I'm going to Hell

It seems a little strange to me that a country as small as ours would feel good enough about itself to put 'Great' in front of it's name. It makes me wonder who we're trying to convince, the rest of the world, or ourselves. I always hear people complaining about living here, but if you think about it a bit, it's actually an awesome place to live!

Here's five reasons why this little Britain really is Great:

1. We used to have the largest empire in history, spanning a quarter of the world.
2. Music
3. Free health care on the NHS
4. Drinking at 18
5. Sex at 16

Sure we always bang on about what we used to own, but the point is when this country was a little younger we really were an over-achieving bunch. We make up for that now by continually losing to the rest of the world at sports we invented.

We still have good music, and an amazing history of music, even inventing Metal (Thanks Ozzy!). But we're also famous for the Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones. Not to mention more recent great bands like Led Zeppelin, Queen, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. We were also well into Punk, with the Sex Pistols and The Clash. In the 80s there was New Wave, but the less said about that the better.

I like this country's drinking culture. It's always raised as a negative, but I myself am a binge drinker, and I like doing it. I like that I could drink (legally) from 18, and have sex at 16, I felt I was old enough and responsible enough to do those things. I still drink as much as I did at 15 18 and I don't plan on slowing down. Sure this may eventually lead to some problems later in my life, but on the positive side, health care is free!

Labels: drinking, fun, health, history, music, nostalgia, teenagers, UK

At boarding school I was the kid with the films. At the time hardly anyone had games consoles, I managed to get a PlayStation a bit late in the game. Quite a few people had N64s which we used to 'borrow' to play 4 player MarioKart or GoldenEye. However my main claim was my TV, then my TV/VCR combo. I used to live in Cyprus, where there was no such thing as copyright and I could get pirated videos of the latest blockbuster by walking to the NAAFI (the UK version of a US PX).

One of the weirdest examples I have of this is a young friend asking if I wanted to watch this new film his Dad had bought, it's called 'Jurassic Park' or something. I thought it was pretty good, but the guy on screen who's head was in the way was a little annoying. Afterwards I went home and walked in as the news was reporting how people had queued around the block to watch that very film back in England.

I kept buying videos, they were ridiculously cheap, and I had a case of them I would take to school, to watch and lend. My favourites at the time amongst me and my friends a few years later were:

1. The Rock (1996)
2. Pulp Fiction (1994)
3. Bad Boys (1995)
4. The Usual Suspects (1995)
5. White Men Can't Jump (1992)

We knew each of these films pretty much line by line. I had a fairly limited collection of videos so we used to watch them A LOT. Back then only a few people had their own PCs or laptops, and time available on someone else's was mostly spent playing Duke Nukem 3D or X-COM: Terror From The Deep. Internet connections were barely available in school buildings let alone boarding houses, so there was no Internet, no downloading, a feeble amount of digital porn and the occasional film brought in from home on multiple CDs. That was how I first saw The Phantom Menace, on 3 CDs before it had even been released.

I think one of my favourite moments was creeping down the dorm while eight people were sat in the dark after lights out watching House on Haunted Hill. I reached through the curtain and grabbed the closest shoulder at a particularly scary bit and then listened to the chain reaction of screams. Of course if you watch a bad film you can always forward to about 38:19mins into Wild Things and remove the bad memories. I recall having to do this after watching Animal Farm. Not the cartoon version.

Labels: films, friends, fun, teenagers, TV, UK