Chicks dig green gummy bears - FACT

I've been to Scunthorpe, but I've never been to Southampton.  Oh Tinie Tempah, you and I live very different lives.

Firstly, after going back through this, I seem to have overdone the pictures a wee bit, but as that famous prophet Jojo once said (she is basically my Welsh equivalent of Rafiki) "include pictures. Blogs should have lots of pictures," so I'm not disobeying her.

Since my last post there have been two bits of big news.  Firstly - and by far the less surprising - is that I am moving house . . . again . . . for the second time in 2012.

And Gareth just thinks I dress like a homeless person . . .

Yup, I'm heading back to Derby, where I lived as a student for three years.  Not only do I know the place fairly well, but there is also a place which does £10 piercings . . . and it is pretty much central to everywhere I go nowadays (it's not just for the £10 piercings, honestly mother!)



. . . actually, it's not even remotely central . . . oh well, £10 piercings!



However, this news is rendered even more mundane by the scale of the second piece of news . . . I have encountered a female that is capable of not only tolerating, but moderately enjoying my company!



. . . sort of hurts when a captain of a not-yet built Starship from a
not-yet born generation is surprised by this turn of events.


Yush, I managed to woo her in the most unconventional of ways, but allow me to explain using pictorial evidence and print screens.  When we first became friends, she had the following as her status;

  

O rly?

Challenge = accepted.

 

 

Now true, it wasn't our first date.  The first date we had we struggled to comprehend what a protest 20 yards away was actually about and studied an ill pigeon, and on the second we watched a gentleman getting . . . implements kicked into him (well, it was on a Sunday in Nottingham, what can you expect?) so it was in fact the third date in which I got to Nottingham an hour and a half early and went scouring the city for a sweet shop, and eventually found one.  After spending fifteen minutes cursing to fending off non-green gummy bears, I exhausted the supply of those specified in Melissa's Terms and Conditions. 

I offered an apology to the shop-owner who flashed a quirked eyebrow at the contents of my bag.  

"Are the green ones the best then?" she quizzed.

"Apparently so . . . it's sort of a romantic qesture . . . or meant to be anyway," I replied, only to be greeted with silence.

Alas, it turned out to be worth it, because at 13:37 on Janaury 23rd 2012, underneath the clocktower in Nottingham's marketplace surrounded by ill pigeons, Melissa said she would be my girlfriend. 

How do you like them apples, Jean-Luc Picard?

Oh!  He does seem to like 'them apples' quite considerably.

However, I can imagine my friends - who I am visiting tomorrow - will no doubt have several jokes lined up about me asking a young lady to be my girlfriend with the use of sweets . . . especially considering I am twenty-five next month and Melissa is eighteen . . .



Damnit Picard!  Why are you even here anyway? Who invited you? I don't need to take this from you.  Technically speaking, I am older than you (which probably doesn't aid my side of this squabble about being in a relationship with a younger lady) but if I recall, in Star Trek: Insurrection you were getting all schmoozy with that flip-skirt who you later figured out was over 800 years old. Amirite?

Michael Silk - 1

Jean-Luc Picard - 0

Yes, it must be said that, whenever I am happy, my friends turn into comedy geniuses, so I am sure there will be plenty more contenders for the "Top Five Insults I Have Ever Received (it was the Top Ten, but with Facebook Timeline it seems to have lost some of my old statuses - oh the irony!)

1) Richard Griffin (on the sore subject of my lack of facial hair) - "It's alright Michael.  Soon, your body will go through a lot of changes; your voice will get deeper, and you will have hair where you didn't before.  It's all perfectly natural . . . well, it's not that natural at the age of 21." (nearly four years later the same still applies)

2) Grace Cunningham - "Oh you are so far in the closet you are technically in Narnia."

3) Luke Fisher - "Ancient civilisations have risen and then fallen in the time it takes you to type a sentence."

4) Adam "groovy internet name" Turner - "Everything would just make so much more sense if you were gay."

5) Poppy Sims - "If you had a different voice, different face and a different personality, you would be just perfect."

Already the jests have been swirling about (mainly from Melissa, it must be said) but Grace's "just make sure your CRB form is up to date" is currently the highlight. 

Please keep the jokes coming, both Melissa and myself have come to realise that our blossoming romance is actually comedy gold, so do yo' worst!

Everyone picks on me D:

When I was living in London (and single), Poppy mentioned that getting a dog would be a great way to meet people and make friends.  Personally, I consider myself more of a cat person these days, purely for the reason that I wouldn't need to go outside, interact with people, and catch a contagious disease (such as idiocy).

Anyway, back to the dog thing; the other week Gareth came out with one of his standard "chicks dig" comments - this time, it was "chicks dig dogs - fact!" It sounds a lot more . . . what's the word . . . 'on-the-pulse' than "chicks dig buttons" or "chicks dig accessories", so I'll try and reason with this idea of dogs being the key to making friends.

My mum has a dog, Sukey; she is quite a big pooch (an Alsatian-Akita cross) and I get asked to walk her every so often.  With her being quite a large and fairly young hound, she eats quite a bit (I'm sure you can see where this is going!) Where I walk her, it's a fineable offence to not clean up after your dog . . . .

The last time I walked Sukey, she did what is often termed as a 'double-bagger'.

Now I will be the first to admit that I am both quite anti-social and far from a hit with the ladies, but I would hazard a guess that it is far more probable that you will likely make new acquaintences without holding a reinforced bag of a multitude of still-warm dog schmief.

Just me on this one?

As per most weekends, I escaped the daily grind by escaping to my weekend home on the Friday; Claire and Tim's flat.  However, unlike most weekends, I actually had plans other than just getting (a) fat, (b) drunk, and (c) sleepy on the sofa.  Yep, I was seeing a certain miss Menzies on the Saturday.  Melissa, who has been bullying me for a mention in my blog . . . why does everyone bully me?

The initial plan for Friday night was to stay in, have a few drinks and play some computer games, and I'd slink off (as I normally do) early on the Saturday morning.

Wrong!

What actually happened instead was that myself and Tim took part in some awesome games of ice hockey on NHL '11, and we recently have a rule that if your team concede a goal, you have to have a shot.  I was losing fairly spectacularly, so I (cue the ice hockey terminology) 'pulled the goalie' (and not like that, we didn't exchange numbers or anything) and replaced him with an extra outfield player. The end result?

Tim's Brampton Battalion 5-3 Michael's Team Kazahkstan.

Now, I would like to make excuses.  I'd like to say that I hadn't eaten anything that day (which is a lie, since I ate my own bowl of chips . . . and then demolished the half-bowl Claire left) but with a combination of five shots of apple sourz, having a few sociable drinks since about 15:30 that day and my general rubbish work/sleep pattern, I was fast asleep on the sofa by about 21:00.  With us all having a quiet night in though, I didn't think anyone would mind.

Wrong!

We ended up in Corporation 'til about 01:30.

Actually, nothing too eventful happened in Corporation this week (mainly because Gareth wasn't there to commit some obscure faux pas or other) . . . oh!  But I did run into Aaron again. 

Aaron is the chap who comes top of my 'to destroy' list.  When I do eventually take over the world, some people will need breaking down and re-educating.  With Aaron, however, I think I'll just break him down and consider it "job done".

Anyway, let's skip forward to Saturday.  I was perfectly sobre, just very tired.  I was woken up by a combination of Adam's foot planting itself in my cheek and Melissa texting me to see if I was awake . . . which I was (sort of, even though I've just contradicted myself and said her message asking if I was awake woke me up), brushed my teeth  - I was incredibly tempted just to leave my toothbrush in Claire and Tim's toothbrush holder since I virtually live there - got changed and headed on off.

We had a good ol' sit in the market place . . . and then decided to move to the other side of the market place where the moderate bit of sunlight and warmth was.  There we sat watching an unwell pigeon for quite a while . . . probably longer than most people sit watching a pigeon in all honesty, contemplated joining a protest that was happening twenty yards away for a rather unique date experience, and discussed our preferred superpowers.  Melissa picked teleportation, but with the ability to take other people on these teleportations through time, and mine was the ability to stop and rewind time (because I make an awful lot of bumbles, so it would be handy to have the whole Bernard's Watch thing . . . does anyone remember Bernard's Watch?  That was awesome!) She told me her friend had threatened to "turn me gay" if I ever hurt her (and I can see everyone thinking "well that won't be very hard; it's bad when at some point or other that both of my ex girlfriends, my mum and my sister have queried my sexual preference before!) which is one of the more unusual threats I've ever received.  Not that I could hurt Melissa after she regailed me in how she destroyed her ex . . . I'm a little bit terrified in all honesty, but we have already established that she's the man so s'all good really.

I won't go into too much detail, but we had a really good time together. In fact, such a good time that I thought I'd put up a nice Facebook status about it.  Unfortunately, doing this with a room full of friends is a bad idea, it seems. 

"Eugh my God!" muttered Adam under his breath in his usual tone and eying me disapprovingly.
"Wut?" queried Claire.
"Queero's status" came his reply.

Instantly, everyone had their phones out, and I got a notification saying "Adam Keelan Turner commented on your status"

And 5 'likes' as well?

So that was everyone I was in the room with, Gareth (who was noticeably absent) and me (what? I hate being left out!) and this all happened in the space of about 2 minutes; it was almost impressive . . . almost.

I think I'm just about all rambled out really . . . . oh!  No, I forgot to mention that I managed to skittle a rather ugly grubby-looking toddler in a shopping centre. But other than that I am pretty much done until next time.

Facepalm Week

Over some very suspect games of pool the other day, Claire mentioned that she should start charging me rent for the number of times I have slept at her and Tim’s flat.  This lead me to chart the places I have slept after twelve days of 2012;

1^st – I woke up on the floor of Claire and Tim’s flat (Sheffield)

2^nd – I woke up on my sister’s sofa-bed (Chesterfield)

3^rd – Again, my sister’s sofa-bed (Chesterfield)

4^th – For a change, I woke up on my mum’s sofa (Loughborough)

5^th – Actually woke up at my own place D: (Loughborough)

6^th – Again, I stayed at my own place because I’m a brave boy (Loughborough)

7^th - . . . . Claire and Tim’s living room floor (Sheffield)

8^th – Claire and Tim’s sofa (Sheffield) N.B. And no Gareth, it wasn’t the sofa you marked as your territory.

9^th – And I woke up at my sister’s house (Chesterfield)

10^th – My own bed

11^th – My own bed

12^th – and again, my own bed – clearly I’m getting the hang of this now.

So, in a nutshell, Claire does have a point, considering I’ve slept at Claire and Tim’s flat three times in twelve days (and potentially twice in the next three days) I think it’s fair to say she may have a point.

Urgh, cue the generic job grumble.  Now I hate to somewhat snobby, but they seem to collect all manner of socially inept folk (I hope I’m the exception).  There’s Gary, who is a thin, bespectacled 56-year old man who has the appearance of someone who should be located in a library’s dark recess.  WRONG – every other word out of his mouth is one curse or other.  There’s Phil, who I am fairly certain I would like to destroy, purely for being an over-confident swaggering arse.  Ally, who is perhaps the most unusual looking person I have ever seen; imagine the thing off Avatar (I don’t know the things name, I tolerated Avatar for a while before I realised it was the plot of Pocahontas and was then unimpressed) but with a normal skin tone and a hook nose – my friends, we have Ally.  I must stress that I hope I don’t sound like I consider myself superior, but last night a chap named Zahni asked me if, and I quote word for word, 

“have you ever been somewhere that you have never been before?”

Last year, my main New Year’s resolution was the rather homosexual one of “to find happiness” . . . in a way, I completed that, but not in the way I expected (see my last post for details).  And so, with the usual good intentions, I’ve set my New Year’s targets of (a) passing my driving test (b) find a good job (c) get a decent house, and (d) lose about three stone.  People often tell me that I’m not fat and I’m being ridiculous. WRONG! I carry it off fairly well through a combination of being tall and wearing waistcoats, but I am rather podgy. I suppose the best way to describe my physique is, imagine having a rather docile frog placed in front of you, and one was to gently hook your fingers under its arms and lift it ever-so-slightly.  Here, you would be presented with a creature with spindly arms and legs, and yet a rather bulbous belly; this is essentially me.

Anyway, and on to the tragi-comic tale of my job interview for Durham Constabulary.  Again, this happened a few years ago now (towards the autumn of 2009) when myself and Grace were living in Durham.  I managed to get myself an interview for a decent job with the local constabulary, and was quite chuffed and did a fair amount of research and what-not prior to the interview.  The day came, and I was looking rather fetching (obviously a waistcoat was used) and so I made my way to the police headquarters in rather high spirits.

Upon arrival, I showed the female receptionist the letter I had received, and explained that I was here for an interview.  She looked down the corridor I was meant to go, and she said that I was to "go through the double doors and turn left, and take the second door on the right".  Simple enough, you'd think. However, as she told me to turn left, she pointed right . . . . . . now I suppose I really should have asked for clarity, but hindsight is such a wonderful thing.  

I headed down the corridor and turned left, as she instructed (only rather gingerly) and made my way to the 'second door on the right', and then paused. "Wait a minute . . . if she points right when she means left, does that make this the right room?" screamed the voice in my head as I stroked my chin thoughtfully.  

I made the fatal mistake of trusting a receptionist.  Never trust a receptionist!

I was the first one into the room, the chairs were arranged in two rows crescents facing a board. "Oh, a group interview, I see," as I positioned myself at the centre of the back row.  The room began filling up with people, all of whom far more informally attired than myself.  I had an odd-glance or two cast at me, and retaliated by casting some of my own.

After the room filled, a rather stocky short-haired chap came in and stood at the front, grabbed the top page of a flip-chart, and turned it.  This revealed a very detailed layout of a house.

I was in the wrong room.

Sat where I was, at the centre of the back row, there was no way of me leaving discreetly.  Do I sit there, and become - as the meeting progressed the objectives became clear - part of a drugs bust team, or do I put my hand up, explain that I'm in the wrong room for an interview, promise not to relay the information to number 47, Bek Road End, Newton Hall, Durham, and leave?

Unfortunately, neither of these outcomes happened.  What did happen instead, is that my interviewer came and gently tapped on the door, and asked if there was a Michael Silk in here.  Immediately, all my "squadies" turned around and looked at me, sat there in my waistcoat, white shirt and purple tie.  I excused myself with as much dignity as I could muster.

Needless to say, I didn't get the job.

Ohai Nick! Ohai 2012!

Firstly, I am quite flattered by the number of people who have quizzed why I haven't done an update on my blog recently.  Secondly, my companion Nick, (whom I often spend many a dejected moment on Claire and Tim's balcony armed with our respective cigarettes, folornly looking at the warmth and merriment indoors) has previously bested my tales of . . . well, generally being an idiot and wanted them mentioned.  Alas, alcohol was consumed afterwards, and I can't remember much of it . . . something about Syphillis? Anyway, hello there Nick, and I set you your own challenge;

"If you wish to out-pathetic my blog, write yo' own!"

Well, the main source of my blog-neglect is due to the ever-encroaching date of March 4th, 2012; Lyla-Mae's first birthday.  Some of you know, some of you don't, but Lyla is Poppy's little daughter . . . and if you have me as a facebook friend, before Tuesday 27th December, you would have noticed that my Wall (no wait, my 'Timeline') was essentially marked as 'her' territory.  For Lyla's first birthday, I was writing her a little book called 'Volbert the Mole', and Poppy (a trained tattoo artist) was going to illustrate it.

Well, to cut a long story short, it looks like something of a pointless venture, as me and Poppy are no longer in touch with each other.

Poppy

So far, only two people know the whole story, my closest friends know the key point of the story, and I am sure everyone must realise by now, given how my wall used to look with nothing but Poppy posts, that we have had one pretty major "disagreement."  My grandmother always told me that, 'if I have nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything', and so I will not say a word more . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .but what a vile, descipable, manipulative and downright nasty creature she has turned out to be.

And so this sort of overshadowed the end of my 2011, a year of a great many changes for me.  I will look back at 2011 as the year that I lost the proverbial stabilisers of my life; the two most constant people in it were both my Grandma, and Grace.  In March, I lost my Grandma to cancer, and in April myself and Grace broke up.  

However, whilst 2011 ended in a rather bobbins manner, it's made me realise that I already have everything I need for a fantastic 2012 (cue the soppiness, and even a hint of bro-mance!) I have some truly awesome friends, and I doubt I can even name them all.  

Gareth - who brought in 2012 with an invisible bang (HAHAHA!) - almost deserves his own entire post on just how amazing he has been to me this year, and I can't express enough just how much I appreciate him (just don't tell him that).  Another person I owe so much to this year is my year sister Tina.  If I went on listing people, I'd be here all day (because all my friends are so awesome) but here is a quick summary;

Gareth - I have come to realise that I am most likely going to end up either married to him, or dying alongside him in a ridiculous and whimsical manner.

Tina - Couldn't have asked for a better big sister <3

Claire - Beautiful, funny, a hilarious laugh, and terrifyingly good at NHL.  Tim is one lucky chap.

Tim - He might get into a ridiculous number of fights, but he is a softie at heart ;)

Luke - Always the first person to ask how I am doing.

Jojo - She started out as my sworn nemesis, and ended up as my closest confidant.

Diane - Never afraid to hit me with the blunt stick when I'm being a foo'

Linda - Rapidly becoming my pointless adventure buddy. You medically need to come to Sheffield soon.

Jake - Put one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me on my wall when I was low :')

Matt - If I could organise three people to attend a dinner party of mine, it would be Ghenghis Khan, Vin Diesel, and Matt Weir; I appreciate the works of all three immensely.

Johnny - women advice extraordinaire.

Nicole -  I miss you, and the sense of relative calmness in which I now open links. 

Gracie - When I really really really needed someone I could talk to, you put all our spats behind us and phoned me, and I can't thank you enough for that.

It's upsetting that I was actually blowing a kiss in this picture . . . no wonder I'm single!

So yes, 2012 can only improve on how 2011 ended, and just two days in I can really appreciate that I am one hell of a lucky chap.  

In my next post, someone remind me to regail you with the tale of my interview at the Police station, since my last two posts have been a bit too 'deep'.

Oh, and as a final note, regardless of what has happened between me and Poppy, I am going to carry on with Lyla's book.  It is unlikely that she and myself will ever speak again, and I now have no way of contacting her, but I have put a lot of time and thought into making this present, and I'm not going to stop simply because someone else has decided to arse me around.