hickley

Ola! That's Spanish for hello. And for anyone of a less Latin American origin, allow me to offer my greetings!

I had planned for my first blog post of the year to be a massively determined write-up of possible New Years resolutions I would fulfil throughout the year. Unfortunately, at the very start of the year I found out that the company I work for is being shut down and thus my job would be dismantled.

Alas, never fear! They've offered me a new role, and arguably it's a better one.

One thing I will say: potentially being fired is a great way of putting everything into perspective. In the fortnight after being told the news I genuinely analysed every single aspect of my life including, among others, my choice of hair style and breakfast cereal.

Obviously I did mull over some fairly serious things, including the place I choose to live the next 30 years of my life, my choice of career, and the possibility of taking a year out to move halfway across the world. While the fortnight did generally get me down, it was a cracking way of working out where I am now and where I want to be in five years, 10 years etc.

If anything, I would recommend that should you have any important decisions to think over, simply go out of your way to get fired. Have a week of turning up to work an hour late and visibly drunk, set your boss' hair on fire - it doesn't matter, by the end of the week you'll be absolutely sure what colour of sofa to go for. You'll be absolutely certain of what name to give your future children (though funding their lives may be more of an issue), and you'll be absolutely certain that Chocolately Squares really are the only bowl to go for every morning.

To demonstrate how well this mulling over period worked, allow me to reveal a few of my conclusions.

• I've been lucky to get a job and as a result I'm well ahead of where I should be right now in my life.
• I hate my house and my living situation and as soon as my notice period is over I'm out of here.
• But I'm staying in London. I haven't thrown myself in or taken enough chances since I moved down here, and that will be something I'll change. While right now home would probably be a more entertaining place to live, there are no journalism jobs and I think it would bring me down to have given almost five years of my life to get into a brilliant sector that would then just remain on hold
• The taste of Sugar Puffs has made them are a viable breakfast alternative, but I need more chocolate in my cereal and it must be shaped squarely.
• My new glasses make my head appear smaller and that in itself is somewhat of a miracle when you consider my noggin has its own orbit
• Bullet points are an ugly system of describing situations and must be abandoned immediately

So there you have it - a fortnight's worth of life-altering decisions summed up via the medium of concise points and sarcasm.

Now the attentive readers may have noticed a separate inclusion in the title of today's blog piece. Did you spot it? If so, congratulations, you earn five points!*

Technically, I had a great idea about a month ago when I walked past the local rock climbing club. Technically NBC came up with the concept, spawning a minorly successful sitcom entitled 'My Name is Earl'.

Essentially, the show's protagonist, Earl, is hit by a car as he wins the lottery, epitomising how his good luck is cancelled out by karma because he is guilty of a series of misgivings against his fellow man. He writes up a list of people he has wronged and uses the lottery money to make things good again in the world.

Now obviously I'm not Earl - I'm a kind-hearted and modest, yet oddly handsome, man of the people. But I was having a walk around London the other day and walked past the local rock climbing centre.

"I've not been rock-climbing in years!" our humble, steely jawed hero told himself, "But who would I go with? How could I justify such an activity?"

(On a somewhat separate note) here's the thing I realised: we do something once as a kid and it sets that view in place for the rest of our lives. I thought I absolutely hate parsnips, but I had a few when I was back home at Christmas and now I would genuinely punch a kitten if it meant earning myself another batch of the root vegetable commonly paired with the carrot.

I've gone off on a tangent. This clarifying paragraph will not help matters.

Anyway, so how could I get myself to go rock climbing, or to find out there was something I've been missing out on ever since I was little? Earl's list.

So here's how the thing should be structured: I write myself a list of short-term, medium-term and longer missions that I have to cross off over the rest of the year. For example, a short-term achievement could be to go rock climbing. Another could be to have a full plate of sushi (I f*cking hate sushi - or at least I did before I hit puberty, where I proceeded to develop into the unassuming supermodel you see before you today). Longer term could be to learn to drive, or finally grow a pair and get a tattoo (by the way those are not separate objectives! I have balls, two in fact!).

I'll stress now that I have no idea how this thing will look or how successful it will be. But right now I'm very single and have enough free time that I don't put to good enough use considering I'm in a city where you can do absolutely anything if you have a reason to.

So yeah, that's where I'm at at the moment. Put some rocks in front of me and I'll try my damnest to make sure I scale them.

Hickley

________________________________________

*It should be noted that unlike in Supermarket Sweep, points do not mean prizes. In fact, the opposite system exists here. You now owe me a sandwich.

Ah helloo!

In an acknowledgement that it has been far too long since I last blogged I won't declare that I'm reuniting in regular posting sessions, or back writing on here for good - instead I'll merely let you sit back and remember that four minutes of your life that you always used to waste but just couldn't fight the urge not to return to.

I can't lie, I've been thinking a fair amount lately - and not just at work, where I believe I'm legally required to think.

I quite like jogging now, and (especially since I broke a socket on my headphones) I quite like thinking while I'm jogging*. In fact, some of the smartest things I've ever thought of has been while I've been jogging....I should probably write them down.

Today's choice of thinking surrounds a theory I heard from an intuitive and mesmerising philosopher. OK fine, it was one of my favourite poker players on Twitter. But it still has a point!

I believe the theorum went something along the lines of: 'There is nothing to do with your success in life than determination and luck'. And you know what, it's bloody true, with only a few exceptions.

The one moment that brought this into my attention especially was a recent meet-up with old University chums in Lincoln. Along with the rediscovery of cheap beer and expensive hangovers, discussions with my fellow Journalism graduates revealed that many had failed to get into the field and had now given up on something they spent three years trying to become. The luck was never there and the determination often vanished shortly after as a result.

Now on the other hand I know people that have busted a gut to get into the industry - and more often than not the stars have aligned and they've got the position. Obviously, luck breeds determination, and if you look in the right places for a prolonged period of time then presumably you'll end up lucky enough to find something, but keep reading on - eventually I have a point and it gets less confusing!

Now I'm not going to lie, I fall well and truly into the luck category. I came straight out of uni and got a gig I didn't deserve where it was deemed that I did well enough to stick around for a little bit longer. That gradually led to me getting some expertise and eventually a full-time job. But while this class clown was lucky enough to get a job, I did have to put in the hours to actually stay in the circus.

But why stop at the present? If I was determined enough to learn shorthand, then I might improve the amount of stories I can churn out from a big conference session. Why even stop there - if I learned French I could impress a few contacts on the rare occasion I do make it out to Brussels. Who knows, combining the skills could see me earning the scoop of the year if I transcribe a conversation between canteen workers who regularly serve the big shots and who unwittingly reveal a massive secret**.

But alas, for now I'm perfectly comfortable with my half-arsed, belly-up approach to life - unless of course I'm on a sofa. By the way that isn't one of my infamously long-winded metaphors, it is just a highly unadvisable seating position.

I guess the message here - and this applies all through life - is to try a bit harder and you never know, you might just make your own luck. And then if you do get lucky, think what could happen if you tried even harder to put yourself in the position where you believe you should be.

Speaking on a personal level, I'm still young and naive enough to dream of being an F1 reporter, a Hollywood screenwriter, or even the white Trevor McDonald. If I hit 50 years old and look back over this blog, I'd like to be able to think that I tried really hard and rolled the dice, even if the cards just didn't fall my way. I will also think back at what a sound investment that £9.99 book of clichés was.

And by the way, don't think that this all applies to me. Anyone reading this in a happy relationship (which seems to be essentially everyone I know, and all the females I'm currently infatuated with, grr) had luck bring your favourite woman or man half into your life. And from there, I'll take a guess that it took at least a dollop of determination to ultimately win them over. Kudos anyway, because she or he is a keeper, or an idiot you should dump for me.

Food for thought!

Anyway, this is starting to drag so I should probably end things here. It also hits me that it has taken about an hour to write this post*** - time which I could've used to write up an F1 article or my big Hollywood debut.

I think I'll label this effort as misplaced determination ;)****

Hickley


_________________________________________________________

*on a completely unrelated note, now that it has gotten dark I've done less thinking about things that need to be thought about and more thought about 'where the hell am I? It's dark and I'm lost'. Running is hard.

**I don't really have anything to add here, but I am nervous that this whole blog post might only have one footnote and then it looks a little pointless and lonely. EDIT: I now realise I had nothing to worry about, but I don't have the determination to go back and change my whole asterisking system.

***Yup, this piece of s@#t took an hour to write, and it's even below the average of how long they normally take. Once I spent three hours writing a very bad blog post with a much less poignant message, though looking back it did make me chuckle.

****Guarantee I get a job as a newspaper columnist based on this puny waste of time. Karma is a bitch.

Evening all!

It has been a very long time since I last blogged - and oddly, this doesn't seem to have sat too well. I've done a bit of travelling in the past few weeks and a few of the people I've met up with have said "Hey, you haven't blogged for a while". They then haven't concluded with cruel phrases like "Good riddance","That was always the worst 5 minutes of my week wasted on reading" or "The legal department thanks you for your muted actions".

And while in my very last posting (which I didn't want you to read, I only wanted to write. Long time ago, long story, and this is a long post planned so I should probably close this bracket immediately) I emphasised that talking is better than writing and thus I should only keep you informed via the medium of spoken word - I can't help but feel this was wrong. I enjoyed writing these useless blabberings, and mostly I enjoyed the attention received when people living miles away kept up to date with the intricacies of how my life is going.

Short aside, I just googled intricacies and noticed that I spelt it correctly on my first attempt - that is unless I've spelt it so wrong that I've spelt out a completely different, but similarly correct, word. Assuming that's not the case, add 5 nerd points to the basket!

So the long-winded conclusion for writing this: it is inevitable that I lose touch with a good chunk of people from university, and from home, and I want people to know how my life is going right now. And attention is awesome, so I'd best make it funny as I need you sticking around 'til the end.

And where to start with the update? Well, I'm now a financial journalist, living in London. However, if you didn't already know that then congratulations, you are so out of the loop that I may as well make all kind of nonsense statuses, safe in the knowledge that you aren't in a position to prove me wrong. Such as:

I can fly.

I've recently moved back from the Bahamas where I now taught surfboarding to investment bankers in the hope that I could steal their wallets when my lack of surfing skill inevitably causes them to fall. Many do not take their wallets with them into the sea, making this career choice fiscally negative.

I have broken the speed of sound, though you must never ask me how.

Right, back to reality, where I am a 21 year old man of the people and part-time Naked Human Jenga™ world champion.

So yeah, I moved to London at the end of January and this is where I plan to stay. I've been out travelling for the past three weeks and I've realised that London is fine, if not remarkably weird, because realistically I still know no-one outside of work. Going to Lincoln University was a great experience, but I have learnt that it  makes little sense to go to a place that is both nowhere near either your home nor the place where you're planning to build your glittering career.

If, and when, I learn to turn back time, I think I'll put it on my list to accept a place at London Kingston above an unnecessary trip to the North. This will take precedence over my efforts to research Baby Jesus and the beginning of all humanity, and will ultimately leave me little time to travel back and get myself off the Sex Offenders Register. Given the inevitability of this reoccuring, I may just scrap that plan altogether.

Where was I? Ah yes London, although technically still in Capel. Now I'm midsentence, where I don't plan to stay for long.

Right, let's get serious. If this was Bad Boys, this would be the part where the camera pans around as I realise now its time to get moody and begin to really kick arse. Unfortunately I don't have a camera to perform this motion, but I do have a sauce that I could pan around and make a mighty fine omelette with.

So from here? Well hopefully London will see flocks of graduates I know coming to stay permanently, in exactly the opposite motion of what I expect to happen from my home village. For now it is bearable (there is a Mother Bear/Father Bear joke to be made here but I'm already aware that this post is beginning to veer so far off course that it is practically the blog version of Lost), and you can't beat having the entire city at your doorstep. Throw in the fact that I have genuine love for my job and actually I've got it pretty sweet.

In fact I need to start branching out and doing more with my life.

I'm aware that in my last post I made declarations that at some point I would like to get in shape, learn to drive, learn shorthand etc, and that despite these ambitions, I've done naff all towards these. I think that one step at a time is the right aim for now - I watched Thor the other day, and the first part of my plan is to get as ripped as the Holy God of Thunder. This is largely because even though in the movie Natalie Portman believes he is homeless and a weirdo, once he unveils his rippling man muscles and 34C cup boob-breasts, he inevitably pulls the dame without ever really developing a personality. I need this luxury.

(Apologies to anyone who may be going to see Thor and who has just had a small part of the plot callously ruined. To make up for this I can tell you that: A) there are no more nipple scenes with the ladies, and that B) the UGC in Ipswich still accepts student cards even if you are a working man. Either way I just saved you a full £7 admission or a wise £2.50 discount, so hopefully now I'm back in your good books. Ooo, I should write a good book).

AT THIS POINT MY FIREFOX CRASHED AND I SPENT 5 LONG MINUTES THINKING I'D SPENT A VERY LONG HOUR AND A HALF BEING ABSOLUTELY WASTED BEFORE THE AUTOSAVE FACILITY OF LIVE JOURNAL SAVED MY SKIN - I shall use this to be inspired and turn your life around in text format*

So after getting the muscle, and then inevitably getting the girls, I think I need to turn my attentions to learning to drive. Admittedly I don't need a car and have the whole city on my doorstep (afterall - the world is my Oystercard!!!! << I now wonder how many bad advertising campaigns this catchphrase has made it into? If none, I shotgun trade marking of it), I feel like if I ever wanted a job where I might need a car, it's a very useful skill to have. 

I still haven't given up on the dream of being a jetsetting Formula 1 journalist however, despite not be making all of the progress to be the best candidate to become one. The other day I did buy a couple of books about the 2006 and 2008 seasons, because it both interests me and gives me pointers to the things I want to talk about if I ever got into a position where I could do it professionally. Words can't describe how much I'd love to turn a passionate hobby into a dream job...unfortunately I was led to believe that crass jokes in an unfunny blog could help portray this, but now I just have egg on my face. Good omelette though.

Right, it's getting late and I've described absolutely nothing. Will try to update more often, but if not then supplement yourself to mini-blog updates through my constantly-updated Facebook and Twitter feeds.

It's good to be back.

Hickley



*I jest. It's more fun trying to be funny.

Evening all!

It has been a very long time since I last blogged - and oddly, this doesn't seem to have sat too well. I've done a bit of travelling in the past few weeks and a few of the people I've met up with have said "Hey, you haven't blogged for a while". They then haven't concluded with cruel phrases like "Good riddance", "That was always the worst 5 minutes of my week wasted on reading" or "The legal department thanks you for your muted actions".

And while in my very last posting (which I didn't want you to read, I only wanted to write. Long time ago, long story, and this is a long post planned so I should probably close this bracket immediately) I emphasised that talking is better than writing and thus I should only keep you informed via the medium of spoken word - I can't help but feel this was wrong. I enjoyed writing these useless blabberings, and mostly I enjoyed the attention received when people living miles away kept up to date with the intricacies of how my life is going.

Short aside, I just googled intricacies and noticed that I spent it correctly on my first attempt - that is unless I've spelt it so wrong that I've spelt out a completely different, but similarly correct, word. Assuming that's not the case, add 5 nerd points to the basket! 

So the long-winded conclusion for writing this: it is inevitable that I lose touch with a good chunk of people from university, and from home, and I want people to know how my life is going right now. And attention is awesome, so I'd best make it funny as I need you sticking around 'til the end.

And where to start with the update? Well, I'm now a financial journalist, living in London. However, if you didn't already know that then congratulations, you are so out of the loop that I may as well make all kind of nonsense statuses, safe in the knowledge that you aren't in a position to prove me wrong. Such as:

I can fly.

I've recently moved back from the Bahamas where I now taught surfboarding to investment bankers in the hope that I can steal their wallets when my lack of surfing skill inevitably causes them to fall. Many do not take their wallets with them into the sea, making this career choice fiscally negative.

I have broken the speed of sound, though you must never ask me how.

Right, back to reality, where I am a 21 year old man of the people and part-time Naked Human Jenga TMTMTMTMTMTMT world champion.

So yeah, I moved to London at the end of January and this is where I plan to stay. I've been out travelling for the past three weeks and I've realised that London is fine, if not remarkably weird, because realistically I still know no-one outside of work. Going to Lincoln University was a great experience, but I have learnt that it would have made more sense to go to a place that is both nowhere near either your home nor the place where you're planning to build your glittering career.

If, and when, I learn to turn back time, I think I'll put it on my list to accept a place at London Kingston above an unnecessary trip to the North. This will take precedence over my research into Baby Jesus and religion; however, it will still rank below my master plan to

Evening!

I’ve not written a blog for a few weeks, and more importantly I’ve not written a silly zero-comment one for nigh-on two months! Perhaps the reason for this: I’m maturing. More logical perhaps is the fact that I’ve now got incredibly little time to fritter away – so on that note, probably time I got on with this entry J

One more reason for the lack of updates is that simply, I’ve not really been up to much lately. Yes I managed to score a trip to Brussels for work, but that was strictly for business. In fact, I’d say that with early waking hours, long days and early nights, the only real part that was different about it was the fact that I was in a totally different city – very handy when you consider my abysmal sense of direction, and the fact that I couldn’t understand a word people said when trying to get me back on track. “Bla-de bla-de bla, merci” “OK, so somewhere in that general direction, thanks!” I don’t think the Belgian taxi trade has never seen such heights. The actual event I was at, the Eurofi financial forum, was fairly interesting and had some very important people speaking, so it was good that I went, even if the 5.30 (English time) start on the Wednesday reinvented my hatred for a time that I never truly knew existed. I’ve always been aware of such a time, but then went ahead and discovered three years of 12 o’clock starts at uni. I’d compare the disappointment to when Columbus came back from America and then spent a weekend in Macclesfield. Not a happy realisation, especially now that I’ve metaphorically moved there.

However, in actual life moving, I’m now back in with my Grandma! Papa Bear is at the party conferences and obviously I can’t drive, so it’s the only real way to get to a train station in the mornings. Add learning to drive up there with my list which now includes: Learn shorthand, write a movie, learn the ‘language of love’, make blog funny again, learn French, get back to somewhere near in shape and catch up on lost sleep. It would seem that actually, Uni didn’t really teach us all that much at all :P 

I made a (pretty poor, 4/10 at best) joke in one of my blogs that I’ve been living the life of a 52 year old, but now I’m in with Granny I’m now emulating the life of a seventy............six (?) year old. My Friday night was spent having half a beer and watching Strictly Come Dancing. And I fucking ENJOYED IT. Matt Baker’s hips moved to angles never seen before, and it was majestic. The Strictly incident isn’t alone - last Thursday I went for a 20 minute jog and literally couldn’t sleep because my back was in agony. I’m now at an age where I actually can use the cool older guy card (especially when combined with flashing the ‘cool older guy business card!’), but I can’t help but think I’m overdoing it. That said, I’m gonna need to flash those relevant cards, after having the realisation the other day that about 95% of single the women I know really well (read: whose middle names I know!) are in different cities, with a whole load of travellers and uni-goers down here combined with the fact that none of the Uni totty was from around here.

(Oooo, before I forget, one of my less mature and more primary school-esque actions in Brussels was during a pretty boring roundtable event, where I tried to change the lyrics of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Sexyback’ to reflect the my dodgy one. Basically instead of the ‘dirty babe! You see these shackles baby I’m your slave’ part, I noticed that I could use the word ‘Vertebrae! You see me cackle baby I’m in pain’. I couldn’t finish the album as it turns out that in fact I am paid as a journalist, not as a lyrical genius, but add it to the list! I can make it the movie soundtrack! Right, back onto the women troubles)

Obviously the brightest thing to do here would be to man up and seduce the pants off of a whole new group of ladies, but that’s awfully hard to achieve with dodgy vertebrae and a ten o’clock curfew. However, I have taken the first step, surveying ladies in my phone book with their opinions on whether it’s time again to regretfully shave off the sideburns. The results were incredibly even, despite changing voting rights around; singular votes were given to girls in relationships or who I’m happy to be in the friend zone with, double votes for those with MASSIVE CHESTPILLOWS, and three if I’ve fancied the pants off them at some point in the recent present. I believe it’s quite a similar method to the Dominican Republic’s way of voting. I can’t help but think I’ve been senselessly cockblocking myself since college by keeping the stupid things :S I know all cockblocks hurt, but if the difference between me ending up with the perfect lady and with Palmela was those stupid face-warmers, it would’ve taken some strong medication to take the sting away. There could well be other reasons, but my mission to not die alone (from Alzheimers, in about a year and a halves time) might just be underway as soon as I make it back to Capel. By the way it needs pointing out that Microsoft Word keeps putting a red line under all things cockblock related, which poses numerous questions about what on earth Microsoft are doing with their lives. Regardless of whether Apple actually have the same spellchecking methods, I’ll bet their cockblocks only come up with red lines to warn you about the dangers of doing it...

Always nice to get in a paragraph on the ‘art of cockblocking’ – (which coincidentally is gonna is the draft name of my autobiography). Time for just a few serious points however. Living at grannies is good, it’s nice, but straight after Uni it kinda sucks. Don’t get me wrong, obviously I love having a bit of cash and I love having an actual chance at a route into journalism, but it from here it does feel like I’ve had a three year bender and now I’m starting a mammoth hangover. Nothing will get close to the lack of responsibility, the late nights and just total absence of ever waking up in the mornings that was Uni. I’ve got the job until the end of the year, if I keep it after that then I absolutely have to find an apartment in/near London so it doesn’t take an hour and a half/two hours to get into work. However I also totally know that if I didn’t have a job the hangover after Uni would be much worse, so for the negatives mentioned, there are plenty of positives too. And also on hangovers – not getting pissed up quite so often means that if I so much as touch a beer now then I pay for it bad on the next day (another sign I’m getting old!). I’m so far past my hangover-proof status that was the second year at Uni that I’m considering imposing a four beer maximum limit on myself for the next week or two. Since I only get two days a week off, it doesn’t make much sense to hate life on one of them.

Right, it’s half 10 and that means I’m being overly rebellious in staying awake any longer, no matter how much I’m enjoying watching Liverpool losing to Blackpool :) Which reminds me, I’ve taken to blogging about epic events, for which add watching Brentford beating Everton to the list.

Night all

Hickley

Ah, hello once again nation!

Just over a year ago I went to Munich, and within a few weeks had forgotten too many of the finer details about what had occurred there. As a result I made a promise to blog less about moronic things, while updating more about the times that are special to me. In completely unrelated news, I just graduated.  

I assume most of the people that read these offerings I went to uni with, and thus attended the ceremony, but for the three other readers I'll give a brief outline. On the 8th of September, Lincoln Journalism students became graduates, before getting rather tiddley. On the 9th, we had a ball, we all looked sexylicious, we got tiddley, and I lost a record-breaking amount of manpride after weeping at the prospect of leaving. I'll give you a minute for that to sink in.

In pure manpoints terms, its gotta be at least four digits that are immediately written off my tally, with further implications depending on the nature of future banter. For ladies who may not be aware of the precise figures here, it's a similar loss to that of accidentally hacking off a limb, or making a move on a blood relative. I'm generally not a crier - I mean, I had so much fun watching Bambi's mother perish that I went out hunting the whole next week. Now I'm stuck in a horrible situation where I look like a buffoon, albeit I did manage an incredible amount of reconciliation hugs as a result. I've been trying to figure out a way to instantly restore my sterling reputation - it's gotta be something between a threesome with the Olsen twins and reaching the semis of the World's Strongest Man.

Of course, the reasoning is that me showing emotion probably gives a pretty good interpretation of my feelings of the three years. (Here's the part where I repeat a lot of the conversations had over the past few days, so apologies for repetition, particularly for Mr Salmon, who largely shares the same emotions!) The thing that struck me was how we hadn't seen each other for around three months, but it felt like three minutes. We'd left everything and it was as if we'd only left the room. Then of course, two minutes later everyone was gone and away. I’ve always said that my favourite part of Uni was that by the end of it, I couldn’t go shopping or put in a late night dissertation session without bumping into one or two of the random people while on the way. Really the main thing that got me going was the prospect of never seeing some of those people again, or certainly not as a giant group that we almost took for granted for a whole three years. Obviously the main people are gonna be around forever, but don’t underestimate the effect that the little people had on me too J

Right, so there’s the mushy part for the audience. The bits of the past few days I really want to have written down are pretty much just how shitfaced everyone was on the Wednesday, how I was one of the elite 40 or so men to have Beasley drunkenly stick his tongue down my throat (I’ll assume he was battered, seeing as it tasted like whiskey and shame), the consecutive food fights in McDonalds (one as I made constant jokes about herpes, the other being ‘Burgerfaced!’ as a result of my vanished manpride), the view of two utterly hungover tables in Nandos the night after, giggling our arses off on the Friday while mocking the Mansfield accent and the setting up precautions if I make a phone call, and getting in half an hour before my alarm would normally be waking me up for the working week. Add to this just the feeling of loving being a student again – I can’t remember the last Thursday morning I had a spare hour to go hunting for Tropicana, or the freedom to actually be binging on a weeknight. I do also appreciate how damn lucky I am to just have a job in journalism; I think I know one other person with a full-time job and she hasn’t even started it yet, while I know people who got firsts and are now working in BnQ. Naturally I’m happy to have the attention surrounding my shiny new business cards, but I’m gonna need a fully trained and experienced workforce for the launch of Hickley News ;)

So yeh, that was the best few days I’ve had for a while. I’m not quite sure what the next major event will be that I write up (I was kind of tempted to write one about going to the zoo recently :P), but I like the way that in years to come I can stumble across a written recording of pure enjoyment. Needless to say the moronic blog posts will continue – I love attention too much not to. And I can’t help but think that a few of you need a similarly low-content piece of junk to keep me posted about those great moments that the future is gonna hold.

I'll see you when I see you!

Hickley BA Hons. 

Hi gang! Today’s blog promises to be as ranting and angry as ever before, and, for one time only, covers a genuine actual topic!

For the past few days there’s been an article in the papers that can only be defined as a newspaper ‘story.’ I mean it’s so imaginative that parents have literally been seen reading it to their pyjama-clad kids at night, lulling them into crazy dreams about astronauts and dinosaurs and fake gay affiars. I am of course talking about this incredible, mind blowing, sensational, scandal into the world of politics. It’s been everywhere – the fact that William Hague and his advisor ARE NOT GAY! This picture will reveal all:

Since the taking and unveiling of this picture, Mr Hague’s advisor, Christopher Myers, has quit, further elevating the allegations that something maybe might’ve happened between the two once ever. I can just imagine the thought process of the editor who firstly thought about running the scandal. “Oh good god, colleagues in politics who enjoy each other’s company!? And they’re wearing sunglasses in the shade? They must be hiding something!”

And so with this, and the revelation that Mr Hague and Mr Myers SHARED A HOTEL ROOM WHILE ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, led to the story being everywhere – firstly the gossipy tabloids where you’d expect it, then genuine real papers like The Telegraph and even the Financial Times (because fake gay propaganda is of course financial!), before incredibly making the transition into this blog. Every one of the biggest news outlets in the world will be covering it by the end of Friday.

Makes me kinda glad I’m not in politics. Imagine the revelations that would come out with these kind of photos:

 

Holy crap! "Hickley’s gay lover approves of their recent sordid affair, while the shamed politician even attempts to seduce our undercover reporter!"

Btw this needs a disclaimer - the photo was taken over three years ago and the body has gotten hairier since!

The Daily Liar sees Mr Hickley tame the snake in a sordid sex affair with six other shameful sinners, in what our sources described as a sadomasochistic sexy party! Hickley was unavailable for comment, thanks to being stuck in what was thankfully a literal tunnel.

(Now the first part of this will happen shortly at graduation, with the sadomasochistic stuff optional, though the chance of an undercover journalist uncovering it all on us is all the greater when you consider what course we’re all graduating from. Plus I believe the guy to girl ratio kipping on Salmon/Pete/Katie’s floor is pretty equivalent to every bar we’ve ever gone in, so probably have to ditch that idea and just....sleep?)

Now getting back to the Hague stuff, he’s now come out in a long statement to confirm he’s in actual fact not gay, and has had problems with a number of miscarriages that have blighted his attempt to start a happy family with a loving wife. Now I’m not Mr Hague’s biggest fan, I thought he was too smug to lead the party back when I didn’t pay any attention to politics (not that I really do in huge detail now, but I do pay more attention to the news a lot more, plus I fancied a really big rant in this blog), but c’mon! The guy is making this big statement because of one normal f***king photo, his adviser has given up a potential career (smart guy to get out of there, I’ve gotta say) and now we’ve found out personal information from a guy who we employ to run the country, not so we can read exclusive interviews over his on-off relationship with Peter Andre. Imagine the scandal if he and the missus ever manage to have a child and it’s born hairless, just as the coalition announces a £100m budget cut. “Dr Evil and Mini Me set to take over Downing Street!” Probably for the best to cut off one more ridiculous angle for ‘news’ to be created.

It’s a little bit too ridiculous. It got me thinking about other headlines that could’ve been made out of seemingly normal photos and information. So Hague and the adviser were sleeping together on the campaign trail – unbelievable generosity for him to not ransack the party’s budget on more expensive separate rooms. Probably the worst part is that there’s a genuine chance that Hague and/or his advisor will now be on the front pages of the gossip magazines this week.

Now whilst I don’t understand why people buy the gossips, I will allow them to gain fun out of reading them, in the same way that some people might not understand why I love F1 (by the way, the race at Spa – f#@king brilliant!) but they don’t spend their lives lecturing me on whatever other sports are out there. But we’ve got this guy as one of the major people charged with running our country! Does he really need the distraction of trying to clarify his rather secure sexuality when we’re in the worst economic run since the Second World War?! Let him do his job! Criticise if he helps wreck the economy or if we get invaded by Iran, but if he in fact doesn’t turn gay, then for the love of god, find a real story to talk about. Now for those of you out there who might say there that there’s no smoke without fire, and that there might be a crazy gay affair out there, then I'll simply speculate that it's arson ;)

/rant over.

In genuine actual news I’m not gonna say anything much, as I don’t wanna ruin catch-up conversations for graduation. I don’t know what I’m looking forward to more: seeing everyone again, receiving a piece of paper that says I’m smarter than you, or the concept of a one-day working week. Gonna have to side with the paper, so long as it’s bigger than A4 and impressively laminated.

Ah wait one thing - the girls have done a good job of keeping us informed about their progress on getting dresses sorted, so I'll point out that I've got my tux sorted and hanging on my bedroom door. To cut it short: Mr Hague, his advisers and half of Britain will be turned gay by the sexual explosion that is me putting in effort to dress up. Kinda intruiged as to how it's gonna work on the ladies however!

Peace out, and stop making up crappy journalism. Or at least have an imagination about it ;)

Hickley

Howdy!

I'm currently laying on my couch on an average Saturday morning, appearing to once again be hangoverproof after a 3 month hiatus, having had a pristine hair cut by Mr John the Barber. Apparently the hairdresser man in Bentley misunderstood that when I asked for my last trim, that I also wanted the fringe to be cut - John has allowed me to get life back on track, transforming me from the fringemonster to a respectable looking man once again. However this came with sacrifice, as he's trimmed the sideburns down to look as weary and shrivelled as when I entered the freezing Centre Parks plunge pool in the middle of winter! ;)

I'm weary right now: despite only being in work twice this week, it's gonna take time to get used to waking up at quarter to six again. Add this to the fact that I'm carrying wounds from being out last night (I think I need to start doing stretches before hitting the dancefloor! Walking up and down the stairs should not put this much pain on a man supposedly in his prime!), and today might end up being a bit low-key. Despite this monotonous day, I once again feel like writing another one of these bloggings. Plus, I've got something epic to say. Just let me make some bad jokes first!

Man I miss my sideburns already. There could well be benefits to their absense - the other day when walking with Kingy from the shops, some nasty high school kids engaged in what can only be described as an Elvis impression! It took me until a minute or two later to realise they were not in fact in genuine conversation with each other, meaning that any opportunity of bouncing back round and quickly yelling "Thank you very much" in a witty King-like manner, had well and truelly passed. Obviously Mr Elvis is an easy stereotype to mock - I kinda wonder if I'd gone walking around like Miss Lady Gaga if they'd try and hit some lighter notes before breaking into a "Ra ra ahaha, rah mah, baah bah!" little number (lyrics to Bad Romance, in case you didn't grab that!). In which case it would probably be worth the looks I'd receive for looking like one of the weirdest transsexuals in the business.

With graduation coming up, I've yet to decide just how to look for the all-important photos. I've noticed that those who've already had graduation (read: everyone but those at Lincoln!) have proud photos plastered all around their homes, so I assume that the Hickley household will be similar. We all know that the caps and outfits in general look ridiculously silly - add in a pair of over the top sideburns, and I could look stupidly foolish in a set of photos forever. Too much burn and when i finally sober up and realise there's gotta be a reason why no-one else wears a similar pair of facial hair, and I'll be cursing the fact that I didn't give it enough consideration. Along with buying a few more years of parent proudness, graduation will also mean that I'll finally have a modern day photo up around the house - I can't allow myself to have even a (facial) hair out of place!

Right, news. As you can probably tell from these dulcet ramblings, I've matured heavily since leaving University, adding a high brow level of professionalism along and a hardworking ethic and a bedtime curfew :P I had six weeks of work experience before two weeks off with nothing to do, which was great to recharge my batteries, but it did get boring quickly. After that I was back in the office for Thursday, and within an hour of my return, I was offered a job til December :D

I've been through the motions about it, but there's been no point where I thought I'd turn it down. I don't feel young at all very much (what with commuting in with Papa Bear, I've essentially been living the life of a 52 year old, just without getting the joys of a mid-life crisis!) anymore, but it's getting to the point where it's kinda my duty to work hard. The social life will be completely decimated, a result of waking up at 5:40 and getting back for 7:20, and once I start getting taxed I'll be earning peanuts due to huge train fares. In fact the only time now that I'm feeling young is at work, where I'm surrounded by people in their late 20s and early 30s :) It was definitely a confidence booster when we celebrated a workmates' birthday, and someone joked that she was 21 again ;) 

By the sounds of it my workload is gonna be a bit higher than it's been, meaning I won't be able to spend all day in Twitter banter with Mr Farr, and losing other such luxuries. Which reminds me, he complained that my last blog didn't have enough 'bant,' criticising me for not having a big enough go at him for not being able to go to my original birthday date. Now I have a chance to abuse him, I shall take it :)

Unwritten rule of life: if you don't know the middle name of the person whose wedding you're going to, then common sense dictates that you blow that event off to celebrate the birthday of the man you've known since the age of five! Regardless of the ease that I had in scrapping the original date! What a moron! I'll leave it at that, but if you're attending the birthday, take the opportunity to shun this senseless mug and his ludicrous conversations.

Think that's the end of what I've got to say! Tune in next time, where we'll learn just why cows love milking day.

Peace and love homedogs

Hickley

Afternoon!

Today I've got an urge to write something. Yesterday I watched the German GP, a decent and definitely an eventful F1 race, so spent 40 minutes writing a pretty decent Fancast article - having volunteered to write about Ferrari at the start of the season, I was well aware I was volunteering to have a time in the season where there'd be massive controversy and shame that I'd need to write about. This time came, and the article seemed pretty class, outstripping the 600 word limit safe in the knowledge it was a shining example of objective journalism, exploring sovereign issues of ethical behaviour, the notion of true champions and sporting excellance*. Then Firefox, which I've been reliably informed was a great Internet explorer compared with Microsoft's apparently poor version, couldn't deal with the simple act of Facebook chat and the whole fecking thing got deleted! Needless to say the version I've just completed now wasn't quite up to scratch of the original, but the whole experience has made me remember that I really love to just put myself onto a page, and that I've not done a blog in a fair while.

So what's going on in life to write about? I've recently considered a dramatic career change - having just spent twenty minutes on the roof of my shed with the instruction to chop down the overflowing hedge beneath, I think I'm ready to abandon the three year degree in order to become a world famous tree surgeon. If I could conduct fantastic life saving tree surgery.....could I finally be allowed to be called Dr Hickley?

Yup, with this quickly developing passion for tree artistry needs to be banished, though I imagine it'll quickly run along - probably due to the fact it was the first manual labour I've done since I partied because it really was 1995. Other such loves and passions have been and gone just as quick (remember when I said I was gonna get into cracking shape, or the faintly heralded waistcoat period?), though right now an annoyance with Radio 1 has got me in love with the banjo. Obviously listening to such a station, you expect disappointment, but I've noticed over the past few days that it's easier to boogie on down to the ridiculously annoying Spotify ads than it is listening Scouting for Girls. Throw in the fact that you actually get genuine music inbetween this discofest, and there's really no other genuine option for my aching eardrums. So a bit of cheeky Mumford and Sons has delivered well, and I can't lie, I'm out of sync with most modern music so am not listening to much else right now! I don't suppose anyones got any decent suggestions for new music? This crappy blog: interesting and informative, but only for me ;)

It may well be time to point out that I'm still technically on work experience, despite the fact that I'm writing this moronic tale in the middle of the start of a normal working week. I'm not on probation, it's just that after six pretty damn enjoyable working weeks, there's no August issue and no real reason for me to be about. It's good to have a break because I was getting quite knackered, but I do miss it already. The last issue I had quite a big hand in, there's my byline on quite a few pages, and now that three weeks have passed (considerable time for any lawsuits to have logically begun proceedings!), I'm quite proud of what I did. I interviewed a Harvard professor over email, phoned a bunch of important people from the Brazilian government, phoned some European Members of Parliaments to assist a colleague with an article, and HAVE NEVER BEEN SO FAR OUTSIDE MY COMFORT ZONE! I believe next week begins the process of writing the September issue, so onwards and upwards. After that hopefully I can do enough to convince them to give me a full-time contract, otherwise I'll start to seriously consider bringing together a specialised team to go and mercilessly chop down woodland with; unless anyone else can think of a more superior method of middle-class rebellion.

In other news, I'm actually really looking forward to my birthday this year. I've started the Facebook event for it, with the date changed to the 21st of August to double up with my mate Kingy's 21st. On about three occasions he's complimented my bloggings, so don't worry he's a man of inherant style and cool! I'm not quite sure where the hell I'm gonna house everyone if even a quarter of the people invited come, but the fact that I'm actually organising things this year means I can probably work around that. Admittedly the original plan for my 21st was to do it in a ball of fire in Las Vegas, partying on millions of pounds won at the poker tables, but I'm looking the fuck forward to this. I'm a birthday scrooge - my 18th was poorly organised and not a lot of folks showed, on my 19th there were literally two people in town (though heavily drunken discussions about clevage peeking and the godess that was Ulrika Jonsson in her prime was enjoyable!), and for my 20th I had to wake up at half 5 the following day to get to Leeds festival :P Now that half the world is on Facetube there's no real excuse to not get some sort of plan organised well in advance, now people need to book time off work. I'm not doing a festival this year because I wanted to be totally committed to this job, but I'm keeping the stupid wristbands on as a reminder of how good the last two were. The wristbands also help give me a real sense of fear - there's a definite tanline that's grown underneath them, and I can only imagine that there's a similar one developing right underneath my sideburns!

So now I'm thinking maybe Vegas for the 23rd? Being a student and having no money saved kinda ruined the dream of visiting as soon as I legally could, but it's still the number 1 place I wanna holiday to. Poker is actually going extremely well now I've got a working laptop and some time off, with my online account having the most money in it since about 2007, combined with the fact that I don't actually have to withdraw it all to fund my summers drinking, and who knows, maybe I'll have a bankroll to fulfil the dream in two years time :)

Right, I've got about another week to waste, and there's not a moment to lose

Tree Dr Hickley


___________________________________________________________

*This is all total bullshit

Evenin folks!

I'm sat at my laptop watching Friends, sipping on a nice cold beer, and finally getting round to writing another one of these. It appears the majority of folks are in good spirits; for uni people it's results day and almost everyone seemed to be happy with their results, and for the working folks, well it's Monday and no-one seems to hate life until at least Tuesday afternoons :)

Personally I'm in good spirits - after a 60.2% score last year I wasn't too excited by the fact my grade could only really get worse, but knew I worked hard enough to add at least another cheeky per cent to my score :) Having spent each month since handing in my dissertation boasting about how great it was obviously gonna be, it was great to actually deliver. It's weird having a proper results day for the first time since Sixth form, when I had two beers then got thrown out of the pub for still being f#%ing 17, before ending up going bra shopping! (With other folks, may I hasten to add). This time around I went for a celebratory walk around Soho, before the beverage or two - even if I've done it the wrong way round, there's some serious similarities, no matter how things have changed! Unlike college times, there's no foam party or pub session to attend to, for I, temporarily, am a working man :)

I've got myself some work experience for a financial reporting magazine, my god it's outside my comfort zone but it's really cool. I've now been there for a month and a day, and it's been good to me. I'm actually a journalist, I've now interviewed people from Brazil and over the weekend, a Harvard Professor got back to me, and even if it's not where I ultimately wanna end up (which is somewhere between: poker world champion/presenting the News at Ten/the new Hugh Hefner; tick off where appropriate), or an area I have any real expertise in at all, it's been cool :) I've got two months left, with a two week holiday as August is the one month where we don't do an edition, but who knows, maybe I can hopefully get it full-time. I'm sure that everyone else would kill for a lucky break like this so I'm sure as shit gonna give it my all and hope for the best. And unlike usual, I don't just mean that in writing, I can deliver! Right now I'm waking up at 5:40 each and every working morning, so essentially by the time this is written I'll be very ready for bed. I also spent two weeks living with my Grandma (who oddly hasn't been assigned a bearish family nickname :P) while Mother and Paps were on holiday, but hell, the World Cup couldn't have timed itself better and my laptops been fixed again. Even in the land before broadband, a glorious Brentford to Wolves to Chelsea Footy Manager game can keep me preoccupied for days on end :D (DISCLAIMER: I don't care about your rival Footy Manager game, so don't respond with information on it towards this blog. We all know that we men love to talk about our FM games but I couldn't give a crap about yours, in spite of any 17 year old wonderkids you're still banging on about. If you want to boast about your own achievements, find an excuse to put them in your own crappy blog! /rant over)

Right, we need a new paragraph.

Right, we need something to talk about in this paragraph. Ah yes! As some of you may've seen from a Facebook update, I may've equalled out you all with the elusive trip to Manchester, in the form of a day in Brussels to report on some conferences. Now for those who also didn't get to go to Manchester, I promise to inadvertently make a pass at your unknowing Mothers, to unwittingly further break your spirit in a pretty bitchslapping paragraph of doom.

OK fine I'm aware Brussels is a tad nicer than Manchester, but I can imagine there's a few out there who're equally as pissed as I was when others were given the chance (hence, writing this blog while it appears everyone is happy with the world!). I know I'm a lucky bastard, but like I said, I'm not throwing this chance away. My social life is totally dead, with bedtime being about 10:15, but I'd rather have that be dead and buried than throw into jeopardy a potential ladder into the journalism window. Even if I don't get this gig full-time, the chance to put some normal corporate bullshit like "visiting a foreign country a few weeks after starting something I know nothing about demonstrates my willingness to work outside my comfort zone," when really it's also the case of taking anything going, should serve me very well in the interviewing process. As will obviously keeping the link to my blog on the CV, and having employers discovering that statement ;)

I don't quite know if you could call it homesickness since everyones gone, but it's been weird thinking back to uni times. Obviously having the job and not having the time to contemplate life has really helped, since I would've been a mopey mess straight after leaving, but I didn't really have anytime to think about how things have changed. Then I stumbled upon just a few songs on my iPod that was a catalyst for the weird feeling - I've been listening to a lot of The Enemy lately, and had completely forgotten the lyrics to the aptly titled This Song, which summed up the things going on in my life, save for the line about not being able to sleep. Sleep comes easy when you're up before you're coming in from nights out at uni ;) Well except for the Sunday night last week where I got to sleep at about 2...that set up a fun week. Add in the 5 o'clock start for Brussels and a 45 minute delay for a 20 minute bus ride, and I'll gladly admit I was grumpzilla!

I can't lie, I definitely hated leaving, but I think I've been good about it so far. It did strike me that after graduation, the next time a lot of folks I love will see me will be when I'm sat reading Trevor McDonald's autocue, but that was always gonna happen. Graduation ball is most likely gonna be one of the weirdest nights of my life, but if the drunken-hug-to-breathing-ratio lives up to the end of the year, it'll be a blast ;) I think the last week of uni has also persuaded me to give up on sober hugs - hugs definitely aren't the same unless you're crushing lungs and feeling pulses! I also had a dream last night about the grad ball, where it ended with the brilliant Satriani playing Ceremony (man I'm full of handy hyperlinks today! And just to add to it, here, ask yourself an important philosophical question) and then for some reason when it was over it turned out to be gig sponsored by people against corruption in FIFA. The mind thinks what it thinks.

So I think for the members of KYOTO (Key Young Obtainers of Two Ones) I'm finished writing, and I look forward to seeing you at graduation. Obviously there's a few know-it-all first achievers reading, but so long as you keep to the rules of the New and Improved Party Preperation Liberation Equilibrium Society at graduation, you're off the hook :) I need bed and have to stop making stupid organisational names, enjoy your successes.

Next one will get back to normal by actually being funny and not having content I promise :)

Hickley