Hi all! Hope everyone is well. Many thanks go to all the lovely
ladies who responded to the request in my article last month. I
haven’t had time to reply to them all yet; I’m going
through them in chunks of about a hundred at a time. I’m replying
to the ones with the best photos first, so if you want to jump to the
front of the queue then a quality snapshot is the way to do it. That
reminds me, I’ve heard that after people go to job interviews
their potential employers are looking them up on websites like Facebook and MySpace to
see what kind of person they are. This may well explain why I’m
still unemployed. (I really should have taken that picture down,
whipped cream and furry handcuffs never did seem quite right). I
don’t know for sure if that job thing is true, but I can believe
it. Pretty much anyone who goes for a job interview is acting to some
extent and trying to cover up certain features of their personalities.
On these sites though, the opposite is true, people try to be
themselves and really imprint their true characters on their profiles.
It seems a bit sneaky really but I suppose it’s perfectly legal.
Speaking of sneaky but legal, I’ve been
reading a book about the history of the British press recently. I got
bored of the sex catalogue that came through my door a few days ago
(now there’s a story) so I thought I’d move on to something
a little more educational. Having said that, I did learn a fair few
things from the catalogue; companies are very inventive with their products
these days. As I understand it, the British and North American press have essentially swapped roles in the last
hundred years or so. In the late 19th century the British press was
quite prim and proper and the North American press was a bit more trashy, whereas now most North American
publications are serious, informative products whereas our tabloid
press is the ‘gutter press.’ What’s happened over
here is that certain newspapers have had periods of sales dominance,
but then they’ve been undercut by another publication who has
stolen readers from them by lowering the intellectual level of their
product. So now we have a situation where the most purchased newspaper
in the country, The Sun, bases its existence around sex, celebrity and
scandal. It does carry genuine news but even there I believe the
reading age needed to understand it is about that of a seven year old.
These tabloids are also loose of morals and integrity. Lucky I’m
not famous or my whipped cream adventures would probably appear on their
front page. By the way, if you think one day I might be famous and want
to cash in, then just send me stuff to sign.
Send a bit of money as well and I guarantee a return on your investment
in the next thirty years.
The future is going to be a very interesting
place though, that’s for sure. Keeping on the subject of fame,
who knows which of your friends or acquaintances could become famous in
the future? That guy who just sits there all day looking scared of the
big tree could be a future actor or doctor. That girl whose vocabulary
occasionally extends to words outside of ‘cool,’
‘awesome,’ and ‘totally’ could be a future
singer or politician. What’s that phrase, ‘some people are
born great, others achieve greatness,’ that’s a good phrase
but it probably should be ‘some people are born great, some
people surprise you when they turn out not to be complete dickwads.’ Can I say dickwads?
I may get censored here. I don’t edit this, so I don’t
know. I’m tempted to test the censor, but I
better not, wouldn’t want to upset those lovely people who pay my
wages. Which reminds me, when someone
says they’ll pay you good dough for something, check what kind of
dough they mean. I’ve had to bake a lot of bread recently, put it
that way. I don’t actually get paid by the way, though all
donations are welcome (send them with the photos).
On the subject of money, there’s been
quite a lot of fuss here recently about the building of some new
casinos. It was decided by the government that a ‘super
casino’ and a number of smaller casinos should be built to help
regenerate certain areas. In the end, Manchester was the surprise winner of
the super casino contract and a number of other areas, including Leeds where I am sitting now, won
the rights to build smaller casinos. This whole scheme caused
controversy as some people said it wasn’t right to encourage
gambling. It was claimed it would increase the number of gambling
addicts. The other argument was that some of the areas where casinos
will be built are in desperate need of regeneration and so anything
that could help inject more money would be welcome. Rather than bore
you with my detailed and considered opinion, I’ll instead recall
the one and only time I went to a casino. It was about six months ago
and I was out with some friends and we’d had a few drinks. A
couple of these friends were already members of the local casino and
they managed to encourage me to go. I went in and promised myself that
I would not spend anymore than £5. I put the £5 into an
electronic roulette machine and just pressed a few buttons. I
didn’t really know what I was doing. After a few spins I realised I actually now had £6, I was
£1 up. I got my ticket printed off from the machine, went to the
collection window and claimed my £6. I then didn’t play
anymore of the games for the rest of the night. I don’t think I
even bought any drinks. I left with my profits and haven’t been
back since. That’s how to beat the system people.
I think I’m pretty much done for
another month. As a final note, I just want to encourage everyone to
give The Window as much
feedback as possible. I don’t mean about my article but about the
paper as a whole. I know for a fact that all those in the hierarchy of
the paper work very hard to keep it as good as it is and they’d
love to know more about what people think about it. That way it can get
even better and you people can enjoy it even more. Have a good month.
