Oh dear..*sigh*

LordOmberus (1 week ago) : I never figured out what was so bad about Imperialism.

colddrake82 (2 days ago): Start with all the killing. Millions of people have died from state violence committed in the name of Imperialism. Many millions more died from the colonial regimes that starved and killed as a matter of course in the quest for profit.

LordOmberus (2 days ago): So the worst you can say about Imperialism is that it's bad for people who don't run the empire.

kyral210 (1 day ago): Which is almost everyone...

LordOmberus (23 hours ago): An excellent lesson for life.  If at all possible, be in charge of an Empire.

Got to love youtube sometimes.

xxx

PaperTissueUpdate.

Surrey Frollocks.

Yesterdaaaay I went on down to Guildford to see my lovelylovely gf. Our plan to see 'Up in 3D' was cruelly thwarted by an adverse reaction to children, or rather cinemas swarming with a child's birthday party.

So, we went to Sainsburys, and bought a duck.
I named him Cuthbert. Cuthbert the Duck.
We then went back to Nai's halls, saw Nai and Kay, cooked that duck out and had ourselves some lovely hoisin duck pancakes. We chatted for a while, listened to lots of old music (When I was 15, I rocked the fuck out.) Who would've thought back then..my longest relationship to date would be with a girl who doesn't and never has liked fall out boy. *sigh*. She does love Kanye though, I think that's why I'm ok with it.

Anyway, it was really really nice just being with everyone, especially Shob. We were very couply, what onlookers I'm sure would describe as disgustingly so. T'was nice. It's never nice saying goodbye, but when we were saying bye at the station I got really upset, uncharacteristically emotional. Just didn't want to walk away from her. Was really really hard. Still, as I write this, just want to be with her.

Anyway. After she left, Nai, Kay, a couple of their friends and I went to the on campus bar, had a drink, then went and sat in the kitchen and joked around. I was in bed by midnight, and today just travelled back home.

I'm now full of takeaway chinese, sitting on my bed, watching some Christopher Hitchens videos. For those who don't know, he's one of those militant atheist (Dawkins-esque) types. I find him really convincing, mainly because he's a brilliant speaker, a very good debater, very eloquent and purely logical.
Here's a few of his arguments that I liked:
'Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.'


'I've challenged religious leaders of all types, here's my challenge, you must name me an ethical statement that was made or a moral action performed by a religious person, in the name of faith, that could not have been made as an action, or uttered as a statement by a person of no faith. Not so far, no takers, no one has been able to give me that. Therefore I think we're entitled to claim that religious faith is surplus to requirements. That said, If i was to say think of a wicked thing said, or an evil thing done by a person of faith in the name of faith, no one would have to take a second to think of one.'


(Talking about a radio show he was on) '(The broadcaster) Said to me, imagine you are in a town you've never been before, on your own, you have no friends there, and it's getting dark. You see a group of men walking towards you, let's say 10. Do you feel better or worse knowing they've come from a prayer meeting. This was his question to me. I said to him I can answer your question without leaving the letter B. I've had that experience, in Belfast, in Beirut, in Baghdad, in Bosnia, in Bombay and in Bethlehem. And if you see anyone coming from a religious gathering in any of those places, you know exactly, how fast you have to run.'


I really like his arguments, of course they all have counter arguments, but I think they're good attempts.


Shob is about to call, so i'll leave it there for now, and possibly update later on tonight.
xxx

All from PaperTissue..

xxx

Land of Labels..

This mornin' the Browns embarked on a fashion endeavour.
We all headed out to Bicester Village in Oxfordshire. It's basically a big arcade of only the most expensive fashion boutiques (Your Gucci's, your Versace's etc). 'But Ollie!' I hear almost no one cry 'You have no money!' This is true.
However, the cunning twist, is that all these shops are discounted. Discounted to the point that, if you're used to buying designer stuff, it's cheap. But if you're used to high street shopping, as the Browns are, then it's still expensive. It was a brilliant shopping experience (yes, experience) though, as it felt like being in disney world.

It did turn out to be fruitful, despite telling myself not to spend money. I got an FCUK shirt, a Hackett polo and a Dublin guide book.

Tonight I just worked (tips woo.) Tomorrow - To Guildford, dinner and a movie with that lady friend of mine. Classic.

Hope y'all are well.
xxx

Halloween aaaand Skate2.

Roight. let's get right into it.

Saturday- worked lunch, had a big wedding party in, who tipped weeell which was lovely. Then Shob came up to STA, we got all dressed up (her as a vampire and myself as a zombie) for Tom's notorious (mo' candy mo' horror) Halloween party.

After picking up shaun of the dead, a student (costumefail), and another zombie we headed over to Enfield, where as expected, we found a summerhouse PACKED with haribo,pizza, tacos, alcohol, soft drinks, just..a ridiculous amount of food and drink. Hennaway. It was an odd, but very enjoyable, party. After hyping it up to Shob for months, we all just chilled, watched some films, ate haribo and went to sleep at like 12/1. I say sleep. Trying to sleep, on a wooden floor, all night, with certain people snoring. Anyway, i was really happy with my costume (quote from mum 'er..yeah it's fine..bit scary though'..captainobviousfail.) And it was good fun.

Sunday Shob and I came back to STA and went to the waffle house, then i bought skate 2 on xbox 360.
Now.
This is the reason that I literally have nothing to say for the rest of Sunday, Monday or today. I've been playing like 6-8 hours a day, and swearing lots and lots. For readers of 'the upturn', this will be a big let down. If I had a counsellor they'd fire me.

Oh, and shame on Rob this week for deleting his blog, and bringing more shame on my obsessive self chronicling.

Anyway, that's all for now.
xxx

Rantime.

Firstly, a quick update. Today I got up ridiculously early (9!), mainly due to the mother waking me with her 5 minute attempt to put my guitar back on it's stand,(damn that tricky latch system.)
So I got up..and spent the next few hours questioning why I did so. In walking the dog I decided that dew on the ground is God's message to us that we shouldn't go out until at least half 10 ish.

I didn't do much else for the rest of the day apart from a quick trip up to town to pick up my sister from school, Halloween  supplies from wilko's, and deposit some money into my bank account. Turns out, I've been pre-approved for a loan, I turned it down, but it's nice to know people have a high opinion of you.

This evening Seb, I, and our respective dads went to 'Beau Thai' (puntastic). Had a really good meal and some brilliant conversation. We established that Amsterdam has a red and blue district, my dad thinks swimming with dolphins is gay, and that a girlfriend is more costly than a prostitute, amongst other important things of course.

Anyway. Tonight was he night that, after weeks of public debate, Nick Griffin was allowed to appear on Question Time. Personally I think the BBC made the right decision to let him on, but the arguments for and against were so close, that either decision would have been understandable.

I, having watched the whole hour, found it incredibly disappointing. It was childish, simple, obvious, uninformative, single minded, playground politics. If you want informed debate you should have unified, set, objective questions that a representative of each party should be allowed to answer without interruption.

For years people have called Nick Griffin an uninformed, ignorant, racist. He may be all of these things, but saying that is not going to dissuade the British right wing voters who are on his side. People are generally attracted to the BNP as they feel threatened by growing ethnic communities, the idea of British Patriotism is attractive to them as they are fed images of a whiter, English speaking, unified country. Conveniently in this fairytale all current social and economic problems vanish. No one is going to be put off the BNP by saying the leader is racist, because most of their followers harbour racist tendencies. Where the potential to pull the BNP apart lies is in the fact that their policies don't go far beyond race and culture. Ask them about healthcare, education, transport..they won't be able to hold their own, where as many parties can.

Anyway,my main point is that calling a racist racist will get us no where. What's needed is a sceptical informed questioning of the whole political system and a unified attempt to battle apathy and ignorance within both the political system and the electorate as a whole.

xxx

Shameful but true.

Didn't realise how poetic he was..

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

-- Dr. Seuss

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

-- Dr. Seuss

xx

Is it wrong?

1) Is it wrong that this actually keeps me calm? (and as such is my phone background).

2) Is it wrong that I have a favourite furniture designer?
I really want this sofa:

                            

And this please actually.

Guy's name is Andrew Martin if you're interested.

xx

Oh the good feeling =] ..

No, not that good feeling. The one that comes from working hard and making that paper,buboo.

Today I got up bright and early, in time for lunch as usual. Played some x box, and as ever spend most of the afternoon casually snacking and testing my dog's patience beyond it's limits. Work tonight started slow, fooling me into a fairly relaxed sense of laziness. The idea that I'd get no tips, and do no work, had set in.

Turns out the shift was right in the middle of good shift venn diagram.There were only 4 tables, all were lovely, and my tips were as good as a busy Saturday night. Had a lovely chat with a few tables.

One of the tables was a man I want to be. He was an old very, very English man. Blue blazer with gold buttons..classic. You just can't argue with that. He was with a young, blonde, German girl called Petra. Anyway, here are some of my favourite quotes of his from the evening:
'..between us we bought 120 cases of wine..'
'..so he said do you want 10 courses or 12, I said what do you recommend?..'
'..no one speaks properly any more, it's a sign that the empire is in decline.'

Just brilliant. He was high up in an oil company, liked to fish for salmon in Scotland, and knew a lot about wines and whisky. Oh and he was rich. Very, very rich.

Anyway, so it was a brilliant day. And tomorrow should be just as good.

I've been researching Dublin a bit, trying to find out the best places to go for Rob and I's (grammar?) excursion. I'm really really looking forward to Saturday, Tom's legendary halloween party, and two days with Siobhan :).

Let the good times roll.

Now for a brief lesson on quantitative easing (taken from the bugle podcast).
The fiscally responsible way to slay a baby eating dragon: keep feeding babies to that dragon until it's too fat to breath, leading to a net saving on babies in the long run.

Yours sincerely,
Ollie -the hot truth- Brown.

Lil update for y'all..

Monday - went to school to go through my personal statement with my politics teacher. Really helpful, should be done with it soon.

Today- got up at half 12 ish, and haven't left the house, or done anything in particular.
Hence:

 Love this:

And this is me, today:

Sorry for being boring

xx

WorkLondonWork.

Friday was a pretty nothing day, just worked in the evening.

Yesterday I got up at 7 to go into London. I met shob at Waterloo and we went to uber shopping metropolis that is Westfields. We walked through 'the village' where an immense amount of window shopping went on. That's where LouisVuitton,Burberry,  Prada, Gucci etc..

We did some general shopping, and then I found the magic that is Pull and Bear (yes it sounds like a homosexual vegas double act), spent all my money in there. In the cruelest of twists of fate, Pull and Bear had loooots of jobs. Oh well. The hunt continue, cause I can't be bothered to commute.

After lunch, and more shopping, we walked around the embankment where it took foreeever to find a tube station as the main one was closed. Anyway. After making it back to St Albans I went babysitting, meaning, I played on an I touch for an hour while two kids were on the Wii, then they went to bed, then I watched tv for 4 hours and got £30. Boom.

It was so so good seeing Shob, as ever, a week can seem really long. The day felt short but it was nice getting to do something different. Ah, got to be off now. May continue ramblings later on.

xxx

The Upturn!

It's happened! The lift I was looking for.

So yesterday, I got up BEFORE midday, got dressed and went into town. I cv'd some places (proactive job hunting YEAH!) Then bumped into Tom, saw his new tattoo, and came home.

Today, I got up before midday AGAIN, it's almost a life decision I'm making, on a daily basis. Fabulous.
I started with a nice breakfast (always a good start), bought some hobnobs (milk chocolate, other biscuits are available). And watched a Louis Theroux doc. on South Africas (oh you crazy racists you. Did you know black is cool now? Yeah, yeah it's all changed. Piano is making a come back, marbled chocolate, chess is popular online. The black and white thing is really working out...apart from in chess..where one side kills the others monarchy, and square by square, takes over their land. Ignore chess. Just, be nice to black people.)

Due to ryanair being SLAMMED on panorama, they dropped their charges and taxes up until today, so Rob and I took advantage and bought return tickets to Dublin for 2p! A joyous purchase. Screw you environment, I want to fly somewhere that has the same shops and language as here, because I want more colourful money, and a softer accent for a few days.

I then went up to work, for a quiet, easy shift. Had a few lattes, served 2 tables, picked up my generous tip, and some steak that the kitchen cooked for staff but we were all too full to eat (had it when I came home, omnomnom.) So yeah, now I'm in a really good mood. =]

Tomorrow, I'm meeting Rob for a bit of a catch up, then going to the pub in the evening with Seb and Tom. A good time should be had by all.

Anyway, this blog marks the start of my miraculous lazarus-esque climb up the ladder of hope.

And on that note, I'll leave you with some George Watsky lyrics I like about Presidents.

'And I gotta wonder,
If maybe our leaders got this way because it's all they ever heard,
Maybe Clinton started kicking his Lewinsky fibs because Nixon kicked him fiction first,
And maybe tricky Dick whipped up that twisted shit,
Because Woodrow Wilson flit his lids and flossed the flirt,
And Lincoln tossed some slurs,
And maybe Thomas Jefferson,
Thought slavery was working,
Cause he saw how they rolled in ancient Greece,
And took their word.
They system..is learnt.'

xxx

Mid afternoon blogging..so it's come to this

I just realised that Sloth and gluttony are both deadly sins. Do you think eating Ben and Jerry's in my pyjamas in the afternoon counts? I mean..it was frozen yoghurt..not even the ice cream. How does Jesus feel about frozen yoghurt? I mean..it must help a lot of fat people indulge while maintaining calorie controlled diets, that's basically compassion, and he was big on that. Not to mention his thrill for converting food stuff..water to wine, bread and fish to more bread and fish..I mean..yoghurt into a cool, solid snack. He was from a hot climate, i'm almost definitely sure that Jesus would approve of frozen yoghurt.

See..it's that kind of thing that being basically unemployed has allowed me to discover. Reaching what some might call, deeper levels of meditation, cognitive discovery.

Anyway. Once again, my day has been filled with peep show and lunch. Living the dream..

It's only a matter of time before I spend my nights awake on nirvana fan chatrooms talking to Kurt fanboys about how I 'relate to his lack of direction in those later years', while eating hobnobs and eventually refer to this period of my life as 'the downward spiral'.

Basically..I should probably get some kind of job. While I've never really prided myself on constants..even breakfast and my internet connection have been infrequent of late. WTFFFFFFFFFFF.

Right. Now that's all out, shame it's nippy atm, but hey, pub on thursday =].

Hope you're all well
xxx

A quick update: Shob, hat factory and work

Thursday was basically another stayathome day. Can't really remember doing much.

On Friday I made flouries (indian snack), with nick, and Siobhan came round in the evening =]. We went to the hat factory in Luton for Sophie SS's 18th, which was kl, really nice to see her after quite a while. On Saturday we dropped Shob off at Woking station, then went to my cousin's to see her new baby, saw lots of family, all in all a nice gathering, but had to leave early to get to work.

Saturday night was a crazy shift, busy as usual, but not too awful. Then I worked again this morning, on my own with about 7 tables, £19 tips though =].

Apologies for being boringasfuckatm. Just trying to save money and keep going tbh.

This week I have pretty much no plans..hopefully not going to be another week in bed. Got to get my personal statement sorted and carry on job hunting.

Hope y'all are well.
xxx

Walk the line and Strawberry cider

So today i again slept in. I feel it's becoming a sad indicator of my life that i have so much time on my hands. I fear this blog may just be the self documentation of a downward spiral, a decline from education into a year of nothingness, the wrong path to choose. I can see it as evidence in a court case at some point. But tbh, before it got to that point I'd fuck off somewhere nice and blow my last days of sanity on a wicked holiday, and that would be good for a few blogs, so stay tuned.

Anyway, back to my day, I was again rudely awoken by wogan. Builders are really getting on my wick now. i mean who leaves teabags out on a kitchen suface? Just who does that?..
I got up in time for lunch (half 2 ish) and made lunch for me and my brother. Today he said 'Ollie sleeps like he's recovering from cancer, he gets up for half an hour then looses all energy and goes back to bed'. Dark, but i chuckled.

Anyway. After lunch i did indeed return to bed to watch 'Walk the line', which everyone says is really good, but i found fairly average..doesn't really span his career as well it could i feel. But i suppose it covers the important bits. Anyway, as I'm not in the business of reviewing movies, nor am i qualified to even if i were in said business, i'll move on.

This evening i went down to the pub with ben, tried brother's strawberry cider, very nice it was too. For all you 'real men proper drinks' drinkers, fuck you. 1) I started with a pint of becks. 2) The cider was really nice.
So we chatted for a bit, then said goodbye. I'm really quite sad he's leaving. Such a good friend and now he's off halfway up the country. Oh well, I'll see him in a few weeks for Tom's legendary halloween party I suspect. Still, sad to see him go.

Anyway, that's about it, apart from ofc that Gossip Girl season 3 started tonight, so that'll be a weekly staple on my list of televisual enjoyment.

Hope you're all well.
xxx

The only slightly more active day

So today i was rudely awoken by the sound of Terry Wogan booming through my bedroom door, with drills and builders singing their merry hearts out on my landing. I was not pleased.

So. I'll get up and work on my personal statement i thought. I opened the curtains to see a man, on a ladder, right outside my window, working on guttering or something, but none the less it was disturbing.

My list of personal statement problems then went:
No printer
Other computer with printer is painfully slow
email account won't open
memory stick is not compatible with laptop
can not find file
can not drag file to now operational memory stick
file (now on computer with printer) is from vista, so won't open on XP
(Anyone else notice that XP is also the tongue out emoticon? It adds insult to injury when xp isn't working)
computer can not find printer
printer has no paper
paper in printer jams
file FINALLY prints out.

*sigh*

Anyway. After that debacle (and ofc lunch) i retreated to bed with a kit kat and curiosity cola (oh liquid haribo loveliness). I continued watching dexter, which i plan to finish tonight, only an episode left. Then going to start on the west wing as my brother now has the first 2 seasons on boxset.

Work this evening was boring, just two tables..one very chavvy..'is bacardi rum?..i used to just drink it out the bottle, i didn't know'..she was about 50+ years old.

Anyway, I'm now £10 richer, have a free day tomorrow, and now have some new poetry and chopin on my ipod. Good times all round.

Extra highlight: Seeing Rob briefly, only to hand over driving theory disks though.
Extra Annoyance: Builders who sing loudly to themselves, leave teabags on the work surfaces, and tamper with the thermostat. Also..builders who think you're deaf because you have new-age looking white headphones on, so mouth everything and say it too loudly and slowly.

I'll leave you with a quote i love, and one that is in my personal statement:

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. -General Omar Bradley.


xxx

'Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past'

' I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady

yeah you know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell
you know I know I mighta gone and lost my breath
but I wanna show ya how I found my breath
to death
it was buried under all the wind instruments
hidden in your castanets
goddamn
if ya ever wanna know how it felt when ya left
yeah if you ever wanna come inside

just knock on the spot

where I finally pressed STOP

playing musical chairs with exit signs.

I’m gonna cause you a miracle
when you see the way I kept God’s image alive.'

-Buddy Wakefield

My day of rest a day late

Today I read Alex Mayall's blog and it made me sad. :(. It's fun. You should read it but not now, 'cause then you'll stop reading this. Read it later. In fact i'm not even going to put a link. Find it yourself. Psh. Stupid oxford-mathy-shredder-talented-eccentric-internetfanboyinterestingliteraryjournalistictalentkids.

ANYWAY. I think in giving too much of a general overview in my blogs (not just these, but the many that came before back in the old country(myspace) ). In trying to keep them brief and cover the important points, they just became boring. So psh. From now on it's rant central. All aboard down the long and twisted track to greater rambling.

So to start my epic foray into the world of gripping self documentation: today i stayed in bed.
Due to working late, early mornings and socialising (and probably more to the point my habit of staying online until about 2am), i've had little sleep of late. So today, with no commitments, i just..slept in..until about 12. At which point i got toast and went back to bed. Later on I rose for lunch and dinner, but then returned to bed. It's been brilliant. Truly fulfilling. For once i've achieved everything i wanted out of a day..rest. The beauty of low and achievable expectations, achievable goals.

Anyway, whilst in bed i've started to watch Dexter season 2. I've seen 8 episodes today..each one about 45 minutes to an hour long..that's pretty much how my day has been. Luxurious in time.

I've been wondering more frequently recently about if Shob had known me in the detail she does now, when we first met, whether i'd be in any way attractive. Tbh 'I blog and am working my way towards an 80% win rate on freecell'..doesn't sound so thrilling. Therein lies some of why I'm lucky to be with her. She doesn't care. Or probably more precisely, she chooses to ignore what isn't pleasing.

Henneway. Halloween coming up, and i am as ever excited about Tom's..either going as a vampire or a zombie this year, the theme being 'the undead'. I feel everyone will go as a vampire as it can be attractive, easy, and in a predominantly gothic (in terms of sub culture affiliations) group, not so much of a stretch. So i'm leaning towards zombie. It should be fairly easy to pull off..and with my hunger for brains I feel it suits me rather well.

Anyway, that's all for today dear reader.
 I'll leave you with some quotes for Shira Erlichman, slam poet.

'I believe in lesbians..they're like unicorns..but gayer'
'We always said your head was tumour full of prayers'

xxx

Falling behind already!

5 days with no update. *Sigh* Here we go then.

Wednesday I went down to Surrey, met Shob and we saw 500 days of summer (awesome film, i've never 'aw'd so much in one film. Then we went over to the campus in Guildford to see Nai and Jess. Now. What you need to understand at this point is that we started drinking about 6. Now. If you're planning to go otu drinking..having 6 vodkas before you leave the house..bad idea.Anyway, we went down to chancellors the on campus bar, had a few more drinks..and from then on the night gets a little hazy. We apparently went to 3 places in town (Shob had left by this point). I remember the whetherspoons. But that's it really. Haven't been that drunk in a loong time. So drunk that in order to piss i decided to scale a 6 foot wall with a fence on top. Climbing back over, i got my jeans snagged on the top..scary moment as i looked straight down at the pavement. Anyway, next morning i threw up like never before. Fun though.

Thursday night I worked, Friday Shob came down, i cooked and then we watched 'thank you for smoking', brilliant film. Then last night i worked a crazy shift, got £30 in tips though.

So glad i've got a day off today. Rob's started revising already which worries me, probably need to look into that. Boss basically told me the other daythat as we had more staff coming back there'd be much less work for me, need to get a full time job quick =/.

Anyway, got some uni visits planned for the next few weeks, York, Leeds, Warwick, and probably bristol and brighton too to visit friends. Getting a bit jealous of freshers, but whatever, soon as my resits are done in january, I'll be freeeee to earn money and travel.

Henneways. Hope y'all are well.
xxx