October was the time that brought about various things in the news which were remarked on a little bit;

The credit crunch was still going on, actually, is it me, or is the whole thing just getting boring? I mean surely there is only so long that all this can keep happening? Well apparently not, and this nugget of life still gives all the bankers in the world brown trousers as they hope mummy doesn’t take their toys away. October was the time we have seen the politicians getting the cheque book out again to bail out more financial f-ups in a vain attempt to get people to start doing the same thing all over again.

The 700 billion dollar pot which was still being decided at the time of writing, as to whether or not to give out, will effectively give over more control of the fund to the US government in terms of assets etc, while safe guarding, err, something.

Europe of course, not to be out done by those pesky yankies, are also trying to conjure up money from thin air. It’s not working because naturally everyone in Europe hates each other, but bless them for trying all the same. And even now more of this practise is going on. Ah who cares any more? At least there has been a massive shift from the charities, as I’ve now not seen anywhere near as many of the lovely red army on the streets. Perhaps in these times

In the meantime, I’ll be at home, playing with myself in various illegal ways as there is nothing I can actually do about any of this, so as long I get to stuff my face full of dirty meat and cider, as far as the Lord of Leisure would be concerned, it’s all good! Only if our way of life is truly threatened, will we rise up. Right now, it isn’t and remember we’re also British. We don’t even give a hoot if people were burning down our houses, we’d still have a cup of tea and hand them the matches to help.

The rat-faced lying t**t Peter Mandleson was brought back in government office, after our beloved prime minister couldn’t take it anymore and said “I bent over the desk, now take me you manly brute.” Unfortunately I can only think of the undead in this case, simply put, they refuse to stay down, even when they have been killed off more than once for naughty behaviour, just like good old Peter here.

Mind you, this has been more showing up of the whole political system as a whole, forget what you actually did wrong before and how many costly mistakes you make, know the right people and you can do anything you want. The electorate really don’t matter any more except for election time, and who knows when that will be at this rate?

It is hardly surprising nowadays that people have so little faith in what a lot of people are doing who are in power, much in the same vain as above about the whole credit crunch thing. And we return to the present day where MPs expenses are being questioned yet again. Putting your cable on expenses is one thing, but to have dirty sexy videos on there as well? Well I’m tempted to try that with my own expenses too, see how long it is before it’s noticed. Jackie Smith’s got from April last year to now, so I’ll have to top that somehow….maybe by saying it was client “entertaining…”

Don’t you just love politics when it’s shown up for the overpaid boys and now it seems, girl’s club it actually is?

Remember that great big experiment to find the god thing, where the main scientist thought that if anyone thought the machine would destroy the world, that they were a t**t? I had a massive tirade about the whole business the month before, and hell I remember the feeling I had on the 10th of September as I drove along at half eight in the morning, just wondering if that was the end, and well of course we all know what happened. We had a reprieve from the possible abyss of the black hole, thanks to human engineering failing once again!

Yep, the big round thing broke down, and despite calling out the AA to get towed to the nearest garage, the problem seems to be more profound than they thought, and after all the maintenance etc, I had thought that they would all be bored, and start wondering why men’s testicles look like the creature from the blue lagoon. But alas they’ve spent far too much and bless them for continuing with the white elephant. By all accounts it will be 2010 before the thing is plugged back in at the mains. At least we have another blog posts content tied down already.

I had also gotten hooked onto Everybody Loves Raymond, the temptress as I recall, as I had 5 seasons worth of DVDs to go through and basically every night after work, after wandering around town for a good while every single night too as it goes, it was hours of pleasure from the family who suffered at the hands of Raymond’s folks. Not very productive as it goes, and does it make me a bad person? Yes. Yes it does.

I do have to also post a link to that one post “Last time on Ooh Sometimes….” just for the montage bit, shame it was only in pictures as I would have loved that scene with Jessica Biel to really be in there. Ah well, a man can dream, and carry on with hope as apparently she’s fallen out with Dustbin Timberwood. She will be mine, oh yes, she will be mine.

And finally Eggmen.co.uk came into being. Gaming website with a purpose with the majority of the fine writings have been by our friend James. I really should do something about that you know. That was really all that was written for the Month of October you know. It was the start of staying away from the keyboard and more on other things about the place. The thing is I have no idea what the hell was going on at that time. Maybe I was drunk the whole time? If anyone can point me in the direction of my memories, I’ll give them a shiny penny. This ends “Octoberfest” on Ooh Sometimes. See you next time!

It’s time for a commercial break.

Sorry I’ve been away from the blogging scene for a few days while other lies have been taking my time. Shame to get money you have to work, why couldn’t I be paid for just being me?

I will be writing a fair bit tomorrow hopefully to tide a fair number of you over till next time as Monday afternoon, I set sail on the easyboat to foreign lands and won’t be back in Blighty for a little while.

No, I’m not being sent to Australia for my crimes. (CONVICTS, they’re all con….)

Actually it seems like the right time for a break from the normal hustle and bustle that appears to have taken over, in exchange for different hustle and bustle in Spain.

So many people it seems are burning out and losing the will to well anything, I must confess, I’ve been reaching some lows myself and this couldn’t have come at a better time.

Maybe I’ll center the chi or whatever the hell it is and become one with nature. Or Sleep, whichever comes first. So Sunday I’ll be back with more from 2008 and perhaps something more from 2009. Have a cracker of an evening my fellow fellows.

And now we return to the past to remark on various evil doings that occurred during September, now only if we had Earth, Wind and Fire singing in the background it would be the ideal montage sequence.

Motivation is a waning commodity in these times where the long hours of work practically drain you of energy and you find that the best you could hope for when you get home is to eat more cheesy snacks and catch up with who is sleeping with the cat on your favourite soap opera.

But I did start a course in writing in September having been spurred on to achieve, for what little that actually did.

Remarks were made about the giant donut that CERN had built underneath bits of Europe which even now still remains broken, and still remains a waste of money. And I guess once they fix the damned thing, then we should all start panicking that they are going to kill us all. See, all good news!

And it came to pass that another year had been added to The Lord of Leisure’s age, thus being the wrong side of 25, which only means the belly gets larger, the chins become numerous and the flatulence gets unbearable.

Actually if I look in the mirror now…Damn!

The chins are indeed many, the belly is way bigger than before, and I have boobs which rival many supermodels, which granted is not hard as sticks have better boobs than they do. To top it all of yes, I am still eating too much junk. Guess I was right with that vision of the future….

As well as another appearance in Audio form on the Gamers with Jobs podcast where the creator of Bioshock had a shock at the really bad advert for Andrew Ryan’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, that same day was my graduation from the University of Wolverhampton, perhaps in some cases better known as the land time forgot.

Ahhhh, don’t we look like gimps. But I had even bought a three piece suit for the occasion, which I would wear one more time as it goes for the rest of the year.

GOG.com made an appearence on the scene and got me all over excited about playing Descent all over again. Mind you recently they got me all warmed up over the re-release of Cannon Fodder for not much more than I would for a lunch here in the big smoky bacon place that is London, so I figured; skip lunch and buy the game instead. And may GOG.com live on until we get SWOS working.

But I guess September will be remembered as the month in which we truly knew how screwed we were by the banking system after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which had brought many roosters home to…roost.

Many questions were asked, many were blamed but nothing actually has changed since then and some could argue it’s gotten worse. And yet we’ve still seen little to no reform of the way these people do business.

All that’s happened is that they keep hold of the cash they have, including the bailouts from us, the taxpayers, and then charge even more for us being in debt, which is partially due to them in the first place. Love it when a bad plan comes together.

I suppose the other major event which was expressed about during this time was the fact that our good friends, Steve and Kristi got married out in Volvoland or whatever it’s called now;

See, we had pictures and everything.

I suppose many people would be able to describe weddings in more grand detail, to remark on the grand occasion with more flare, better grammar and perhaps giving this more gravitas than the words here give. But perhaps in the words of this simple man, who has trouble even admitting he has personal habits which make monkeys blush, just the sheer feeling of happiness for both my friends, it was just overwhelming, and you really couldn’t help but smile all the way through.

There was dancing, lots of laughs, a strip bar underneath the hotel, fears of dying on the plane trips back and forth from the europeland place, and have to say met a huge number of really good people, and it’s a shame that we haven’t seen anyone there since.

But as the french say; Oui.

There were a few other things which didn’t go documented as it goes, and it’s sad now that I can’t really remember what was going on except for the fact that Natalie had moved in at the end of September having spent so long away in Lightbulbia, which was some people would say a bad thing to happen and some would say that’s a good thing to happen.

But as the french say; a cote de la chien.

Everyone today in London town, even some of the tourists I noticed while being stuck on the bus heading to Waterloo, seemed to have had a cloud hanging over them in many ways and with other news that has filtered through, the gloom looks set to continue.

The rich are still getting richer, one of the major things with the recession is that everyone else is getting run into the ground by working more for less actual cash in their pockets with all sorts of wonderfully bad excuses being made. Lovers has been lost into the night, and there are only tins of corned beef to eat in the cupboard.

You would be tempted to call it a day at that without calling the Samaritans, who had enough themselves and can’t take it any more….

Ah, f**k it, it had to be put on here at some point;

EVERYBODY SING ALONG! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TOO!

Now everyone, cheer up and that’s an order sergeant! Even if you don’t know what to do right now, there is always tomorrow, and tomorrow always seems to bring something new.

This post has been brought to you in association with LSD, the best way to get off your t*ts.

Ok you’re going to start wondering why the picture on the left is on here, but bear with us and it shall become clear.

Now it’s been fun wandering back to 2008 the past few days, but the hell is going on right now, and why return back to doing the review of last year when most sites are remarking on more important topics like why pickle jars are damned hard to open.

I suppose it’s a bizzare thing of both dragging my feet around, and also finishing off something I had started earlier in the year.

I have been most silent on the whole thing of writing about the present to tell the truth as I suppose I’m still getting my mojo back into action with the whole blogging thing, struggling to string together wonderfully silly phrases together in a vain effort not to make anyone fall lapse into a coma, which meant that looking back on old material gives you a place to start.

I suppose that when you’ve been away from it in such a long time, and haven’t really done lots of things of worth in the eyes of many of your pears, you start grasping at the various straws you have at your disposal such as remarking on the weather, or commenting on the news, or simply stating about a relative’s bowl movement.

Weird really…

For instance, I find myself at the keyboard right now, having paused for thought on what profound and liable case inspiring trivia I could come up with about things going on at this point in time and all I want to do is kill something in Call of Duty, while having a nice cup of tea.

Seems sad, but when the opportunity for freedom arrives as it appears to have done, there is a massive overwhelming feeling of “What do I do now?” The freedom of choice is something not to be taken lightly until the day arrives when no-one else is about, and how ever you decide to spend your time is your business.

Problem is normally for people the first thing you do is eat all the Jelly and fire off some knuckle children in a vain attempt to recreate Spiderman’s web slinging ability.

(Why else does he wake up in some wet sticky stuff…cue drum roll) but anyway, it seems that there has to be some form of motivation in performing such a task, and while trying to come up with something which some people on the internet would actually like to read from the perspective of the Lord of Leisure, damn dood, that’s harder than a peu…(WHOA, back it up!)

This week is mainly going to be devoted to wrapping things up ready for when I’m away in Spain for the first time in years, and it’s more of a working holiday to be fair, but I know for a fact, I will be in a Spanish bar at some point, hitting anyone who looks like a donkey thing.

I guess this is still very much a period of adjustment, and I’m seriously considering doing some of the things I used to do off and on again, possibly writing for the other sites I’ve contributed in the past to, and some more audio work, who knows.

If anyone has some ideas, by all means, drop me a line.

In the meantime, go to Iraq on Holiday, cry about the economy again, and eat some more jelly. Thus ends only the second post in as many days written about something happening in the here and now.

August was a month for moaning it appears. I had remarked on the fact that a blog is an ongoing narrative and therefore requires the finest in writing material to keep the people coming back for more and more. Failing that, some lols and writing in txt speak about how everything is that funny brown stuff that falls out of my bottom.

I had gotten tired of the homeless people taking one look at my shoes and deciding I have money. If they saw my bank balance, that would say actually, he doesn’t. It’s at the point now, where basically I’ll have start thinking about asking them for a spare 50p.

I had even found the time to get jolly upset at the fact that most central London shops catered for only those people who had less fat in their bodies than celery.

OK, I’m a chubby f**ker who’s life involves not women, wine and a cigar as most people in this cosmopolitan slab would believe, but mounds of greasy bacon smothered in Angel Delight fried in sugar. Well I guess that hasn’t changed right now, but there is jelly in the fridge waiting for my gorging body to consume and that’s light….but I digress.

Food and I have an unhealthy but working relationship. I buy it in huge quantities, and in return, it lets me stuff it down my arena-sized gob. There’s not much talking, and there are no questions asked. All legal too.

I’ve been this size for a large amount of time, pardon the pun, and therefore have been used to knowing which shops tend to stock items which fit, for example, the NEXT chain of stores in the UK are great for tops of all shapes and sizes.

But if I were to try and fit into their range of trousers and jeans, I would cut off circulation to the man-sacks and proceed to walk funny. Still I guess where there’s a will, there’s a way to avoiding dieting to fit into this crap…

But it wasn’t all tales of fashion woe, for instance, it was the nice fact that the Blog had been in existence for 2 years without being threatened legally to remove content. It was around the same time I quested around the East End for a tin opener, and ended up with the “Aston Martin” of openers as that’s all that was around. Had no-one heard of pound shops?

But aside from that traumatic experience….err…Mr Michael Stipe from R.E.M. and David Balise, the man who has been taking rude pictures of them for over 6 years, and I met them at a book signing in the capital a week after going to see REM in Manchester which you can read about in all it’s glory here, along with various pictures of people we met.

Still one of the best things I ever did in August, and even though he seemed to act seriously for anything, I was still glad to meet the lead singer of one of the best bands on the planet as far as I’m concerned.

Oh and this is still one of the best pictures of a sight in London I’ve taken;

Soho presented a lorry load of surprises along with seeing lots of famous people again, throwing dirty underpants at the FA’s headquarters, and then that Soho Pride thing which was a surprise for someone who was not looking for “action” at that time, and when being presented with over friendly gentlemen, I decided the best course of action was to run away.

That’s all for now campers, tune in next time when we return back to the present to remark on the current state of affairs and to answer the question of whether or not I have my own centre of gravity. Toodles!

“Panic and chaos reigned today in London as a mad man proceeded to disrupt the precession by pretend ironing in front of the national gallery. Police suspect he was armed and dangerous, with the iron being ready to deploy in less than 45 seconds.

Both are still in custody tonight, and the police report that the ironing board is refusing to talk.”

Still, perhaps that would have been a better and potentially happier news story than most of the things making the headlines these days. Basically that was how I described the events of wandering round London with an ironing board.

But that was the tip of the iceberg compared to the rest of the month as I was settling down in the new workplace rather well, and still learning all sorts about what the big smoke was all about. But frankly despite the sheer amount written at the time, It’s best to condense down to the highlights;

Still was happy about asking Tony Blackburn for the answers to the pub quiz at work. They haven’t had one there since, but I’m reckoning in the summer again, it will be all hands on deck to use the Blackberry to cheat again. Yes, we all see you with them under the table. You will be hunted and killed if you try that again.

Podcast 4 was released during July, which was the last podcast done by the Lord of Leisure, and I suppose the last of Season 2 as since then there has been nothing on this site. But I guess that the question of the Living hell was answered for a brief time, then changed off and on again through the rest of the year. Guess the answer also shifts depending on your situation.

Of course a fair amount of time was spent away from the computer screen, seeing other wonderful things. For instance, there was a poster which I thought I would never see written down after the premiere of the Dark Knight:

Basically at first I thought that Batman had been arrested for all the damages he had caused in Golem City and he now had to do hard time getting bat-raped by a man called Susan in the showers. But we all know what happened afterwards so who really cares.

But after also going to the Dark Knight première, it was the last time I even bothered turning up to those things as someone on the sidelines, just clambering over fences in the vain hope of someone with lots of money noticing my existence. It just seemed like a waste of time, compared to that book signing where I actually was allowed to have a chat with the famous person behind the table as fellow humans.

However, that aside, I now firmly believe that unless you are on that carpet of which few people tread except if you are one of the Borg, I mean the PR people, it’s a complete waste of time to even bother to turn up.

You would have more fun picking you nose hairs clean using a steak knife and a CD of polka hits.

The stars had kept themselves to themselves around one tiny area, with only the bloke who plays Harvey Dented in the film lasting longer than 20 seconds with the crowd.

The showcase of the affair, the motoring of the bat cycle from the film, complete with flaps that go up and down a lot like someone suffering the shakes, proved that it can go backwards and forwards a bit. Sometimes, more than once.

The Magic of the movie business once again, is shown up to be like Britney Spears. Once everyone wanted to know, now just look at what happened to the old fart.

It was also the time I started looking round for a place to live, only for that situation to remain an issue until now, having learned about various scamming methods and also appearing on a Flatmate video with a guy from Hammersmith.

Well sooner or later I guess I’ll be heading that way again to claw back some cash, but for now, the babe lair is where it’s at. Functional it is not yet, but give it time…

Had to admit, the habit of writing constantly is taking some time to get used to. After a day of clearing up, eating Indian food and getting chased by smelly people for change, I was geared up this fine Saturday evening to write about July 2008, something about the here and now as it were and maybe even about the Watchmen movie which had come out recently, and then it hit me.

The few bottles of Cobra beer that is.

So, in a bizzare twist, f**k it dude, let’s go bowling today and return tomorrow instead. Have a good un!

June. The first month spent in the big smoke as some people call it. Though you sometimes wonder if it’s the big smoke due to the huge amount of traffic and people’s arses releasing all the gas into the air or if the place is constantly being set on fire.

But in any case, the first month was filled with a great many fun filled with a number of meeting many different people, some scary as they are well aware as I described my first few days at work, some were from the internet which is going to lead to all sorts of stories about fiddlers, and some were famous;

The first day at the new workplace with all sorts of new people in a completely different field of industry altogether went down like telling an Arab joke involving Bin Laden at a mosque.

I suppose that when I wrote about the fact that being in that building was like “Walking around what looks like a set from Bridget Jones with thirty something women around looking at screens wondering if the knickers they bought from Primark would not make them a laughing stock when they have chatted up a man at the local bar”, and the fact that those films really seemed to be based around fact, it was from the perspective of being overwhelmed.

The first day was one filled with only questions with not that many answers forthcoming and being frightened at first by the soon to be known as “ear-rapist”, I was wondering what the hell was to become of me.

But I suppose now as time as gone on, and there have been many wonderful events, some of which should be screened as a sitcom, somewhere including the phrase “BURN HIM” at every turn, it’s forever being a learning experience in many ways.

These guys were from Gamers with Jobs and when we met up it was rather strange, a feeling I had become comfortable with at the time because of what had been going on a few days earlier. Here we all were, never seen each other before and only exchanged brief messages on a forum online, and we were talking like it was going out of fashion about well, anything.

Of course, for the first hour or so, you would tend to discuss differences in culture, such as everything smells like wee (I tried to find B.O. basher but never mind) and crying over the fact that money was in short supply. American dollars to pounds = not a good thing… And of course where would we be without talking about TV shows, gaming and of course politics, everyone’s favourite subject next to Jihads.

One thing which was gutting was that we ordered some food, and as a result missed out on the pub quiz downstairs. How dare they hold back from showing our utter lack of knowledge? They shall pay! (Hang on, who are they?) It was a wonderful evening as it goes and one which I would love to repeat.

Meeting Terry Prachett is still one of my fondest memories; talking with an author who created “Johnny and the Dead”, “The Discworld” etc.. about meeting women in book signing queues, it was wonderful, and also meeting that American lady who took the photo with Terry and that was a enlightening experience.

Though I had also written “You come here to mingle and talk to different people and see what happens as a result. It’s not the place to keep yourself to yourself, no matter how hard you want to try.” It’s ironic that after writing such a phrase that now in March 2009 I have proceeded to do just that. I guess things really do change.

Oh, I had screamed at this man too, and ogled Charlize Thermos’ arse in real life. It was the first of only two West End things I would end up going to as it goes, and I’m not going to start going through the whole lifestyle management thing I found out while being around there.

And because of the great deal of fun going round with Natalie for the day doing certain pictures, it wouldn’t be a full recount of June without remarking on this event:

Ironing. We all have to do it if we are poor. It’s one of those immortal tasks that basically take up time, only to drag our evolved selves away from pursuits of grandeur such as writing an award-winning novel, creating a portrait of a loved pet, or picking your ears clean with a pair of cooking tongs.

Here are three examples of ways you too can make this household bore slightly more interesting. There are other examples out there but none as practical or realistic as these three:

Those pictures believe it or not, have earned me a certain reputation which also earned me a book on the whole subject of “Extreme Ironing” which if you read some of the pages and look at the pictures, it was started by a couple of people who had sniffed too much washing powder. So at least you now know the company I keep.

I suppose this was also the start of the summer of London in earnest and as we begin looking at July 2008 soon, it got better still.

May brought about the big announcement of leaving behind sunny Shropshire in exchange for sunny London. No idea where people get the idea it rains in the UK, it’s always sunny to me….(he says reaching for more pills to take the pain away)

I did remark that by day, you can do your normal work, and by night, you could take a course at one of the many institutions available who specialise in various areas not found elsewhere, or get caught up doing something you would never think about doing in a million years. (Note, previous statement doesn’t include running from the fuzz for drug trafficking.) Or if you are me, actually get time to do the OohSometimes podcast which has it turned out was a complete lie but hey, can’t blame a guy for lying through his dried-up teeth.

There are people down and back up north who have already said they would help if asked, and indeed I had immense help in getting sorted out. Mind you the people I was to encounter did leave me wondering if it all would be a hoot considring the sheer vast number of b******ds who lurk behind every homeless guy selling the Big Issue

I even wrote “Of course, it may go horribly wrong.” I had this image in my head about what the place was like from what people had been telling me who had worked here all the time and I was fully prepared to run away at the first sign of danger.

but before that, there was the bank holiday spent with the lady friend. The main reason was to attend a reasonably upper class affair in an art gallery on the Sunday, where Natalie was attempting to swindle people out of their hard earned cash by using an elaborate pulley system and some beans, or we could even stretch it to a plot from Hustle from the BBC, where she flickers her eyes at some old man with expensive clothes, and Danny would seal the deal by promising Canary Wharf for $125,000. Why dollars and not pounds, I just don’t know.

Either that, or she was there to sell her paintings. Still even have the video from that day, which was both aware inspiring and instilled fear in our enemies;

Video from said far,far,far party

The best part was with Maria and boyfriend friend, whose name escaped me at the time, but I’m sure that someone will email in saying it’s Dave. Well it was in fact Martin as I would find out later.

We were wandering through Soho after wanting an early exit, when the impossible happened. At long last, we found the naughty shops that is world famous next to the playboy mansion for filth.

Yes the places of ill-repute, selling various things designed to arouse and confuse you at the same time, such as inflatable dolls and cut-price DVDs which frankly doesn’t leave you wondering that much why they are so cheap.

And then this happened…..

Indeed as the name on the store suggests, it was a spank-o-rama. After that X-rated picture was confiscated by the police for them to “review” down the station, we enjoyed some uber nice Chinese food, and proceeded to drink far too much Pimms and Coke in a local pub, where it was discussed what music would you want to have a poo to. Flight of the Valkyries was an obvious choice.

Ah it was a weekend to remember, and thanks to the wonder of digital blogging, it can be enjoyed again and again. Perhaps now to the point where we sing bad karaoke remembering the good old days.

I suppose for the rest of the time it was devoted to finishing off the degree, and paying Assassin’s Creed, which had only just come out for PC at the time and I made sure it featured as a review and also on the podcast, which to this day was apparently one of the best received reviews I’ve ever done. How about that for a slice of cold pizza?

And I guess because of so little that went on, that ends May 2008. More again tomorrow for the month of June, where we remember how scary people are. Or is that just in real life every day?