I Predicted The Election Result

So David Cameron is now prime minister and everyone is a bit pissed off that the Lib Dems basically have abandoned their policies for some cushy jobs and the pleasure of being Cameron's Bitches (no not in that funky rapper way).

I'm not a political blogger so I'm not going to go into the finer points on anything. I know Gordon Brown ballsed a few things up but I think a lot of his unpopularity came from the fact that he's getting on a bit (New Labour is no longer young hip and sexy) and that he's a Scot (this is an admission that I recognise the prejudices of the national media - I personally think the Scots are cool).

I think it was a bit nasty how he went but when it comes to politics all ideas of fairness should be left at the door.

Anyways I knew this was going to happen and I could have spared brown the time and effort involved in a lengthy campaign. You see last year I made this video all about the what would build up to the end of the world.

I can't say how they're all linked because that's not how being psychic works. Instead today a little piece of the puzzle clicked into place and if you watch the sequence of faces that starts at 0:51 it'll make a bit of sense to you too. If you can figure it out I'm sure it can all be stopped. Save yourselves! And others!

Dear John - Review

Crap

Smallville - Dawson's Creek for Comic Book Geeks

Smallville has long been an excuse for the lonely teenage geek to indulge in slushy awkward romance fantasies while avoiding the ridicule that an admission of watching Gossip Girl or The OC would bring them.

You see regardless of the Lana Lang/Clark Kent/Lex Luthor/Louis Lane love rectangle that the teenager so eagerly watches sometimes adding Chloe (?) to it for the sake of making a magic pentagram to cast on the people that mock them for watching it, the teenager can always argue that they watch Smallville because it's about Superman and therefore it's comic book based and somehow not fair to slag it off.

If you look properly at it though Smallville tries to cash in on all the cheesy romance crap it can, from Clark's switching between good Clark and bad Clark to the cheeseball lines lex says. One memorable occasion was Lex quoting John Donne to Lana to show her that Clark couldn't have written her some slushy poem because "Clark doesn't understand that poetry is all about seduction"

Fuck sake Lex, you're supposed to be a fucking baddie.

The biggest proof that comic book fans watch Smallville for it's slushy sentimentality is all the Lex and Clark friends that grow into deadly enemies hints that are thrown out all over the place to allow sappy geeks to shout "A-ha!" everytime they hear one.

Here's one, the worst one, and please try to remember that Lex is supposed to be a baddie and not some character thrown in at the last minute because he was too bald for a Mills and Boon novel:



I mean if someone you knew said this to you, even if they were pished out of their face and you'd just done them the biggest favour of their lives, you probably wouldn't speak to them again, just incase they said it in front of someone that knew you.

Maybe it was moments like this that made Clark and Lex enemies in the end, not because Lex turned to crime but because Clark grew fed up with his ballbag, cheeseball lines.

Smallville fans would see this coming but since most comic book geeks have no friends, they have no basis for comparison and rely on me to provide them with the knowledge.

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part 5

One day Boring Tom called the cops on his illegally parked neighbour.

The cops came and clamped the car.

Later that night someone broke Boring Tom's windows, and he didn't know why.

Boring Tom Stories by Gerard McKeown and Ryan O'Neill.

Farmer

My birthday was last week and my lovely girlfriend took me for the weekend to a lovely wee cottage in the Sperrin Mountains.

The Sperrins isn't a place I know too well so while there aside from all the partying and setting trends that we do we went for a cool walk. I had my video camera with me and Kristiina decided to shoot some footage for a video I wanted to make of my poem Farmer.

Farmer is (in my opinion) one of my best poems. It's different from the sort of stuff I'm known for but I wrote it when I was 21 and living in Carlisle, long before I'd ever heard of performance poetry or page poetry (nonesense terms used for sneering and boxing people in). It was also one of the first poems I had published (Fire no.26) and for that reason I'll always be very fond of it.

Here's the video:

Boy Meets My Foot (in his hole).

I remember watching Boy Meets World as a teenager. It was a show that was alright to watch when your mum was eager to see the news. It mostly revolved around Fred Savage's less iconic wee brother trying to get buzy with the yummy Topanga (hubba hubba). It was vaguely enjoyable after a day learning things at school, you could easily just sit and zone out while it went about all quirky and cool and failing miserably. It was tolerable, and maybe even a slight guilty pleasure. What it wasn't, was a show that educated and helped me deal with issues.

That's why out of all the episodes of the show the one that sticks in my mind is the one below:



What happens is that Sean (Corey's dickhead mate) and Corey get drunk at a party. Corey stops because they puked and stuff, Sean however is now reckless and out of control. He shows up pished out of his face to school. No one smells it off him (because it's television). He insults beloved teacher Mr Feeney (Kit from Night Rider) who is imparting knowledge, gets told to get out to fuck.

Corey takes him home where they argue. Sean's 2D brother shows up and they fight about how their dad was a drunk (a-ha! Now we're getting to the root of the issue!) Sean's girlfriend shows up with Toganga (oo la la) and Sean's girlfriend tries to be understanding but Sean violently assaults her (oh! He's a violent drunk!) This is made much worse by the fact that she's the show's token black character so he comes off as a bit of a racist too. His girlfriend handles her abuse with grace and tells him she'll be back with some of her mates and a lead pipe. Sean sees that his nasty drunken ways are going to get him the kicking of his life and so he quickly gets dried out and apologises to everyone. Including Mr Feeney who as the pedagogue figure should have done a little more than the fuck all he did (he's probably tired after seeing how saving Hasselhoff's arse week after week led to fuck all).

Anyways his girlfriend's mates still fuck him up but then they get back together (although he's more subdued).

The problem with this episode is that it tried to be all advisory for its audience, and most of its audience didn't want it's advice. It also gave it in such a cackhanded way that reduced the issues to nothing more than something you take the piss out of with your mates. I'd like to hear the statistics on how many people who watched that show realised they had an alcohol problem like Sean. I'd guess not one. Epic Fail. Boy Meets World? What a fucking waste of my teenage life? I should have skived off school and went to the arcades to play tuppeny nudgers and had fights at the bus station instead of running home to see it.

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part 4

One day Boring Tom found a penny on the ground

"Hey! I've just found a penny!" he shouted, as he picked it up.
"So what?" said some passers by. "You can't buy anything for a penny."
"I collect pennies and keep them in a jar at home," said Boring Tom.

The kids walked away laughing.
"We'll see who's laughing when I've saved up a pound!" said Boring Tom happily to himself.

Words by Gerard McKeown Art by Ryan O'Neill.