I am sad to report some bad news that I've just received via the brilliant medium of electronic mail. I've been unsuccessful in my quest to win this years The Sun Column Idol competition. Naturally I am disappointed that I was rejected but in a field of thousands of writers, it was understandable.
Whilst trawling through my e-mails, I also enjoy surfing the internet. I opened up Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the two forums that I frequent. This time though my little surf opened my eyes to something that I have always considered yet batted away.
I hate people who write in a pretentious way using complex sentence structures and words that have clearly been discovered through extensive use of a thesaurus. When reading what these people write, it is a struggle and it drains from the entertainment factor that should occur through reading.
I enjoy the story and the simplicity behind the story. That is why my two favourite authors are Danny Wallace and Bret Easton Ellis. They tell fantastic stories and through simple, fun language and styles. The one golden rule that I now have for my writing which I have developed since starting this blog, undertaking the final year of my degree and now undertaking a journalism postgraduate course is that I should keep my writing as simple as possible and to tell the story in a way which the median/mean/mode reader will enjoy.
The story should be told, it shouldn't be diluted and forced.
It occurred to me last night, whilst laying in bed, that you don't know too much about me. Sure you can see my little profile picture, you can read the description caption whilst I give you little snippets about my life, but surely it'll be more fun for you to read my blog if you knew more about me.
So, here's a chronological list of facts about me ranging the interesting to the bizarre.
1) I live in Kingston-upon-Thames with my parents and two sisters.
2) I go to Reading University where I study Politics and International Relations.
3) I am 6ft 1" tall.
4) I am right-handed.
5) I did A Levels in Business Studies, English Literature and Sociology.
6) I watch a lot of television. My favourite shows are: Eastenders, Doctor Who and Made in Chelsea.
7) Politically, I support the Liberal Democrats... still.
8) I support Fulham FC.
9) My favourite Fulham player is Clint Dempsey.
10) I love music. My favourite bands/artists are: Bloc Party, We Are Scientists, Get People and Marina and the Diamonds.
11) I do love chart music as well. I am quite embarrassed to admit that I love this weeks #1 song, Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen.
12) I am going to study for a Masters degree in Journalism starting in September.
13) I love steak. Hence, I could never be vegetarian.
14) Coca-Cola is the greatest drink ever, in my opinion.
15) I'd love to be a writer in the future. If I could, then it'd be a dream to write Danny Wallace-style books.
16) I played Ultimate Frisbee for about 8 weeks at university. In a surprising turn of events, I found out that it's a really tough sport.
17) My favourite colour is red.
18) My favourite clothing brands are: Hollister, Topman and Superdry. You can call me a douche for that.
19) My favourite film of all time is Hotel Rwanda. I also love Cool Runnings and the Mr Bean movie.
20) I love XFM. It's a great radio station.
21) I think BBC3 is a criminally underrated TV channel.
22) I just spelt underrated wrong and had to correct it. I'm not as clever as I think.
23) I'd love to go travelling. So far, I've only been to Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Cyprus.
24) I think a pub quiz is the greatest thing ever.
25) I really want to live in Brighton at some point in my life.
26) My mobile phone is an iPhone 4S.
27) I have a really small bedroom. It is literally about the width and length of Peter Crouch.
28) I once broke my arm in a drunken incident. I ended up requiring surgery which was a fun experience.
29) I am going to turn 21 soon. It frightens me how old I am getting.
30) I apparently can't think of any more facts about myself.
Thanks for reading and please follow/subscribe my blog. It really would mean a lot to me.
So, I’m on the phone to my sister. She’s called, and quite frankly writing this now I still don’t understand what the point of her call was. All she literally told me during the initial stage of her call was to tell me she was out, which I pretty much realised seeing as she was in fact not inside our house.
Where was I?
Oh yeah, then the wierdest thing happened. The phone cut off. I had the television on and I heard from the phone that the sound had suddenly gone. Then, to confirm my view that we’d probably suffered a power cut, my sister shouted from upstairs that “the powers gone!”
I was annoyed. Frustrated. Angered. I had been watching the Arsenal vs Liverpool match and I was rather intruiged to see how the match would go. I checked on Twitter to see whether any other tweeters had tweeted about the situation.
It turned out they had. Skimming through the usual ‘Oh no, a powercut’ type posts, one tweeter was nice enough to tell the world that there had been an explosion on South Lane. “But that’s only one road away from me” I thought.
Now, I never realised how addicted I was to electricity but it turns out I’m an electricity addict. I can’t get enough of it. Without access to the internet, a laptop dying without power, no food making technology and no access to the TV, I was bored. As bored as a baby in a book store. Yes, I was that bored.
Many hours later and desperately hungry, my friend suggested we go to the pub. Brilliant. A way to relieve the boredom and cure my hunger.
After food and the usual game of Pub Quiz on the IT Box we decided to play pool. Now, my friend isn’t that good at pool and being the modest type, I’m not that great. Yet, towards the end of our game we seemed to attract quite a crowd. It was as if we were competing in the World Pool Championship. Just as long as one considers the World Pool Championship to have a capacity crowd of two people. In fact, not even two people. They were two little children.
For some reason, the two little South Korean kids seemed to find our game worthy of their attention. I was flattered, and a little worried as I don’t like to have my pool abilities to be judged.
“Who won?” You are bound to ask. Well I did. It’s here that I’d like to say the two little children applauded my brilliance but they didn’t. They just seemed to want to play with the white ball and chuck it at the pockets on the table.
I think the moral of the story here is if you are going to play pool after suffering a power cut, it’s only likely to lead to your game being watched by South Korean children.
The power has come back on by the way. Thanks for asking.
