WillWybrow.com

I have a pretty good idea for a film, I think. A short film. Where there’s a guy who has a kind of sub-standard life, things are pretty rough for him, but then some supernatural act happens where, I dunno, let’s say the Devil or someone offers the guy a chance to have a really amazing life full of everything awesome, and all the guy has to do is some monumentally horrific act like torturing and murdering a mother and her young child.

And then instead of the usual moral dilemma that such a situation might evoke in other films, the guy does the thing, gets his perfect life and never once looks back on all the suffering he caused in order to get what he wanted.

People wouldn’t be left feeling optimistic and happy like after feel-good romance films, nor would they feel sad like after weepy films about a sacrificial protagonist, or even that weird triumphant feeling after films where the main character struggles but successfully overcomes diversity by the end. It wouldn’t be like those films with a moral lesson about how it’s wrong to shit on people to get your own way, and the audience wouldn’t be able to empathise with the hero’s remorse about his ignoble climb to the top because the hero himself wouldn’t feel any remorse. I think it would leave people feeling hollow and bitter and confused. That’d be ace.

Sometimes I really do wonder about the people in this town. I was walking outside not an hour ago and I heard a loud pair of middle-aged men talking. I rounded the corner and one of them at least had a can of something cheap in his hands, and the words I caught were: “…but a woman burping is abhorrent.”

At this point, two things went through my head. First: what could they possibly have been talking about to lead up to that point? Had they been having a whole conversation centred on disgusting bodily functions? The second was: how can someone this moronic use a word like “abhorrent”? To further add to my confusion, when he went on with his point to say the same about “a woman farting,” I’m pretty sure he pronounced it “apparent.”

As I sadly was not walking in the same direction, the conversation rapidly faded out of earshot with this little gem: “you don’t want a woman to be all like *retching noise* and scratching her bum. A woman should be a woman, you know?” to which his walking partner silently assented.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be fun to pretend to go along with people like that, to see just how far their stupidity reaches. Chime in with something casual yet bigoted like “and what about them blacks, eh?” or anything along those lines. Poking fun at them feels like the only way of coping, because, when you look at the fact that people holding these views exist, if you don’t shrug it off with laughter, the despair will start to set in and you’ll realise that even though there are six billion people on the planet, being a decent person amongst them is pretty fucking lonely.

There are so many charities, these days, offering so much. How are you supposed to know which ones are the best to give to? Well, using this handy ranking list, you’ll be able to tell.

1. Cancer

As we all know, anyone can get cancer at any time and for any reason. Something this serious and devastating really is the epitome of bad luck for lots of people, so being struck down with cancer is reasonably unfair. Fixing (and eventually preventing) cancer is probably the most important medical breakthrough we’re working towards. The sooner it’s done, the better, I say.

2. Heart Disease/Alzheimer’s

People like the British Heart Foundation, who work towards helping rid the world of heart disease, are slightly less important than Cancer Research, but still pretty decent. Same with Alzheimer’s research.

3. Deaf/Blind/Disabled Help

If you’ve got no option to give to a decent medical research charity, the next best thing to look for is some other way of helping people who are in trouble who don’t really deserve it. People who are blind or deaf or physically impaired in some other way should be the next in line if you’re deciding to give money away.

4. Overseas Aid

Sending your money to a less-developed country might feel like generosity, but if you ask me, the practice is largely fruitless. If your donation manages to save a third-world life, so what? They’re still going to be poor and basically useless, so why bother? Your paltry three pence at the end of the checkout in the supermarket isn’t going to develop third-world Africa into a bustling metropolis where everyone has a suit and a job and an apartment. It’s really not in the scope of casual and small donors to help with problems so far away. If you’re a billionaire, though, and you are looking for something to do, you can go over and build some schools and hospitals and houses. Otherwise, don’t bother.

5. Children

Poor children, retarded children, abused children. Forget them. More important people than children have bigger problems than children. This money should go to law enforcement, if anything, to track down incompetent parents and lock them up. If it’s not the parents’ doing that makes the child so-called “in need,” then it’s certainly well within their power to have prevented it. Children don’t develop being retarded, they’re born with it, and before a child is born you can find these things out and abort it if it isn’t normal. No sympathy here.

6. Aged/Hospices

Fuck hospices. Any donations to hospices should immediately be rerouted to euthanasia clinics. You are old, you are definitely going to die. You can do it at home without care or your can go on your own terms at the clinic. Those are your choices. Any rational person at that point would choose the painless clinic death over rotting slowly at home whilst their family cares less and less. Anyone afraid to die in the clinics get to suffer at home for being cowards.

7. Churches

Fuck churches. This one, I think, should be obvious. Anyone who gives to a church instead of any of the charities ranked above is a misanthrope of the highest order and shouldn’t get to be so fucking wasteful.

8. Coastguard/Lifeboats

Coastguard, lifeboats, mountain rescue: what do these things have in common? I’ll tell you. They all exist to pull morons and the children of morons out of dangerous situations that they’ve gotten themselves into. If you go out to sea when the current is strong and you are a poor swimmer, tough. If you go up a mountain and get stuck there through inattentive climbing or poor planning, tough. You knew the risks when you did those things. You don’t see the Down Pillow Emergency Response Squad who patrol skydiving drop zones waiting for the emergency call that a parachute didn’t open for the same reason: people know the risks of jumping out of a plane, and they shouldn’t be afforded a safety net for their idiocy at our inconvenience. Fuck lifeboats.

I am sick and fucking tired of confectioners putting hazelnuts or hazelnut flavouring in chocolate, and I’m doubly annoyed at consumers who think they like this (but really don’t).

Chocolate is a complex, 3000 year old concoction that requires a lot of time to make and a lot of effort to perfect. It’s the world’s favourite flavour, and it’s this way for a reason: it tastes amazing. SANS-NUTS.

I can’t begin to fathom the intricacies of the mind of the retard who invented the idea of putting nuts in chocolate. I have to wonder whether this person was clinically retarded, or just wanted to play a joke on someone by hiding nuts in chocolate, offering it to them and then laughing in their face when they take a bite and their hopes and dreams crumble to dust.

Really, fuck hazelnuts. You know what eats hazelnuts? Squirrels do. Those little vermin. Squirrels also eat out of bins, but I don’t see people mashing garbage into their chocolate. Nobody said “you know what this chocolate needs? Some stale, mouldy pizza crust.” That’s because not only is chocolate perfect already, but nobody wants to eat trash or nuts.

People who have nut allergies are the luckiest people in the world. If they accidentally eat nuts, they get the blissful release of a painful death right afterwards so the effects of the taste are minimised. If you can, find a friend with a severe nut allergy and always go out to eat with them. The last thing you want is to accidentally eat nuts in your food. And that’s another thing — “nuts” is a colloquial term for testicles! Wake up, people, and stop letting greedy confectioners teabag your chocolate bars.

The Pokémon Village Fête 2009 was broken when I went to Liverpool. The tent in the shopping centre had been put up wrong and wouldn’t support the hundreds of people that’d be walking in and out and through it. So I didn’t get to partake in any of the cool stuff they had available, only the Regigigas download.

Then I found the money to take a day trip up to the Westfield Shopping Centre in Derby, and everything changed. It had already been running in Derby for a few days, so there was no chance that it was going to go wrong or not be on. I arrived and used one of the magical Westfield interactive signs to find the shop I was meant to be heading for and lo — there it was. The set up for the most fun day in the history of days out.

In the front-left corner was the Pokémon Training Academy, where kids gathered to be shown the basics of the new games. Along the left-hand side was the Village Green, where you could get your face or hand painted, and get given balloon models of Pokémon. In the far-left corner was the Photo Station with the huge Pikachu. Along the back wall was the Pokémon Cinema where Giratina and the Sky Warrior was being shown. In the far-right corner was the Trading Card Game table where the lovely PokéGirls were playing a whole load of cards in short, three-prize games. I forgot to bring my decks so I didn’t sit down and play, though I did watch. Along the right was the Regigigas distribution and supposedly a Pokémon Ranger and Mystery Dungeon showcase, though the systems actually all had copies of Platinum in them. And finally, in the near-right corner was Pokémon Battle Revolution on the Wii and a raffle ticket system for assigning groups of four players to mini tournaments. There were a lot of event Regigigas being played on the day, and an equal amount of Action Replay Arceus. Some people have no morals.

I met some really cool people and saw a few of the staff I’d met before. I played against good teams, bad teams, teams full of legendaries and teams of well-trained non-legendary Pokémon. I acquired a shiny Golem and a shiny Uxie, and gave some people things they wanted in return.

I got my promotional freebies and had a decent laugh with one of the staff members who insisted on quizzing me on the games and making up the answers when I didn’t know them. Everyone was great and I had an incredible time.

Token lunch at Subway, of course, and I took a quick look around the huge shopping centre in the morning. To round off the day, I met Keziah for a quick drink in the ever-popular Caffé Nero before walking back to the station (I found my way pretty easily; been doing really well finding my way around places lately) to round off an excellent day’s fun with a pleasant train journey home.

Brilliant.