Frankie Boyle Blocked Me on Twitter

by Jake McMillan

Much to my surprise and amusement (and that of my friends), Frankie Boyle blocked me on Twitter earlier today!

I am definitely a Frankie Boyle fan and will often re-tweet him. If you are unaware of his work, then he is a Scottish stand-up comedian whose jokes go right to the edge of what is acceptable, and in some people’s eyes, often goes over it.

For example, in the last 24hrs he has tweeted the following (amongst others):

‘YOUR CUNT HAS BEEN CONDEMNED’

‘Every Tuesday night I masturbate about an inanimate object. This week it’s Whitney Houston.’

‘If Newcastle was a sound, it would be the noise of an erection puncturing a colostomy bag.‘

You can see that he pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable and as such is no stranger to controversy. He has notoriously made jokes about the Queen’s vagina (“she is so old that [her] pussy is haunted“), Rebecca Adlington and Katie Price‘s (Jordan) disabled son Harvey (“I have a theory that Jordan married a cage fighter cause she needed someone strong enough to stop Harvey from fuckin’ her.“).

Not everyone will find this type of humour funny and definitely some people will find it offensive, but then all comedy offends someone somewhere.

Okay, so you have enough background and context … earlier today Frankie wrote:

‘Just thinking how different my life would be if my name was Leroy Powers ‘

I then replied in a way I thought Frankie, of all people, would appreciate … apparently I was wrong. I replied to him:

‘that’s a bit like a retarded donkey wondering what it would be like to have a foot shoved up its arse instead of a fist’.

Now, that is block-worthy in a lot of people’s books, I just didn’t think it would be for Mr Boyle. He dishes it out and I am quite sure he can take it too … I am guessing he was either having a bad day or, more likely, he was bombarded with abusive-style responses from people like me who think they are being funny, but are clearly not in his league.

In any case, my friends think this is hilarious as although I can be crude at times, I’m generally a polite and diplomatic sort. I can imagine Frankie would respond to this, ‘I didn’t block you for your comment, I just thought you were a boring cunt!‘.

I Keep a Movie Journal

by Jake McMillan

Some people keep a diary or journal. If I could freeze time at the end of the day, I would write a diary too. Actually, if I could freeze time there would be a few mischievous things I would do first, but you get the point. There isn’t the time in the 21st century to write a diary. However, I keep a log of the movies I watch.

Ever since I got access to a VHS recorder as a kid (yes, I’m that old), I recorded and watched films all the time. I would stay up beyond my bedtime curfew to watch films as quietly as possible, with one ear on the film and one ear listening out for my parents footsteps on the stairs. At birthdays and Christmas, family would give me blank video tapes as presents which was great but it was pretty easy to guess what the present was. My Nan also had the odd habit of buying a 5 pack of VHS tapes and then wrapping up each one individually? However they were given, I was always very grateful and ALL got utilised, mostly on Long Play.

[Young folk, Long Play was a VHS feature that allowed you to record at half speed. So a 3hr tape turned into 6hrs of recording time. The quality was not quite as good, but then TVs weren’t that good then either so it wasn’t a big deal]

So for me, movies are a big deal … for you it might be books, music, food, sports, etc. … and it forms a big and regular part of your life. I decided to keep a journal of the films I watched, the format and who I was with and any brief thoughts/comments that would help remind me of  that day/week.

And if that isn’t geeky and sad enough, I have also used this spreadsheet log to analyse my film watching habits. For example, in the past year:

• I watched an average of 22.5 movies a month

• The most common method of watching films was by DVD (38%)

• Films on TV accounted for 17% of all films viewed, Blu-ray 14% and online 11%

• Online watching included via LoveFilm, Netflix, BBC’s iPlayer and YouTube

• Only 8% of films watched were at the cinema

As well as these stats, it’s been really interesting to look back and see what I have done this year. 2012 has been, fortunately for me, a really fantastic year of lots of travel and fun stuff going on. This journal approach allows me to very quickly and easily to look back at what I have been doing and be reminded of some great memories.

If you have a notion of keeping a diary, but don’t have the time, then maybe you could do something similar to this?