Blog: Halloween

I’m having a bit of trouble deciding whether Halloween is the least interesting yearly day of celebration or not. It’s a battle between it and Easter (I’m not even bothering to count bonfire night; more like boring-fire night lol!!!), and Easter is currently proving the slightly less pointless. I mean, during Easter you are socially obliged to consume unhealthy amounts of egg-shaped confectionary, whereas during Halloween the traditional way to obtain chocolate is through a door-to-door costume-based system, which, let’s face it, is effort. 

Speaking of which, it’s been a long time since I’ve been trick or treating, which is good because it is almost certainly socially unacceptable, border-line phone the police territory for someone my age. The only way those over the age of about thirteen can still engage in the tradition is to give birth to child humans and walk around with them in the role of supervisor. Of course if you’re horrendously desperate for free sugar and as of yet have not succeeded in finding a reproductive partner, then you can just walk behind groups of children in the hope that you’ll seem like their mother or father, only to leech off their chocolate haul throughout the evening (not recommended). 

If you think about it, the ‘trick or treat’ deal is a rather unjust and threatening exchange. A child, dressed in a Woolworth’s tribute to a fictional character that uses black magic for malevolent purposes, demands confectionary at the potential cost of ‘trick’, which can only be assumed is some sort of harmful practical joke. It’s almost a diluted version of a mugging and, if on any other day of the year you commanded a stranger to provide you with Haribo under the threat of throwing an egg at their double glazing, you’d be on a slippery slope towards an ASBO. 

Having said that, the ‘trick’ element of the whole system has become rather non-existent in more middle class areas, so much so that the exchange should really be renamed ‘treat please’. If denied sweets in spite of combining a Hulk mask and Power Rangers costume, most of Surrey’s children just walk away in shame. I am told however, that in rougher areas of London the ‘trick’ element is actually the more prominent of the two, and the system should really be called ‘this is my Mondeo now’. 

If you are a cool person, a lot of what I’ve said about Halloween being pointless may have gone straight over your popular head, as like birthdays, Christmas, New year and Fridays, Halloween is just another fantastic opportunity to get ‘wasted’ via alcohol (well Halloween is all about spirits). 

Firstly I must apologise for that pun and secondly I must advise all such alcohol users to begin carving a pumpkin prior to drinking. This is because for me at least, carving a face into a large root vegetable is extremely difficult: many a year I have exerted effort to the extent of perspiration in an attempt to make my Pumpkin look angry/scary, only to result in it looking confused or inquisitive. This year I have quite literally not bothered to add a face to the one provided and will simply leave it in its natural state, possibly putting a torch on the floor next to it so it’s at least visible. 

That might seem like a distinct lack of effort on my part, but in reality a large proportion of the British public acknowledge Halloween to the same extent they acknowledge music copyright laws. It’s one of those half events that as a nation we’re not entirely sure how seriously to take, much like Valentine’s Day or black history month. Some say that ever increasing Americanisation will mean it gets bigger and bigger, but based on current social and economic growth I think the popular Chinese ‘Bow to Emperor 胡锦涛’ day is set to be the next big thing.  

I feel I come across as too negative in these blogs, so to end on a positive note I’d like to point out how nice the weather’s been recently.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Facebook. In fact I felt a sense of heartbreak when we all turned our backs on Bebo, disregarding it as good only for year eights who feel cool because they’ve stayed up to watch Skins. Good old Bebo was a harmless playground for everyone who wanted to take the ‘when will you loose you’re vaginity’ quiz. On the other hand, Facebook is a sweaty sack of photo albums, where pictures of half-friend party-goers mock my mildly inferior social standing through alcohol-based calamities captured in full HD.

You may well be thinking that if I don’t like Facebook, why am I using it? And, assuming you don’t live in North Korea, you would have every right to think that. The actual reason is probably a combination of boredom, wanting to have something to moan about, and peer pressure. 

I’m not the only one who moans though. Facebook updates induce a similar scale of anger and uproar to when it turned out Sunny-D was toxic. Everyone acts like the homepage has turned into hideously incomprehensible, baffling maze of shiny pointlessness, moving all the comfortingly positioned sidebars and tabs so that they’re spread out in some tauntingly difficult to find array of confusion. “Bring back the old Facebook!” we cry; “WTF new chat is so gay!” we desperately articulate, before forgetting what the old layout looked like and continuing as normal. I’ve noticed that this happens pretty much whenever Facebook updates, suggesting that each revision has been negative and thus the website has been becoming perpetually worse for about six years. Based on this, if the site reverted to its original 2004 incarnation we’d be uncharacteristically positive about it all.

You’ve probably notice that, as an entity, Facebook has become huge and the social obligation to join is even vaster. Refuse to sign up and you’ll be left out in some cold, empty world where your friends only exist in real life. Almost all have succumbed; only Sam Tope stands tall; unwilling; defiant. 

Interestingly, Facebook’s dominance has meant that its chat feature has completely replaced its Microsoft rival. Poor MSN: the majority of its once vibrant community have abandoned it, leaving it stranded on the start menu with only the similarly lonely Internet Explorer for company. Perhaps you might accidentally log in to MSN one evening and witness the barren social wasteland first-hand: only two people online; a primary school friend whose existence you’d previously determined was the product of a dream and a fake account whose request you excitedly accepted at a young age because you genuinely believed someone called Lexxy had a secret crush on you. Skype had been suffering from similar levels of neglect recently, but cleverly jumped headfirst into Facebook’s gooey torso, being absorbed into its mass so it can feed off its users like some sort of video call tapeworm. 

The fact that MSN has been replaced by Facebook chat is a big shame actually, as talking on Facebook chat is about as smooth and reliable as two, technologically impaired, slightly deaf elderly men trying to communicate via a lagging video call. 

Some of you might have heard of wacky, partial Facebook-rival ‘Tumblr’. You may even be using it now to read this very condemnation. For those of you who don’t know, a typical post involves a fourteen year old girl reblogging a sepia tinted photo of a woman’s legs next to a Biffa bin™, with the equally confusing caption of “Fame doesn’t care about me losing you” written across it in a white font. If you lack cynicism to the extent that you think ghosts ‘might exist’ then these Tumblr posts may prove intellectually fulfilling, otherwise, don’t touch them with an elongated, antiseptic barge pole. 

And with that I leave you. If anyone wants to organize a Bebo reunion then just message me on MSN.

Blog: Birthdays

In about a week’s time I will be eighteen, which is both good and bad. Starting with the good, being eighteen will mean YouTube will actually let me watch videos flagged with inappropriate content after I foolishly gave it my real birthdate.  As for the bad, I will now look three years younger than my actual age rather than just two. Also, my childhood is effectively over, meaning if there is ever a disaster scenario where the ‘women and children first’ policy comes into play I will no longer be amongst the first rescued, and may have to actually do some rescuing. 

Unnecessary evaluation aside, a birthday should be a time to celebrate. However, since a relative asked me if I will be doing anything for my birthday, it’s struck me that I don’t have enough friends to make a party socially or economically viable. I mean, in order to instigate the kind of atmosphere and circumstances you need for a party you probably need at least ten people. If you invite four to six, which is optimistically what I could muster, you really don’t have a party at all, more of just an awkward gathering. As for the economic viability, well, as far as I’m aware most teenagers run on a combination of alcohol and alcohol related anecdotes, so I’d probably need to buy some to ensure guests don’t just leave as soon as I offer them Tropicana. Thus even if each friend bought me a present worth eight pounds, I don’t think all the overheads would be covered, leaving me with financial debt on top of my disappointment that my friends only spent eight pounds on me. 

Of course I’ve already encountered that moment where an email from a relative arrives asking what I want for my birthday and I have to somehow make it clear that I definitely want money without saying I want money. We’ve all had this problem and, as you’ll know, if you’re too ambiguous you may end up with the dreaded book voucher, which is a is a bit like wanting a Swiss army knife receiving a whisk. Fortunately a lot of the time I can actually ask for clothes. This is as clothes shopping for me is about as fun as accidentally staring at the sun (but longer) and mainly involves me convincing myself I don’t need to try things on because I’m “probably still a men’s small”.  

Then there’s actually going into college on the day. We all try and avoid the one knob who’s unaware that year eight has ended and thinks that punching you in the arm is the best way to celebrate you going another year without dying. If you’re lucky there might be a bunch of girls who sing you happy birthday, only to follow it with a “WOOOOO!” so loud that you won't be able to hear yourself ask for a tissue to clean the blood out of your ears shortly afterwards. 

Likewise, Facebook birthday messages provide another entertaining angle to proceedings. 2009’s total of three was resoundingly smashed in 2010, and although for a while I was worried my Facebook inactivity would mean no gap between last year’s and this year’s messages (ensuing an uber-long slur of duplicated happy birthdays), this embarrassment has not occurred. How you react to these messages I don’t know: it’s tempting to like them all, but then that takes ages, and if I only like the ones with correct grammar then that’s just prejudice. To be honest no-one knows what the etiquette is, but as long as you don’t point out that you barely even nod at the majority of well-wishers when you walk past them, it’s probably fine.  

You’re probably thinking ‘go on Adrian, point out the awkwardness in writing thank you emails.’ Unfortunately as I’m over my usual word limit I’ll have to just put the phrases ‘do you say love from?’, ‘mail merge’, ‘can’t remember what they got me’ and leave you to fill in the rest.