Caged monkey

Hello girls! Oh and boys. You showed up as well.

I'm fine, thanks for asking. I am, however, backed up with so much creative spunk, I'm gonna explode on the train one day like someone from fucking Al-QaeJIZZda. That is why I'm making another feeble attempt to showcase my insanity by starting a new blog, which will be entirely made of creative writing and will be, I can guarantee, utter bollocks.

But I need to get back in the game really, I've flapped about like a stranded fish on the beach, struggling to flip back into an ocean of productivity for too long. So, expect regular updates and stuff, and hopefully a few other projects I've got in mind with other people will come to fruition and within two years, I'll be smacking Russell Howard on Question Time for having weird eyes and not being funny enough. I might even do some reviews or something on here, woah.

WATCH THIS SPACE: http://atinofwhupass.wordpress.com

Peace and love,

Paul

Films are good 2

Ok, it's a bit later than expected, but what ya gonna do. I last did one of these way back in February, doing short reviews of 18 films I saw at the cinema in Toronto. Since that time and leaving Toronto, I managed to see NINTEEN films, so... buckle up, as I take you back to March 2010, OoOoooooOOoOhhh.

-Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton makes a trippy adaptation of a kids classic, but for some reason decides to make it a sequel, and it falls totally flat. The Alice character is totally uninterested in the world she sees because she's seen it all before and therefore the audience isn't really arsed either. Plus she looks strangely like someone I know (a man), which made it a bit weird to watch. There was some decent characters, but some totally ridiculous bits that weren't needed - the battle is rubbish and I nearly started puking over the man sitting in front when Johnny Depp decides to start break dancing in a tale supposedly set in Victorian England. Plus, they sloppily put it in 3D after it had been filmed for no other reason other than to make more dorror. Colourful pukery.

4/10

- How To Train Your Dragon

Really quite surprisingly good animated gubbins about that a boy and a dragon who looks like a cat, set in a viking world without a sniff of rape (probably for the best). Looked great in IMAX, the 3D worked and was genuinely funny in parts. The music was shit hot as well. Not much else to say about this one, just... nice.

8/10

- Hot Tub Time Machine

From the trailer and the name, it might as well have been called "Stupid Shit Machine", but this admittedly dumb film turned out to be pretty hee-larious. In a total homage to the 80s, three men and a young fat boy get transported to the 80s to go apeshit and then have to get home. I can't really remember anything else about the story, because it was awful. Some funny running gags from some funny men though for sure but a few of the modern day references did fall a bit flat. Anyone can say "Miley Cyrus lololol" and get a cheap laugh these days. But better than expected.

6/10

- The Ghost Writer

Serious mystery island thing based on a book where Ewan MacGregor goes to interview Prime Minister Pierce Brosnan and nearly gets killed. Nailbiting stuff for a pretty non-violent and clean movie (as opposed to Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and on equal terms as a "gripping, clever movie" with that Swedish effort. It perhaps was a bit boring in the middle, but the end in particular was heartbreaking. Sadly no use of a lightsaber or a.. James Bond.. thing. Brosnan's accent was a bit odd if I recall. But totally awesome, technically a Polanski (100 points if you get this reference).

8/10

- Clash of The Titans

I pretty much went to see this because Liam Neeson said "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" on a trailer, which can be now used forever more as a third division sexual innuendo. So they did a remake of an old movie which I didn't see, but I saw Jason and the Argonauts (y'know, with those claymation skeletons) and it shit on this. Some good action scenes, but all in all a bit daft. Heaven or whatever looked shit as well. Shiny armour? Nah. Avatar man is gonna get typecast at this rate.

5/10

- Shutter Island

Leonardo Di Caprio is probably my favourite actor at the moment (he's come a long way since dying in the sea) and this one was another roaring success in my opinion. Much more than a creepy granny with dead eyes, Leo goes on an island with a hospital full of mentals to investigate a murder.. OR DOES HE!? Really quite gripping, less of a horror and more thought provoking than it looks and lots of dead children. Superb.

9/10

- Kick Ass

Maybe it was because I was watching this film in the city where the film was mostly shot or more to the point, maybe it was because I was in sitting in the theatre the characters go to (THE FOURTH WALL WAAAAAAAAAA), but I bloody loved this film. From the trailers it looked like a shitty stoner comedy for kids (kids smoke weed these days yeah?), but it's actually an ultra-violent comic book remake with some proper boot arse sequences (see what I did there, yeah?). Unlikely nerd bloke becomes an unconventional superhero and takes on a gang boss with the help of a small girl and Nicolas Cage. Beats McLovin, who isn't very good. But the film was very good. Better than Spiderman 3.

8/10

- Iron Man 2

I was proper looking forward to this one and quite frankly, it fell flat on it's face. Tony Stark is still a cock, but a good character and there's plenty of his tomfoolery and rapes and japes on offer here. Sadly, there's not much Iron Man kick-assery, which is a shame, because it's called Iron Man 2, not "Tony Stark is a cock II". Mickey Rourke was quite good as a hard Russian bastard, but overall too much talking and not enough action. The final boss scene was weaker than this fucking cuppa I made the other day where I put too much milk in by accident, so I drank it in about 30 seconds. Which is approximately how long the shitty bunch of piss scene lasted. Unsatisfying.

6/10

- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Oh, a film in Swedish with English subtitles, how very intelligent and grown up I felt watching this like a proper clever person, it's a shame I didn't have a goblet of brandy or Walkers Sensations or something. Based off a book I hadn't read, I watched this after hearing it was good and depicted graphic sexual violence (alright, that put me off a bit because I'm a big girl) and it delivered. Basically like a big ultra-violent Swedish Morse or Frost or.. Swallow.. very tense and unpredictable, a breath of fresh air to see at the cinema and a refreshing move away from standard Hollywood gay space marine junk. Although they're redoing it for Hollywood. Ruined. 9/10

- Robin Hood

Remember when you watched the Robin Hood Disney cartoon as a kid where he was a fox, or maybe that one with Kevin Costner and you saw him shoot arrows and give money to the povs and shit, yeah well, forget all that. Because in this one, Russell Crowe is basically a bad-accented footsoldier in the army (just back from smacking brown people in the Crusades) fighting against the French or the bad king or some other bollocks. He only really fires one arrow in the entire film. "Yeah, yeah", you say, "it's a prequel, get over it!". Well no, I will not get over it thank you very much! Uninspiring, unfunny, boring, no charm, hated all the characters, gutless. Fuck off Robin. I want Batman.

4/10

- MacGruber

Now this is more like it. Again, based off something I've never seen and again, delivers. I should not watch things more often. Totally silly ridiculous spoof of every action movie ever, with the main character based on MacGyver, who I only know about from The Simpsons, like most American culture. Reminded me a bit of an American Garth Marenghi, and as funny. Plus a hilarious scene in which a load of well known wrestlers die after the film draws you in to thinking they're going to be the main characters. Took me right back to when I was 12. (I later found out apparently people over the age of 12 still like wrestling?! Huhuhuhuh. Where did my Chris Benoit action figure go? Probably got TOY-d rage.. get it.. nah.)

8/10

- The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Films based on games are usually pretty bad - this one wasn't as bad as I thought. So, Donnie Darko runs around Iran and has to save the world from Ben Kingsley etc and some British ostrich guy makes genuinely funny jokes whilst an annoying princess is nasty to him. The action was pretty good, as was Gylylylenhalsl's British accent - not that spectacular, but worked for me. The setting in particular doesn't really grab me by the balls any more because I've seen Aladdin. What this film needed was some big horrible demons, like the games. But I was particularly impressed by the way they shot the bits in a game camera style-e where he's wall running and stuff, that was classy. Bit better than the reviews which said it was shit. Up yours reviews!

6/10

- Get Him To The Greek

A film with Russell Brand and that fat bloke from all the funny films, nah.. that'll be rubbish. Actually, it was pretty good, blimey. Ripped into the celebrity culture, which I am well behind, but also smacks you in the face with some fat disgusting jokes, dildos in mouths and all. Predictable, but it's not setting out to be anything more. I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall after this and it wasn't as good. So well done Russell, you might be an ex-crackhead manwhore victorian bellend old man abuser, but you make alright movies. Jonah Hill had one of his better days and P Diddy was funny (what?!). Congrats.

7/10

- The A-Team

Oh dear. When I was nine, I wanted nothing more to be in the Menston Hotshots A-Team. But I wouldn't want to be in this A-Team remake, because it was rubbish. I wouldn't even want to be on the subs bench. The new Mr T was totally awful, I don't know who told a UFC fighter he could act, because he can't. Leave acting to the professional wrestlers! The action was on and off, some of it was pretty cool, some of it was just plain daft. Like Robin Hood, this film is sort of a prequel, and like Robin Hood, I don't care about the characters when they're not really doing what I imagined they'd be doing. Yeah, it might have been faithful to the TV show, but I never really watched that. And as a standalone action movie, it wasn't that interesting. My mate Cam fell asleep during it. So..

5/10

- Jonah Hex

Well, I didn't really know what to expect from this awful piece of turd. I mean, the trailer looked interesting enough, kind of like a more comic-booky Wild West with John Malkovich as a bad man and lots of guns and fire and stuff. But actually turned out to be one of the most hilariously badly made movies I've seen for a while. Awfully written lines, a main character that gets battered every five minutes and a dream sequence plot point so overused it was almost satirical, this movie was a whole new level of fail. It also lasted about 10 minutes and had the most boring soundtrack I've ever heard. And Malkovich was gash. It did make me go around saying "Welll wellll well, Jonah Hex.." in a bad southern accent for a while though. Which is not a bonus. Deserved to be a total bomb.

3/10

- Toy Story 3

Aww, now this was a lovely film, if it was human, I'd make it soup and call it "darling". The last two films came out when I was a wee lad, so for pure nostalgia reasons, this couldn't really fail in my book. But it did more than not fail, it triumphed over any chinks in my optimistic mindset like a kitten wearing a beanie hat, and delivered on all levels. Funny, heartwarming, all the old characters back with a bang and everything looked great (plus some new ones, I loved the phone on wheels which I had as a kid, sort of like the original Direct Line thing but with a face). I even had a big lump in my throat during the symbolic scene between Andy and the tiny girl. If I have any criticisms, it's that the film felt a bit like Chicken Run - obviously based on the Great Escape and not live action. But eh, I can forgive that. Shuperb.

9/10

- Predators

What do you get when you put a load of people on a planet full of those nasty Predators? What do you think fucking happens? You don't watch this film for story, because basically, there isn't one. It's just an outlet for gory deaths (but it isn't very gory) and cheap screams (but it isn't very scary). That's one of the main problems with this film, the Predators seem to lose their whole sense of scariness and I half expected to see a scene where they're all sitting around eating sandwiches and wanking. There was a few good deaths and some hilarious back-references to the original film, which were both cringeworthy and kind of cool. At the end of the day, better than that borefest Lost, but not as good as the original. I ain't see the other sequels, but.. neither has your mum.

6/10

- Inception

Do you go to the cinema to watch mind-numbing trash or to get your brain smacked around for 3 hours with a metaphorical cricket bat made of thought-provoking, intelligent and complicated metaphorical wood? Well, I like a bit of both. This big boy was of the cricket variety (ahem) and it all fits together like a jigsaw, which helps this shit overcomplicated concept, because that's made of wood as well. Leo puts in another sterling performance in a film about people who go into dreams and change things and err.. it's been a while since I saw it, so you'll just have to watch it. But lots of intense action, a complex but very clever story, great acting, great music and scenery, and a big fat stupid cliffhanger to end on. One of the best films of the year probably. From the same man as the Dark Knight, probably one to watch that lad.

9/10

- Salt

I can't even begin to describe how ridiculous this film was or how many times my eyes widened and my jaw dropped during some of the silliest scenes I've ever seen continually offended my intelligence. It's actually like the writers made it up as as they went a long. Or they were 12 years old. Cliche after cliche after oh-my-fucking-god-is-that-Angelina-Jolie-disguised-as-a-man. I mean yeah, it was entertaining and unpredictable. But so is Russian Roulette. Which is ironic, because this was all Russian and shit. Big lips herself wasn't too bad, but I didn't really care if she was a spy or not and I was just in bewildered most of the time by the insanity, the dreadful insanity. Made 24 look like Coronation Street. Salty.

3/10

And that wraps that up. Maybe I'll write another load of shitty film reviews one day, but since I've been back, my Xbox has wrestled it's way back into my free time (read: all the time, I've been unemployed and skint for the past 6 weeks) and now I have to pay for films! And now I'm starting a new job on Monday, I might never see a film again. That's a lie, I just watched Watchmen. Which was alright. 7/10. There, I did another review, love me. See ya later!

Well. That's it. I'm currently sat in bed watching "Goals of the Season 1999/2000" at 4.04am. It's cold. I just had a bag of Quavers. I think I'm generally considered to be at home. A chapter of my life is over. Time for a sum up.

Last time I communicated with you through the medium of blog, I was preparing to go on my trip to D.C., which you can read about below if you haven't worked that out yet, Dorkus McCorkus. But before that, there was a few things to sort out. I left work a few days before my trip, which I can honestly say, in the end, was pretty sad. I've made some great friends through work and although it wasn't the best job I've ever had, it wasn't the worst, and everyone made me feel very at home in Toronto. There genuinely wasn't that many days where I really didn't want to go in due to the people I'd see there. And thanks to work, I've watched a helluva lot of movies over the 11 months and it's finally got me hooked on em' forever. Let's just say it's gonna be hard to fork out any paper from my wallet to watch a movie on a big screen from now on.

When I got back from my trip, I had only a few days to pack my life in Toronto up. Some into a bag, some into a bin. I closed my bank account, I picked up my life-saving tax return and I bought some stuff for the folks back home. On the last day, I handed my keys back to my landlord and being the absolute gent that he was, he didn't even want me to clean the room. My easy-going landlord was one of the best parts of living at 1959 Dufferin Street and I was lucky to have a bloke who once let me pay my rent two weeks late so I could buy a Metropass. A lot of people came and went from the house so it was generally just a place to sleep and doss after work or on days off if I wasn't hanging out at someone else's. It was a bit of a shithole to be honest (bastard mouse) and I probably could have moved, but then, you could say the same thing about the job.. and the city. I was clearly at home and didn't really need to move.

The last night was awesome, but totally sad. As I said, I've made some really good friends in Toronto, especially through work, and especially (but not limited to) those beautiful people in the picture above. It's always hard to say goodbye, but at the end of the day, that's the nature of travelling. I've seen a lot of lovely, interesting people come and go as well, but I can honestly say there's plenty I care about both in Toronto now and others who went back to their respective countries.. and to those, I will see again. Some sooner, some later. Thanks for making my year what is was. You people know who you are and I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!111

Ahem, ok, wipe away the tears. So I got on the plane last Friday now, with a hangover and generally, it was just an annoying flight. There was a bloody baby crying and there wasn't anything good to watch and I was sat in the middle and the food was shite and it took too long. Then I had to lug all my luggage into London and hang around for ages and then get a cramped coach back to Leeds. It was cold (total culture shock, I've been wearing shorts since May), it was wet and it was depressing.

Unlike Toronto at this time of year. Ah, Toronto. Looking back at the city I can fully appreciate how much I enjoyed living there. When people ask me what I like about it, I kind of struggle to answer them. I don't really know. Perhaps it's because there's so much to do and so many places to go and that walking five minutes in one direction can take you into another world or another culture. Perhaps it's because you can walk around pretty much any area at any time and feel completely safe, unlike any other city I've visited. The people may be accused of being unfriendly, but they rarely brawl in the streets and everyone, no matter what race or wherever you're from (and there's a helluva lot) get on, like a big fucking Benetton advert. The transport system may be accused of being outdated, but you can go pretty much anywhere 24 hours a day. I just think Toronto works as a city, and in the right context, I would love to call it my permanent home. The events of the G20 just show how shocking an upheaval it was to people who are genuinely proud of their city. If you're ever in the area, seriously, visit. You'll bladdy lav it.

Obviously there was things I missed when I was away and now I'm home I've been lauding them up as much as possible, especially seeing my friends and family again, the cheapness of certain things (Toronto isn't cheap), the countryside, certain foods and, of course, my Xbox. However, now I've been savagely bitten by the big city, I'm going to find it hard to stay in Menston for too long. I'll now jump at any opportunity to both go out further into the world and see things and live, at least in the next few years, in a vibrant place like Toronto.

My plans at the moment are all still a bit up in the air, mainly because it really hasn't quite sunk in that I'm back at home for the forseeable futures. It's kind of weird to be honest. It's like I never left, but just odd that I've been removed from Toronto and placed in a different world, at home with my parents. So, once I've found a job (journalism or not), I'll look to move out and onwards and upwards, yeah? But there's every chance I could be back in Canada sooner than I thought, especially since I'm allowed to do another working visa before I'm 30.

If I have any regrets for my year away, it would be that it's been kind of non-Canadian. Yeah, I lived and worked in Canada and made Canadian friends, but Toronto isn't particularly "Canadian". I originally planned to do more travelling in Canada and go to Vancouver but that didn't happen due to money, but if I come back, will be the most likely place, a long with some proper Canadian lauding; dressing up as a mountie, riding a moose and shouting "Eh buddy, it's aboot time ya moved" (yeah, they do say words like that, no lie) whilst eating a box of Timbits.

So that's it. Thanks for reading the blog this year and I will carry on with.. well.. at least movie reviews. All that remains to be said is... thanks Toronto. You're lovely.

Love,

Paul

Capitol idea madam

"Please keep the noise down when on your phone, nobody wants to hear about your Saturday night. Except me."

Ooga booga boo. So, right before I returned to this god-forsaken island, I took full advantage of the continent I was on and took a little trip to somewhere I had wanted to visit the entire year, Washington, DC, in that big old United States of American't. Thanks to some incredibly cheap bus tickets and a gap before D-day, I spent two days in DC and half a day in Philadelphia, with some pretty nasty semi-conscious travel thrown in either side. Here is what I done, a couple of weeks back.

After seeing one of the worst films of this year, Salt, with my mate Dave (it made 24 look sensible), I boarded a Megabus bound for Philadelphia on the Friday night on my todd. Leaving Toronto, I decided that this double decker bus, with air-conditioning, free WiFi and decent leg room was a pretty good deal for 15 bucks or whatever stupid amount of cash I paid for the pleasure. A few hours later at the border, I sort of changed my mind. Firstly, we waited two ruddy hours just to get seen by the border guards, who were surprisingly lax compared to the comparative dressing down I got last time. But then once that was done, one dumbass who was held longer than everyone else decides not to tell the driver he's back on the bus, so we wait around for another half an hour before the driver realises. Once we're through, we stop off at a service station. After that, third fuck-up; the driver decides to get lost. Total jokes. Why the hell he isn't equipped with GPS and has to go back to the same service station three times to ask different taxi drivers, I have no idea. So, a pretty gruelling 10-hour journey turns into a 14-hour journey and the bus arrives in Philly at lunchtime... in possibly the hottest weather I've ever experienced.

The blast of heat that hit me was totally horrific, but not even the worst I'd experience during the journey. Luckily I didn't have to hang around long and jumped onto the next bus to DC, despite not having the right ticket. Hurrah! Another few hours, half-broken air conditioning and I was in the place where shit goes down. Y'know all that stuff with the men and whatnot and those TV shows. Yeah? In conclusion, Megabus are bad shitheads. But I guess you get what you pay for.

Washington, D.C.

Welcome to Washington, where it's 40 degrees Celsius before the humidity kicks in, everything is white and there's a ridiculous amount of museums. That'd be my slogan if I was a PR man for that place, tourism would shoot up mate. Yes, the heat. Oh my fucking god. When I arrived, I fumbled around a little bit trying to look for my hostel despite it being just up the road and by the time I reached the place, I was sweating like a really bad joke. I dumped my stuff in my room and went in the search of liquid, which seems to be a problem in DC, due to a worrying lack of convenience stores. I found a Starbucks, hobbled back to the hostel, contemplated the ridiculousness of the heat for a while, did another trip to a supermarket and came back exhausted. I then had an extreme sit down for a good few hours whilst I waited for it to get a bit cooler in the evening, which it did... by about two degrees.

Lurching out of the door at about seven, I headed in the general direction of all those buildings. About half an hour later, I turned on tourist mode, as I snapped away at a multitude of places I'd seen a billion times before on TV and in movies. The Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Capitol Building.. it was all present and correct and I wandered around the National Mall gawping to the max. That whole area is like one huge outdoor museum, transported straight from Ancient Greece or Rome and to say it's impressive would be an understatement. My enthusiasm was slightly dampened by the amount of American Boyscouts clogging up my monuments (apparently there was some kind of jamboree with every Boyscout ever attending, yapping about fuggin' Starcraft II in their Texan accents), but being down there was cool and it's definitely worth seeing, regardless of how proud of being American you are (and obviously I'm not at all.. cos I'm not.. yagetme..). Seeing Honest Abe on his seat was particularly spesh.

Later, darkness approached and with enough monuments taken in, 28 empty bottles of liquid in my bag and some totally evil blisters forming on my feet, I headed back up to the hostel, with the really quite menacing Washington Monument staring down at me with it's evil red eyes.

The next day I did what I do best and had a quality lie in and then headed back out into the furnace after slapping on six month's worth of sunblock. My plan was to hit as many air-conned museums as I could until it got cooler and then try and see what I missed the previous day. The first one I hit was the Air and Space Museum, which had some cool war stuff, but I didn't think much to the space side. I did however give into drilled-in temptations and watch Hubble 3D on IMAX, because it seemed like the right thing to do and that was pretty impressive. Space is pretty cool after all. After that, I walked through a very strange sculpture park and into the next museum, The Natural History one. Not much to say on this one either, a lot of stuffed animals really. Next, which was The American History museum. This was more like it. Abraham Lincoln's hat! A cool museum, enough said.

It was finally getting cooler after this, so I headed to the Holocaust Museum which I'd heard some good things about, but they had no passes left and were closing soon, so I instead carried on the march. I traipsed around the Easter Basin having a shufty at the Jefferson Memorial (the water purifier place for all you Fallout 3 dorks) and the Roosevelt Memorial and then headed back uptown to the main man's place, The White House. Here I found some Ethiopian blokes shouting at Obama to come out and free a prisoner, some mounted machine guns on the roof and a nice man to take a picture of me whilst I grimaced. Much like seeing the Statue of Liberty in New York, it was kind of surreal seeing the place in real life and another one of those "I've seen it" moments.

I headed back to the hostel as night drew in once again, destroying a burger from an apparently famous joint and headed to bed completely knackered and with my feet literally fucked. There was still things I missed out, like the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery, but they will have to wait until next time. The next morning, I got up earlier and bought some tacky shit to take back and got on a bus at about lunchtime to Philly. Ultimately, I'm glad I went to DC, I saw a lot of shit and was throughly impressed by the spectacle. Just little things like seeing FBI written on a police car or an actual real life fallout shelter were enough to put a retarded grin on my face. I got the same impression as I do in London, that big boy shit goes down here, which is a world away from where I live now, a village in West Yorkshire where nothing happens. It also made me realise that the States had some pretty impressive historical figures and ideals when it was first found, and monuments to match.. regardless of the monstrosity it may have become in recent times.

Philadelphia, PA.

I got back to Philadelphia mid-afternoon and had about six hours or so to bum around until my bus back to Toronto. With literally a map which showed me where the old city was and a knowledge that there was some old cracked bell, I walked a long way to the old bit. Here, I figured out that the only things worth seeing were the Constitution Hall (where they signed the constitution funnily enough). That was fully booked for the day, so instead I had a look at The Liberty Bell, which is probably the most overrated piece of historical anything ever. I prefer Taco Bell. The Old City was pretty nice and quaint but there wasn't a right lot to look at. The scant remains of Ben Franklin's house wasn't that good Philly, sorry. Everyone has toilets after all.

Eventually, I headed back down the way I came and saw a few pretty cool neighbourhoods on the way. Sadly, I never ate a Philly Cheese Steak (I never really trusted any of the places that did them) or found the steps where Rocky ran up (I was looking at the Town Hall, apparently it was the Courthouse, meh), but eh. I got back to the station, which was a frankly awesome looking really grandiose 1930s-style building, and hung around like a bum for a couple of hours before my bus came. In conclusion, Philly wasn't that interesting and I wouldn't have gone there if it wasn't a stop on the Megabus. Sorry. The journey back was pretty pain-free, especially since it wasn't that busy and the driver knew where he was fucking going this time.

All in all, a very cheap trip and I'm really glad I went to D.C. If I could have changed one thing, I would have definitely brought someone with me, since I didn't have anyone to make lame jokes about the monument looking like a member with. And that's a very sad thing indeed.

Lots of photos on my Facebook gaaahhhhhh!

Sheeeeeetwave

"These bananas are causing a situation"

Good day sir or madam! So here we are again, in what shall be almost certainly the penultimate blog based around my year in the big shiny city of Toronto. Yeah, you 'eard. I am now all booked on a flight back to the motherland on July 30th. I was originally planning to go back a bit later, but due to being homeless in August if I stayed and not really being able to travel for a prolonged period during that time, I decided to cash my chips in and slip out of Canada before the final month of my working visa kicks in. But enough of that, what's happened in the last 37 days ya berk? Well a lot. So shut up.

Remember last time I told you it had been hot in May? Well, that was nothing at all compared to the crippling heatwave that engulfed the city (and a lot of North America) over the last few weeks. The tropical humidity made even sitting in my room without a fan glued to my face unbearable. I honestly believe during the worst of it, where temperatures were up to something like "feels like" 43 degrees celsius, a sauna or the surface of the sun would have been nicer places to hang out. Coming from a country which delivers perpetual drizzle is a bit of a change from the weather extremes that this city seems to throw up. And then on the hottest day of the year, the power decided to go out for an hour, because apparently too many people were using their air conditioning (I ONLY HAVE A SHITTING FAN!), which was marvellous, if you enjoy doggy-paddle-ing in your own sweat. Currently, the weather has cooled down a bit, but it's still perma-shorts weather, which is fine. But I still prefer Spring or Autumn (which last about a day and a half each here). Sorry.

Enough of the weather, there's been some pretty big events that have effected Toronto over the last month or so, firstly of course, being that football thing. The World Cup, despite being a bit of an average one and the matches being on way too early due to the time difference, was awesome. Even CBC's coverage wasn't too bad, although having one commentator and no summariser is kind of weird, but at least they know what they're talking about, i.e, they're not Canadian. On the flip side of course, England's performance was a total disgrace, but provided excellent opportunities to get smashed with fellow countrymen and women. And secondly, it's fucking annoying if you live in an area with a lot of fans of one country when they win and you don't care. When Portugal beat North Korea 7-0, I was trying to lie in. Nah. Barrage of car horns all morning and early afternoon. I was however, pleasantly surprised at how much this city embraced the tournament, probably thanks to the number of nationalities and the wide array of backgrounds people have. With SAWKER FEVVE RRRRRRR! hitting the city, I also managed to take part in a few kickabouts in the lovely (and massive) High Park with some buddies from work, which I had missed a lot. And no one ever mentioned hockey. Although the friggin' mosquitoes tore me to shreds more than any defender. GOAAAAAAAAAAAL.

G Whizz 20 fuck

The second big event that hit Toronto was totally horrendous, so I've dedicated a sub-heading to it, woah! The G20 conference was hosted here, downtown, over the weekend of the 25-27th of June and the world leaders got together and shit-chatted about important shit, y'know, etc, whatever. The city spent a lot on security and barricaded half of downtown off expecting shit to go down... and it did. Here's my secret diary, so secret, I'm going to put it in italics to make it look well cool.

I worked the Friday and nothing went down at all, but I found it kind of odd that they'd boarded up the book store next to work. Thinking nothing of it, I got up the next day for work and got onto the subway like any other day. That's when things got a bit weird. The announcer man told everyone that the subway services were all cancelled downtown; streetcar, bus and subway and said "Downtown is not the place you want to be right now". Ok I thought, he's probably being melodramatic. I live outside downtown so I got off where it ended and called work and told them I'd be late and started walking down there, because I'm a warrior after all.

There was a really, really uneasy silence walking down through the university and I could hear a lot of crowd shouts and some megaphones from a long way off, which kind of creeped me out. Everything was very quiet until I pretty much reached a block or two away from the theatre, where I met a woman who told me I should probably go home. Ok, I thought, but I used to walk home from work through Leeds city centre, completely sober, on a Friday and Saturday night love, no offence. She asked if I'd walk her to a nearby intersection where her husband was, who worked for a security service and she spoke to him on the phone as we walked. I was still slightly puzzled as to what was going on, as I just figured it'd be a few protesters with backpacks and pictures of Steven Harper with swastikas spray painted onto his head. But then we got to the block before work (Queen Street for those in the know) and well... I realised what the fuss was about.

A wave of hostile noise, frankly terrifying armies of black-clad riot police in gas masks and this lady telling me "they were going to use the gas" hit me as I watched groups of protesters walk along Queen Street. The ones at the front were clearly the bad bastards who I later saw smashing up windows and setting fire to police cars on the news (the so-called "black bloc"), whilst other pretty ordinary protesters followed behind. Despite all this insanity, I figured I should probably at least attempt to get to work if we were still open, which appeared to be blocked at every street by a line of black stormtroopers. I walked through the remains of the protesters as it cleared and saw the trail of destruction that the big boys had left, which included a lot of glass on the ground, smashed up banks, smashed up CTV and smashed up Starbucks (predictable).

I quickly realised there was no way I could get any further, so I stood on the corner looking confused like a lot of other onlookers; which was also bizarre, as there was no traffic on any of the roads and people were everywhere. I got a text from my mate Cam who informed me there was further shit going down and then a call from work who told me that they were closing. Therefore, I decided I should probably get out of there, so I walked up to Cam's to hang out and witness the madness on TV.

All in all, witnessing what I did literally round the corner from work and on the TV was totally horrible and the whole thing left a massive shit stain on this really quite nice city. It's obviously never going to be nice to be stuck in a scene from Half Life 2 with heavy handed, machine gun wielding riot police walking around looking menacing. But there's two sides to blame that weekend in my opinion. The police, firstly, clearly cocked up. Their main aim was to protect the big politician men and the security fence that they put up, but in doing so, it let the complete fucktard so-called "anarchists" run amok across the city, destroying property, wasting everyone's money, achieving nothing and ultimately taking the focus off any legitimate protests taking place.

The police also decided to screw up in the aftermath by arresting a lot of people for little or no reason (including a couple of people I knew who were just standing around), coming out after the riots and telling the public that they made up a law that would give powers to arrest anyone who went near the fence and generally being nasty with the batons and the clubbing and mm-hey! The old man in me does see the argument of "why are you standing around where there's trouble, of course you're gonna get boxed and shit on by by the police", but at the end of the day, this isn't private property, it's downtown Toronto. It's also equally fucked when you get poked in the ribs by a cop with a gun and violently asked what you're doing when you're trying to leave work, which was exactly what happened to one of my friends.

Ultimately, it was a total mistake to hold the G20 in downtown Toronto. It drew troublemakers from far and wide and showed Toronto in a horrendous light which it really doesn't deserve and I hope doesn't stick (because let's face it, this sort of thing always happens, it was just really sad seeing it in a place like this). I heard reports before saying that the G20 would bring great economic advantages to the city, which looking back is totally laughable. Nothing was gained apart from a hefty security bill and a massive clean up operation. A total waste of time then. But one that'll stick in my mind for a while. And you should look here to get a clearer picture of what actually happened.

Tell me nice things

Well, another slightly crazy thing that happened was an earthquake, which happened on the day England lost to Germany. I went to sleep after that abysmal match and was woken up thinking there was a load of mice under my bed (seriously, I'll cover that in a second), when actually we'd been hit by a whatever magnitude shit-quake (I've watched a lot of Trailer Park Boys recently if anyone gets that reference, I'll give you a kiss). If I'm honest, it didn't affect me that much, after all, I witnessed an earthquake of that scale in fucking Preston when I was at uni.

So yeah, the mice. After those weird smells and flies I talked about last time, two and two got together and squeezed out four in the form of real actual live rodents in my house, including one evil bastard that I saw in my bedroom a few times and another one downstairs, which I found dead on the floor when I came home from work one night. Not nice. I bought some traps to ease the paranoia of a mouse crawling inside me during the night, but if I'm honest, I've witnessed nasty animals in houses before. I had slugs in my kitchen during my second year of uni, and twice at home, birds have fallen down our chimney, been trapped in our fireplace, died, and then the subsequent maggots have turned to hundreds of flies which fly out and smash their heads into the window in my mum's lovely clean living room for a couple of days. But anyway, lately it's all been quiet on that front, despite the fact that the poison in the kitchen keeps disappearing. Shit.

Work lately has been very quiet with no big films at all, but that's all changing as we speak as Inception (which I loved) hits the theatre just in time for me to leave in a week, which I swear, is going to be sad, especially when you finally get to know people and then have to fuck off. Outside of work, also sad, is the fact that a lot of really, really, nice English people I've met over here have been leaving in the last few weeks. But of course, the UK draws close for me too, in just under two weeks. The reality totally hasn't kicked in yet. Neither has the job hunt, eek.

One of the reasons is probably because I finally pulled my finger out and booked a trip to Washington, where I'll be having a look around next week, as well as a quick stop off in the land of cheese spread, Philadelphia. For a insanely cheap price on the Megabus, it seemed a shame not to, so look forward to pictures of me sitting on Abraham Lincoln's lap like he was Santa with better facial hair. Due to the four day trip being so cheap, I'm also going to have a nice wad of cash when I come home, which will tide me over.. at least.. with Xbox games I've missed.. until I get a job. I'm also trying to pack in a few touristy things in Toronto I've missed before I go; me and Cam (RIP, he's gone) had a look round the AGO, the art gallery, a few weeks back which was alright and I'm hoping to finally hit the big theme park here in the next few days.

Other than that, I'll be crying inside a lot (and maybe a bit outside), cancelling things and saying goodbye in the next couple of weeks, and my next blog will be from bloody West Yorkshire. Christ. So yeah, watch out for my FINAL Canada blog next time, which will include a report on my second US trip. I'll be celebrating by murdering a random member of your family like that Raoul Moat guy, because he seems to be the in-thing at home. Get ready to laugh, then cry. Also, I'll probably do a movie one this week, as I've watched 18 films since the last one. I'm hard. Bye for now!

Flaming hell in Toronto

"You better radio someone because my friend is in there pissing all over your theatre"

Wow, you tuned in to read one blog and another one popped up! Good lord! It's like a two for one deal, although the "one" is free, so the deal doesn't really matter. Err.. so, the last one was well overdue, this one is right about on time. What's been going on? Well if I'm honest, since I've got back from my jaunt away, things have been sort of insane. Even the littlest things I've seen and heard have been totally nuts. I knew Toronto was slightly nutbar from the moment I saw a hobo defecating onto a church, but recently the insanity ratio has stepped up a notch.

The first thing that happened was that my netbook was slaughtered by some nasty spyware, leaving me with no internet in my house apart from the old PC downstairs. I tried for a couple of weeks to fix it in various ways with various people's help, but to no avail and have only recently splashed out on a new one. At the same time, there was some drama in my house with one of my housemates and the landlord (not involving me) which led to a very tense atmosphere and didn't really make me want to use said PC downstairs. At the same time Toronto decided to be 30 degrees everyday in May. At the same time as that there's a horrible smell in my room, probably due to a rat dying in my room. At the same time the TTC decides to do a load of work on the subway making it annoying at best to get downtown. And at the same time as that, there were things in my social life that were completely nuts.

There's also been some crazy incidents that have left me completely confused, for example, an old man telling me off on the street for wearing camo shorts, saying I was a fascist. I was wearing a Dead Kennedys shirt at the time. Jesus. A few days later I witnessed the Toronto police pulling up beside a hobo fight and slamming them against cars in a very unfriendly way. Almost makes me want to burn my "fascist" camo shorts. Around that time I also witnessed a man SMOKING on the subway, OH MY GOD!!!!111

So all in all, May was insanity and it looks like June has quietened down a bit - new netbook, rain, less drama, smell almost gone (ok, I covered the vent with a plastic bag). Work is one of the things that has predictably stayed pretty non-nuts, but shifts have been pretty sparse due to my cinema not getting any big films. Luckily, money wise I've been ok, and only just recently paid off my last rent, as July has already been paid for thanks to my first and last. But I'm currently trying to save for a last-gasp trek somewhere at the end of July/early August (probably either Algonquin Park or potentially another jaunt to the States), so hopefully shifts will pick up in the next few weeks and I don't blow my now pretty much disposable income (I'll just keep denying I have an overdraft to pay off at home).

The fact that I'm going home soon hasn't really sunk in yet, but becomes apparent with things like paying last rent and when people around you start going home, and I'm looking forward to it as much as I am feeling sad about it. And what am I going back to? A cross-breed government who are going to "push unemployment to three million". Aww man. Well, at least I'm going back to a Leeds United in the Championship.

But I've still go plenty of stuff to do and look at and hell, have been doing. A few weeks ago we went to Scarborough Bluffs, which is not really like the real Scarborough at home, well err.. there's less.. chips - they're basically big cliffs, but it's very nice and another example of how you can travel a short distance within Toronto and it's another world. I also hope to go the AGO (art place) and Canada's Wonderland (theme park) and maybe even the Ontario Science Centre in the next few weeks, to get my brownie points as a good tourist.

The World bloody Cup starts on Friday as well, which I'm totally excited about, and surprisingly, I think a lot of Toronto is too, due to the variety of neighbourhoods in the city. CBC are showing every single game, which deserves a big pat on the back and everyone in my area seems to be wearing a Portugal shirt, probably because the area is Portugese. England aren't gonna win it, but I'm hella-looking forward to throwing a chair through a bar's window when we don't win (Ironically, one of the things I like about bars here is that they have frame-less fronts when it's warm so you can be outside.. inside).

So yeah, I'm looking forward to doing some new things, having some nice times and hanging out to the max, seeing some nice people off, watching a fuck load of football and hopefully planning a trip for right before I go home. So tune in next time for rapes and japes and cape...rs. Bye!

A stroll around the lake

"Ladies, Ladies, Ladies..."

Firstly may I apologise wholeheartedly for my total lack of blog communications recently, which I partly blame on the fact I spazzed up my netbook, but also partly blame on my (at times) horrific laziness. So, now I have to delve into my memory banks to recall the precise details of what happened on a trip I took over a month ago. Or I would, but luckily I'm just going to slightly plagarise Cam's blog (who came with me and Lev) and I won't even risk getting kicked out of uni (incidentally, I've have a few dreams recently where I have a mound of assignments and revision to do and then I wake up and realise I'll probably never have to do an assignment again). So let's get it on.

Pre-trip, Toronto, Ontario

Early May and I'm free from work for about two weeks, money in the bank, Greyhound pass bought, hostels booked, half-packed and awaiting the arrival of my favourite little man from Carlisle. Luckily, that volcano thing decided not to be a dick and Lev made it over to Toronto as planned, despite nearly missing all of his flights because he's rubbish. That night I took him on a whistle-stop tour of Toronto, which included his first 7-11 slushie, a quick tour around downtown, the annex and the harbour front and demolishing several chicken wings. The next day we popped into the Royal Ontario museum, which was the first time I'd been and wasn't bad, although nothing to write home about, which is ironic, because that's essentially what I'm doing right now. Think dinosaur bones, stuffed animals and a suit of armour and you've essentially got it. The day after that, with Lev just about settling into Toronto, we pulled the carpet under his feet and began our travels, after getting our Benjamins (look it up homeboys) and experiencing another Canadian first for me, smoked meat sandwiches, which are sandwiches with smoked meat in them. Suprise!

We'd all bought a 7-day pass that entitled unlimited travel around the USA on Greyhound coaches for 240ish dollars. None of our tickets were actually booked, you had to present them at each bus station in exchange for a ticket, which I always found slightly nerve-wracking, in case a entire hockey time had booked the coach for a sodding day trip to an aquarium or likewise. But we crossed the first hurdle by boarding our bus to New York on time at around 11pm. The trip itself took close to 12 hours, which involved a slightly scary interrogation by US border guards (who probably "go home and have a wank over how awesome they think they are" - Lev) and the bizarre sight of seeing an Amish family sitting in a service station, right next to a Dunkin' Donuts, somewhere in New York state at 4am in the morning. But I'd finally entered Obama's USA and y'know what? It were reet good like.

New York City, New York

We arrived in New York at around 9-9.30 and were straightaway thrust into a busy, claustrophobic subway station with little idea of where we were or where the hostel was, and just a totally confusing subway map to look at. We walked up the road and headed straight to the first coffee place we found which was run by loud Italian people and shoved food and caffeine down our necks to make up for the piss-poor attempts at sleep we got on the coach. Then we were presented with a sight I've seen many times in movies, on TV and err.. GTA IV - Times Square. After having a mild panic attack at the amount of advertising signs and people and the fact I was actually in scary New York, we took some pictures and then headed up to the hostel on the subway, which wasn't nearly as scary as it sounds.

After dumping our stuff off at the hostel, which was pretty good (and apparently the biggest in one of its kind in North America, which makes sense) we headed straight for the Bronx Zoo, which was free on a Wednesday. The subway journey there was cool as we got to ride on and see the famous overground subway tracks, which again just reminded me of GTA (sorry). The Bronx apparently isn't full of hard bastards like it used to be, which is reflective of a lot of New York nowadays thanks to that Rudolph mayor bloke - it was the same case for Harlem where our hostel was, which seemed safe enough. With the sun already starting to burn the shit out of my face, we wandered around the zoo for most of the day, the highlights probably being a Polar Bear battering a plastic box, a brown bear with a human haircut and some ridiculous sealions.

As the evening approached, we headed back downtown and bought one of those city tour packages which included tours and admission for various attractions for a pretty decent price. Straight away we headed up the big boy himself, the Empire State building, disappointingly just missing the sunset. However, we got the jaw-dropping views of New York at night instead, which blew everyone's faces off, like the wind. Wind makes you hungry, so after fannying about for a bit, we decided to go to Planet Hollywood (Owned by John McClane, Rambo and formerly the Terminator) for a burger, which was packed with movie memorabilia and decent food, which sadly wasn't cooked by Sylvester Stallone. Also, I wasn't sure if the waiter was trying to play a character or not. If he wasn't, he was a prick. After that, we were all totally knackered and retired back to the hostel to reboot for another stupidly busy day.

Up early, stuffed with muffins and ready to go, we found our way to the nearest open-top bus tour stop after a quick look around a big-ass cathedral. We rode all the way from Harlem to the ferry terminal at Battery Park on two separate buses, with two pretty good tour guides. The second guy in particular cracked me up, as he was a crazy old nutter who made jokes straight out of 1975. We then boarded the ferry for the Statue of Liberty, which was kind of smaller than I thought it would be. The views from the ferry were awesome and wandering around on the island was totally surreal. After taking that in, we headed back to the mainland, had a look around the financial district and Wall Street, where oddly there was traders selling knock-off DVDs (they must be hard up; also there was a hell of a lot of African guys selling fake Rolexs from black bin liners in New York, not sure what that shit was).

Waiting for a two-hour night tour of Brooklyn, we had some textbook dinner at sunset at a place called Uno and then hopped back onto another bus which took us back up to Times Square (with a truly awful guide this time), then a fourth of the day which would take us out to David Beckham's son (Brooklyn ya idiot). The tour held ridiculous views of New York, especially from the other side of the river and going across the Brooklyn Bridge was immense - Brooklyn itself wasn't particularly interesting, but we got to eat at a famous ice cream place anyway which you can't really argue with. Sunburnt to hell, we all headed back to the hostel that night, completely destroyed by another stupid-busy day.

The next morning we were a bit late getting down to the bus station for Boston, because (plagirism alert):"It seemed to have slipped our mind, just how big this ruddy apple was."

Boston, Massachusetts

We got to Boston late afternoon after a pretty painless bus ride and after fumbling finding the hostel, wandered around this really quite nice city in the sunshine. We took Boston's subway to and from the hostel and headed back into the centre. The old town and Boston Common in particular were sweet and later on we found the Cheers bar - Lev in particular seemed to have a complete heart attack over this place, I mean, I liked the show, but I think Lev would have stayed in the gift shop for the rest of his life if he could - the douche. We did some more walking around along "The Freedom Trail" which follows a load of the historic sites in the city, and then later in the evening we found a pretty quirky restaurant where we ate clam chowder, stared in amazement at Irish people singing songs around a piano, ignored the hockey, pretended we were from "Baaahston" and generally lived like kings for the evening (except we couldn't get served for booze because Cam was under 21, stupid America).

After another decent sleep in the hostel, me and Lev met a very wet Cam at breakfast, who had gone off exploring at 6am in the sodding rain. We joined in on it and took a look around Harvard University and a bit more of the town, but the rain pissed on our bonfire and sadly later that afternoon we were leaving the place for Montreal. It was a shame we didn't spend more time in Boston and that half of the time it was shitty weather - hopefully I'll get to come back someday. At the bus station, Lev dropped a clanger and lost his bus pass which was a kick in the teeth, and Cam later found out he'd left his jacket, but once we were on the bus we began some intense games of cards and I found out Leeds had been promoted, everyone's spirits quickly lifted (well mine did). For the record, the only thing I lost during the trip was a nine of clubs. So nerr.

The long trip from Boston to Montreal was the best of the bus journeys due to the scenery through Vermont, with it's beautiful rolling hills and a spectacular thunderstorm. This is America at it's finest and it's clear to see why those blokes who landed in New England back in ye olde days wanted to stay here. Once we reached Canada, the difference in border control was hilarious - I've literally had more security checks getting on a rollercoaster. God bless those trusty Canadians.

Montreal, Quebec

We entered French Canada in the evening and were faced with another subway system to get to our third hostel of the trip. The biggest shock at this point was the cold - we'd gone from blazing hot Toronto and New York to rainy Boston and now to a cold Montreal, with the temperatures barely above freezing. That night we checked in late and went to bed, waking up to SNOW in the morning. The first thing we did was to try and get a good view of the city - handily, there's a big fuck off hill called Mont Royal, so we climbed up that, mostly complaining about the cold and looked out at the view. Or at least we would have done, if we could have seen anything past the white fuzz. Nevertheless it was cool being up there. And cold.

We then climbed down from that silliness and had a wander around a dull, grey and pretty much deserted Montreal on a Sunday, a world away from it's "party town" tag. I think we came to Montreal at the wrong time, although through no fault of our own, but we managed to see some nice buildings, get lost in the underground city which was mainly just full of hobos and go to a totally confusing art exhibition - everything else seemed to be closed. Later that day we used my privileges as a Cineplex employee to see Iron Man 2 on the IMAX at "Banque Scotia", a name I find hilarious considering all the films are in English. Montreal is pretty French, but as soon as someone realises you're English (whether you're speaking French or not), they speak it to you, so perhaps I'm taking the wrong attitude, but I don't see the point in speaking French at all. Pardon monsieur. We also visited a few book stores to feed Lev's comic book addiction, which was a long-running theme of the trip. We dropped into a 24-hour arcade on the way back to the hostel, where we gamed the night away for about 20 minutes and ate authentic Montreal poutine... at a burger chain. We did some major league chilling out relaxing at the hostel that night, which would be our last on the road.

The next morning the snow had fucked off and we were leaving, brilliant.

Ottawa, Ontario

So a quick stop off in the nation's capital on the way home and there was only really one place to head for - Parliament Hill. The buildings were impressive and the amount of Canadian flags verged on the insane, but it seemed a nice enough place and we took more than enough photos of buildings, memorials, sculptures and.. flags. We ate in an very strange, empty restaurant and after a few hours of being in Ottawa, got back on the coach to head home to Toronto, where me and Lev spent at least two hours talking utter shite about an idea to introduce snail racing on coaches.

And that was it. The next day we saw another movie at my cinema (look out soon for another movie review blog post, oh man, how excited you must be right now), we had another Toronto walk and then left Lev at Cam's as his house is nearer the subway and he had an early flight to get the next morning.

All in all, the trip was bloody marvellous. My first trip to the States proved to be a memorable one, but most definitely won't be my last and the fact the trip went so smoothly was truly impressive. The travel times were long but didn't ever hinder us, but if I could have changed anything, it would have been nice to spend some more time everywhere. Sadly the restrains of work and Lev's schedule made this not an option - however, I believe we made the most of our time and I'm really glad I did it. And a-thank you for reading. The pictures are all over my facebook mate. Night.