Yesterday I was happily reminded of a video I’d seen online some time ago. This is it, and it’s by far the nicest video I’ve ever seen. Since it’s of such high quality, I couldn’t really resist sharing it here on my blog. Perhaps you’re feeling a little sad or gloomy? Then this video will definitely be the medicine you need. It’s just so heart-warming in a way that can’t really be described. I imagine you’ll especially like this video if you quite like animals, but even if you don’t I can’t imagine there’s any chance of you disliking it. So here is Christian the Lion:

_ (EDIT: Should you be new to this blog, I’d like to point out that I have changed my point of view on the matter discussed here. For a up to date look at this subject from me, click here. This entry now has no real importance.)

Well, I say this is ‘urgent’ news, but I found out about it before Christmas. At the time I didn’t want to post anything quite as gross as this entry is going to be, as I was writing only festive themed entries, then after Christmas I was more eager to write some fresher blog posts, but now I’m finally getting this ‘urgent’ news to you.
    I was talking to my friend Dalfino over the internet and he, as he often does, moved the conversation over to the theme of sex (much to my disliking). Usually he just says things which I can just zone out or forget about later on, but on this particular occasion he told me something I really find rather disturbing. Something that has altered my worldview somewhat and something that has made me dislike nightclubs even more…
    It seems, that there is no such thing as an innocent trip to the nightclubs; people don’t go there just to meet their friends, or to see if they sell pink lemonade. The only reason people go to nightclubs, Dalfino told me, is so that they can find somebody to have sex with! He introduced me to a whole concept called ‘casual sex’ which I’d honestly never heard of before, but which is apparently known to everybody… In the past, I’d always assumed that people went to the nightclubs so that they could drink lots of alcohol, and because alcohol makes you act silly, I thought they (rarely) had sex sometimes as a result of drinking it.
Don’t you think that that’s just horribly dehumanising though? When you meet somebody there you don’t think “Hmm, they seem like a nice person, maybe we could be friends” (as I would expect you would) instead you think “Hmm, they seem like an attractive person, maybe we could have sex “? I mean, when this happens, both the people are using each other as a means to happiness and not as ends in themselves (moral philosopher Immanuel Kant would be just as shocked as me!).
    Ah, but I don’t like to think about it too much, it’s still a concept that I’m not used to. I did speak to Elliott Egan afterwards and asked whether he knew if any of this was true, and he told me it was, but not to the extent Dalfino had told me, that only the majority of nightclubbers are minded in such a way….
    Just a little request actually, could you please leave a comment if you go to a nightclub without looking for some casual sex there? I’d be most interested to see how many of you that’d be…

_ I usually like to arrive at my university for lectures or seminars an hour or three early. Just yesterday I decided I’d risk this and left at 3 p.m. for a lecture at 5 p.m. (the journey there taking up to two hours). I tried to keep track of time, and, looking at my watch, I realised that I had time for lunch between my first bus ride and my second one (it taking two bus rides from my house to get to the university).
    Unfortunately, I wasn’t making as good time as I’d thought I was. It turns out that my wrist watch had become slow and was no longer able to keep time properly. I might set it, then ten minutes later it would be five minutes slow, then twenty minutes later it would be  ten minutes slow… and on. It was when I was waiting for my second bus that I realised my watches faults, and I looked at the screen of my mobile phone and saw it had a time on it which was ten minutes different from my watch… But I also knew that my phone’s time was somewhat fast, so it was hard to discern what the actual time was (I’m lost without my pocket watch).
    Anywho, when I arrived at the university I walked rather hurriedly to the lecture hall, I assumed that I was late, or at least, barely making it on time. I opened the door and it seemed that my assumptions had been correct; somebody was at the front of the hall talking and practically all of the seats were taken. I approached the seat nearest to the door and several people started laughing, surely I wasn’t that late? Or maybe my flies were just open or something?
    “Ah, you may as well just sit down,” the lecturer said to me, everyone now stopping to look at me.
    “Yes, sorry I’m late,” I said, sitting down and getting my laptop out of my bag to start making notes. Unfortunately though, as soon as I’d said that I got a glimpse of what was being projected on the board, it was something about the crime rates in the UK… Hardly the subject they’d be dealing with in a Creative Writing lecture.
    “Actually,” I said to the lecturer as I stood up again, “I think I’m in the wrong place, I’m going to leave.”
    “Are you sure?” she asked. “We’re doing crime! It’s really interesting!”
    “Yes I can see that,” I gestured towards the large projection about crime rates, “but crime’s not really my thing. I think I’m going to have to leave.”
    I started walking away, not expecting another reply.
    “Ah come on!” she said. “It is really interesting, if you just sit down and watch you’ll see! What could be more interesting than crime?”
    “Alright, when I get home, I’ll search ‘crime’ on Wikipedia and see what comes up. I’m looking forward to it if it’s really as interesting as you say! Anywho, I really have to go! Goodbye!” While I had said that, I had walked towards the door so that by the time I’d finished talking I was at the door and ready to leave without having to prolong my conversation with this lecturer.
    It turns out that, rather than being late, I was actually early. I had been in the right place but my lecture hadn’t even started yet and the previous lecture was still happening. This was just one of a few interesting things that happened to me yesterday, I also got to see a badger, had a musical bus ride and befriended a homeless person, but they’re all things for future blog entries! (or not, as the case may be).

A while ago, I posted an entry advertising the Marble Hornets YouTube channel and their creepy series of videos about Slenderman. Well, if your hunger for horror wasn’t quite filled by those videos, perhaps you should watch this ‘Splendorman’ video, it’s even more terrifying than all of the Slenderman ones combined!

I’ve just updated this site to include a ‘book section’. Every time I write a book review, I’ll also post it there so that I can then list every book by the author and make the reviews easier to navigate for those of you who are looking for reading suggestions… Well, I hope there are some of you looking for reading suggestions, reading is cool after all!

Just a quick extra post to say that I have created a ‘Best Entries’ category, if you click there you’ll find all of the entries that I think are best. It might be a good idea to look at them if you’re new to this blog 😀

I was riding on the bus today when I had a spontaneous burst of imagination and thought of today’s blog entry (I like the idea so much, that this entry jumps ahead of the thirteen other plans for posts in the ‘to be written queue’). Basically, I thought of a pretty good argument for people who are ugly (or unattractive, or having the quality of unattractivity) are more likely to be happy than those who are not ugly.
    Basically, my first point is that all people are going to develop ‘crushes’ on other people (unless of course they’re asexuals; though I don’t want to generalise the asexual community like that, there are many heteroromantic asexuals, homoromantic and biromantic asexuals who will develop crushes just like everybody else, what I mean here is aromantic asexuals), and no matter how attractive somebody may be, they’re still going to face rejection from people they quite like during their lifetime.
Now, when an ugly person is rejected, they’ll feel a little sad and most likely think something along the lines of  “Oh dear, I must have been rejected because of my fat stomach/bad skin/huge eyebrows/bulbous nose (or whatever feature about themselves they are particularly upset about)”. But then, how would somebody who considers themself rather attractive take a rejection? Probably by thing something like “Oh dear, I must have been rejected because I’m a bad annoying person” and people will be more unhappy thinking they have an ugly soul, than thinking they have an ugly body won’t they? (I was considering writing ‘ugly personality’ at first, but ‘soul’ sounds much better don’t you think?)
    Anywho, I would like to finish this entry by saying, rather cheesily, that nobody is really ugly. A face means nothing to people unless there’s a person behind it that they care about. Which means, if that’s a little too weirdly phrased for you, that it is wholly the way that a person acts which makes them likeable to people. I mean, imagine you were shown a picture of a random attractive person (who just happens to be of a gender you’re attracted to) and then being told you can have a relationship with them. Would you care? This unknown hunk is nothing to you but a stranger.

EDIT: A friend of mine has written a kind of response to this entry called The Downside of Ugliness.