Since there's a total dearth (is that even a word?) of BigGuy news today (I went to the pub, Steve's new plane ticket arrived, Hodge can't go to Amsterdam, I ate Indian food, yawn) I thought I'd link to something I found on BoingBoing.

It's a load of vintage propaganda posters, which are always cool, and I liked the NATO one since I've studied it that particular organisation at uni.

Link for the comrades!

According to a Friends Reunited survey of universities Leicester is the 5th friendliest university in Britain, although we are beaten by our De Montfort neighbours who are in 3rd. So it's the locals that cause all the problems....

Also according to the survey, people in the History or Politics departments anywhere in the country will have the best love lives. As both a History and a Politics student I must be an anomaly... sad days.

*Image from a "love Life" search on google image*

The Karma beast bites Tom

Check my new room at uni, it is ma-hoo-sive, so much so that Tom described it as being "so big it has gang rivalries between the East and West wings". Our new house is great (so far, we're all wary after last year), and its proximity to the supermarket and uni are really useful, even if we aren't in town anymore.

The move took a lot longer than expected, a shade over 9 hours of practically non-stop packing, unpacking, and moving. We celebrated the move with Buck's Fizz, and the ceremonial accidental setting off of the alarm. Then I got a migraine and just passed out in my room... on my double bed, sweet.

I'm really digging this new Blogger Images service, it does make things a lot easier now that I don't have to use a 3rd party photo hosting service or Hello.

*Explanation of title* When we were signing over for the keys to the new house Tom wrote my name on every bit of paper so I had to sign them all, meaning that everyones keys are now my responsibility. Which was a bit mean, though quite funny. In the draw that we had for the rooms (6 bits of numbered paper in my hat) Tom got the smallest room (again) and I got the biggest, so take that Mayfield!

btw, I don't believe in Karma, and hate it when people talk about it like science fact.

Room With A View

This is the awesome sunset that happened on my last night in London (Thursday). Either that or is wasn't a sunset and the sun and Earth just got much closer together, explaining why it was so orange, and also so asroundingly hot.

This is the view that my brother has out of his window (well, for another week until he leaves his flat). You probably recognise the 'erotic gherkin' (good god I hate that name) on the left, and St Pauls is in there too but the picture might be a bit small so you can't see it.

We're only fooling ourselves

So it's my last night in my (Leicester) city centre abode, we're moving out to the slightly less centre tomorrow, near to the rugby an football stadia. We decided that that best way we could help ourselves for the move to 'remove' the spirit bottles that were taking up space on the shelf so that we wouln't have the hassle of having to move them to a new place. This of course slowed up our efforts of packing up everything else we own. However, I did manage to be all manly and take apart the table that the TV/other TV/freeview box were resting on. Within minutes Tom and I realised that we hate each other and the conversation dried up, so we set-up the TV again, which was for the best as we all watched the Murray vs Nalbanian match @ Wimbledon and now the awesomeness that is Coldplay are bringing their 'incorrectly-labelled-as-depressing' brand of indie to the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury on BBC2.

If only I hadn't packed up my speakers...

Arm the homeless

First off, apologies for the horrifically obscure reference, but if you look at all the pictures on the link and it will become slightly less obscure, but you'll still be confused, just as I am.

So the highlight of my three days in London was seeing the almighty Audioslave, at the Brixton Academy. It was my first time there, which is hardly surprising since I've spent most of my 2 decades of life in Cumbria, but thats not important, I'd like to disspell the myth that Brixton is 'like Beirut but without the ceasefire,' it seemed lovely to me, though the distance between the tube station and the academy was pretty short to be fair, so there could be dodgy areas, but everywhere has dodgy areas.

We arrived a bit late and so struggled to find good seats (as it was an unresevered circle) but we did find a pretty decent spot with a full view of the stage. '...And you will know us by the trail of the dead' pretty much finished up their set as we were arriving, but they seemed alright.

Then we had to wait there for an hour in the horrific heat (I think the only time I wasn't sweating all weekend was when I was in the bath, day-am it was hot) waiting for the supergroup of epic proportions (am I giving them too much credit?). I was getting annoyed with them until they came out, then I rather predictably let my anger be diffused by the schoolgirl delight that is caused by watching Tom Morello play guitar. Highlights were the Rage songs, which is a shame in its own way, but when you see them play 'Sleep Now In The Fire' or 'Killing in the Name Of', and feel the passion and utter delirium of the crowd, I defy anyone not to react (one way or another). My hair stood on end, and those of you who know me will know thats no mean feat, I am 'hella' hairy. The acoustic portion (Chris Cornell with backing singers amounting to about 4921) would have been worth the admission fee alone, well maybe not, but it was still really good.

I'm afraid that since I didn't take my camera I am stealing a picture, but I am pointing to where I got it from, and there are lots of excellent photos on the Jeff's Odyssey page. Then again, he did get a signed, hand written setlist, and a guitar pick, so you can't really feel that sorry for the guy. Though having said that, if you (Jeff) somehow find this post and don't like me stealing your work, I will remove it.

more audioslave piccy-at-ures

Oh, the advantages of having a posh-esque voice

Of course, I'm talking about Richard, people that think my voice is posh probably wouldn't be able to read this blog, or work out how to turn the computer on to go on the in-tar-web. Sorry, got side-tracked , yesterday me, Richard, and my brother Neil visited Westminster Abbey, and after walking around the regular stuff and having Richard give us a tour that was more thorough than the official tour guide were giving ("the queen comes here"....wow) Richard decided that it was time to push our collective luck. He wanted to get us 'behind the velvet rope' and that doesn't even need apostrophie's because there was a rope, and it had a no entry sign.

To my surprise, his 'lower upper-middle-class' ways managed to get us into an area that we're not really supposed to be in, the tomb of Edward the Confessor. Well, not in it, that would be ridiculous, but nevertheless it was pretty cool to get a mini-tour of stuff that isn't generally on show to the public. Perhaps me and Richard both wearing our bigguybigcity.com t-shirts gave us more credibility, as if we were part of a team of religious historians...... perhaps.


This was what we saw, amongst other things, mostly badly defaced, which his sad to see becuase I can only presume that it would have been quite spectacular. It's funny to think that there's a body in that tomb and the many other tombs that are displayed, and yet it doesn't seem to creep anyone out.

Of course, I don't mean funny as in haha, that would just be wrong.

Because no news is good news

In the absense of anything that is really worth mentioning (I drove down to Leicester today, people tried to drive into me as usual, saw several near miss collisions, and ate in a McDonalds that had real flowers in vases, it was very nice) I'm just gonna post a few imageshack hosted pictures. They aren't exactly new (I haven't taken my camera out for a while) but should be entertaining. I'm going to London for the next couple days and won't take my laptop (it's just something else I can break/lose) so I won't be posting, I will be rocking out to the mighty Audioslave instead.

P.S. I'm not sure what my template will think of the size of these pics, so errors are expected.


Me and Tyse are doing the clever thing of intentionally looking in the wrong direction, cos we're funny like that. I liked my hair this way, even though it was a bit odd.


A few of the guys joining me on the Amsterdam trip, except for Ed in the bottom right, loser.


A bunch of friends (and me looking merry and v.burnt in the back) at Jack's 'surprise' birthday party last year (last year! how the days, weeks, months fly by).

Wake Me Up When This Hangover Ends

Yes, I do love Green Day. And you guys know that right? So why the f**k did I think it'd be really clever to get so wasted the night before the biggie at Milton Keynes (support from Takeing Back Sunday and Jimmy Eat World for gawds sake) that I spend the big day in bed throwing up? I am such an idiot. I actually request people to post replies inferring at my idiocy! Raaaaah!

Anyways, the reason was really that the main event this weekend was my birthday. So I spend all day Friday at Ascot in York. But a few bets on, don't win a lot, have a couple of drinks & see the queen... well kind of. Then my mate Sarah arrives from Cambridge so we do some major drinking Friday night. Fond, fond memories. That I remember anyway...

Saturday 18th June 2005... My 20th Birthday! Major hangover. Just chill in town before going out for a meal then just drinking a little bit cos I know I'm up early the next morning for Jon to drive us down to MK. And I still argue with all my friends that I didn't have that much to drink! But I think the whole 2 day bender was too much for me, nothing to do with the cigar oh no... So all night & all day Sunday is spent in the bathroom. While my friends attend the mighty, mighty gig that I would have given all my birthday presents to stop being sick & run down to greet Billy Joe et al with open arms.

I am a dick.

**Bones 2 cents: there's always the DVD, the picture is from Reading 2004, but I have no idea who took it**

So I ain't posted anything with a picture for a fair while, and stealing that one of Angelina/Brad doesn't really count, Bone originals have a certain something to them. This is about 3 minutes drive from my house, and on a day like that you can really understand why people will travel all over the world just to look at the scenery, and sit on a boat on a lake. It is just amazing, I never appreciated any of it until I went to Leicester. Not to say that the landscape of Leicester doesn't have its own highlights, even the ugly concrete mini-towers have a certain character (especially the completely empty obelisk next to the train station, I so wanna put ambient coloured lighting in there, just to make the world a bit more magical). By the by, I haven't heard all of the new Foo Fighters album but the current single 'Best of You' is really great, and I thoroughly recommend that everyone gives it a listen. 

Ever so slightly hazy

Had a night out with the 'gang' last night, which was officially for Nicola getting her first year results, but we could have also said that it was in celebration of mer wearing my big guy t-shirt. A good time was had by......most (enough said), and I danced hardcore and I finally got some recognition at home for ability to 'throw shapes'. Its always good to go to the Wheely for a night out, not for the surroundings, but because you're guaranteed to meet people that you haven't seen for ages, which tends to end with me saying "dude, gimme a high five, whaddya wanna drink?" which explains the lightness of my wallet.

So I woke up this morning in Scotts bed, which was a bit of a surprise, because oddly my immediate reaction was "shouldn't I be on a futon?" When I woke up, Scott and Steve-o were just coming in! At 7:30 in the morning! I realised later that this meant that me and Greeny had come back on our own, fallen asleep around 3:30, and Scott never returned to his own house, instead he carried on partying, hardcore long-haired fella that he is.

Ok, so there wasn't a huge amount of point to that story, I just thought that it was funny that me and Greeny stayed at Scotts, even though he wasn't even there.

I've been very lazy..

I apologise to anyone who's been slavishly awaiting my next post (that is to say, I have no regrets). I went back home to the great capital of the United Kingdom of Engerland etc. to have my summer holidays. Somehow this feels a little obsolete when being at university is so like a long extended holiday, apart from those 'tricky' exam things, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

I've taken the opportunity to brush up on my culinary skills in a clean and relatively hygienic environment, and also to do some exercise (not very strenuous, I should add). Because of all of this free time - holidays run from the start of June to the end of September - I shall also be working on new designs for bigguybigcity.com, and new marketing ideas. Soon we will be a truly global empire!

In a week's time I'm going to Cyprus: an event that I look to with some trepidation. It's 28 degrees celsius here at the moment, and I'm sweating like the proverbial pig. I dread to think how my skin, which is a whiter shade of pale, will cope with 35 degrees.. Despite this, there should be plenty of nice Roman, Greek, and Byzantine ruins to visit on the island. That is what people do in Cyprus isn't it?

Ahem

We aren't even off the ground yet...

So we were in the Wainwrights last night for the pub quiz, and I noticed something on Steve-o's name tag (he works there), it reads "Steven Heyns." I thought, "that's an odd misspelling of Haynes" but it wasn't a misspelling, thats how those kerrazy South Africans spell it, or at least how Steve spells it. This wouldn't regularly cause a problem except Steve is coming to Amsterdam with us, and I'm guessing that he "ain't getting on no plane" if it's spelt differently to his passport.

So this afternoon (me? in the morning? nope) I rang up KLM and was put through to a schmooth-sounding Dutchman, I know I'm enforcing stereotypes here, but frankly, those Dutch aren't helping themselves. Anywho, the upshot of it all is that I have to fax a copy of Steve's passport to Holland, so that they know who he is. I find this slightly odd, since we didn't have anything to do with passports when we made the initial booking, yet now we do, but its their rules so what can I do.

Is it clear that I was really stretching things to write about for this post just to maintain regularity?

Well I Never

Bonjour! Another Hangover. I actually have to stop drinking! Like Tigg would say, my liver must really, really hate me. But it was a cracking night. It was one of my bestest friends Deb's birthday party. After having eaten or slept very little over the last few days I was predictably wankered after very little liquid refreshment. Though the up-side of this was that I got my appetite back... well for the night anyway.

At the moment, I'm being glared at in the library for taking up a space at the very posh computers just to write this post. Though, dude, they obviously don't appreciate the daily need of the the blog fans to hear about the dramas which go on here in York. And if Jenni reads this, I'm in trouble cos apparently I am a bit of a drama queen!

Anyways I better shoot. I'm off into school. Again! I love it really. And I get highly paid. Nice.

Ok, yeah, Angelina Jolie is *that* hot

My first social outing of the home-summer was to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the Royalty in Bowness. The 'gang' was me (duh..), Greeno, Smoothy, Hodge, Clare (not the contributory, yeah, that's right, I'm so popular I know 2 people with the same name, kinda) and Nicola. A good time was had by all and we enjoyed what was described as an 'entertainment' film, and that's a pretty accurate description. I doubt that there is anyone who says it is their favourite film of all time. The rumours and hype surrounding it were probably as interesting as the story itself, not to say that I didn't have a good time.

I may well be being a bit harsh though, the action sequences were a bit cheesy, the dialogue smug, and the plot ri-goddam-diculous, but that was what I expected, so to complain would just be downright silly.

It was cool to see Adam Brody in a non-O.C. role, but is there ever going to be a point when he doesn't act as if he's Seth Cohen? or perhaps he's not even acting, he just IS Seth Cohen, or Seth Cohen is him, whatever.

Recently I'd started to get bored of Angelina, but this film really turned me back onto the path of Jolie fetishdom, that PVC number did the trick, Hodge exclaimed "Jesus Christ" and made numerous worrying "ooh" noises.

TV execs are stooopid.

So I get home and am excited to have the use of a full Sky membership to enjoy, on the line I find that a few things have changed, there's some new channels too. One of which demands me typing a few sentences about it.

Channel 339, 'Bad Movies,' that isn't the name of a show, thats the name of the freakin' channel!

Unless I'm horribly mistaken it's a channel dedicated to showing just bad movies. I'm basing this on the crap-o-rama that I watched for 5 minutes just now. Seriously though, how can this become a channel when even its novelty appeal is ever-so fleeting.

I can only assume that they know something about the relaxation of drug laws that I don't.

'Say Hello To Sunshine' with Bone

I thought I'd review Finch's new album as I don't feel that I have anything blog-worthy (despite moving back home today, and having my car dented by some bastards the day before).

I bought 'Say Hello To Sunshine' the day it came out, like any true fan would, I didn't even 'find' and 'advance' copy on the net. After listening to it a few times in the house, and then the far louder environment of my car on the drive home, I've decided that I like it. It's very different to the debut album 'What It Is To Burn,' but that doesn't necessarily mean its worse (though, to be honest, I'd say it wasn't quite as excellent), WIITB was stuffed full of easily-appreciatable radio-esque hits, or at least as close as you can get to a radio-friendly hit with anything approaching the screamo-core genre (lets not have a genre argument here). 'Say Hello....' feels as if it is an experimental slow burner, with songs that don't grab me, but I'm not compelled to stop listening either, it's curious, and most definitely a brave move by the Finch boys. Though having said this, I don't think it'll be quite as bigger seller as the debut.

I can't decide whether I'll go and see them on the latest tour (that is, if there are any tickets left), since both of the times I've seen them previously I've gone away slightly disappointed, maybe because of rumours they get blind-drunk before shows, and maybe because the production of their songs simply can't be fully translated to the stage, no matter how hard Nate forces himself to produce those gutteral screams.

And now time for the obligatory Amazon.co.uk affiliate link to the new album

Big Brother Derek goes mental! Bahahaha

I know that Big Brother is probably beneath the classy exterior that bigguybigcity.com exudes, but I just can't help myself, Derek Laud makes me laugh, there, I said it, a Tory makes me laugh.

I am the God of Sandwiches!

Now thats a bigg-ass sandwich! And my hand isn't being used to make it look bigger, it is just genuinely a gigantic sandwich. It contained sausages, bacon, a fried egg, burger relish, lots of lettuce (to make it healthy) and mayonnaise. All wrapped in half a 'cross-cut batard' from Somerfield. When I was half-way through I was full, but since I am the 'big guy' I forced myself to eat it. 

Research?!

Oh pants. I have a 4,000 word Research project due in on Friday. And I've not even started really researching it yet, never mind writing it! Not good at all.

So last night we went to a campus event called Planet V in Vanbrugh College. Last one was pretty darn excellent, some goood memories, so I had high hopes for this one. Firstly, I was W-Wasted. I had consumed many doubles & shots to try and block out the poor, poor, poor attempts at karaoke in Derwent. Life Is A F**king Rollcoaster Mate! Still no need to bloody 'sing' about it. It was slow to start off with but soon we were berocking hard to some heavy tunes. Next thing I know I was at the bar (now there's a surprise) and this alarm starts going off. I figured it'd stop but then people start piling out and I realised it was a fire alarm. Bastards. So we stand outside in the freezing cold for ages, many a un-writable things happened and the fire engine turned up. I got chatty with some dude called Simon who met Dr Raj Persaud & we swapped love life problems while smoking. That him mum, not me, honest! When it came to it, we weren't allowed back in. And i wore my bigguybigcity t-shirt... but not a camera in sight. Dammit!

I'm a.....rocket.....man

Shatner vs Griffin

Just to ensure that the day didn't go by without some BigGuy posting goodness I thought that I'd share a link I found today. I think it's season 2 or 3 of 'Family Guy' where Stewie does a hi-larious rendition of of Rocket Man, but I never quite realised that it was a parody of William Shatner, but in hindsight, it is so incredibly obvious. Anywho, this link takes you to a page that has the Stewie version, and the original by the one and only Shatner, both are funny, but I prefer Family Guy myself.

Rachel Stevens wants me to touch my testicles!

Rachel Gets Fruity (Flash Required)

Tigg is probably going to lose his mind when he sees this. If it was a place, it would be called 'double entendre-ville' or at the very least, 'cleavage town'. It's good to see a popstar go out of her way to encourage men to touch themselves, good for you Ms. Stevens!

Of course, it isn't all fun and games, she's, ahem, raising awareness of male testicular cancer.

Not Too Many?!

Major hangover Day. My not too many celebratory drinks turned into a full club moment, and I had to blag my way in wearing trainers. But the most unplanned evenings turn out to be the grandest and it really was! Our group of 2 multiplied to 7 or so by the end of the evening. Way too much to drink ended up in not going to bed til 5am and waking up at 6.45am and fearing going back to sleep incase I was sick. So I struggled onto the sofa, phoned in sick to the school (i'm dedicated normally!) and mooched into town slowly with Jenni & ended up chilling out in one of the nicest places in York, the Museum Gardens.

For now I'm going to tidy my bedroom. I am ashamed of it. And that's saying something. 1.45 hours sleep... my body's shutting down...

Bernard The Duck Has A Lot To Answer For!

I've just returned from my German Oral! It didn't go so well. Basically I yapped on for 10 minutes about random Mass Tourism shit, forgetting the words & stuff, then came the questions.... And I was asked about the environmental problems that Mass Tourism causes in the Lake District. And I wanted to talk about the Speed Limit on the Lake, but had no idea how to say that in German. So I sit there, blankly, for a few seconds and say the first thing that pops in my head. Ducks. DUCKS?!? What was I thinking?!? So for the next few terrible minutes I made up lie after lie about the main problem in the Lake District at the moment is Ducks dying because of Boats, and the fact that their numbers are getting less & less every year. And the examiner was concerned. It'll break her heart if she finds out I've lied to her...

Well not a lot I can do about it now is there? But have a few celebratory drinkies tonight! Not too many mind you, cos I am working at a school tomorrow. I'm going to have to learn how to substitute my foul mouth for more conservative language...

Fuck.

"Walk down the right back alley in Sin City, and you can find anything..."

The film Sin City is much like this particular slice of t'internet, pretty much anything will be commented on.

Fellow contributor Duncan and I were at a loose end today (who isn't when uni's finished for another year) so we headed off (along with Gath, Tom, Matt, Rory and Sophie) to the Odeon for a bit of modern-noir action. We stuffed our pockets with sweets and drinks (like the cheap students we are) from the supermarket over the road. As it turns out, they really don't care if you take anything in, but being conspicuously inconspicuous was a lot of fun.

The film itself is fan-freakin-tastic, I'm not going to discuss the story too much as I fear the creation of spoiler-age so I'll be careful. Basically, its a set of short stories which are semi-linked to each other, with many of the characters being involved in each others stories. When we left Rory said that it was "one of the best films I've ever seen" and I'm inclined to agree, I almost want to buy the comics graphic novels to see how they compare. As I was watching it I felt that the direction and cinematography was framed very much like a comic, it reminded me of the Max Payne games (yes, thats as close as I get to comics).

Oh, for the man in me, and the male readers, there's plenty of boobage, plenty of the b-e-a-utiful Jessica Alba, and in my opinion, a weekend in Old Town would be as much fun as my impending trip to Amsterdam.

IMDB's exhaustive Sin City page can be found here. Check it out #118 on the all time Top 250 list!

May be boring but remember, Boobs below

Alright so I'm totally knackered, but it because I had a really busy and cool day. I went to Alton Towers, theme park of themes parks, for the UK anyway. I went with two of my house-mates, and had a totally A Awesome day (and we didn't even meet Chester [sorry random joke, but at least Bone'll understand (I hope)]). So I woke up with Pearl Harbour Sucks and I Miss You in my head, random song from Team America, but then again its a random film, so I sang that in inner monologue for a good hour and a half. To be fair I had Team America on the brain, and anytime my thoughts paused my favourite quote popped into my head "Surprise Cock-fags!"

But I'm divulging, back to Alton Towers, so it was an early start, and I wanted to look my best so I was wearing another Threadless t-shirt(with another shameless ad too). Anyway we treked it to Alton Towers (AT from now on) but it was cool, we got a good travelling sound track of Jimmy Eat World and Saves The Day, which got us to the car park by 10. Unfortunatly I lost my Make Poverty History charity-band in the car-park on the way to the monorail (monorail, Monorail, MONORAIL! Mono- D'oh) and now my wrist feels naked, it was only a small band of cloth too. After a quick monorail ride waiting in line both for the monorial itself and tickets we made it to the park for 11.

We decided anti-clockwise was the way to go so went into the park and turned right. Two rides to start the day, first a ride without a name, but pleny of centrifugal force, then oblivion, the best 0.125 seconds of ride, shame it lasts that long. We took a while getting onto oblivion though, fat people emergencies. We waited in the loading area for 10 minutes as for two sucessive cars we saw the employees of AT trying to jam morbidly obese people into the safety equipment, taking it in turns to kneel on the safty bars whilst the other tried to strech the safety belt to the harness. I felt really sorry for these people, as they became both a public spectacle and the source of much negative energy from the punters.

I could go through a massive individual description of each ride, but Im not the star of this blog (more like a satellite planetary system) and I've already taken enough time explaining the trivialalities of today. But suffice to say I had a totally A Awesome day and it was a total laugh , and I haven't had fun like that in a while. But there were two more rides which made the day, duel and air.

Duel was a bad ride made good, originally the haunted house with little or no spookability someone had a fantastic idea, LETS ADD GUNS! It was a toally sweet ride where you shoot zombie vamires and monsters with lazers and rack up scores. We went on the ride twice, and although I got the highest total score over the two times, my housemate got the highest single score, but I was just happy to score over 50,000 point each time, since most people seemed to average 18,000, but trust a nerd to know how to kill zombies, I felt just like Simon Pegg. Air was awesome, for those of you who don't know its a rollercoaster where you are inverted so that you travel facing forwards, head first. However you do no lie out, as you're bound to a seat with your ankles and the regular shoulder harness from most rollercoasters (with a few modifications). However this position is the closest thing to bondage I've experienced in my life, but that wasn't going to ruin my enjoyment, as for the whole ride I got to strike the superman pose (one arm fully extended forwards, fist clenched [not in a wheel-chair or dead, thats the Christopher Reeves pose], but you could tell I was enjoying it from the huge grin on my face on the photos afterwards.

That was the last ride of the day, and afterwards we left AT, to come home, it's safe to say we're knackered, and now I'm really just killing time so I don't wake up stupidly early tommorow, anyway that was my day, trivialities accentuated, details skipped, but the day was A Awesome (the third and last time I'll use this insider joke) and I'm done writing this blog.

Don't do anything I wouldn't do,
Live in Peace people

Picture to demonstrate the power of Bernard the Blue Duck. 

My adventures with a duck

Last night I went to the University of Leicester's Student Union with a bunch of my mates, partly to celebrate the end of exams, partly just to get pissed on ridiculously cheap double vodkas and coke.

As part of our plan to make the evening more exciting and enjoyable we took along a little blue plastic duck, called Bernard, with the aim being to take as many pictures of random people featuring the duck as we could.

We started promisingly with the bouncers, worked our way to the dj and barmaids, a brilliant image of my mates' landlord, and hit a high point with a picture of a girl (and guy unfortunately) in s+m gear. In between we got loads of shots of happy students, who were all too willing to have their picture taken with Bernard, and generally acted like stupid drunks.

Hopefully we'll have many more good times with this duck, perhaps taking him to clubs which aren't full of people as prone to happy posing as students: a chavvy club perhaps?

Legendary.

Mon The Biffy?!

Well hello there! You thought I'd gone didn't ya? Well I went back to the LD for a couple of days for inspiration. I have a 30 minute oral on Monday morning about Mass Tourism. And I'm telling you, I saw enough of those bastards to last me a lifetime! Still haven't really done any work for it though...

Yes I'm a little bit drunk. I've just been to my friend's birthday party. It was GRAND! I was chatting to a lot of people I haven't seen in a while & making friends with some random people by responding to their simple "Mon The Biffy" statement. And now I'm apparently going to see Biffy Clyro with them. I have no idea what just happened...

Anyway I'm off to take some paracetamol for the headache & go to bed. I have to get up at 8am to phone in sick to work (I pray my boss doesn't see this).

P.S. I managed a whole drunken blog without mentioning something I shouldn't, which would get me into trouble later & I'd no doubt have to edit it in the morning. Get Me!

I am beardless! And happy! And my exams have finished! and I'd had a couple in the uni bar before lunch! Also, yet another t-shirt from threadless.com is being worn in that shot, because I just think its easier to buy new t-shirts than do any washing..... true, but not exactly my thinking. Also, the 'tache was just a little something I did for a laugh, but then I almost went out without shaving it off, which woulda looked funny with my ice lolly. 

Here is the final picture of my beard, along with one of my latest t-shirts from the good folks at threadless.com (this shot is also on their gallery pages, I'm a multi-site model). That bad boy was thick, and barely itchy at all (we're back to the beard now), if I needed to appreciate art, I knew it was there for me. Good times. 

Just when you think you're getting big...

So I get an e-mail of application to the 'Photo Hole' (BigGuy's official community group) and the reason for joining is:

so i can be the first groupie of the bigguybigcity label. and i think the t shirts are really cool.

and it's like "YES!" we 'r0x0r' (as the kids say). I became a little bit less excited when I realised it was Teb, now Teb is lovely, but I know her, I was hoping for a random that would idolise me and our collective designing skills.

Bowness, out.

The Long Walk for Justice

“If anyone is not going to come to our party – and it’s going to be one hell of a party – they can fuck right off.” - 'Crazy' Bob Geldof

Apols for the swearing, it was me 'twas Bob Geldof. This article from NME adds a bit more flesh to the bones of the line-ups around the world. The only switch I've noticed so far that Brian Wilson is at Philadelphia now, not Berlin, but that's of no consequence to me. The Hyde Park line-up does look really quite amazing, I'm very tempted to get up early on Monday and text in for the lottery. I'd encourage everyone else to, but then it would be more likely that I wouldn't go.

EDIT: I got a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to even attempt to go, but I have now realised that the date is July 2nd NOT July 8th as I thought, which would make sense y'know, G8 July 8th? The 8th thing would have been a clash with the Amsterdam trip.

Downtime, no foolin'

We're experiencing downtime over at www.bigguybigcity.com because the name servers are being switched away from the domain name masking that I've been using for the past month or so. The result of this will be that I can actually track who's coming to the site, and where from, not for any evil reasons, just so I can see what random google-ness the site is attracting. Also, it will mean that if you go from one of the links on bigguybigcity.com to say this blog, or the store then you'll have the correct address in the bar, not bigguybigcity.com

Onwards and upwards as ever.

www.bigguybigcity.com should now be working as intended, isn't it nice when things go right? (cue explosion in web hosts servers)

Return of the Mac

"Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it." Phillip K. Dick

Finished my exams, done thats it. Went on a spending spree, spent loads of money, nothing like mass consumerism to sooth the soul. I went and got three DVDs and a game, plus my two t-shirts from Threadless. I got Team America, Full Metal Alchemist vol.1, and Spongebob Squarepants Nautical Nonesense and Sponge Buddies. Two cartoons and puppets, keeping up the nature of the nerd. So what else have I been up to you say? Nothing much to be fair, revising, films and videogames. So as long as I'm advertising for all you nerdophiles, go get Forza Motorsport too.

The only major event in the last weeks has been Episode III, which was awesome, I was grinning from start to finish, I have to see it again, Bone when do you want to go? I have to say though the film exceeded my expectations, although General Grevious was ill-explained as a character, and the very end fitted too well, and happened too quick.

So I'm working on designs for the store, got a few in mind, and I think you guys might like them. I've not really inputted much in the way of designs yet, I'm working to change that, I've been more of the internet modeling sensation which graces the flikr gallery and the BigGuy hub. I hope to have more designs up soon, but until then go buy more stuff, that's an order people. It's cool stuff anyway, you know you want to buy it, then you can be cool just like Bone. Other than that I want to welcome Claire, Richard and Tigg to the BigGuy set-up, nothing much left to say really so I'll get going, for now.

Stay Happy People, and good luck with your last exam tommorow Bone.