The Homophobe Argument

I'm inundated with assignments and work at the moment (all of which I'm behind on, but hey, not all of us can be Einstein - someone has to be the beauty in front of the brains) but I wanted to do a quick post about something that has been bothering me. I like to call it "The Homophobe Argument". Now, this could be interpreted in many ways I know, but what I'm specifically referring to is the diatribe that all homophobes come up with as a reason for "why being gay is wrong".

It goes like this: It's not natural, animals don't do it, so it's not natural for humans to do it because we are animals. I have so many problems with this stupid exclamation I don't even know where to begin, and I'm not even gay. 

First of all, yes animals do have sex with animals of the same sex. Monkeys do it all the time. In fact, some monkey species are more likely to have a sexual partner of the same sex. Now, if there are any homophobic people out there reading this right now: I apologise. It's okay, you aren't dying, I know that your tiny mind has just been blown but it's A-OK. Go and find a dark corner in a dark room where you can spend time thinking about what a terrible person you have been your whole homophobic life, feel bad about it. Once you've gotten over it start to walk towards the light and... ta-da welcome to your new life as a better person. If you are a homophobic person who happens to be religious, then I'm sorry to tell you this buddy, God made gay monkeys. It was on the Wednesday, you know, when he'd had enough of the pressure of making a planet and decided to smoke a joint, he discovered free love and gay monkeys were born. Deal with it. 

Second of all, if we are basing all things "natural" around what our comrades in The Animal Kingdom are doing, then we are well and truly fucked. Let's just take the argument of "animals don't do it, so we shouldn't do it" as a basis for all good decision making in human life. Let's take it as a template, shall we? Animals don't wash regularly, animals don't use iPads, animals don't listen to music, animals don't use Facebook, animals don't live in concrete/brick/wooden houses, animals eat each other, animals don't take medicine they just DIE, animals don't drink bottled water, animals shit themselves, animals don't go to school - you see what I'm getting at here? There are so many things that humans do that other animals don't do, it's them that should be taking the advice from us, not the other way around.

That's all I can think of for now. I would also like to mention that I am saying "sex" in the loosest terms. Because I know lesbians who are attracted to women with XY chromosomes (they are women but have been accidentally assigned-male at birth, because doctors get it wrong, for those who don't know). So you don't have to be attracted to someone of the same sex (i.e. chromosomes etc) to be gay. So if you see what I'm saying, sex and gender don't really have anything to do with it, which is why animals are another terrible comparison with humans because they don't have the complicated, intimate understanding of sexuality and gender that we have the potential to. Unfortunately there are many humans stunting that potential by being stupid.

Ta-da.

"The Walking Dead" drinking game

My favourite person in the world and I decided to get a bit tipsy whilst watching The Walking Dead. As it happened we got pretty drunk but in order to proceed to this state of mind, we had to make a game first. This is our game:

Rules:

• Take a drink every time Rick shouts "Carl!" in that incredibly southern American accent he has. Alternatively if he sounds like Paul from Llamas with Hats, that counts as well. Oh and if it sounds more like "Kerrl!", you can drink to that as well.
• Take a sip of that bevvy every time Michone kills someone with her ninja skills and the sword of death.
• Take a drink every time someone over kills something big time. I.e. the zombie is clearly already dead, you can stop turning it's head into purple pulp now. (We decided that every character has this moment when they go crazy for no reason at least once series).
• Take a sup every time Carl is a CUNT. Yes, this is how we became so drunk.
• Take a drink for each zombie that you see that's completely mangled, squashed and severed but is still squawking away like a little parrot. I.e. they haven't had their head bashed in yet.
• Take a drink every time Rick does the "Classic Rick Sidewards Squinty Stare".
• Take a good ole gulp every time there is definite sexual tension/there's a romantic moment. This includes kissing and probably hugging. There ain't a lot of choice in The Walking Dead so any living human contact probably excites some sort of sexual desire.
• Take a glug every time there's a Mexican Stand-off.
• Have a refreshing drink every time that Glenn has a self-pity party.
• Hold back the rock star in you and take a drink every time a Southern Rock song comes on.
• Take a big drink every time the three questions are asked.
• Continuously drink throughout every pointless filler episode. For example, the episode that basically consisted of Glenn being thrown down a well, on a string, to fish out a zombie that was caught in there. Exciting stuff.

GET IT ALL DOWN YOU IF A MAIN CHARACTER DIES. 

You'll know if it's a main character or not because you'll either not care or be reduced to tears. I'm not one to cry at TV series or films but Walking Dead has brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion. It's emotional okay.

Safe to say being drunk made the whole "apocalypse thing" easier to manage because, it's true, The Walking Dead can get a bit intense at times.

Shower thought #1: Video is like radio for the eyes.

So inspired by the Reddit sub /r/ShowerThoughts I decided to make my own version... my... own... shower thoughts.

Anyway, I was high yesterday with a friend and after making the most amazing den in the world, with unicorns painted on it, we were deciding what to do next. I said,

"Let's make a radio show. Ooh no let's make a vlog, it's radio for your eyes". 

My weed fogged brain did not compute what I'd just said, but my friend Georgia quickly realised the momentous significance of that phrase. Video really is like radio for the eyes. Your ears register sound and your imagination translates that into images and meaning when you listen to the radio and when you watch a video it is your brain taking the images and translating them into a context. 


Safe to say this realisation has changed my life and made my eyeballs tingle (but perhaps that was just the marijuana). Despite how brainless people may now think that I am, I feel that I've made a profound discovery. 

Thank you and Goodnight.

The Public Service Broadcasting Album IS OUT!!

I am so excited! The new Public Service Broadcasting album, The Race for Space, was released yesterday and it sounds like it's going to be amazing. Their single Gagarin was a great success and this album is looking to follow in it's glorious wake. 

The band take samples from public information films and propaganda and creates instrumental songs around the samples. Spitfire is a great song from their first album Inform-Educate-Entertain and is an example of the flawless way that they combine their music and the samples.

One song from their first album that gave me goosebumps is London Can Take It. It is a chilling, masterful reminder of the war, the beginning being the haunting sound of a wailing siren followed by the words "Now it's eight o clock, Gerry is a little late tonight". It never fails to get me every time. The sound that they created for this song is so fitting it almost seems bizarre that the original information film didn't have the music accompanying it. 

Needless to say The Race for Space is going to be well worth a listen, I don't care how tight my student loan is I'm getting down to the nearest music shop and buying this little gem as soon as possible. 

The Signs That Tell You That You Really Are A Student

So yesterday evening, as I was getting ready for bed in my sexy flannel dressing gown, I noticed a glass on the bathroom radiator. As I inspected the glass further I recoiled in horror when I noticed the state of the bottom of this poor object. It looked like it hadn't been washed in about 10 years. The mildew/mould/whatever it was was crusted to the bottom like a gross gremlin, clinging on and staring up at me cackling evilly. After the shock subsided and I realised that I wasn't going to die, I had to laugh. It is only in a student house that you would find a glass glued to the radiator with grime, in the one room in the house that's supposed to be clean. I took a picture and posted an obligatory hashtag to Instagram (obviously, I mean who wouldn't?!). To add to this display of disgrace I went into my room and saw a glass of what I can only assume used to be milk, but is now (because I still haven't moved it) turned into yoghurt. It actually smelled quite appetising, like Aldi's own brand Greek style pseudo-natural yoghurt. 

This is what inspired me to write this post. It is true that there are some things that only students will do and understand - other normal people just don't quite get it. 

Food. Let us begin here. There is no combination nor recipe that a student will reject or question. A packet of boil-in-the-bag rice smothered in olive oil, mixed with uncooked curry paste (not even sauce) and a sprinkling of herbs (possibly gravy if you're in the North) won't even receive the batting of an eyelid. This is actually a true story. My Italian roommate last year created this bizarre concoction. To be fair he didn't enjoy it, but he ate it anyway. That's another thing, food never goes to waste. Even if it falls on the kitchen floor that's a breeding ground for Salmonella, punctuated by the remnants of last weeks chicken noodle soup and a rainbow of different types of crumb, you still gobble it up like it was Gordon Ramsay's own creation.

"Smoke weed everyday"... Yes, that's right, everybody knows it. It's one of your five a day (it's green), helps you relax and can make all your troubles go away. It is a student's best friend and ally when that Philosophy essay just isn't flowing right and you need that little push in the right direction. It's not an addiction, it's just that every night someone suggests watching a film and before you know it you're watching The Matrix wondering if you'll ever see the sun again, and then a spliff/joint/doobie/biff/biffter is in your hand and everything is alright again. One thing that you do learn is that a spliff is not just a spliff, it can be all manner of different things depending on where you grew up. Fascinating.

Cuddling. I don't know what happened between first year (when I was honestly allergic to cuddling) and second year, but seriously I think aliens beamed me up whilst I was asleep and did something to my brain because I can't go a day without snuggling up to someone. Every student has experienced the following situation: you're sitting on the sofa, doing work, one of your housemates comes in after a shitty day and sits down next to you, leans on your shoulder. Your other housemate sees through a crack in the door and comes in and joins the head leaning. Before you know it, your work is flying all over the place, someone has belly flopped on top of you all and there's ten people tangled together under a quilt watching a cat compilation on YouTube. It happens, it's just a fact of life.

These are my typical student experiences, what are yours?

The Reasons Why I Am Privileged

I have privilege. 

From what I have read in papers and on blogs it seems that a lot of people take offence when told they have privilege. 

"I work in a factory, for less than minimum wage and I have a family to feed - how the fuck do I have privilege?"

I would like to say that the point that I am making is in no relation a judgment of anyone else. There are many people in this world who aren't particularly lucky and who don't necessarily have the same opportunities and privileges as the majority. I am saying, however, that as a white, middle class person I have privileges and I have a lot of them. 

These are the reasons why I am privileged:

• When I apply for a job and succeed, I will know for a fact that I have gained the post because of my skill and my CV. I will not be given a job because I fit the "ethnic minority quota".
• I know that when I walk into a new workplace people will not have the question, lurking at the back of their minds, as to whether I got the job because of the colour of my skin.
• I have privilege because during primary school I didn't experience teachers telling me "your name is too complicated, can I call you X?" because they couldn't be bothered to work their mouths around my identity. They couldn't be bothered to step outside of their comfort zone and fit my totally valid "complicated" name into their vocabulary.
• I know that when I walk into the supermarket I will find the food of my culture everywhere with little variation, without having to try and without having to search, despite the fact that I live in a "culturally diverse" country.
• I have enough money and social security that I can take a gap year, volunteer in a country such as South Africa, and afterwards walk out of there and carry on with my life without thinking twice about anything other than my future (if I were to choose to).
• I am privileged because I know that I will get a job.
• I am privileged because the history that I was taught at school was my own. I also had the opportunity to learn about a whole host of other histories as well.
• When people look at me they do not immediately wonder at the back of their minds whether I might be a terrorist because of my skin or my religion.
• I am privileged because I know that if I have children I will be able to secure them some sort of education and secure financial environment because where I was born and what I look like gives me a free pass to a relatively easy life.

There are a whole host of other reasons why I think I am privileged. I do not feel bad for being privileged, it is not my personal doing that some races/religions/ethnic groups have more privilege than others.

What I am responsible for, however, is how I act on it. I refuse to stand by and allow myself to float through life having little cares because I can. This, for me, is the difference. When people rise up in an outcry of "how dare you think I'm privileged" it isn't helpful because it halts social progress. If people came to terms with their privileges, however begrudgingly, it would open doorways for more people to see the inequalities in our system and try to act against them.

I am privileged because I can safely live my life without people making decisions, judgments and accusations about me because of my religion, ethnicity or race.   

I am someone's daughter, should I be scared?

For my Mum and my Dad, I am their daughter and I always will be.

So should I be scared?

After 21 years it seems like I should be. Daughters everywhere are constantly reminded, throughout their whole lives, about how dangerous and unsavoury the world is. 

"Don't go out at night on your own" - this is a classic parent to daughter warning. Don't go out on your own child, there are nasty men out there who will want to hurt you if you're on your own.

"Don't wear that short skirt, it gives off the wrong message". This is another classic, because everything that a girl wears gives off a "message". It isn't the interpretation of the message that is important people, it's the implied message.

"If you go out drinking, don't get separated from the group, it's dangerous if you're drunk!" Again, another snippet of advice given to daughters that further pushes them into a deep realm of fear.

Why is the world out to get women everywhere?

Well, for starters, blame is (for the majority of the time) placed upon women and their actions. Why are parents not telling these things to their sons? It is overwhelmingly true that daughters are treated a hell of a lot differently than sons. 

Instead of telling men and boys everywhere that when a woman is too drunk to say yes she is saying no, women are told not to go home with strange men if they've been drinking.

Young men are not told that because a woman is wearing a short skirt she is not making unspoken sexual advancements upon them. Instead, women are told to fit their clothes and their dress sense around the presumptions of the oppressive society that controls them.

It is hard being a girl because the world is presented as dangerous. The thing is, when I went to Cape Town in South Africa (and it's quite dangerous there for everybody) I went out on my own a couple of times and instead of feeling fear all around me I instead forced myself to be confident. Nothing happened to me, I was never attacked or harassed and it is then that I realised something: women's own inferiority is ingrained into them in the way that they are told to live their lives, in fear of men/people. 

Now I'm not saying that attacks on women don't happen at night or whatever, because that would just be ridiculous. What I am saying is that if I ever have a son I will be teaching him about how to treat women in the right way and if I ever have a daughter I will be telling her that what people try to drill into her about her inferiority is bullshit. I will tell her and any of her friends (male or female) about why telling a girl that her skirt is too short and attention seeking is halting to social progress that I am so desperately reaching for.

I HAVE A BLOCKAGE

I have a block on my brain. I have so many writings backed up as drafts but can I finish them?! NO. 

There will be more writings to come. I just have a blockage... in my brain... 

The Age of Convenience and Zombies

As a person who is convinced that Coca-Cola are taking over the world, business by business, I never thought I'd be the one to say that I own an iPhone. The story of how I purchased it is quite an amusing one...

It was a dodgy dealing. A GumTree, bargain-bucket special. I saw an offer, proceeded to text a man and then at quarter past midnight on a Thursday evening I went to the local high-street and awaited for a dark looking car to show up and give me my not-so-brand-spanking-new phone. It was cheap and cheerful. I like cheap and cheerful.

Now despite how fun that little adventure was and how attached I am to my selfie camera - I hate the culture that iPhone has created in Britain. People going out together and spending half the time staring at their phones telling the world what a great time they're having. More than half the population use iPhones or some other Android do-it-all-quicker-than-you phone, it's just not healthy. It isn't even an exaggeration anymore, it's the cold hard facts. People use them for all sorts of things, we all know that. Want to know something? Quickly look it up on the Google App. Need food? Quickly do a shop on the ASDA App. Need to meet a girlfriend/boyfriend? Go on Tinder and find all the other lonely hearts near you.

Unfortunately it has actually gotten to the point where it's affecting people's communication skills. I know it has for me! When I was just a wee bairn I used to call my friends up all the time like “Oh hey guuuurl, you wanna build a space rocket with me?” but now if the phone rings I either ignore it or pull this face 

because I'm just not used to actual human interaction anymore.

Convenience; that's all it is. People have become lazy because technology does everything for us. In a social situation it's easier to pretend you're busy on your phone than face the harsh reality that you are sat in a rotting cesspit of awkward silence. It is also easier to send someone a WhatsApp than call them or meet them in real life because it's easy to fake emotions in texts and messages, real life emotions are just so difficult.

I was at the gym the other day (a rare occasion in itself) and casually happened to glance around as I plodded my merry way into the first kilometre on the cross-trainer. What I saw was a little bit terrifying - every single person had headphones. Now this may not seem like a big deal but when you've read as many dystopian novels as I have, all sorts of crazy ideas begin to formulate. Not a single person was looking up, talking or even smiling. They all had their headphones in and were all staring blankly ahead. I mean, obviously, they might all have a lot on their minds. They might have been using the gym to escape a domestic situation or have been in the middle of a mid-life crisis.

What did occur to me, however, was that most of those people would be listening to music through an Apple device. What if Apple was using their devices to send death rays into our brains? What if Apple began to send messages into people's subconscious minds about something unholy? There would be no way to control it because Apple has essentially monopolised the industry (I won't go as far as to say the world... yet).

I would go on to say we're all going to be brain dead in 20 years because all we do is listen to music on Apple products through headphones, never communicating with each other, but I won't. All I'm saying is that I thought the gym was meant to be a social place. You know in all the American movies where all the yummy mummies go to meet other yummy mummies? Or the riled, depressed twenty-something meets a gorgeous gym instructor and they live happily ever after? 

Well suffice to say that when I looked around that fateful day I had a horrendous moment of fear that I'd become an unfortunate extra in the real life version of '28 Days Later'. Have you seen that film? It's about some disease that turns everyone into cannibalistic, flesh eating, Zombie monsters.

I can't really talk though, I love my iPhone and I love Instagram... I really do.

A SMILE A DAY KEEPS THE DEPRESSION, ANXIETY AND GENERAL LAZINESS AWAY

It's a little (pixelated) seal

Herpaderpaderp

I'm angry because I'm fat

He's no actually sad, it's just so darn cute

Mmm yeah right there

The not-so-trustworthy BBC.

I want to write something about, what I would call, the “selective hearing” of the BBC News broadcasts and newspapers. As you may have already guessed my blog is very opinionated so this post will also be very opinionated. Prepare thyself.

First of all: I do not trust the BBC as far as I can... throw it (is that possible?!). I've come to realise over the past year, as I attempted to become more worldly and knowledgeable, that the BBC coverage about news across the globe is nothing other than piss-poor. There have been so many times when I've had to reign in my swelling anger and stop myself from writing a strongly worded letter to the Big Bosses.

Let us go deep into our mind palaces and recall the Scottish referendum (well shit! That really does require some effort). Most immediately, what has happened to that? Where did it go? I try and read the news extensively everyday and although my memory is terrible, I'm pretty sure that I haven't seen the words “Scottish Referendum” in the news for months. Now that could just be due to Cameron sweeping his dirty little political promises under the carpet in the run up to the election, I admit that. What I want to remember, however, are the protests that happened around the time of the Scottish referendum. I cannot find in the archives of Google the article that I wish to cite but here's the upshot: The BBC reported about a march/rally/protest that took place in Edinburgh (I think) stating that “a few” or a “few hundred” people showed up to the “Vote Yes” campaign thing. What actually happened was that thousands of people showed up and the BBC just failed to mention that. A little while after that hundreds of people gathered to protest against the bias of the BBC towards the “Better Together” campaign. Obviously spokespeople for the BBC scrambled to attention saying that they were following «the guidelines”

I suppose that situation was quite a long time ago and maybe people don't care so much anymore. Nevere fear! There is another thing that I would like to rant about and it is the coverage of the Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria. Now although there are reports on the BBC website about these militants, it is rarely ever on the front page and you really have to search for it.

Around the same time as the Charlie Hebdo attacks, 2000 women, elderly people and children (and obviously men as well, but according to Amnesty International reports, amongst others, there were less men killed) were killed by Boko Haram in the biggest massacre in it's history. I read about this before I read about the Charlie Hebdo attacks. The BBC didn't report about it on nearly the same scale as Charlie Hebdo, if at all. I'm not saying one should be prioritised over the other but 2000 people were dead. I personally cannot even fathom what that many corpses looks like.

Another example is in recent news Boko Haram have been rampaging through towns killing dozens and causing destruction everywhere. Innocent people are fleeing to the town of Maiduguri, however Boko Haram have surrounded the area and threatened that they are preparing it into a “big grave where there will be no mercy”. According to reports authorities have not helped. People are going to die.

That is happening today and do you want to know what the top stories are in the news?

• “Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) rushed to hospital because he has flu”
• “Students fury over impossible economics exam”
• “Teenager isolated over charity haircut”

I'm am an optimist (believe it or not) and I do believe that not all news should be bad news BUT SO MANY PEOPLE ARE DYING. Boko Haram have gone wild. There are mass murders everyday! I feel like if the BBC media was more representative of the situation in Nigeria there would be more chance of the people out there getting help!

Perhaps I am just being over-pessimistic about these particular examples but I can't help but lose my sense of trust in the great giant of news reporting. If anyone who's read this is looking for more places to get news I would check out the Reddit sub /r/WorldNews. That offers a lot more coverage and is actually very educational.

A late post about the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

All that I can really remember from the reports of the Charlie Hebdo incident is that 12 people were killed, and what is seemingly more important, that the attackers were Islamic or Muslim. Now, personally, I think that information has been the focus of too many reports. It's not the religion or ethnicity of the attackers that is important, it's the fact that 3 men went to Charlie Hebdo and mercilessly killed 12 people. Whether they were Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist (very unlikely that they would be Buddhist, I know) it shouldn't matter. They were men, they were human and the murdered 12 people. People are now ruthlessly using their religious status to attack innocent Muslims in "retaliation". 

There were dozens and dozens of killing sprees in America in 2014, with an average of 5-10 victims per attack, most of which were committed by white men, ranging from the age of 18 - middle age. Now that doesn't mean that everybody in America walks the streets in fear of every single white, middle aged man that they see. It doesn't mean that on the subway you sit nervously next to the white, middle aged man with his briefcase. It doesn't mean that to revenge the victims of the attack you go and start attacking, killing and destroying all white middle aged men and the things that they believe in. It just doesn't happen.

The focus on the fact that these men were possibly Muslim is being used as an excuse to attack a population for nothing other than because people are scared of things that they do not understand and will use any reason or excuse to jump on a chance to attack those people. Muslim people across Europe are now having to undergo the horrible experience of VALIDATING their religion as one that shouldn't be attacked and defending their beliefs. All this just because 3 extremists went out of control. Hundreds of Muslims are probably having to convince people not to hate them for their religious beliefs, a thing that many people take comfort from, just because 3 people who they do not know and have no relation to have committed a terrible crime. 

I think it's disgusting. If they had been 3 Christian men I don't even think their religion would've been mentioned, anywhere. I think the men that committed the attack should be sent to prison for life, with no mercy, but I hate the fact that so many people are now having to pay the price for a crime they didn't commit, solely because they believe in the same God.

#unilife #yolo #student #... oh wait it isn't actually that funny.

I just cannot understand or tolerate the way people treat and talk about students like crap. We have such a bad rep - and for what?! Paying £9000 a year to the Government? Getting drunk and being loud like most of the people in Britain do? Is it because we're young? Is it because we talk fast? Is it because we have overdrafts? Is it because we talk to loud on the bus? WHAT IS IT PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME SOMEONE.

Estate agents knocked on our door today announcing that they were here for a viewing without any prior warning (bearing in mind they are supposed to give 24 hours notice). We let them in because we are nice, polite people. Due to the fact that they haven't given us any warning some of the house hadn't had chance to lock/tidy their rooms. The estate agents and the random strangers start obviously looking around the house and going into peoples rooms, that were empty, without their permission. 

I politely said, "Can you please not go into empty rooms without people's permission". 

One estate agent turned to me and replied, pretty curtly, "Actually we are allowed, it's part of the house viewing process"

Probably seeing the look of complete and utter shock on my face, the other estate person starts spewing out some bullshit about why they're allowed to go into people's private spaces without any permission or prior warning.

I didn't listen. All I could think was; yes, it's very nice that you are allowed "by law" to go into people's rooms without their consent but I am asking you, as another human being, to just respect people's privacy. You can look at the rooms of the three people in the house who are actually here (which is plenty right?!). Needless to say they went into all the empty rooms anyway, random strangers looking at our stuff - seeing our little spaces where we are truly ourselves, probably making judgments.

If it had been an "adult" i.e. someone over the age of say... 21 who wasn't a student, I'm pretty sure she would've said "Ok that's fine, if you're asking us not to invade peoples personal space without their permission, that's ok". Suddenly because we're students it's like HEY YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING SO WE'LL JUST DO WHAT WE WANT AND TREAT YOU STUDENTS LIKE IDIOTS. Yip-fucking-pee.

New Year's Resolutions

My News Years resolution this year is to keep up a blog and (maybe) a vlog. So, fifteen days late I'm living up to my own expectations at last. It's usually around this time that people start breaking their New Year's resolutions but I've always considered myself a bit of a hipster, so I'm starting mine now.

I hope this proves interesting for everyone!