweet poisonous nectar of life,

Softly stabbing heart-bound knife,

Silent proclamation, invisible fire,

Frozen pain of unquenched heart's desire,

All these things love is, and more,

Lost in heady fantasy of what only could have been,

Found despairing, lamenting the intangibility of the dream,

Eyes fixed upon the stars, gazing for a sign from above,

And all the time rejoicing in the exquisite pain of love,

All these things the lover is, and more

Home, as safe as castles built on sand,

Disturbing territory, distant foreign land,

First thought of the day, last fretful dream at night,

Relief from life lived in darkness with terrible blinding light,

All these things the beloved is, and more.

The End of Days: My Worst Fears Realised.

Welcome to Limbo. The weird twilight zone between finishing a course and graduating is the weirdest place to be on Earth. The lull in activity does give you time to discover new things, but the imminence of your birth into the real world gives you no chance to really enjoy them. I've discovered a lot since my degree finished, including a couple of new best friends who I'll get to see a lot less often now, shortcuts around a city I'm leaving and the fact that before the week is out I may have to come face-to-face with my arch-nemesis but must restrain myself from committing bloody murder. If this is what Limbo is like in the first few days I'm more than a little apprehensive about the next month and a half.

And beyond that the real world waits like some monstrous animal, crouching in the long grass ahead of me with its jaws gaping, its teeth filling my vision and its putrid breath assaulting my nostrils. This beast is being ignored as much as possible for now but when the time comes I'll go in all guns blazing and hope to come back out with its head in a bag.

Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more.

"It's Just Running and Chucking Stuff".

Here come the Olympics! That's right Great Britain, we are now under ten weeks away from the opening ceremony and just nine-and-a-half weeks from the first event. That's right, the first event is before the opening ceremony. Only in Britain.

Now like all right-minded people, I couldn't give half a flying f-word about the main Olympic events: I mean, seriously, in what world is 100 metre sprint a spectator sport? Yes, there's some really fast people, cool, I'm happy for them that they have somewhere to test themselves against the best in the world and attempt to prove themselves the best of the best, but as a nation, do we all have to get so excited in the build-up? If you want to put years of hype into an event that lasts at most 12 seconds ... we all know there's a sex joke there; I'm not going to spell it out for you, just insert (giggity) the punchline that works best for you and we'll move on.

What's more, we managed to create a ticketing system apparently designed for the sole purpose of furnishing the sad weirdos who seem to get a kick out of spunking money away on pointless sports tickets with tickets to events even they considered to be not worth it at an exorbitant cost and in the most complicated way ever devised for such a simple process.

Now, I'm not saying all of the Olympics is bad: I love team sports so every four years I will be found watching as much Basketball, Football and Handball as I can while the Olympics are on. This being the first time since like the 1940s that there has been a GB Football team I figured I'd go and watch a game or two live. But the powers that be have put paid to that, with both the men's and women's teams playing their matches so far away from me that the time and expense I'd have to put in do not make it worth my while. This is supposed to be Britain's games and yet the few events that are allowed out of the host city are put so far out of the way that attending them is a logistical nightmare. The best games take place in Cardiff, which believe me is nowhere near accessible, or at Wembley, which is bloody expensive. Not one match takes place in the city where Football was born - Sheffield - and the nearest matches to there are dead expensive latter-stage games and/or between two countries you've never heard of, never mind want to see play football.

On the face of it, tickets starting from £20 which allow you to see two games in one day seem like good value, but given that you'll be lucky to find four good teams on the bill at once and that "a stadium near you" is a concept that the Olympics organisers clearly felt wouldn't be a good selling point, that £20 can easily turn into £180 for travel both ways, one match you want to see and one you will have to sit through and a hotel room because there's no transport back until the next day.

Seriously, nobody thought extra trains or coaches might be a good idea. With fans from across the country and around the world having some interest in the events taking place, nobody thought it might be a good idea to keep the transport network going after the final whistle of these events. We spent all this money on getting London ready and then when it came to the events away from the capital, they clearly selected the venues by having Seb Coe blindfolded, sticking pins into a map of Britain and hoping that people could actually get to these places. If it'd been left entirely up to our Olympic committee, I'm sure the GB Football teams would have played their games in Canada, Australia, the Falklands and Gibraltar. It would arguably have been easier to get to games on Gibraltar, in fairness. I'm sure Jet2 or Ryan Air must do cheap flights to there.

The two best football venues outside of London are Newcastle's St. James' Park and Manchester's Old Trafford, these are used like once each, while Cardiff gets three or four games at least and the shitehole that is Coventry's Ricoh Arena gets a semi-final match. Great cities like Sheffield, Leeds and Birmingham don't get a look in, despite all having at least one nice Football stadium.

Add to this the fact that the country will be left with crippling debt while only London reaps the financial rewards and this whole thing starts to feel a bit like a kick in the teeth to the rest of the country, particularly the North. The part of Britain that makes it great will not find it easy to benefit from the Olympics. We can't be flitting off to London the whole time to watch the games and we have had very little investment from Olympic funds. The few things they do let out of London are kept away from us as much as possible and the televised sports will be the pointless athletic events that are no fun to watch.

The opening ceremony will be the biggest anti-climax in history after China's spectacular in 2008 and to cap it all off, the logo looks like a well-known cartoon character felating someone.

Someone, somewhere is taking the piss. There is not one benefit I can see to the Olympics being here. Roll on Rio 2016. When the Olympics are back where they belong - the other side of the world - we'll all feel much better.

Rant over.

The "What I Learned These 3 Years" Blog.

Yep, It's my turn, it's been done a few times now so I feel like I'm joining the party late, like I did with the whole wearing a fedora thing:

Hello? 1950s America? No you can't have your fashion back

Anyway, I finished my last essay yesterday morning (a whole day before it was due to be submitted!) and the odd feeling of having no more essays to write makes me feel like I've lost an arm. I just don't know what to do with myself anymore, so I'm doing my version of the summing up post that's been doing the rounds lately.

I'm going to split it up into a couple of sections, so without further ado, I present the "can't think of a name for the blog" what's-changed-in-the-last-three-years round-up.

Well, I'm not someone who gets hung up on appearences or anything but I have noticed that where three years ago the standard outfit would be footy shirt, jeans and trainers, I've moved slightly up the style ladder to casual shirts, jeans and trainers, with a fedora for the winter months. The beard spends a lot less time roving wild around my face and the ponytail has become much more prevalent.

Away from the physical, I now actually know what postmodernism is, and have much love for it, I've gained a useless passion for ethics and I now have a blog. I've also made some very slight progress on learning the guitar, bought two new guitars, a bass and a drumkit and I twice tried to get back into songwriting, each time remembering somewhere around the second verse exactly why I gave it up in the first place. I've joined facebook in the last three years and thankfully stopped using txt spk lol in my statuses (Thanks, timeline, for reminding me that I used to do that, now I feel like my first forays into the world wide web were even more senseless than than my songwriting, which is saying something).

I've been on my first ever night out, managing a grand total of one pub before getting ID'd and having to go home and I've become more knowlegable about the British railway network than I'm comfortable with. Seriously, three years of making an average of five rail journeys a week and you turn into a little bit of a trainspotter, no matter how hard you try to resist.

And now, the "things I would tell my younger self" section.

1. DUDE! Move into Halls in first year, I know commuting is marginally cheaper and you feel capable of maintaining a good social network without being on site but when third year comes around and folks are reminiscing about good times in Shrewsbury, you will regret not being there.
2. DO NOT move into Halls in third year, I know by then you'll have realised you missed out and its much easier being on campus but trust me, commuting is marginally cheaper and I'm confident you can maintain a good social network without being on site. ALSO, commuting will have the added benefit of avoiding being woken up at 4am by someone singing the only four lines they can remember from Joesph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. I know not who these people are but trust me they are neither handsome, smart nor walking works of art.
3. Accept Luke's housesharing offer first time round, push everyone to get the originally planned ten-bed house, stage a coup and become king of this small tribe, rather than waiting 'tl the last moment only to end up taking the place of the person you were actually hoping to live with.
4. Don't worry if you mess that one up, 330 Burley Road will become one of your favourite places on earth.
5. Footy shirts are not a good look in Higher Education establishments. Get a better wardrobe.
6. Learn to take a compliment. Your better wardrobe will surely bring many - well, some - well, one or two - well, one - compliments flooding in and I still don't know how to deal with them.
7. You will get more appreciation for well-chosen band T-shirts than any faux designer shirt you can imagine.
8. Listen to Fleetwood Mac. NOW! Every second you are not hearing Lynsey Buckingham's insane guitar tekkers is a second wasted.
9. Buy a fedora, they are cool.
10. Your fedora will look better on everyone else.
11. Everyone will steal your fedora at least once.
12. Don't buy a laptop just because it is white. It may look sleek but it will be shit.
13. Always check the quality of goods you are going to buy from ebay. Bass guitars without strings, machine-heads, a bridge or working electrics are not smart purchases.
14. Go to pubology in first year, before the lecturers stop going and it gets lame.
15. That's right my friend, at uni, everything is backwards: when teachers do something, it's cool.
16. Do not judge a book by its cover, literally. Books are the one thing you actually do judge on outward appearances, despite this being the example that's been hallowed by time as the cliché to end all clichés. You will carry far too many useless books home for essays and have to carry them all the way back without quoting them once.
17. Do not judge an album by its single. You will mourn the downfall of a musical legend when you hear "Los Angeloser" on the radio as you get the train every morning, but when you eventually buy Hang Cool Teddy Bear, "If I Can't Have You" and "Did You Ever Love Somebody" will make the whole thing totally worth it.
18. Learn more about Sikhism, it is awesome.
19. Avoid Buddhism at all costs, it is not your friend.
20. Buy a camera, the amount of times you will wish you had pictures of people and places that you've encountered will be ridiculous.
21. Join the university gym, you will have days off and they will need filling. Playing FIFA will eventually get boring.
22. Start a blog, you don't write too good but it's actually kind of fun, in an "I hope nobody reads this, oh my God it's so stupid" kind of way.
23. Compulsory modules are always the worst. Fact.
24. On a Wednesday morning some time in early October 2009, you will be on a train to Horsforth, something will catch your eye, some ethereal voice will tell you to look up and see what it was, what you see will be a defining vision for your next three years and beyond. The reason why you want to live in Halls or at least in the general Leeds area will be contained in what you see, as will the reason you wish you'd got in on the housesharing earlier, and the reason you'll realise what a scruff you look in a footy shirt and that you need some better threads and the reason why love songs start to have deeper meanings and the reason why Sikhism's concept of love will draw you in and the reason why you wish you'd captured every moment of the last three years on film. It'll be the reason you've got angst that needs the catharsis of a blog, it's the reason you got out of bed for Vision at Work and New Testament even though they were the worst classes you've ever taken.
25. Enjoy yourself, man. You only get this time once.

Bon voyage, mon amis

The Dream of a Lugubrious Man. Also, I am done apologising.

I think it's about time I faced facts and stopped kidding myself. This blog started, some six months ago, largely because I wanted to have somewhere I could write something that wasn't going to be marked on academic content, but mostly because I was struggling to write a Christmas Card and wanted an escape from that too. Hidden below the desire to write, which has always been with me, was a slightly darker desire. At the very genesis of this endeavour I apologised because part of me knew where this was going, this was always going to be an exercise in lugubriosity - a chance for me to be sad and sorrowful on the public stage. It's one of the main characteristics of my personality that when I'm feeling down I have to make sure everybody knows about it. I'd like to think it's not just because I'm after sympathy but for the life of me I can't understand why else I would do it. Anyone who's got me on facebook will have noticed this, especially for the 6-12 months before I started blogging: the endless song lyric statuses must have been so annoying.

Anyway, I was right to apologise, this whole thing has been me bemoaning certain things in my life and feeling just a little satisfaction that I get to show the world how sorrowful I am, interspersed with the odd attempt to justify it with something slightly deeper. But now I am done apologising. I am just the sort of person who likes to be affectedly distraught and that's the way it is. If that's what's going on with me, that's what I've got to write about. Much as I'd prefer to be contributing something more cerebral, relevant or at least entertaining to the interwebs, I love writing and I've got to write what I know and what I know is over the top sadness.

Despite all this, one day I hope I've refined my style to the point where you can be found reading something of mine that is a) not this blog and b) worth the effort of reading it. Even if all I can write is lugubrious crap, at least I can dream of a time when it's publishable crap. Old me would here go on to apologise for the fact that this blog will be continuing, and contuining in the same vein. New me will instead warn you: I've taken ownership of my demons and so I have embraced the fact that this blog will never contain literary genius, I'd recommend you take notice of this because it means that things will only get worse from here on out.

Back to the Blog

That's right, I'm back in the blogosphere. At a time when I really should be finishing my study so that I can get to bed in preparation for tomorrow's (or, in fact, later today's) 5:45am start, I'm sat on the comfy settee, aftertaste of my midnight cornflakes still lingering in my mouth and trying to blog. A shitload of stuff has happened since the last entry and I've got a thousand things I'd like to write about but for now, this is just me saying hi, having a little check round to see how things are, making sure the place hasn't been robbed in my absence. As part of this I'd like to ask anyone who reads this to "like" the link to it that I will be putting up on facebook, just so I can guage my readership as I'm sure I've got a few silent voyeurs.

On a related note, I said last time that I'd toyed with the idea of allowing my over-emotional side get the better of me and writing blog posts for each of my uni friends, this is by way of me sounding out the community for thoughts on the subject. I think it's well corny and will cause me much embaressment but at the same time I feel more and more like I want to do it. With this in mind, who would be interested in a short piece dedicated to them being published in this blog? Answers in the comments or on facebook.would be appreciated, but bear in mind that this will probably happen anyway because I'll talk myself into it eventually unless literally everyone tells me they think it's a bad idea. If you'd like to opt out, please say so and I'll be respectful of that decision.

Agony IV: It's Only Words, and Words Are All I Have. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking...

Well, tomorrow's the end. (Actually, now I look at the clock and see that midnight ticked by some time ago, it turns out today is the end). The last official day of lectures at university. All that's left now are a few essays and presentations and the 5000 word study, which would be terrifying me if I could but accept the reality of its existence. Everything seems like some very vivid dream right now, so if I'm acting weird, that's why: it's because I don't feel like what's going on around me is real. I'm severing my links to reality because I can't accept the reality of what is happening.

I've said before that there's only one thing that makes me feel like getting out of bed is worth the bother and after today she'll be gone, lost, and now I look back and realise I wasted so much of the time that was given me to spend with her. In name, that time was three years, but in practise it was merely a couple of hours a week for 60 weeks. If you add it all up it probably comes to something less than 9 months. I had 9 months with what has become the most important thing in my life and today marks the end. Other than perhaps two more chances to cast my eyes in her direction, it's over and I have to move on. But moving on is the hardest thing ever. My body will, my mind might, but my heart can't. By the way, "she" is obviously a person, but you could read it as a metaphor for the university itself or just the body of people within it. All three fit the bill.

It's important that I express myself about this, but I am the least confident speaker on Earth. I can write a speech for fun but to actually express any of the words is a struggle. And so I find myself back in my old familiar place, face to glowing face with a laptop, pouring my heart out to a plastic box filled with wires and thereby to the very small number of people who bother to read what I inflict upon the Internet.

The agony of creation is back, but this time it's more the agony of expression. Luckily I don't need to tell an institution how I feel about it: neither the bricks and mortar of the building nor the people who metaphysically represent it can comprehend such things, but those I count as friends don't, I think, know how much they mean to me. I can never find the words when I need them, nor could I adequately express my love for these people even if I could just open my mouth and speak. I'm quiet, I wouldn't say shy, but you can think about it that way if it makes it easier to understand. I value quiet time, for me silence really is golden. When you get to that point where you are comfortable to be silent with someone, you have reached a level of friendship that words could never express and so words, being superfluous, therefore fade away.

I appreciate that not everyone feels this way and even if they do, don't see us as being that close. I therefore apologise for every silence which ever left you feeling like I didn't want to talk to you and for the presumption that those silences were as comfortable for you as they were for me. I just wanted any of my friends who do read this to know that I'm so grateful to have been allowed to feature in some small way in your lives and hope that I will be a continuing feature in the years to come.

I actually thought of writing a short piece for each of you, since I can't seem to express myself properly verbally, but it just seemed a bit stupid so you'll have to make do with being told as a group that every single one of you is special to me in a way that my most beautiful words can not begin to express.

Thursday, the forgotten child.

Carrying on the musical theme, it was remarked upon recently that Thursday is really overlooked when it comes to songs. There's a few on how much everyone hates Mondays and how we're in love with Fridays. Tuesdays get an honourable mention thanks to The Rolling Stones' Ruby Tuesday and the weekend is always popular. But no-one seems to care about Thursdays. You could argue that Wednesday is similarly overlooked, but I'm going to cheat here and claim chants for football team Shaffield Wednesday as songs about Wednesday. Naughty, I know, but I've got a sort of point to make here and the facts were very nearly getting in the way there. Anyway...

Thursday is probably one of my favourite days of the week for many reasons - mostly to do with the timetable of lectures at uni, but also it's good to see Friday and the weekend looming large, albeit with Monday sullenly lurking behind them. Wednesday's become famous as "hump day" recently, using the analogy of the week as a hump-bridge, with Monday and Tuesday being the ascent, Wednesday the summit or hump and Thursday and Friday the descent, but it's a false dawn that hits us at Wednesday lunchtime, telling us the week is half-over, because that means there's still half left, and one does not simply free-wheel down the back of a hump-bridge. But Thursday doesn't have the doom and gloom of the start of the week, the false hope of Wednesday or the problems that Friday, Saturday and Sunday do, which is that every second of Friday, Saturday or Sunday that passes is another second of weekend lost.
All hail Thursday, king of days.

Everything Louder Than Everything Else.

Music. Such a huge part of all our lives and so ridiculously diverse. The subjectivity of music can be very annoying at times and joyous at others. When that friend we all have who knows every song ever introduces us to what will become our new favourite band it's such a brilliant thing, but then there's the bemusement of why your best friend actually thinks Fireflies by Owl City is actually a good song. Maybe it is (no, it's not, really); the thing about "good" music is that it doesn't really exist. If there was such a thing as objectively good music, we'd all agree all the time and there'd be no new music either. Which would be really boring.

But even in the knowledge that musical taste is subjective, it's sometimes hard to fathom the tastes of other people. Listening to Radio 1 is a particularly confusing experience for me. All the while I'm thinking "Really? Enough people out there like this enough to get it on the radio?" The other side of that is of course that I must be the cause of much consternation in other people, my tastes are so outmoded, outlandish and eclectic, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. The only thing that I don't understand in the world of music is those people who say they have no interest in it. For me and many people I know, that's akin to saying you have no interest in living. I don't mean that in a melodramatic way but, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis' quote on friendship, I think of music as something which "is unnecessary, like philosophy, like Art ... it has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival"

Now we can harp on for ever about who are the best musicians and the whys and wherefores of our tastes in terms of genre and style, but in the end the songs we really remember are the ones that seem to represent us the best. We pick up on things we see as reflecting ourselves. Of course, there's no song which can absolutely match my current state and tell me exactly what I'm thinking and feeling. A lot of that connection we feel to certain lyrics comes from our wanting to have a connection, or perhaps from a frustrated want to be able to express ourselves in a musical way.

The expression, the communication between singer and listener, is a huge part of the songs we hold dearest. Certainly a piece of music can have its own merits but I've found that for me a song lives and dies by its lyrics and the meanings that they convey and how readily I can relate to said meaning. Of course, the meanings we receive may not be the intended meanings but the subjective nature of our experience of music means that what we take from our music is probably more important than what was put in there at the other end of the process.

Dreams. They are bastards.

No witty title, no obscure musical references, just plain and simple. If there's one thing that's worse than sleeping, it's dreaming. I abhor losing 5-8 hours of my day, but then to be tormented by visions and apparitions - if that happened while you were awake you'd be in a psychiatric hospital. When they eventually invent a no-sleep pill that doesn't kill you, I'll be the first in the queue, in fact I'll camp outside the shop all night, ironically getting the worst night's sleep ever, just to remind me why I'm giving it up.

It's not nightmares, nightmares I can handle. Come at me with a werewolf (a common childhood nightmare of mine), I don't give a shit, I'm asleep. I'll just bust out the karate tekkers like I'm in the Matrix and they've planted the training in my head. I'll fight/run away from bad guys all night. It's fun, and it makes you thankful for waking up and it's kinda what dreaming is for. One theory is that, as well as being the brain shuffling information around, dreaming helps you learn and practise stuff you need to know, like how to take out werewolves.

The thing that really kills you is the good dreams. The ones where waking up is like being kicked out of heaven, the ones that make eternal slumber seem the highest prize of man's existence. It's been a while since I had one of those dreams that offer me all my desires on a plate, but they stick in my mind, reminding me what's just the other side of the veil of sleeping, calling me to close my eyes and forget the real world. To enter the world of dreams and never return. Now, if it were that simple, of course I'd be more than happy. This would be some sort of attainable heaven, to be able to live forever in your own dreams. But of course it is not that simple, we can not simply choose to reject the waking world and sleep. We could of course reject the living world, but that's a little risky, since we don't know what lies the other side of that particular veil.

The other dreams too, the ones that seem most surreal because of how normal most of it is. It's like watching a movie of your life but the screenplay writer got some essential details wrong. Your college mates are wandering round secondary school and your Uni friends are lounging around the staff room, for example. I never dreamed that, but that's the sort of thing.

The worst dream I've ever had came last night. It was a strange amalgam of the "good" dream type and the weird type. It presented to me, rather than my actual waking wants and ambitions, an alternative set of wants and ambitions, just as stupid and impossible as the ones I do have. It's almost like something was trying to tempt me. It did a fairly good job, to be honest and I've been messed up in the head all day. Well, that's my excuse for the poor footballing performance I turned in today anyway.

But I digress, the reason that a dream affected me so is because I spent a lot of time trying to work out why dream Dan suddenly had new plans for his limited time. It got me wondering if dreams can tell us anything about ourselves. Obviously there are all sorts of theories about dreams, ranging from the fairly sensible psychological to the quite frankly ridiculous psychic. But these theories largely take components of dreams and apply meaning to the presence of these components in your head. I wonder if the full narrative of a dream actually has anything to contribute to our understanding of ourselves.

I need to examine an example dream and see what I can find. Last night's good/weird offering should do the trick. I'm wondering how much of that to divulge though, it's fair embarrassing, to tell the truth, so I'll keep it vague. As most of you know, I'm in love. I've said it a lot and even if you haven't heard me say it or seen it written down on here, it's tattooed across my forehead just to make absolutely sure. Anyway, this has, as you can imagine, been the subject of those "good" dreams which present to me a world where my feelings are reciprocated and even a glimpse of a future where we're happily married. Bliss, torn asunder by the grievous moment of waking. However, last night's dream featured somebody else in a romantic fashion (not like that, if you catch my drift, that's not why it's embarrassing. Thought I'd better clear that up), a most confusing turn of events which led to me waking with a cry of "what the HELL?".

As I say, this had me more than a little confused and wondering if I was trying to tell myself something about just exactly who it is I'm in love with. After one hell of a lot of soul searching, I've decided that it in that respect was just a meaningless dream. However, through that thinking process I have learned a couple of things about myself and life in general, which (sorry) I've decided to keep to myself.

It's not all good, though. Aside from giving me yet another thing to worry about in this time of general stress and heartache, this particular dream had another negative side-effect: I felt guilty for most of the morning for (in my dream) trying to break up a (real-life) couple. It was a bloody dream and I got guilt! For God's sake, this should be enough to convince you all that dreams are bad, evil little buggers.

Despite my tight-lipped refusal to elaborate on my epiphanies, I can't deny that dreams can teach us things, but they are still a bit evil at times. I don't think the functions they perform are enough for me to willingly sacrifice a third of my life to sleeping and dreaming and I'd still jump at the chance of functioning without sleep, but maybe I'd still set aside one or two days a month to visit dreamland.

**SPOILER ALERT**: The future just ain't what it used to be.

The end is nigh. I feel like a butterfly just before the cocoon opens, but with the rather vital oversight that my wings forgot to grow. This gets me thinking a lot about life on the outside. Hah: life on the outside, like it's a prison. No gaol ever had to forcibly evict their inmates. Guess I'm kinda like Red from The Shawshank Redemption, as well. That's it, I'm wingless butterfly Red from the all-insect version of The Shawshank Redemption, just before my cocoon opens. um...

Whatever, the point is that the future's big and scary and I'm woefully unequipped to deal with it. This entry will be split into two parts. Part the first will be me getting depressive about the future (yes, again). Part the second will be me trying to do some serious philosophical engagement with the idea of the future, including Gary's favourite question, that of determinism. I'm hard pressed to decide which will be a worse read, but I hope some of you will take the time to give them a once-over.

*^*PART THE FIRST*^*

-in which we discover the true extent of the horror that the future can cause, by learning a few lessons from the past-

Well, if you've read my previous stuff you know how I'm feeling about the immediate future and the biggest event contained therein, but what of the fabled five-year plan? What will I have done over next ten years, the next twenty?

Well, unfortunately I've never operated like that. I don't set myself deadlines for anything in life (which probably explains my last-minute all-nighters before uni work is due in). I know it's common for people, especially of my age, to set out their "five year plan", hoping to find the perfect balance of work, travel or other life goals and career (as distinct from work in that work is just for money whilst a career is what you actually want to do with your life). I highlight travel as that seems to feature in most five-year plans nowadays, I'm not sure where it figures in my "plans" (for want of a better word) for the future, but we'll come to that.

Deadlines I don't set, but targets are another matter entirely. At the age of around seven, I decided I wanted to go to University. Didn't care which one, didn't care what for. Just that that was where I was going. From then on I was looking with maybe half of one eye at career paths which would suit a graduate. The other eye was of course looking at the pies in the sky, and my those pies could fly: I was going to be a professional footballer, I was going to be Prime Minister, I was going to be a professional musician.

During my final two or three years at school, I decided that teaching was going to be my thing and initially went for an Early Years course at college. Going for the younger end of the system because working with the older kids freaked me out a little, and that was mostly because of how badly I treated most of my teachers. I didn't want to have to work with little shits like me, basically.

That lasted about three months, tops. And I only made it that far because I was in the college football team and didn't want to leave that behind. Our team was like the reserves for Derby Uni's team, which has links to Derby County FC, from whence I could wrangle a move to my beloved Wednesday: still had my eyes on the pies, see? When the team twice moved the time and place of training without telling me, I took the hint that I wasn't wanted and about three weeks later, after a couple of run-ins with my placement supervisor and a heap of missed deadlines I quit the course, vowing to return stronger and more powerful than ever before - on a sports course.

You see already how the plan has changed. That's the other thing: these targets, only some of them are set in stone, others are essentially whittled from marshmallow. Just on a side note: As I recall, the BTEC Diploma in Early Years counted for quite a bit less than any other Diploma offered by the people at BTEC but I can honestly say that the 2-3 months I spent doing that course, it was harder than degree level RS and that is saying something.

Anyway, then came the Sports Science course, which I loved, and the people on the Sports Science course, most of whom I hated. This was a big shame because the ladies on Early Years were mostly awesome, and I'd lost touch with them all. This failure to hold a relationship through transition is the thing that worries me most about the future. I only got back in touch with one lass from the first course (via facebook, which hardly counts anyway) this year and that was only because of a picture of the two of us back in our Primary School days. I've a feeling that a random add of the other peeps from that time (six years ago now, scary) would not be appreciated. If they remember me at all, it's as "that guy who quit after two months, had a huge crush on Mel, bit of a loner, played Status Quo, Bob Marley and the Zutons on his Walkman so loud we could all hear it".

Breezed through Sports Science with only minor mental scarring and one or two good memories. Did manage to keep hold of a friend after leaving, which was good. During this time the ambition was: do anything at uni, absolutely anything that will get you to PGCE so you can become a college lecturer.

So, from Sport to RS, all the while the ambition was lecturing, either at college or, latterly, at a uni. Until the fateful day - I don't know when it was, save that it was some time in third year - that I suddenly did a massive U-turn. My original goal had been to go to uni, and that mission was accomplished, what happened next stopped mattering to me, right when it should be mattering most. My eyes turned to the skies again and I've been dreaming ever since.

I've remarked a fair few times that life could have been so radically different had I been accepted for Criminology at Leeds Met. Peering into the alternate universe where I did go there, I see a me who doesn't know the awesome people I do now and I pity him, though he probably pities me because his friends are the best thing in his life too and I don't know them.

And there's the crux of the matter: so much of who I am, of who we all are, rests on split-second decisions. On my first day at Trinity, the TRS inductees were made to wait around for induction near the forensic psychology newbies. I was this close to switching into the other group and trying to blag my way in, hoping switching course would be easy. How odd, that an alternate me is wandering the same halls as me, never knowing the great times I've had a stone's throw from where he is.

So, that's how the "plan" for my life has gone. Throughout most of it, the over-arching plan has been to have that TV-stereotypical ideal life complete with wife and two-point-four kids, a mortgage and a job to pay off the mortgage, maybe a spot of keeping up with the Jones' if the Jones' happen to be arseholes, if not then an amiable neighbour-to-neighbour freindship. I never painted the details of this picture, though. I was happy to go with the flow and hope that these things fall together.

Where am I now? Well, it depends what mood I'm in and what I've been doing. A couple of months ago I watched Hot Fuzz and decided I wanted to be a policeman officer, then last week I watched Lilo and Stitch and thought that I might move to Hawaii and take it easy. Sometimes I think about opening a little second-hand book shop somewhere at the seaside and a lot of the time I'm thinking that a second degree would be ace, but in truth that is mostly born of a futile desire to reset the clock on this degree and go back and right some wrongs.

As for the general life stuff, I made myself one promise when I started uni: this would be the start of my life's adventure, the first step towards the two-point-four kids and the mortgage. I said I'd walk the whole wide world to find love. And what do you know, it was in the very first place I looked and suddenly that dream-wife had a face, but I've said enough about that before. Obviously I want to travel, I think everyone does, even if they never get round to it, but I'm wary of doing too much too soon, what will I do when I retire if I've already seen the world as a young man?

"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer"

Also, I'd like to write. Anything really, even keeping this blog going would be a pleasure, but novels, philosophical books and poetry are my preferred area, not that I've any skill in them.

Even the best plans need financial backing, of course, and that brings me on to work. I can't go back into a normal job, even if I wanted to. First off, the drudgery of the 9-5 routine is just not something I could ever motivate myself for, save to provide for my family, but since I have no financially dependant family, I feel like I can shoot for the moon. And second, there are no "normal" jobs about. My brother has taken 18 months to get into a temporary position and I would not have got that far. As soon as employers see a degree on my CV, I'll be over-qualified.

So, to conclude, no prospect of work, no career plans, no immediate life goals and now that dream-wife has a face, she has become unattainable. So that's why the future's scary for me personally, now for why it should be considered scary in a more philosophical sense.

*^*PART THE SECOND*^*

-in which we examine the future as a concept in a vain attempt to understand and thereby gain control of it-

I'm not going to get overly scientific about time and space. My limited knowledge of the science would be unhelpful. This might make it harder for me to engage properly, but I'll do my best. Happily, I do know a few theories which I'll try to introduce along the way.

The by-now legendary five-year plan shows some expectation that we can influence the future in any way we want. An optimistic view, to be sure. Should you choose to believe that the future is not already written, imagining ourselves in the driving seat of our own destiny is still perhaps even a little arrogant.

Every action we take has myriad untold consequences, even relatively simple goals can be derailed by a miscalculation or someone unkown factor. Now, we can take the time to learn everything about everything that could possibly affect our plans before we make them but - since the nuanced nature of the universe is such that everything that might affect our plans is essentially everything, the position, motion and phase space of every atom, every electron and the possible actions and reactions of any other persons - we would never get anyhting done. However, the possibility of knowing everything we need to is there, and it is this that leads me to believe that we have agency, we are not determined. True, I have said it is arrogant to believe we are in control, but I can't believe that someone with all the relevant knowledge could not cause events to take on a new direction. The possibility of control is there, even if control is not practically attainable.

We are limited to being free willed agents in a determinist universe where order and regularity reign, we have the freedom to choose, but not to control.

If we are to believe the multiverse theory (and to an extent I do), then the freedom to choose is given even less meaning because for every choice we make, there is existent in a parallel universe, another "me" who made another choice. Every choice made by any human person has no effect on the overall universe, just upon what we experience after the choice is made. Choices effect other choices and they effect people we have never heard of and at the same time they do nothing at all.

You can not drive your destiny. The most you can do is occasionally brush the steering wheel.

I've not got round to finishing this. I've been trying to get some more serious thought done but it's taken near of a week to write this and it's time I gave up. It sucks, I know and I apologise. This is probably another one that's not going on Facebook, to be honest.

Like the future, the end of this piece is unwritten. My unfinished symphony, though only unfinished because I've given up.

Our affinity for the "Jesus-character": Finally some actual philosophy.

That's right, I had a thought today, an actual intellectual thought, which I can actually write about. YES!

So, let's get to it. In the course of undertaking a degree, you unfortunately have to do some work somewhere along the line and some of mine was to analyse the significance of film for religion (I took the pessimistic view that religion and film don't mix well, for various reasons). Anyway, in our lecture on the subject, it was pointed out that the Western storyteller has a big affinity for using "Jesus figures" - alternatively called the "redeemer" or the "saviour" character. It's true that there sure are a lot of self-sacrificial heroes out there, Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities - if you haven't already, make sure you read it) is one of my all-time favourites, and almost every story has a saviour character, from Batman to Harry Potter to Darth Vader to Neo from the Matrix.

But is it right to call them Jesus figures? In making this claim do we not lift Jesus above such other characters? Had we might as well call Jesus a Darth Vader figure? Is the popularity of Christianity in the West a result of our adoration of the Batman-type character, rather than the cause of it? I'm not making any statement about the factuality of the Bible or the existence of God or whatever, but is it not philosophically worrying that we use our critical thinking to challenge a lot of what religion is about, but then allow it dominion over the whole of literature and film?

The Hero with a Thousand Faces theory tells us that most stories use the same archetypal characters, indeed they have the same basic plot, called the "monomyth", in which:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

The use of the term "Jesus figures" replaces the monomyth with Jesus, giving undue legitimacy to what is possibly a fictional or mythical character or to fictional stories about a great spiritual leader. This in turn legitimises the parasitical organisations which have formed and grown strong off the back of the story of Jesus, and taken those stories for their own ends. I believe you would call them Churches.