How Facebook Ruins Love

It has been about four years since Facebook started ruining love for me. It makes me tearful to think how many people would love me if I didn't have a Facebook account.

The innumerable romantic failures that have nosedived on my Facebook page are enough to erode the smile of the Mona Lisa. In my mind, without Facebook, my love life would play out like one of the great romance films of the ages. It might be tempting to blame me for my own failures, but turning the blame onto myself is too easy and traumatic, so I will blame Mark Zuckerberg and his Frankenstein bastard of a website.

All of the great love films of the last 40 years would be totally ruined and impossible with Facebook. Let's look at some examples:

When Harry Met Sally

The story follows the title characters from the time they meet just before sharing a cross-country drive, through twelve years or so of chance encounters in New York. Eventually falling in love, despite repeated meetings in which they outwardly dislike one another.

When Harry Met Sally With Facebook

After travelling across the US in Sally's car, Harry would have added her on Facebook. They would have looked at the other's profile regularly and maintained a relationship of hatred, lacking the opportunity to forget one another and start over with a clean slate. They might have seen each other on the street a few times, but the bad blood experienced on a daily basis would have been enough to ensure they intentionally ignored one another. Sally would have gotten married to some prat that her friends set her up with and Harry would have persevered with his comedic misanthropy forever.

Nottinghill

Hugh Grant runs an independent book shop, the beautiful and captivating Julia Roberts walks in. He fancies her loads, finds out she is a celebrity. It doesn't really work because she is too famous, then he decides that it's worth it and he has made a big mistake letting her go. She stays in England and they get married.

Nottinghill With Facebook

Hugh Grant runs an independent book shop, the beautiful and captivating Julia Roberts walks in. He fancies her loads, finds out she is a celebrity. It doesn't really work because she is too famous, so he Facebook messages her calling her a whore and blows any chance of her ever respecting him as a human ever again. The jaded Hugh Grant stays at his pish book shop, slowly losing money as Amazon ruins small business and he looks on bitterly as Julia Roberts' acting career rewards her with money and stardom.

You've Got Mail

The film is about two email writing lovers who are completely unaware that their sweetheart is in fact the person with whom they share a certain degree of animosity. In the end they meet after discovering they know one another and they kiss.

You've Got Mail With Facebook

For a start, AOL sucks now anyway, so they wouldn't be using that. Meg Ryan would have gotten her little emails from Tom Hanks and posted excitedly to her friends on Facebook. "Omg! Cant believe it. I have met THE cutest guy ever!" Tom Hanks would probably have been friends with her and seen her updates about the guy she was emailing. Then he would have cut off all contact because of their mutual hatred before they had a chance to develop a meaningful relationship.

Bridget Jones' Diary

Frustrated Bridget meets Darcy at a party. She also shags her boss, who is a wanker, and then she has to pick between them both in her search for Mr Right. She picks Darcy.

Bridget Jones' Diary With Facebook

Frustrated Bridget meets Darcy at a party. She would have sent an irritating, intentionally ambiguous Facebook update saying something like: "Don't you hate it when people are really full of it and just don't realise it..." Given that she and Darcy are childhood friends, they would be connected on Facebook and would have seen it. Additionally, Bridget's self-destructive streak would have seen her sending him lots of embarrassing private messages telling him how cute he was and he would have blocked her. Then Hugh Grant would have tried to have cyber sex with her a few times and left lots on comments on her pictures saying "Wow! You look hot here!" and she would be desperate and alone.

I fucking hate Facebook.

The Trite Lady

Often, I try and suppress the pedant in me, but some things are so vile and pathetic, that I simply can't help but pour scorn upon them.


Yesterday, I was introduced to a local student rag, fresh off the printing presses. It is called The White Lady and is named after a legendary ghost that allegedly resides in St Andrews Castle. The paper certainly captures the essence of its namesake. It is scarily bad; it is haunting its readers with its ghoulishness, both typographically and in the amount of journalistic faux pas it treads. It has a callous disregard for not only basic page design, but a style guide, grammar, punctuation and copyright.

Anyone with an interest in journalism, writing or artistic creation in general would be offended by the pigheaded brashness of the copyright infringement indulged by the paper. As far as can be seen, every word in one of the paper's lead articles, featured on a page-wide-spread, is lifted from the Daily Telegraph online, and in fact, the plagiarist has such little respect and enthusiasm for the work he is producing that when he copied and pasted the words written by Telegraph journalist, Alex Spillius, without even attempting to replace a single syllable. The plagiarist couldn't even trouble himself to rid the final edition of the emboldened blue hyperlink that stains page five of his paper so guiltily.

The mere idea that it would even try to report international news seems a futile effort, seeing as how the content would be out-dated, ill-sourced and unoriginal. How can a small student-run paper possibly offer anything to compete with a real news source on an issue taking place thousands of miles away?

Additionally, and bizarrely, the paper contains no bylines. It appears that one thing the editor is prepared to rewrite for himself is the rule book on journalism. I read the second week's edition of The White Lady, in which the editor tries incoherently to explain the bamboozling decision not to credit the people who have helped him produce the paper, providing, that is, that anyone else was even involved. Unfortunately, the editorial does little to explain...anything.

The paper also contains a slender style guide, which is presented to the reader beneath the flagging and fatigued pun "Suit you, Sir!" I dread to see the pun used in this section for next week's paper. The style guide itself is to the world of fashion what this newspaper is to the world of journalism; an embarrassment. The section regurgitates the exhausted concept of fashion 'dos' and 'don'ts' and showcases a snobby adve-rticle for Barbour jackets. However, the low point for unoriginality is clearly the slating of beanie hats - "they look like a tea cosy being used as a hat" - the kind of joke that wasn't funny even when your beloved nana told you it 10 years ago.

The White Lady falls at the first hurdle of weekly journalism-attempting to deliver news as though it's a website. On the back page (This is for sport, Dear Editor) comes the music section, which delivers the earth shattering news that college rock impresarios R.E.M are to disband...almost a week after it has happened. Within the first few paragraphs, the author writes "The band just announced their split on their official website." But of course, 'just' for the writer, is last week by the time the paper falls into the hands of the reader. But it's the headline of this article which irks me the most: When studying journalism at college, we were told that the most important thing about writing a headline is that it conveys vital information in the space allotted by the editor. Puns come second if at all depending on house style. Yet here, caught in a smelly, unwashed halfway house between informative and punny, emerges the headline "It's the end of R.E.M as we know it," with "it" stranded solo and dangling perilously on the line below the preceding words.



The paper's online presence is impressive, with a ".co.uk" suffix and a fairly glossy website, but the material plastered onto the walls of the web are bitter and cynical. The author of one article attacks the existing student newspaper of St Andrews, The Saint, gleefully pointing out that it has won a mere two of a "possible 35" student media awards with the Glasgow Hearld. What the awards it failed to win and what it did win are an apparent mystery-perhaps it won best student paper of the year in 2009 and 2010? The opinion piece then lines up contributors of the well-respected paper and assassinates them all individually, with attacks on the substance and quality of their journalistic work. It is a coldly controlled demolition of the paper and doesn't so much conjure feelings of ballsy journalism, as it does feelings of shameless bullying.

It is an injustice that while the writers of The Saint are attacked for their work individually, the faceless, nameless hacks at The White Lady remain shrouded in a cloth of anonymity.

It is anti-journalism, but simply put: it is a very bad newspaper. 'Rag' is a term I would like to use, but it is more like toilet paper. Imagine, if you will, a beautiful feast of words, crafted by a journalist at the Telegraph as it is snatched from his hands, before being chewed, swallowed and digested by a gluttonous sloth, who rubs his excrement all over a few sheets of paper and has the audacity to call it his creation.

The Inbetweeners Movie: God Awful.

The Inbetweeners Movie is inbetween two things: Sex and the City 2 and nothingness, because it is at the top of the list of the worst films I have ever seen.

The film is a continuation of the channel 4 TV show, The Inbetweeners, which is routinely praised as the thinking man's comedy, and regularly showered with prizes at comedy award shows. The plot of the show is simple: a group of boys at a school in England who are neither cool enough to be cool, nor sad enough to be losers lead us through their secondary school experiences with alcohol, girls and swearing. It is hugely popular, with the latest series reaching viewing figures of over 1 million people per episode.

Gigantic demand prompted the cinematic outing, which was released this week. As the second most annoying character and serial misogynist, Jay, puts it as the lads embark on a summer holiday Greek chlamydia Mecca, "It'll be like shooting clunge in a barrel".

It all begins with Mark from Peep Show Jr (named Will in the show), being mocked by his dad, played by Giles from Buffy (that guy from those 90s coffee adverts), for being a bit weird. Divorcee Giles informs his son that he decided not to invite him to the wedding of him and his new wife because, "You know how you are with people, son."

120 seconds in and already this film is fucking stupid. I can understand that he got bullied at school for being intelligent and (GET THIS) wearing glasses!!!! But to think that his Dad wouldn't invite him to his own wedding because he is, at the very worst, slightly awkward, is obviously idiotic.

He then gives does a bit of exposition about his life: he lives in a suburban neighbourhood in Southern England, and has three friends, Neil, Jay and Simon, who are a bit like him, only totally stupid, annoyingly crass and dozy respectively.

Their last day of school is an inconvenience to the writers, who get it out of the way asap, so they can bore me to tears with their shite Carry On Malia plot. But not before the schools headteacher gives them a royal blue send off in assembly. The painfully poorly observed character swears at and threatens his pupils for a few minutes. After he is finished, Simon, who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Carlie, (Imagine Ross and Rachel from friends, but unrealistic and uncompelling) starts moaning about how miserable he is since the break up. So Jay suggests that to get over his relationship, they go on a lads holiday for "Sun, sea, sex, booze, clunge, fanny, booze and...sex." They all agree, oh and by the way, Jay was wanking, his mum walked in, tearfully told him that his granddad just died, and now the characters have money. Don't worry about the dead man, his death is scarcely mentioned again, all that is important is that Jay was on his will.

Cut to the night of the journey. The four boys and their parents gather outside their car, each boy stealing Harry Enfield's spoilt-teenager-character-routine when their parents tell them they love them etc. Neil's father, who is HILARIOUSLY sexually ambiguous (he wears sweater vests, is well spoken and has male friends, although the latter isn't actually referenced in the film, so less ardent fans of the show will be even more confused by the casual homophobia) is in attendance and is publicly mocked by Jay's father for supposedly appearing to be gay. Jay can be seen looking stroppy and embarrassed by his dad's actions, as though his dad were recanting a mortifying story about his childhood (Even though in the show they all find the constant snickering at Neil's dad's sexuality to be literally the funniest thing in their lives). Neil's dad greets the abuse with confusion and gentle, uneasy laughter. PRESUMABLY BECAUSE HE IS TOO MUCH OF A POOF TO NUT HIM ONE IN THE CANISTER!

They arrive in Malia after an uneventful journey, gawp at a few scantily clad girls, then retire to their hotel, which is a shit hole. They go out again and a PR girl flirts with Jay to trick them into a club, which is empty and badly decorated. Jay gets drunk at the bar, preparing for the arrival of the PR girl, who never comes. At this point, I feel obliged to tell you that Mark from Peep Show Jr is an annoying bastard. He has the remarkable ability to mock characters without them really reacting, or at least, not reacting properly. Instead, he gives the viewer a wee nod and then goes back to being a smug arsehole towards his friends because they aren't as clever as he is.

After a few minutes of the characters being stupid, dozy, dumb and sneering, four girls come in. One is stupid and lankly with a big nose (Just like Neil! Ha ha ha!), Another is self-admittedly fat (She talks only to Jay), another is boring and normal (Like Simon) and the fourth is very attractive and conversationally Savvy (She's the one Will fancies).

After a sequence of preposterously bad dancing towards them, the boys begin talking to the four girls. Naturally, even though everyone else in the history of The Inbetweeners has deemed him too odd to even acknowledge socially, including his own fucking father, Will begins to confidently command a conversation with the most attractive girl he has ever met! They have instant chemistry (EVEN THOUGH HE HAS GLASSES!!!!) Neil doesn't talk much to his girl because he is a bit slow, but they are basically the same hollow character anyway, so who cares. Jay is a drunken mess at the bar, and for some reason the fat girl takes a strong interest in him, apparently unaware that he is an obnoxious gob shite, even though he displays his one of his only character-traits constantly. Then the most boring character, who is basically Tim from The Office, but not funny, starts talking to his girl, Lucy. He starts talking about his ex, Carlie, which bores Lucy stiff, but he is so irresistible that she offers him and his friends the opportunity to join them at a massive party on a boat on the last day of their holiday. The hottest girl reveals she has a Greek boyfriend called Nikos or something, of whom Will does some Borat-esque impressions, offending his love interest deeply, although apparently not enough to stop her talking to him. Jay casually calls the girl he is talking to fat a few times and Neil knocks-back his girl in order to start dirty dancing with an old, fat woman. Those are all the jokes I can remember in this scene.

They leave the club and the boring one sees Carlie on the street much to his surprise. He talks to her, she says she misses him, leads him on a little and asks if he is going to the massive boat party before some cartoon bastard on a quad-bike drives into his leg, which I think is supposed to be a joke. It is implied that Carlie fancies this guy, who is handsome, but also entirely evil. It is then discovered that Neil (LIKE THE IDIOT HE IS!!!) booked the holiday in Malia in full knowledge that Simon's ex was going there.

They eventually go back to their shite hotel, Neil has loud sex with the old woman he was grinding with in the club, and Jay passes out on top of an ant hill after drinking himself into a stupor.

They decide to go to the hotel of the girls they met the night previously. At the girls' hotel, and after an altercation with an annoying child, who kicks Jay and a few other incidents including: Will having a penis sunburned into his back after Simon draws one with suntan lotion and Simon being rude to Lucy, the lads leave to go somewhere else.

Jay and Simon have an argument about something that doesn't really matter, but basically, they can't get tickets to the boat party. Simon decides to sell all of his clothes to raise money for a boat ticket. The evil bastard offers to buy his clothes on behalf of a friend, insisting that Simon throws the clothes he is wearing into the bargain. Standing naked on a seaside street beside Will, it dawns on Simon that he has been tricked by Malia's answer to Joseph Goebbels.

Jay reveals to Neil that he bought tickets to the boat party as a surprise for Simon, until their argument inspires him to tear Simon and Will's tickets into pieces. Both parties go on tragic nights out and decide to come together the following day and make up. The girls of their dreams inexplicably reappear, as the boys also do, in the dreadful club they spent their first night. Will and his dream girl discuss sexual politics:

"You are funny, Will. That will get you laid."

"Really? Being funny can get you sex? Do girls find that attractive?"

"Yeah!!...if they're BRAIN DEAD!"

Given that he has Glasses (OMFG!) and he is 'funny', and apparently a social leper, it begs the question, why would this sexy, charming woman be interested in him...

This scene is a carbon copy of the last evening they spent together, but this time they all end up skinny dipping. Will strips with the woman of his dreams in a lustfully-charged scene, before she removes his glasses, throwing them away in a carefree manner, and placing his hand on her breast and running off into the distant sea. Forcing Will to scream "I'VE LOST MY GLASSES!", which brought the house down.

Wondering aimlessly around the beach, Will falls upon an amorous couple. The man aggressively approaches Will and eager to protect him, his new girl walks runs to his aid and, oh my god, the man fucking someone on the beach is her Greek boyfriend. How dare he be unfaithful! Good thing she had been placing another man's hand on her naked breast, so that she could expose that love-rat bastard! Will smugly tells his girl that he told her so about her dirty Greek boyfriend and she runs off in tears, finally realising that he is a smug prat. No amount of one liners and alleged intelligence can help you now, Mark from Peep Show Jr.

Standing in the sea with his new love interest and just when it appears that he has finally gotten over his ex, Simon sees Carlie walking down the beach and wades back to shore to speak to her like a desperate moron. She shows little interest and walks off, then he tries to go back to speak to Lucy, who now (SURELY) has realised he is a boring dickhead with absolutely nothing to say for himself.

Jay is about to get off with the fat girl, but then some Brits abroad start mocking him and calling her a whale, so he starts getting shy and she realises he is a shallow arsehole, which is approximately 45 minutes late.

The day of the big boat party arrives, they see the girls, who are understandably cold with them, but eventually they all come around and give them boat tickets for a variety of nonsensical reasons.

When they arrive on the boat, Neil starts getting off with his lookalike girl and they become a couple. Simon sees Carlie, who instantly runs into his arms, but then he realises that she is only kissing him to make the most evil man on Earth jealous and he tells her to fuck off, more or less.

Jay decides that he isn't embarrassed about kissing a fat woman in public after all, in spite of the fact that the one and only thing that defines him, besides swearing, is that he is misogynistic, leaving a gaping hole in his character, which can only be filled by saying clunge a few hundred times more.

Then Will and one of the most attractive people in England begin speaking about her break-up with Stavros from Easy Jet the previous day, and the brain-dead bitch suggests not only that he kiss her, but that they start GOING OUT WITH EACH OTHER. Which is testament to the apparent fact that if you spend time with a person for 90 minutes then they automatically fall in love with you.

Realising that he has made a huge mistake and has picked the wrong girl, Simon attempts to swim to shore, but it's too far away and unable to swim properly, requires an airlift. When he is resuscitated on the beach, Lucy runs to him, kisses him and then he reveals that he thinks he has "shat" himself and is taken away for further medical treatment.

Also, Evil-Bastardman ends up snorting coke through a rolled up twenty quid note that has been up Jay's arse (who seemingly hasn't taken a shit for a full fortnight), he strides around the boat oblivious to the fact that he has shit dripping from his nose, and obviously everyone is disgusted.

So there we have it, what have I learned:

1. No matter how self-obsessed, boring, stupid, ugly, obnoxious, sexist and tedious you are there will always be a girl for you and what's more, she will likely be remarkably more attractive than you are.

2. Sometimes film scripts probably take less time to write than the film takes to watch.

3. People will watch absolutely anything, so long as you put it on Channel 4 for three years first.

4. People who are more attractive than you are but just as nasty and selfish are evil, even if the only difference is that they are better looking.

5. My adolescence was fantastic and nothing like this film or the TV show that came before it.

6. I never want to go to Malia. Ever. Or anywhere where there are fans of the Inbetweeners, which unfortunately for me, is everywhere.

The Deteriorating Mental Health of Gordon Ramsay

We live in a world in which Gordon Ramsay is a respected chef with 12 Michelin Stars and a variety of reality TV shows that consist of him swearing at people. This world is reality. Gordon Ramsay, however, lives in a world where he has been a fantastically famous and talented footballer and a world in which, among other bizarre habits, Chef is a title which can be applied before a persons name, in the same way that you would call someone 'Doctor' or 'Professor'. This world is fabricated by Gordon Ramsay's deranged mind.

It is virtually impossible to ascertain whether Gordon Ramsay's clinical insanity began before he was famous or afterwards, because he himself is so unsure of his own past. His life has been written and re-written in numerous interviews to suit Ramsay's mood, but I can no lon

ger stand by while a great man suffers alone. This is a man who is struggling to accept reality as it appears and has been forced by mental illness to adjust the parameters of the Universe around him in order to survive. Unable to assimilate with society, Ramsay constantly lashes out at under-qualified restaurant staff over seemingly petty and meaningless everyday occurrences, like the consistency of gravy or the speed at which someone cooks broccoli.

Traumatically , Ramsay has been forced by the monsters at Channel 4 to play out his tragic life in front of millions every week on the fly-on-the-wall documentary, Kitchen Nightmares USA. In this serious expose of mental health in the work place, Ramsay is convinced by the shows producers that he is responsible for the well being of another person's restaurant, and as a result of his declining state, he works tirelessly in order to improve the fortunes of two-bit restaurants across the United States.

Ramsay is forced to live out the same distressing experiences week-after-week, heart-breakingly rehashing the same routine each time. It quickly becomes obvious that Ramsay only has a handful of memories from working as a restaurateur and is regurgitating them as a desperate survival technique. Each time, he marches into a restaurant he has never seen before in his life, wrapped in the chef's coat that he wears both in and outdoors-his knowledge of hygiene apparently wiped from his troubled mind-he then orders a meal that he knows he will not like from a menu produced by someone who is obviously ill-equipped to handle food.

When the meal arrives, Ramsay invariably loses his temper. Frustrated with himself and the world around him, he insults everyone in sight and spits out his half-chewed food. Possibly because of damaged motor-functions; maybe an eating disorder, we just don't know.

Whipped into a frenzy by the staff and customers, Ramsay begins to frantically storm through the building, not unlike a contestant on Supermarket Sweep. Eventually, having upturned the entire restaurant-store-rooms, office and all-Ramsay begins to scream at its proprietors. Demanding that they not only change their menu entirely, but that they surrender custody of their business for several days. Presumably terrified, the owners agree, and when they return a number of days later, Ramsay has been working unrelentingly throughout the night, altering the decor of the establishment and implementing a new till system.

Ramsay then insists that the restaurant open that very evening, ordering that, regardless of the restaurants pre-existing theme, they start serving 'hamburger sliders'-a deranged miniature version beefburgers on a narrow, rectangular plate.

As a result of Ramsay's undeniable cooking skills, the transformation proves a great success every time. Ramsay then addresses the staff of the restaurant, credits them for their hard work, before scuttling out of the front door and down the street under cover of darkness-still wearing his white, double-breasted chef's jacket-and begins muttering to himself in bold language.

Cold and alone, wreaking of self-doubt and self-hatred, Gordon Ramsay has regressed to a child-like state, insisting that his boyhood fantasy of playing for his 'local' football team, Glasgow Rangers, was a reality, despite the fact that Glasgow is not local to his childhood home in Stratford. Dissatisfied with having won cooking's most prestigious prize 12 times, and having a fortune stretching into the tens of millions, Ramsay has felt the need to imagine a glorious sporting career in which he ranked among the game's greatest. But again, Ramsay's tortured feelings of low-self worth have forced him to imagine a disastrous end to his own dreams.

Ramsay has made various false and contradictory claims about his Rangers career, the most noticeable being that he had one. Cruelly cornered by the media, Ramsay warped his original story out of all recognition. Having originally stuttered out the following: "I got my first team games. I was with the first team squad. I played three first team games.' Ramsay amended his history, claiming that he had merely played in a single friendly-match. Unfortunately, this too was a miss-truth.

Presumably frightened by his lack of self-control, Ramsay began to contort time and history. Speaking on a radio show in 2002, he explained how his career was cut short, when Rangers manager Jock Wallace and first team coach Archie Knox released him after he tore his liga

ment. However at the time, Knox, was the manager of Dundee. Knox told a Sunday newspaper: "The first time I ever saw Gordon Ramsay was in 1996 when he launched his first book. But he didn't know me from Adam because we've never met." Ramsay then became more erratic about his football 'career', claiming unprecedented levels of fame in his 2006 autobiography, Humble Pie: "Outside the stadium, you'd be signing things like pillow cases and the side of prams, and families would turn up with their kids to have their trainers signed."

It was at this stage that the world became aware of Ramsay's problems. Unable to prop-up his inconsistencies, Ramsay's legal team stepped in. A spokesman said that the television star had always "down-played" his career in football and added: "Any inaccuracies regarding the details of this period can be explained by the fact that all this occurred nearly 25 years ago."

Ramsay made several humiliating appearances in televised charity football matches, which revealed his lack of ability. Now no one was convinced, as much as they tried. It was at this point that Gordon Ramsay's senility became a sport for the international press. Lurching from one catastrophe to the next, Ramsay's condition worsened. A Gordon's Gin television advert tormented a defenceless Ramsay, showering him with straight Gin, stoning him with ice-cubes

and torturing him with acidic limes. The public humiliation began to take it's toll on the down-trodden Ramsay as he publicly insulted a prominent Australian TV personality on her own television show, revealing a blown-up image of a nude woman on all fours with a pig's face, before drawing comparis

on to the Aussie TV host, Tracey Grimshaw.

Perhaps most troubling is the way in which his personal relationship problems have suffered. Recently it was revealed that Ramsay could no longer differentiate between an average woman and his own wife, after the Daily Mail uncovered that he had been sleeping with other women since 2001.

Whatever happens now is anyone's guess, but thankfully Ramsay is beginning to come to terms with his problem. But with tragic celebrity deaths happening more frequently with each passing year, one can only pray that Gordon Ramsay doesn't follow that pattern of talented stars who burnt out too soon. However, with the rising popularity of other Channel 4 chefs, such as Heston, Jamie and Hugh, one cannot help but fear how Gordon will take the prospect of further decline.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Blog Post

I am going to talk about why I don't like Harry Potter, but first, I feel that I should get a few awkward points out of the way.

1. I have read under two chapters of the first book and not a WORD since.

2. I have watched about three of the films, and fallen asleep half way through one of them.

3. I don't talk about it, so I don't ACTUALLY know what the plot is.

So as you can see, I am a fully qualified and just person to say: Harry Potter is the worst thing on Earth.

At the moment I am watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on STV. I have formed several observations. Firstly, I know that everyone says this, right, but how can any self-respecting adult watch a film or read a book with the following sentence in it: "Now

that you have conquered a troll, a game of quiddich should be a doddle, even if it is against a slythern."

Secondly, it's a cynical piece of shit. Reading the newspaper the other day, I saw a picture of a box set of the books. The dreadful woman who wrote the series wrote a modest first book, nice and small, that's fine-it's for kids. But from then on, the books begin to double with each edition, and it makes me sick. So much so, that the final book must be separated into two to bleed yet more money from the pathetic addicted freaks who are hooked on the series.

Thirdly, it makes me repulsed to imagine the weirdo distinguished actors who appear in the films talking about how the plot captured their imagination and they had to be in it because it was so wonderful. Grow up, your childhood is over, Robbie Coltrane, we all know you did it for the money. I have seen you in Glasgow International, we all know how you paid for that flight to New York, and it wasn't by writing your very boring, very unfunny TV series, Tutti-Frutti.

And that is just that fat idiot-who, in real life, is even fatter than you had imagined-now we come to the revolting prospect of the wretch-making, money-grubbing Zoe Wanamaker. In a

n interview with the Daily Telegraph, Wanamaker, who plays games mistress Madam Hooch, described the film's producers Warner Bros as "notoriously mean" and described the pay as "terrible." "If they want me for a second film, they'll have to up their rates. I don't think any of the actors have done well out of it," she continued embarrassingly.

Then there are the leads. I don't care about that prat who stripped for the play or that ginger one who everyone pretends to fancy because they want to show how open minded they are about gingers. All three of them are undeserving of their fortunes, their only talent in the first place was looking a bit like the dorky cartoons that appeared on the cover of the books. It would be too easy to claw at the for being bad actors, and they are BAD ACTORS, but Emma Watson has other qualities that I can attack like the superficial vulture that I am.

I went to college with a girl who had Granger as her other half on bebo, which basically makes me a celebrity in my own right. I once asked my class mate how much of her fortune Hermione gave away to her mates and she said nothing. In 2009, that brat earned a reputed £19 m

illion. Dismayed, I suggested that she must, at least, give fantastic birthday presents.

"What did you get from your Emma Watson as your last birthday present."

"Kylie's new CD."

That is the equivalent of me giving my friends a birthday present to the value of 2p. To find further information with which to criticise Emma Watson, I visited her Wikipedia page, and what I saw shook my very core and never let go.

The amount of CDs I would expect for my birthday if I were friends with Emma Watson

The idiot likes tennis, "art" and apparently she supports the Wild Trout Trust. Why, I don't know. When I used my accredited journalistic skills to uncover why, this is all I could muster:

"Harry Potter actress Emma Watson has once again donated to the Wild Trout Trust's charity auction for 2008. Ms. Watson donated a fly tied by her, which has been framed together with a signature card. The auction goes live on Monday, March 31st and closes the evening of Wednesday April 9th with all proceeds put towards river conservation."

Conclusive proof that Emma Watson is a shady and divisive

character.

She also describes herself as "a bit of a feminist", which is interesting because I would describe myself as "a bit of an anarchist".

Being the best paid actress in Hollywood, she obviously knows a thing or two about acting because her favourite actors are Johnny Depp and Julia Roberts.

Fifthly, it is unforgivably English; the film equivalent of Tim Henman. Even his name is of the same calibre of Walter the Softy and Frank Spencer; 'Harry Potter'. It's lame and

it's camp, which makes it's aggressively imperialistic attempts to dominate the Universe all the more sinister. It has penetrated my life much more than I had hoped. Last year, I went to the St Andrews Union to witness the opening stages of pub quiddich.

After all of the fucking foreplay leading up to the final film, that little tease, J.K. Rowling playfully hints that she is going to write more Harry Potter books. It's unforgivable. I feel like I have been tricked. How much money is enough for you, you ravenous prostitute? Challenge yourself, write something else and let the New Picture House in St Andrews show us a proper film.

Football Manager Ruined My Life...And Almost Robbie Williams' Too

On a hot summer's day in July 2005, I went over to my friend Michael Sullivan's house to watch a football match between Roma and Chelsea. Little did I know, this would be the last proper day of my life. This was the day I first played Football Manager.

It's existed for decades under different guises: Championship Manager, Premier Coach, Premierleagueshipfootball managercoach, but now Football

Manager (FM) has established itself firmly under the name which now strikes the heart like a bolt of lightening.

It's so addictive that in the past five years it has been cited in more than 35 British divorces and a million copies of it were bought last year and yet everyone criticises the football management simulator for being boring and stupid. After all, "WHO would want to watch a bunch of dots chase another, smaller dot around a bit green square. I mean, IT'S NOT EVEN REA

L!?!"

So when people ask me, 'Tommy, why have you spent literally over 1000 hours of your life playing Football Manager?', and I say: 'Because it's fun,' they often return with the loud and tiresome response I wrote above. But recently I have discovered the ultimate combatant against the 'haterz': Robbie Williams likes it. And anything Robbie Williams likes is worth investing 1000 hours in. Be it pop music, women or cocaine-allegedly.

Yes, it's true, the role model for all modern Britons and modern citizens of the World in general, Mr Robbie Williams likes Football Manager loads. Recently, under pressure from his ridiculously SAAAAAD and selfish wife, Robbie broke his Football Manager disc into two pieces. Claiming, that (and I didn't just imagine this, by the way) "It all got too much". Robbie Williams, who, need I remind you is a millionaire-which means that I can play it all I like and will probably, DEFINITELY become a millionaire, too-had a series of Twitter meltdowns in which he said:

"Got addicted to Football Manager AGAIN. They warned Ayda (His wife) what would happen but I don't think she was quite prepared for what was to come. Been on it day and night and the other day I decided to snap the disc because it all got too much. However, two days later I re-ordered it on Amazon.

"It should come in the post tomorrow. Ayda will be thrilled."

And this proves once and for all that Football Manage

r is the best game in the Universe and well worthy of me wasting my life over.

I know what you are thinking: "Okay, he is great and I grew up with Robbie, and he is definitely the kind of guy I aspire to be, but I prefer younger stars. Younger stars like, I don't know....Paolo Nutini?"

WELL AHA! You are an idiot, because Paolo Nutini likes it almost as much as Robbie Williams, although, in his defence, he hasn't claimed to have snapped his game in half because he was so passionately addicted-or at least not publicly.

Last year, Paolo was invited to test out the latest version of the game in the creators' design studio because he is such an enormous fan, so next time you call me sad, you had better think of the company I keep, because we are the coolest men in Britain. One can even watch the tedious footage of Paolo confirming he is enjoying the game, as he plays it, on youtube.

For those of you who are in relationships and are thinking of asking your significant other to choose between you and the game, please remember Robbie, his wife, the other 35 British divorces in the past five year. Please remember too that Football Manager is currently number two on the list of computer games that are responsible for ending relationships, behind some embarrassing shooting game that only geeks play, not a wicked game like the one that Robbie, me and Paolo play.

We are the future, and like a bunch of poorly dinosaurs that are shit at surviving meteor strikes, you are the past. Vive la Football Manager.

I would now like to take an extract of my favourite poem about Football Manager, 'The Love Song Of Edin Dzeko's Cock', which was written by an award-winning poet I know.

"Let us go, in our lazies, through water carriers, trequartistas, limited defenders and

Julio Baptista.

Though the relentless night is dark and depressing

At least your defensive line's not set to pressing.

Shawcross to United and Shearer to Spurs

follow like

the insidious intent of a tedious argument

to lead you to an overwhelming question...

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Pitch size alterations."

Afroman: Warrior Poet

"La da da da da da La, Da Daaa,La da da da, La da da da, La da da daaa"-Afroman

With each passing day, I find it ever more frustrating that people refuse to acknowledge the significance of 00s comedy hip-hop impresario Afroman.
Perhaps the quote above isn't the most incisive of his career to date, but it may stun you to learn that I think that the rest of his hit, 'Because I Got High', is one of the most valiant attempts of social upheaval in all of music.

Often people talk about the significance of Vietnam-era music upon society, and the role it played in helping people through-out the world. But there is a very special man whose efforts in the year 2000 were utterly overlooked.

Afroman tried very hard to change the way we think and we all laughed in his face. His 'novelty' rap 'Because I Got High' is a harrowing tale that, during the turn of the millennium, could be heard echoing throughout high schools and universities in both the UK and US, harmonised by the moronic mimicry of many-a-stoner.

You are likely to recall this song as an annoying song about taking loads of drugs and failing to perform the easiest of tasks: room cleaning, test passing. But what you will probably not remember is the vivid story-telling, brutal honesty and crushing irony.

His one-hit-wonder is a tragic account of a life destroyed by substance abuse.
The song's protagonist begins by describing how his drug-fuelled apathy lead to him not cleaning his room and the resulting problems. In this case, his room remained 'messed-up'. This is a pattern which repeats itself in each verse.

This is Afroman's first stroke of genius.

He draws you in with his first two verses, listing fairly tedious and repairable problems. Any listener can, however, notice that the second verse cites a more serious problem than the first. This is also a technique that Afroman will reintroduce with each verse.

At this point we can all enjoy the hilarious antics of Afroman, as he jovially elaborates on his small personal failures, but then Afroman begins to sober the mood around him in verse number three.

"I was gonna go to work, but then I got high
I just got a new promotion, but I got high
now I'm selling dope and I know why (Why man?) Yeah hey,
- because I got high" [repeat 3X]
That's right, just as you were bobbing along to the slickly-produced beats of Afroman (also produced my Headfridge), he has thrown a spanner into the proverbial. This is no longer a laughing matter, a man's drug habit has become so serious that he has now turned to drug-dealing to make ends meet after presumably losing his new promotion, and possibly, his job altogether. But things are about to get a great deal worse(no pun intended) for our protagonist.

The next verse reads as follows: "I was gonna go to court before I got high
I was gonna pay my child support, but then I got high
they took my whole paycheck and I know why (Why man?) Yeah hey,
- because I got high" [repeat 3X]

It has just been revealed that this man is a father of a child who is under the age of 18. As a result of her (the gender isn't revealed, but I am a forward thinking guy) father's irresponsible drug habit, this young child will not have as money to live on this month.

At this point I feel obliged to wrangle a few verses together for brevity and to inform you that between each verse, Afroman and his crew say "la da da da, da da da".

"I wasn't gonna run from the cops, but I was high
I was gonna pull right over and stop, but I was high(La da da da da da da da da)
Now I am a paraplegic and i know why (Why man?) Yeah hey,
- because I got high [repeat 3X]

"I was gonna pay my car note until I got high
I wasn't gonna gamble on the boat, but then I got high
now the tow truck is pulling away and I know why (Why man?) Yeah hey,
- because I got high [repeat 3X]

"I was gonna make love to you, but then I got high
I was gonna eat yo pussy too, but then I got high
now I'm jacking off and I know why, Yeah hey,
- because I got high" [repeat 3X]

From these three verses, we can establish that the main character has a) Become a paraplegic, b) Gambled away so many of his possessions on some kind of boat trip that a repossession agency has required a truck to collect them all and c) Been involved in a case of resisting arrest and drug-driving. We can also establish that he is only human and that his song-writing talents are not limitless; his crude verse about eating pussies is positively inappropriate, although it does aid claims that drug use can permanently damage your libido.
It is at this point that the character breaks down with the most winding verse of his musical poem:

"I messed up my entire life because I got high
I lost my kids and wife because I got high
now I'm sleeping on the sidewalk and I know why (Why man?) Yeah hey,
- because I got high" [repeat 3X]

One man tried to warn us, and we wouldn't listen. Instead, we patronised him with Grammy awards and categorised his philosophies as novelty. We watched and subsequently stopped watching as Afroman's life became a revolting parody of his song's protagonist-as recently as this month Afroman was being sued for failing to turn up to a gig.

And what of his mark on humanity; his swan song that will forever bear his stagename, brushed a side by the hand marked: "Ignore this, for it is novelty rap music". But let me remind you of the drug-dependant, paraplegic, penniless, homeless, impotent man, who had been estranged from his wife and infant daughter-if not his entire extended family. The man who would tell anyone who would listen about the irreversible effects that cannabis had on his life.

And you find that funny, do you? You make me fucking sick.

The Beatles

Having been turned down by most major record labels, The Beatles had arranged a meeting with future manager Brian Epstein. Paul McCartney failed to turn up on time to meet the then music store owner and when it emerged that McCartney was late because he was having a bath, Epstein was ready to leave in a fury, until George Harrison quipped that at least when Paul did eventually arrive he would be clean. Epstein was won over by the boys' sense of humour and later described Harrison's sense of humour as a motive for signing the Liverpudlian four-piece.

John Lennon used to do impressions of disabled people during gigs to amuse the audience.

The Beatles claim to have recorded the first ever intentional guitar feedback on the song I Feel Fine.

For the iconic album cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the four members were asked to suggest famous figures. John and Paul both compiled extensive lists, George's list included several Indian spiritualists, while Ringo said he wasn't concerned and suggested nobody. Unfortunately for George, some of the people he suggested were so obscure that photographs couldn't be sourced!

When Yoko Ono first met The Beatles, the only member she had heard of was Ringo Starr, and she claims that she only knew him because his first name is the Japanese word for 'apple'.

Upon reading an interview in which John Lennon said he wished he could re-record all of The Beatles music, their legendary producer, Sir George Martin, confronted Lennon and asked him if he really wanted to re-record all of their work. Lennon replied affirmatively, which prompted Martin to ask if he even meant Strawberry Fields Forever, which is often considered Lennon's masterpiece. Lennon lowered his famous round spectacles and replied, "Especially Strawberry Fields Forever." Martin claims that even now, this leaves him with a tainted memory of John Lennon.

Frank Sinatra once allegedly claimed that 'Something' was his favourite Lennon/McCartney song. It was actually written by George Harrison.

Paul McCartney claims to have dreamed 'Yesterday', when he awoke and rushed to the piano to play the notes he had imagined, the makeshift opening lyrics he assembled were "scrambled eggs, you have got such lovely legs".

John Lennon was once holidaying abroad when a busker recognised him as a Beatle and approached him playing 'Yesterday, assuming it was a song of his and seemingly unaware that it was, in fact, written by Paul McCartney.

John Lennon allegedly used to tease manager Brian Epstein's sexuality and when Epstein revealed that his autobiography would be called 'Cellar Full of Noise', Lennon reportedly quipped that a more appropriate title would be 'Cellar Full of Boys'.

John Lennon's alleged teasing of Epstein can supposedly be heard at the end of 'Baby, You're a Rich Man', where the lyrics, "Baby, you're a rich man, too" are reportedly replaced as "Baby, you're a rich fag jew" by John Lennon.

The iconic album cover of Abbey Road was photographed on a zebra crossing in London, to this day it still attracts lesions of fans, despite the fact that the cross walk itself has since been moved several metres away from its original position to ease disruption caused by fans constantly re-enacting the famous shot.

George Harrison claimed that until the mid-sixties, for every 20 pounds earned by the band, 19 would be claimed by the British Government in taxation. This was the inspiration for the song 'Taxman' and the lyric "let me tell you how it will be: it's one for you, 19 for me".

Threatened by their imminent dominance, Elvis Presley is reported to have used his FBI contacts to have The Beatles deported from the US.

While on his deathbed in 2001, George Harrison lay as he and Paul McCartney held hands for several hours.

Quotes:

"What a fucking great band we were." Paul McCartney

"It just annoyed me that people got so into the Beatles. "Beatles, Beatles, Beatles." It's not that I don't like talking about them. I've never stopped talking about them. It's "Beatles this, Beatles that, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles." Then in the end, it's like "Oh, sod off with the Beatles," you know?" George Harrison

"The song ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ was written specifically for me, but they had one line that I wouldn’t sing. It was ‘What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?’ I said, ‘There’s not a chance in hell am I going to sing this line,’ because we still had lots of really deep memories of the kids throwing jelly beans and toys on stage; and I thought that that if we ever did get out there again, I was not going to be bombarded with tomatoes." Ringo Starr

"I really thought that love would save us all." John Lennon