Relationships in Fandoms by Emma Darcy

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Adam Randall
(This week on my blog I am posting an entry every day, and each entry will be written by somebody other than me. Today’s entry is written by Emma Darcy. Emma studies the same Creative Writing course as me at Bath Spa University. If you enjoy this entry, you may like to head over to YouTube where you can find her vlog.)

One of the reasons I love fandom so much is because of the huge diversity of relationships portrayed in the work it produces (mainly fanfiction and fanart). There is something for everyone, no matter what the kink. You want Arthur/Merlin? Not a problem. Asexual!Sherlock/John? We’ve got it covered. Gender or racebent Avengers fic? Sure thing. You want to see Harry initiate a consensual threeway relationship with Ron and Hermione? I can get you some of that. I could also find you some excellent genderqueer and trans fanfiction, not to mention the fantastic true-to-life BDSM fic I’ve read over the years. And that’s just the more niche stuff. There are plenty of simple erotica fics out there as well – porn with and without plot – and while romantic relationships make up a large portion of fanworks, there’s plenty of stuff featuring platonic and family relationships as well.
    It’s not untrue to say that many fandoms are dominated by slash (male/male) fiction, sometimes at the expense of the female characters. Fandom can also engage in ship wars and bitching sessions to rival anything on a celebrity gossip site, and it’s a fact of life that some of the fanfiction out there is just plain bad. I should know – I’ve written some. It’s rare that a fourteen year-old ever comes out with anything particularly wonderful, after all.
    But fandom is also a great place to experiment with these things. Fandom can be a place to discover whether you like the idea of Dom/sub interactions, or if spanking turns you on. Maybe one person patching another up in the aftermath of a fight tickles your fancy, or the revealing of an embarrassing secret hits your emotional buttons. Because it isn’t all porn, though of course a hell of a lot of it is.
    If you can’t find what you’re looking for, fandom is the best place to try writing some of your own. And if you feel like you can’t do that, there are kinkmemes where you can ask writers to fill your prompts. You can even do it anonymously if you don’t feel like attaching your name to a comment asking for someone to write a Snow White/Sleeping Beauty crossover with choking, breathplay, and orgasm denial, or for an exploration of the mother/daughter relationship of Rapunzel and her mother after they’re reunited in Tangled. Somewhere out there, there is a writer only too happy to fill that prompt, and a bunch of people who will read it and praise you both for your time and imagination.
    Fanfiction, and its sexual side in particular, has been thrust into the spotlight over the 50 Shades phenomenon. What people unfortunately don’t seem to realise is that there’s so much more to fandom than borderline dub-con het fic. Fandom can be the most satisfying and safe place to explore your own cravings and learn about other peoples’, especially the sort of things that are rarely, if ever, touched on in the mainstream media. Things like asexuality and polyamory, and kinks that are heavily shamed, like watersports and humiliation. I’ve learned more about people’s desires from fandom than I would ever have from mainstream media, and the acceptance and compassion in many of these online communities is simply beautiful.


Where to Go

– Fanfiction.net and AO3 (Archive of our Own) are great places to look for fanfiction. You can narrow your search by fandom, pairing, genre, length, and all sorts of other things. If you become a member you can subscribe to the writers or stories you like and even post your own.

– LiveJournal and Dreamwidth are blogging sites with ‘communities’ members can join and post in. Communities can contain fanworks of all kinds, from icons to fanmixes, and this is primarily where the kinkmemes can be found.

– Tumblr is a bit of a mixed bag that can have a bit of a bite on occasion, but as long as you’re sensible it can be a lot of fun.

Glossary

AU: alternate universe. E.g. au where Neville Longbottom is the chosen one instead of Harry Potter.
Beta: the person who essentially acts as a fanfiction author’s editor.
Canon: what has occurred in the original book/movie/TV show/etc. Facts of the universe as set down by its original creator(s).
Crackfic: fanfiction that reads like it was written while the author was on crack.
Crossover: one fandom’s universe crossing over with another. E.g. the Doctor flies the TARDIS to Hogwarts.
Drabble: very short fanfiction, similar to flash fiction. Usually under 500 words.
Dub-con: dubious consent.
Fanart: art of any kind with the chosen fandom as the subject.
Fancast: fan-made casting choices for characters.
Fandom: the community of the fans. There are different fandoms for different things, such as Harry Potter, Star Trek, Gossip Girl, and even bands like One Direction and Fall Out Boy.
Fanfiction: fictional stories set in the universe of a particular book/TV show/movie/etc.
Fanmix: a collection of songs chosen to fit a certain fandom, character, pairing, etc, arranged in album format.
Fanon: headcanons accepted by a large percentage of the fandom.
Fanvid: a music video of sorts of clips from a TV show/movie/etc.
Femslash: female/female.
Fluff: cutesy interactions between two or more characters. Doesn’t have to be romantic, but usually is.
Gary Stu: male OC who reads as a (usually poorly-written, but not always) self-insert by the author.
Genderswap/genderbending: changing the sex of a character.
Headcanon: fan-created events or theories that they adopt as canon without proof in favour or against it.
Het: male/female.
IC: in character.
Mary Sue: see Gary Stu, but the OC is female.
Meta: analytical, academic-style discussion or essay focusing on a fandom-related topic.
Mpreg: male pregnancy.
Non-con: non-consensual.
OC: other/original character invented entirely by the fanfiction author.
Oneshot: one-off fanfiction, usually quite short, not intended to be multi-chapter or part of a series.
OOC: out of character.
OTP: one true pairing – the pairing treasured above all others by a fan.
OT3/4/5/etc: one true threesome/foursome/moresome/etc.
PWP: porn without plot.
Raceswap/racebending: changing the race of a character.
RPF: real person fic, where the fanfiction is about the actors in the movie/TV show, not the characters they play.
Ship: a relationship between two or more characters. Can also be a verb, e.g. “I ship Dramione” = “I like the idea of/support/believe in the romantic relationship between Draco and Hermione”
Ship war: where fans of one ship engage in online warfare with fans of another ship. E.g. Aragorn/Legolas vs. Gimli/Legolas.
Slash: male/male.
Trigger warnings: warning of something that may trigger a negative response in a survivor of unpleasant experiences (e.g. rape, suicide, incest).
UST: unresolved sexual tension.
WIP: writing in progress.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in All, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Atoms, Apples and All That: Four Favourite Physics Facts by David Tubb

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Adam Randall

(This week on my blog I am posting an entry every day, and each entry will be written by somebody other than me. Today’s entry is written by David Tubb. While he is a writer, he also makes a lot of films on things from magic and illusion to science. If you find yourself enjoying this entry, why not see more of his work on his site or his YouTube page?)

I should just say, these are not necessarily my most favourite physics facts, and neither are they four in order of physical favouritism — they are just four of my favourite facts in no particular order.

Disclaimer: All facts are written out from my head, and — although true at time of learning (and in my belief of them) — I’ve never accurately checked anything off with modern scientific updates, so, just saying…

Atoms are 99.9999999999999% Empty

Picture

Let’s first consider just how empty that is. Suppose you are the centre of an up-scaled atom — the nucleus — and suppose your socks are the electrons that orbit the nucleus. Electrons orbit at a very far distance away, which is what gives atoms their emptiness. In this model, your socks would have to be orbiting your head at a distance of 50 kilometres away. This means there is just a lot of empty space between the middle of the atom and the outer “shells”, which of course means that anything made up of atoms (which is everything) is also very, very empty. To give an example: if you removed all the empty space from all of the atoms that made up the planet — and all the people, and all the cars and so on — you could fit the Earth, and everything on it, inside a single apple.

So Why Don’t We Fall Through the Floor?

The above probably produces rather a problem along the lines of: If Atoms are 99.99999-whatever percent empty, then surely we’d expect to fall through the floor? This is where it gets even more fun. You see, the outer “shells” are made up of electrons, and electrons have a negative charge. This means that when two atoms float near each other, their shells repel each other away, and so all matter (which is made up of atoms) floats on what is called an electrostatic field. Essentially, as you sit (or stand) there now, you are levitating on your chair (or floor). When you stand on the floor, you are not really touching the floor, you are levitating ever so slightly above it, and that is why you don’t fall through the floor.

If You Travel in a Circle Fast Enough You Can Go Forwards in Time

Picture

To explain this, we need to know Einstein’s basic principle of “nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.” Now, there is actually a theoretical particle called a Tachyon, which does travel faster than the SOL, but this is because it begins at a speed already beyond it, so — although this is rather irrelevant here — it is the breaking of the light barrier which is impossible and why, in that sense, we can’t go breaking into the SOL. Anyway. If you travel around in a circle very fast you can approach the SOL, but of course you cannot exceed it. Imagine that Bussyese, the great Bus God, has given us a hyper speed bus that goes at 99.99% of the speed of light. Ignoring the technicalities of how it would be hurtling around the world’s surface, just imagine the fact that it is and therefore that it is going round and around in a big circle.

At this speed, it is physically impossible to go any faster. We cannot break the Light Barrier — but, what if someone on the bus sneezes? Their violently fast sneeze adds to the forward velocity of the bus, which of course puts us at risk of going at a speed greater than the SOL. However, as stated by psychical law, we cannot break the Light Barrier. So instead, physics must slow down the inside of the bus to prevent anything on the inside adding to the forward velocity. (The bus itself is not slowed because this is a single, physical unit that is not “inside” something — I realise this is confusing, but never mind it for now.) So anyway, because physics has slowed down the inside of the bus, that means the things on the outside of the bus (ie: the planet it is hurtling around) will be moving “faster” — of course they are actually just moving at “normal” speed, but due to time being relative, the people in the bus feel they are moving at “normal” speed and the outside world is going much faster. This of course means the people inside the bus are going forward in time, because they are “slower” than the outside “normal” world. To put this into a little more perspective, if the people inside the bus spend an entire day travelling at 99% of the SOL, this equates to an entire year passing on the outside of the bus.

If the Sun Were Made of Pineapples, it Would be Just as Hot

Picture

Pineapples, or paperclips, or sofas or cats, or anything form of matter — it would still be just as hot. The sun is hot, not because it is “made” of hot stuff, but because it is very, very heavy. It weighs about a billion, billion, billion tonnes, and this huge mass puts the core under immense pressure which in turn leads to the high temperatures. So if you dump a billion, billion, billion tonnes of anything into space it would creature just as much pressure and be just as high in temperature.
The only problem is that our Sun is made up of hydrogen and that is what keeps the fusion reaction going — our supposed pineapple sun would cool down quickly, instead of burning for billions of years.

And that concludes the kinds of things I like to think about. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it, and I thank Adam for letting me write this for his blog.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Guest Posts | Leave a comment

Top 10 Most Hated Villains by Rhino Water

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Adam Randall

(This week on my blog I am posting an entry every day, and each entry will be written by somebody other than me. Today’s entry is written by somebody I can’t write the name of, so I shall call him Rhino Water. He has a very large number of video game related countdowns and this is one of his favourites. Also, just a quick warning, there are spoilers in ths countdown. Enjoy!)

Number 10 is King K. Rool (don’t kill me.)

I hate King K. Rool, he is so annoying. All he does in Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber is laugh, talk and have an annoying final battle. His design is bad too, I mean, it looks like he was drawn by a ten year old. Also, he steals crystal bananas, isn’t that more the kind of thing Donkey Kong would do? Lastly, his name. What is the ‘Rool’ about?  King K. Rool. Fair enough with the K, but Rool? Really? Sorry but Rool is a stupid name. But he is not as bad as the next villains…

Number 9 is, a Crash Bandicoot villain, (no it is NOT Dr. Cortex): The one and only Emperor Velo XXVII.

Yes, him. He is in Crash Nitro Kart. I love the game, but the villain sort of ruined it. First he gets the bandicoots, Dr. Cortex, N. Gin  and Tiny just to race. I mean, why them?  Can’t he pick Sonic? He’s fast. And another thing, he could use his own species to race instead of going all the way to another planet to get people to do that for him. Also he is mean to his four friends when they lose. Lastly, he is a sore loser, when you beat him he says go home, but then says he will destroy the planet because you’re refusing to race, but he said they could go home if they beat him… But noooo, they have to get the relics then beat him again. ANNOYING. But who is a worse villain than him?

Number 8 is Wario.

I mean, he does not act as a villain. He helps Mario in Super Mario 64 DS. He is supposed to beat Mario, not help him! And all he does is steal money… Wow. Also, he is stupid. In Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, all he does is steal a Wii Remote and then just puts it back at the end. Yeah. He is a stupid villain.

Number 7 is Tabuu.

Okay, his theme and battle were cool, but everything else was awful… First his design, what’s that, with a full leg and a half leg? Secondly, how can he beat all the Nintendo characters (and Snake) in one go, but not Sonic? WHAT? It just made the Nintendo characters look bad. I mean couldn’t Yoshi use his speed? Or Pit and Link use their arrows? Or Fox use his gun? Lastly, why is he a villain and what is Tabuu? We don’t know what he is, where he came from or even his back story. But he did not get higher because of his cool battle and theme, just everything else was bad.

Number 6 is Baron Dante from Croc.

I mean, really, he looks like King K. Rool’s brother. Also, he is a bully because he picks on the little hair ball creatures for no reason which left Croc all alone. He’s also a coward, he gets animals to get rid of Croc for him. Really. When you finally battle him it takes forever and when you beat him, guess what? The final battle it just him as a ghost, but very easy. I only played the first game, not the second one, but he is so annoying though. He’s just missed the top five…

Number 5 is, a Sonic villain, Merlina (from Sonic and The Black Knight.)

I mean, the game had weird story, like who could be the villain? First it was the black knight, then Amy for giving him the power, then Merlina’s granddad for creating him and then it was Merlina. Now, let’s see, when she becomes the villain, she looks stupid and then she could have won when battling Sonic: She summoned Sonic  when she could have desummoned him and send him back, then she’d have won. Lastly, her battle is so annoying, it took me lots of tries to do it and the monster looks like Tabuu’s father.  When you defeat her she is happy at the end and everyone is…

Number 4 is, a Pokémon villain, Ghetsis.

He is the one bad Pokémon villain. The others, they’re awesome. But back to Ghetsis, I mean, he walks left and right when he is just talking to you, I am saying, time waster! Also, he makes Team Plasma bad by saying we shall save Pokémon from humans when at the end was that only he can have Pokémon and no one else, and all to take over the world. He’s bad to his son and insults him, and he cheats in his battle with one Pokémon. When you beat him he says “I am invincible” (well, something like that). Stupid. But he is only number four…

Number 3 is Fawful.

One word to describe him: annoying. He is the most annoying character EVER! There is one good thing about him: his theme. That’s all. He looks like a yellow blob with glasses and also he makes Bowser look like an idiot; he turned his castle in to a theatre. What? He brain washes his minions too. Also, his annoying voice and he repeats some lines over and over again. His battle is very annoying. Grrr, I hate him! But who can be worse?

Number 2 is Ashera from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

I mean really, her final battle is not fun. She needs to have a hobby, I mean, all she thinks about is war. She also turns everyone except the Fire Emblem characters into statues. I mean, if she had turned Ike in to a statue she could have won. Also, her voice is stupid, and what’s the point in falling asleep? Okay, Yune falls asleep but she could have kept her awake. But what can be worse than her?

Number 1 is The Dark Master.

Man, I can’t stand him! He is from Spyro. Now, first thing, he is hateable and his voice is rubbish. In fact he has one thing in common with each of the other villains.
Let’s start with King K. Rool: both have stupid names:
Velo: Both sore losers.
Wario: Both stupid.
Tabuu: We know nothing about their backstories.
Baron Dante: Both bullies and cowards.
Merlina: Both could have won.
Ghetsis: Both selfish.
Fawful: Both annoying.
Ashera: Both need to think of something else.

The Dark Master has all of them, and he made the Spyro series go downhill, which is sad because I really liked Spyro until The Dark Master showed up. So, he’s not just the worst villain, he also made Spyro bad. I really hate him, and that’s the end of my countdown.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Countdowns, Guest Posts, Video Games | Leave a comment

Fury Thy Name is Woman by Ben Wood

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Adam Randall
(This week on my blog I am posting an entry every day, and each entry will be written by somebody other than me. Today’s entry is an anecdote written by Ben Wood (a friend of mine I’ve know for about seven years). Enjoy!)

Picture

As you can probably assume from the title, this anecdote is about women and anger. Firstly, though this is in no way meant to be offensive or sexist, it could be considered to be by those who are easily offend, so if you are easily offended you have been warned!

Firstly some background information to this anecdote, several weeks ago my girlfriend, as part of her University course, had an interview for a placement year in Middlesex. Since we live in Wiltshire I offered to drive her to the interview, with the help of a Sat-Nav, so she would have one less thing to worry about.

Now my Sat-Nav is quite a few years old so it’s not fully up-to-date with some of the new roadwork changes, for example the Sat-Nav didn’t know about a fairly recent road that lead into a tunnel underneath a hill and decided to yell at me, in its female voice, until I was ‘back on route’.

So now we begin the actual anecdote, yay! While driving along, my Sat-Nav was nagging me the majority of the way in its derogatory female robotic voice, which was eating away at me inside. Especially because it believed I was driving through fields and rivers when in fact I was on fairly recently built roads. Anyway after about seventy-seven miles worth of unneeded criticisms and “recalculating routes” we arrived in Middlesex. We decided to pop into the local supermarket for some lunch, since I do love a nice meal deal. To be honest I was just happy to be out the car and away from the Sat-Nav nagging me. Whilst paying for the meal deals in the self-checkout machine area, my girlfriend lovingly nagged me to tell me to “quickly, put the food in the bagging, otherwise it’ll nag you to do it!” which was immediately followed by the checkout machine nagging me, in its female robotic voice, to “place items in the bagging area” to which my girlfriend replied “See! I told you!” she seemed not to notice the irony of nagging me so that I wouldn’t get nagged.

So, after a day of being nagged from a variety of female/robotic voices I half-jokingly said to my girlfriend, “No wonder they use female voices for all these machines! All they do is nag you!”. My girlfriend was not amused, and as I learnt when I immediately turned round, neither were all the other women who dominated the supermarket. I tell you, the looks those women gave me could have turned me to stone! So I walked out of the supermarket with my tail nicely tucked between my legs before any of the women could nag me further! Ha!

But I suppose in all seriousness, if there were to be a moral to this anecdote, it would be that they should REALLY change the voices on the talking machines nowadays! Instead of a critical female voice why not have a celebrity voice on the self-checkout. I would MUCH prefer and enjoy Samuel L. Jackson Saying “PUT THE MOTHERF***ING ITEMS IN THE MOTHERF***ING BAGGING AREA NOW MOTHERF***ER!!!!” every time I buy a lovely meal deal.

What do you think Samuel L. Jackson?

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Guest Posts | Leave a comment

Love is Blind

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Adam Randall

Picture

Fiesta Crafts Finger Puppets can be bought here (though Buster and Gabby are from discontinued lines).
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Finger Puppet Shows | Leave a comment

Colin Makes a New Friend

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Adam Randall

I mentioned recently, that I had spent a small amount of time in London. It was during that evening that my friends decided that they would like to visit a nightclub and so I came along with them. We visited a nightclub called ‘Mother’ and it was the standard affair: hundreds of people crammed into a tiny space in the boiling heat while deafening music played with water bottles not permitted.

After I’d been in there for an hour or so I realised that a woman was looking at me and headed in my direction. I became slightly concerned when I saw her, because in the past I have had unpleasant experiences in nightclubs. She got closer and closer and held her hand out, reaching towards me.

“Well, you look nice,” she said and I braced myself, preparing for an unhappy grabbing.

It was then that I realised that she wasn’t actually talking about me. Instead it was Colin, who was sitting in my breast pocket, that she was referring to. She pulled him out of my pocket and started examining him.

“Yes, he is very nice,” I said. “His name is Colin.”

She gave Colin one last look and then popped him back into my pocket and left. It was nice to see him making new friends like that.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Anecdotes | Leave a comment

Fighting

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Adam Randall

I’m not really one to do any fighting (though I do know what a punch in the face feels like). In fact, I do rather like to consider myself a pacifist, the pen is stronger than the sword after all (and I did manage to talk myself out of being stabbed, so that seems to be working out alright for me). But today’s blog entry will be about the time when something happened which is the closest I’ve ever come to being in a fight.

Back in 2008, there was somebody who I didn’t quite like. He would often tell jokes which were immature, homophobic, racist, sexist or just otherwise offensive. As such I was venting about him to a friend of mine and I got a little carried away with my criticism. I started (quite rudely) to insult his appearance and described him as an ogre. I do realise that was quite childish and mean of me, but, I guess I just went a little too far since I didn’t like him very much. Sadly, this friend of mine also happened to be a friend of his, and, I suppose through feelings of loyalty, felt that they had to tell him what I said. As I’m sure you can understand, he was more than a little unhappy with me when I bumped into him on the school field a day or so later.

“So, you don’t like me then? Think I look like an ogre?” he asked me.

“Well, uh, yes, I guess so, sorry!” I replied.

“Well guess what? I don’t like you very much either. It’s about time I taught you a lesson.”

He then picked up a huge branch from the ground and started swiping it towards me. Since I didn’t want to get hit by it, I decided to grab the end of it and try and pluck it out of his hands. Unfortunately, he had quite a strong grip on it, and, with me holding the other end, he waved it (and so also me) around.

Once I’d realised that being swung around on the end of a stick wasn’t the most effective manoeuvre, I decided to let go.

“Hmm,” I said. “Where are Ben and Laura? They’d normally defend me in a situation like this.”

“Well, they’re not here. You’re just a pathetic person who can’t do anything without depending on other people.”

He swung the branch and I narrowly avoided it.

“Yes, I guess so,” I replied.

He swung again.

“By the way,” I said, “have you realised the irony of this situation?”

“What?”

“Well, you’re offended because I said you looked like an ogre, but have you considered that using a tree branch as a club and attacking me with it is rather ogre-like behaviour?”

I suppose it’s rather unsurprising that this made him even angrier.

After dodging a few more branch attacks, I decided that the best course of action was to run away. After I’d gone a short way, I was lucky enough to run into my friends Ben and Laura. He was a little behind me (it was probably hard to run so fast when holding a big branch) and so I decided to wait by them. When he did arrive, they defended me just as I had imagined: they were both friends with him and he obviously didn’t want to do something so violent in front of them, so he put down his branch and I managed to successfully escape any harm!

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Anecdotes | Leave a comment

Protector

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Adam Randall
Posted in All, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Adam Randall

PictureThis is a psychology book which has basically been written in order to try and help people to be happier in life. The main point of the book is that there are two sides to your mind: the ‘human’ side and the ‘chimp’ side. The human side is the rational side which works logically and thinks based on evidence, whereas the chimp side is the emotional side which can be illogical and thinks based on emotions and feelings rather than facts. The ‘paradox’ of the title is that the chimp can at times fill you with confidence and make you believe you are wonderful, and other times it can fill you with self-hatred.

The main premise of the book, the chimp/human differentiation is one I quite liked and which I find very agreeable. Before reading it I’d kind of made the distinction between rational and irrational states of mind, so it’s quite nice to have it confirmed by a psychologist. It also offers some handy advice: if you can identify when you’re thinking irrationally, why listen to those thoughts? Which was a very good point, I thought. I did think, however, that the main chimp/human difference was repeated far too often and it did feel you were reading the same thing loads of times by the later chapters.

There were also two aspects of the book that I did find disagreeable and seemed to be in there, not as a part of humanity’s universal psychology, but as products of our society, and negative ones at that!

First, I don’t think that this is the book to read if you are somebody who struggles a lot with their weight. Our society is already bombarding people with the message “you need to be thin” all the time, and this book does nothing but add to it. It says that, when somebody is on a diet and they give in and eat a slice of chocolate cake (for example) that this is their chimp hijacking them and forcing them to eat badly. This is likely to make people on diets feel even worse when they give in like this. Instead of saying “Oh well, it’s just a piece of cake” it’s saying “Oh, what have you done you silly chimp?” I think a far better thing to say would be: you don’t need to be thin to be healthy or attractive; the need to lose weight stems from your chimp and it is forcing you to diet so it can be what society expects it to be, punishing itself when it fails.

Secondly, the book said something along the lines of “If you’re in a relationship and find yourself attracted to somebody else then that is your chimp has hijacked you again!” which seemed, to me, to be quite close minded. There have been (and still are) societies where polygamy is perfectly acceptable, and there are people in polygamous relationships where all those involved are perfectly happy. Therefore it’s only reasonable to assume that some people are naturally polygamous and some people are naturally monogamous. So, I didn’t think it was right to ascribe that behaviour to the chimp.

So, on the whole, it was a little bit of a mixed bag. There were times when I’d read bits and think “What an excellent and helpful idea!”, times when I’d read something and think “but that’s not how my mind works at all” and other times (like I mentioned above) where I’d find it plain disagreeable.  Luckily, I think the good outweighs the bad.

Rating: 7/10

Buy it here.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Book Reviews | Leave a comment

Champion

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Adam Randall

I spent a large chunk of this weekend in London with my friend Dalfino Madrigal Keyte (and actually got material for a few blog entries from it!) At about midnight we were wandering down the streets as I played with my yoyo. I must admit, I was very surprised by the very large number of people who were wandering about even at this late hour. I guess that’s just how it is in London.

“Yo, yo, yo, yo!” shouted somebody. It took me a moment, but I eventually realised that they were talking to me.

“Hello,” I said, as I turned around and smiled at the group of three people who were looking at me. We were in no hurry, so I decided to head over and have a chat with them.

“Do a trick with it!” said the one who’d caught my attention.

“I can only really do the regular up and down. Well, actually, I can do a kind of loop the loop thing with it, I’ll try and do that.”

I tried to do the loop the loop thing, but, it went badly.

“Don’t be modest,” he said, “I saw what you were doing before I spoke to you! Man, you’re the Yoyo World Champion!”

“I’m not!” I said. “I couldn’t even USE a yoyo until six months ago when a good friend of mine bought me one and taught me how to do the basics.“

“Can I try and use it?” said a young woman who was with him.

“Oh, of course!” I said as I handed it over. “Just pull upward as soon as it gets to the bottom.”

She successfully yo-ed it once, but, the second time she failed.

“Aw, I am terrible at using a yoyo…” she said sadly.

“Well, don’t be sad about it, its main use is entertainment. It’s not a contest,” I said.

Meanwhile, I realised that the man who had spoken to me first was now videoing Dalfino and asking him to tell a joke. Dalfino couldn’t think of anything, so he turned the camera on to me.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “I did only meet you a minute ago after all!”

“That’s good,” he said and smiled. “Now tell me a joke!”

“Well, I’m sorry but it’s a little hard to think of one on the spot like that,” I said.

“C’mon, lots of people are watching you, don’t let them down!”

“Okay, well, I did actually just think of a good one.”

“What is it?”

“What do you get when you cross fireworks with ducks?” I asked.

“I don’t know, what is it?”

“Fire quackers!” I said with a laugh. They all laughed too.

“And that’s the best joke you know?”

“Yes, it’s very good isn’t it?”

“Heh heh, yeah, alright mate. Goodbye!”

And with that I said goodbye to my new friends and continued on through the streets with Dalfino.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted in Anecdotes | Leave a comment