Is the grass greener? a study.

The grass is greener on the other side.
Or is it? maybe your grass is just dry.

The Losers Book Club - The Girl On The Train

We read Paula Hawkin's The Girl On The Train for this chapter of the losers book club (you know the format by now) a 90's movie style thriller noir for another unlikely (the best type) detective.



This was actually the book Andri wanted to read before but I accidentally picked up Elizabeth Is Missing which turned out to be a pretty fantastic read.
The tagline is that our main character, I'll explain why she's not the "hero" shortly, gets the train every day. On this train journey she notices a couple living in a house and daydreams about their perfect life together until she sees something that changes everything. She will then become part of this "perfect couples" life and nothing will ever be the same again.
Entwining both their story and her own life into a twisted tale of deceit, lies, missing people and a whole lot of booze along the way we find our self drawn into a world that no one seems to want to be in.
Our main character is not a hero. No one would describe her as a hero. She, as all good characters are is a massively flawed human being who has lost herself and is teetering on the edge of finding her way back to the real world or falling off and into oblivion and completely losing it.

You don't know her. But she knows you.

The other characters we meet along the way are equally flawed and not without their own issues. That's one of the things that makes this book so enjoyable. What  appears on the surface to be perfect isn't always the case. Scratch below and we find something hidden, a personal demon, a secret that can ruin lives, a characteristic about a person we never knew existed.

Now I would say that the first half of this book is pretty damn good, you are reading whilst scratching your head over the complicated characters, attempting to work out if they are good, bad or neither.
If the first half is anything its a set up for when it gets really good. We read the first half over the space of about three weeks. The second half of the book? all read in one night in the space of about six hours. There was only one time when I said do you want to carry on, I just got a silent nod and knew that we were going to finish the book that night. Other than that is was around ten to fifteen minutes reading and passing the book back and forth to read chapters. The only words spoken were the ever changing conspiracies we had drawn up in our minds about what was going to happen, pretty much changing constantly.

This is a brilliant book by any standards, to lump it in as another detective style mystery or to compare it to Gone Girl is wrong. It's so much more than that. It's creepy, uncomfortable in parts, you never know who is good and who is bad and in many ways you don't even know who to root for and by the halfway point you're baffled as to who you are meant to care about. You've almost given up on hope for some of the characters and are writing them off as lost causes.

The latest news seems to be that the movie rights to this has been picked up by Dreamworks and it would seem has found itself a director in Tate Taylor (The Help). The adaptation is being written up by Erin Cressda Wilson (secretary, Men, woman and Children), who seems perfect for the erotic style that I think this would need to work. It feels like a 90's thriller but set in today's time.
All this is what is kicking around the net at the moment, and it seems that they are flirting with the idea of Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada, Edge of Tomorrow) for the main role and those dark eyes would be perfect. I think starting from youngest and going up dependant on age Gemma Arteton (St Trinians, Runner Runner) would suit the role or even Kate Winslet (like from Eternal Sunshie Of A Spotless Mind) and although it would never happen Helena Bonham Carter (like from Fight Club) would be perfect as a damaged woman on the edge.

The Losers Book Club - Elizabeth Is Missing.

The second instalment in our book club where Andri and I read a chapter each to each other throughout is Emma Healey's debut in "Elizabeth is missing".

The Losers Book Club - The boy who could see Demons

We decided to start the losers book club, as a way of reading a book together and taking a moment from the hectic shifts and lives we lead.

Summer Fashion. Wrong again.

Let's get straight to the point, I'm starting to lose faith in mans ability to do the fashion.

Just look at this...

Book Review. The Deep Whatsis by Peter Mattei

Eric Nye is a sociopath.

Mother/Daughter fashion must haves. Summer 2013

The age old question of matching outfits, do we, don't we? Has anyone ever pulled  this off without looking like the ghost of Primark past has thrown up some ill fitting out of date clothes all over two people?
Can it actually be done?

Movie Marathon Night at the PCC. Arnie Vs Sly

I recently had the bright idea to delve into the world of movie marathons and decided to start with a nice easy one. Schwarzenegger vs. Stallone.
No brain cells needed. Just turn up, sit down and let the ridiculous explosions and Oscar worthy acting wash over me.

Late night musings. The Silver Surfer.

The Silver Surfer, now there's a guy I can relate to right now. He spends his life alone searching and scouring the universe for that special something and when he finds it another guy turns up and reaps all the benefits. Poor bastard.

Wolverine - from hero to mug.

For as long as I can remember I've loved Wolverine. The first comic I ever picked up was a Wolverine issue set in Japan he battled The Hand with a sword, speaking fluent Japanese and not even using his claws. I was hooked.

Rimming, peeing, a quiet night in and a carrier bag full of meat

Tonight I replied to a random tweet from a girl I know who said she was at the pub down the road from me having a few drinks. There I was minding my own business, feet up on the sofa, watching American Splendour and thinking how every man in the world probably feels like Harvey Pekar. A right sorry state.
What happened next was most unexpected. Not the drunken phone call asking if I wanted to join her and her friend for a drink (I'm ill) she's a good friend. Nope that wasn't it, nor was it the fact that she has to walk past mine to get home so when they both came up for a cup of tea and to catch up it's still in the realms of normality. What was strange was my friends friend. We'll call her Meat Girl. Why? Oh no reason. Well actually..
Meat Girl, who I do actually know but isn't MY friend had managed to pick up a burger, a cheeseburger a portion of chips and some donner meat on the way through the town. So Meat Girl was carrying a bag of meat. Which she then offered me, one by one. Twice. I mentioned I'm ill didn't I? I think this made me feel inexplicably worse and I was starting to question my judgement in letting these strange people into my home.
I stuck the kettle on and caught up with my friend a bit, all the while MG (Meat Girl) kept interrupting to offer a burger or other various meat related fast food products to me, being very insistent on saying they weren't all for her.
I was then informed of a story about MG having sex with her partner, and while this was happening he got, there's no delicate way to put this - His arse licked by one of the dogs. MG interrupted at this point and said that no it wasn't the dog it was her, she had licked his arse. There was no dog involved. At this point in my quiet evening of recuperation I've got two inebriated hysterically laughing meat carrying ladies in my front room screaming about rimming.
Obviously MG was in a sharing mood and then told us tales about her fella who is "a shy guy" wearing her knickers and getting in bed with her sister which she then described him as bolivious.
Another time this "bolivious" guy had had a little tinkle while drunk over a cushion that had sprayed all over another family member. Which sounds lovely.
He had also gone into his brothers room to,
"hold on you aren't filming this are you?"
"No, no carry on."
Well he went in there the play a playerplaystation and had just gone to sleep. In his brother's bed as well the crazy fool. Do you want some meat by the way?
I have to admit at this point I was starting to lose the plot a bit, my zen was well and truly fucked. I was starting to want to know more! Who was this mystery man? And why wasn't he my friend? I want to party with Bolivious. He sounds amazing!
But unfortunately they finished their cups of tea and left. Not before MG had asked if she should leave me a burger, as they weren't all for her. Obviously.
So that's how my quiet night in recuperating got gatecrashed by a friend I haven't seen in a while and her insane friend who I will be looking out for like a hawk just to see if I can spot her with her boyfriend.
God bless you meat girl and your bolivious boyfriend.
You crazy rimming, thong wearing, pissy, sleepy, carrier bag full of meat carrying bastards.

East London reworking Any Dream Will Do.

Man close his eyes
Drew back the curtain
To see for certain
What Fam thought Fam knew

Far far away, my yat was weeping
But all the bro's were sleeping
Any dream will do

Man wore his garms
(man wore his garms)
With golden lining
(Ahhh ah ah)
Mans looking bare peng
(Ahhh ah ah)
Wonderful and new

And in east end
(And in east end)
The Cru was moneymaking
And the world was waking
Any dream will do

A crash of drums
A wobble of Dubstep
Fam's fresh new creps flew out of sight
The colours faded into darkness
Feets were all alone

May I return
(may I return)
To the beginning
(ahhh ah ah)
The electrics dimming
My girl ain't topped up the card
The manor and I
(The manor and I)
We are still waiting
(Ahhh ah ah)
Still hesitating
(Ahhh ah ah)
For brer to pick up
Any gear will do
(Any gear, any any gear)
Any gear will do
(Any gear, any any gear)
Any gear will do

Ok so I don't know if any of you know that I have actually made a few "comedy" songs before on Soundcloud under the name bennyb27 such as the cheeseman cometh, sexy smooth slow jams and get yer old boy out. I'm actually tempted to make this as well, please talk me out of it. It seems even a step too far for me.

How to ride the London Underground.

Hey! hola! Bonjour! Kunichiwa!
So you are visiting London and are nervous about riding the underground? Fear not intrepid travellers I have written you a guide to avoid looking foolish in front of the natives and help you on your way.

Firstly remember all Londoners are so very very hipster and we all love to look a little kooky so if possible match your clothes like this gentleman. See how he is growing old gracefully, he has teamed his red skinny jeans with a very stylish red quilted jacket with added faux fur around the hood in case of the pneumonia polluted Piccadilly line! Also remember that London is a very dangerous place and there are hooded oiks everywhere and they ALL want to steal your wallet, phone and probably your snazzy new gardeners weekly mag. The bastards! The beauty of being old is that you are able to "tool" yourself up without the nasty side of a rough stop and search, grab a walking stick and start swinging, bloody zombie children.

Secondly, and this is very important remain cool and emotionless. Tube etiquette means not ever making eye contact or talking to other commuters as we revel in urban solitude, become part of the family and refrain from using your vocal chords once inside the carriage. If needs must you can tut occasionally. Being so close you know your fellow travellers intimately however is a given and fully expect to finish your journey feeling like you have had sex with at least five people, if you are unlucky it will feel like they have had sex with you (if you are very unlucky you may later find "evidence" they have). One way to avoid the helpless whimpers of the lost and friendly is sunglasses, if they can't see your eyes it makes you pretty much invisible. Hey I know we're inside and underground but who doesn't look cool anywhere in a snazzy pair of shades? Exactly.

Also food, you may have seen signs on the London buses saying "please respect other users and avoid smelly food" the trains however operate slightly differently. Innovate, don't conform to the pressures of today's modern society and juzz it up a bit! Sprinkle some salt on your life! Pour some wine in your eye! Or alternatively use this woman as inspiration. She is eating a tomato like an apple and has her already chewed chewing gum nestled on her thumb ready to pop back in once she has finished. A true underground veteran and food style icon. Move over Jamie "smash a bit of sauce on that and season it all over its lovely body, fuckin pucker gobble gobble" Oliver, there's a new queen in town.

A few other tips that may help you on your way, see those barriers at the entrance/exits of the tube this is a good place to stop and search for your ticket or generally if you just fancy a bit of "me" time. Relax, take a load off. After all, you are on holiday.
If you find the tube a bit warm and get a slight sweat on don't be afraid to hold that top rail and get some air to it, we're all one big happy family and aren't afraid of a bit of nasal invasion on our journey.
A very popular London game that many Londoners play is called "Door Jumping" the idea is to wait for the doors to make a fast beeping noise and as they start to shut dive through them, it's 10 points if you dive clean through but 20 if you get a part of you caught in them and have to open the doors of the whole train again. When this happens you will normally be rewarded with a round of applause and high fives all round! The driver also has a similar scoring system but that's not for you to worry about, something to do with decapita... severing arms and.. I can't remember, anyway that's not important.
The tube drivers get lonely sometimes all alone at the front staring down a dark tunnel all day so they can be very appreciative of a little chat between stations. Maybe run alongside the train shouting at them and perhaps even point in front of the train, they're bound to have a little chuckle to themselves about that. Especially ones with curly brown hair.
Well I hope that this has been helpful and I feel you are now prepared to ride until your hearts content.
Oh, one last thing all London tubes are 24 hours so don't leave early to get the last train, there isn't one they run at all times.
Yay!

My embarrassing life.

I thought I'd write a quick blog because I have nothing else to do, nothing! I hear you ask. Yes, nothing. Mainly because I went for a wee and forgot my swipe card at work and am now the only person in the building, trapped in the Corridor Of Doom(copyrighted already!) I have made the embarrassing phone call to get someone to come and release me from this idiotic situation and after much laughing they said around ten minutes, although in these situations I'm sure they leave you a bit longer just for a laugh.

Urban legends. The dead person fungus story.

We've all heard an urban legend or two right? Some of us has probably even seen that film a couple of times. Maybe even the second one (scraping the barrel a bit there though) I thought that now I'm an actual real life grown up that I wouldn't hear these anymore. I was wrong.
So heres the story, I was casually minding my own business at work eating my lunch when a woman in her late 40's that I work with started shouting "oh guys I forgot to tell you.."

The Incredible Sulk.

Today I woke up, jumped out of bed (crawled) and made myself an espresso. Packed my gear up and headed back into work. For those of you that don't know I'm on an "Olympic Rota" this pretty much means I have no life, work every weekend, get random days off. Needless to say my fragile mental state is teetering on the edge of full scaled spontaneous combustion taking everyone I work with to the grave with me. Deliberately.

Are we all mental? Body dysmorphia

I was thinking today about our bodies and how we all have different perceptions of how we look mentally compared to how we actually do look physically.
Thinking about my friends, family and people I know I'm pretty sure there's a very small amount of them that would turn around and say that they are 100% happy with their appearance or body. I'm also pretty sure I've heard most of them at some point talk about getting "some work" done.
The reasons and causes would be different for each person it's probably not as simplistic as the media's portrayal of men and women having immaculate bodies and perfect airbrushed skin. Maybe not getting enough cuddles as a child or perhaps an abusive parental relationship where one parent spat venom and abused the other over some kind of body defect that was wrong in their eyes planting the seed for that child later to drag out of their subconscious and let inhabit their mind.
I kind of guessed that body dysmorphia is having a skewed vision of your body that affects everyday life but here's the Wikipedia definition. It sounds a lot better.

The definition of body dysmorphia on Wikipedia is as below

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD, also body dysmorphia, dysmorphic syndrome; originally dysmorphophobia) is a type of mental illness, a somatoform disorder, wherein the affected person is concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of their physical features.[1][2] The person complains of a defect in either one feature or several features of their body; or vaguely complains about their general appearance, which causes psychological distress that causes clinically significant distress or impairs occupational or social functioning. Often BDD co-occurs with emotional depression and anxiety, social withdrawal or social isolation.[3]

Body dysmorphia is a type of mental
Illness? Like anorexia or bullemia? Are either of those things BDD? I don't know so I had a google for a definition and I found this on about.com/phobias

Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of somatoform disorder in which the sufferer becomes obsessed with an imagined flaw in his or her appearance. Those who suffer from the disorder have a distorted view of their own bodies. They may spend a great deal of time grooming themselves or even undergo repeated plastic surgeries in an attempt to “fix” the perceived flaw.

Although it is possible for those who suffer from this condition to become obsessed with almost any part of their bodies, some areas are more common than others; the skin, hair, nose and weight are particularly common.

Those with body dysmorphic disorder often seek reassurance from friends or family but are unable to believe those assurances. It is not uncommon for sufferers to become withdrawn and even stop leaving the house, due to their belief that others will mock their flaws. In extreme cases, sufferers have even attempted suicide. The condition is often linked to generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This sounds more like what I thought it was. Yet no mention of mental illness but this time OCD has a factor, this seems to make more sense. But is OCD a mental illness? Hits google again... Apparently yes. It's a anxiety thing but yes it's a mental illness.
What level of fretting over something is normal and when does it become an issue that needs to be addressed by a professional? The reason I ask is because I've recently become a bit worried about my body, I'm 30 and have started to worry about my weight, probably unnecessarily. I'm pretty sure most people would kill for a belly as flat as mine, I'm a skinny guy but am terrified of becoming overweight. I'm 5"7ish and I weigh somewhere between 9 and 10 stone changing weekly. Nowhere near overweight. Yet I'm now doing an Ab workout this has also inspired me to do press ups and in the space of two weeks my arms are double the size. Yet I feel my arms are smaller than ever and my dream toned washboard looks bloated. I don't even want to bulk up, why am I doing this?
The more I look into it the more concerning it is due to the lack of or conflicting information available. I have a friend who is pretty damn muscly and goes to the gym a lot yet is obsessed with being "fat" and "too small" when he is neither.
Another friend who told me "shit Ben your arms are twice the size of mine" also works out at the gym. My arms were obviously nowhere near the size of his.
Almost all of the women I know are "fat" yet the girls who actually are overweight don't tell me this. They know and probably also suffer in a different way.
Do we all have mental health or is this just normal? Where is that line that we cross from just another person with a couple of body issues and when does it become a mental health or problematic issue?
Beats me, I'm just another skinny fat guy eating his way through life.

Stop the mind readers and bird poo trousers.

I've just been casually walking along minding my business thinking about how I might go home and pretend to have lost the plot when my fiancé gets home, you know how it is.

X-Men Days Of Future Past.

So the news of the new X-Men film plot is out and it will be based loosely on Chris Claremont's 1980 tale Days Of Future Past. How closely they will tie this in with the previous film, the actual story from the comics and the other aspects thrown in to help the film chug along for the audience I can't say but I can tell you what I think should happen to follow up First Class, arguably the best of the X-Men franchise.

The rise and rise of The Metrosexual.

The Metrosexual; once a movement now the mainstream. It doesn't really exist anymore because it's the majority of men. There are still men out there who are "manly men" when I say manly men I mean non moisturising, au natural, old fashioned guys. Saying that I'd say the majority now are some kind of strange hybrid metrosexual mutant man. Like a man who goes to the gym and works out and does really heavy weights and is all manly and 'ard. Then he goes and gets his hair frosted or pops his car keys in his manbag or satchel and slips off home in his designer espadrilles.
Where did metrosexual man come from and how was his rise to power and dominance over the rest of mankind possible?