Shortpost

There are too many long posts about crap on this blog. I need to either refine my technique or go on a cull. Perhaps a combination of the two would be best seeing as the last two posts were rather vacuous... Hm. Would like some ideas for subject matter HALP

Lose 4 stone in just as many weeks using these 5 easy steps!

I don't understand why adverts like this are still popping up all over my advert space on the internet, when it's clearly not a feasible feat. Everybody should know this by now, and yet people are stupid enough to still believe that there's a way to get thin without leaving the couch. Or maybe I'm just underestimating the average intelligence of your average skinny-figure aspiring, ice-cream-and-donut-loving internet user.

My personal top tips

1. Eat less. But not too little. Actually, only eat when you're hungry.
2. Stop eating crap. Greasy things make you fat because it's cooked in fat.
3. Move more. More you move -> More energy body requires -> more you can eat
4. Only put in what you need out. It's like fuelling a machine.
5. Diet pills are silly. Even if they initially make you lose weight, when you go off them and you're still stuck in the same habits as when you went on them, once you finish the course YOU WON'T STOP GETTING FAT.

The whole concept of weight loss is simple. If you eat less and move more, you lose weight. Simple. Of course it's easier for some than others, because ... I don't know, some people are more inclined to eat healthier food? or they don't sit on the sofa all day? I don't believe that there are some people out there who actually sit in their house and don't leave the television set except to urinate, defecate or to get food. It's quite obvious that they don't need that much energy (I mean, they are just sitting down, which can hardly be counted as a strenuous activity), yet they must not grasp the concept that you don't need that much food whilst vegetating on the settee. If you're a hard-working builder and decide to have a bacon and egg sandwich and a mars bar for lunch, following a busy morning's brick-laying and tea drinking, (can builders lay bricks?)a heavy lunch is justified. Fuel for the afternoon. Yet Little Miss Couch Potato wonders why she's getting fat whilst munching on a sharing size pack of doritos during Jeremy Kyle.

I used to work in a health food shop, and the number of people looking for quick-fix diet pills were phenomenal. The majority of these women weren't necessarily worried about their health, but needed to drop a couple of pounds for their holiday or wedding, and fast. What I always wanted to tell them was that if they had eaten better before, they wouldn't have been in such a predicament! And now there they were, a fortnight away from their long-awaited vacation and stressing about how they would look in a bikini. To tell you the truth, I'm glad that I don't holiday with this type of people. However, despite my initial impressions, I would always politely approach them and help them find the right product. Who knows, they may actually want to change their lifestyle after all!

A typical conversation would go like this:
Customer: "Can you help me find something that would help me lose X amount of pounds in Y weeks?" (Values X and Y completely unobtainable)
Myself: "I can certainly find something to help start you off on the right track, though I think that you're setting your goalposts too high! 3-4lbs a week is more achievable and I can help you find something that will help you with that."
Customer (looks a little apprehensive): Alright. I should've started earlier then, but anything that helps would be great!
Myself: Is it alright if I ask you a couple of questions first? Just so that I can help find the right products for you?
Customer: Of course.
Myself: First of all, the killer question. How would you describe your diet?
Customer: (hesitating) I think it's alright, I guess. There are the odd days here and there where I fall down. [The odd day? No kidding. I don't know why these people lie to someone who wants to help. I only start judging you if you aren't truly honest and come back to see me in 6 months time with the same problem]
Myself: We all have those. What sort of foods are your weakness?
Customer: Sweets and cakes. But I do snack a fair bit as well on crisps when I get home from work before making the kids' dinner. But the rest of my diet's good! I only have takeaway once a week and I don't eat breakfast so I can save my calories for later in the day! [No dear, it doesn't quite work like that...]
Myself: Okaaaaay... And how much exercise do you get?
Customer: I walk to my office and back from my car every day, and I sometimes take the stairs. I don't really have time to do exercise.

What I want to say/what this lady needs to hear yet isn't allowed to because I would appear to be completely insensitive and not complying with the high levels of customer service that rigorously must be maintained:
Righto. First of all, don't lie to me about your diet. If you have a shit diet, just say so. I'll give you some advice and some support to help you beat sugar cravings and overcome unnecessarily calorie-laden yet nutritionally sparse foods that you so love. It'll help you with energy levels! Mood swings and sleeping patterns! But no. You're not in this losing weight thing for the long haul are you? So you most certainly do not want to disclose your true dietary habits to an impartial shop assistant who, god forbid, might tell you off! If you can't face up to the fact that you have a crap diet and yet can't shed the pounds, maybe you need someone to do so. But no, by saying your diet's alright you're effectively closing off a route that may help you.

However, having classified your diet as "alright", you then go on to say that you are impartial to the odd cake and sweet (one at 10am, 11am and 3pm perhaps? Those are my personal weakpoints), snack on a bag of crisps at home most probably after cake and have a takeaway (probably at least, she doesn't look like a woman with true willpower) FREQUENTLY? What is even the appeal of takeaways anyway, when you can make the same meal at home, it will taste loads better for the fraction of the price? I guess that we're just a nation of junk-food addicts with the aspirations of achieving a toned flexible physique trapped underneath rolls of blubber.

I guess that's what the government think as well. I think they're now saying that nearly half of under 10s are approaching obesity or are obese and we're a nation of fat people with bad eating habits. So why not have a government drive to stop kids tumbling into an early and extra large grave? So the "Just Eat More (fruit and veg" campaign was launched a while ago, Jamie Oliver gave school lunches a makeover (whilst watching his School Dinners programme I was amazed by the quality and variety of his menus) to help us and our kids. I bet half of the parents who this campaign was aimed at either didn't care/couldn't comprehend the concept or couldn't afford healthy food. Why is healthy food so expensive anyway? You can buy 40 sausages with roughly 20% meat (a variety of pork, chicken and beef plus anything else) for £2, yet a bag of 3 or 4 peppers costs nearly the same amount. Personally I would go with peppers, but I can see why some people go for the bag of frozen sausages. For one, they wouldn't read the ingredients list, and secondly, it's cheap and can feed you for aaages. I guess mums and dads stock their freezers and cupboards up with this rubbish and serve it up to their kids as a meal. NOT A VEGETABLE IN SIGHT.
Let's see... Sugary cereal and toast for breakfast, chocolate bar at break, pizza and chips for lunch with chocolate pudding for lunch, crisps and chocolate biscuits for after school snack and sausage and chips for tea followed by ice cream. For some variety in their diet, take them to a popular fast-food outlet. Mum and Dad obviously hated their vegetables as a child and didn't want to inflict the same torture on their own offspring. I HAD TO EAT  BROCCOLI EVERY DINNER TIME FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER. May be I was 3 or maybe 4 when I started, but I still have broccoli every dinner time even now. In fact, I love broccoli, even though it used to be my least favourite part of the meal. If I didn't eat my broccoli, I didn't get any pudding. Simple. I guess kids answer back to their parents too much these days to find these techniques effective...

We also have fat kids because as a nation, we are becoming more lazy. What happened to the days where everyone used to run around everywhere? The days when you'd go and play in the street with a football or hide and seek in the garden or tennis or tig in the park? Gone now, it seems. I used to hate any games that involved sprinting because I wasn't very fast as a child, but I'd still take part. If you didn't, you faced ostracization by your peers, and that's no fun when you're in primary school. These days it seems like kids sit indoors all day on their x-box and cell phone and laptops and watching TV SIMULTANEOUSLY. AND EATING CRISPS. School obviously hasn't taught them that the more you eat and the less you move, the fatter you get, and of course mummy and daddy don't have time to do that. They have to do this and that and are really far too busy to be doing anything more than making sproglet's dinner. In the oven/microwave it goes. Later Mummy and Daddy wonder why child is fat, blame school for not educating child about healthy eating, government changes curriculum to include healthy eating lessons to be taught from nursery school leaving literacy and numeracy even further on the back burner. CHILD IS STILL FAT they later complain. Government changes school dinners. Why are Mummy and Daddy incapable of accepting responsibility? Maybe they're wary that it may flag up some of their poor eating traits, the neighbours would find out about their habits and publicly humiliate them. What a ridiculous food insecurity.

Why were we a nation of hearty meals, yet leaner physique in the past than today? Nowadays it's all or nothing, you're flipping between the on and off phases of yo-yo dieting, overindulging too frequently and unwilling to face it, yet obsessed with organic food, superberries and antioxidants. In a desperate attempt to seem healthy (many would call it a "health kick and that would be the end of it)an unopened jar of overpriced manuka honey sits in the cupboard alongside an open, yet practically full bag of goji berries. It's sad when you're reduced to this marketing ploy to make yourself feel healthy whilst in real life, you're constantly surfing sugar peaks and troughs whilst craving salty meals and greasy treats. All these people that are in denial have to face up to the fact that they have a junk food addiction. Yes. That's right.
ADDICTION.

Like smoking. Junk food is addictive, just like smoking, and it is also bad for you. Smoking is also bad for you as well, but junk food is available to people of all ages and hasn't started to become regulated by the government. I read somewhere that junk food helps release dopamine in the brain (not exactly sure if that's entirely correct, but you get the gist) just like drugs. Except most drugs make you thin because of the dopamine re-uptake etc, which pretty much eliminates the desire to eat. However, as far as I know, junk food doesn't work in the same way as agonists do. For starters, junk food is generally a lot bulkier than most common agonists, and therefore will need a place to sit whilst it's being processed. Not enough room here? Quick! Produce more room to store this shit! It's not waste, so we'll have to make an extension, we're running out of room anyway. Et voila! One Large Big Mac meal comfortably stored around the consumer's abdomen. Another thing is that junk food isn't an agonist either, so as far as my knowledge goes it won't help with the re-uptake of dopamine, so your satisfaction buzz from your Big Mac won't last as long as one from a narcotic. Undoubtedly you'll be seeking more consolation in another form of crappy food at some point soon and whining about it later.

DO PEOPLE HAVE NO WILLPOWER THESE DAYS?

AND WHY DON'T WE MAKE OUR OWN FOOD ANYMORE?! We settle for this prepackaged crap that is pumped full of additives to make us buy it again, using "not enough hours in the day" as an excuse. How do people truly understand what's going into their meals if they're not making it themselves? Back in the day, everything was made from scratch (apart from base ingredients) so you knew what was happening to your food. Why have many people lost this tradition and succumbed to the temptation of ready meals, fatter middles and a very happy and extremely fat cat at the top of the corporate ladder? Make your own pack-up for once,  leave out crisps and put in a couple of apples instead. Ditch coca cola, drink squash or water. Or coffee. Simples.

I am aware that in spite of the fact that I have been preaching these words of wisdom time after time after time, I must admit that I am shit at eating well. I get away with it because I somehow have a way of being skinny, yet I'm not quite sure what it's down to. I guess that I walk a fair distance every day and don't spend all day in bed, and these days I don't even like McDonalds. However, I like muffins. I have the habit of buying a bag of something delicious (like muffins or dates or donuts or apricots or whatever) and eating them all in one go, or failing that, on the same day. With dried fruit this leads to disastrous consequences, rendering me incapable of leaving the bathroom on the same evening. However, when I go weekly shopping for food I never ever buy anything really nice. Just lots of vegetables and cheese and pasta and chilli sauce and broccoli (I can't afford chicken, fuck that)and kid myself that that's all I will eat during the next week. Fat chance.
Instead, I pay through the nose for individually packaged products just so I can only have one at a time because I know that I have no willpower if I go for the value option and buy the larger box that costs fractionally more. Dear lord, I have sacrificed value for healthy eating! But due to this lack of value, I can't buy as many over the course of a week ergo some sort of self-control in place. Only some though. If anything starts to get out of hand, a couple of days of extra hot chilli sauce with added chilli powder in every meal generally sorts everything out.

I would love to see some middle-aged ladies try that out.

Something has gone wrong in my life.

I have now officially watched 2 days of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. I feel scarred. I was not brought up to watch that type of trash. In no particular order, here are the "contestants", and my views upon them. If I have any. And I probably do. All very vehement like.

Pat Sharpe.


You are my "in-no-particular-order" first contestant. To be judged. And scrutinised. And possibly have your palm read, revealing your future... Well, I'll have a stab at it.
I vaguely remember him from the good old gameshow FUN HOUSE. It was a REALLY good show, but I had no idea that these days Pat Sharpe  no longer has a mullet nor was a DJ so I barely recognised him when I saw him on TV. Didn't help that I was 4 when I last watched his show, and I think he pretty much disappeared into oblivion after then. BUT NOW HE HATH RETURNED. Valiantly and to the jungle. Strange soul.
He seemed to enjoy his "Bushtucker Trial" (ghastly task that one member must undertake in order to win food for the camp. Expect bugs, snakes and gunge... but good old Pat is used to gunge I reckon), yet is a bit of a twat when it comes to the camp. He is boss of the blue team, therefore he is boss of the young pretty ones. It looks like he's got a new lease on life and acting the same age as these 25 year olds! EMBRACE YOUR AGE SON.

Mark Wright. 24. 
T.O.W.I.E
No, I don't understand what TOWIE is either. Whatever it is, it mustn't require a vast amount of brain power, seeing as this "lad" is still rather stuck in the Neanderthal era when it comes to dealing with the complex problems faced by modern days' society. In the jungle.
All this man has done is ogle at the two youngest female contestants and flirted, then attempted to get them into bed for a bit of "jungle fun". He obviously truly gotten into the swing of things, seeing as his testosterone has skyrocketed since entering the jungle. He well and truly considers himself to be the alpha male, but everyone else can do the cooking and cleaning. When there is no cooking and cleaning left to do in your little camp in the jungle, what do you do? With nothing intellectually stimulating being provided in the camp by ITV, it's no wonder guys like Mark suffer. No mags or media or books to occupy your time with, it's just getting girls these days. Nothing else to do is there until the next challenge! Or food! Or I'm boss!
he could have at least been provided with "An Idiot's Guide to the Jungle".

Sinitta (OH MY GOD) 80s singer
I think there must be something seriously wrong with this lady. Here is a woman who is absolutely terrified of bugs, screams at every opportunity and has to participate in some sort of ritual before facing them. She then decides to go on this TV  show, (I should really hope so) knowing fully well that she is going to face bugs and beetles and nasties whilst on national television. Is she really that desperate and/or insane? She also doesn't seem to grasp the concept that "The louder you scream, the greater the likelihood that you will be voted for again".
Needless to say, seeing as she is crap at these bushtucker trials and they are essential for the camp to actually get some food, everyone is pissed because they're hungry. Well, they're trying to be nice to her face, but many suspect her overreaction to creepy-crawlies is a facade. I don't blame them. When she sounded like she was having an orgasm in an underground tank half-filled with water whilst trying to grasp a star from a poor toad's box, I was rather disturbed.
How she can't do that yet dated Simon Cowell is a complete mystery to me.


Antony Cotton
Actor in Corrie.

Why hello there, Mr Gay man in the jungle. I assume that you're gay because of the way that you speak. So I hear that you're trying to compete for this alpha male role with the guys but in your subtle, non-macho totally camp way? I mean, you know best, don't you, and of course every time you privately pass judgement to the camera and millions of viewers on the other side, of course you're right.You're gay, so you have the last word on cooking and cleaning and everything else of that nature, as well as being the ultimate bitch.
Also, get this. He's the camp's advisor upon rations as well! You know that one day that he was locked up in some vile yellow bin and someone else had to do the cooking for him? Mr Macho Man Alpha Male Mr Brainless obviously has no concept of portion control, was the nicest way that Andy could think of it. That's why you never let men, especially not men like that, cook.
Besides that, I guess he's a bit whiney, missing his creature comforts. That and bitching. Bitching about old people as well.
I guess you don't really have that much to talk about when you've been on Coronation Street for a while.




Dougie Poynter.
In some shitty band called McFly.

My sister used to like his band, but doesn't anymore. I just haven't heard them recently, so that must be why he's come onto this show!
However, it's nice to know that not everyone wants to be top dog, seeing as dougie is just the guy who likes to smoulder in the background, enchanting tweenage girls all over again (I think 5 or 10 years since he first started) and helping out his cognitively challenged mate when faced with sticky situations.
I guess he is one of the most "normal" people in there (though judging by this lot it's not that difficult, and to even consider coming on this show would highlight a problem in the first place) so if it weren't for his dashing looks, I guess the public might find him... dare I say... boring? Or maybe I caught him on a quiet day? Who knows. At least he is capable of telling the difference between snakes and small mammals, and sharing this advice with the rest of the camp. Health and Safety first.

Oh god, I don't thiknk i have the courage to go on and describe the rest of the cast. I am surprised that I made it this far, but never have i been more disgusted at myself for engrossing myself in such a vile show.

Please Read: A personal appeal from Wikipedia Founder... erm... Who?

He has a vision.

O HAI GAISE. I'M JIMMY WALES AND I BROUGHT A REVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUE TO THE INTERNET. Yeh, I let you guys use it for free for a while, and some nice people had the choice to donate some money to it if they thought it was worth something.
It was all well and good back in the day, when people had an ounce of compassion to see their fellow internetter slaving away, revolutionising the way that everyone used the internet, associating relevant articles by links in all one place. Genius. But now I guess we're taking it for granted, no one has the free money or time to donate and this guy's getting hungry. So that's why his face is all over the place!

www.wikipedia.org. Pick your language

I mean, I love wikipedia as much as the next person. It's cool and pretty much tells you what you want to know. And the best thing about it (get this) is that you can actually edit the information as new discoveries are made or old theories disproved. I guess we all know the whole function of wikipedia really, and it's just sad that it gets abused. But you know who gets abused more than George Bush Jnr's page did when they let security down for 30 seconds? Mr Jimmy Wales. Poor kid.

I guess he is an information anthropologist. Bringing the whole of the world's inforrmation into one place? What a fantastic idea! But how many entries does China have (if any. Actually, does it even have a wiki?) and how do you know that everything isn't completely biassed? Jimmy Wales faced all of these problems when he first realised the concept of information for everybody. Just I don't think that everybody is ready for information yet, or those who are already rather informed are concerned about mis-informing the less-informed. Or maybe the converse is precise and this tool of what seems like factual goodwill is a hate-producing propaganda machine!
So that's why teachers never really like you to reference from wikipedia.

Mr Jimmy Wales. Always Jimmy Wales because
he doesn't like people to think he's not friendly 

Mister Jimmy Wales was born on August the 7th, 1966, which means that he's 45 now and was born under the sign of Leo. There is a general belief that those born under leo are headstrong and outgoing, and Mr Jimmy Wales is no exception. Having married twice and having one daughter, times are tough too for Mr Wales in these austere times, yet he has coped well with the past couple of years of this recession by living off his life savings. I think he may still have some left, but not enough to last past the impending triple dip that we're coming up to.

He went to three top universities (yes, not one, nor two, but three) just to make sure that he could super-cram his head full of stuff. I'm not really sure how reliable this information all is seeing as I got it from Mr Wale's website myself, and he could've written anything about himself. I know you should never trust anyone on the internet, but I am going to accidentally-on-purpose put the smallest amount of faith in the guy who wrote the article. Apparently he'd been toying with the "free encyclopedia" idea since the 1990's, and finally set up "Nupedia" in 2000 because he realised that a lot more people were now on the internet.

What was going through his mind as he did this? Was it the fact that he was sick of waiting around one of the three university  libraries, trawling through pages and pages for one snippet of information? Why not put it all in one easy place? Fair enough. The amazing fact though is that it was FREE to all users. No monthly subscriptions or anything like that, so perfect for students around the world. Who wants to pay for information anyway?

Poorly puppies are crappy sleepers.

But he never thought about the profit. It's all well and good in the fatter years where people are willing to throw their money away on anything. In fact, some people would throw money at the most ridiculous things so that they can avoid throwing money at other things. All in all, nobody cares, wiki gets money. However when you're trying to plan your household budget with £12.43 to last you the rest of the week and your dog needs a trip to the animal dentist for a root canal (ridiculous, I know it sounds, but dogs howling in vast pain keeping you up all night are certainly worth the trip and expense of the animal dentist), you just don't have any pennies spare to give to Mr Jimmy Wales' internet knowledge fund.

Jimmy Wales' austerity measures.

Mr Wales 2011, posting on his blog:
"O SHIT GUYS. JUST FOUND OUT THAT WIKI BOOKS AREN'T BALANCING. WHERE HAVE ALL OF YOUR DONATIONS GONE? KEEP THEM COMING IN, WHY HAVE YOU STOPPED? Is there a problem with the service, because if so, we will do our best to rectify it. You do know that Wikipedia is supported solely by your donations? If you stop donating, it goes, which just goes to show that the human face just can't have nice things. THIS IS AN INFORMATION REVOLUTION PEOPLE. PLEASE HELP ME LEAD THE WAY WITH YOUR DONATIONS."

DON'T YOU LEARN
ME ANYTHIN DICK'ED

Erm, aren't you an internet tycoon as well? Surely you can support your information revolution a little bit more, I'm struggling to find money to eat here. Whatever happened to your (what I assume to be) pure intentions? If you were really dedicated to this project you would sell your life and soul to it, live and breathe it. I know it's based on other people posting content, but just make a sing and dance about it more, become the Apostle of Wikipedia, educating those who haven't seen the light of information. yes, even the people who are too concerned in their own domestic affairs to really give a shit about information will see the light. All 17 year old single mums who live in a housing estate, and whose only interaction with letters and numbers is when they're texting well and truly want to learn about the Weimar Republic in their own free time. And even if they do visit the site, they won't donate.

Just why have you stuck your name and your face in the wrong place on the site? Haven't you realised that you're in prime position for being subject to many internet memes and abuse? Seeing as you're the founder of Wikipedia I assume that you are aware of the consequences.

I also can't seem to work out whether I like this guy or not. Good intentions at the start, but I guess this is one money grabbing ploy made by these moguls who think themselves as demi-gods, and at some point soon could be intent on brain-washing us through this. Either that, or we could fight back...

Unlucky mate.