Mark Wright’s involvement with Celebrity Deaths

“Mr Wright,” the sharply dressed man purred leaning forward in his seat to address Mark sat across from him, “I am Agent Colahan, and I have some grave news for you.”

Agent Colahan was a suave and sophisticated looking man; clean shaven, slicked hair and a sharp suit. He wore sunglasses indoors and had an ear piece in at all times – a real men in black government type; the kinda guy who hadn’t enjoyed a Christmas since 1996.

“Can I have my lawyer present, mate” asked Mark Wright, of Only Way is Essex ‘fame’, softly. They were sat in a cold interrogation room, in an office building in central London. Mark Wright of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here ‘fame’ was bleary eyed and tired. He had been dragged out of his London Town house at 4 o’clock this morning, awoken by the sound of sirens and policemen knocking at his door.

“You have no reason to be concerned,” continued Agent Colahan, “you aren’t in any real trouble. Not yet.” Colahan’s face was lit up with a smile for the first time since Mark had met him (all of about 10 minutes ago). His stern but stoic expression had given way to a smug grin.

The room was brightly lit, breeze block walls covered in white overpaint; one wall had a large steel door while the opposite was adorned with an even larger one-way mirror that doubled as a viewing window from the other side. It was just like the ones on CSI, Mark thought to himself.

Colahan dropped a large paper file onto the metal desk that lay between them, where it flopped open under the weight of its contents; inside was a print out of a Wikipedia article on Mark Wright, of Strictly Come Dancing ‘fame’, as well as an IMDB cast listing for The Only Way is Essex.

“Tell me Mark, do you remember any celebrity deaths prior to Michael Jackson?” The g-man asked.

Mark Wright, of Take Me Out: The Gossip ‘fame’ sat puzzled for a moment. His brow furrowed as he leant forward and placed his handcuffed arms onto the table with a loud clunk, “What does this have to do with me?” He asked coyly, fear cracking his voice.

“Everything.” The agent snapped, standing up and moving round to sit on the desk next to Mark Wright of Heart Radio Club Classics ‘fame’ and adopts a faux-relaxed demeanour. 
“The reason you struggle to really name any, Mark” began Colahan, the condescension in his voice so thick you could smell it in the air, “is that celebrities didn’t really die prior to MJ, God rest his soul.” He stood, up, and paced the room behind Mark, almost, causing him to have to crane his neck to see the energy bubbling up from inside Colahan.

“Celebrities are immortal Mark, not just figuratively, but quite literally. They draw energy from their creative endeavours, from the entertainment they provide others. Their life force is often extended by their art and the adoration of the general public. Only certain celebs, like MJ or Elvis, reach such a critical mass of pure energy that their legacy crushes them. They are consumed by their own fame”
Mark shook his head laughing, “Who the hell are you?”

“We are the ISPCC.” Colahan states, stopping his pacing abruptly just over Mark’s shoulder. Because of this blind spot, Mark can now only see Colahan through the reflective surface of the mirror upon the wall in front of him. 
“Like the NSPCC?” Mark chuckled.
“For fucks sake Mark, of course not.” He spat, leaning in over Mark’s shoulder “We are the International Society for the prevention of Cruelty to Celebrities.”

Colahan paused for a moment, to let the name sink in. He appeared proud standing up straight, his head held high, his chest pumped.

Mark Wright, of West Ham United Youth Team 94-98 ‘fame’ sat for a moment, his mouth agape with amazement.

“You what?” He asked, practically dumbfounded.

Colahan moved around once again to face Mark, and cut short his laughing with the dramatic slamming of fists onto table top.
“Don’t you laugh at me Mark! Once upon a time Celebrities lived forever! Even you must have noticed the alarming rising mortality rate of celebrities in 2016?”

“Well… I…”

“Shut the fuck up Mark! Let me finish. LET ME FINISH!” Colahan was visibly distressed, sweating. He ran his fingers through his hair, removed his ear piece and glasses and stared deep into Mark’s eyes. “People like you, with no legacy, with no artistic integrity, you have created nothing! And you… and your kind, you have created a disease… a spectre of death – it moves through the celebrity community sucking the life out of those that want to give something back. Because of you, men like Bruce Forsythe might not see another Christmas.”

“What-?” Mark pauses. Colahan is sat breathing heavily, flustered. Mark gathers the courage to ask “so why am I here? What do you want me to do?”

“You are on the list Mark” Colahan whispered, again smiling, but now far more sinister, “I brought you hear to warn you, you are high risk. Older celebs like Cliff Richard are at risk, but so are the vacuous leeches like yourself and Katie Price. As much as I despise you, it’s my duty to protect the public’s favourite people. For reasons I don’t understand, they like you Mark”

Colahan moves over to Mark and undoes his cuffs. “You are free to go. Just be careful, you are at high risk of cosmic forces coming for you. Take care Mark.”

Mark Wright of Daybreak ‘fame’ was understandably stunned. “What about Michelle, my Girlfriend?”

“She’s safe. She’s an artist.” Colahan states dryly, matter of fact, one hand placed on Mark’s shoulder.

“Now go Mark, I need to take a break before we pull Katie Hopkins in here.” He smiles a warmer, friendly smile and winks at Mark, “boy oh boy, she’s in trouble.”

That time I went to London

Public transport is weird; a busy train can bring you into close proximity with so many othe people, yet you can’t help feel so isolated and alone. A rather professional looking man sits in his suit on the morning underground commute opposite me. His hair is fashionably slicked back, his socks a bright wealthy purple peeping out from beneath the hem of his sharply pleated trousers. He is watching videos of kittens on his phone; his pose – almost obnoxiously masculine, his legs spread just about as far as they can go.

I am given the clearest view of his crotch – the seams of his trousers are giving way under the weight of his huge bulging testicles. They move gently as the carriage shakes or jolts over a light bump. The shake, almost quivering with excitement at the prospect of bursting free from their grey cotton prison.

I stare, mesmerised. He doesn’t realised, he’s absorbed in viral videos. For a moment my mind wonders how he is watching these videos on the underground. I never get any signal.

My train of thought is abruptly brought back into ballsack station as I watch the man adjust himself brazenly. Perhaps one damp ball was stuck to his leg, as he jiggled it free. Both of his bollocks slid to the left, sectioned off by a strong quality middle seam. The craftsmanship of the trousers was magnificient. Once again, I find myself spellbound by this man’s humongous genitals; they were not unlike two cabbages held captive within a cell of the finest fabric.
Majestic. 

Absolutely anything

Sue often spends most of her lunch breaks hiding away in the staff room, removed from the prying questions and the forced small talk of the tills. Working in retail has always suited Sue; the supermarket in which she works is only a short walk from her bungalow, and the 4 weekly part-time wage supplements her pension perfectly, allowing her to buy porcelain plates adorned with artful renderings of baby animals. To date, she has bought 17 of them. Her favourite is the one with a giraffe.

However, when it comes to her break times she prefered solace and self reflection as opposed to forced frivolities and workplace ‘banter’. To this day, she didn’t quite understand what banter really was.

Her usual Monday lunch time ritual commences; she opens her Egg and Cress sandwich, taking a single bite before laying it down gently on the pages of her freshly spread OK! magazine. The magazine itself is a few months out of date, a discarded and unwanted gossip rag left behind by a younger co-worker. Sue doesn’t buy them herself, she is contented with hand me downs. She sips her lukewarm tea and cracks open a bag of Walkers Cheese and Onion crisps. However, she doesn’t indulge just yet. She likes to eat them between bites of her Sandwich – she likes the varied texture of soggy bread and egg, juxtaposed against the greasy crispness of a quality fried potato snack. Sue may have simple tastes, but she knows what she likes.

As she tucks further into her sarnie, she hunches over and begins to read the inspirational gossip columns she has grown to love. She seeks solace in these pages; the misfortunes of the rich and famous making her feel more comfortable in her own life as she meekly shuffles down a path of mediocrity and day time TV. But Sue isn’t naïve to this, she is comfortable with this fact.

A particular story catches her eye, not because of a headline or title but because of a picture of a particularly happy Kate Winslet. Sue isn’t usually drawn to this kind of content, preferring the jeering criticisms of celebrities failed beach body transformations, or vulgar commentary on post-natal stretch marks. She can’t put her finger on exactly what it is at first that draws her eye. She begins to read…

“Silver screen success Kate Winslet turned 41 this week, and looks fabulous in this red ball gown worn recently to a premiere in London” the column begins. Sue realises, it’s the dress. It’s beautiful.

“The gorgeous mother of three has been celebrating her third Bafta win this year in spite of a rather harsh comment from her former drama teacher when she was younger. Winslet told press at the ceremony’s after party that her secondary school drama teacher once told her that she would do ‘OK’ in the business if she were happy ‘to settle for the fat girl parts’ in future. Absolutely incredible to think that a young actress would have such mean spirited comments said about her, and then go on to have Leonardo Dicaprio paint a picture of her tits. So next time you’re feeling a bit frumpy, remember, even Kate Winslet was a tubby teen at one time or another.”

Next to the word ‘tits’ was an additional note, scrawled in red biro assumedly by one of Sue’s co-workers. It read “I would do more than paint a picture of those wabs.” Sue had never heard the term wabs before, and could only assume it was referring to Kate Winslet’s breasts.

Sue was surprised at the columns lewd tone. But even more surprising, was how depressing she found the whole thing. She understood that the column was meant to inspire, and explain that even the rich and the famous are sometimes doubted for their looks. But Sue felt a little lost after reading it. She understood that Kate Winslet had proved that bastard drama teacher wrong. Sue was sat at the ripe old age of 61, never married and working part time for Tesco, and she never got that chance to prove her teachers wrong. Or the critics like her brother; the ‘haters’, as her nieces so often call them in their Facebook status updates. What is wrong with artful renditions of baby badgers, expertly printed onto high quality porcelain anyway?

She finishes her sandwich and wipes the crumbs and mayonnaise residue from the corners of her mouth. She looks down at the creamy streak on her finger, dotted with small crumbled pieces of bread crust. She sighs. The bleakness of it all a little too much for a Tuesday lunch time.

Her mind wonders. She feels a stirring within her. A feeling she rarely encounters these days. She frowns, upset. She would happily let Leonardo Dicaprio do whatever he wants to her tits, she thought.  Anything. Absolutely anything.

Emancipate the Emasculate

I just want to say thank you to the people in charge of Original Source shower gel. If you hadn’t written ‘for men’ on the front of your packaging I could have been in for a difficult time, lost down the bathroom product isle of my local super market – my fragile gender identity wandering like a ghost between the assorted peach and tea tree oil infused soap products.

I believe the kids refer to this as ‘having a right ol’ mare’.

Imagine a world where your hygiene and cleanliness products didn’t clearly dictate that it would be OK for a man to use it. I would have been stuck staring a wall of ‘girly’ ones used by women and homosexuals. Thanks Original Source for propping up my delicate sense of masculinity; take me by the hand and guide me, lest I become feminine through the use of the incorrect soap.

I just wish the lovely smelling pink one had been tested and confirmed as alright for male use.

 

Tory Goverment: The Beginning

Sometimes, I write fanfiction on the toilet:

It was a muggy summers afternoon in an Eton classroom. The boys were learning about economics today, something that would come in handy for these young lads in their future roles. You see, Eton boys are destined to rule the country. It says so in the bible.

At the back of the class sits one chubby young man with a fluffy tuft of blonde hair atop the crest of his bulbous head. “One day Cameron, we will be millionaires” sniggered the future Mayor of London as he poked his best mate David in the ribs with a strawberry scented gel pen he had stolen from some commoner.

David’s ears perked up to the sound of future riches. You see, David had aspirations. He was going to be rich, or powerful, or he would die trying. Inspite of this lust to succeed, he was apprehensive of any hair brained scheme Boris cooked up, because Boris always looked like a bit of a clueless twat, “But how Boris?”

“Well that’s easy…” he paused, a cheeky grin creeping across his toad like face, “We will lie to the general populace, sow misinformation and re-appropriate the sense of national pride this country holds so dear through rhetoric and misdirection in order to strip civil liberties from the masses and sell off pauper nonsense like the NHS.”

David sat stunned for a short while, before leaning forward over his copy of ‘Faust and Germanic Folklore’, “That might just be crazy enough to work.”

“Just don’t forget to buy shares in pharmaceutical companies and medical insurance firms first boys!” Chuckled Osborne from the next desk over. George had always been very fiscally responsible.

They all gaffawed and laughed, and patted each other on the back. Boris cleared his throat, patted his whisp of hair down and composed himself.

Standing to attention, he shouts, spittle covering his chin: “Hail Thatcher, Hail Thatcher!” As he does this, he throws a three fingered salute into the air. A giggled echoing chorus erupts from his class mates, all future Conservative ministers.

They then goose stepped out of the room to snort coke and fuck a severed pigs head, or something.

The end.

Bringing Sexy Back (To this blog)

I stumbled across this old blog this morning whilst indulging in the outright narcistic activity of Googling my online alias.

I’ve decided that I’m going to use this as a creative outlet, to share my writing and humour. So I won’t be talking about video games here, that’s for Voletic.com. This is for general humour and silliness. I might share my YouTube content here that isn’t video game or Magic: The Gathering related too, like that time I was violated by another man’s poop smells.

I would say something about not becoming complacent or lazy, but let’s face it, that’s a fucking inevitability. I am a victim of the modern age. 

Coriolanus doesn’t have enough tits in it.

Coriolanus is a modernised adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s less well known tragedies, directed by Ralph Fiennes and starring Voldermort as the titular tragic figure, and Gerard Butler as himself.

It also had the word ‘anus’ in the title.

The basic premise isn’t much different to Baz Luman’s Romeo and Juliet. It’s an old Shakespeare story about star crossed lovers. Only in this case, the lovers are a burly Scotsman and an ancient wizard. They fight for different sides in some war, but they want to have sex. Eventually all the war and death and killing becomes too much for the two of them, and in the middle of a warzone they decide to try and penetrate one another. With military grade combat knives. This erotic knife fight ends with the couple jumping through a window before embracing for a little kiss and cuddle in a bed of broken glass below. I’m not even making that up.

The sexual tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

Voldermort, squeezing one out.

Some of the dialogue is pretty amusing, with Gerard Butler talking about meeting Voldermort ‘beard to beard’. Beyond the obvious sexual undertones of rubbing ones beard with another, I was pretty confused – for the majority of the movie Voldermort doesn’t even have a beard.

Speaking about Voldy’s face, they have done wonders with make-up and CGI to give He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named a fully functioning nose. At one point, I even think I spotted some nasal hair and snot.

There are some more complex undertones aside from the already mentioned homoeroticism, such as political and social commentary, as well as the exploration of what it is that makes a soldier. But all I got from the film was that Voldermort doesn’t listen to Pulp – because he really doesn’t like the common people.

The Dark Lord does well to shrug off the potential type-casting that could have come as a result of his role in Harry Potter. He really makes use of the range afforded to him by the Shakespeare source material; switching between whispered incomprehensible nonsense and being very angry, all with relative ease.  Butler does well at playing himself – being all beardy and Scottish and tough. As usual though, he often looks like he is picking haggis from between his teeth mid-scene.

Gerard looks on lovingly at Voldermort. That, or he is concentrating on picking recently eaten Werther’s Originals out from the corner of his gnashers.

This movie could serve as an introduction to Shakespeare for your attention deficit younger brother; get him to watch it between bouts of swearing at foreigners over X-box live. At some points the film definitely feels like Shakespeare channelled through the medium of Call of Duty, or at least it does for a few moments during the first half of the movie. Unfortunately, after the initial combat scene, which includes some IEDs, rocket launchers, and the aforementioned sexy knife battle, the film slows down to a crawl. So much so that I ended up watching the second half of the movie in 1.5X speed, which made James Nesbit sound like some horrifying amalgamation of Biffy Clyro, Kenneth Branagh and Vanilla Ice.

Ultimately, I was disappointed with the movie; during its entire 123 minute runtime Voldermort doesn’t cast a single spell and Gerard Butler doesn’t even get his boobs out. To improve: More explosions and spells and shit, and at least one scene in which we get to stare lovingly at Gerard Butler’s magnificent tits.

3.5 out of 10.

Halo 4 – First Impression

The promotional material for Halo 4 – much like the trailers and marketing for previous titles in the franchise – promised much. The launch trailer shows Master Chief stung up and restrained by some unknown alien assailant. This alien creature ‘scans’ everyone’s favourite super soldier, and reveals memories of his past; a young Chief plays in the sand upon a beach, is later kidnapped in the middle of the night, and eventually put through some gruelling experimental process to create the super soldier he is shown to be in the games.

This live action trailer differs significantly from the ones offered alongside the release of ODST and Reach. It shows the birth of the Spartans, and in particular, Chief’s history. Outside of the extended universe novels and comic books, we have been kept in the dark with regards to Chief’s origin story. Additionally, this trailer brings up an interesting morale dilemma absent from the other games – the Spartans, humanities last line of defence, were created from kid-napped children. Think about that for a moment; this makes Master Chief a far more tragic and potentially ‘real’ protagonist than people are willing to first accept.

A little bit of background: I have been a big fan of Halo since the release of the first title in the franchise back in 2001; other than the original, ODST is my favourite singleplayer experience because it tells the strongest narrative; and I believe that they should have allowed Master Chief to die in Halo 3. I am sick of the games industry as a whole milking characters. By all means, make more Halo games, but use the death of an established protagonist as a strong emotive narrative device and leave it at that. Don’t keep characters alive simply to make more sequels – don’t get me started on Snake’s botched suicide at the end of the MGS4.

But despite my love for the series, I didn’t pick up Halo 4 on launch. My life has been pretty hectic as of late, with very little free time to spend doing what I really enjoy, playing games and writing. Aside from that though, I felt that the return of Chief was a kick in the teeth as a fan. I felt that a martyrs death was apt for him at the end of Halo 3. The legendary ending annoyed me considerably. Furthermore, we have to be honest, the Chief’s personality is little more than walking talking ‘human tank’, so creating another protagonist to fill the void left by him wouldn’t be all that difficult. Even if you are worried about brand recognition, just make another Spartan hero, with different coloured armour and a stronger character arc.

Anyway, I digress.

Overlooking the unnecessary return of Master Chief, I was still interested to see what the new studio 343 Industries would do with the series. And if the multiplayer at least mildly improved on the already excellent Reach formula, then I would at least find a lot of fun playing on XBL with friends. So I bought it.

And at first, I felt guilty for not buying it sooner. The opening cut scene blew me away with its thematic complexity. We are treated to some beautiful CGI in which the doctor responsible for the Spartan program, Dr. Catherine Halsey, is interrogated by an unknown ‘G-man’. The topic of kid-napped children is brought up, as well as the initial intentions of the Spartan program to quell human rebellion. Halsey argues back against such accusations, her rhetoric suggesting that the only way to create a perfect soldier is to pursue the amoral methods that she did. She rightly states that her Spartans saved the human race, suggesting an almost utilitarian outlook on the project; as the old axiom suggests, the ‘ends justify the means’. This interrogator even questions the psychological make-up of the Spartans, mentioning records of sociopathic tendencies exhibited by them and asking the question of whether their “lack of basic humanity” helped them to be so effective in their role as super soldier. He even goes as far as to suggest that Master Chief is “at his core, broken”. Remember that lacking personality I mentioned earlier? Is it possible that 343 Industries are aware of this, and have consciously suggested that this lack of personality is a by-product or symptom of the Spartan process? If so, then bravo, that is some very clever self-awareness on their part.

All of this paints a picture of the Chief being a much more interesting character than he has been in previous games. It is at this point, that we are reintroduced to him, and his trusty A.I. sidekick, Cortana. Mast Chief’s armour has had a visual redesign, and I like it. The armour looks bulky and durable, while the mesh-weave shown between the plating looks like it covers lean athletic muscle; the Chief looks like a bad-ass. Unfortunately, this sits at odds with the idea that he has been in stasis since the end of Halo 3, but we can let that slide. Despite the Chief’s overhaul, no one at 343 Industries saw sense with Cortana’s design, so she still looks like some creepy nerd fantasy Tron-porn .

Cortana: female empowerment… right?

The opening mission doesn’t expand on the ideas put forth by the marketing and intro cinematic. In fact, it is pretty much standard Halo fair, not dissimilar to the opening mission of the first two games in the series. Those pesky covenant show up to ruin Master Chief’s day, and you have to fight through spaceship corridors lined with the baddies. The visual redesign of some of the famous Covenant enemies, such as the grunts, is explained away by the fact that these guys seem “more fanatical” than the ones we are used to fighting. Could time passing not be enough of an explanation for these changes, when big ol’ MC’s suite magically changed while in stasis for four years? Apart from a fight on the ship’s hull in low gravity I was pretty disappointed in the first mission’s bland regurgitation of previous Halo gameplay. It seemed so at odds with all the interesting ideas put forth by the interrogation scene at the beginning of the game.

On top of all this, having been playing a lot of high-end PC titles recently, it is even more glaringly obvious that the 360 is getting old. The 360’s graphical capabilities are really starting to show its age. Some great lighting and JJ Abram’s influence light flare will not hide rubbish low-res textures.

I’ll post on going impressions as I play further into the game. With any luck, some of themes apparent in the game’s opening cut scene will play a heavier role in the game’s narrative as I progress through. Thus far, I am equal parts intrigued and disappointed.

What were your opinions of Halo 4’s storyline and opening missions? Enjoying the multiplayer? Drop me a comment below.

I am no longer a Teacher Trainee

Today is the day that I officially withdrew from my teacher training course.

For those of you that didn’t know, I was on a Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) training to become an English teacher at secondary school level. But I have quit the course.

The reason I am writing this post is because, to be frank, this is a massive development in my life. Pretty much everyone I knew and interacted with on a daily basis knew that I was training to teach; a lot of those people knew that it was my ambition for several years now. So this post is to briefly explain and let people know, or at least, for those of you that will see the link from Facebook and actually follow it.

So why? Well, I simply wasn’t enjoying it. A PGCE is notoriously difficult and time consuming; I knew this before I started. I thought that this would be fine – “one year of pain for long term gain” I kept telling people. Unfortunately when it came to teaching practice, I wasn’t even enjoying the contact time with students in the classroom, so it became hard to justify the long hours, sleepless nights and lack of time to spend with the people I love. Don’t get me wrong, I do still enjoy working with children. The problem is that so many elements of the profession loomed over any time I spent teaching the children like a dark cloud: planning lessons, constant observation and criticism, the need to be a disciplinarian, the need to be overly-enthusiastic, the changes to the education system and pay for teachers in England – the list goes on and on and on. I well and truly respect anyone who teaches at secondary level, it is an incredibly difficult job. I still think primary teachers are pussies though.

It is for this reason – the lack of enjoyment, not the condescending view of primary teachers – that I have decided to ‘cut my losses’ and withdraw. It was a difficult decision considering I had planned to go into teaching since before I went to university to do my undergraduate study. I have never really ‘given up’ on anything like this before, and I can’t help but feel like I have squandered time, money and an opportunity with this. But as many people keep saying, “How were you to know without trying it.” And I guess they are right, it is a shame that trying it took up four months of my life and earned me another £5,000 worth of debt with student finance.

This is probably the most personal blog entry you will ever see from me, admitting that I feel defeated and disappointed in myself. I just wanted to write down my thoughts somewhere, and let people know what happened so I can avoid explaining it to so many different people.

I tried sitting down and wallowing in self-pity while listening to The Smiths, but it is difficult to feel sorry for yourself to lyrics such as “Please, please, please let me get what I want, this time” when in reality I have a roof over my head, a first-class degree, a part-time job, a beautiful girlfriend, awesome friends and my whole life ahead of me. “First world problems” and all that.

So now I am at a crossroads, or possibly a new chapter in my life – whatever dumb cliché you want to use to describe this. I guess I need to figure out what the fuck I want to do with my life. But in the meantime, here is a picture of a dog dressed like an Ewok:

Judging from that chair, Wicket shops in Ikea.

Thought of the Day – 13/12/12

I try my hardest not to judge people who like Nickelback. However, I can’t really help it due to the fact that they are so fucking shit.