How to Discuss Art and Get Away with it

It used to be as simple as faking a British accent, donning a fur coat and a cigar for the ladies and a monocle and moustache for the men. Then you could turn up and say things such as:

“ Darling is this not sublime,”

“The eyes, they are so vivid,”

But fashion and art changed.

No longer are we faced with simple portraits and epic landscapes. Those days are gone and now would be art connoisseurs are faced with a whole different animal, sometimes figuratively speaking and often quite literally so.

Everything's become a lot more progressive and some might say a little harder to fake. But not me, oh no...

The first thing you have to consider is your attire. There are still fur coats, of course, but they don’t really support your cause. You’ll probably blend in better if you wear ridiculously tight jeans  or a big dowdy granny dress and pair them with impossibly large glasses (with actual glass in the frames being optional).

As for affecting a foreign accent. The British accent won’t get you any further; than say an Irish one. So stick to whatever comes naturally...unless you're American. American accents are to be avoided outside of the States if you don’t want to be given the “tourist-eye-roll” treatment.

But the question is not what to wear or what accent to use while viewing art, although people might pay more attention to your statements if you’re dressed appropriately. The bigger problem here is what should you say. How do you discuss it without sounding like you fell off a bus from the 1960's.  

And this is exactly what I suggest saying, in a throw-away voice and with an exasperated sigh.

People will nod in awe at your profundity.

Alternatively you can try some other useful sentences which say everything you need to without saying…well…anything.

“It’s so derivative.” (Best said with a scowl and an impatient shrug)

“There’s such emotion in this piece.” (Best said looking mournfully at the piece and clutching your chest)

“It really just says so much.” (Best to follow this with a slow shake of the head)

My Demonic Mother’s Revenge and the Aftermath

Teenage boys are Xbox playing, computer wielding zombies. Or at least my brother was…

My mother would try to get him to do things…

And some of them would be done, or half-done and then others would be forgotten...

She would wake him up in the mornings for school after he spent all night pressing buttons and staring fixedly at a screen.

But she grew tired of all of this, she started to plot.

And plot.

And plot.

And finish his chores.

Then one day she decided to stay in bed. The longer she stayed wrapped-up in bed thinking about how he would miss school the more empowered she felt.

 Then when it turned exactly time for school she hauled him out of bed.

Would he be a bit late. Oh no, no, no. She had a better plan.

Before he had time to rub the sleep from his eyes she started issuing commands.

"You will build a fence."

"You will build a shelf."

"You will run the dog."

"You will chop wood and make fired."

"And then just as you think you are finished, just as you think you can sit down. That is when I will present you with the Bramble of Death...."

When he was finished she let him sit for a moment. Before a demonic smile took hold of her face and she issued the last blow of her ultimate revenge...

The next day, drunk on so much power, she woke to find that my brother was still in bed. She leapt from bed and stormed to his bedroom.

It was here that her outrage grew to such disproportionate levels that she chuckled mercilessly above her sleeping son.

So she did the only reasonable thing, she could think of, and dragged him from bed by his hair. 

She then began a tirade on time-keeping and responsibility while gesturing at the clock.

It was then that my brother looked at the clock...

My mother was halted mid speech as she let the news sink in. 

She realised she had jumped out of bed prematurely and my brother still had a rightful hour to go in bed. She retreated to the kitchen to question her sanity over her morning brew.

Sugar, Mad Children of the Bog and Why The Two Should Not Be Mixed

My Mother’s family can be divided into two distinct groups. There’s her immediate family – the mad-children-of-the-bog and then there are her extended family – the posh-ones.

Sometimes they invite us to their posh parties and we all sheepishly attend. We wear our good-clothes, speak when spoken too, avoid sugar or in fact anything that might make us a little unruly.

One of my cousins is a particularly mad-child. In fact he is so mad that at my eighteenth birthday he released a bucket of wild frogs all-over my friends.

 He is so wild that he tamed our devil-cat, by biting its tail, at two years old and he is so unruly that at four he rolled our fridge into a river.

 So he’s the best kind of child really. Only you can’t give him sugar. Any sugar is too much sugar.

So we were at one of the posh parties when a posh relative gave him a piece of chocolate. We giggled behind our hands when she ignored our warning. She would see.

And she did. 

Fast forward half an hour and our posh relative was demanding my grandmother remove her naked grandson from a tree. My granny, who had also presumably had some sugar, thought this was hilarious and decided instead to take a picture. 

Love Works Like This According to the Movies

1. As long as you are beautiful, but not the most beautiful person in the scenario…you will get the guy. This simply means that a strategically gorgeous tall enemy will only heighten your chances of finding Mr. Right, provided that the only thing between you and becoming a super-model is your height.

 2. If a man holds a door for you act stroppy and independent and slam it in his face for good measure. It’s the power-women that find their softer side that get the guy.

3. The guy you hate on sight. He’s the one. 

4. Gay-best-friends are generally undercover straight-men trying to marry you.

5. If there are not enough weird and wacky "coincidences" then this is not true love. It can’t be easy, it must be serendipitous.

6. Beautiful men will eat your heart for breakfast and someone else’s for lunch.

7. Secretaries seem to sleep with everyone.

8. You must do something really awful to people you think you love. This way you test whether or not they will love you despite the fact that you got them fired, kidnapped their baby or called their mother a whore.

9. You should be really clumsy around guys you are trying to impress. This will result in lots of embarrassing situations that will magically make him fall in love with you. What’s more attractive than finding your future wife face down in the fish-display? Am I right?

10. All confusion and sadness is cured by sitting on park benches where you once spent time with the person in question. Here you will experience a series of touching flashbacks that will make your next step obvious.

Why Facebook Has Ruined My Social Skills

I can’t help it. I've spent large stints of my life on Facebook. First it was for “academic purposes”, then it was for “communicating with family while abroad” purposes, and then there was the “keeping in touch with friends abroad” purposes. I always have an excuse to justify the fact that I've just spent three hours of my time scrolling through pages of others and clicking through their pictures. I may harbor a small addiction or a large one. But luckily it only manifests when I am bored.

The problem is not the actual addiction.

Oh no the issue is my memory.

I remember pretty much everything I ever read see or about anyone on Facebook: even when they are just a friend of a friend. A friend of a friend whom I've merely seen a post about due to the fact that my friends commented on their post and it’s gone viral.

This is what I hate: things going viral. Even semi-viral, so that I am forced to witness them and then become curious about the person and spend a minute browsing their page, which generally has only enough privacy settings to deter a semi-blind person. So that in moments you get a quick scan of their entire lives.

It wouldn't be a problem or at least not a social problem if it wasn't for my inability to small talk.

What generally happens is I’m introduced to some person that I shouldn't know anything about. What then occurs is that I manage to be normal for about ten seconds and then we run out of the introductory “hi’s and my name is”, so more often than not and without my common senses permission I say something along the lines of:

“Oh you’re that guy that went to Korea to teach English, but then came home to start a band with your secondary school friends because you missed your dog. How is he, the dog? Was it worth it?”

At this point people start backing away; in fact at this point I start backing away from myself.

It’s come to the point where I try not to look anyone in the eye in case I recognise them from Facebook and spout their life history as told by social networking. 

What I know About Badgers

Due to the title of my blog a few people (my mother) have asked for a post that actually deals with a badger… this is that post. Awkwardly enough I don’t know very much about badgers at all. I've limited the post to the five things I know best about badgers.

1. Badgers are nocturnal-man-eating-wilder-beasts – or at least that’s what I was told when I was four. I've tried to overcome the stigma but I still jump when I see a badger den in the woods. They apparently have talons and a temper. So I am prepared never to see a badger if it means staying alive.

2.  Cruella Deville's hair piece was actually made from badger fur.

3. If a badger dressed up as Elvis it would look a little odd and people might ask questions.

4. However if a badger dressed up as Lady Gaga nobody would think it was out of sorts. 

5. Badgers appear to spend much of their time being run over.

My Stint as a Serial Fish Killer

When I was seventeen I was chased from my own birthday party by drunken friends screaming at me to “put down the fish.” I was sober.

It was one of those giant- joint- parties where nobody knows who is being celebrated. I think perhaps three people knew it was my birthday and I spent most of the party in a corner nibbling a birthday cake I hadn't got to blow the candles out on.

About half way through the night two of my best friends presented me with a gift: a fish tank with three fish named in it.  I forgot the names instantly and stared blankly at the tank wondering what part of my teenage existence said “fish-girl.”

I didn't mention I was scared of fish, thought they were ugly and to the best of my knowledge didn't think they were all that durable. I just sat through the party feeling misunderstood.

Occasionally my friends remembered I was there and then they would look expectantly at me, “don’t you like it?” So I nodded, cursing the fact that I would later need to regale them with fun facts about the fish to prove my appreciation.

Anyway when I tried to leave early with the fish in tow I suddenly got noticed. Some drunk friends of friends thought I was stealing the family fish-tank and abandoned their alcohol fueled debate to chase me. I had to leg it across the garden precariously balancing the life of the three fish in my arms, as my mother looked on baffled.

“Are you stealing your friends fish?”

“No, why does everyone think that?”

“Well…”

“Just drop it,”

I spent the next two weeks doing everything I could to keep the fish alive. I fed them constantly, changed their water daily, and cleaned everything. I was not going to be accused of being ungrateful.

Then I woke up one morning and they were all bent funny and bobbing up and down in the water.

“Well you killed them,”

“Maybe they’re not dead?”

“They are clearly dead.”

The deaths were a relief really. The awkward part was telling my friends. I acted upset though so I thought I’d passed the point where they would ever discover my true feelings towards the fish. Then someone asked where I buried them.

“Oh you know I just flushed them down the toilet.”