New comedy blues

Oh dear. Bain and Armstrong have really excelled themselves when it comes to the awkwardness of British relationships, as Michael Deacon affirms.

Fresh Meat is a comedy about the beginnings of University Life (something which many of us are truly aware of.) I rarely laughed but instead found myself cringing and reeling in pain. We've seen these things before. This has some interesting characters. After all, these are the people who brought us Corrigan and Usbourne. It reminds me of a similar sitcom (with a much smaller budget due to it being BBC) released in 2009 called Off the Hook. This had interesting characters too, but I have discovered (from my own attempt at comic writing), that good characters need good, fresh, original words in between.

The characters have missed on accommodation in halls and have therefore been sent to a large suburban house with plaster board partitions and mouldy bathrooms. They all meet, they're all different characters; the drugged up waster; the weirdo failure; the naiive flower child; the lonely fish in murky waters; the normal girl. They're not supposed to work together. That's where the awkwardness kicks in. It's like scraping tungsten tipped screws down a dusty Victorian blackboard. Yeah, you felt that too. They go to the pub, a jock enters, has sex with one of the girls, then finds out that he, too, is living in the house. Warning: awkwardometer (I made this word up) on red alert.

One point worthy of note (and minor commendation) is the accuracy of the First Meeting. I've given capitals because of the sheer importance of this event in the life of the university student. This is where you set out your stall and where people will ultimately judge you in the future. Interestingly enough, in my first year I avoided this meeting and as a result made very few friends at Uni (oh those heady salad days, how I remember them fondly). Here I saw a few mirrors of people I knew at Uni. But the message I got from this was that you should be true to yourself and be open about new experiences. Don't think of me smoking reefa listening to acid jazz because that is not what happened.

In Fresh Meat, we see Oregon and Vod talking about gap years. Oregon, clearly in that naiive 18 year old frame of mind, she wants to impress and seek acceptance from her peers. As the episode continues, we learn she's more of a book worm and a geek. (This, dear readers, is where the blog author starts to fall in love with her. She's also absolutely beautiful too, but looks aren't everything, may I add).

Bain and Armstrong have used Joe Thomas from Inbetweeners fame. And they've hardly changed his character...which is fine if you want a sequel to those lads moving on to university life. I don't. I won't be watching this shitcom (see what I did there? I took shit and sitcom and put them together. It's been done before, like Fresh Meat) again. Channel 4 please stop commissioning this. Have the balls to say to Sam and Jesse, look guys, we like Peep Show, but this is awful. Come back with something different.





Peep Show Series 8 for example.

Chocolate bars, smileys and other stories...

Sounds nice doesn't it?

I spent a delightful lesson today passing on a 'smile' which was on a yellow post-it note. It was there to raise the idea that individuals could contribute a great deal to society including smiling more to people. I told the story of a guy who smiles at the New York taxi driver and by the end of the day New York is all smiles and sunshine. Sounds shmoltzy and cliched and probably isn't true, especially if it was Travis Bickle in the drivers seat.

Driving through the old grey whistle-y rain, the windows steamed up and Dylan blasting out of the car stereo I was happily singing along but then heard a story about a guy who murdered someone else with a sword all over a chocolate bar. What a heart-rendering contrast to the Year 7 lesson a few hours earlier about the contagious smile.

Well, that's about that for now. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on the contrast between school and real life. And they get pissed off when you ask them to do their tie up. God knows what would happen if they were eating a snickers in class...

A return to form

Good evening dear readers from around the world. I've decided to re-enter the world of blogging after spending some time with a serial blogger this afternoon. It turns out that actually people DO read these things. One just has to advertise it a little better. I'll be aiming for a more focused approach over these next few weeks in order that this lost notebook becomes 'found' once more in the Internet Histories of my friends.

What an interesting day thus far. Some things I have learnt:

- That Headingley has real people living in it
- Pharmacies are rubbish at 4.46 on a Sunday afternoon
- Green and Black's chocolate is very nice, even the dark stuff (are you made of it?)
- Students get jobs in the pubs of kitchens
- I'm silly for having bought the Flight of the Conchords album
and other stories too.

I have an intense week ahead. I have to buy a wedding present for a couple I've known for a while. I want to get something meaningful and significant. They want me to buy a set of plastic kitchen utensils for £40 odd from John Lewis. I'll go half way and buy a couple of plates at £9 a pop. I know that this list has been formulated by the female of the duo. The male would be happy with a bottle of JD or a meal voucher for the Harvester. If they are filling their gift list with preferred kitchen regalia then they should be opting for a new cooker and some cleaning products. Having eaten at their house before, a cold burnt pizza with the previous weeks dinner dripped on it isn't my idea of culinary heaven. Ah well. It's their 'special day' (as the Cliche police might say it) ergo they can have whatever they like.

There's also the dead weight of Ofsted which looms over every teacher at certain points in their career. In a week that has made me lose faith in the young people of today due to a dodgy questioning of the idea that Hitler could indeed have been someone conjured up by the media, and has had me working on a Saturday, I've come to the conclusion that anything could and indeed does happen in teaching.

A poor return to form this has been (watch out Yoda 'wrong way round speak the words do I) however it is a return to form nonetheless.

Ok mate...you know the draw. Comment on that one and come back with a text of no more than 50 characters...when you're ready

Oh 2 b @ student again

Well it's about bloody time isn't it?! Back in the North, the dark grey North, where the Sun never shines at the right time and you can never wear shorts out as the wind whips up your legs and rattles yer knees.

So i'm a student, a post graduate super student, super busy, super professional and super tired...it's only the first day.

Walknig back from Headingley yesterday I started reflecting on the things I haven't missed about being a student.

1. Seeing people in their bed clothes at 2pm walking around in public. And I don't just mean blokes. I mean girls too. Actually girls are the worst offenders as they never have to try, or that's what they think at least. It creates a very bad image of the layabout student.

2. Living in a dirty flat/house. I can't talk normally when it comes to cleanliness. If the old addage goes then i'm closer to devilishness. But...i'm living with a few girls and i've found they're not very clean at all. They leave their pots for days, don't wipe up water and other spillages, leave crumbs on the sofa, leave pots to 'drip dry' for too long. I've had to clean their mess a few times as I just hate to see the house in the state it is in. Also, they've got shit loads of crap; old magazines, dirty clothes on the floor, trinkets from travels all over the fireplace etc etc.

Well that's all I can think about but more to come i'm sure.

The Original Drifters

Armet Ertegun...ever heard of him? Perhaps not the name but his influence spanned far and wide. There is a great chance you would have heard and danced to at least one of the songs from his label, Atlantic Records. In fact it was Armet that influenced Led Zep so much that in 2007 they reunited for the first time in bloody ages to do a concert in his memory.

Anyway I'm getting distracted. A friend of mine had her picture taken with Ray Lewis of the Drifters at her Marbella hotel the other week. Nice guy, great voice but not of the original lineup, and not in the Drifters when they had all their successes. Something I modestly pointed out in the photo comments. She replied 'well he's part of the Original Drifters group and was a lovely bloke.' Yes, he is part of the group the Drifters which now goes around hotels and small arena venues under the name The Original Drifters but not the original Drifters lineup. Made me feel rate annoyed it did. I was going to re comment but thought it was best to leave sleeping dogs lie and all that stuff.

Armet didn't choose Ray Lewis.

First for a while and the last

for a while, anyway. I'm not quite ready for leaving the blog-o-sphere yet and am still strongly considering a half memoir project next year describing my experiences as a lay Catholic man in state-run education.

My boss is really annoying me at the minute. She sends me things she has written then writes all over them and expects me to change them. I'm not her secretary. There are 3 working days left in the office for me including this one and there's no letup either! I have to do the same boring run of the mill routine jobs before I leave. My Mum keeps reminding me "there's only X days left, stay with it, don't ruin it now." The thing is, I've written so much for my exit interview that if anyone actually reads it before I leave then I'll probably receive a hard kick up the posterior. The text read, "This is your opportunity to provide COMPANY with a considered view of your mission and raise key issues." Before this it reads "your exit interview will be circulated to your line manager, divisional director, the director of people management and the Director of COMPANY." So I may not get invited to corporate drinks receptions either! Never mind; these are the times when you can really upset the apple cart and considering my Granny Smiths have never toppled I supposed my parting shot should be a good'un.

And I never came across as bitter, did I?!