All bad things come to an end

Things haven't gone this well for me for ages (famous last words). I blag not one but two of my favourite things combined (holidaying and carnival), I've taken up Kung Fu, I got accepted for the teaching course at the university of my choice for next year, I saw Steve and Tal this week, I've even got a job that I quite like that pays money!

After all this time it's about time too. And that cheeky glint is coming back into my eye.

Super-lucky best holiday blag

I decided yesterday after a long absence to revive myself from what has in truth been a slumber of some months, which happens post-carnival like cold turkey. The high that you get from carnival just cannot be matched and I've kinda milled around and killed time in between but in truth I been dreaming and counting down the hours to the start of my beloved carnival.

The moves are in place already to join up with Jun Mo Generations, the kung fu carnival group, where I'm now studying the mighty wing chun kung fu, but I still feel overwhelming loyalty to the Yaa. I've decided I'd best take things as they come but make the opportunities happen, so, though training in kung fu with the former I thought it best to keep a keen eye on the latter, and it now looks likely that I'll probably do carnival with the Yaa and do side projects and costumes with Jun Mo.

On Saturday, I got lucky.

Curious to see how progress was coming along with the Yaaafrikan touring theatre programme I decided to crane my neck in at Royal Oak and I was just lucky enough to get in on the back end of a meeting and rehearsal for Yaaafrikan. Shaabaka, the Yaa leader was also announcing for the 2003 masquerade tour to Denmark and Germany, and said it was the last chance to get your name down to be on the bus.

He didn't have to ask twice, as I'd go through hell and high water before missing the opportunity to get on the road and dance in a costume alongside my favourite rastafarians.

So I may have missed booking my place on the Yaaafrikan tour, through unemployment-induced lethargy, but I gotta say I struck the jackpot just in time.

The carnival season begins now, so strap on your wings, put on your dancin shoes and lets party!

The carnival season begins here

How can I explain the feeling?
It's like the rush of pure elation through your veins
The purest pleasure makes me go insane
my body and mind ascend to the highest plane
the socalypso burnin inside my brain
This is a feelin that I can't contain
my feet and arms are movin like a train
flyin all over the house like Dunblane
Karate kid I'm standin like a crane
no way
this is about to kick off
the season of fun and the summer of love
this is the reality I been dreamin of
this is my life
Carnival
My God

Andy 2003

Defection

I'm not sure yet who I'll be dancing with this year. Yaa Asantewaa are scaling down this year, and though I've been quite involved, I am thinking of a defection (*gasp!*) to a kung fu carnival group. Watch this space cos this is where it's goin down this year. Last years brief (pre-blog) carnival can be found on my website

Mothers day

I just want to send out a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Sarah C for becoming a mother on the 28th of March 2003, giving birth to a healthy baby boy of 6lb 5oz at 17:25.

Altogether now

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Secrets

I like to watch the sun rise
and feel of wind on my face
I live in the here and now
in any time or place
Relax and labour all in equal measure
The full spectrum of life is in pain and pleasure

Andy 2003

mmmm the sweet sweet smell of Europe

Next 2 holidays are sorted

Super-lucky best holiday blag

I decided yesterday after a long absence to revive myself from what has in truth been a slumber of some months, which happens post-carnival like cold turkey. The high that you get from carnival just cannot be matched and I've kinda milled around and killed time in between but in truth I been dreaming and counting down the hours to the start of my beloved carnival.

The moves are in place already to join up with Jun Mo Generations, the kung fu carnival group, where I'm now studying the mighty wing chun kung fu, but I still feel overwhelming loyalty to the Yaa. I've decided I'd best take things as they come but make the opportunities happen, so, though training in kung fu with the former I thought it best to keep a keen eye on the latter, and it now looks likely that I'll probably do carnival with the Yaa and do side projects and costumes with Jun Mo.

On Saturday, I got lucky.

Curious to see how progress was coming along with the Yaaafrikan touring theatre programme I decided to crane my neck in at Royal Oak and I was just lucky enough to get in on the back end of a meeting and rehearsal for Yaaafrikan. Shaabaka, the Yaa leader was also announcing for the 2003 masquerade tour to Denmark and Germany, and said it was the last chance to get your name down to be on the bus.

He didn't have to ask twice, as I'd go through hell and high water before missing the opportunity to get on the road and dance in a costume alongside my favourite rastafarians.

So I may have missed booking my place on the Yaaafrikan tour, through unemployment-induced lethargy, but I gotta say I struck the jackpot just in time.

The carnival season begins now, so strap on your wings, put on your dancin shoes and lets party!

Smile

Baaaaa. We are not sheep. One of the many things I love so much about living in London is the fact that the evidence of that last statement is in abundance everywhere. I love nothing more than sitting and watching people in London, who range from grey suits to dreadlocks and nakedness (terrifying), sane to completely barking mad.

There's nothing that makes me sadder than when an individual gives up his free right of expression and strives to be the same as everyone else. Shows a lack of ambition if you ask me. So this week I thought I'd celebrate the characters that make London living so fantastic, those spectacular individuals who are just that - individual.

This is the week of characters, and any submissions of your favourite characters, London-based or otherwise are welcome in the comments at any time.

Personals

Matt - I might go character collecting this weekend, with my digital camera and sketchbook and you can take your notepad and we'll do a character collection. You can do interviews and I'll get pictures. Fancy that little project mate? I want a character from every corner much like Giraffe Day and then the charaters from our favourite places. And we might even be able to get some football in while we're at it. And a pint.

Eden - a very tempting offer indeed. hmmmm

Pete - Trading a career in medicine for a life of washing the dishes in vietnamese sweat shops is a great idea and to be applauded

House of cards

I've perhaps laboured the point about the Clintons-induced conformity, and the more worrying trend of delegating the responsibility of expressing yourself to somebody else, with my rants about Valentines Day and birthdays, but here's another. Deal with it.

I was listenin to the radio on the way home from Kung Fu when an advert came on for Harrods which started with "what will you be getting your mother for mothers day?" and i thought "nothing given that she's dead"

Even if she wasn't dead I'd still not get her anything. We never needed someone to tell us that we should show our appreciation and love to Mum whenever we got the chance.

There are so many parallels here with valentines day that I won't really labour the point, but I hope this brings into perspective what I've been trying to say.

Admittedly though I am able to see that both valentines day and mothers day do express a sentiment that is really quite sweet, and is perhaps a useful thing to get unexpressive people to express themselves once in a while and for the achievement of spreading love they should be applauded. But don't let it stop there, why wait for Clintons to tell you what to do, just take the sentiment and act on it whenever. The arbitrary day should not be of any consequence.

Unfortunately for those of us with neither a valentine or now a mother both of these days really represents nothing more than deep pain at not really being able to express anything, not that I would be any different on the day, but as a microcosm of missed opportunity for every single day.

Comics

I have interests in very many areas of life, but I think my biggest and best passion to date has always been comics. Only one person reading this will really know of my love affair with Stan Lee, Todd McFarlane and Frank Miller and how decoted I was to this cause in my formative years.

Yes, while Tarik was out buying Alice Cooper and Metallica Picture discs I was in the Edge of Forever in Bexleyheath stockin up on the latest Daredevil, Spidey, Bone, Batman and all the other weird and wonderful heroes of Image, Dark Horse, DC and Marvel. At one time I had a subscription for more than 15 comics a week and a truly fine collection of the best of the best. And I knew the comic world inside out.

Comic Showcase closed down and relocated to Charing Cross Road, the Edge of Forever closed and after Batmans Knightfall Saga and Frank Millers Man Without Fear, my favourite comics were stagnating a little. Detective had lost it's edge and Robin, Azrael, Nightwing and the other Batman spinoffs were just not that good. how could you ever live up to the glory of Batman 500? DC saw this as a fine time to launch a load of spinoffs, but I just couldn't get the same high as Knightfall gave me.

So, in disillusionment I turned away to concentrate my energies on music which had always been simmering away in the background. Yeah those were good times too, but things have come back full circle, after a brief stint in a house of jehovah witnesses in Toronto. i had forgotten all about the wonder of comics, but there they were, plastered all over this kids wall and I was in love again.

I'd already spent a disproportionately long time in Borders in San Francisco reading comics when the sun went down, and was kickin myself for ever giving up, and I've taken the habit back up here, filling in the gaps in Forbidden Planet and spending hours on end reading the graphic novels at Borders where Matty works.

Sometimes I feel guilty because I see the sun coming up and rush out to Borders where I stay tucked in a corner until the sun goes down again.

And the main offender making me miss entire days is once more the stunning Frank miller, whose Man Without Fear 5 part Daredevil miniseries saved Daredevil from the brink of cancellation by Marvel all those years back. I'd heard of Sin City before now, normally in the same breath as Neil Gaimans Sandman when talkin to people in the know. I have read Sandman (published by DC Vertigo) but really can't get into it.

But Sin City is a different story.

Drawn in black and white, Miller has perfected the art of pure light and dark, almost a fluid chiaroscuro effect that some of you may recognise if you've ever seen my Frank Miller Elektra T-shirt that I've had for 5 years or more.

I've never before been so dragged in by a black and white, but this has the power of Knightfall, the brutality of The Godfather and the depth of character seen only in the best movies. Get one of those open and I guarabtee you won't put it down until you reach the end. Such is the power of the greatest storytellers and I rate Miller as one of the finest storytellers there is across all media. Many a day has gone by without even seeing the sun because of this man, but when you've got a Miller in your hands (try The Dark Knight Returns - another classic, but his early spiderman is overrated) who needs the sun anyway.

The other gem was Origin, the story of Wolverine by Joe Quesada. First editions of the first issue of this 6 part mini series are valued at 30 quid each and understandably so. This is one of the finest books ever written, and George Lucas would do well to read this before making any other prequels.

In my opinion Lucas has insulted the loyal fans by producing predictable and not particularly watchable prequeks, just going through the motions as we would imagine them, but the Quesada and co team let Wolverine unfold from so many perspectives and with such violent twists and turns we barely think that he'll actually make it. The least predictable route is taken and I was left absolutely educated. Lucas take note.

And for anyone else, take note. Pick up a comic today, preferably by Frank Miller. Sin City is missing from your life and that needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.

Return to the brink

At last I'm back in paid employment and things are looking pretty promising again, hopefully those days of desperate unamployment are behind me. I didn't really like what I was doing at the music academy, I just wasn't getting into it and things have kinda fallen into place now.

Every experience is something which we can learn from though and though the lessons are not yet clear from this experience I can see that I have gone through a period of intense desperation that has wiped the smile off my face and made me realise the difficulty that people can face finding enough money to pay the bills. I was definitely one of the lucky ones in that I still had a roof over my head but the experience has dented me a bit, my manic energy has burnt out and my cheeky grin has turned into a grim smile. But all things considered I am still alive, my batteries will recharge, and a grim smile is still better than a frown.

Prisoners often say that the worst thing about being banged up is that it's just you and your thoughts and you go over the incident again and again and go out of your mind. For the unemployed graduate things aren't too far from that. As the days go on and the rejections keep coming in because you're either under- or overqulified you torment yourself with what you could have done with all the years you wasted. A million alternative lives flash past your eyes, and the 3 year sentence you have served is time you desperately want to make up for.

But like a prisoner who's just been let out, branded with the iron of Warwick University, society sees you with your worthless 2:2 qualification as some kind of outcast, intelligent but really not intelligent enough and for that matter you're seen as lacking the experience too. I would have spent just as useful a time for robbing a bank, and at least I would have met some interesting people and learnt something useful in the time.

As it stand this setback puts me well behind schedule and it looks like I may well have to shelve my grand plan as I neded a helluva lot more time and money which this setback does not allow.

Still, when a naked woman turns around you still see her bum so I'm not seeing this as the end of the world just an opportnuty to look into different avenues so to speak, and the initial moves have been made for my new role, which promises to be an alternative adventure.

Hopefully I am looking forward to some more positive writing as my mood turns away from my own thoughts and Mischief begins once more to write itself in glee.

Busy

Woohoo! I'm soon gonna be busy busy busy! Look and appreciate cos it's the last you boys and girls are gonna hear from me for quite some time...

War. What is it good for? Eyeing up girls of course!

one of the themes central to the Eastern philosophy of Taosim that is so close to my heart, is the appreciation of life and the world just as it is, without interfering.

Just accepting that things happen in nature for a reason like the flow of water around obstacles, is a concept that is surprisingly difficult for the western mind to adapt to, prone as the western thinker is to meddling and breaking down the simple into very complex constituents.

Today was a fantastic example of how a quiet inner peace (albeit with a loud and hyperactive exterior) saw what a wonderful world we live in.

It seems like the wind of change is blowing and I feel her softly caressing my cheek. Sometimes all the right things just happen all at once and there aint shit you can do about it. Today signalled the beginning of my next plan falling into place with a job to fund whatever crazy thought it is that has seeded. By sheer coincidence I happen to be working in the Department of Education, which is bloody useful given that I've got an interview next week for my teaching course and have yet done very little to prove my dedication to the cause. Top that with my mentoring interview the day before the university one as well and I can actually put forward a bloody good case!

But both of these coincidences pales into insignificance in comparison with the realisation that my new job happened to begin on the day of the outbreak of war.

Working, as I do, in Westminster was like a message from above that I really am the chosen one. loads of people decided to bunk off today from school or work and paint their faces to descend upon, yes you guessed it...Westminster, so I got an eyeful of the most open-minded schoolgirl/uni totty that the country has to offer.

Fantastic!

Don't mention the war

Since there is blanket coverage of the war in every single form of media at present, I have decided to declare Mischief Returns a war-free zone of peace and love, because by the time you've gotten here you've no doubt had enough and want nothing more than light relief at my expense.

It's not that, I don't see the war as incredibly important you understand but I don't really see my view as of any more significance than anyone elses, and at the moment everyone's got a view.

But before I do declare this amnesty on war, I'd like to dedicate the new, peacenik format to one man, who is fighting for the liberation of an oppressed people in Iraq right now.

This is for one of my oldest and most trusted friends, Stu QPR, who has proved time and again that he would willfully lay down his life for me, as he is now doing for all us.

Mate, I swear that when you get back the drinks are on me. I hope and pray that I have that honour.

Defection

I'm not sure yet who I'll be dancing with this year. Yaa Asantewaa are scaling down this year, and though I've been quite involved, I am thinking of a defection (*gasp!*) to a kung fu carnival group. Watch this space cos this is where it's goin down this year. Last years brief (pre-blog) carnival can be found on my website

Pennies from Heaven

Hmmmm, a job that actually pays money. What a novel idea. I'm back on the treadmill for the next three weeks at least, having decided that I need to actually earn some money for the next phase of Mischief to proceed according to plan.

This job has it's plus and minuses with regards to my planning. The obvious plus is financial as it means that I'll be able to do what it is I want to do. As an added bonus, it's in the Department of Education, which is at least relevant for next years endeavours.

On the downside though it means that I instantly lose my bet with C++, which means I have to give 20 quid to a charity of his choice. We gambled that I wouldn't be able to walk to Nottingham from London in a week, but now unfortunately(?) I can't take up that challenge, cos I've got a job. The other plan to fall through is my planned brief retreat to a buddhist monastery in France.

Still, the year is but middle-aged and there is still time for mischief.

Reprazentin the south side massive!

...And I just want to add to the last post that your fuckin uninformed comments about the south of the river are fuckin out of line. You are such a fuckin pussy I'm surprised you got out of South London alive with your arrogant swagger and fat wallet. If you've got a problem with south london then don't come here, no-one will miss you, but takin potshots from your cosy hiding place in Belsize Park (which your mum pays for) shows what a coward you are.

South London is for hard people. And you are wet.

There's a reason you don't like south london. It's because we specifically design it to keep pricks like you out.

Dear god please don't become one of these

I'm now living in Belsize Park, in North London and working as an auditor for a massive global firm in their entrepreneurial services department.

For those of you out there that don't know, my job is to check that one number equals another number and then tick it if it does. Its particularly thrilling....Yes, I've sold out and yes I get paid well so who cares!

Outside of work, you might spot me frequenting bars and clubs all over central and north london. I don't like to venture south of the river, its a bit like entering a war zone. If you haven't been there I don't recommend it. If you live there, sorry but its just not nice!

Now I don't ask much of my readership, as diversity should result when everyone shapes their own unique destiny not based on some blueprint, but all I ask is that you NEVER, EVER find yourself writing such crap as found above. This was found while browsing through the entry of Leeds Bastards on friends reunited and was just cut and pasted. I didn't even have to edit it to make him look a wanker.

It is so agonisingly uninspiring and shows such a fucking waste of life I can't express how absolutely sorry I feel for him. The thing that strikes me most about it is the fact that he KNOWS that he is a sell-out (not that he has anything much to sell out though to be fair, he's always been a money-grabbing bitch) and is such a coward that he doesn't dare to veer from the path.

I implore my readership here and now, have some passion for life for fucks sake! Life before death is within all our reaches, but some of us are just too scared to teeter over the edge and grab it.

When I slag off accountants, this is what I mean. I use the term "accountant" in the same way as I use the term "graduate" not meaning all of them, for some are genuinely human beings, but meaning the ones like this fucking pathetic example of humanity, who are so too scared to be anything else. Never judge a man by his social standing, or by his profession, (that has been an accusation levelled at me from time to time by people who just don't really get what I'm tryin to say), but by what he achieves in his life and where he wants to go.

It's clear to me where this loser wants to go. Absolutely nowhere.

Personals

Taz - Come round with Steve and you can take the decks. They need a little clean and you'll have to get your own carts but it's a helluva lot cheaper than buying your own just now. When people cannot have what they neeed, while others have what they do not need, things are not not right in the world. This is my contribution to global equality

Taz - Cheers for the designs. I'll submit them straight by e-mail

S - Yeah it is who you think it is.

J++ - Get on the blows to me mate - You have to come to town for frames before I shrivel up and die.

C++ - I guess you are waiting for the post about the bet. It's on it's way once I've found les mots juste. My legs are killin me.

Bah humbug!

If anyone's loookin for bargains right now the best in town can be found in Greenwich as Halcyon books is closing one of it's shops in the main part of town, and all books there are 2 quid or under. We are talkin serious books, from a man who knows a thing or two about buying serious books.I picked up quite a few physics textbooks (which would have normally have set me back 25 quid plus) for a quid each, some philosophy, biology, soil mechanics, biotechnology and books on cyphers and radon.

But the bargain of the day has got to be a book I've had my eye on for some time, called "Can Reindeer fly? The science of Christmas" in which Roger Highfield analyses scientifically the evidence against the existence of Rudolph and friends. It's in mint condition and down from about 12 quid.

Get down there cos they close at the end of the month!

Change in Progress

Mischief introverted
has become so wrapped up in himself
He no longer gives a fuck
about anyone else
It's time to make a change
said he
Ego has risen through this pain
and it's killin me

I need material gain
to alleviate my pain
to stop this hurt from blisterin my brain
To stop me the fuck from goin insane
I failed
to transcend my Ego from this spiritual plane

Perhaps for Me the end is nigh
I'll smash and grab to fill up my empty life
Maybe loneliness can be filled with material things
The next dimension is ruled by ethereal kings

Andy 2003

Running Commentary

By eck guv! I've just installed this ere even NEWER feature to the pages of Mischief, this comments thing, allowing my loyal readership the freedom to criticize individual pieces and to answer to individual personals as they arise. As the software doesn't send e-mails when a post is put up, it also gives you the opportunity to slag me off, behind my back on my OWN site on the earlier posts without me ever knowing. But I'm sure you probably have better things to do with your life (unlike me).

Not one to install a trap and not provide the bait here goes...

Personals

The soldier with the melting boots - Good luck to you mate. I'm hopin and prayin for your safe return

Bags - Be careful Bags, it's a trap! She's set you up for arrest by Operation Ore. Your days of freedom are numbered my boy

Taz - It aint really workin out bro. I think I'll drop up and take another route. I just aint drivin if you know what I mean

Magic - Couldn't be arsed to go down the pub. Far too cold

C++ - looks like you could have won the pint unless someone funnier posts up. But this new comment thing will probably put paid to any of that

Run this by me one more time

So my job title is Music Industry Artist Promoter, I promote up and coming artists and organise gigs, tours and club nights. AND it's for a good cause, helpin empower disadvantaged yoof! AND i get free tickets to gigs, get to meet famous people, hang out in the studio and learn about the music business.

Nah I still don't believe myself.

Maybe the first gig on Friday, the heart of Hackney at Ocean, Mare Street, Hackney (I got a couple of free tickets available if you ask nicely) will convince me it's really happening.

...food of love? Looks like I'm in for a right old feast mate

YESSSSSSSSSSS!

I've finally waited long enough and the ideal job has come along. Alright I'm not gettin paid for it but I don't care it's so fuckin brilliant and if a job's so good you'd do it for nothin it's gotta be worth doin!

I'm promoting gigs for disadvantaged yoof in Hackney and generally spendin my days holed up in the studio with a load of bands and my nights at gigs, which I organise. Things are lookin up since the days of gettin turned down for clinical trials (twice. last week) I mean you know that things are going badly when GlaxoWellcome won't even stick their needles in you for money.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said "Without Music, life would be a mistake" and I'd be inclined to agree with him.

Andy from the block

Brand spankin new feature for interactive feedback

Why not take your chance to slag me off in public just like I do with you, with my newly installed feature, the guestbook. Just click right HERE and fire away bitches! Alternatively there's that little linkment in the side panel innit.

Best post by the time this message scrolls off the screen into the archives wins a pint on me.

Steeling myself for a slaggin....
Mischief

Finishing Line

Bush and Blair are alone in bed
Blair's tired
so Bush decides to fuck Saddam instead
"Get your weapons out and quick" He says
but before he gets the chance
he's been shot in the head

"You had 12 whole years to get your bits out
9 more days or I'ma kick the shit out
you and your oil mines will be mine
War is a weapon of your design"

"What the fuck have I done but oppress my people
You supply the weapons which perpetrate the evil
American logic circular hypocritical
I'm an evil man in control of your oil"

Weapons alone do not commit crimes
Pencils cannot draw their own lines
Give up your arms and open up your doors
Else Bush and Blair gonna lay down the law

Andy 2003

Takin the piss

I thought, seeing as I'm officially an unemployed lazy layabout now, that I should indulge in some of those classic layabout activities, which endear us to the working populace with such fondness.

I've already been to the library and wasted many hours there poring over out of date books , I've been to the jobcentre, I've wandered aimlessly round the streets in a tracksuit and hung around pointlessly in shopping centres, so I figured it was time that I tucked into the other favourite pastime of the poor and useless - I decided to drain the NHS.

So I slipped out of bed (at 10am) and slipped on my DKNY trainers and D&G specs and joined the rest of the poor at the local health centre. When I finally made it past the ranks of the filthy unwashed, making sure to avoid any unsavoury single mothers, I was given two appointments, firstly to register my status as a parasite, then to come back later to see a nurse. They also handed me a small perspex tube to fill at my leisure and return.

Only recently I was turned down for clinical trials, not once but twice. Apparently I'm too slim (and dashingly handsome) to be a guinea pig. You know you're unemployable when even GlaxoWellcome turns you away.

At the rate I'm going filling sample tubes may well become a profession, so I thought it was probably fair to get started today, so I took the bottle home and merrily filled it with piss, giggling like a schoolchild all the way, and brought it back with all my completed forms to present it to the receptionist with a smile and a "Happy Birthday!"

Unfortunately for me, the piss sample wasn't actually to be in today, but at my appointment next week, and the receptionist was less than impressed by piss-wielding antics, so I was left carrying my urine sample back home. If anyone wants it just drop me a line and take the piss out of me. Crackin.

Personals

Magic - Sunday sounds fine. Prepare to get the whupping of your life. I can even afford to buy drinks for a change. Leave your wallet at home, this time all drinks are on me

Cez - And there was me thinkin you had contracted some sort of disgusting venereal disease in the course of your filthy work. Flu my arse.

Aussiebackpackingvenerealdiseasehost - Use your imagination

LPC, LLB - Welcome to my head. A busy lady like yerself you'll want to get straight down to business, so go straight down til you see..."So I'm a sell out bitch". Cheers for the qualifications

Permanent vacation

It's been some time since I wrote anything in the classic Mischief Style, of self-centred Event and Personals, as patented by myself in California, choosing instead a more directly insulting style, to suit my mood given that most of you bitches are now so heavily bound up in your financial institutions that you yourselves have become my easy target.

Whereas the aim was once simply to piss everyone off by casually mentioning how little responsibility I had, and how chilled out and relaxed I was or how great my life was in comparison to all of yours due to my weird and wonderful encounters, Mischief Returns has lost some of that due to my life being clouded by neccessity all of a sudden.

So I thought, for a refreshing change to return to that classic style of writing and lay off you losers today, because you've obviously suffered enough shafting by your bosses at work, and focus instead on the only thing that Mishief really cares about...Me!

Take it away Maestro....

I finally rolled out of bed at 10am and slipped into the tub for a 45 minute hot soak, before deciding, over a breakfast of hot bagels and hot hot cross buns (yes HOT hot x buns - that's twice as hot as your buns mate) to relinquish all responsibility this year and go and sign on. I thought to myself - "Wait up, what the fuck am I doing?! I'm not gonna work for a financial institution! Fuck them I'd rather stick my finger up my arse and get the dole" and so it happened. I'm now an official waster.

With all the time in the world in my hands, i took a leisurely stroll to Bexleyheath Jobcentre, where I was presented with 15 pages of paper which it seems is my destiny to fill in. With my usual zest and enthusiasm I tucked into the vacancies and found, to my pleasant surprise, that they actually had a load of jobs teaching english in China on their database. I could barely believe my eyes! I shoulda joined the ranks of unemployed before. So I've applied for all of those anyway.

The rest of the day was spent sittin in the park readin comics and eating hot cakes from the bakery. It's a hard life.

Personals

Shaolinboy - Losing your virginity to a £2 whore is surely redefining the idea of cheap sex isn't it? I mean you have to get worried when your condom costs more than your woman. You did use a condom didn't you? Oh please tell me you did. Oh god...

Lightning - How was Roma then buddy? No foreign birds for you. Oh hang on...

Cez - where the fuck were you that weekend!?! You've disappeared off the face of the planet too. Are you pimping your wares? I hear Shaolinboy is keeping some cheap whore busy. I hope you are makin him wear a rubber.

K from the USA - When Shaolinboy gets to yours make sure he has a shower before you let him kip on your couch cuz.

C++ - Cheers for the superdole tip. You have made me into the man I am today. A loser. Although saying that it does mean that I don't really have to do a lot of work, and I can pursue anything the hell that I want for 6 months. Watch this space cos some of you know what's comin...

Lou - Is there nothin you can do to stop her smokin? Throw a bucket of water over here or somethin. It disturbs me

SuperShelbs - thanks for the pic. It's the best thing I've ever recieved and it's on my wall. My shoulders will forever be yours.

Magic - A E I O U? Yeah I probably do actually. Well my bowels are fine, thanks for asking.

Social Security

I wonder how it could it have happened to me
What I done to deserve this indignity
Holding firm to my beliefs and integrity
As I joined the queue for social security

I do what I want voluntarily
With narry a thought of gaining financially
My actions must benefit the cause of humanity
Whether or not it earns me money

But here is the harsh reality
There's no room for a pariah in a society
Where material wealth is valued over humility
and mindlessness automation over sobriety

Andy 2002

Whatever happened to the heroes?

I've just come back from Daredevil, a movie I've been awaiting since November as regular readers will know. I'm a huge fan of Marvel's Daredevil, which tells the story of Matt Murdock, the Hell's Kitchen lawyer blinded as a child brought up by the mystical sensei Stick (who, i've just realised is almost certainly the template for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's Splinter. TMNT was at first conceived as a pisstake of the comic culture you see), and becomes the urban hero Daredevil.

I've been into comics since I was 7 reading Buster, Whizzer and Chips, Dandy and Beano, then moved onto the hardvore stuff when I turned 12, taking up DCs Batman and Superman. i gave up Supes as he was a bit too indestructible for my liking, but Batmans street detective always held me in awe. I collected all the Batman titles and spinoffs, the complete Knightfall series (which was possibly the most gripping thing I have ever read anywhere, from Sword of Azrael through Detective 500 to the defeat of the new Batman - woah), but needed more. I looked into Marvel and, like many before me started with Spidey, which is always a good bet.

But it was Daredevil who really hit the spot. Here was the classic superhero, successfully leading a double life as a crimefighter in a suit and a crimefighter in a costume. His control of the law in court was as decisive as it was on the street against every level of criminal. But he was human too, like Bruce Wayne. Daredevil was the most likely hero to ever have rivalled Batman for screen presence.

But what the hell did they do to my hero?! Set upon a background of Nu-metal again, like the Spiderman movie, I realised just how vital a well thought out, atmospheric soundtrack actually is to a movie. Take Batman for example. Under Tim Burtons direction, you could taste Gotham city and Danny Elfman's score provieded the ideal backdrop. It was grimey and claustrophobic, dark and dangerous. And Batman was the hero that cut swathes through the dirt.

Current movie-makers seem so obsessed with trying to look hip and to make the film appeal to "the kids" that modern adaptions of comics suffer the wrong atmosphere that these tunes induce. Spidey was not by any means a Chad Kroger fan in the comics. He is a nerd with quick wit. The actual Spidey film got the comic feel pretty close but was ruined by the score which just felt completely wrong.

Daredevil, got the atmosphere almost right, although I feel that the comics veer more towards the atmosphere in The Crow, much darker and much dirtier. The streets of Hells Kitchen in DD were just too clean. But the music was completely wrong. They don't listen to much Linkin Park in Hells Kitchen. And Matt Murdock is very very unlikely to be listening to Nu-metal in as long as I've been reading his adventures.

Overall not a great film for real fans of the comic due to all the holes in the plot (they forgot to include Stick for a start and I could list a LOT more) and not a great introduction to Daredevil for beginners, because the characters were not really developed enough.

Someone please tell those bloody directors to smash all their Linkin Park CDs and go back to the sounding board though. That is now 2 comic legends (I haven't seen X-men yet) slaughtered by the axe of Nu-metal and I dread to think of who's next. Hulk I think. Dear God I don't want to see Doctor Bruce Banner ripping out of his trousers and shirt (saying "Hulk Smash!") set against a nu-metal soundtrack. Some things are just wrong.

Choices choices...

It is said in some sections of society that University broadens your horizons and opens a world of opportunities. The only way it broadened my horizon is by exposing me to the broadest section of society, the sterile middle class, unadventurous twats.

And as for employablity I would like to state a couple of facts. Apart from J++, the most creative people I know are earning less now than they did before they took on degrees and have spent longer unemployed after their degree than they ever did before. It's fucking hard to get a job we actually WANT with a degree from Warwick and the reason is thus.

A Warwick degree does indeed give us choices. We can choose between either this faceless financial institution or that bland financial corporation. Oh joy.

I have had an idea to apply for the same jobs with a CV that doesn't have my degree on it at all, because I'm convinced it's actually preventing me from getting a job. I am overqualified for too many positions that I want to do and underqualified for a great many that I have little interest in. I would be inteested in seeing what the outcome of that experiment was and publishing the results on this website actually.

Today, my degree showed it's true worth (i.e. none) in a day when I had 3 interviews for the most amazing positions. (None of which, incidentally, you would ever find on the ghastly milkround. You are all bottles you fucking idiots!)

I gave myself the choice of becoming either

1. A writer
   
2. A Pharmaceuticals guy
   
3. A gig promoter
   

Now that's what I call choices!