So, I was having a conversation with my stepdad about this the other day about this. My main use for the iPod is to keep me occupied on the hour and a quarter to and from college on the bus every day. Most of the kids who go to the college come from the other direction (I'm going up the valley, they're coming down it), so a lot of days I don't see anybody on the bus that I know. This is the simplest situation, you put in your headphones and you're set all the way. All you have to worry about is if your headphones leak sound and a loud song comes on that makes people look at you strangely. Last week I bought some £30 Sennheiser earbuds (reduced + discount), so that's that problem pretty much sorted out. I guess it's everybody else's loss that they can't hear my awesome music now.

Next: when you're listening to your portable music player of choice when you see a friend. My reaction in this situation is to turn off the music altogether, take out the earphones and strike up a conversation.

What about when you see an acquaintance? For example, a friend's girlfriend, a classmate who you aren't close with, or somebody you recently attended a maths competition with. This is much more difficult. There are several options:
a) Pretend you haven't seen them.
b) Nod at them, possibly adding a perfunctory greeting. Don't remove the headphones or adjust the volume. After this, pretend you don't see them.
c) Turn the volume down or remove one headphone. Say hello.
d) Turn off the music and take the headphones out altogether. Say hello.

There are problems with all of these. For a), obviously, if it's not believable that you haven't seen them, like if you've made eye contact or they sit down next to you, then you're going to come off as rude. To maximise believability I find staring in the opposite direction simple but effective. Of course, that's only going to work up to a point.

With b) it depends heavily on how much the other person wants to talk to you. Sometimes you'll both just nod and then be content to just ignore each other. If the other person speaks to you, however, you're in trouble, especially if you couldn't hear what they said. This means you have to take out one or both headphones and politely ask them what they said, which puts us in the same position as c) and d). (If they speak and you don't react or remove the phones, this can also seem rude).

Option c) and d)'s main problem is that you have to wait for the exchange with the acquaintance to finish before you put your headphones back in, and it can be very difficult to tell when that is. If you put them back in and then they say something else to you, you have to take them back out again. Once this happens, you're reluctant to put them back in again, which tends to lead to awkward silences. Several times I've gotten stuck wanting to put my music back in but feeling too awkward to do anything except stand there and be awkward.

This is even worse when someone you don't know starts speaking to you on the bus. These are generally older people, who'll remark to you about the weather, insist on touching you on the arm when they talk to you, and tell you about their prescription and their pets that have died. They don't understand about headphones and don't seem to realise when I have them in it means I'm listening to noise. And as soon as you think they've talked themselves out and put the headphones back on, they start talking again. Don't get me wrong, I give up my seat for an elderly people on the bus, I'm cool with old people, I'm just not big on talking to people I don't know on the bus, especially when I just wanted an hour to myself to listen to You Look Nice Today to cheer myself up.

So what do you do? Man, the sooner I learn to drive the better, it's going to solve all manner of problems.

Also, space was in the news today. I like it when that happens.

Happy Bonfire/Fireworks/Guy Fawkes Night/Diwali, everybody!

Guy Fawkes Night will always remind me to rebel. I'm sure that's the opposite of what the British Government intended when they decided to make Guy Fawkes infamous by burning him every year on a pile of old furniture, but that's the message I've ultimately taken away from it. As Stephen Fry once said:

"I think to live at the summation of human achievement in everything from computing to the internal combustion engine is a wonderful thing because we've got the past age, you can imagine you're that a Victorian, but if you're a Victorian you couldn't imagine you lived in the 1970s, you couldn't imagine you lived in the 1990s. The beauty of it is we are at the absolute peak of everything, as we speak this minute is the most modern minute that ever happened."

So make the most of it.

Also, my faith in humanity has increased for the first time in a long while. Thank you, America, for voting Barack Obama as your president.

So, I decided what I want on my gravestone:

"In extreme circumstances, the assailants can be stopped by removing the head or destroying the brain."

You know, just in case.


And in national news, that chick that Russel Brand joked about sleeping with to her grandfather on BBC2 Radio 2 (Georgina Baillie, the grandaughter of Andrew Sachs, a.k.a. Manuel from Fawlty Towers), has now done a kiss and tell. Surely that makes all complaints null and void? She also belongs to a burlesque dance troupe called 'Satanic Sluts'. I'm not making this up. And Jonathon Ross may lose his job over this. More eyerolling could not be affected than is right now.

Okay, normally I don't enjoy reposting memes, but this one isn't one of those generic Q&As and I can actually waffle on a bit, so I'll give it a bash. Jacked from cleolinda (who, by the way, I am a massive fangirl of).

So, I need to come up with 10 things that probably only I have done. Here... we... go.
( Wanna know how I got these scars? )


Another fun fact about me: I don't pronounce my own name correctly.


And in world news, J. K. Rowling won her case again the Lexicon! The world didn't end! (Well, not for another couple of weeks at least.) And I discovered free podcasts, and my disk space has been decreasing ever since...

I KNEW IT!

"You would never know it from the way he plays Quidditch, but Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has revealed he suffers from dyspraxia – often associated with clumsiness.

The condition means the 19-year-old still has trouble tying his shoelaces.

It can affect any or all areas of development, including intellectual, physical and language, and can impair a person’s normal process of learning.

In adults, it can affect a person’s ability to perform in stressful or challenging situations and make tasks such as driving difficult.

‘I was having a hard time at school in terms of being c**p at everything, with no discernible talent,’ he says."

No discernible talent? Well, they're his words, not mine. I'm sure everybody who watched the crying scene in Prisoner of Azkaban wouldn't like to disagree with you there, Dan.


And in other news, Warner Brothers are cold heartless bastards and they can writhe in terrific agony in hell for the rest of time as far as I'm concerned.

"The picture is completely, absolutely, 100 percent on schedule, on time. There were no delays. I've seen the movie. It is fabulous. We would have been perfectly able to have it out in November."

And that, friends, makes me sick to my stomach. Because they chose not to, just so that they could maximise the earning potential of the film.


[Disclaimer: Dan Radcliffe still does a better job at Harry than I could probably do. I know I'm harsh, it's just my style of humour. Take what I say with a pinch of salt.]


So, I'm off now to go run on the treadmill until I collapse into a heap. I'm forcing myself to enjoy running again, and there's no better way to do that than run until you want to stab yourself to make your lungs stop hurting. I'm okay with the running; it's the stopping that I hate, because that's when I can no longer breathe.

I mean, do you have to look so fucking depressed all the time?



I think the Houses of Parliament should hold a fancy dress party. Now that would be awesome beyond words.

And the state of the nation isn't so bad. You just believe too much you read in the Sun, Mr Brown. If I was a Cabinet Minister, things would be so awesome. We'd be the happiest nation ever. I mean, in a country where the MPs skip and give their colleagues cake, what could ever go wrong?

Re: The Dark Knight. I've so far managed to get 2 days past the UK release date (a week and a half or so past the US one?) without picking up any major spoilers. I've heard so little about Two-Face it's unreal, to the point of not knowing if he's even in it. I mean, obviously Harvey Dent is in it. (If you dont want to know who Two-Face is, don't highlight.) I'm not complaining though, the less I hear about the plot the happier I am as far as I'm concerned.

But I'm going a little bit bat crazy. To the point where I have a Batman logo T-shirt, a Batgirl T-shirt, a pair of bat earrings, a pair of Batman knickers, 3 badges, a bag, 2 Joker posters, a Batman poster and a 3D Dark Knight poster. The Burton/Schumacher box set. And the Batman Begins/Gotham Knight box - the play.com exclusive with a USB with movie stills.

And also, the OMG BAT LIVING IN MY ROOF.

Well. It may not be a bat. It might be some sparrows, or a rat, or a demon waiting to posess me (see 'Come Closer' by Sara Gran). If it's a bat, we aren't even allowed to move it because it's endangered. How badass is that? A bat living in my room?

Finally, Austria was awesome. In a few words: sunburn, beer, singing, hot choir/army/photographer guys from other countries, awesome graffiti (who knew?!). Good times. Except for the stupid costume. And the choir that had a song that was 7 minutes of fart noises.

It sounds sad, but my favourite part of my Lara Croft outfit for the sale event tomorrow is the long hair. I haven't had long hair since I was 7 years old, and I bought this cheap long hairpiece from Peacocks so that I could plait it, and it's lovely. I don't know how I'm going to manage my lunch hour though. I'm gonna have to hide under a large coat.

Today is supposed to be the longest day of the year. And it's miserable, overcast and spitting with rain. It's pretty depressing, from here on in the days are going to be getting shorter again.

I know I make inappropriate comments but I can't stop myself saying them. I've picked that up from my stepdad or something. Except, you know, he has mild Tourette's Syndrome. Which means I don't really have an excuse like he does, I just have no self-restraint.

But, you know, it's all about how you present yourself in the end.

And in world news, a police helicopter chased after a UFO from Cardiff to Devon, before turning back to refuel. It doesn't say whether or not they stopped off in Devon for a house party, but I have my suspicions.

First off, I got a major scare earlier hearing about the fire at Universal studios and that 40,000 to 50,000 master reels had been destroyed in the blaze. Luckily they're saying that all of the masters they had there have been copied so nothing has been lost forever, but for about an hour I was seriously bummed out about it. But it kinda sucks quite badly that the Back to the Future, To Kill a Mockingbird and King Kong sets have been damaged. That picture of the fire though looks like something out of a film, doesn't it?

Is it lame I got worried about that?

Ehm, and in other news, I keep buying DVDs that I have no time to watch. But then as I said to my Nan the other day, nobody buys DVDs to watch anymore, they buy them to say that they have lots of iconic films in their movie collection so they can look cool.


And also if somebody could punch me in the head I would probably quite enjoy that right now. My head is buzzing again.