Dysfunction

Here we go again

One last time a million times over

You make your insanity sound so good

I know it’s just bullshit

But your dysfunction is addictive 

Our dysfunction is equally addictive 

My judgement hazed

Blinded by black eyeliner 

Lost in the abyss 

It consumes us 

Downing in darkness 

It represents us

We hated each other the first time we met 

We tainted each other the first time we met 

My thoughts 

Polluted by colour of your eyes

Poisoned by your words  

Thinking, what were you thinking

Compelled to one another

We were together 

Here we go again

It’s over, for the millionth time.

Criminal: Part 2

Or am I the bad guy?

I shouldn't be judging others. Well, judging is human nature. 
Don't judge others, be polite, work hard. 

Or is it society? 


They are society. 
We are society.

Or does it matter? 

We're all prisoners on this tube; it is yet to reach any of our destinations. 

It's a metaphor.

We are free. 
Are we free. 

The next station is Boston Manor, please mind the gap.

I am liberated as my oyster frees me from TFL's barriers. 

Criminal: Part 1

With stressful frowns upon their faces, a man and woman jumped onto the tube as the doors began to shut. Jump successful. They positioned themselves comfortably in the warn out seats opposite me. Westbound to Heathrow terminals the tube driver announced, I imagine this only happens for tourist purposes. Her shabby outfit and heavy jewellery was somewhat questionable. I looked at them again, from the corner of my eye, nothing to bat an eyelid at; friends, lovers, partners in crime. Yet I thought, perhaps they were fleeing the country... What an irrational thought, but who am I to know any better. 

Armed with only a small black bag which the woman guarded, as well as giant pockets in each of their oversized, ill fitting coats, it was clear that if they were on the run, it was serious and they had to escape quickly. No clothes, no personal belongings or sentimental trinkets - passports, each other, and a fat wad of cash I would assume.

That's it, they robbed a bank. The man reached for a copy of the Evening Standard , a free newspaper that circulates London, that had been abandoned by another commuter. His eyes pierced each page as the woman also began to scan the paper, the pair searched for something. What were they looking for, their own names? If they had committed some sort of crime it wouldn't be in the papers yet, the lateness of the day is worked in their favour. At 9:17pm, "breaking news" on the BBC’s Twitter account is the only thing that stands between the couple’s freedom and the society’s justice. 

The gentleman sitting next to them is oblivious to their potential criminal status. He’s oblivious to me not so subtly staring at them, and now at him. Suited and booted, he wore all black with the exception of navy socks and a white shirt. A banker, I thought. Yeah, a wanker. The man’s iPhone 6 consumed his journey, 40 minutes dragged by and I did not once get the chance to see the colour of his disinterested eyes. 

Who knew if this guy had just helped to create the next global economic crisis? His guilt had him frozen in his seat. 50 minutes and still no movement. The negative body language he projected mirrored his morbid facial expression and suggested his personality is almost as non existent as his conscience. 

Who is more of a criminal? 

The banker to the bank robbers?

Just a thought

Draft after draft after draft.

At what point are you happy?

There's always room for improvement.

As my second, first academic year draws to an end, I can see I have improved a lot in all ways.

I feel as though this 'thought' is a metaphor and justification for how I have changed as a person.

4th redraft already.

I'm as disposable as the words I have just deleted.

I will, can, and have redrafted myself.

From personality traits to twitter accounts: they can be trashed.

I redraft your idea of me with childhood story.
I redraft your thoughts of me with my choice of clothes.
I redraft your perception of me with every word I use and every word I don't.

You see, I, like you, am a social construct.

Who am I really?
Who are you really?

Identity issues? Not even.

Since my intellect has improved as a direct result of the improvement in choice of university, my understanding of society has also surged.
Or actually, decreased?


What is society?
What is reality?
It isn't real.

'Earth' is a social construct, filled with infinite complexities.

We will never know,
Who I really am,
Who you really are.

What. Is. Life.

Will we ever know?



And no, I'm not high.

Make an educated vote! Where are you on the political spectrum?

"Statistically, 18-24 year olds don't vote..." is a phrase that I'm sick of hearing. It's almost as if I'm not allowed to vote.

"The decline in young people’s engagement in politics has been a common theme of late. As seen above, voter turnout has been low among young people relative to older age groups, but in the context of falling overall turnout at General Elections, the decline has been sharpest amongst voters aged 18-24:" (Elections: Turnout: 4) 


Now now, 51.8% of us do vote. Are you in the remaining 48.2%?

Don’t you care what happens the course you study, the halls you live in and the societies you’re part of? What about the job you you work? The rate you're payed? The rules you follow? We all go through the motions like it's normal, like things aren't going to change, or they change for the worse, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. It's over our heads. To care, was never it our heads. Who even wants to vote? Why?

Manifestos are broken, trust is shattered and voting is deterred. Welcome to the 21st Century; welcome to the 2015 General Election. Yet you're here, reading this article. Maybe you'e a friend from school or a random kid I met on a night out but just take a moment to think. The mere fact you are at university (maybe), you have a job (maybe), or whoever you are, politics is so relevant to every move you make - every move you're allowed to make. You are invested in your future; what job you’ll have, what car you drive, what house you live in. Maybe you already work that job, drive that car… it’s all politics. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be, you are interested in politics. Say politics again, politics. 

The biggest issue in young people's unwillingness to vote is that they simply don't want any of the options they are given. For Labour, as a 'left' party, they're basically touching dicks with the Conservatives over in that 'right' corner of the political spectrum. The political spectrum? Here! (Don't worry it takes you directly to the test and opens in a new tab!)  The Spectrum is ssentially a graph with lots of dots that represent different things. I would advise everyone to complete this quiz, it's a few pages of "agree - disagree" questions but the result was quite surprising to myself, and my peers at the time. Here we go: 

This image is actually the 'Political Spectrum'. Basically giving you the jist of what is where and what it means.






This next image shows where well known political figures were on the scale. If you consult the chart above, you will begin to grasp the idea more clearly and see who stood for what. For example, classic Margaret Thatcher is a typical conservative: Right wing, authoritarian. 





When you finish the quiz, you will be shown where you are on the spectrum. This is me. As you can see when you glance back up to the top, me and Gandhi are best friends and he regularly pops around for a cuppa whilst we discuss what policy whatever government has fucked up this time. Now, before you scroll a bit further, be aware that most 18-25 year olds that take this quiz actually get around the same result as I did. 

And, wahlaaaah. This may provide a reason as to why young people 'statistically don't vote'. All major parties in the UK reside in that top right corner, which young people do not identify with. After the growing support of the Greens in the past few months, we are able to see that the two party race is no longer the case. In the next General Election, maybe the Green's have a shot at winning? 

As we can see from the charts above, I for one, am not happy with the state of the political system right now. Millions of others out there aren't either. With only 41% of 3.3 million young people, (that's 1,350,000), saying they will definitely vote on the 7th of May, theorists all over the UK are desperate to discuss why.  I'm sure our politicians could provide just as much entertainment and incestuous scandals as Game Of Thrones does, or would we even know if they did? Britishfuture.org discuss many ideas as to why young people don't vote. One of their main ideas in that we simply don't trust politicians and think they do not understand issues we feel are the most relevant to us.

This graph is taken from Britishfuture's study How many young people will vote?  

In the midst of a voting crisis, celebrity culture holds potential to impact the voting outcome severely.  When comedian turned activist, Russell Brand, told young people not to vote, the whole nation pretended to be shocked. I laughed hysterically at what was probably the funniest thing he's ever said; and that's coming from a fan. Encouraging youths not to vote contradicts everything our generation wants; change. We may not support the major parties in the election, but there is literally more sense in voting for a minority that you believe in than to not vote at all. To waste your vote will only lead to a democracy even more unrepresentative than we currently have. For example, politicians focus largely on the elderly as they are more likely to vote, meaning parties want to secure those votes where as our age group are expected not to vote so issues concerning young people are pushed to the bottom of the pile. The Scottish referendum, with a whopping 84.5% turn out, is a prime example of the importance voting holds. With a mere 5% difference in the Yes and No votes,  using your vote then would have literally made all the difference. The referendum created more of a revolutionary atmosphere than Russell Brand ever will with the use of his pretentious vocabulary and ideas that have no real platform to succeed. Although we may not like party politics, the only way to change the way our country works is by taking part in the system. The Scottish Referendum paved the way for change in Scotland, now we need to take inspiration from that and make room for change in England. Russell Brand is taking advantage of his own elite status to point fingers at other elitists, but for me, his real point in not revolution but it is not to let ourselves be walked on. Although this contradicts his theme, it seems the voting system, no matter how corrupt or out of touch it is, is the only platform for change for the foreseeable future. 

A revolution will never work when we don’t know what we want, but can only unite on what we don’t want. The 2010 general election was thought to be the most difficult to predict, this year the election is even more unpredictable; with polls showing the favourite coalition to be Labour-Scottish National Party-Green followed by a Conservative-UKIP coalition, no one can see where this one is going. There’s only one thing that we seem to be sure of; a hung parliament. 

Take that quiz! It was a real eye opener for me, and hopefully it will help all you swing or first time voters see which parties really support the policies you believe in! However overly cliche and meaningless this may be now; vote. Vote for change. 

Fifty Shades of Grey - Review

50 Shades of ummm...

A day after its release I still hadn’t read one singular positive thing about the film adaptation of E. L. James’ 50 Shades of Grey, so of course the logical thing to do would be to go and see it for myself and try to pick out something, anything, good about the film. I’m not even certain I would have been able to do that if I hadn’t of fallen asleep. Yep, I fell asleep. If that in itself doesn’t give you a sense of where this post is going, how I felt about the film and how disengaging it was, then you’ll probably like it. 

Fifty Shades
> Still greater than film

The cinema was pretty much sold out with the exception of a few odd lonely chairs dotted about, we sat in the middle of the middle; perfect seats (I now wish we had shit ones because I’m telling you it would have been a blessing in disguise). Customers ate their popcorn and drank their tango ice blasts whilst chatting excitedly for the much anticipated 50 Shades, but little did they know the salsa that my nachos were being dipped in was going to be the sauciest thing in this cinema. 

What an anticlimax. 

There’s more chemistry in a high school science class than between Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, both on screen as Anastasia Steel and Christian Grey and off screen. In the build up to the release everyone had been talking about Glamour Magazine’s painfully awkward interview in which the actors answer questions from fans on an iPad, now if you haven’t seen it you need to watch it. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5lem_fUC88 If you didn’t manage to make it through Dakota’s blunt answers and Jamie ironically being in agreement with everything she said then I can save you the bother and let you know right now that you’d rather ‘shit in your hands and clap’, ‘eat your own skin’, or ‘chew glass’ than piss glitter over this movie because it’s that same non existent chemistry and their non existent ability to be entertaining just amplified by a thousand and on a bigger screen. 

Many people have began comparing the film to Twilight. Can we all reflect on how slated Twilight was? Yet it’s now being named ‘still a better love story than 50 Shades’. Although she’s not completely talentless, Dakota Johnson fails to portray any emotion in the entire film - Hello there, 2015’s Kirsten Stewart! 

Frankly, the actors did not suit the roles and the film was almost as bad as the books were written. The best thing about 50 Shades of Grey was the soundtrack, but I wold advise you to just turn on the radio to hear Ellie Goulding’s ‘Love me like you do’ because those 3 minutes will give you more entertainment than the 125 you’ll throw away trying to enjoy something that will do nothing more but cause excruciating boredom and a dry vagina - because I know that’s the only reason you want to see it really. 

So when you’re sat in the cinema already regretting your decision to pay a tenner to see this crap and you see the elevator close after the first scene, take that as your queue to leave too. That scene is repeated at the end and I can promise you that you will have gained nothing from the experience and you will wish it was that first scene again so you can just get up and get the fuck out. (Unless you want to stay and see the Audi, because it's honestly the sexiest thing in the film).

50 Shades of absolute Shit.

Sunday, February 8th.

I saw him glance at me: picture perfect me. Welcomed with a unforgettable view of the back of my freshly Quaver coated throat and double chin as I yawned, the glance soon became a gaze. He held that gaze for the rest of his journey until time trumped his courage and the tube pulled up to Baron’s Court where he exited. I indulged in the awkward strangers-making-eye-contact situation as our eyes locked for approximately 14.2 seconds before his departure - now if you've ever played Hide and Seek, which everyone has, you'll know anything over 10 seconds is a painful length of time. Yet here I was, willing to go the extra 4.2 seconds it took for the tube doors to open. I wanted to know the stranger’s thoughts. Had I drawn my eyebrows on oddly? This was my biggest worry. Who cares now, Hammersmith was the next stop and it was my stop. As I began to stand and prepare myself to mind the gap, as passengers are too often reminded, a man hit me on the head. Was it him? Had the stranger returned? My eyebrows ARE odd and now my hair is ruined too! Nope. Just another face in the crowd trying to get off the tube. But, ouch.