Things that actually rocked in 2016

There is something about January that makes me feel like writing a listicle. Maybe it’s because after Christmas I have lots of cash and very little self-control left, or maybe it’s because it feels more productive than the 100s of things I’m meant to be doing. I’ll try to stick with things I haven’t referenced on this channel before because I don’t want to devote this page to buffy (at this point my love of the show is borderline cultish) and I can’t guarantee that everything I include on this list is modern, but they helped me get through a year of Trump, Celeb deaths, and killer clowns.

First up – what I’m reading

I am currently halfway through the first “Wicked and the Divine” graphic novel. A sharp story about gods running around as celebrities with a two year lifespan. It’s fantastic, with enough modernity to be fun without feeling like its shoehorned in (looking at you “batgirl”!) It’s also wonderfully British without resorting to Sherlock holmes-esque references to it. 

Finally I love the aesthetic, and it makes sense that gods would be worshipped as celebrities, with what can only be described as the best hair – there are so many colour streaks in this series. Luci being my favourite character so far, I just love the idea of the devil’s reincarnation being a powersuited queer woman with “David Bowie” hair, even if the comparison still stung a little since this time last year.

Edit: nope. My favourite character is definitely inanna now, Hands down!

I also delved into Constantine recently, which is excellent, it’s about a slightly scouse, bisexual, Alcoholic, dark magician sorting out people’s supernatural problems. I read my copy of “Constantine: the Hellblazer vol 1” and he’s just rugged enough and charming enough for his character to work. His sexuality is also a working part of the story without being a major plot point (looking at you Young Avengers) or seen as a big deal like so many other shows.

My first Constantine ever was a dark one, so this was a nice way to get the bitter taste of his more serious books out of my system. I really like the idea that he goes off on adventures surrounded by the ghosts of his close friends purely to torment him and my favourite part is the house calls he makes, solving monster attacks like they are mere inconveniences, talking about them in a tone that an average person would talk about a broken washing machine.

Final book:

A proper book this time. It’s Kendall Kulper’s “The Magic Thief.” This series follows a young orphan who is immune to magic. Because of this trait he is an outcast of the magic society and considered dangerous. If I’m honest the book started a little slow for me, but in fairness I had watched nothing but high paced 90s Wheadon that month. However I kept with it and found it to be both very witty and quite insightful. The magic world she made is very stylised and exact, with great details like which countries specialise in which styles of magic. This book came to me at a time when I needed it and it was like it flickered a switch in my brain.

What I’m currently watching

The Buffy spinoff show Angel has been big on my radar this year, with drama varying from Darla and Wolfram and Hart to the end of the world and the return of Angelus. This show, just like its little sister, mixes big questions and real world issues with light hearted goofiness and crazy monsters. It also sparked my love of the show when everyone’s favourite rogue slayer, Faith returned to the light to fight a bigger problem. Honestly reformed Faith is my favourite, because she’s grown and less reckless without losing her spark. Out of all the characters in the whole show, I want to be Faith the most, even despite the fact that A) I am a dude and B) Anya is much closer to my spirit animal than Faith. As you can tell i haven't managed to break free from my addiction yet.

The one thing that almost thawed me from being frozen in the 90's with my favourite show is Community. Which has all the goofiness required to fill the gap. it’s about a community college called Greendale that does everything accept a functioning lesson. I was first introduced to it when Mike Regnetta talked about its link to Postmodernism, which is covered within my sociology course. 3 seasons later it became my favourite show. However its humour being either bang on hilarious or miles away, but this tends to be the pattern with American humour. It’s also so quotable, there is literally a set of quotes for everyone regardless of personality or situation.

Finally gravity Falls ended this year, which is a little sad but I believe they ended it at a good place. This show is about two twins who move to their great uncle’s for the summer and find weird and wacky hijinks going on. This show has a diverse range of role models including two polar opposite twins, a plethora of adult jokes and more than enough mysteries hidden within through the story to make it comparable to franchises like “Lost” and “Welcome To Nightvale”

It’s occurring to me that I have a niche, urban supernatural/fantasy fiction

What I’m listening to

First off I would like to thank the universe for podcasts. These are the only reason I have survived this long on public transport. Grace Helbig’s “not too deep” has forced me to stifle laughter in public transport and Dear Hank and John has provided me with a more stripped back version of everyone’s favourite Youtube sibling duo. DHAJ has less restrictions than the ones associated with the brand that is the Vlogbrothers, allowing them to swear, ramble and discuss topics ranging from bull semen to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Finally Lore is a godsend, with winter happening the narrator’s eerie stories make walking home in the dark so much more thrilling.

I also listened to lots of Lorde and Marina and the Diamonds this year, I know it makes me a cliché moody teenager but I can’t help it. They both sing about a range of topics such as coming home after the fame of being a celebrity and finding all your friends treat you differently, getting revenge on an ex, and the stresses of body image issues on young women. They contrast each other quite well with Lorde being slow and gravelly and Marina being known for the fast high notes.

Finally what started up as one look at the soundtrack of the video game Bioshock opened the floodgates to vintage sounding music. I have a guilty pleasure about older style music, my love of both Brendon Urie’s “death of a bachelor” and my longstanding love affair with singer Caro Emerald and her tunes became the pillars of what became for a short while a weird combination. My phone has become clogged up with music varying from vintage 50's style Taylor Swift covers to 80's power ballads, one to calm me down and the other to hype me up, depending on the situation.

Miscellaneous bits

This year I got into ginger beer. What started off as a quick drink one day after work snowballed until I received a giant tray of the stuff from my grandparents for Christmas! It tastes better than cider and is my go to drink of choice now, but I fear if I consume any more I will become a member of the famous five. I think my blood is now a 3^rd sweeter because of it.

I also returned to portal this December. Can we talk about how witty Glados is? She is awesome and so much better after her morality chip got burned. The whole game is riddled with Easter eggs about what the building once was, mind bending puzzles and awesome science that I want in real life. Like seriously I need one of those portal guns, and at least one gallon of the weird orange/blue paint in my day to day life, just for my commute if nothing else.

Speaking of Portal, I just received a Portal themed candle from a company called Boonzy Art. It smells like delicious cake, the kind Appature science failed to deliver in the first game. Its packaging even goes as far as to read like the science posters on the wall of the labs. The box had a stamp on it which is always a win and it’s a decent size. I just wish shipping from America didn’t cost me selling my firstborn to Satan.

Finally lush fun, its like playdoh except its bodywash! I use it in a very utilitarian way, making tiny cubes out of it. It can be used as shampoo, body wash and a bath product. It leaves coloured soap streaks on your body making me feel a tiny bit closer to warpaint and the profits go to charity. However,be warned, it melts when exposed to steam so maybe storing it in thebathroom isnt the wisest choice.

So thats my year in things, lets hope there are more awesome things in 2017. 

that time I failed at parkour (freerunning?)

I don’t know exactly what was going through my mind when it happened, but somehow a combination of too much buffy

, a day off and the first dose of boredom in a long time manifested as me taking a parkour session on a Tuesday evening. I guess I thought: if it goes wrong it’s an anecdote, if it’s good it’s an adventure, besides I’d seen vloggers on youtube do it so how hard could it be.

I rocked up in town and walked from the station to the parkour building, which was a bit of a trek but I’d done the route before to go to both the climbing place and the trampoline place nearby. However I’d miscalculated the time, going way too early for the happy hour session. Naturally I wandered the shops for the hours I had to spare, browsing mundane products to pass the time. I went from a household supply shop to a tech shop out of sheer boredom, getting gradually more fed up as the day went on. Part of me wondered if people thought I was a thief, I had been lingering in their shops for a while and I was a young white male, although I’m pretty sure most of the attention was in my imagination.

After the hour of half-hearted shopping I followed the path down to the industrial bit near the trampoline bit, nosing my head in and immediately leaving. The words “murder basement” sprang to mind, it was dark, cold and empty with an older man who I don’t think saw me. I was expecting something full of young attractive people doing things from awesome films to pop music. Old music was playing in the background and I slinked away, changing my mind. My thoughts ping ponged between “murder basement” and “but you’ve waited so long and you’ve been drenched.” In the end I slinked into the trampoline place, performing the kind of toilet based clothing change you’d expect in a double life superhero/Hannah Montana situation.

I braved the murder basement again and the older man explained that they were on a first aid course. The happy hour time made sense. There was another hour of waiting, this time with Wifi and my headphones in against a marble table. It’s as annoying as it is ironic that when I’ve got literally nothing else to do for an hour youtube is a desert, but when work you settle down to do something productive it’s a minefield of distraction. Finally when the guys in charge stumble in they set up in a heartbeat, with a blond dreadlocked guy blipping my card using their website and his colleague emerging. The lights flickering on and fading the murder basement vibe immediately. There were weird wooden towers, random metal poles to balance on and a foam pit that was only accessible via a jump. The guy – Craig – introduced himself and I explained my complete lack of ability to him. He was a mixed race black guy, mid-thirties and kind of cool in a very friendly way, reminded me of a family friend who used to work for the climbing company next door to them. I also met a younger lad later that night who was obnoxiously good at all the tricks and had what could only be described as “Quintin from the magicians” hair, at least ear length with a bob.

Craig showed me some warm ups and after a little running and stretching we worked on balance, that I was terrible at. I could walk across them a little but trying to balance on tip-toes as instructed was as hilarious as my attempts were tragic. Next were jumps, hopping from one thing to another, which I didn’t totally suck at. After a few hops from three separate balance pads made of converted tyres he lead me up one of the wooden steps and asked me to leap from one side to the other. I hesitated, part calculation, part fear of whacking my chin on the bit where my feet should be. The gap was apparently the same distance, but the height had changed. I made it, jumping how I was advised as opposed to how I would naturally jump. The wave of relief him me when I made it across, he congratulated me and moved me to the vault area with a smile.

He pulled out the vault box and showed me a few different vaults, this was the part where I met the lad. He was 14 yet acted much older, and he had more muscles in his upper body than an army of my clones would put together. A few slightly iffy yet not too tragic vaults later he left me to have a wander. I then latched onto the lad and hovered around him for a bit, where he showed me the tomb raider pole launch thing among a few other bits, with me failing 80% of the time and him reinforcing how to do basics with the phrase “you need to commit!” Most of my time was spend asking him to dumb down what seemed to him like very simple concepts, and at one point he suggested I “Imagine its Indiana Jones” as if that made it magically simpler.

It was surprisingly good fun, I’d go again. However I wouldn’t do it as a regular hobby, especially not beyond the happy hour price. My main advice to the company beyond the wait would be that slow old timey slightly romantic music is not suitable for a parkour session. . I also now know where my abdominal muscles are because they still feel a little achy the day after, on the other hand I did end up hurdling a bike-slower-pipe-thingy on route home because of my time there.

My weekend part 2: everything else

My saturday evening was spend at an 18th birthday party. It was relatively chill with my friends eating pizza, exchanging memes and drinking.

I was surprised by the tameness of the event, but it was a welcome change of tone from a hurricane of a week. I didn't drink much that night because work.

three things stood out that night:

1) one of my friends saying "Allah Akbar" when a chunk of the cake was dismantled. The cake consisting of what was essencially half an easter egg filled with sweets and dumped on top. He said it in front of the birthday boy's (very vanilla) parents as the egg was being struck by the tiny metal hammer.

2) I vaped. There was no nicotine in the vape pen, but I thought why not. The pen looked a little like a sonic screwdriver, which made me envy its original owner a little, but the experience was like enhailing squash, not particularly fun to be honest, but very dramatic looking as a flow of vapour followed.

3) I walked home a midnight, the rain pattering on the umbrella in a calming way as the floor reflected all the streetlights. I decided to put on a spooky podcast in order to make the most of the atmosphere.

It's remarkable how different I felt when I put on "Lore" (an eerie history podcast voiced by a man with a remarkably unnerving voice.) I changed my mind after the intro. It didn't seem like a wise idea as i walked to an empty house in the rain at night, especially as with every step i began to check behind me. So despite the ambiance i swapped to "Lorde" album. It was the line "the home has been a safe haven for centuries ..." that was the tipping point.

The next day i got dressed, and googled the train times. I had two options, slightly too early or slightly too late. I went with too early giving me 17 minutes to dash to the station. When I got there i found a smart replacement bus which gave me a free ride in exchange for 2 minutes extra of my time going the long route.

So while i was early in town I visited WH-Smiths. It was then that i saw a man that looked like Charlieissocoollike, a youtube icon who was anchored into my mind as the single representative of my childhood. "It can't be. He lives in London" I thought before I locked eyes on the booth. My heart raced and I suddenly realised why the girls at the concert felt the need to scream at Brendon Urie.

He was so normal looking and I could have literally turned around and said hi if my brain worked a fraction quicker. But alas I had missed my shot. It merely fuelled my determination. I made it my mission to meet him in person and get a shameless selfie despite my ugly work clothes and my half-arsed hair.

I found it strange that I was so obsessed. I'd met Evan Edinger that summer and it was such a normal experience, Charlie was equally as down to earth as Evan was ... so why was my heart attacking my chest? I guess that's down to sentiment for the youtube veteran that began my obsession.

Tragically I was too broke to buy the book in the slither of time I was given because #studentlife, and when I returned he wasn't there anymore. I was crushed, how dare the universe dangle Charlie Mcdonell in my face and snatch him away without a second thought. I stormed through town, scanning strangers with the hope that he stayed around a little longer.

It was fruitless and when I returned to work it took all my self control not to take it out on the customers. He would have been the reward for surviving through the week, a stressed week of homework essays and personal statements that was begining to crush my soul.

I feel like my weekend could have been perfect if I'd had the foresight, which adds so much salt to the wound. Its a weird kind of FOMO, what if I'd known? It's too late to fix it so I guess next time I'll make it work.

Until then lets hope next week is a little calmer

My weekend part 1: my first concert

My week ended on a friday, my stresses of lost wallets, personal statements and homework still present faintly in the back of my mind as i queued for a band called "panic! at the disco." I'd dropped my rucksack at work to be collected the next day and began talking to the people  to me, thinking "why not? I'm stuck here for three hours until the doors open anyway." My friend was reluctant at first but eventually aclimatised to the situation and began to converse a while after.

From the cluster of concert goers i met two stood out. Pudsy ears guy (a bloke my brothers age in Pudsy ears who was only slightly cooler than me) and a girl only slightly younger than me from Wolverhampton who had missed school to drive down. They were fun to talk to and made the fact that i was frostbitten and being rained on with my umbrella left at work bearable. We discussed everything from my lack of accent to a misunderstanding of the bible involving the spirit of Christ ejaculating over the virgin Mary (don't ask.)

We entered the building in clusters and i slipped away to buy merch before the queue developed. If i had the foresight i would have drank at this bit, biggest regret of the evening. after barging through the wall of people and returning to my spot i had even more waiting. I people-watched. Chatting casually to a cute scouse couple and playing "spot the dad" until a band finally arrived.

The first band came on, a mix of guys and girls with a female drummer. They were Australian and would have been charming if anyone knew their songs. It was then i noticed the earbuds in the ears of one of strangers i had met that night. It was so loud and bright that it would have been perfect with earbuds in. I remembered what the vlogbrothers advised about concerts in their video and regretted my decision to ignore their Advice. It was so loud and bright that i could barely make out the lyrics.

After them Brendon stepped onstage next to what could only be described as his guitarist lookalike. He preformed well, putting all the energy you'd expect. But all i could think was "I'm too sober for this." Those words orbiting my head on what would have been a great night. His rendition of "girls girls boys" stood out particularly with great showmanship.

My only comment was when he did a high note, exaggerating it as a cue for hype that made him sound like lorne from the buffy spinoff angel, the audience would shriek back in a fangirl siren scream. It was amusing at first but painful and slightly gimmicky by the sixth squeal. My main thought through most of the evening was weighing up the possibility of me getting my place back if i broke away from my little divet in the sea of teenagers.

On the flipside the concert veterans looked after me in the queue and even wondered where i was when i sneaked off to by merch.

I left, temporarily hard of hearing and so sleepy that i didn't function well, before collapsing into bed.

Festival number 6

I started the festival buzzing, my arm freshly bangle clad as im lead to our boutique tent (dad insisted, good decision) by a volenteer. I ran to see kaiser chiefs, slightly too sober to enjoy it but still shouting to the lyrics that they played immaculately.

I was served alcohol (surprisingly) and let loose in the temporary neon town i now called home. It was a weird city, something reminiscent of the town from "spirited away" with trendy people dotted around in top hats and face paint, a weird bias where the clothes were cheap but the food cost a firstborn child  (sorry Sam ... we sold you for a cider when i ran out of kidneys to sell.) I was also fortunate to have wellies as it was essentially a bog town.

My first ever concert was Bastille, a band featuring cool bloke in criminally skinny jeans that lead a chant well and claimed to be unable to dance despite evidently doing so very well. I chatted to people including drunk women who thought i was south African and a cute girl hanging with a cluster of her teen friends. It was fun for the first few songs until i realised i had ran out of Bastille songs i knew the lyrics too with the exception of the very last one (Pompeii - that song's still so good!)

The next morning i scoffed a waffle that gave me the best kind of sugar kick and explored the settings, finding out the hard way that nothing started til 12. I found the timetable after an embarrassing amount of time and planned my day, unfortunately the first 3 activities were either shit or cancelled, the irony being that the talk i stumbled into when exploring (shout out to medival history guy) was excellent. I've seen actual bands/comedians less fun than him.

I joined the Johnny Vegas talk thinking it would be comedy, but i got there early and  endured a 1 hour talk on midlife crisis's ... there was also a poem about spiting the rich which i found incredibly ironic at the most middle class festival EVER. when finally Johnny Vegas began to talk it joined together in a deathtrap ... he wasn't here for the funny ... we wanted to talk about being a political prisoner! "Oh shit" i thought, taking in the wall of people hiding from the rain as i planned my escape. I weaved through them awkwardly and escaped before the video clip came up, filling the air with false "sorry" s and "excuse me"s as a forced past.

After narrowly missing a few workshops i found the comedy tent, with Nish Kumar performing. Coincidentally i had seen him a few nights before on TV. The woman who introduced him was great fun with her perfect peppiness and the gift of getting into sincere conversations with the audience before reeling off genius anecdotes.

The acts that night varied from the best smaller comedians (the local girl who killed it, the host - see above ... I want to be her friend so bad, and Nish Kumar who made me want to be the coldplay drummer and surprised me by not using his TV material) to the worst (hyperactive gits in costume with annoying voices making very left wing jokes.) Finally it finished on Johnny Vegas, who made me leave more concerned about his wellbeing than feeling the funny so to speak.

The boutique tent was spacious, waterproof and robust plus it was very close to the arena which was perfect for quick access. It included blow up mattresses and duvets as well as a metal ring with fake fairy-lights that looked cute with the rest of the decorations but sinisterly sacrificial if placed in an appropriate setting surrounding some fire/dead animals/anything else from a horror movie.

One thought did keep reoccurring during my stay, which was that my younger, hat obsessed self would have been in heaven. There was everything from fancy ass feathery headgear to bowler hats including a millinery themed pub with hat cocktails.

Finally the thing i loved most about the festival was how friendly everyone was this year. I spent most of my time hopping from stranger to stranger, varying from the Volvo sponsored sailor girl, to the Scottish women in the queue to the comedy tent and the hat guy with the glitter on his face. This of course was ideal for me as I love the potential to talk to anyone and everyone at the event without disrupting their lives, conversation is just expected here, and it was beautiful!

Thanks number 6, see you next year!

The blue aussie street performer

After a day of chair moving and paperwork with Rachel (the greatest human in the building) and Huw I was released early from work. So i do a bit of shopping and cheque cashing and all my other jobs. On the way out i see a facinating Australian man with electric blue hair and an oversized flyswatter ("im australian, have you seen our spiders." - performer guy.)

In the performance he explained what his plans were (swallow the fly swatter, juggle swords) and before i could realise what happened i was chosen as a volenteer. He started off encouraging me to demonstraight sword swallowing without practice, which i didn't and gave him the look of concern he was working for. After that his orders became more realistic, passing him the blades when he asked he to.

After the initial fly swatter deepthroating (the handle part not the swatter) and swird juggling he got me to strangle him into a straightjacket, buckling him inside with him making a series of jokes that went over the kids heads but hit the adults well. "If you get the wrong buckle then the whole trick gets a bit less straight, and there are already rumours. Plus im being put into bondage by a man I've just met"

He got a kid involved (confessing it was for the adorable factor) and a chinese man without realising he spoke very little english, so that was an interesting barrier. After the jacket I wrapped him up in chains, paranoid that I'd screw up the trick for him while i ducked under and went over the foreigner (Stone, his name was Stone) 's chain tangling the aussie.

After a short speech about "in this world we need more laughter" that was half lipservice and half touching the performer did a series of squirming and weird dance moves, freeing himself from the chains in a flurry and holding his hat out for donations. So yeah, that was my tuesday.

17th birthday

On my 17th birthday i was a hurried mess of stickiness. The sunlight was cooking my business clothing and i was late to my first day of work experience. I had a flurry of new songs on my phone to fill the train trip and i'd called ahead to warn the company of my delay.

When i finally arrived i was sent to do busy work such as copying and pasting twitter bios into a word document with a bunch of middle aged office workers. They were charming and fun to be around but they weren't the jetsetting young people I was expecting when i signed up. I returned from my day disgruntled and sticky, roasted and certainly not in the mood for a fancy meal out.

Dad finally talked sense into me and we decided to go to a little italian place for a small meal and conversation. What we didn't realise is that it was band night in the local pizza place! Middle aged performers (dubbed "the mid life crisis" by my family) were playing easy listening next to us on a speaker the size of a small table! We ended up communicating via shouts and the notes app on dad's phone, laughing our heads off at how ironic the situation was and how suprisingly in tune the band was. To be honest it made my night go from a 4 to an 8.

The pizza was excellent to the point where I was moved to compliment the chef and I dont think I've laughed that hard in a long time!