Writers' Block

Today I woke and felt as though I should write a blog. Unfortunately I have absolutely nothing to write about, unperturbed I shall carry on.

Usually I think about something that has happened to me very recently and try and put that into words that my be in some way interesting. In other instances inspiration hits, usually in the shower. So now you are sat there thinking;

"Owen, has nothing interesting happened in the last few days? Have you not had a shower?"

Firstly, it has been a very interesting few days. On Friday I played Squash with my friend James, made giant Dutch profiteroles (I spelled this perfectly, first time!) and got unbelievably drunk in the name of (someone else's) love!

The midway point of my Dutch cookery class.

Saturday was the usual mix of waking up in the wrong house, harrowing flashbacks, writing of apologies, Chinese buffet, being removed from Facebook and litres and litres of cola.

OK, my name isn't Ryan and I'm almost certain I didn't steal anything, but still, this illustrates my point perfectly.

Sunday we played a lot of Playstation, watched Dean Learners' Man to Man and started work on Paul Rooks' script for his final project.

Secondly, I have had almost two showers of the last three days, unfortunately I was a bit worse for wear and forgot that I'm meant to think whilst I'm in there.

Now you can understand why I felt so compelled to write today, despite having no idea what is was I wanted to write about. If anyone has any ideas of anything I should write about please let me know.

Additional: I realise I have linked an awful lot to my own previous blogs today, but it is a good way to keep my page views up.

I Lost A Bet

A few weeks ago I bet my dear friend Ali that Ireland would beat Scotland by five (rugby) points. Ireland won by 3. I lost the bet.

Fortunantely we were not betting money, neither of us has a great deal of it so we were a little more creative. We decided that the loser of said bet would have to post a nude profile picute on facebook.

After much putting-off I eventually got round to taking the pictures in my mates fantastic shower. I posted the image yesterday at about 5pm, by mid day today it had been removed and I was on the end of a e-telling off.

But I don't want all my readers to go without seeing my (less than) fantastic body, so feel free to amble through some of the pictures at your lesiure at moreratsthanair.com/owen.

P.s. I'm not going to risk putting a nude picture up on the blog, as I will post this on Facebook and I don't think they will be too pleased. (Unless somebody asks me to do so).

Summer

OK, Summer is here so I think I had better let you in on the (rather ambitious) plan that my good friend Ali and I have.

We plan to walk the entire south coast of England. Yeah I know it sounds easy.

When I initially dreamt this up in my head I imagined out route to be around 300 miles. I have since checked the distance and it turns out I have all the spacial awareness of a labyrinthitis sufferer, it is comfortable over 400  miles... If we aim to walk a very achievable 20 miles a day it will take us roughly 3 weeks. This doesn't sound too bad.

Google seems to believe that we can manage this in under 6 days, but I can only assume that google is assuming we would walk 24/7. Also the drive option is there purely to put us off our summer challenge! 

We have yet to confirm the date that we will start on, as we have also been offered a floor to sleep on in every EU country (and even one non-EU country) and invited to some German festivals.


Well that is all that I can think of now, if anyone has any suggestions or tips just let me know. I will probably , created a stand alone blog for this trip once we decided exactly how, when, who, what and if.

Morning Routine

The morning, it is unavoidable for most of us. We have to deal with it. How you deal with it has a huge bearing on how the rest of your day pans out.

Recently I have been wondering why my grades and work ethic (blog post volume) have improved so much. The only thing that has changed in any way shape or form is my morning routine. So that others may benefit from improved school results and a greater volume of blog posts I have decided to describe the first hour or two of my day.

Hope this helps.

I rouse myself at anywhere between 8am and 11am, this is a critical time. It is important to that I roll out of my bed, turn my PC on and roll back into bed quickly enough to fool my body into thinking it has never left said bed. This may sound trivial, but we all know that once you clear the sleep from your eyes and stand (vertical) out of your bed your body officially wakes. This is not conducive to a nice day.

Once the PC is on it is important to put on something that is unlikely to require much thought (it is also beneficial if you have seen it so many times that you do not need to see or hear it as you drift in and out of consciousness). Currently 'Maid Marian and Her Merry Men' (possibly the best thing I ever received from my ex girlfriend!) is my morning soma.

Tony Robinson with the rest of the cast of  'Maid Marian and Her Merry Men'

After an hour or so of this it is time to head to the shower. I am always sure to turn the shower on a minute or so before I climb in. This is not OCD (whatever that is!) but rather the fear that early on in its wetting career, the shower can be rather haphazard and inconsistent with temperature. This was the case with my previous shower in Cambridge, but I have no idea if this is also true of the shower here in Lincoln (frankly, I do not want to find out). Next I remove my clothing and step to the far end of the shower (it is not a stand alone shower, but rather a bath with a shower attachment) and prepare myself to enter the cylinder of water droplets.

Now, this is the part I hate. If you want an good temperature for your shower you have to have it so it is slightly too hot when your skin initially meets the water, otherwise you will get a little bit cold. I worry about my delicate skin meeting this water that is so hot when I first enter this fluid chamber. So I have developed a system based loosely on that of the Shovel-Snouted Lizard (see below), which keeps itself cool on the hot desert sand by keeping two feet in the air and two on the sand, when one set of feet get too hot it switches them.

As I enter the the hot water of my shower, I perform what can only be described as a pirouette wedded with a robot dance. In case you are thinking this is ridiculous, I would like to make it clear that I reverse into the shower like a piece of heavy machinery in order to placate any escape that may be necessary should the water be (either) too hot or too cold. Whilst wriggling about in the shower I make sure that no part of my body is exposed to the water for any longer than is bearable. After about 30 seconds of this I am ready to plunge right in and wash my hair and such.

After my shower I usually sit in my dressing gown and check my various important e-mails (Facebook) and other daily necessities. After which it is usually time to go to uni or something.

If you want to learn more about your morning there are plenty of great books in your local library.

Update: The 2011 Jowling Championship

For those of you who are not familiar with Jowling I will explain. Jowling is the process whereby you shake your head furiously in front of a camera in order to enjoy the rippling effects of your skin in the form of a photograph. Example below.

During one Jowling session on new years eve, we decided that we would hold a Championship for the year, complete with a trophy and a 'special' winners' drink. So we did.

The trophy should be easy enough but I have spent some time thinking about drinks that would reflect the competition. Here is what I have so far.

Drink 1:


Ingredients:

• 1 lemon
• 2 lemon
• 1 more lemon
• 5 shots vodka

Reason for choosing:

Photos to be taken before, during and after consumption for some interesting facial expressions.

Drink 2:

Ingredients:

• 1 pint bitter
• 3 'bits' Baileys
• 1 Lime juice
• 1 Orange liqueur

Reason for choosing:

The reasons are two fold. Firstly the Baileys and lime will congeal, filling up those previously hollow floppy cheeks. Secondly, bitter and orange liqueur do not go well together.

Drink 3:

Ingredients: 

• Sunny D

Reason for choosing:

Demoralising.

Can you think of anything better (I would be surprised if you couldn't), let me know. The winning suggestion will have the drink and trophy named after them!

If you will be in the Ipswich area over the course of the summer and want to be in with a change of winning the first annual Jowling Championship, just leave me a comment and I shall add you to the festivities!

Best of luck!

P.s. Why not send some of jowling pictures to owenjohnston88@msn.com and I'll upload them to this blog! To get you started here is one of myself and early favourite Simon Byford!

First new jowling picture in from Sam Kemp and friend Hinn.

Hinn on left, Sam Kemp on Right

Sam (21) from Cambridge says "I just wish I knew where it was all coming from".

Great stuff guys, Keep them coming!

Alistair Bradley

Alistair is one of my very best friends, so I thought I would tell everyone lots of things about him. Here we go.

First Meeting


It was our first day of high school. Picture the scene, a few hundred eleven year olds shuffle around a large hall. Slowly they are herded into various corners, sides and even in the middle (There were only four corners and six or seven form groups (we really needed a pentagonal shaped hall)). I was stood in the back left corner of the hall. Alone. I came from a small school and all my friends chose French (I chose German). But then I heard someone walking up to me. I turned and as I did this I tripped this stranger up. I then struggled to help him (for it was a boy) back up to his feet (as he was twice my size (he is now thrice my size)). His introduced himself as Alistair (for it is he). I said hi. A few moments passed. I remembered to introduce myself. With that we decided, as Ali didn't know anyone either, to stick together.

The Early Years


Our time in high school was great, we did most things together (which was a plus for me as Ali is far smarter than I am). We joined rugby together (Ali 1 Owen 0) We join lifesaving together (Ali 1 Owen 1) We microwaved our pants together (Ali's mum 100 Ali disqualified Owen disqualified). Believe it or not, we were not inundated with offers from the ladies, so we spent our time playing stupid games and being on our own.
Alistair was always useless at turning up for anything. he would agree to meet us at the cinema and then after he was ten or fifteen minutes late we would call him and he would tell he is not coming. Often with some awful excuse, one (genuine) excuse was, "I cannot come, I have to buy shoes with my mother."
I actually cannot think of to many memorable thing we did, none that are worth writing about anyway.


The Post Early Years


Fortunately for Ali I didn't do particularly well in my GCSE's and moved schools for sixth form. This didn't get in the way of our friendship too much as we worked together at the local swimming pool and spent almost every Friday evening playing cards with our friend 'Tash ( 'Tash and I would always win, but Ali and I would always take the piss out of her and I have to wear glasses, so we're all even). This was also when Ali went through his 'Sarah' stage. Every girl (without exception) that Ali fancied was called Sarah (not a great anecdote, but important none the less).
I then proceeded to get a serious girlfriend. "Oh no!" you, the readership, cry. "Their friendship is doomed!". No such luck, my girlfriend and Ali got on famously (it was in all the papers).
Alistair could never hold his drink (more on this later). Once while we were camping he was so drunk he almost fell face first into a large fire. To compensate for this loss of excitement he spent the whole of the next morning vomiting next to his shoes.

Uni Years


Now came the time for Uni. Distance, a major test of any relationship. But true to for despite Me being in Cambridge (not the good one) and Ali being in Newcastle (Yes it's a real place!) and neither of us seeing or hearing from the other for months on end, when we did catch up it was like we never apart. For my 20th birthday Ali came to stay in our flat in Cambridge. Despite us going out as a large group the two of us won (or lost) the drunken race. The next morning I was meant to be going to London to see a band and Ali was meant to be returning to Ipswich.  But alas, we were beyond hung over. So while everyone else left without us. Alistair moved from the living room to me and my girlfriends room, climbed into bed with me and we watched The Simpsons in our pants for a few hours.
For Ali's nineteenth birthday, my girlfriend and I went to visit him in Newcastle. We all went and sat in the pub. An hour or so in the women (everyone but Ali and I) went to prepare the food for his party. The pub was near empty, so I befriended the barman and together we conspired to get Ali absolutely rat-arsed. We managed. As Ali and I stumbled back to his halls of residence I remember thinking, "This is not enough". So when we got back to his flat I made him a special "birthday" drink that included (but was not limited to) all the different varieties of alcohol available, salad cream and sun cream. Ali drank this like a man. Paused. Vomited. Passed out. As we tried to carry him to a bed, he feel through some unsuspecting prole's door. She paid us no attention at all (probably a good idea). Anyway long story short, there were some great pictures of Ali sat on the toilet and he was in bed by 8pm.
More recently Ali and I have started making art projects and are planning to walk the entire south coast of England this summer (to kill some time). To end here are some awful picture of the two of us together (Ali has some even older ones, but he won't let me get my hands on them)

Here we are going to our high school prom

Later that same prom night with our friends Ruth (girl) and James (boy)

The end of high school, again with Ruth (girl)

Not a great picture of us, but Ali's hair is something to behold

Sexy young men

If anyone has any good stories about Ali they would like to share I would love to hear them. Please post them in the comment box below.

Update: Dinner Party

I was reminded the other day that I owed somebody dinner. So I decided to arrange a a dinner party. This has spun out of control, the reasons are four fold.

1. I barely cook.
2. I had in my head about 4-6 people to come. It is now closer to14 (and climbing).
3. I am broke (so I am hoping to get dinner of a few people in return)
4. I have had to write a shopping list...

My First Shopping List - By Owen 'Uwe Seeler' Johnston (aged 22yrs)

(I would have taken a photo of the handwritten list, but my Camera is currently in the post after losing it in Coventry)

I open with a list of potential party attendees along the left hand side of the page. Then the actual list:

• 2-3 Mince things
• 1 Whole tomato thing
• 2 Tins of kidney beans
• 12 Mushroom
• 3 Pepper (of assorted colour)
• 1 Big dark chocolate
• 1 Big rice
• 2 Garlic
• 1 Jalapeño 
• 2 Onion (big arse)
• 1 Ground Chilli (as apposed to air chilli hahahahahahahaha)

I don't think this is bad for a first attempt. I will be sure to update this blog so that you can read how it went. Wish me luck.

P.S. If I don't add a picture to this blog when I post it you get a picture of me topless sporting a handle bar moustache. With that in mind here is one from my extensive image archive. Enjoy.

Update:

OK, it was not an awful-disaster, but it wasn't a good-disaster either. 

Firstly I managed to feed around 16 people (I neglected to do a head count)  for just £12.23

+1

Error, I did not cook the first batch of rice properly so my house mates lost out (sorry house mates).

-1

The other guests (who all received lovely rice) seemed to think the meal was passable.

+1

Some guests got very drunk and I was slightly unnerved.

-1

But it added to the jovial nature of the meal.

+1

The lovely Simon Byford came all the way from Nottingham .

+1

The night ended (for me at least) at Paul and Fraser's watching a film and eating milk-dipped Oreos. 

+1

This morning I had a cooked breakfast courtesy of these two lovely boys/men (I know that this is not part of the evening, but it was a great breakfast!).

+1

I paid my dinner debt back to Steph.

+1

Washing up.

-1

Conclusion

+3 = Success!

 All in all a pleasant evening. Well done to all those involved!

Time Blindness

It is with increasing regularity that I find myself being subjected to 'Time Blindness'. This is a term I have coined as I am typing to explain the bizarre anomaly which involves people glossing over the errors of the past and romanticising the potential that the future has to offer.

The Past

The past has happened, we all know this. Think about the past for a moment, I'll wait.
...
...
...
I'm sure for the majority of you (from my readership, that would probably only have to be 2 or 3 people) the memories that you have recalled have been pleasant call backs to a lovely time in your life when all seemed so simple. This is by no means a bad thing, I want you to enjoy yourselves. You remember your first kiss, but you forget how bad it was. You remember those long carefree summers, but you forget how bored you were most of the time. You remember great Christmas's but forget all the arguments.
For now we will symbolise the past with red:

The Future

The future will happen, this we all know. But when we think to the future, we do not stop to consider everything. We leave out what we don't want to see. You dream about a lovely house, but you neglect to envisage the hours you will need to work to pay for it. You muse about the perfect spouse, but forget that no matter how perfect they are, there will be fights and they will cut you deep. Deeper than any fight with a friend or family member. You want children, lovely children to mold in your own image, but you choose to ignore the cost and the trouble of what will ultimately be a rewarding endeavor. In your minds eye the future is a clean ironed shirt, but in reality it is fraught with creases. For now we will symbolise the future with red:

The Present

Ah the present, oasis from the delusions of past and future. What do you think about when you think about the now. You see struggling relationships, work pressure, study pressure, lack of direction and not knowing what to eat. The now is horrible. This is why we hide in the pretend of what has passed and what will come to pass. The present will be represented by blue:

So when we look at the 'Time Blindness' colour chart what do we see?

That's right. Pure delusion. The sliver of blue now time is so small between the infinite periods of future and past we need never concern ourselves with the now. I am now content to carry on in my life in a perpetual state of daydream/daymare safe in the knowledge that everyone else is doing this to.

I Can't Sleep

OK, I sat up too late last night. Woke up too late this morning. Did too little today. Now I'm paying the ultimate price! There is not fate worse (at least to my reckoning at this exact moment (the fact that I find myself (at this exact moment in time) afflicted by this has no bearing whatsoever, as I remain (admirably) objective on the issue)) than knowing it is time for bed but not feeling sleepy and knowing you'll (you will) be sleepy in the morning! (If you really want to let the night-madness set in try having lots of things you could do to pass the time, but make sure that they are of no interest to you for the duration of your hellish evening).

So I hope that last paragraph was as much fun to read as it was to write... Here, have a nice sunset to relax those weary eyes:

Better? Great. On with the blog!

OK, so yesterday I sat in my pants all day and at about 9 o'clock (in the evening) I was asked if I wanted to watch a film (I did) so I walked across Lincoln (this is where I reside) to watch the film (after getting dressed). The film was Black Swan, great film. I had already seen it, but I am currently very poor and I knew this would be an opportunity for free food (leek and Tesco meat soup, with whiskey filled chocolate eggs for desert (I ate far more than my host (even got some juice!))). After the film ran its course (finished) it was getting close to midnight. This was probably a good time to leave and traipse (move) across town (again), but instead we thrilled each other by showing off some great film trailers (us students really know how to party). Much later (well 45mins) I did walk home. It was cold. I got home. It was warm. 

I sat down just to check my e-mails (this sounds a lot better than 'Facebook') and ended up have a debate with someone for about an hour, at which point I realised  it was 2.45am.

Went to bed.

Got up.

Got undressed.

Put on 'Night pants' (well just big boxers that look odd if I wear them under jeans (odder if I wear them over jeans).

Went to bed.

Got up.

Turned off light.

Went to bed.

Lay awake until 4.30am (estimate).

Woke up at 7am.

Woke up at 8.45am.

Woke up at 10am.

Got out of bed at 11am.

Today has been very similar to yesterday, in so much as I have achieved bugger all (technical term) and am now wide awake at 11.30pm (and my wakeness, is only getting wider!)

Here is an artist rendition of how I may look tomorrow at around 4pm:

Bit of a rambling post, but I'm not forcing you to read this (please disregard this sentence if you are Paul Rook). Night!

Paul Rook

OK, new idea. I have met a lot of new people while I have been in Lincoln. Today we look at just one of them, Paul Rook.

I met Paul in a local bar in just before Christmas. As I walked in to meet a friend I saw this shady looking character hunched over the bar. He was wearing a long black trench coat and his head was obscured from view by a combination of the low lighting and his stooping shoulders. In his hands I could make out a burnt out cigarette, its ash collecting in a small pile on the bar top and a dog eared betting slip. He was shaking, he was upset. I approached him. As I reached out to place a hand on his quivering shoulder he spun around, his mad eyes bloodshot and fearful. He turned he straightened and stood. When fully unfurled it became clear that this was no ordinary man, as he starred at me, his head continuing closer to the ceiling. This man was bordering on seven foot in height!

He growled, "What do you want?"

"Just wanted to check you were OK." I replied, my voice shaking like a leaf in the wind.

"Leave this place, do not try to talk to me again."

With that I turned on my heel and left, walking back out into the black night, rain cascading down my face and hands.

We've been the best of friends ever since. Love you Paul!