"LOL Society"

Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. Flickr. Tumblr. Instagram. Bebo. What's App. Skype. BBM. Pigeon. (They still do that don't they?)

Today is the future people. A future where we live a life that is fast paced and action packed. A future where we are instantly communicating with one another from all four corners of our beloved planet. A poke here, a like there, can I get re-tweet?

That's right guys, when people look back on our generation in their history books many years from now,  we shall be known as the "LOL society". OMG guys, Dat is so kwl. 

Now as a fellow face inside the book, a trendy tweeter, an admirable I.M'er, I'm all for a like, a hashtag, and a time saving abbreviation every now and then. But when I'm having a face to face conversation with you, get the fuck out.

Yes. You've got it. It's the digital disease infecting our spoken word, contagiously spreading through countless, meaningless conversations frequently occuring in our airwaves. Many of us are caught by it, wether it be coining an LOL at the end of a humorous remark or sporadically peppering hashtags and OMG's creating some menial incoherent sentence. Regrettably, the way we use words and language amongst one another is extremely infectious, like the bubonic plague. Suddenly we are uncontrollably blurting them out like it's some mutated form of Tourette's.

There's no use for it outside of it's intended purpose so why do it? It's not like we have an infinite fleet of robotic twitter birds flying around recording our every hash tag, instantly uploading it to an ever growing tree of social networking. And the use of abbreviations needs cutting too. I recently discovered myself dropping an LOL bomb at the end of my spoken sentence. Furthermore, I suddenly felt the urge to punch myself in the face and jump out of a 4th floor window. I had desecrated a perfectly formed sentence using a wonderful language that works just fine as it is. Next thing we'll all be just talking in singular letters, abbreviating everything. None of us will ever be able to express ourselves in a way that we feel, because we'd of forgotten all of these complex wonderful words that we use today, instead replacing them with abbreviations of common 3 word phrases (FML). So unless for some odd reason it's a matter of life or death,  or we reach an eventuality where are phones are bio mechanically fused into the inside of our forearms recording and uploading our every word - (I'm confident this will happen), please stop. Let us keep it to the confines of our digital wonderful world and join me in the movement for conversation conservation!

NOTE: I would definitely advise everyone to leave the actions of poking and following within the digital realm too. Trust me.

#sexualharrassment

Trains

So I'm sat here, at the train station, in a town called Bridgwater, well known for its picturesque views and traditional past times such as shoplifting and unemployment.

It has come to my attention that my usual 18:19 first great western service to Cardiff central calling at Weston-Super-Mare, has been cancelled due to a train fault. Not only has the man announced this to me on several occasions in a short window of time, but he also took the pleasure in telling me that the next train arriving at my platform does not stop here. Twice. That's right, rub it in why don't you, let all of us sit here in misery because you can't even be bothered to arrange a replacement bus service or any consolidation what so ever. You might as well of showed up with custard pies, thrown them in our faces and urinated all over us and posted it on YouTube.

If you want to know what the train service was like 30 years ago, go on one now. 

No wonder why the conductors are so miserable all the time, because they take the rap for a company that's disorganised and operates so negatively. 

They ask you for your ticket, then when you tell them you were running late, apologise, and offer to buy one using your card, they look at you like you've just banged their wife while leaving teeth marks in the headboard of a bed they still havent paid for, ate their food and patted their child on the head on the way out. It's remarkable. I assume they must get treated just as bad as employees as we do passengers.

Still though, choosing between my train being late and living life as a conductor, I pick the late train. Because that, would be really shit.

X-Factor

Ok folks, it's that time of the year again. That's right, you've guessed it,  the corporate engineered machine that is X-factor is back on our boxes for the entertainment of the masses. The kind of machine where you put a pig in one end and sausages come out the other. It's mildly humorous when Dermot O'Leary is on screen too, because you always catch a glimmer of self loathing and guilt in his expression, a self realisation slowly eating him up inside that he is part of something immoral.

Isn't it just getting shitter each year, ever feeling more generic than the last? Louis is getting more senile, Gary is still talking in his monotonous manchunian ways and Tulisa and Nicole are still every bit annoying as they are relatively pleasing to the eye (wahey). But wait, we have the arrival of a guest judge (once again). Who could it be? It's Mel B everybody! One fifth of the girl group that rocketed to mega super poppy stardom. Fantastic.

Now if you haven't gathered already, I'm one for cynicism. But Mel B takes it to a whole new level.  Don't get me wrong, when something needs to be said then it should be. But there is telling somebody how it is, and then there's doing it by spitting in their face, killing their cat, and taking a big steamy dump in their immediate presence while doing it in the process. The latter is most certainly the method of Mel B.

But seriously, where does she get off? "Yeh no totally Mel B, I'll definitely take on board your critism of me as a solo artist, taking into consideration the illustrious solo career you fulfilled post spice girls. Yeh. Cheers."

She clearly  isn't a people person. I can envision her sitting all alone in her big house, surrounded by cats watching Beverly hills cop over and over again on a massive television wondering where it all went wrong.

Scary.

The Only Way Is Essex?

In the beginning, God created man.

I'm starting to believe that he shouldn't of bothered.

Now now Louis, lets not be unfair, you should watch an episode first. So I did. Before writing up about TOWIE and all it's glamour and glory, I thought I should probably watch one episode from beginning to end to try and understand its deep underlying meaning within (insert sarcasm here).


I'm not really sure what to say, or even how to comprehend it. Are there lots of people like this? If so how many? Are they infecting the minds of our impressionable youth? If the answers are "yes, lots, and SHUT UP!" Then please, do the honour of passing me the sawn off shotgun along with a bag to put on my head.

I get the impression that often in this programme, the idea is that they are having conversations about real issues in their lives, except in completely set up situations. It really is one of the most surreal things I've yet to behold. Does the director call cut and take more than one shot on what are supposed to be naturally occurring conversations? It's the biggest headfuck I've experienced. I just don't get it.

Furthermore, the stupidity displayed by these "people" is unbounded.

"I can't tell the time"

"I can't imagine being locked up in prison for like, 20 odd hours a day"

These are commonplace sentences that are lavishly blurted out in TOWIE. Oh and for the record Sam, (if that is even your real name) there are 24 hours in a day, and prisoners happen to be locked up for that entire time. It's like they are living in a giant bubble that's forever floating away from reality and humanity. Or living in a giant dome like the Truman show.

That's it. I've got it. It's The Truman Show. Except it's really shit.