The last lettuce in the shop...

Just the other day whilst out and about, I thought I’d pop into a local supermarket to pick up a few essentials, so in I went, scooping up a basket from the double-door entrance as I strode inside. Almost immediately, I came to the refrigerated vegetable section and realising I was short of a decent lettuce, I started to search around in the four-tiered, shelved greenery: I found pre-packed Rocket leaves, tossed salads, loose Spinach and watercress’ of various shapes and sizes but no lettuces - iceberg, curly, Gem or round - were anywhere to be seen.

Between a rock and an unemployed hard place

It’s official: I’ve been unemployed for the last three weeks and so far, things are looking very bleak indeed on the job front, as most people will realise in the current economic climate of the UK. So I’ve had to endure the whole new claim for Job Seekers benefit debacle that one must undergo when tossed onto the heap of uselessness, which is much like a dumped dog that its owners don’t want any part of anymore, hanging around for scraps. Yes, that’s my role now in society: I’m a shit-heel mutt, scurrying about for handouts, losing its hair through stress and feeling outside normality...

Script writing means no blogging!

Well, I appear to have had a two week hiatus from writing utter dross for this blog and all because I’ve been typing more and more of my nonsensical slop into an half an hour TV script in the fingers-crossed hope of breaking out of my monotonous, poverty-stricken, soon-to-be-unemployed existence. I’d originally written the synopsis and ten pages this time last year, but what with life and its tendency to fling handfuls of cooling shit upon me, I’d never found the time to progress beyond the basic outline, until now.

Gruel and rhubarb? Yes please!

During a trip to my local Post Office the other day, as I queued laden with parcels in a never-decreasing line of coughing, sniffling and diseased people, I happened to overhear just in front of me two blokes speaking in hushed tones. The bloke speaking the most was in his fifties but was powerfully built and had sore-looking cuts and scrapes across his face and bald head; the other bloke was in his thirties and was listening intently, albeit with an increasingly astonished look adorning his face as the older bloke’s tale progressed. With a long wait ahead of me, I popped out one of my MP3 earplugs and covertly eavesdropped on their conversation in order to kill the boredom.

A dalliance with the demon drink... pt 2

So, with my now-injured brother G bumbling his way towards his girlfriend’s mother’s house and their New Year’s Eve family party, things were definitely beginning to unravel in his little world: he had head-butted and successfully smashed a bus shelter’s Tempered glass panel with nothing more than his skull and was now deliriously wandering towards his destiny. Now, my brother has very limited recall for the following account, although he does occasionally get a flashback occasionally of such horrifying clarity that instant suppression is required to avoid festering upon being such a f**king idiot.

A dalliance with the demon drink... pt 1

“It’s probably the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in my life,” replied my brother - I’ll call him ‘G’ for the sake of this story - when I asked him to elaborate upon an infamous New Year’s Eve night many years before in his debauched past. “It took weeks to piece together exactly what had actually happened, with the fragments people told me they’d seen me doing during the night and then remembering little bits here and there,” he said as we sat having a brew together, “and even now, I’m still not sure of everything that happened.” Well, the story is a classic example of overindulgence in festive spirit, alcohol abuse and the resulting mindless cretin this can create, so allow me to share this tale of woe with you over two parts...

Did Alisha & Nathan actually touch in Misfits?

Here's a little animation of frames taken from Misfits episode five, series two for all the fans out there who were wanting Alisha to touch Nathan but never got their wish to see what additional filth would sprout from his mouth. Below is the proof they actually DID touch, albeit unintentionally so and apparently without any effect whatsoever! Please click the image beneath for the animation:

The Boiling Rage: 2010 in review

Got this email through this morning from WordPress, so thought I'd revel in my own (pathetic) brilliance and let anyone whose interested (!?) to gauge my 'Blog-Health-o-Meter™'! Now, I know the figures aren't immense or mind-blowing but still, World Dominance isn't attained in a day, is it...?

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2010. That's about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 42 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 56 posts. There were 104 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 8mb. That's about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 5th with 109 views. The most popular post that day was A tale of two Bicycles.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were bv.com.au, imdb.com, facebook.com, mail.live.com, google.co.uk and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for the boiling rage, ellie koning, windows 7 advert, parcelforce, and colin brazier.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1. A tale of two Bicycles April 2010
2. Windows 7 UK adverts: anyone for an anal lobotomy? Jan 2010
3. Zombies: it's all about the way they move... December 2009
4. Parcel Force? P*ssing Farce more like! July 2010
5. Halifax Bank's Radio Station: feeling a little queasy April 2010
6. BT Broadband: welcome to the dribbling trickle   February 2010
7. Walking and Dogs - ready for a workout?   May 2010
8. In eBay sellers we trust    June 2010
9. New MP3 player, new top 10    September 2010
10. I can't get no Enlightenment satisfaction    December 2010

Some of your most popular posts were written before 2010. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again.

So, there we have the result of all my hard work: another year has passed in my blogging world, with another 12 months suddenly arriving to occupy me and it's yet another 52 weeks sucked from my very bones as I head towards the grave, dust and the Universal.

And you know what? I wouldn't change a f**king thing!

New Year's Day (unwelcome) surprise

I got a New Year’s Day surprise today from my Boss, who ‘phoned up to let me know that my eBay manager job of the past four and a half years is being wrapped-up by the end of the month, so I’ve got the next three-and-a-bit-weeks before it’s finished, done, over, kaput, ended, etc...

Misfits: Curtis' time-rewind Easter egg

Misfits has just finished its second series run on E4 in the UK - including a bonus Christmas special episode for us all this year - and has left fans divided by its problematic storylines, unexpected hermeneutic codes and wormhole-like narrative subtexts, even to the point of infuriating some and elating others. However, regardless of these perceived differences, the show has managed to grip virtually everyone who watched the first episode way back in November 2009 and across just a twelve month, two series and 13 episode span, Misfits has grown to be the most exciting and life-affirming show on British TV, period.