Agreed.

I think this is the funniest scene from peep show https://www.reddit.com/r/PeepShowQuotes/comments/6z7q98/i_think_this_is_the_funniest_scene_from_peep_show/

Travelling and working; A valuable lesson

Travelling; they say it broadens your mind. When I first set off to Australia, I have to say that I was a little sceptical of that idea. I thought that it was a cliché that people would fall back on after going many places, but not moving forward in their career.  Even 6 months in, deep the midst of constant drinking and partying, I still felt that whilst I was having a great time, that wouldn’t translate into making me a more well rounded person.

Recently, I have been thinking about the valuable things that I, personally, have learnt whilst being away from home. I guess the most obvious one, although not all that obvious to me because of my time at university, is the sense that you are out here alone. There is no mum or dad to wash your dishes, clothes and bed sheets. There is no breakfast prepared on the table; hell there is no food in the fridge. I believe for many travelers, this is their first experience of that.

I think that the most important thing that I have realised, is just how important work is. For my whole life, I have not been too fussed about where I work. Even after University when there was a drive to start my career, I still succumbed to the idea that money was more important. Even though I had a stable lifestyle and I was by no means desperate, money seemed like the most important thing for me to chase. I always thought that the times I was unemployed were bad because I needed money.  Now I am realising they were bad because I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t learning, I wasn’t excersisng, I wasn’t reading; I wasn’t contemplating.

I think that as human beings, we are hardwired to be active. I don’t just mean that physically, I mean that we are goal orientated and should always be striving to hit targets. These might not be obvious targets, for example waking up on time to get to work - finishing the day at work. When you are travelling and you are living in a beautiful place like Australia, it is easy to have the idea that you are taking a year out to enjoy some down time. But if you are anything like me, and I think that most of us think similarly, then you start to get bored. Sitting around in the sun doesn’t seem so appealing. It’s no good to align your goals with going to the beach and getting drunk.  Something has stirred inside of me recently, and I believe it is the idea that we must work as much as we can, whilst we can.

I think it is natural to come to that conclusion at some point in life, for most of us. Why I think travelling is so important, is because it makes you realise that fact far sooner than people who stay in their comfort zone. The competition for jobs out here in Australia is so fierce that it brings out your innate competitive streak, and as a consequence we end up taking jobs that our outside of our comfort zone. This is not to say that there aren’t millions of driven, motivated people who don’t need to travel in order to get the bit between their teeth, it just means that travelling puts the bit there for some of us.

Black Friday paves the way for a dimmer Christmas period

 ‘Black Friday’ may well suggest a lot about our cultural ideals and how we prioritise things as a society, but it confirms one thing; we are becoming more and more like our American counterparts that we have previously berated and sneered at.

A few years ago a few friends and I saw some viral videos posted to Facebook, showing camera phone footage of a shopping mall in America. This was a one-day event, whereby retailers would offer price reductions that are unheard of at any other point in the year. We all laughed at the desperation of the American customers as they shouted and squabbled, and fully-grown adults came to blows. Ignorant to our own investment in consumerism, we labelled them crazy, perched atop our moral high ground. Black Friday seemed an Americanised, trivial reality.

It is now 2016, and Black Friday has become a more global phenomenon. The fact that people were physically harmed in quests for TV’s 30% under the recommended retail price indicates that we now see materialistic goods as more important than humanity. The very notion of some discounted prices drew millions out of their homes and into packed supermarkets, where consumer hungry customers were ravenous and ruthless in their quests for cheap goods. Countless videos have been uploaded of people fighting, mothers with their children being pushed out of the way to grab a cheap Xbox one. Green eyes of envy turn to black eyes and bruising.

The Americanisation of Western Europe has become, and will continue to be, a cultural aspect of life in a capitalist society that operates on the premise of consumerism. For us to maintain a healthy economy, we must spend money. This means that all the big business and cooperation’s inevitably benefit off of our willingness to spend. The dominance of these companies allows them to do as they wish in terms of advertisement and marketing at Christmas time, with customers more willing to spend than ever. Marketing strategies from the big players in the festive season regularly eclipse the million pound mark, demonstrated by the John Lewis advertising campaign this Christmas costing a nifty 7 million pounds.

Whilst Black Friday is a great way for everyone to save a bit of cash, it seems that all of the hysteria and childish behaviour that it causes completely contradicts the common themes of Christmas - kindness, giving and best wishes. Festive music is drowned out by arguments; the season to be jolly subsides, whilst hostility and violence prevail - even if only for a day. I think that if people took a minute and watched their behaviour on camera, some would be ashamed of their actions. Consumerism will always thrive at Christmas, but a plan to at least restrict black Friday to an online fiasco would probably be in the best interests of everyone.

People keep hitting on my girlfriend

Relationships are great. No, really.  The comfort you get from having someone to share things with, to cuddle when it's cold, and to pluck your eyebrows when your monobrow is getting funky is invaluable. 

What's really great is when you go out together.  She takes hours to get ready, you spend hours drinking and waiting.  Waiting and drinking. She says those two words you have been wanting to hear for what feels like an eternity. "I'm ready". "Yes!",  you think. "No, actually I just need too...", she says. 

The false alarms pass and the time has come. And my God she looks good. I'm so lucky to have you, I say, and rush her out of the door before she can alter herself any more.

One cannot truly appreciate the obnoxious nature of any typical jack the lad until you have had one of them hit on your girlfriend.  I'm sitting with my girlfriend, drinking and chatting. No, wait, I'm holding hands with my girlfriend, drinking, chatting, laughing. Over waltzes some overconfident, smarmy, half dancing asswipe,  and loudly whispers in her ear ( I hate it when people do that) "fancy a drink, love?" 

I'm literally sat right here, man. She awkwardly glances over, to which I shrug my shoulders. Am I the gay best friend to this guy? Oh no, a guy who doesn't dance as he walks cannot be cool enough to be with a girl like this in any kind of romantic notion, he must be a gay best friend. He's actually probably into me. In fact, I won't even look at the guy, and I will continue to ignore her rejection, and keep hitting on her. 

The guy did not acknowledge my existence, and to be honest, I don't care. Five minutes later he was on the d-floor feeling some middle aged woman's inner thigh. Fair play mate, you had a go. The thing is, this happens an awful lot. Guys have tunnel vision when they see a pretty girl. Nothing else matters. 

I should take it as a compliment, right? Especially when some guy she works with comes up to me on a night out , and loudly whispers in my ear ( I fucking hate that) "if you weren't such a sound lad, mate, I would definitely fuck your girlfriend!" How on earth should I respond to that, as I look into his lecherous face, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth?

All I'm saying is, guys, stop being so cock heavy all the time and think about what you're saying.  Not every female on the planet wants to have sex with you.

Fighting fire with fire won't help to put out IS flame

When asked about the alleged strike on Mohammed Emwazi, the ISIL agent responsible for beheading at least 4 Britons and Americans, as well as many others from different descents, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "It would have been far better for us all if he had been held to account in a court of law".

Otherwise known as "Jihadi John", as nicknamed by some of the hostages he kept because of his British accent, Emwazi was the first real face of the terrorist group ISIL that the public were exposed to.

The interview was publicised is such a way to demonise Mr Corbyn. The human rights activist's comments were met with some disdain, and his unwillingness to condone what he viewed as an illicit strike seemed to leave a sour taste in many people's mouths.

"Surely if somebody is doing something wrong you act legally against them." He said. How absolutely disgusting, said everybody else.

Of course in a society encompassed by mass media and opinion polls, the attack on “Jihadi John” was very much seen as imperative in order to allay growing public fears over the scope of ISIL. With no significant action taken to retaliate to the beheadings, the government saw it as important to show the terrorists, and indeed the world, that such acts of terrorism would not be tolerated. A strike aimed at the perpetrator of some gruesome beheadings may serve as vengeance momentarily, but the move lacked foresight; Just because you get the guy in front of the camera, it doesn’t mean that the directors have stopped working.

That is not to say that such retaliations vindicate terrorist actions – far from it – but when something goes up in flames and you want to put it out, the last thing you should do is pour petrol on it.

It’s a question of morality can be summated as a battle of the cliché’s: two wrongs don’t make a right, an eye for an eye - neither seem to resonate when talking about something as devastating as the loss of human life. We live in a world where leaders simply cannot show weakness; cannot show humanity.  Airstrikes from Russia and France alike may well kill a few ISIL affiliates, but what about the innocent people it will affect. Do we show them no mercy, just like the gunman did so at the Bataclan?

ISIL are a group that were born out of a cesspool of hate. They believe in their cause and they are the epitome of a group who fight using violence as their weapon, who combat hate with more hate. Now more than ever human beings need to show solidarity and strength. If an act of strength continues to be defined by dropping bombs and destroying the world, then I worry for the future of humanity.

A week and a half later and the horrific events in Beirut, Paris and Mali make Mr Corbyn’s words seem all the more poignant.

I think I beat anxiety, but I should not get ahead of myself

Anxiety, it seems can have a couple of effects on its victim; It can either send you into a state of paralysis where you are worried, and self-conscious to the point that anxiety becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (I have anxiety, so I'm anxious), or it can give people a swift kick up the backside into doing something

For me it was neither, and both at the same time. Whilst pacing around my room and questioning my sanity, mortality and ability to do anything, I'd often decide to go on runs in order to forget about everything. The verb; the doing of things. No matter what it was, I’d start doing things. My house mates saw this as strange (as well as annoying, pelting a sponge ball against my wall at half 4 in the morning because I couldn't sleep), but what was going on here was actually nothing productive. I wasn't turning a negative into a positive; I was just filling my anxious times with more trivial activities. Throwing a ball against a wall and catching it, now there's no reason to be anxious about that, is there?

But there was. I'm not going to lie and act like anxiety didn't have anything to do with the six or seven years of almost daily abuse of marijuana, coupled with intermittent spells of binge drinking and netflix. It was a result of the way I had been living my life. 22 year old me took a 4 month long, trembling, nervous look into the mirror and decided he didn't like what he saw.

My house mates would often look bemused by my heavy breathing patterns; habitually clicking my fingers, and sporadically leaving the room when things got too intense.  "What's the matter, mate?" was the outcome of this, as they would gingerly approach me later on in the day. The thing is, I would have absolutely loved to talk to somebody about what was bothering me, but when people would ask, I had no response. I actually didn't know what was wrong with me. There was no one definitive thing, and I feel like that is a recurring theme of the anxiety I experienced; you can't quite put your finger on what the problem is. In reflection I definitely think that it was my sub-concious telling me that I had to make a change. It was lots of little things that had manifested into this big, cloudy, ever expanding problem. In reality it was manageable, and not a big deal. The problem was, I couldn't believe that.

My anxiety was serious. I couldn't go an hour without the impending fear of doom settling down by my side, and I knew that it was always there to stay. There was never any welcome relief, just hope that it would stop. I was asking it away instead of telling it. It was that sort of attitude that, I feel, intensified my cycle. Instead of grabbing it by the balls and saying no, I don't want you in my life any more, I lived in hope. Hope that it would go away; hope that I would one day be OK. The thing is, with that sort of attitude, nobody would get anywhere.

In an ideal world, none of us would get anxious. None of us would get sad, lonely, or worried; none of us would die. When anxiety takes a hold of your life, you feel like a prisoner to your own thoughts and a fugitive to happiness. It's not like I can explain anxiety in a 1000 words to someone who doesn't understand; I couldn't explain it to the people who saw me go through it day after day, hour after hour. This article is for the people who do suffer, and I'm telling you that you can overcome it. 

What is apparent to me now, in my life presently and going forward, is that we should not always see anxiety as one-dimensional. It is a multi-faceted, complex emotion that ranges in severity both mentally and physically.  We should not always see it negatively, either. I believe that it is your mind trying to tell you to do something. That something can be anything, and productivity can definitely be a positive by-product of anxiety. As I sit writing this now, after an anxious quiver 20 minutes or so ago, I feel productive, happy and content. I feel like I can use this degree I have in Journalism, and that I can write something that people can relate too. I remember seeing  a quote on anxiety, that said something to the effect of, and excuse the paraphrase, "try not to see anxiety as the mask of death, but rather the pulse of life". That quote seems most poignant to me at this time.

Anxiety usually strikes because of an underlying issue. My issue was that my life had become shit, coupled with depression because my father tried to slit his wrists. I refused anti - depressants, anti - anxiety tablets - but said yes to therapy. Talking about things really puts things into perspective, no matter how warped yours is. I'm not saying all this too brag, I'm trying to tell you to look beyond the anxiety and ask what's really causing the problem; it might be the best question you've ever asked.