Wimbledon. for the sake of my sanity, please give it back to the Wombles

So in the past ten days the UK's been gripped by tennis fever as a result of the massive spectacle that is Wimbledon. Now don't get me wrong, I do like tennis but this seems to be the only time that everyone else in the world gives a stuff. Ok, I might have slept through Andy Murray's win at Queens the other week, but I watched literally hours of the French Open back in May. That ladies and gentlemen, is commitment to the sport.

That small opening rant out of the way I've actually been enjoying the events of the last week or so if only for the emergence of Andy Murray, every one's favourite/most hated tennis player [delete as appropriate]. Not since a fully face painted Mel Gibson have we seen a Scot split public opinion quite so well. Personally I like his style and will cheer him on, but I know plenty of people who wouldn't spare urine to stop him burning to death. These are the kind of characters we need in a sport like tennis, [Andy Murray...not the guys that wouldn’t put him out] often dismissed as solely for the posh people or the cucumber sandwich brigade.

Celebrity tennis tournaments would be one way of doing it, getting a bit more excitement involved. Combine some of the veterans of the game with a few more curveball choices. John McEnroe had a reputation for being an angry one on the court, but can you imagine him playing opposite Vinnie Jones. You could do a sweepstake as to how long it'd take for Jonesy to have convinced the umpire that he’s always right and god help any line judge that makes a dodgy call. I’ve no doubt that poor Vinnie would struggle, but I can’t imagine McEnroe would do a great job with a racquet stuck through his head.

If it wasn’t for his unfortunate death, you could have played Heath Ledger against Jake Gyllenhall and see who breaks back most often. Or even get the members of Dragon's Den involved, with prize money made up of those stacks of cash they always have [and yet I’m not convinced is at all real]. Again it'd probably end with a brawl and while the smart money would be on Man-Mountain Peter Jones to win, I bet Deborah Meedon fights dirty.

Now my [slightly more than passing] interest in tennis goes a bit deeper than spending some time glued to the television. I have also dabbled in playing the game myself. Now this is a spectacle worthy of the television. I am much less than a natural talent when it comes to this game and the skills on display weren't exactly second to none as much as second to a nun... who'd taken a vow of never playing sports. Yes, that good. If it had come to rankings Abu Hamza would have been seeded above me. in fact so would the dog, Henry VIII and Yoda.

How's that looking for a game of mixed doubles?

In this Small Town life... Next door’s cat is Public Enemy Number 1.

First things first... when I'm not living the student dream in Nottingham I live in Wales. For those of you who aren't quite sure where that is, I've attached a map. It's the bit in bright red. To make it worse for people who think that Wales is still the land of Magic and Dragons I don’t even live in “The Vaaaallleeeeeeys” – which seems to be the only alternative to living in Cardiff [or as I like to call it... Little England]. No ladies and gentlemen... I live in Aberystwyth – two hours drive away from any cinema with more than once screen or even a HMV. It’s a lovely little place but when you've spent 3 months living in a city the size of Nottingham, coming back is like a scene from Back To The Future made with a budget of £75 and a Mars Bar.

Aberystwyth’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone [cliché I know] but it’s true. In true coming home tradition I took a quick trip up the high street past the charity shops, Poundland and up towards the little corner shop at the top of town whose owner still glares at me for putting 70p worth of pick and mix in a bag and trying to claim it was only worth 50p. That extra jelly snake has proven costly in the past 7/8 years. In that five minute walk I saw an old school teacher, two people from school and an old work mate. The only problem is, with the exception of my old work pal I couldn’t for the life of me remember their names. Smooth work Dave... just fake a phone call or find something of great interest in a shop window to avoid eye contact. I went for both. Outside a lingerie clad mannequin in the window of New Look. God wasn’t smiling on me that day.

It’s not all bad though, it’s been nice to have next to no responsibilities – where feeding the dog is the most important thing that happens in the day. The problem is that not only is feeding Barney the most important thing, it’s also the only thing I need to do, leaving my semi-devious yet active mind to its own devices. I’ve even unpacked everything from bags and tidied my room [all hope is lost]. Fortunately, our next door neighbours still have their cat which means I can have something to hate. And plan to kill.

DISCLAIMER: The remaining portion of this blog is written with tongue firmly in cheek. I like animals, even cats. Most of the time.

This all started after I came across this infamous video of a woman from Coventry dumping a cat into a dustbin. An event that shocked maybe 30% of the UK into hammering on the phone to the RSPCA, while the remaining 70% sniggered and passed it on to a friend [no prizes for guessing which category I fall into]. Now I'm not sure why exactly this cat has become [in my eyes] public enemy number one, maybe it’s the brazen look it gives me that just screams “this is my estate” while it’s sat on the roof of my car or the fact that our massive golden retriever is terrified of it. Either way, this menace is now top of my hit list.

Now armed with the Wallace & Gromit DVD collection and my Book of Bunny Suicides, I’ve been coming up with a variety of ingenious contraptions with which I can dispose of said cat and with the amount of time I have on my hands, it promises to be quite a spectacle. My favourite will have to wait for Guy Fawkes’ day and involves smothering a small remote control car in tuna and catnip and making the cat chase it into a pile of fireworks. Paint the town red you say? Not quite.

With that off my chest I can get back to normal small town life for the next couple of months, make every effort to remember people’s names and actually talk to them in the street [if I have time or even remotely like them]  and use this time of relative freedom to play guitar loud enough for our deaf neighbour to hear it and write a few more of these. It’s going to be a hell of a ride.

Now where’s that cat? 

So officially I’m 21- but inside I’m enjoying my mid life crisis.

As 21^st birthday evenings go, this would have been one to remember. I say that because I have no memory of it. In fact I’m not sure it even happened or if it did, whether I was even there. I have it on good authority that at least twenty of us had a BBQ and ventured into town for the night. All I know for sure is I woke up the next day with three holes in my face, a t-shirt covered in blood [my only reasonable solution is that I got intimate with some tarmac on the way home] and a hangover to eclipse all others. It felt like somewhere inside my head King Kong was having a fight with The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to a Dubstep soundtrack. Yeah... that good.

Why though? At the end of the day (post hangover recovery of course) I just felt exactly the same as I did 3 weeks ago. Everyone seems to consider 21 a milestone age, at this stage I should [in theory] be considered an actual adult. I can now drink and gamble in the USA (and everywhere else for that matter) but I can’t afford to get there and won’t be able to for the foreseeable future. That’s that bonus taken away before I’ve even got started. What else is there? Not a lot that I couldn’t do since I turned 18. In theory I should get more respect from people as if by becoming 21 you just magically gain wisdom beyond your years. I’m not getting my hopes up for that, anyone that’s ever met me will know I really don’t deserve any respect [which I’m fine with, I’m far too sarcastic and childish to be taken seriously].

There is one bonus to take – I already know what it’s like to be old and disparaging. I’m one of the grumpiest and cynical students in the area but I can’t help myself. I’m forever moaning about things that have very little consequence in the long run – like the point of revolving doors. Why? Just why? Normal doors are far simpler & quicker to use as well as much cheaper to install [told you I was getting old... stop me before I start moaning about my tax return].

Another favourite topic of concern for my middle aged self is music. Specifically why people seem to jam what’s popular this month down my throat relentlessly, at hideous volumes and normally through speakers that make it sound like it was recorded in a garden shed fifty feet from the M25. We’ve all got that one friend that justifies their [awful] taste in music by saying “it’s really high in the iTunes chart this week” forgetting entirely that Bob the Builder and Slipknot were also, at one point in a similar position. Did you have those when they were popular? Definitely not. I probably bought the Slipknot track though. In fact, I’m going to buy hundreds of copies of the loudest, angriest screamo just to see if they end up listening to it on popularity grounds.

My third and final source of great annoyance is people that drink Guinness solely for St Patrick’s Day. Any other day of the year and you wouldn't buy it if it was 20p cheaper than Fosters or Carlsberg or the cheap spirit of your choice. Yet the idea of a shamrock in the foam or the lure of a cheap fabric hat and all of a sudden your cousin’s mum’s next door neighbour said hello to Patrick Kielty once so you’re Irish enough to be considered a leprechaun. [and I can say all this... my Nanna’s mum was Irish. Boom.]

Yet with all this vented stress, I’d like to point out that I’m a massive hypocrite. This very St Patrick’s Day I was seen and photographed in one of the aforementioned Guinness Hats dancing like a leprechaun after at least 8 pints of the black stuff. Probably to the music that’s riding high in the iTunes chart and having a whale of a time. Thus leaving only revolving doors to be my one chance of keeping some integrity [a sentence I NEVER thought I’d say]. 

Somewhat fittingly, that’s well out of the window. Every time I see a set of revolving doors (whether I’m planning to go into the building or not) I’ll wait until the last moment and "Indiana Jones it" at the last second. Needless to say I believe I’m Harrison Ford for a matter of thirty seconds before I feel like a dick. Unfortunately that comes 20 seconds after everyone else has had the same thought.

Forget Facebook Privacy... give me something that stops me going on it when I'm drunk!

 “I know it’s not my place to say...”, “I know I shouldn’t be doing this” and “I definitely wouldn’t dare do this sober”. All are words that I’ve typed in the early hours of the morning to people that I definitely shouldn’t have and now true to form, I rarely talk to now. Good work Dave. As much as the blame lies at my fingertips alone, I’m pretty sure it’s a widespread problem for us young people. Social networking at its finest. Give us an internet connection or a mobile phone and I guarantee you we’ll all make a fool of ourselves.  Don’t try and deny it, we’ve all done it. Mobile phones and Facebook. Two things that have become ever present in everyone’s life; both fantastic inventions and yet possibly the worst things to ever happen to me.

Before these newer online ways of embarrassing ourselves [Facebook especially] the limit was what you could send in a text message, limiting your chances by at least having their phone number. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve sent messages to all the wrong people... a few in school years even leading up to an awkward Monday morning walking into school to that infamous message echoing along the corridors by people I’ve never met and were probably about the age of 11. Give me carrier pigeons and messages in bottles any day. Far harder to make a total crumpet of yourself and that’s if they ever arrive at their intended destination anyway.

Even with that in mind, my own failings pale in significance to some of the stories I’ve heard from friends.  One unfortunate chap confessed deep feelings to the wrong person via a simple address book error... I can imagine that was an awkward one to wake up to the next day. How many are true I’m not sure but if they are... the world’s a cruel yet hugely entertaining place

Even worse, newer mobile phones make it far easier to make a total clown of yourself; they keep records of messages and pop up in conversations so that every time you go to send a new message that last moment of shame is there glaring at you. If that wasn’t enough you even get a date and time accurate to the minute where you’ve essentially been mentally grouped with wasps and the people off the Jeremy Kyle show.

This is where Facebook has it wrong, after a spate of recent questions over privacy [or twitter super injunctions... don’t worry Ryan, your secret's safe with me] it seems that privacy and security are at the top of their agenda. I’m not that bothered if some advertising company pinches my phone number and gives me a call one afternoon trying to sell me a new mobile phone contract; I just pass on my Dad’s number and say he’d be willing to take a call about it instead [then laugh like a bond villain when I get a message from my old man saying “you’re a bastard you” or “we’ve changed the locks back at home. Unlucky.”]

Which is what brings me nicely across to my request to Facebook: forget all these qualms over privacy; give me something that stops me going on it when I’m drunk. That’s much more important and I think I’ve worked out a few solutions for all us sufferers of drunken texting/Facebooking. First of all, we all need an insomniac friend. Enlist this friend to abuse you fiercely if you’re seen online in the early hours of the morning [I’ve tried this, it works a treat] and I guarantee it’ll work for you too.

If we get technical, I’m sure Facebook can find a way of locking out people that have posted that they’re intending to get trolleyed that evening. Or even a list of people you can set to “don’t talk to when drunk” as a safety measure. In all honesty I think we should all just stick to twitter. I can’t put an opinion into 140 characters anyway, let alone a drunken monologue. That’s the solution ladies and gentlemen, stick to twitter after midnight. All blushes will be saved and dignity held intact. Actually sod it; it’s worth embarrassing myself every now and again so I can retell stories like these for everyone’s entertainment. I’ll keep you posted. Before midnight, in less than 140 characters.