Little Lion Man

Frontman Marcus Mumford has said about the song:

"It’s a very personal story, so I won’t elaborate upon too much. Suffice to say, it was a situation in my life I wasn’t very happy with or proud of... and sometimes when you can’t describe a feeling with your own words, it’s almost easier to express in a song. And then, when you get asked about the songs, it’s quite difficult to explain. It’s a conundrum — you don’t want to seem self-indulgent explaining yourself; it’s always awkward. Which is weird again, because it’s never awkward actually singing them. I suppose the song should stand on its own and people draw their own interpretation from the words. But for me, personally, it’s the lyrics that I listen to again and again in a song. I place specific importance on them. I can’t write lyrics unless I really feel them and mean them, which can sometimes be quite frustrating — because if you’re not feeling much at the time, you’re stuck. I guess the sound of it grabs you a little bit by the balls — it’s quite an aggressive song, a bit more of a punch in the face. Or at least, for our stuff, anyway — a lot of our stuff isn’t quite as hard-hitting as that. It felt like the right song to be the single because it represented the harder, darker side of what we do, and at the same time, the more folksy and punchy side.”

VIII.

Confession: I don't find Family Guy funny.

No sense of humor: Debatable. 

VII.

Confession: I only watched Back To The Future for the first time last year.

Deprived Childhood: No, I watched Little Shop of Horrors instead.

Living With People Is a Game of Wits

In case you didn't know I like to write and one day, when I'm all grown up, I want to be a full-time writer. And, like most students and poor, struggling writers, I live in a shitty - although not-so-shitty in comparison to last year - house with two fine gentlemen who also want to be full-time writers. Their names are Sam and Dom. 

We are writers therefore we are hermits. One week in the middle of February I left to go to work. It was a Monday and Sam was sitting in his favourite spot in the living room - one of the chairs, direct access to the TV, his laptop on his lap. He was wearing jogging bottoms and had a mug of chocolate milk next to him. He waved me goodbye. I returned, five hours later, to find him in the same spot with a few additions: a plate with a brown smudge on it (food, I presume), an empty glass and a few chocolate wrappers. This continued. He sat in the chair, at his laptop, typing his novel, the TV on. By the end of the week he had turned into a gnome, only he talked and demanded the mess would be cleared. I nodded only with the acceptance that he had been working. 

We three like to do things differently. I don't like to wash my dishes properly. Dom doesn't like to do things quietly. Sam doesn't like cleaning up after himself. And here comes the game of wits. "The game," Dom said one day, "where there's no prices in those that take part, only those that win."

The Game of Wits

The Bin

So you've just finished a chocolate bar and the wrapping is in your hand. You go to put it in the recycling bin which is already over-flowing but you pop it on top. What's a little wrapper gonna do? Then you return and notice that somebody has put more stuff on top of your wrapper so you put your stuff on top of theirs because they were technically the ones who made that overflowing mess. Then you come back and the bin is still overflowing - the cheeky chocolate egg you ate, its wrapper now on the ground - so you pull the bag up as a hint. On your return, the pulled up bag now has several new additions, each as large and gaunt as the ones before it. The hint was not a "take me out" hing but a "get as much crap in me" hint, they think. So you take it out. You lose. One point to them. Zero to you.

The DVD

So you notice the DVD you left in the player last night is now sitting vicariously on the coffee table, abandoned, unloved, exposed. You didn't put it there. Someone else did. And you want to continue watching that episode of Friends. You open the drawer and a new DVD slides out. Watchmen. It's not yours. So you take it out and put it on the coffee table. Abandoned, unloved, exposed. The next day the same thing has happened only this time it's your Scream DVD that you had been watching last night. You look from the coffee table to the case on the shelf, inches away. You open the drawer and Watchmen is there again - obviously not finished on its first watch. You take it out and put it on the coffee table. The game goes on. No winners....until someone gives up.

The Dish You Need

So you three devised a plan: to avoid confusion you're going to put your dirty dishes in one area of the kitchen, each assigned to one of you. One night, you decided you're going to make fajitas. A knife and a chopping board is on your list of equipment. You look around and spot them - dirty and used. They're not in your corner of the kitchen therefore they're not yours to wash. But you're hungry and want to have fajitas. So you wash it. One point to them. But when you're done you put it back in his part of the kitchen. One point to you. 

The game goes on and on. It's a game of wits, after all. Good luck and play safe!

VI.

Confession: I have a man crush on Kate Winslet.

Because: She's amazing. 

V.

Confession: I always sleep in the middle of the bed.

Reason: Taken from Something's Gotta Give, "it makes no sense to have a side when nobody has the other side." 

'For Two': A Rant About Supermarkets

It was yet another day of work and I was hungry. So, naturally, when I finished I went to Sainsburys to fill the empty cupboards. I staggered inside and, armed with basket, started looking, realizing that my bank account would not be very happy at the end of my visit. But as I looked around, I noticed something. 'Chicken for two', 'beef for two', 'dinner for two'. I picked up the ready meals, luxuriously packaged with flowing writing and set them back down. Yes, I could eat that amount to myself but it was for two, the label said so. I turned to my right and saw the ready meals for one - sad little boxes, lasagna resembling tentacles, chicken made with unloving hands. 

It's bad enough that Valentine's day makes the singletons - the 'ones' - want to put a bullet in their head but food is now making it known we should all be in relationships. There's even the packets where you put everything in a bag - the bag indicates its intention to feed more than one mouth. Pretty much, if you're not in a couple or a parent, you're pretty much screwed when you walk into the supermarket. 'Dinner for two' will keep glaring. As you walk out munching on your Walkers crisps, feeling the calories load on to an untouched body. 

Black Swan II

III.

Confession: I never drink tea to the bottom of my glass.

Reason: No reason. My mother did it so I copied her as a kid.

Where The Wild Things Are

R.I.P. Maurice Sendak

II.

Confession: I love Raymond Carver.

Favourite Short Stories Include: Tell The Women Where We're Going

Something Cool I Found

All rights to brilliance of Guido Daniele.

I.

Confession: I cry at films. 

The One That Gets Me The Most: The Green Mile. 

Ten Reasons Why Nigella Lawson is a God

1. She's hot. (Even from a non-lady lover, she-is-hot.)

2. She literally is the Queen of Food Porn.

3. She makes cooking look so easy and fun. (I am suspicious of this, however.)

4. She isn't a qualified chef, she taught herself.

5. She was originally a book reviewer. (What more is there to love?) 



6. She uses the most insane words! (I can't think of any off the top of my head but look her up and you will be in awe.) 

7. She hates green peppers. (I knew they tasted shit for years.)

8. She has an amazing kitchen. (And I want to live there with her, please.)

9. She likes her drink and enjoys her ladies night. (True woman, woman after my own heart.)

10. She makes me want to cook. (So, let's face it, she's done her job!)

Things I Hate

Every writer is a human. So, it stands to reason that every writer/human has things they love and things they hate. Today I went to Bath Spa University to have an interview for a potential Masters course I will be starting in September. Certain things reminded me of the things I hate so, here's a little list.

1. People that are walking in front of me really slow.

2. People that are walking in front of me and have no idea what is going on around them - usually they stop or point out something they like to their friend.

3. People who walk down the street in groups and take up the entire pavement. Either I'm behind them and have to walk on the road to get around them, giving them a "yes, I'm walking on the road because you," glance back or those that walk ahead and don't move, causing me to stop and look at them as they pass.

(In case you didn't guess, I don't drive, I walk.) 

(I found these photos on Alexander Seedman's blog - http://postbromanticism.tumblr.com/ - it's amazing, check it out but I also found these photos which I thought suited my short rant about walking quite well.)

4. The word "stink", most importantly people that use it. Nothing worse than a friend sitting down, taking off their shoes and saying "my feet stink" - we know, we can smell them!

5. Lateness. People who are late, people who make me late and all the bits in-between. The other morning my roommate decided to take ten extra minutes getting ready. It fucked up the rest of the day.

6. Mayonnaise, butter and possibly all condiments - yes, I know, I'm a freak.

7. Cheese. How have I lived? A cheeseless life.

8. The Catcher in the Rye. I had to mention at least one book.

9. Russell Brand. I really don't like him.

10. Cracking bones. One of my friends, Suller, cracks his fingers all the time. I remember being in high school and hear the long slow craaaaaaaaaaaaaaack, then crack-crack-crack, there is nothing worse.

11. Crazy religious people - not because they're religious, just because they don't listen.

12. Biros - I'm much more a inky pen kinda guy. 

13. Most animals. (OK, I do love a good dog and I appreciate cats just because they're so sinister) but when I enter a house with a pet I'm not the first to go and touch it, mainly because I'm not sure if it's going to bite me or not. I do loathe furry animals (rabbits, hamsters), they shit everywhere.

14. Public banisters. I do it. I put my hand out and I touch it. Guide myself up the staircase to the train station or up the escalator but then I tug my hand away and remember someone else has touched this and where the fuck have their hands been?

15. Sambuca. It's not nice. It's what evil tastes like. 

16. Clowns. There are the scariest mother-fucking things out there.

17. Oh and while we're talking about scary things - spiders! Hate the bastards. Especially that myth about the one running wild around Cathays. 

18. The name Jayden. Sorry all you Jayden's out there. I won't be naming my kid after you.

19. And finally, small talk. Not the kind of small talk you have with a friend - even though I avoid that at the best of times - but more the small talk you have with your family at the awkward family reunions. "Oh wow, you've grown!" Yes, because you haven't seen me in ten years. "What you doing now?" University, dear aunt, I've said this ten times already. "Got a girlfriend yet?" That question doesn't even deserve a response. 

My roommates call me a grumpy bastard. I'm not. I just don't smile very much. 

Inside The Mind

Stephen King said he never keeps a notebook. He said a notebook is a good way of immortalizing bad ideas. I may agree with the latter but I certainly disagree with the first half. Yes, notebooks contain good and bad ideas and I guess, in a way, if you keep jotting down that bad idea you will eventually write a bad story but what happens if you simply forget a good idea? Yeah, sure, we always remember the ideas that excite us but what if we just...forget? 

I've had this idea for a long time and I've probably jotted it down maybe six or seven times in a different format, in the same notebook. Father and son in a boat, something happens, inspired by McCarthy and Hemingway - even though I haven't read him so not sure how it can be inspired by him. Anyway, I love notebooks. When I'm old and crepid and smelling of piss I will have a huge office stacked with my journals and notebooks. Journals and notebooks - like any sort of book really - harbor stories, they make us who we are. I have shit handwriting and not many people will ever understand what my journals say but that's my story, that's my little quality.

I will never stop loving notebooks, and spending my evenings doing what I do best - being a nerd and looking notebooks up online. Here's one of my favourites, by Mr. Guillermo Del Toro. 

Things I Appreciate Today

Imagine a world where you weren't in control.

Reminds me of James and the Giant Peach.

Of imagination.

A classic, right?

The next film I am very excited about.

Findings

New.

I was sitting on a bus today and I was thinking, thinking about a lot of things. One of the things I thought about was this blog or more, lack of blog. When I set out writing it I thought it would be completely about writing, about literature and yes, in a way it was, but as I was sitting on the horrific bus where enthusiastic American kids made me feel even more cynical and miserable, I thought that I could - and do - write about a lot more. Writing is a way of life so why not write about life? My life, people's lives, life as a whole? Writing is a way of making sense of the world, of understanding, so why should this blog be any different? I've thought of new ways I'm going to go at this blog. Neil Gaiman said that the key to a successful blog is consistency, good advice, I may not take it, I may do, we shall see. 

So, new background, new title, new ways of doing this thing. Here goes.