Potato Paul

Watch This If You Like A Bit Of Drama

Last night, after a day of doing essentially nothing – other than marvelling at an at home paternity test on The Jeremy Kyle Show and wondering what I would eat for my dinner, as the fridge was looking horrifyingly empty and my legs had absolutely zero interest in leaving the comfy safety of the sofa – I decided to sit down and watch A Room For Romeo Brass. It’s one of Shane Meadows'(This Is England, Dead Man’s Shoes) first films and is something I have been meaning to see for quite some time. Mainly because my brother kept nagging me about watching it.

Anyway, the plot doesn’t sound very good on paper, and even if I tried to jazz it up – which I won’t, think I can be bothered? – it wouldn’t sound much better. So it’s basically like this: two 12 year-old friends somewhere in the Midlands are hanging out minding their business as always, until one day when one of the kids gets into a fight. In steps Paddy Considine’s character Morrell, who helps the lad out. Now, not to spoil it too much, but Morrell is a bit weird. He’s not exactly bright, and doesn’t act like other 25 year olds. Then, over the next few weeks, as the lads start hanging around more and the kid who got beaten up goes in for a back operation, things take a sinister twist (and I should say that no, the operation had nothing to do with him being beaten up).

There, happy? Good.

Anyway, you should check it out. If you loved the drama and no-nonsense approach of This Is England, you’ll love this low-key beauty of a film. Dare I say it but for a debut or second film, it’s really quite good and might even knock your socks off.

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My So Called Friend

It’s me again, Paul Potato Face, but you should know that. After all, you probably awoke this morning and immediately thought “I must visit Paul Potato Face’s blog at once, for it’s been too long already!” A bit of wishful thinking never hurt anyone, me thinks.

Now, today’s blog post is a combined one about the power of practical jokes and friends who aren’t funny. And also a bit about computer virus protection.

You see, the other day my friend Fred was staying over mine after a night out drinking. We got to talking about online virus protection, and I said it wasn’t all that essential, mainly because I am not as big as Fred is on that kind of thing (he’s a dork of massive proportions and dreams in HTML code…).

Anyway, the next morning I awoke to find my laptop playing games. The kind of games that soon had me panicking. “Fred!” I said, “my computer says it’s infected! Can this be true?” Fred acted all serious, and confirmed my worst fears: that my computer was infected with the malicious and terrible Enigin Cockney Spaniel virus that will kill any computer within minutes. For the next hour I sat there, terrified, watching Fred try and banish it.

Then, suddenly, he goes, “that taught you a lesson, didn’t it?”

I said, “what?”

Fred said, “It was me, I am the inventor of the Enigin Cockney Spaniel Virus!” and then I threw him out. We haven’t spoken much since, but I can see his point: when your virus protection is about to expire, it’s probably a good thing to renew it (even if it’s only just to prevent your so-called friend from planting a fake virus and watching you squirm).

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Bitch Love

Dogs and their fellow bitches can’t speak in human tongue, bless them, so I am going to stand up for them: here, once and for all, is why dogs are just as good as cats, if not better. And don’t even be thinking I’ll be wheeling out the same old tired reasons. This here gets right at the root of the issue, explore the important inner-most workings and finally putting it to bed.

Plus it’s my blog, so nar-nar-nar-nar-nar.

Reasons why Dogs and bitches make mince-meat of cats:

1) Have you ever looked in a dog’s eyes and not felt sorrow and longing and just pure love? No. You haven’t, and if you haven’t found these things then I pity you and suggest you get some glasses. Try looking at a cat for this kind of affection and see what you get. Most likely she or he will turn his or her back on you, tail in the air, chin high. Cats just can’t compete with dogs in this field. In years to come I am sure this will be genetically proven, too.

2) Think that cats bring you their pray to please you? They don’t. I have it on the good information of an animal psychologist friend (who works at a 24 hour fuel oil suppliers when there aren’t enough dogs needing treatment) that they only bring them inside because it’s warmer. It has nothing to do with you, I’m sorry. But a dog on the other hand…well…he will drop it at your feet and whimper if you don’t think it’s the best thing ever.

3) Dogs will do anything to defend their owners. Anything. Cats on the other hand will run a mile at the first sign of trouble. I think I have proven my point!

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Channel Hopper

Sometimes, like anyone with a TV who has a job where he is rapidly losing the will to live, I get thoroughly bored of watching stimulating things; sometimes I don’t need any more stimulation. In fact, every so often I feel I need to waste some brain-cells to let some more ones grow (ones which aren’t saturated with alcohol). That’s why, on occasion, I like to watch stuff that I can just zone-out in front of. Zone out and do nothing: it’s a good way to relax, and every now and again you end up watching something thought-provoking that you would never normally see.

This happened to me just this morning: after waking up and feeling knackered from the night before I took it upon myself to lounge about on the sofa with some Maltesers. This was when I first of all came across a documentary about jobs in lebanon (there aren’t many unless you’re a snake charmer, was the impression I got), and then one about a man who spent one day a week solely trying to make people happy. He’d go to cafes, train stations, bus stops, and seek out the most miserable people that the planet had to offer. The hilarious thing was that the people seemed to be even more annoyed after he had left, even though he was convinced that he had done a sterling job of improving their lives.

For a brief moment I thought about doing the same, then I realized it didn’t want to have the crap beaten out of me and decided against it, preferring to sit in with my Maltesers: a much better option that would in the long run make me much happier.

So I implore you to do some lounging and channels-you-never-normally-watch watching. You might learn something, and who knows, you might even have a laugh (and I suggest buying Maltesers too).

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Get Him Into Outer Space Fast

I am starting to wholly distrust the people behind the current series of The Apprentice; by that I mean the camera-men, the producers, and I hate to say it, Sir Alan himself. Why, you ask? Simple: they are all starting to suggest that Stewart “The brand” Baggins, or whatever his name is, is a decent person. This comes as a pretty strange revelation when up until two weeks ago most of the contestants seemed to be questioning whether or not he was actually of human origin at all.

And by “human origin” I am not suggesting he is an alien from the future sent to teach us all how to be better and wiser people. No, I am suggesting that he is a new form of vegetable, one that is malicious, egotistical and full of the kind of absolutely unhealthy crap that even a 60-a-day smoker wouldn’t ever dream of putting into their already toxic system.

I just don’t like him, you see (almost as much as the phrase apple mac repair, seeing as they cost so much they should never be allowed to break), but I think you got that by now. I find him repulsive, irritating, and I can’t begin to think for even a second that Sir Alan would ever dream of employing him in any position which involved interacting with other human beings. My goodness, just the thought of Stewart shaking hands with another human being and uttering £das ist wunderbar”gives me the creeps…

Which brings me to only one disturbing conclusion: that Stewart has cast some kind of putrid spell on not just the candidates but the general public – the people on BBC2’s “You’re Fired” included.

I want Stewart out at the next available opportunity, as I am genuinely fearful of what will become of the world if he gets into a position of power. It reminds me of a film…One called The Manchurian Candidate…

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Annoying Things That Can Not Be Explained

As a potato-faced person, life hasn’t always been easy. For example, when I was seven years of age life was tumultuous and often filled with heartache. Most days the other children shouted abuse at me, often about my face, saying how it didn’t look like it should do. It really hurt.

It was only many years later, as puberty struck like a massive great devastating tsunami of a thing, that I looked around me and thought Hang on a minute…something fishy is going on here…

And here is what it was: while I had slowly been growing out of my potato face and into a normal looking person, everyone else around me had been going the other way. I have no idea what this phenomenon is called – and even if it is in fact called anything – but it is similar to fat children at school and how they often grow up to be very thin good-looking people. So there I was, for the first time in my life laughing quietly to myself about how Sharon Dawkins from Health and Beauty PR – she was doing a course on it – looked gorgeous now, but how in the future she would most likely look horrible.

Except life doesn’t always work out how you planned it…

The other week, while shopping in a popular supermarket – as opposed to one of those nasty unpopular ones – I came across Sharon at the checkout. She was standing there in the queue and she looked stunning as ever, many years after sixth form.

How annoying it is when that happens. Especially when Sharon recognises you immediately as THAT POTATO FACED PERSON from all those years ago (even when you barely resemble that person anymore!).

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Big Can Be Brilliant

Ann Noreen Widdecombe – or “the wardrobe with legs” as I sometimes like to call her – is quite something: she’s certainly not your average lady, oh no, this is a person on a mission. And while Ann and I share very little in common physically, and indeed in general, I like her attitude. Ann, along with Rick Waller and Meatloaf (the singer) proves that people who don’t look like supermodels – to say the least – can achieve greatness as opposed to being religated to directing Bristol airport parking for the rest of their lives.

Now, let’s ignore the fact that Rick Waller isn’t exactly living it up right now in the musical world, and Meatloaf isn’t exactly setting the world alight with his music any more: the point is that overweight people can do great things physically, and that’s why Ann is such a role model. I’m telling you, if I resembled a wardrobe with legs then I’d have a massive poster of Ann Noreen up on my wall!

I’m not usually a fan of the TV dance shows which see various celebrities up against one another (ice skating, dancing: honestly, it’s only a matter of time until we see “dancing on thin ice”), but this time, with Strictly Come Dancing, I’d go as far as to say I am hooked (and also it gives me a well deserved break from doing boring things like comparing the prices of various Phil & Teds Explorer buggies online, too) . For one thing, the anticipation of waiting for Ann Noreen to take to the floor is almost too much to bear, and for another the anticipation of waiting for the judges to shred Ann’s routine apart is utterly brilliant. And that’s the great thing about Ann, when it comes to dancing she gives it her all, and when it comes to being judged she simply doesn’t care. Well done Ann, you’ve almost salvaged my faith in politicians. I said almost…

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Meeting up with my sister

So this is the story of one afternoon spent with my beloved sister. Her name is Sarah. She is 24 years old and she has just finished her master’s degree in Journalism. Sarah is living with her boyfriend, an architect, who she met at our cousins’s wedding. Those two are really made for each other. She is crazy and impulsive and he is calm and laid back. But let’s get back to the story. I had arranged a meeting with my sister the day before. She asked me if I can pick her up from work, don’t ask me what she works – I don’t know, so that’s what I did. It was 5pm and we headed to the local shopping centre. After a quick bite I asked her if she wants to come with me to the electronics store because I wanted to buy a new laptop for my girlfriend. She agreed and after some wondering around the store we found the perfect one. Pink with white keyboard and packed up with all sorts of features. I wanted to buy it right away, but my sister had a secret treasure in her pocket – currys.co.uk discount vouchers for £200. She had them from work and she didn’t need them, so she proposed to give them to me on one condition. I asked her what she did want and she just said: I want you to call me more often so we can chat and gossip about things. I burst into laughter. Nevertheless I promised her that we will talk more often from now on and she handed me the vouchers. After that we went to see the new IMAX movie and when i got back home I purchased the same laptop online for only £300(instead of £500) thanks to my sister. I love her.

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Be An Embracer

Every so often you’ll come across a website by accident (today I thought I typed in “why are great white sharks so mean?” into Google and for some odd reason ended up at www.friarsgallery.com, but that was probably because I still feel half-cut from the night before’s drinking activities…)

And the beauty of stumbling is that, by the law of averages, you should eventually stumble upon something that makes you laugh. Now that, along with a few other things – like email, which is astonishingly brilliant and so much better than entrusting even the most reputed carrier pigeon with a hand-crafted letter – is why I love the internet: it has the power to make you laugh, send information, and earn money. All while you have Loose Women on in the background (or, if you are very desperate and Loose Women is for some odd reason cancelled, The Jeremy Kyle Show, but you would have to be in a bad place to end up watching that…).

But STILL, despite all these fine qualities, people moan about the internet. “Oh, it needs upgrading it does!”they might say. Or it’ll be their connection speed, or some other such thing which isn’t really that important unless you are in the habit of downloading lots and lots of music (which I do not condone, by the way).

If you are a moaner, don’t you think it’s about time you became an Internet Embracer? I mean, imagine if we all had to hire carrier pigeons…That truly would be a disaster. The only excuse you have for moaning about the internet is a) if you rely on it and you are in business and b) you are locked in prison for downloading too many songs illegally and are facing another grim day.

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Old People Are Great: Here Is Undeniable Proof

I have a bone to pick and it’s with anyone who thinks that all old people are miserable (someone from Beauty PR in the office next door recently set me off and thus here I am). Here are some reasons, definitive ones, why most old people are actually really happy and just find it hard to show it:

1) Gravity: your skin is collapsing around you, falling off you, cascading and stretching in ways that baffle you even more every day. And there is nothing you can do about it. When you try and put it back it just makes it worse. Why don’t you try and smile with all that skin hanging down from your face? Ha, I think you will see what I mean when you get old.

2) Decades worth of trial and tribulation: imagine that bombs are dropping around you, you are a kid and this is the war. Your friends are blown to pieces every day and you don’t know when you might see your family again, or if you ever will. Also, to add to all this heartache, you miss your wife / husband quite a bit. It really hurts you to think about all this but what can you do? You are but human. So, do you think you would be able to rid yourself of these battle scars, even after years? It’s no wonder, then, that some old people feel like they need to talk about their experiences. I say let them and learn from them, and you might even learn something.

3) You routinely bury your friends: people you once played golf with or discussed how handsome Elvis was.

Honestly, if you think old people are miseries and misers then you are wrong. Some of the old people I have met in my lifetime are the kindest and loveliest folk out there. We can all learn something from them, and we should give them time.

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