A Reasonable Amount of Lemons.

I thought I should fit in one last blog before the ending two of 2012 levels up.

 So Christmas came around and turkey slapped us in the face. I swear a few weeks ago it was October and moaning that the Christmas decorations were out before the pumpkins and now... Santa and Rudolf are dieting crazily to get over their varied diet of mince pies and hard liquor. I say that as if its normal to everyone, but maybe it was only in my household where every year Santa would want a glass of whiskey to ease his chimney journeys...  stumbling about the house with presents before a child sees Santa drunkenly snogging the face of their own mother. A nice song but that child is probably dressed festively in white in a mental institution now.

"I saw mummy kissing Santa Clause..."
"Of course you did, now take your medication like a good boy."

I've always been more of a fan of New Year than Christmas, even as a child I was a cynic. I used to get particularly irate about the song "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer". I never thought it was enough that he got to guide Santa's sleigh, me being one of those rather lonely children, I related to the plight of Rudolf and thought he should get more of a reward than not having to see several other reindeer butts in front of him as they were whipped through the sky. It annoyed me how flippant the other reindeers were, after the approval of Santa, oh how they loved him, how gleeful they all were... Yes, if I was Rudolf, I would have gone down in history, but for the crime of mounting a number of reindeer heads on wooden boards under a banner of "whos laughing and calling names now shitheads!"

. . . . . .

I digress, so now the festive period is over and it is on to the New Year. The first ever blog I posted was about the New Year, I remember saying what a great year 2011 had been. So how does 2012 compare?

It was been much more of a mixture I have to say:

1) I graduated from University, walking out of the venue to "We Are the Champions" being played over the speakers (nice touch Kingston). 

2) After a break up, I re-integrated with friends I never should have left and started attending the legendary Wednesday mid-week pub. (If you can't reach me on a Wednesday past 8... Go to The Elms, I'll be there somewhere).

4) I went to Amsterdam, where a friend and I introduced cheesy chips to the chef of our hotel and two Danish boys, who incidentally kicked our butts at pool. I also realised how lucky I am while I was there. (Forgot that for a while since coming back)

5) I got a job, then they relocated... so lost the job, I signed on, got told I had another job by a manager of a cafe, I signed off, manager tells me I don't actually have the job, sign on again, start volunteering, get a call about an interview, go to the interview, don't get the job... so currently, continuing to volunteer. Which - to actually break my cynicism for a moment - is so rewarding and enjoyable and has renewed my faith in people being decent :)

6) And lastly... I've started to make music a feasible career path... and it is an unbelievably amazing feeling ^_^

Sooo... all in all it has been an interesting year, but I think I prefer interesting to "happy", gives me things to write about, and sing about, so lemon trees should throw the occasional offspring at me from time to time... its good for me.

So to  2013... I wish for a reasonable amount of lemons.

Have a good one cynicisers.

x

John West, single life and those bitches that be crazy.

It has once again been a while since I have written words which follow each other to create sentences  (hopefully witty ones).

Since my last blog, you should be glad to know I have managed to stay alive and successfully age. I am now the grand age of 22.

With an extra year of experiences, my cynicism has also increased.

For example... TV adverts. I am unemployed now so watch a lot of crap TV, with crap TV comes crap adverts.

One advert that has annoyed me, I only saw today...

It is a John West advert that states if you type the code on the top of the tin into their website, then you can see exactly where that fish was taken from.

The factor that annoyed me most about this was the fact that fisherman have many other more important things to concentrate on. Its' a pretty damn dangerous job, and I would think the last thing on their minds would be to tag all these flippin' fish (no pun intended) with individual tin codes.

I scoffed at the advert thinking that nobody would bother doing this anyway, most peoples concerns when buying tinned fish is not, where the fish came from, but to where it is going, which is from the tin and inside their mouths. However, when trying to research this little paragraph of cynicism, I attempted to go on the John West website, to which I am getting the message "Problem loading page". I can only assume this is due to the sheer mighty volume of people now trying to locate the original place of their fish. So my sincerest of apologies goes out to Mr. West. Sorry dude.

I think perhaps it is only fair the fish get something similar. They can be given codes by wildlife  conservationists, these codes link to the location of different fishing boats, and when they come near, the fish can swim the hell out of there and instead have salmon chanted evenings. BA DUM DUM CHA! Yay for puns.

Another annoying advert is at the courtesy of Debenhams.

A woman clad in Debenhams sale clothing, leaves what I assume is the previously stated shop with a friend. The woman pauses, and to her total non surprise, a cute man with a two seater bicycle has been waiting for her. He smiles at her in that "I own a two seater bicycle, hop on cutie" kind of way. The woman dressed in new bought clothing, (I presume with the tags still attached in case the man found her to look cheap and nasty) then waves to her friend and rejects her for the indie boy with an extra bicycle seat.

If the incentive of the advert is to make women think that if they walk out wearing their sale catalogue, cute guys will wait outside with various method of transport that couples can use, then fair enough. When I next  come out of Debenhams I expect a cute guy wearing the top end of a two person horse costume to smile at me subtly, wanting me to be his other half, in both meanings.

Talking about attracting the opposite sex, something else that has changed in real life and in the Facebook world, is my relationship status.

"Sheila Lord is now single."

I think there should be multiple versions of this status for the various types of reactions people receive or want from it.

"So and so is now single - and no, she doesn't want to talk about it, so leave her the fuck alone until she emerges from her duvet cave."

"So and so is now single. - she wants all her friends to leave various comments asking if she is OK so she can outpour all her emotions in one giant comment"

"So and so is now single. - and is now looking for a quickie which she think will resolve her problems but will ultimately make her feel worse. So and so is probably aware of this."

"So and so is now single - one of her besties needs to buy wine and pizza and come round and bitch with her about men, make her laugh when she is crying and make her eat Ben and Jerry's, meanwhile making the predictable joke they are the only two men she will ever ever need ."

I would have chosen the last status option :)

Break ups suck but single life, once adjusted, really is quite freeing, I realised I haven't been properly single in a long while and it's actually nice concentrating on myself for once. Due to single life I have found the following has happened...

Here are things I find myself doing more:

- Talking to myself
- Talking to others
- Talking to others about how all men suck

 (Now by all men, I don't mean "all men", because most of my best friends are men, but a certain percentage of men are douches, as are women... but I shall be addressing that in more detail later)


- Actively trying to look like some sort of attractive being
- Watching more of Dave before bed (the channel, not a man who lives opposite leaving his curtains slightly ajar)
- Actually going out and actively finding things I have not yet done. I recently paid my first ever visit to London Zoo and am soon to be flying out on my first ever trip to Amsterdam!


On the contrary, here are the things I find myself doing less:

- Ignoring my friends... sad fact of life is when I am in a relationship, I don't see my friends as much as I should.
- Playing Mortal Kombat, something that upsets me greatly
- Being paranoid of my actions as a girl, and in conjunction with that...
- Being an emotional wreck...

(here comes the bit about woman douches...)

I am a woman, it is therefore programmed into me to read into every little thing a guy I like does...

I, as hopefully an advanced 2.0 make of woman, tries to recognise the instabilities of my stupidly wired brain... it looks similar to those activity tables you used to find in doctor receptions. Google it. You'll agree.

While I am able to recognise the crazyness of my reactions, it does not mean I hold the ability to stop it.

For example:

 ... when a fat stranger falls over, my brain recognises I should not laugh until the said person is out of ear shot, still, something in my brain makes me erupt with laughter when they are directly in front of me, face first on the pavement. You try to control it, however, fucked up doctor receptionist toy brain won't have any of that... You're laughing at a fat guy while they're down... blocking the rest of your destined walk.

So yeah, I may recognise I am being an irrational, "Heeeere's Johhny" type of woman, axeing my way through any kind of rationality door... I however can't often stop it, or admit it. Deal with it...Thanks.

So... now we have established that bitches be crazy and certain 2012 adverts annoy me... I shall leave you until my next out pour, which will probably be next year.

Toodle pip cynicisers! x

Life: Level Two

So I finished university.

I wrote a tonne of words...
about various different subjects...
for three years...

Soon I'll get a small piece of paper...
with considerably less words written on it...
It may as well be reduced to the following:

Dear Sheila,

This piece of paper confirms you are ready. Ready to do what people were already doing three years ago, people who did not go to university.
We wish you well and hope you enjoyed your time with us.
 
Kingston University

So it seems once I get this piece of paper dressed in a cape and hat, I shall be ready for Life: Level Two.

I have already started walking hand in hand with with the Mario brothers, jumping over turtle shells and looking for those floating stars that give a shit load of energy. In their absence I have been drinking lucozade.

I have actually been less of a bum than I thought. I did download theme hospital and play it solidly for two weeks. I was important in that virtual world. I was the savior of many people with bloated heads and long tongues. I was given several hospitals to run due to my brilliant reputation and skill. I had a huge sense of achievement, that is until I would close the game down, remember I was under the same duvet I woke up under and still in my pajamas.

It was time to get a job.

So now I work in customer services selling sunglasses. You are introduced to a variant of different personalities when in this field. Some people e-mail you pictures of their self admittedly large heads and ask what would best suit them. Some people wait until you've placed their order, taken payment and then ask "These are genuine, right?" ... I am tempted to reply... "Oh sorry, no this particular pair you have chosen I got from the market next door."

It's alright though this working malarkey. Weekends are something I look forward to now rather than just being two extra days in which to watch Scrubs. Something that has come with this job is getting up early enough for the breakfast news.

I never paid that much attention to the news, but recently I've been enlightened on many different topics. One such being, that the hose pipe ban may be lifted, this is due to the fact officials are finally realising England is actually a very wet place. I watched this morning as a young boy stood knee deep in water, unconvincingly lying that he was disappointed he could not go to school.

A female news reporter nodded sympathetically to the boys fibs, afterwards she paused, and then smiled.

The camera zoomed out to show the reporter with wellies up to her knees. Something blue came into shot while she said "Well, we have a surprise for you..."

From round the corner two burly men on a blue canoe rowed in.

"There you go, you can now go to school, what do you think of that?"

A shocked and not too pleased young boy, was then shuffled on to the boat before being rowed away by two men who look like they should have sunk it already.

On the upside I'm sure the boy would have got a glowing attendance report, on the down side, I believe the headmaster was too busy skinny dipping with dolphins to give a shit about that.

Anyway, times are a changing, I'm working the 9 - 5, ain't it a way to make a living!

But thankfully Dolly, I am getting by, It is not all taking and no giving...

But I have still lost my mind...

Though, wouldn't life would be far more boring if I found it.

Toodle Pip!

long time no cynicism...

Hard to believe my last blog was over a month ago now, how have you all coped? I do apologise but I'm afraid that is the cost of doing a degree. I lie, it's actually £30,000 of debt but I'll save that blog for when univeristy is over, I'm unemployed and watching re-runs of everything on Dave from morning til night. I'm a glass half empty kind of girl.

So I'm back at Univeristy and feel I should share a few of my experiences since returning.

1) The Elevator.

There are five floors in the main building so of course we have elevators, however, there is an unwritten rule that if your lecture is on the first or second floor, you should take a hike and go up the stairs... this is mostly because it makes a lot of fecking sense. I have encountered it many times, "idiot student" disobeying this rule and pressing the dreaded floor 1 or 2. The atmosphere changes when this happens. It's normally less than cosy anyway, we are all squeezed in so tightly, that under the right circumstances we can all merge and resemble an uglier Jabba the Hutt, this Jabba however holds a can of red bull and a packet of Pro-Plus.

Last week I get in the lift, the doors are about to close, when a girl, a generic "idiot student", gets in at the last minute and presses floor 1. We all look at each other with a vengeful rage in our eyes, but we refrain from chaining the precious princess and forcing her to be our slave.

"Idiot student" gets out at floor 1 to the tuts and evil eyes of the rest of us, but when the doors shut again, the lift doesn't move. We all stare at each other awkwardly hoping the lift hasn't broken down, we press all the buttons a few times to no avail. Awkward laughter prevails, suddenly the door opens up again, another person gets in... and presses floor 2. Thankfully the lift works as normal, but this isn't the end of the story. In the short time we were stranded on floor 1 I noticed something that I had forgotten about. While looking at other flustered students pressing all available buttons, I noticed the brand name of our elevators. With no word of a lie... that name is...

Schindlers Lifts.

I was smiling inside so much at this that "Idiot Student" number two did not get evils from me, I cannot speak for the rest of Jabba though.

2) The Fire Alarm

We have fire alarms, they are annoying in their own right, however, what makes it worse is the last few have rang while I've been in the library cafe, not during a lecture I dislike. There is a routine after hearing the fire alarm which is as follows:

- Ignore it and hope it stops
- Look around at your fellow peers, all who look as lost as you do
- Murmur to yourself or a friend something like "is this for real?"
- Have some sort of authoritative figure confirm it is for real
- pack your stuff up slowly and make your way outside to a court yard

*EXPLANATION OF UNI BUILDINGS*

(Between the library and the main building is a court yard,
an open air part where we congregate when a fire alarm persists)

What normally happens now is students cluster in this area waiting for the noise to stop. One particular time, my friend and I had been chatting over a coffee in the library, and had decided we wanted muffins, as soon as we went to make this thought a reality, the fire alarm had started and we had been forced out of place of education. For those of you who watch YouTube, it was like the Univeristy of Lincoln, my friend and I both shouting...

WE ARE TRYING TO LEARN!!!

After reaching the courtyard and being thoroughly annoyed we could not get a chocolate muffin, our eyes fell upon a small lady guarding two double doors. These double doors are just one of three entrances back into the library. This small lady stands in front of these doors, with a determined look, hands on hips with a face that says

"You've got another thing coming bitches if you want to come through these doors and study"

I had a sudden rush of wanting to charge at her, but resisted. Eventually the fire men came and confirmed that all along it was a false alarm. The angry lady moves from her spot and my friend and I manage to get back to the library cafe. After all of this, they didn't have any chocolate muffins.

Anyway... It's dawning on me slowly I have three months at most left at university, and despite the fire alarms and inappropriately named lifts, I'm really going to miss it.

So there's nothing left to do but enjoy every last minute of it.

Toodle Pip,

Sheila

This blog is about gaming, my very limited knowledge of gaming (It references Halo and Mortal Kombat... just thought I'd warn you).

Last Monday I played a gig in London. I went on my own, and after sound checking sat at a table by myself. I had my phone stuck to my hand and it's screen fixed to Facebook.

However, a nice guy approached me and said:

"your voice is sik bruv, just had to tell ya!"

I'm not 100% taking the piss, it was really nice of him to come over, but whenever someone speaks to me with those sort of words, I suddenly feel like I should mimic it, and when I wisely don't, the words that do come out seem so pronounced and posh:

I probably replied with something like:

"Aw, thanks for saying so"

But in my head I heard:

"Why thank you kind sir, your compliments have been heard and are highly appreciated."

There was a bit of an awkward silence, I looked back to Facebook. No new notifications. His friend then came over and they started talking about the game Sky Rim.

My ears pricked up... I could kind of contribute to this conversation... I said:

"I was thinking of buying my boyfriend SkyRim"

He says:
"Guuuuuuuurl, if you buy him SkyRim, you gunna be single for montts, he aint gunna ave time to to see youuuu, I got tree hours sleep last night cos of dat game bruv!"

I wanted to reply:
"yea boii, you get me cos I wana treat im all nice and shiiit an I erd the gams sik but if e ain't gunna see me den nooo way blud!!"

...

I didn't reply like that, but we did get into a conversation about gaming. I realised at this point that because of my current and previous boyfriends, I actually have a small amount of knowledge about gaming.

For example... I know that at most games... I am a n00b, and therefore not 1337!

For those of you who don't understand this:

noob means you're crap

1337 i.e Leet i.e Elite, means your fecking awesome.

The word n00b brings back a memory of my first boyfriend who attempted to get me into Halo. It didn't work. I tried but I literally was one of those people who ended up staring at the floor or the ceiling (take your pick) wandering in circles and not being able to crouch jump for the life of me. This said boyfriend was so obsessed that at one fancy dress party, we spent days gluing cardboard together creating the armour of Master Chief and he modified a motorbike helmet complete with working light and switch to complete his costume.

As he was going as Master Chief... I went as Cortana.

For those of you who don't know who or what she is, Cortana is a blue hologram lady with not much left to the imagination. Google her! What I will tell you is I needed a light blue catsuit and a dark blue fabric pen and not much else!

I've never actually owned a console, the only thing I have ever owned is a gameboy advance, yet due to friends I have enjoyed Grand Theft Auto and runninng over defenseless pedestrians, I have enjoyed hitting zombies with benches in Dead Rising and recently decapitating fighters in Mortal Kombat.

All of the above makes me sound like a very violent person =/

I have come to the conclusion that if I was brought up with game consoles that I would not now have a life, but I have also realised, I think, given the chance, I'd be very good at it. For the last few months I have been in a relationship with someone who has introduced me to the wonders of the Playstation 3... I will now admit to you that the entirety of this blog has just been one massive ploy to get someone to buy me a that console, so I can continue to "FINISH HIM" with a "FATALITY" and perhaps get a "FLAWLESS VICTORY".

So please,

PLEEEEEAAAAAASSSSSSEEEEE!

for my sake, buy me a PS3!

Toodle Pip,

Sheila x

Brian Blessed in the Eighties, an amphibian and missing home.

At the beginning of the week, I went to Kingston-upon-Thames for a few days. I spent one of those days with a best friend of mine. She is a curly haired American with the same depressing humour as me. We've spent many hours in a coffee shop, sipping on some hot beverage discussing the following topics:

-Why skin coloured leggings exist - at all? They have no desirable or practical purpose.

- Why it seems every time we have found a quiet spot in the library, a massive group of loud, outrageous students will sit at a computer next to us and discuss how Sheniqua was waaaaaaasted last night bruv!

I actually quote this word for word from a student sitting next to me:

"Yeah that all good bruv but I'm hitting it up to second floor now innit to do maths"

Me: (silently inside)

aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!

Anyway me and my curly haired friend had decided to go to the National Archives. A place where you can view over 11 million historical documents. We had never been there before so walk through the entrance completely confused about what we are meant to do next.

We walk up to a reception desk to be served by someone I can only describe as a guy who resembled the merging of Hugh Grant and a cod. We didn't know if he was somehow beautiful or just an intimidating amphibian! He directs us to the second floor desk where we meet the next crazy National Archive resident.

At the desk were two people, on the right there was a Chinese lady who looked perfectly normal, on the left was a Man with a grey curly mullet tied into a ponytail.

We get served by him.

The room is completely silent and my friend almost whispers:

"I'd like to take out some documents please..."

He responds by talking with the volume and vigour of Brian Blessed.

"WELL IF YOU SIT AT THE COMPUTER OVER THERE..."

I was there for support really, I didn't need to view any documents and a pretty bench outside surrounded by geese, ducks and swans had my name on it. I still had my journal and pen in hand, eighties Brian Blessed turned to me and said:

"You aren't allowed pens."

I said:
"Oh I'm not taking any documents out, I'm sitting outside after this."

He responds:
"You still aren't allowed pens"

He points behind me

"There are lockers there for you to put it in"

So I have to walk over to a locker and place my journal and pen inside it for the ten minutes while my friend books her documents at the computer.

After this wacky day at The National Archives, I wander around London and remember truly how much I've missed it. I go to the V & A museum and view an exhibition on post modernism, then next stop St. James Park. It was already dark so I could only make out the silhouettes of ducks while I walked through. I hear Big Ben strike six times, walk through Parliament Square, see the Millennium Wheel in the distance and cross the road towards it. I take this picture and sit by the river.

In front of me the wheel turns peacefully, some boats sail past, behind me Embankment Station bustles and cars are tooting, their engines in overdrive. It feels like I'm in two different places at once.

When I came back to Essex a few days later, I didn't actually feel that bad. I'd started to miss home which on most counts doesn't happen, normally by the time the train has reached Stratford I start to see the familiar Essex stereotypes and want to turn back around, but it was sunny, and I was actually looking forward to stepping off the train at Southend Victoria.

London only stays appealing to me because I don't drown myself in it, because I was not brought up there, because it is so different from Southend-on-sea.

But sometimes, although I don't often admit it, it's fun to come back to a town where 'the nutter on the bus' will sit next to me, where it is normal to see a preaching christian, surrounded by emo's at the top of the high street and a clown overdue for retirement in the middle. Southend is crazy but full of character, and I wouldn't be this cynical or even be able to write this blog without those sorts of things.

Quite a sentimental ending I suppose...

Right I'm off to town to buy and then eat my weight in chocolate!

Toodle Pip!

x

It is 2012... so I've been told.

Word on the street is that 2011 is so last year. It has been status galore with dedications to an amazing 2011 (me included) or the alternative "do one 2011". People have been standing in doorways, checking their watches and tutting while 2011 packs his lonely bags, and before he's even had a chance to watch Jools Holland bust out a piano solo, 2012 has face palmed 2011, sat down on his couch, hand in pants with a bag of nachos with an arm round 2011's better half.

2012 shouts:

''get a beer love, the fireworks are about to start"

2011 leaves in the pouring rain while All by Myself plays softly in the background.

"...When I was young,

I never needed anyone..."

I did watch the fireworks as it goes and watched as millions of pounds burst into flames and smoke! I think a better start to the year would have been putting that money into something that actually counts. Here goes a "world peace" speech but as pretty as they were that money could have been put to much better use. For example, it could have gone to Davina's charity for the Ch4 Mash Up's Million Pound Drop. Her final question was:

"Which age group had the most babies in 2010, 29 and under or 30 and over"

Davina's remaining £50,000 pounds went down the 30 and over shoot as she ignored Jeremy Kyle's famous words of advice to every male aged 29 and under...

"YOU SHOULD HAVE PUT SOMETHING ON THE END OF IT!!"

I also watched the new live TV show The Bank Job, where George Lamb gets a buff looking man to put those muscles to good use by opening tiny boxes containing various amounts of cash. I'm not sure what the purpose of it being live or set in a real bank was. It wasn't realistic really, there was not a long queue of people looking at a screen waiting for the pre-recorded voice of "Window number 7 please" to speak, and no old dear staring blankly at envelopes only to find she's forgotten who the letter was for.

Back to New Year...another aspect of the New Year is the resolutions...

I don't think I've ever made one, not because I don't believe I can't improve but because it's effort thinking of any particular thing to do. In all honesty I have no preconceptions of what I think 2012 will hold, for now I shall simply try my best in what is a very unpredictable world.

I shall return shortly with a new blog but right now 2012 is demanding a six pack of beer for his back to back Top Gear episodes.

Untill next time...

Toodle Pip x