Owen's Studious Student Diet - The Dissertation Delight

I get thousands of  e-mail, letters and pigeons each week asking: "Owen, how do you stay so trim?", well I feel it's time to share that secret. So here it is.

6am: Wake up to house mates alarm (he will get up 30 mins later after the alarm has sounded on at least four different occasions)  

6.15am: Bowl of four wheat bisks (76p from Morrison's for 36 bisks! I know who's winning) with milk.Sit around until about 8.30am
            

8.30am: Sit in the library. Procrastinate.

1.30pm: Share (equally) 3 cupcakes from a vintage fair with a German. Return to library.

6pm: Leave library forget/feel to lethargic to do a food shop.

6.15pm: Have some rice from a packet (nothing else in the house). Spice it up by putting some bread under it,  yum.
          
        

6.45pm: Sit. For ages.

8.30pm: Still hungry? Pub.

 12am: Bed.

I hope it works out for you, don't forget that you need to get fish and chips at least once a week.

Good luck, please send in photos and story's of your successes.

Stupid games to play if you're in high school

The title pretty much explains the premise of this blog. These are all real games, so please do play them.

• Whenever a teacher asks you to do or hand in anything, reply with: "But, it's civvies day!"
• At the start of each morning registration fill you gob (mouth) with as much water/coke/juice as possible and try and hold it in for the duration, whilst simultaneously trying to get others to laugh theirs out
• On April first, remark how nice a teacher looks. Then proceed to laugh for slightly too long
• Whenever you get caught doing anything simply let the teacher know: "An older boy told me to do it."
• One of your chums shouts "Time for school!", roll up your trousers as quickly as possible so that they resemble shorts.
• Pick up a child (preferably, much smaller than yourself) who is heading the opposite direction to yourself and carry them to your lesson, only releasing them once the bell has sounded and you can be sure they will be late.
• Convert your school shirt into a 'real' football shirt, by using a permanent marker to add a badge, name, number and maybe even some sort of sponsorship!
• A teacher tells a bad joke, Laugh. Encourage others to laugh. Get everyone to laugh. Laugh until the teacher leaves the room crying.
• If the head teacher claims your hair is too long for a boy, simply assert that he is jealous of your follicle prowess.
• Boggies, with a holocaust twist.
• Fussy teacher? Whenever her back is turned simply adjust the pens and register on their desk ever so slightly. Hours of fun.
• Catholic school? Have to sing hymns? Don't want to? Just sing them so loudly and 'laddishly' that in future they won't ask you to join in
• Pretend you've misheard the teacher as many times as possible.
• Repeat back what the teacher has said with a slight variation so that they correct you. Correct your original error and come up with a new one (great in Maths)
• Getting told off for talking? Claim the a person on the other side of the room punched you.
• Teacher made you sit at the front of the class? No problem, when they move around to talk to other school chums, jump onto the table and pretend to have sex! When the teacher turns back around you are already in your seat working again.
• Hide in a toilet stall with a friend until someone comes in then both leave the stall, one of you doing up your fly and the other wiping their mouth.

That's all I can remember for now, feel free to add your own in the comment section.

Male, 18-21, white

I, like many young people, watch television. My concern is, as there is no way to know who is watching what or when, that television companies cannot establish demographics.

I am going to try and help those unlucky souls in television who have to guess what to put on when and what the television show should be about. So I have written this letter, but I don't know who to send it to.

Dear sir/madam,

I am a 21 year old male, I'm white, a full time student and I watch television. I would like to see more shows with the following content (around 6-9pm, I don't like to stay up to late. I don't mind what channel):

1. I would like a Hollyoaks style television show with more sex and violence, no character should be on the television show for more than 20mins (this will help keep it fresh).
2. I really like that 'How to make the most of your sky box' television show on the 'How to make the most of your sky box' channel. I would like to see the concept expanded.
3. Could there be a phone in television show to help you with crosswords?
4. I would like a television show where no matter what is happening every scene ends with a murder, a make out or, preferably, both.
5. I would like a travel television show shot in the style of 'The Blair Witch Project'.
6. I like the television shows where someone has, like a well monged out face or is like really fat or has an extra knee or something. But what I don't like is that these television shows take like, an hour. Can we just make it so you get two minutes on each freak and then you move on?
7. Sports, people like that. Maybe you could make a television show about that?
8. I was talking to this guy on my course, he is so funny, and he said that people like panel shows. I thought that might be an idea you could use.
9. Nature television shows are good, but some of the animals don't move enough. I think I can solve this problem and make an educational show interesting. If like a rhino is sleeping the audience can vote for how a member of the crew is going to wake it. This way we can see the rhino like wake up and stuff AND see how it reacts to stimulus.
10. My two favourite television shows are Porridge and MTV's Cribs, could you do something like that?

I hope these can help you get better at making television shows for your television viewers. I'm free pretty much all day so give me a call if you want me to clear anything up.

Owen Johnston

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster (Oct 31st, Heaven, London)

Today we will be reviewing my old hallows eve's festivities. What fun. This is a band I have seen many times, The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster (proof below, me with lead singer Guy McKnight when I had different hair and no moustache).

Guy McKnight (with lemon tea & ham sandwich) & Owen Johnston (with massive hangover & awful hair)

I think you will need a little bit of background information before we get started properly. Earlier in the year (around May I think) I was in Cambridge visiting my (then) girlfriend and we went to to see EMBLD (Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster) and over the course of the gig I met my (then) landlords best friend's son (or words to that effect). After a brief chat Josh (that's his name), my (then) girlfriend and myself agreed that we should do this again. Shortly after moving to Lincoln I received a message from Josh (for it was he) reminding to get my ticket for the gig and like a prize fool (completely forgetting how far London is from Lincoln (Cambridge to London is only about an hour)) bought it and braced myself.

So I took the short (4 hour) train journey from Lincoln to London to make good on a drunken promise with an absolute stranger. I actually took advantage of the weekend away to visit my family in Ipswich for my mothers birthday first. So on Sunday I got a lift to Shenfield (just outside of London) to save on train fair (I did. Massively). Josh was coming from Colchester so we picked him up on the way.

The next bit was easy, got to the station, hopped on the train, had a nice chat, got to London. This is where we made the first of several near fatal errors, we decided that since we had so much time we could sit in the pub near Liverpool street for a few hours and watch the football rather than dropping out bags off at my cousins in Hackney. When we did decide to move everything was going swimmingly until we hit Stratford and found that the entire overground service was closed (bloody Sundays) and that was the only route I knew to my cousins (Jenny, should have said that earlier). We enquired as to what to do and the train stewards only seemed to be capable of answering in single syllable utterances. So not wholly confident we hopped (we did a lot of hopping) onto a replacement bus. Long story short (and it is a long story) we got off far too soon, ended up walking for over an hour (with a brief rest bite in another pub) looking for a bus which turned out to be on the other side of the street. We did eventually find said bus (number 56) and had enough time to enter Jenny's home, sort of say hello, get directions (which turned out to be slightly in error) and leave. We then hopped (told you) on another bus which luckily for us had a very helpful driver who told us when to get off (politely).

Finally we had made it to the pub across the way from the venue to meet our mates. I already knew Liam and Amber from uni and Josh would later recognise them from the Cambridge gig (in the Haymakers) but the rest were people I had only heard of earlier that day. We had Kat (who has just finished sixth form and is not still in sixth form, my mistake), Callum (whom I sort of remembered from the Haymakers) and Alessia (who it turns out I felt up at the previous gig thinking that she was my (then) girlfriend. I was fortunate enough to capture the moment just after the misunderstanding, pictured below).

Owen, Alessia, stranger in the background and Amber in the foreground. (Haymakers)

We had a couple of pints and headed into the gig, thinking that we suitably late to miss the warm up band. But no, we we in fact early enough to see the precursor to the warm up band. So we grabbed some (very expensive) beer and got settled in. Sorry precursor, I have no idea who you were so I cannot really talk about you, but you were alright.

The next band up (the actual warm up band) were Robots in Disguise. I have never liked Robots in Disguise and I thought that given their style of music (a sort of slushy Ladytron) that they were an odd choice of act anyway. I was wrong (although nobody else, bar my friend Amber, seemed to think so) they were really good and even though involving the audience was like letting blood from a stone they gave it their best and at the very least I am converted. I say converted, we spent most of the gig deciding which member you would rather sleep with (we changed our minds with each passing moment, depending on different situations we placed them in. Such as picnics or child rearing). They finished their set, got some abuse for having, and I quote, "Stupid, fucking Cheryl Cole tights. You slag!" and wandered off.

Now we had worked ourselves into a prime location for the main event, just left of centre at the front (but not so far to the front that we couldn't have a dance). And the band came out with a bang. Bang!

Lead singer Guy McKnight, on the night, with war paint!

Bursting onto the stage (and then just milling around for a moment) EMBLD kicked off (as always, I'm not betting over opening songs again) 'Monsiuer Cutts', which is always a good laugh. To be honest the other songs they played are now a bit of a blur as so many of the songs are at such a high tempo and the crowd tend to get a  bit boisterous (or in the case of the Haymakers my (then) girlfriend, Josh and myself got a bit boisterous) but they did play a lot of album tracks with I appreciated. I made some friends an young man with a massive coat on who sweated a lot (he eventually paid the £1 to get it in the cloakroom), a fellow with exactly the same moustache as myself, a tiger and an aging hippy type who flung (flang?) me up into the air (without my prior consent!) and gave me a taste of crowd surfing. I would also like to thank (not that he'll be reading this) the guy that found my glasses in the middle of the mosh. Everyone was really great and had a good look around for me, but this nameless friend not only found and returned them, but also found a pound which he decided I deserved for being so brave. Needless to say I gave him a massive kiss. As we began our journey home with my partially punched out tooth, unbelievably stiff neck (there was literally no give in any direction!) and mushy toes I harked back to what had been the best gig in quite some time. Thanks EMBLD.

On the way home, we eventually found a taxi (the driver of which was so worrying that we were working out an exit strategy as he drove (drived?) with his knees so that his hands would be free for dancing). We stopped off for some late night Hackney Sandwiches and I sat up all night whilst my mate brought snoring to a new level. I ended up sat in the bathroom, reading Elle magazine for five hours. Still, best gig ever.