Blah Blah Blah, yadda yadda yadda

Ruth Leadbeater.

Is reading this now, and should know that I love her very much and that I know she loves me back

<3

Haiku

Single pods of past,
Fashion throughout all our time,
Reborn, yet, unformed.

Strike as much meaning out of that as thou shalt wish,
Because i didn’t find ANY.

kthxbi
Billikipedia signing off
x

Dreams…

What can you learn about someone, through what you dream about them? I’ve always assumed dreams and reality were on different, unconnected planes. But, now I’m not so sure.

First of all, the dream invovled everyone’s favourite crybaby bitch; Samara.

bitch

But, she had jet black skin and a dirty black gown, with some tar in it. Oh, and she was trying to posses my little sister and take her back to her own demonic hell-well. All the ingredients for a potently terrifying nightmare, you’d say. Weirdly, however, I wasn’t even slightly terrified. Even when she was walking up the drive with her hand outstretched with crows coming out of her mouth.

It took ten minutes of thinking to figure out why I wasn’t terrified of the very presence of this awful, evil child-banshee. Then I remembered how the dream ended, and I realised why I felt safe all along.

Samara, after following us around like that girl at school who fancies Joe for most of the dream, apparated in the house and started dragging Ruby (my 8-year old sister) away by the throat.

So my little sister kicked her. In the face.

Then my Grandma shot her eight times with a rifle and my sister picked her up and broke her and half. And put her in the recycling.

What can be gleaned from this unique insight into my subconcious mind? The women in my family will seriously fuck you up.

Nick Hine’s Ephebtastic Saturday.

Author’s Note; This post is enormous. If you want the hearty, good stuff; skip straight to the second row of stars. Feel free to tackle this monstrosity in short bursts of energy, if that suits you. And, no matter how loyal you may consider yourself, you are in no means obligated to read the entirety of this post, which remains simply a self indulgent essay piece to soothe my own aching mind.

* * *

I may as well begin at, of course, the beginning, in the ancient history that was early this grey, pearlescent, misty morning. I rose (or, rather, froze) at seven in the morning, to noisy birds of both varieties (shrill, cackling neighbours loading armoire into shamefully small Fiat) and a house that smelled of soup.

I procrastinated until twenty past eight, where I briefly broke the habit to make porridge and pour the dregs of an only a week old jar of honey into it. Back to procrastination until half nine, whereupon I washed, maintained oral hygiene and had a long, long shower. Then, of course, with wet hair and a split-second decision to allay the wearing of a new coat until it can be given the seal of approval by those, the harshest critics, the Chaps.

That sound ridiculous, doesn’t it.

On the bus, I was nervously aware that I was cutting time uncomfortably thin. Not helped by the fact the bus-driver himself was nearing the age of retirement, drove like a pensioner and possesed the most kind and generous spirit in all of South Yorkshire when it came to allowing other cars to pass. Other of the journey’s stomach churning highlights include watching a past-it Goth woman of 40 years fumble protractedly with masses of copper, having a pensioner next to me who smelled of onions and watching a sixteen year old girlfriend and boyfriend with learning difficulties and two small children fail to manoeuvre a pram into a pramspace.

In the end I missed the train by eight seconds. Thank you for ruining my day, pensioner, goth-woman and dense Gary and Stephanie, with Danny and Blake in tow.

So, with the train not coming for another fifteen minutes, I bought a paper, blissfully unaware I’d told Ella I was arriving at Wombwell station. So, I failed to arrive at Wombwell station. Around this time, I caused anger, tears and misery. I read the leading articles, again, unaware of this, and most other things apart from the fact there sat on a bench next to me an elderly man reading the Star, who occasionally diverted his eyes away from the breasts on the page to eye me and tut judgementally, although reading a center-left, compact, upmarket newspaper was a personal insult to his gutter-press reading, nipple-ogling ways. I met his gaze the second time round and snarled slightly. He went back to looking at the breasts, and I read about Russian gas pipelines. I spotted the Crimea on a map, and felt gratified.

The train arrived and I got on it, and immediately found a table seat completely to myself. Rapidly, all other remaining seats on the table were invaded by a man in an inappropriately puffy anorak and his two gawky children, one of whom gazed idly out of the window for the entire with the general demeanour of a bedwetting firestarter. I was unnerved immediately.

Then, Puffy Anorak Man proceeded to whip out a magazine that consisted entirely of Helveticized, captionized pictures of Cranes, Kingfishers and other such cowardly predators, printed on extravagantly glossy paper. Which was fine, I thought. I, personally, have been known to enjoy worse.

He then went on to explain the more intricate details of the workings of a Heron’s mouth, for the entire journey, until I felt as inclined to serial killing as his scenery-observing younger son.

I escaped from the train with a slightly flattened arse and the irritatingly fascinating knowledge that Herons have both inner and outer beaks, for catching and chewing respectively.

The paper was folded, haphazardly. The front page of the Times, by this point, was looking battered and bruised, and the day had scarcely begun. I put on one of those commuter scowls that exhudes “Move Out Of My Way”, and began stalking the drab corridors. Or, rather, I tried to. A few metres inside, two meek looking conductors flanked on either side by 200 pounds of wisened beef in cheap suits, demanding tickets.

I had a ticket. I had a valid ticket. Better still, I had a valid ticket at hand. What was infuriating was the impregnable bottleneck that formed, despite the metre’s worth of gap between them that the crowd of mostly-pensioners could have easily passed through.

Only in Britain would a crowd of people stop and surrender their ticket a second time for no logically justifiable reason, simply to ensure that no-one looks upon them as guilty fare dodgers.

Possessing no such guilt complex, I aimed myself at the parting in the middle of the crowd. Upon passing through the split, an aggressive ticket-mistress spoke forth unto me; “Tickets please”, firmly.

“But, I’m not catching a train“, was all I had to offer before I broke off, aflame. I was, of course, determined to find Ella and save the day, in a shining suit of clunky armour. I paced all the way to M&S, once. Ella wasn’t there. Which was fine, because I could have easily lost her in the haze of pensioners. So I patrolled back to the ticket barrier again. No sign of the fair maiden, unfairly.

Bear in mind I’d had my phone confiscated and the thought I might possibly need it to communicate with another person not near me never truly occurred to me.

* * *

On the way back from terminus to terminal a second time, I pondered Fashion. The topic of thought was how Fashion influences Young White Males; R&B and Dance fans, Dubsteppers, Casuals and Topboys. I tried to have a decent and reasonable discussion in my own head, but my mind inevitably turned to Fashion’s greatest, sexiest enigma; Low Trousers.

The idea of low trousers is simple enough: any Casual Topboy who objects to paying above one pound for a condom (read; “Worth His Salt”) should ideally invest in cord or cotton tracksuits (and, correctly, a crew-cut) two sizes or, (treat this as ironic), four inches too large, and wear them with as much gratuitous boxer short showing as(s) is possible. Not just any boxer short, either, tight-to-the-bone (Boneo..) Calvin Kleins, just thin enough to be seen through, so the faint outline of cheeks are visible to passers by and, behold the tactics, lasses. This is how Fashion is in beaten, broken Britain (haha).

Not that I’m complaining.

I was contemplating that despite this apparent uniform, there can be no way anyone (manyone?) would wilfully go around all day stumbling over their own cumbersome trousers with their cheeks on display through tight and thin boxer briefs.

Then I saw 12 boys doing exactly so, adding evidence to the Clark Theory of Grey Helly Hansen Attractiveness as well. 12-15, of course, I was keeping it legal. A veritable plethora of forbidden lust. The trackies were riding low, beyond low, and the boxers were thinly clinging to behinds. Aware that such an opportunity may never again present itself, I abandoned all previous occupation and did what I had to do.

I ogled.

However, I couldn’t help noticing that, as(s) I’d parked myself behind the Boyish Sex Convoy, a Soldier in The Salvation Army parked himself next to me and started ogling the boys. He bit his lip and salivated a little. In fact, I could see him visibly inflate his chest and adopted an official, important looking gait. We briefly began to make eye contact. And again, and once more. I had to say something, because an understanding had been reache; that boy-love united us, two people presumably entirely different in every other respect. Bearing in mind his knowledge of Christian canon, I decided on what I had to say.

“Lo”, I said.

He grinned, enormously.

The timing was perfect and, as we both resumed observing this godly coconut shy, a boy in the middle; crew cut, cute, 14, fell over after his tracksuit bottoms fell to his ankles of their own accord. He floored it, epically. The Samaritan was stunned, I was stunned, everyone behind us was stunned. His friends imploded into laughter. The Samaritan was too paralysed to be a Samaritan and help the boy up. I, however, was not, and I grabbed him by a wrist and hoisted him up into the air. I stood back, with the sole intention of watching him bend over and pull up his trackies.

He obliged. He asked me my name. I told him “Humbert Humbert”. I grinned at him, and he proceeded to make sure his trousers were sufficiently low enough for him to continue.

I rejoined The Samaritan. He eyed me admiringly. Again, taking advantage of his biblical canon, I spoke.

“Suffer the little children, come unto me”.

I winked, and walked away.

* * *

After patrolling Meadowhall countless times, I was beginning to feel a more direct solution to the problem was in order. I wanted to embrace the fact I might not see Ella and have a day in Meadowhall by myself, possibly shopping. Maybe I’d just recline in Starbucks with the Times all day, supping coffee. Perhaps I’d do both.

Try as I might, I couldn’t enthrall my own mind into this state of mind, as irresistable a bachelor cliché it may have been. I had to see her, it’s what I wanted above anything else. So, I called my Dad and asked for Ella’s number.

I didn’t have a pen. So, using my manly initiative, I filled my hand with water and drew the number onto the paper in moisture.

The moisture faded away.

Acutely aware that time was running out, I ran, of course, to Starbucks. Where Coffee Legend Man fixed me up with a pen. So, I called Dad again (payphone) and asked him to read it out again. I wrote it, concentrating on the fact the machine was chipping mercilessly away at my funds, more on what I was writing. So, I wrote it on Tiger Woods’ face.

So, I couldn’t read it without doing a bit of a squint. So I wrote it again and felt just a little bit of White Guilt.

I called Ella and begged, but Ella’s mother refused to budge on the situation. So, I wandered around and read the leading articles and returned the pen. Then I phoned back and begged a bit more until they couldn’t help but cave into my pathos and pity.

So, I caught the train.

And the bus.

Grippingly, nothing exciting happened, apart from when a toddler with ADHD kept on shoving a toy mouse in my face.

All in all, the drama permitted only one hour with Ella (a good hour, of course) before I was back into the cold again, feeling conspicuous next to a dancing Santa with a nasty baritone. I also spent £8.00 on public transport and helped BT out of its economic woe. And I couldn’t have done it without their ridiculous payphone charges.

* * *

This post may, or may not, have been written with the explicit aim of acting as a “Do Not Feed Nick Hine” sign, by scaring off assorted responsible adults, prudent teens and anyone in between. It also may, or may not, have been written in the hope that one of Ella Worthington’s friends may log on and reading it, causing a general awkwardness that will no doubt provide the challenge my life needs to remain fresh, new and interesting on a day to day basis. This remains one of life’s great, final mantras, an unachievable desire of a life thoroughly action packed in all respects. One day…

_{nickhinewrotethis}

The Magic Seven.

I’m writing this at twenty to ten at night, in final stages of preparation to begin what is by far the greatest lifehack of them all: The Magic Seven..

Undertaken correctly, the magic seven can milk all the benefits of a ten-hour rest and concentrate the results into a mere seven-hour sleep. In typical voodoo fashion, it only works if you believe and only when undertaken as close to midnight as is possible, but when done properly can have you awake fully, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at 7am. The mysterious qualities of The Magic Seven also bestow upon the participant a sense of immortality, and unnaturally heightened mojo that will not fully ebb away until the effects of tiredness inevitably hit at 7pm. However, by that time, (and this is truly the wonder of The Magic Seven) all the day’s work has been thoroughly destroyed, leaving you with three to five hours in which to embark upon a wholesome recreational activity like sex, or a bong, if you’re a teenager. Or The Times, if you’re me.

T-minus 13 minutes.

“Rimless Children”.

Telling people about nicktionary is difficult. Which is why I rarely do it, obviously. But I did, today. To a teacher. Directly. I gave him the address and everything, thoroughly convinced he would go home, log on and find a mature and interesting weblog.

It’s surprising how differently you can view your own blog when you look at it through someone else’s eyes. I traveled through the archives and, along the way, winced at every swear word, facepalmed at every spelling mistake and generally became very nervous about the state nicktionary is in.

Mr M; I apologize in advance.

In other news, today is collapsed week.

Yes, that kind of collapsed. Obviously, I’ve been put in a group with literally the worst people in the world. And some nice people. But, the worst people in the world. Which makes me seem quite spiteful and small-minded. Then again, that’s also a list of adjectives easier applied to said worst people in the world.

I mean, they’re tolerable. But not tolerable enough to spend the week with, especially when they’re making you jump and stealing your paper and generally being cockjockeys. And, even if you use your deepest, scariest voice and your hardest swear word, they’re not even a bit scared. And, you can’t exactly smack them for stealing your paper. Because, that’s just disproportionate and ridiculous.

I might, like, use all of my boxing skillage and kill Lloyd with a one inch punch to the nose. Could happen.

I bought a coat today, and completed my CV. Going to read the Times in bed, like all the yoof iz doin’, blad. I’m doing an uncompressed torrent of yesterday’s Times Free CD, so I’ll link that. It’s currently copying.

This post has been a little here and there. Sorry…

_{hinealwaysfinishespoststhisway}

Cheating.

“Transfixed, but not compelled, I stumbled on through the world of murk that smudged the edges of the Great Race Debate. It seemed like for every decently constructed and thought-out argument, there were five more rabid and blatantly racist ones.

I am filling up my essay with junk and filler! HAHA!

Bialogue, Permacloseted, Pick Up Sticks.

Bialogue; When two or more straight boys partake in blatantly homosexual, flirty banter with eachother as a form of fraternal bonding and brotherly affection. While, recently, hijacked somewhat by the Permacloseted (explanation later), Bialogue constitutes and normal and healthy relationship with your Homedogs, Bros, Wingmen, Homies, Crew, Bluds, Bras or Chaps, and is usually just the sign of being comfortably hetero, to the point where complimenting another male’s firm buttocks is just okay.

Permacloseted; Someone who is just ever so slightly not gay enough to come out of the closet without accusations of being attention-seeking or melodramatic, or seeming ridiculous. While in the league of “somewhat interested” in members of the same sex, the Permacloseted lack the overt homosexuality within them to follow up on their desire, thus they remain in a permanent state somewhere in the vacuum between Closeted and Curious, destined to live out their carnal desires only in their sinful minds.

Well, that’s enough of me rationalizing the strange and murky world of alternative sexualities. It’s been a strange past couple of days; I’ve been too ill to write, too thinky to be properly ill, but so full of violent creative energy bursting at the seams. I came up with a few motivational three-to-five-liners to pull out of my verbal knapsack should I ever need to peptalk one of my Squadron into something hopefully girl related, so the result of the situations is I looking experienced and wise in that field.

Note; Squadron refers to any male I know who I am on infrequent-regular speaking terms with, all the way up to the Chaps, and anywhere in between. In the interest of equality, all the Chaps have equal ranks; Aiden is Chief of the Air Staff, Danny is Chief Executive Officer of the Coastguard, I am Chief of the General Staff and, of course, Billy is First Sea Lord.

In other news, over the course of this sickness break, this mid-week weekend, I have watched 6 episodes of Top Gear, 8 episodes of Scrubs, drank 11 cups of tea and consumed 66 biscuits and wrote one self-indulgent blogpost. Also completely forgotten was the two-page “newsletter article thing” that has to be in for tomorrow. Since it is now quarter past eleven and I also still have an impossible spreadsheet to persuade into life at some point tomorrow morning, this explains the bags under my eyes that will duly appear tomorrow after I get, regrettably, only seven hours sleep.

Possibly seven and a half.

Also, the Land O’ Lakes game is well and truly up, so all butter jokes, buttermilk analogies, butterfat jibes, lake entendres, Florida, Crimea, Wrestling, Monkey or River spoonerisms, fraternal malapropisms and otherwise are now completely unwelcome on this, a fine, respectable weblog.

It is now time, on a platform used otherwise solely to plug my own ego into the groaning cyberstream, to apologize completely, emphatically, truly, for all the childish and unnecessary gaming that came forth from this most ridiculous fiction.

The time for action is now, and I shall retire from my blogging, slip on my false and entirely ill-fitting journalism hat and produce two pages of gratuitous, overworked literary fiction posing as straight-laced, straight-faced journalism on this most pressing issue of “Race Relations”.

The piece shall begin; “Colour blindness…”

_hine2009.

Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. Blame Joe Winnard.

Joe Winnard’s Birthday.

I’ve never met Joe Winnard, and I like him. He draws moustaches on me, and isn’t the slightest bit unpleasant. Even better, he’s not a fully grown adult, which is a reassuring fact to hold dearly close to my heart. Today is his birthday, so you should go subscribe to his blog here for some enlightening chatter from his Beautiful Mind, as a gift. Of course, if you look above you’ll be able to see his gift from Nicktionary, but I wanted to get him a cake of monumental proportions.

Or, a picture of a cake of monumental proportions. We are a humble blog, for humble readers.

Happy Birthday Joe Winnard With A Moustache, we love you.

@joewinnard.

Hello, Joe Winnard. Aiden and I like you, and want to inject our own, personal Wit and Humour into your teenage expression of confusion at how the world just won’t work for you, a feeling that surely populates all our own heads at one point. We are truly here for you.

Is it wrong no to be proud to be from England? For a start, you ashamed. And, most of us feel this way. Let’s face it, the majority of the public are hate-filled, insecure, tabloid-reading paranoiacs happy to cap the salary of everyone with a certain amount of privelege just to satisfy their own narcissistic, xenophobic bloodlust. It’s the same reason we had witchunts and crucifictions, only under the fragile and false moniker of civility. Move to Norway, boy.

Why do men always have to fight for things? Because, while fighting is fun and rewarding at times, each man is obsessed with the state of his own Todd Johnson and subconciously compares himself to every Tom, Dick and Harry he encounters, causing a whirlwind of self-hatred that culminates in pointless, mindless violence.

Why is “pop” music so shit? Because most people do not want their music to provoke any thought or deep, meaningful emotion. And, it’s profitable too. Again, move to Norway, where the quantify Ida Maria as “Pop”. Bloody Ida Maria is pop music in Norway. Seriously.

Why can’t people let other people have opinions? Opinions are the last bastions of other persons’ self-worth, the final resort on which your average cunt uses to assert himself on everyone. Challenge said cunt and you threaten the very fabric of their self-awareness. Also, people are bastards.

Why does life have to revolve around money and alcohol? Well, what else are you going to buy alcohol with?

Why are people never happy? Some people never fall in love.

Why do people do fucked up things? Because we have to, to learn.

Why don’t I like Kes? Because it is a thoroughly ugly piece of work.

Why do I want to move away? Because Barnsley is an anal blackhole that sucks in all cuhttp://www.nirsoft.net/utils/myuninst.zip“lture, class and intelligence, and where the newsagents rarely stock copies of the Times.

Why do people have hangups with people? Some People Are Bastards.

What is Addiction?What is Love? Love is Addiction, but Addiction isn’t Love. Our answers don’t neccesarily have to make any sense at all.

No, Not all Lads are pricks. That’s not even a fucking question. Most lads are.

How come men don’t understand women and yet women think they understand men? “I think it’s time to post these questions on Yahoo!Answers”. Women are undoubtedly self-rightcheous bitches, for whom the omnipresence of sexism has fueled their enormous egos.

Why can’t people just get along? Because we won’t be entirely happily until we’ve destroyed everybody and everything. No one has yet been born with understanding greater than their aggro.

Why can’t everyone be free? Not everyone’s your mum, y’know. Communist.

Why do I feel lonely even though there are people there? People are bastards (Yes I Am).

Why am I depressed when I’d been so happy for so long? Hormones, fool. Now get up, you ain’t hurt.

Why should I care? Statistically, becoming a carer is one of the most traumatic, least-fulfilling, poorly renumerated and down-right depressing career choice a person could possibly have the misfortune to consider, by way of choice, which in turn represents a mental sickness, or by necessity, which represents life’s abject and unwavering cruelty.

Who DO I care? You like wiping old people’s arseholes.

Why am I still asking pointless questions? Like all of us, you are a monkey desperately groping in the darkness for answers that the planet will not provide.

Merry Christmas, Joe.

“Quick he’s back” said the two nun’s with candles.

No i’m not a nun but I am back. That is what you were meant to take out of that. Someone, somewhere, will have found that arousing enough for me to say “STOP THAT, JIMMY”. It also turns out that wordpress has never heard of a nun. Perhaps mr. WordPress only watches nurse porn.

Turns out I dont like Morrissey. Nothing against his music. I just hate vegetarians.

Heres an interesting conversation for you (its a bit like men overheard):

Man 1: aww shit we didn’t go to bathroom, you need the toilet?

Man 2: nope

Man 1: no, nor do I

As said by me and billikepedia

Ooh something happened today; I was in a puter room with ze Nicktionary when a ‘welard lass’ stormed out of the room announcing that she ‘ates’ vis’ squool’ ‘ and that she ‘opes’ it bernz’ darn’ ‘ I then turned to Nick as fast as lightning ‘I hope i’m not inside’ he then replied with ‘I hope she is’. It gave me a chuckle, hope it did you.

Lots of love

Aiden

and remember… watchdog is lying; they really do want you to have nightmares.

Paint A Vulgar Picture #1: Olivia Lichenstein.

Today, I read a uniquely flawed commentary on how society as we know it was going to the hot hinges of hell in a handcart. The article used HBO’s “True Blood” as an anchor-lift point, sailing off into a broiling sea of broad generalizations and unfocused paranoia. Taking the seminal role of “Her Outraged by Everything in Existence” in the Daily Mail’s female section, her writing wanders around society bursting into inconsolable tears of insecure centophobia, like Queen Victoria falling out of a time machine in the Spearmint Rhino and onto the stage, covered in lubricant, twenty pound notes and underpants.

Lichenstein so generously takes the time to take her head out of the 1840’s and herself off her high horse to lecture us uncultured ruffians as to how seemingly innate and harmless aspects of today’s times are destroying our society from the inside out. In fact, she makes society’s core seem so rotten that it may fall from beneath us at any moment, like a decaying apple caving inwards. She’s lying, of course; everything is fine, but her passionate attempts to seduce her readers to her epic sweeps of generalization that make her much more dangerous than your average terrible Mail columnist. It appears, weirdly, she’s earned a salivating, rabid yet oh so prudent following of likeminded housewives, cheerfully pointing at the fictional looming apocalypse and persuading the sane among us to “just look!”

She did a total ratchet job on True Blood, a port from America with a strikingly inconsequential amount of viewers in the UK. After briefly discussing how True Blood would appeal to those below the age of thirty, she calls the program “animalistic, violent, corrupt and scary”. Ridiculous.

Her article calls for us to Think Of The Children (a tired and irrelevant sentiment that inevitably falls flat on its pan-face wherever repeated). She can’t help but worry that children will find their way to this program and have their fertile minds polluted by tacky, cheap American filth. That would be a valid and relevant point, was True Blood not broadcast at 10pm, a full hour after the watershed. Yes, this is also ridiculous.

Lichenstein’s “various US studies” that show that “teens who watch a lot of sexual content on TV are more likely to initiate intercourse or participate in other sexual activities earlier than peers who don’t watch sexually explicit shows” fail to materialize, by the way.

It soon becomes achingly apparent that Olivia Lichenstein is a bit batty, and she would happily deny us simple, guilty viewing pleasure. She clearly fails to realize that obviously fictitious programs such as True Blood, as well as novels, video games and music that could be described by Lichenstein in the same way she describes TB, are not an embracement of an alternative reality, but rather a means of disconnecting from a current version of reality. I’ve read Lolita but will quite happily spend the remainder of my time on Earth not molesting twelve year olds. Why? Because, while Nabokov’s storytelling and angular, cutting prose are illuminating (his words make Lolita gorgeous), I’m more than aware that molesting twelve-year-olds is the textbook definition of “not cool”. While our young and fertile minds may absorb such morally objectionable works, it is certain that none of us will murder because of True Blood. Perhaps some of us will be inspired to have delicious, ravenous sex. There’s a decent chance some of us will enjoy it, too. Whereas I imagine, due to Mrs. Lichenstein’s prudent nature, that her sex life is comprised of infrequent that-was-the-greatest-thirty-seconds-of-our-lives type affairs.

Death is at one’s computer screen, she claims as she broadly sweeps from proposing that True Blood is quite a bad program to proposing that True Blood is the ultimate symptom, crux and epitome of the festering sickness in today’s society; that increasingly accessible media is pressing sex, drugs and violence onto our teenagers. It is apparent that Lichenstein really believes that her adolescence, devoid of all that was racy, sexy and (most importantly) fun, was the only thing that saved her from being a violent, sex-minded cavewoman with no moral direction and a taste for raw meat.

I, a teen, would ask Olivia Lichenstein, the next time she demands her readers to Think Of The Children, to in turn credit The Children With Some Intelligence. We are sentient. We can easily discern the difference between fantasy and fiction, television and reality, right and wrong, moral and immoral. Seeing something shocking on television will persuade few of us to try it out in real life. The way to shape a person is to expose them to the best of things and the worst of things, not to shield them from what you would and I certainly would not deem to be shocking things. A denial of education on the facts of life produces sexually frustrated, warped and miserable adults with extreme ephebophobia. These qualities mutate and produce murderers and rapists, or columns like yours. Please, before you tell your readers to Think Of The Children, take a step to neutral ground and really, really Think Of The Children.

“For Your p33n”

Last night, I taught my Mum select phrases of internetspeak, including “moar, “sauce” and “p33n”. Pee-three-three-en. Remember this, and possibly learn from it.

My Mother, being both intelligent and industruous, has used the confusing nature of the word “p33n” as a way of discussing certain issues out in the open, without offending those nearby.

Quoth Mother;

Nick; “Mum, can you get a hold of some decent anti-bacterial shower gel, please?”
Mum; *writing shopping list, not looking up* “For your p33n?”
Nick; *dryly* “Yes, for my p33n.”

For want of a less misconstruable closing sentence, I really do hope she doesn’t use that in public.