Tuesday 29 March 2011

SUCCESS! (partially)

That's right, my letter to Glenda Jackson has received recognition! Admittedly not from her yet, but from her office. Something about Parliament anyway. Well, here's the reply:

Dear Mr Shapiro,

Thank you for contacting Glenda Jackson. Unfortunately, we do not have a record of your postal address. We request this for two reasons. Firstly, to confirm that you are indeed Glenda's constituent as Parliamentary protocol prevents us acting on behalf of a non-constituent. Secondly, when we contact another agency or Department with an enquiry, they usually respond in writing and we would like to pass their response on to you.

Given that your email indicated a high level of personal distress, I suggest you contact http://www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/Who may be able to give you mushroom related advice.

Best Wishes,

Mrs Rebecca HenneyParliamentary Assistant to Glenda Jackson MP
T: 020 7219 4008
M: 07507 864 873
F: 020 7219 2112


Good, eh? However, as you may have noticed if you clicked on her link, it led to a website about real mushrooms, which, as we all know, are infinitely less cool. Here's my reply, it's short and boring, but I'm hoping it'll get the job done.
I live in [CENSORED, I LIVE HERE, DON'T YOU INTERNET RAPISTS BE FOLLOWING ME. THAT'S RIGHT, I'M LOOKING AT YOU] . And I'd like to clarify that the mushroom in question whose disappearance I am outraged at was in fact a plastic mushroom, not a biological one. Thank you very much for your time.Chris Shapiro

So we now just play the waiting game... again...

Also note that I tried to be polite and not go way over the top, because I want my suggestion taken seriously. Just because it's jokes.

Saturday 26 March 2011

Abusing Democracy

Well, I realised that this weekend I had a slew of homework to do, I though I should write a letter of complaint to my local on a matter which has affected me deeply. Here is the letter I sent:

Dear Ms Jackson,
I am a concerned member of the Hampstead and Kilburn society, who has recently been outraged by a travesty that has occurred in the area. This cruel abomination has wreaked untold havoc upon my life, and a journey which I make twice a day has become a painful odyssey, though for me it used to be a calming and relaxing part of my day. As a result of this horror I have felt much more stressed out and depressed than I ever used to! I know I am not the only person to be affected by this loathsome offence, as I have discussed the matter with many people who have also had their minds torn asunder due to the severity of this inhumane atrocity. I would rather live under a Napoleonic dictatorship than be part of a society which allows such a sordid and vile thing! I believe such an act should be punishable in the same way that disregarding the Geneva Convention is, and that the perpetrator of the crime should be forced to recompense all those affected by his reprehensible offence!
I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, the red mushroom which previously stood on the wall opposite the Spaniard's Inn just before the phone box has been removed! I am sure that this isn't the only letter you will receive about this, as I am well aware that the Spaniard's Road is used by a plethora of people on their daily journeys, who used to enjoy their routines but now must make Herculean efforts to repeat it daily. This hellish torment must end, and I must regrettably inform you that if this travesty is not addressed, I would be unable to bring myself to vote for you again. I feel as though I am suddenly being interrogated by some sort of Spanish Inquisition, and as I did not expect this, it is doubly troubling. 
I believe that this vile act of vandalism must be repaired! Though I accept that to rebuild such a monument will surely take time, if it is not replaced by September, I will be forced to move out of the constituency, and maybe even the borough itself. I do not mean to place such a burden upon your shoulders, one which even Atlas would be unable to carry, but it is these weighty issues which you, as an upstanding and proud member of the community, has chosen to tackle, and I commend you for it! 
Many thanks, Chris
 Yeah, so I'll tell you all how that goes. Apparently she's legally obliged to reply to me, which makes it all the more fun. And apologies to Dan for not including him in this, I thought it would just take too long, and we do need this subject to be addressed as soon as possible. This took precedence over coursework. Plus I can do this without being a hypocrite because democracy is stupid and too romantic a political notion to work properly, like communism, but much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much less stupid. Because everything is.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Literally pure filler

Well, since I haven't done a blog post for almost a month and am currently so hungover that I'm trying to book a flight to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland [EDTIOR'S NOTE: not to be confused with whatever abomination this is] (don't know why I linked either of those), I thought I should do one before the full month. In a humble gesture towards Matty, Ben and Dan, who've all done stupid blog posts, I'm going to do a combination of them all, and write about one of my days last summer, in a really sarky tone, which is completely fictional and has undertones which imply that I'm a disturbed psychopath. Not that you get generally normal and fine psycopaths. Hmm, that could open itself up to a massive tangent... but it won't.

SO, last summer I went to...um... the unforgettable...Canada (it's the middle way between Poland and America), and loads of DEAD BABIES WHICH I SEE EVERYWHERE kept implying to me that they wanted to know what happened (obviously they were implying it, I'm not just a massive cock who thinks that jokes are all subtle implications of something. A cigar is never a cigar either). So I decided, completely originally and not at all in a way which piggybacks off of an age-old idea, to write about my best and worst day, because since I left nursery school (for strangling the hampsters) I've missed doing stupid redundant exercises about my holidays.

Well I say it's my worst day, it's still a day which I will cherish, because it's helped form me in a way which isn't overused by everyone and so incredibly cheesy that lactose-intolerant people can't even be near. So, I'd been staying with a friend I met on this online forum for a few days, and I was meant to head on to a far-removed shack in the woods owned by another friend I'd met online, though I met this friend here. Anyway, so in the morning I woke up needing the toilet, so I had to make my way to the outhouse, carefully avoiding all the dead squirrels we had tortured and left to die in the garden the night before(as you do), and as I was doing this, I tripped on an amputated squirrel arm, and fell straight into the mud! But it was really great and I got in touch with nature, so I was not at all annoyed.

Anyway, after I left the house, on my way to get the bus, I passed a really close friend of mine I'd had chats with on this internet forum, and I decided to run away from him to avoid an awkward conversation, because I'm like that. Luckily, he's in a wheelchair, so I was soon able to escape him, but I realised that in the process of running, I'd become lost. I checked my phone for GPS, but being a massive idiot, I'd let it run out of battery! Let me stress how much of an idiot I was here. I was in a foreign country where I didn't really know anyone well, except from the internet, and I'd forgotten to do this basic single thing which would have made my life SO much easier. Wow. So. Fucking. Dumb.

So, I kept on asking people where the bus stop was, but people didn't seem like they knew, they'd avoid looking into my eyes and would mumble "sorry, I don't know" as I wandered around, dead half-eaten (by me) camel-baby slung across my shoulder. So I started walking around, but I couldn't find it myself! Eventually a homeless person, who later introduced himself to me as Crack-pipe Rick, stopped me as I was following the helpfully placed signs which said "bus stop" and indicated a direction, and told me that the government were lying to us with those signs, and not to trust them. To me, I assumed that his explanation was probably more logical and likely than the idea that I couldn't follow a simple fucking arrow system. Anyway, he told me to follow him to the bus stop, so I did, because that isn't how at least 90% of missing people are found dead in a river. We got to the stop, with a brief detour as he stole all my money and raped me-which I have to admit, I enjoyed- but as the last bus had already gone, I decided the best and most logical thing to do here was to tie myself down to the bus stop and sleep. However someone unzipped one of my bags and just took all the stuff out of it, and unfortunately for my later pleasure, it was my camera which he stole, full of pictures from the squirrel re-enactment of the Spanish Inquisition from the previous night.

I didn't sleep well because i kept on rolling onto my bag, and the cat which I kept in there to vent my frustrations, sexual or violent, on kept on miaowing really loudly. Eventually a bus came, which I promptly got on, which was swell. I was planning on catching up on my beauty sleep on this bus, as I was well tired from running away from my crippled compadre, but there were loads of interesting people on the bus who I spoke to. I met a black man who helpfully told me all about the break mechanism and all the terrible scenarios that would play out if they failed, an asian woman who told me she was an aspiring actress before offering me a handjob for twenty dollars or head for fifty, and a group of drug addicts who were going to knife a businessman for money for their next hit. IT WAS SO AWESOME.

Anyway, when I got off the bus my friend called me [ED: please don't complain about continuity here] and told me I couldn't stay in his cabin tonight, which was a weird call, because I heard a woman in the background screaming "Help me! Please! Don't kill me! What are you going to do with that knife?" So I wistfully smiled and said sure, I'd join him tomorrow, and went around looking for somewhere to stay. As I was short of cash, I decided to whore myself out as a nice, healthy 17 year-old boy. I tried 3 or 4 people, but they all asked me how old I was and if I knew that prostitution, especially child prostitution, was illegal, upon which point I promptly ran away. What dicks. Eventually though I got a client, and I just slept over at his house.

I was going to do my good day after this, but I'm such a massive dick that I won't, I'll just do it later. Now I have to go pluck all the feathers from a sparrow which got caught in my trap, then throw it in water to see how its birdsong changes.