Guess I'm just a good man.

Well,I'm alright.

BLOG

Yes,I'm blogging again. Yes,I'm using "blog" as a verb. To blog,I blog,I am blogging, I ought to have been blogging, did you see what he blagged. . .

So,yes. Blog titles brought to you by Ronsil. You'll notice the lack of what we future alcoholics call "the definite article" up there. These aren't THE 10 Things I Have About Twilight, these are just 10 of the top ten eye gouging blighters that I've being dying to spew on my captive audience like some kind of...gouged eye...spew juice.

Ew.

If you don't know what Twilight is, I urge you please, leave right now. Secure yourself deep beneath the earth,where no evil will again malign your mind and rebuild our once great civilisation. I too believe in a world without such things.

In short, the Twilight "Saga" is a series of teenage novels which has been bigger than bulimia with the adolescent girl market. I can sum up Twilight using the blurb from the cover of the first book "the thrilling tale of a vampire romance at high school".
Ignoring the fact that I could argue that nearly every word of that is at best, only vaguely accurate it does serve to do what should be impossible for any good book. Summing up the entirety of the plot in 10 words.

Oh,and for the Pass English students in the back of the room who have been lost in subtext by this point, don't resort to chewing miserably on your own stomach, I'll make it crystal clear:

I hate this book.

I hate the book. I hate the series. I hate the author for inflicting this on me. I hate all my ex-friends who recommended it to me. I hate every "rebellious,misunderstood" tweeny girl wearing a Paramore sticker who believes this is the greatest romance/vampire novel to like,ever exist ever,
Two fingers to you Mr.Shakespeare. Tough cookies,Mr.Stoker.

And I hate myself,thoroughly for reading every last word of these awful awful books.

Now that the praise is out of the way, onto my elitist bitching!

1) The Utter Unlikeability Of Our Protagonist

The whole debacle opens with 17 year old Isabella "Bella" Swan moving from the apparently wild and raving hotspot of Phoenix Arizona to "Forks" Washington.

Also,incidentally "Bella Swan"? Seriously? I know her mother is portrayed as an feather head hippie type who probably got pregnant because the father told

her that magic beans were a perfectly valid contraceptive,but seriously who would inflict that name on a child they didn't hate?

Mind you I want to name my son Gabe...

So,as you know Bella,who I will be referring to for the rest of this blog as the less cringe worthy "Spastic Bitch", moves to Spoons and despite her "obvious" plainness and clumsiness becomes the most popular girl in school by virtue of not being related to everyone in her year.

She falls hopelessly in love with Edward Cullen, a 108 year old sex offender.

For the next oh,I don't know....3000 pages of toilet paper,Bella manages the incredible feat of not saying a single likable thing. We are treated to A Clockwork Orange style force feeding of her every single insipid thought and action over the next two years,about Edwards dreamy dreamy eyes,perfectly sculpted nipples and strangely comprehensive range of hair products. We get to watch as she plays her family,friends,neighbours and at least two men with serious (unexplainable) Jones for her against each other for her own self indulgent needs.

Spastic Bitch has got problems.

She is surrounded by scores of people who,again for no discernible reason,care about her well being and she spits in their face repeatedly like a mental patient based purely on the justification of her undying love for Edward. And if that isnt accepted as Newtonian FACT,well...she just seems like a bit of a cow.

3000 pages with a main character you want to bludgeon does not a good novel make.

2) Background Characters And How To Waste Them

Occasionally spotted in the corona around the glare of Spastic Bitch's hatefulness are

Childhood is one of those things that you can't wait to escape from and spend the rest of your life trying to reclaim. The world seems so much bigger and not just because you're an awful lot smaller. That undeniable,indefinable spark that lets you convince yourself of the exstence of Santa Claus even though all your common sense denies it. It's what lets those two opposing ideas live happily in your head.

When I was 9 years old I refused to go on holidays at Christmas because of a (as far as I was concerned) obvious flaw in our plans: How would Santa be able to find me?
Children they say, are easy to please but that's not strictly true. Children are easier to provide for. All the expensive things in life are designed to cater for teens and adults desperately trying to replace that missing quality of childhood using material things to achieve an imitation,a crude reproduction from memory.

But the actual things that satisfy children are much harder to find. That sense of adventure,wonderment, of eternity being a very real thing. Friendships last forever when five years is a lifetime.

When I was four years old my uncle invested a large amount of money and probably a second mortgage into a widescreen tv. A monstrous device twice my size, I was absolutely fascinated: by the box.

The corrugated cardboard box it came in straight from some warehouse in Wicklow. And that cardboard box was my world. Everytime I climbed inside of it, I was safe. And more importantly, I was in terrible danger! From pirates,from monsters. Banshees and aliens,especially aliens. Every Friday with my solitary twenty pence allowance I bought a bag of sweets and poured them into that box,making it into a sticky,sugary mess.

I honestly have no idea what happened to that box and I think that's for the best. It helps it retain a timeless quality,like it might not have been anymore physically real than that world inside the box itself,but important just the same.
Leaving childhood behind is necessary and the journey beyond fraught with actual,real and uncynical adventures.

But sometimes...sometimes when I find a cardboard box big enough,I'm back on the bridge of my starship. Just for a while.

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.

-John Betjeman

LTF
JMCK