Superbowl 50: a short essay on unity within Great Britain.

On Sunday night an annual phenomenon occurred in America - the so-called 'Superbowl 50'. Once a year, apparently all Americans, regardless of their usual hobbies or interests, unite in the national interest, make food, have a party...watch a game of American football. It seems that sport truly can bring a nation together.

Of course, the Brits 'learnt' this in 2012 at the London Olympics. The United Kingdom remained segregated, but each of its separate countries unified with national pride, complete with an outer shade of traditional, sarcastic contempt at how dreadful it was going to be, nothing would be done in time and, crikey, THAT logo. We do like to put ourselves down a lot, especially the English, who always remain in the glass half empty clan, presumably to get in there with the put-downs before the Scots, who prefer to keep a wide firth berth between themselves and any notion that they might be in the UK.

About as far as we got to a national party was "ooh, hmmm, yes, that turned out alright, didn't it?" I, personally, was helping a cousin make her wedding favours on the night of the opening ceremony. We watched it on a small screen in her parent's conservatory. We may have cracked open a family share size bag of crisps. We enjoyed it; there was lots of fumbling about trying to find the right words. It was all very much a low key, Hugh Grant affair.

The folks in the US, on the other hand, know how to throw a good gathering; they thrive on a community spirit that we over here feel quite awkward and embarrassed about. We need to take a leaf out of their book, put it in a glass of water, get it on a plane, make sure the plane is heading to the UK, maybe add some dye to make it look all snazzy, and bring it over.

So, I say, next FA Cup, we all book the next day off work and organise a raucous all nighter, get drunk and nurse a subsequent hangover - a quintessentially British celebration. If not for the FA Cup then at least, you know, for the Eurovision final.

Why the Twilight books/film were my idea.*

I woke up this morning wallowing in the idea that the lady who wrote Twilight is somewhat a dream-stealing thief.** I'm sure she's not - I'm sure she's a lovely lady; but here's the thing. I've never watched it, but from what I gather of the Channel 4 advert for the film, here's the basic outline of the story:

Vampire - innocent girl - innocent girl falls for vampire - vampire falls in love with innocent girl, and tries to avoid evilness just to be with her - they make babies, excellently.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

No lady, girl or woman out there will be surprised when I shout out loud that, OI, YOU STOLE THAT FROM ME - I HAD THAT DREAM OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN MY TEENS! A man capable of great evil - vampire, or simply a little womanising shite - falls in love with me and my greatness and changes for me. YES. He loves me that much what else can he do? He has to fight his daily evil urges because his amorous feelings for me go above and beyond his desire to drink human blood/sleep with other women/break into a bank (delete where appropriate). In his eyes, I am perfect.

All this Stephanie Mayer lady had to do to make millions was find her teenage diary and copy it, slyly smirking with the knowledge that she would have every woman between the age of 13 and forever daydreaming about dangerous love with every new turn of the page, every change of scene. I knew making money was simple. I wonder if "I Hate My Mum" could develop into anything...

Incidentally, as I am unaware of the ending of this tertralogy, it may well be the case that the vampire dude gives up and sucks the blood out of his beau, while she stares lovingly on. In which case, JOY, that would make it something of an anti-dream! What a great life lesson. You can dream all you like, love, but your man will always go back to sucking blood.

The End.

*Not really.

**Again, not really.

Saving the planet through death, avoiding an early grave, and such depressing demises..

After almost 6 months in a coma, induced by my fella, my boy, my man, my xbox schmootching chico, I am back. I'm still with him, but I'm now giving in to his need for numerous, brain numbing, finger bashing, 'video game' sessions, realising that I have better things to do. For example, I often talk to his cat, Max - a female. And when I'm not having an incredible, vocal dialogue with a smaller member of the Felidae familia, I often fall asleep with my neck in an awkward position. It's a bloody awesome life, Völker.

I'll tell you what my lovely dad has been up to though. What a TROOPER he is. A bloody annoying trooper. After those fabulous adverts on TV what inform the UK population that, by the way, if you have better loft insulation, you'll save energy, he decided to remove everything from our garbage tip of a roof and pile most of it up in the shower, along with a large stock of 80's toys in my mother's room and a nice pile of terrifying dolls that I apparently enjoyed looking at in my youth right outside my door. It took him HOURS, bless him. The nostalgic experience of being reunited with the clothes off my baby back and the all round beams of joy from our faces as mum pulled out her Cheryl-Twole-sized wedding dress were ruptured dramatically by the fact that all of us now have a case of severe asthma, with lung infections to go round. Cheers dad.

Oh well, at least we're saving the planet, deadly cough by deadly cough.

Talking about deadly, and not to be disrespectful, but what's with all these celebrities popping their clogs? They're dropping like flies one after the other. It's pretty clear that God is on a mission of celeb destruction, with all us everyday folk clinging onto the ark of an average, behind-closed-door life. Or maybe it's not that at all. After all, I'm sure you wouldn't see Aunty Mary from down the road's demise plastered all over the evening news. But still, Aunty Mary's death isn't shrouded by a cloud of mystery - was MJ murdered - what the hell did Brittany Murphy die from - and now Kristian Digby randomly 'found dead'. The big 'G's after them, so whatever you do, don't enrole into stage school until He changes His mind and goes for the chavs.

NB: RIP to all those what have died recently, celebrity or non-celebrity. xxx

An economic analysis of the chocolate industry, how the Scots lost their shoes, the problem with Space, and other such randomly placed theories.

Space. Not space, space - the final frontier; that place what sits above the sky. Not that space. The other space. Room - space. That's the reason why I have failed to write a blog for so long a time - I had nowhere to write it! Paper's pretty hard to come by in Walsall, like a species of bird apart from the pigeon and the kind what's between the ages of 12 & 17 and don't have a sprog growing in their womb. Thankfully, my boyfriend likes to travel, so he trotted off to Birmingham and bought me a notepad. It's far too special for this purpose, but noone told him to go to Paperchase...

Anyway, I'm currently sitting on a plane (not on top of it, you understand. But really, sometimes I feel I over think everything I write..) flying back from Cyprus, my country of origin - the homeland, where old men sit all day and women feed you. One day I think p'raps my Grandma, 74, might actually attach a drip onto every member of the immediate family. Quite ironic, considering she has an eye for noticing 0.0001 lb of weight gain, even if it is her culinary delights and force-feeding what did it.

Unfortunately, the colour of my skin suggests I've been somewhere with a much colder climate, like Iceland. Or Scotland. In a disappointing turn of events, I appear to have repelled the sun entirely this year. I am now so pale I'm transparent. Well, not really, but that would make for an awesome Biology lesson. Come to think of it, I might start selling the use of my sister to high schools around the country - she's anaemic.

Talking of Scotland, my nextdoor neighbour hails from that neck of the Northern woods. He's generally normal, although he says "hey ho" a lot and never wears shoes. While I'm sure he doesn't mean to suggest almost daily that I sleep around a lot, I do often wonder whether he knows about his lack of footwear. P'raps he thinks he's wearing shoes. Or maybe they just don't have shoes in Scotland. Saying that though, I met the lovely Glaswegian @ScruffyPanther recently and I do recall noticing that her feet were covered in shoes. Maybe she's been Anglicised.

On another quite random note, as appears to be the general style of this here blog, my younger sister has finally finished reading Harry Potter. She has that look of melancholy on her face, similar to that of a child's face on learning of the death of a beloved family pet, or like my face was the day I found out that Cadbury's had stopped making Wispa Gold*. The fools. The traditional bubbly chocolate of a Wispa with the added quality of a caramel layer? It was like they'd stolen the entirety of heaven and fit it all into a tiny gold wrapper. Incidentally, though slightly off-subject, Cadbury's conspired merely to spite me in my youth. The day they changed the price of a Chomp to 15p was the day I almost choked on my Curly-Wurly. Though, talking of confectionary let downs, I just found out that Werthers Originals are actually made in Germany, thus rendering the traditional English aspect of the adverts completely illegitimate and fake. The bastards. I might sue.

Anyway, I'd better stop here and make sure my sister doesn't kill herself.

I hope the money's worth it, Rowling.

*In a strange, slightly psychic turn of events, I returned to England to find that Cadbury's had started manufacturing Wipsa Golds once more. I might start thinking about Pretzel Flipz again. Any requests?

Alternative Love Poem

For you I would
tattoo your name on my retina in black ink,
Times New Roman, underlined, word art,
as a constant reminder of the spelling.

For you I would
slit my wrists with a blunt pencil, 6B
and throw the blood onto the wall
in the shape of the date we declared our love for each other.

For you I would
carve our names into the poisonous bark of the Laburnum tree
with the sharpened outer edges
of my very own spleen.

For you I would
remove my innards to the tune of Beethoven's 5th
and arrange them in your garden to form the words 'I love you'
for everyone to see.

But I would not die for you,
as that would be plain stupid,
and I'm slightly scared of death.

The one I forgot to publish

Since dramatically decreasing my daily caffeine intake to just one at home per 24 hour period - due to the heavy impact of the recession - I have found myself unable to write a blog. Till now. This is a perfectly valid excuse, because the lack of caffeine in my system has meant that I spend most of my time asleep now. I sleep when I wake up, I sleep when I drive to work. I also sleep at work, but that's a given. I'm actually asleep now, although, unfortunately, I died yesterday due to not having my eyes on the road while driving but, instead, having them rolled round the back of my head. Being merely 23, it was a great shame. The country is currently in a deep state of mourning, the government have made a passing comment about getting everyone under the age of 25 tested for caffeine-deprevation and everyone's believed them, and rumour has it that, this Sunday, over 25% of the Top 40 single's chart will be made up of my greatest hits. Groovy.

Although currently in the unfortunate state of being dead AND asleep, I am actually sat in Wolverhampton Central Library. This experience truly is one of the highlights of my life. Up there with the time when I translated the Bible into 2400 languages. Now THAT was an all-nighter and a half. But, I digress. After careful analysis, consisting mainly of watching the man sitting opposite me for a long time, I can deduce that 50% of the people that use libraries today took a wrong turning as they were strolling through the 70's and found 2009. It's like an anti-Goodnight Sweetheart, except probably more interesting and funnier. Long, greasy hair, large Deidre Rashid glasses, light blue jacket and beige kecks. This man is definitely not from this decade, and he's the only other person here. Well, in this room. Well, in this small, insignificant corner of the decent-sized central library. But still.

In a somewhat related flashback, I just remembered that my nan, 77, turned to me last week, probably during Corrie, and said "Elena, you know the 70's? It was a very beige era." Right on.

UK Political Parties -OR- UK Hypocritical Twatties.

With the latest elections having just passed, it is clear that more and more of us are finding ourselves utterly confused with the policies of the current political parties vying for our vote here in the UK. Many still opt for the Eeny-meeny-miney-mo option, anti-Thatcherites rightly blaming it for the rise of the Iron Lady in the mid eighties; although many still believe that she exercised a form of mind control to get to Number 10. Either way, my Ancient Greek ancestors did not write and write and write about how best to rule a country just to be ignored. Enough of this ignorance, I say! Let's exercise our democratic right the correct way. Here is my guide to the UK Political Parties:

The Labour Party: Pregnant mothers unite in the current leading majority of government. However, they are now losing support swiftly due to excessive moaning, the fact that they are all eating us all out of house and home - an unfortunate side-effect during the current economic climate, and that they have been claiming money to get their birthing pools cleaned, apparently.

Their long-term aim is to throw all men into a torturing vortex of fiery doom by 2013, though they appear not to have thought this through properly as it may well lead to their demise. Plans to develop a method for immaculate conception were thrown out in a mass zealous strop by all members after finding that there was no chocolate available during the meeting. But then, they are known for their irrational tendencies.

The Conservatories: A party of generally un-aesthetically pleasing glass structures, usually added to the side of a property, the Conservatories are aiming to have left their mark in every household in Britain by 2015. Often accused of an unyielding disregard for the state of people's body temperature, they have been blamed for many a case of sun stroke. However, they fervently deny this, siting excellent garden views and extra storage facilities as just a couple of their pros. So as not to hamper their 2015 aim, those who cannot afford to build a conservatory or do not have the space for one will be mowed down by evil dogs in a ceremonious hunt, jollyfied only slightly by the sound of a trumpet. Yah, yah, yah.


The Lib Dames: A group of Liberace tribute acts, some say that the Lib Dames exclude most areas of society. Their party tagline 'Bling is Best' is considered an unachievable ideal by many during the current recession, although chavs beg to differ, claiming they can bejewel themselves for under a fiver and still have change for fags. Many worry that taxpayers money will be used to lavishly furnish the Houses of Parliament, although the Lib Dames insist that this is nothing new.

The Green Party: With a ridiculous passion for its namesake colour, the Green Party rejects anything that moves beyond it in the spectrum. Often accused of basing their party policies around obsession and, some say, consequent bipolar disorder, many of its members wake up hating themselves on account of being a sort-of skin colour. Currently trying to pass an act that states all trunks must be chopped from underneath trees, many think the Green Party are actually closer than we may think to worldwide domination thanks to Gucci earmarking green as the colour of the season. It's so in, dahling.

UKIP: A party representing the narcoleptics of society, UKIP fight for the right to make no distinction between day and night. Although many have tried to explain that this would seriously effect the economy, society as a whole, and those who enjoy dogging, nobody in the party managed to remain awake long enough to hear the pinnacle of the argument. A positive point of having narcoleptics in the Houses of Parliament, and one that is currently enriching the lives of most MP's and day time TV watchers respectively, is the speed at which proceedings occur during Prime Minister's question time in order to try and catch the UKIP members before they nod off.

RESPEC': Certainly a very modern form of Political Party, Respec' is made up of the chavs of society who brought their descriptive language traits with them, izzit. Currently baffling everybody in the Houses of Parliament, the teens often break into rap and break dancing to get their points across. That's if they actually turn up. Their aim is to rob from the rich and give to the ever increasing numbers of yooff what can't be arsed to work, innit, but instead spread their seed and watch their girlfriend's wombs grow. They are presently trying to pass an Act in parliament recognising procreation as a job. With a very decent income, incidentally.

The BNP (Banoffee Pie): Represented by a band of fascist, yet house-proud women, the BNP's aim is to send all foreigners home, because this is their land. Daddy told them so. Unwavering in their belief of British superiority mixed with an irrational hatred of most people they just can't understand, many of its members have use of only one brain cell that gets passed around the party. A firm favourite of the late Diana Mitford, they are currently looking to intersperse anti-asylum propaganda adverts with a cooking tip of the day. Should they come into power, those who cannot agree with their ideals will be publicly humiliated and sent to India to work for the Empire.

Lets all move to Monaco. They have a very pretty royal family.