Me but still you but still me.

So I started this blog back when I was discombobulated. Back when 'misery and suffering' were things I was good at. Life has changed. I think as you grow up, and when we go through things-- eventually a calm stillness permeates through who you are. And you become okay. Maybe you become better than okay.

I can honestly say I am happy. I am positive and I am no longer a person who is interested in rambling about politics or dissecting a news story. So I don't really know what I'm doing on this blog. I blog more regularly elsewhere, as something entirely different -- so I'm not sure if this blog has a purpose, it certainly has no readers.

Although I do kind of like having this home away from home where I can post a thought once every six months.

Right now, I don't know-- I'm not sure if this page needs to be here.

remembering.

I remember getting up at six AM and strolling into the room. I wanted to be there, but I couldn't keep my eyes open. It was selfish really, I just wanted to go back to bed.

I headed back to my bed, which on that particular night was a reclining-chair-that-didn't-recline-properly-and-also-smelled-of-biscuits. I was so drained that I fell asleep.

I awoke again just after eight o'clock. I was still as tired, but I didn't want to sleep any more. I got up and I walked into the room - I wanted to sit with her. And it's funny, because it seemed like everyone else had the same idea. By 8:20 - we were all in there, we were all with her. And it wasn't because anyone told us to be; we just all felt the need to be there. It didn't surprise us when the nurse said 'I think it's going to be soon. It could be any minute'. It felt like it was coming.

The important thing is that we were all there with her. We were all there together. It's funny how you dress these things up to mean something when they happen. It could just have been the way things were - it happened when it happened. But it felt as if she had let us all get some sleep that night. It felt like she wanted us to all be with her in the morning. She passed away at 8:30am on the Sunday, four years ago today.

I miss her.

Those Elusive Polish Girls.

Girls from Poland are hot. I am not sure why, they just are. And of course, here in London we are flooded with them.

But. I. Can't. Get. Them. To. Talk. To. Me. Why not?.

In fact, that's a lie - I've talked to lots of them, and they are very interested in talking to me and knowing me for-the-duration-they-are-forced-too but then I never see them again. I will give the the story of a) The Girl In Norway, b) The Teeth Girl and c) Plane Girl.

a) The Girl In Norway.

I was in a town called Jessheim, in Norway. There is NOTHING in Jessheim, completely pointless. But, I did find a shopping centre. In this shopping centre was an adorable Polish girl who was there working for a charity, raising money for a Russian charity. How weird is that.. A girl from Poland, in Norway, doing work for a Russian Charity. Anyways, I gave her some money, pretended to be interested in the plight of Homeless Russians or whatever; and then we chatted for a bit. She said she comes to the UK sometimes, might move here one day. It was all very nice, then I left.

But returned moments later, I just had to talk to this beautiful girl. We chatted some more, swapped up emails and said we should keep in touch. She was heading back to Poland soon and said when I head back there she could show me around.

Sounded perfect. Indeed, I had her email. I threw her a message. No response. A few months later, I tried again. She eventually emailed back, apologising for being very busy. This pattern continued, FOR LIKE THREE YEARS. I gave up.

b) Teeth Girl.

So I was working at an Event in Central London. This girl was working there too, for some Dental company - she was trying to sell some new type of plastic brace or something. We chatted over various days, got along really well.

On the last day, I headed back to see her- she was gone, she had LEFT!. Noooooooooo. I remember leaving work that night really pissed off, because this girl was so remarkably lovely it seemed a real shame I'd never see her again. As I dived onto the tube, I noticed a spilled coffee on the floor. I didn't fancy staying in that carriage, so I jumped off the train and went to the next carriage.

I literally sat in a seat before realising, right next to me - was her. Yes, 'Teeth Girl'. We talked, we got along really well. And then like forty minutes later it was time to go our separate ways. She had my details. She promised to get in touch. She didn't. This was over a year ago.

c) Plane Girl.

So last week I was heading back from Krakow, Poland. I was on a different flight to my friend as I needed to get back for a wedding. As I scrambled to find a seat on the most old, horrid Ryanair plane you've ever seen - this space became available next to yet another beautiful Polish girl. But this girl was really, really - fuckingreally incredible to look at.

I sat next to her, feeling quite strongly like a loser for doing so. Realising this, I decided, like any shy, retarded-idiot would, to ignore her. I listened to my Ipod and drifted away.

But after an hour and a half I was BORED OUT OF MY MIND. I began huffing and puffing and flicking things and tapping things. She was doing the same. Aghhhhhhhhh. I had to talk to her. I mean, why not!. We only live once or twice.

"Any idea when we land?" I asked.
I fully expected "Fuck off, Dickhead" - but instead she answered - and added some thoughtful ideas about why the flight was longer than expected, something about flight paths. It was interesting and her answer was way longer than necessary - so I figured she was up for chatting.

And she was, and we talked for the next hour - talked about what we do, what we want to do, where we've travelled, where we want to travel. She's still a student, too - and in a field related to mine. So when I gave her my card, it was genuine that I could concievably help her with some contacts. She promised to get in touch.

I knew right then and there, instinctively, that I would never hear from her again. Admittedly, it's only been a week. But I just know. For some reason these girls from Poland are extremely friendly. In person, I have foolishly believed us to have wonderful chemistry; only to be wronged by the dead-silence thereafter, never to hear from them again.

Is it me? Is it Polish culture? Do they not have phones and email in Eastern Europe?.

Life is wonderful.

I last blogged in September 2007. It all began to get a little pointless to me. All too often you see people blogging for the sake of it - rambling away about their own lives or the news of the day, but who really cares? What's the point blogging about a country that's being bombed, or some woman that got murdered or some building that caught fire - when it's all going to be repeated again and again. And all these blogs just become an endless supply of meaningless words, forever lost in the flood or content, from thousands of writers.

I gave up reading newspapers a few months ago. I guarantee if you pick up your nearest paper it'll do it's best to convince you that you're going to die from terrorists, die from cancer in previously healthy foods, die from a lack of money, it's all just fear, fear, fear. And of course, the more we read about this fear - the more we need to feel informed about it. But how can you ever hope to have any kind of positive experiences in your life when we are surrounded by such negative media?. Everything we read and see, news-wise -- is out to tell us how bad things are, and how much worse they are going to get.

I haven't been able to ignore the credit crunch. Everyone is talking about it. Nobody really knows what it means. What's confusing is that it's not like any real money has actually moved or gone anywhere, it's all based on ideas, on some infrastructure that none of us lay people really understand. Of course, if people lose jobs because of this it's bad. But that person who loses their job is going to find it hard to be positive and believe they can get employment again when every piece of information surrounding them tells them that so many millions are going to become unemployed during this period. This is not the message we need out there. We need positivity. There are ALWAYS jobs, there are always businesses you can create which will generate income, there are always things you can do if you work hard and believe. This is the message that is needed, not one of doom.

The Great Depression brought about some of the biggest companies in the world today. IBM started during the great depression. Microsoft even started during a depression in the 1970's.

Is it such a bad thing if giant companies crumble?. Is it a bad thing if people go shopping for a better deal?. If Starbucks lost all their riches - is it so bad that a cup of coffee would go back to costing 0.40?.

To be honest, I don't really understand the recession. What banks did wrong, what they're doing wrong, why everybody is making thousands of people redundant; I don't really understand it. I lack the education and it doesn't help that I haven't properly read a newspaper in months.

But here's the truth; the people who survived the Great Depression were the people who kept the faith and constantly looked for opportunities. People didn't stop spending back then, they just shopped around for the best deals - it was a window for new and small companies to offer better services, for better prices. And if that's what has to happen now, that can't be a bad thing.

I absolutely and completely refuse to believe this is going to be a bad time in the world. The world is the same world it was yesterday, or last year. The same people are here, the same land is here, the same money is here, the same food is here, the same successes and failures are here. Everything we need for greatness is right HERE, it is in our hands, we just need to recognise it and turn it to gold.

To put it politely, FUCK THE RECESSION. Fuck off. We don't want or need you.

What matters is having a bed to lay in, what matters is having your friends and families with you. If that bed needs to be a little bit smaller, or if those friends have to work an extra few hours; then that's life, but we'll get through it - and we'll continue to fight and find ways to prosper, and we will. Let's not get down about a recession. Because there's nothing we can do about it, and worrying about it will not bring about positive results. Let's take care of ourselves; and in turn the banks and the governments and the businesses will sort themselves out. And by the time they sort it out, you won't even care - because you'll be well on your way.

Fuck Uni Students.

Okay, I've had it. I'm tired of fucking Uni students. What a bunch of idiots.

These are the most lazy, pointless fucks I know - and all they do is moan about how busy they are. Suddenly, as term starts, they have an excuse for everything.

On average, a University student is in lectures for about 8-12 hours a week. EIGHT TO TWELVE BLOODY HOURS A WEEK!. Including their studying at home, the average goes up to about 26 hours a week. Well big fucking deal!.

Log onto your facebook and take a look at all your uni student friends, moaning about how terribly difficult their lives are. I know people who've served in Iraq and they don't moan this much.

It's absolutely ridiculous. "oh sorry I've been meaning to text you back I've just been so busy with exams and stuff. And I've got an essay due Thursday". It boggles my mind how a uni student can find a few hours in their very hectic weeks to do a mediocre essay about leisure and tourism or about Picasso's Mum for art history or whatever, but they struggle to find the moment in the day when they can tap in 160 characters on a mobile phone to their close friends.

Seriously - it absolutely boggles my mind. Uni students continually refuse to admit that what they're doing is a huge doddle, whereby they sit around on MySpace and MSN all day, doing fuck all aside from getting into copious amounts of debt.

I'm looking for a student to say to me "Hey man, I'm free today. I'm free tomorrow, I'm free every day! I'm a uni student afterall...". What's wrong with coming out of the closet and admitting that British University study is easy, and that you really have loads and loads of spare time?.

I must apologise - I've generally had nothing against Higher Education, people should be free to do what they want and all that. What urks me is simply that Uni students go on about how ridiculously busy they are when in truth they're busy for about 4.6 hours a week, compared to your average city worker who's pulling in 45+ hours a week, or the dude cleaning the streets where you live for minimum wage, or that soldier in Iraq.

Get a grip. You're not busy. You're a fool.

Boris for London Mayor?.

Boris Johnson for London Mayor?. That's certainly an interesting notion, and he seems almost certain to get the Tory nomination.

I think what people may be underestimating is his popularity with students. Putting him in the race literally mobilises a whole army of twentysomething's to vote; people who would normally stay at home on polling day will be out there. I think he's a serious contester to red Ken.

A few things that I still wonder about though. Namely, what, actually - does a London Mayor have to do?. Ken Livingstone just seems to raise tube ticket prices weekly, do his best to expand the congestion zone and go around offending Jews and Muslims with terets like outbursts. I think Boris is certainly capable of the latter. Will be interesting, certainly moreso than national politics.

It's time to invade.

The problem with modern terrorism is that, it's not another country that's attacking you. Iraq or Pakistan or Afghanistan; they're not trying to terrorise us. Britain and the USA invaded Afghanistan to take down terrorism cells. Our beef wasn't with the recognised government, it was with Osama Bin Laden hiding in the hills armed with a beard, video camera and mobile phone.

So therefore we can see that War has changed. We now have active democracies in Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe even the United Kingdom. Yet we are still in Iraq and likely to send MORE troops to Afghanistan next year - the reason's ranging from the old gotta-find-the-bad-guys to other things like peace-keeping and stabilisation; which are basically the same but we only kill during working hours.

Back on July 7th 2005 something truly awful happened here in England; a bunch of commuters jumped on a train and rather than buy a subway sandwich and moan about delays, they killed 52 people. It was devestating, it was a warning. But it happened and we all tried to go on unphased, get on with our lives etc etc.

Until this week; when two unexploded car bombs were found in the very heart of Central London. If this wasn't scary enough; a day later two terrorists have decided that, rather than using an expensive parking space they would drive their jeep directly into the terminal building at Glasgow airport.

The problem is something previously unimaginable. The very real possibility is that we have HUNDREDS of home-grown terrorists. These are not just loons from abroad shouting gibberish and trying to fly planes into us. These are people you work with, people you trust; they are finding more truth and meaning in the words of the fundamentals than in our own Western ideals. With our government, our fast-food chains and our casual invading of random nations; it's difficult to understand why this would happen. Suffice to say, we now have terrorists willing to blow themselves up living right next door to us. Their kids go to our kids schools.

So what has to be done?.

Clearly, we can't all go around hating the Muslims. Because a large percentage of them are good and it's unfair to think just because someone has a brown skin that he is going to combust. On the other hand, to avoid questionning some Asian guy who has a dodgy looking rucksack as you sit next to him whilst he chants to himself; that would perhaps be careless. But you still run the risk of being racist. So what should be done?.

Let's recap. The world is changing. Terrorism is no longer about nations. It's about ideas. It's about this germ creeping through our cities whereby ordinary folk, namely Islamic folk, are deciding that rather than pop to the pub for a quick pint, they want to explode and kill as many people as possible.

Given the problem of terrorism in our nation, which could escalate to that which we see in Iraq and Afghanistan, to say nothing of many other troubling nations; the truth is suddenly very apparent to me.

We need to invade ourselves. Or better yet, George Bush needs to send troops over. Call it a peace-keeping mission, call it Vietnam, call it what you like. Great Britain is full of crazed fundamental Islamics who want to kill us all. Sound paranoid? a bit. But it's true. There are terrorists at large in the UK, so I ask that whoever and wherever you are, so long as you're in a Western Democracy, please write to your government, see that - our nation is out of control. We need to be invaded. Please help.