Planet Nightlife

It has been a while since we last spoke and for this I apologise. Various Champions League football matches and a nasty habit of going to the pub directly from work had temporarily diverted my attention, but the idea for this very blog has been drawn from my absence.

Had I not slid into the very stereotypical routine of a 9-5 working week and a binge drinking weekend culture I would not have had the chance to make the following observation;

Where, oh where, have the normal girls gone?

Now we all know about the social labels associated with today's youth and young adults. You've got your chavs, WAGS, wannabes, twats and toffs. I have encountered them all in my Magical Mystery Tour of bars, pubs and clubs recently. But, the one type of person I have yet to come across is the one label I would have thought would be most common, normal.

Do normal girls exist? Is there even a social label for them? A norm, a normo or whatever the kids are calling them these days. If there is, I sure as hell haven't seen one and it is starting to cause me concern.

Whats more, I have started to notice a pattern and I find myself taking on a David Attenborough role, constantly monitoring their behaviour as if I'm filming Planet Nightlife:

Bars and clubs are the main dwelling of WAGS or wannabes. They are clearly identifiable to their surrounding species by their bright white highlighted hair and matching lip gloss. They hunt in pairs and attach themselves to any male that looks as if he has a decent job or plays a bit of football. The WAGs and wannabes survive solely on the money of said males to make it through the night and return on a weekly basis, hunting for fresh meat.

Toffs are a completely different breed. Dressed in Arabic scarves, denim skirts, leggings and Ugg/Cowboy boots these females hunt in larger packs and like to impose their stature on their prey at the earliest opportunity. A Toff can be heard speaking with a Royal twang and guffawing loudly at each others whimsical comments while ordering the most expensive shot at the bar. These girls will have no hesitation in buying a male a drink just to show that they can. But in one swift swoop she dashes any hopes of success by declaring that, in fact, she isn't attracted to you in the slightest, she merely enjoys purchasing beverages for others.

Join us next week on Planet Nightlife, as we continue our search for the rarest of these fascinating creatures, the normo.

Why I Hate Leaving The House On A Saturday

When you work six days a week, you learn to cherish the one day you can call your own. There is nowhere to be and there are no people to meet and for me, this day is Saturday. Show me a day spent watching reality TV and endless sport either side of a bowl of soup and some crusty bread and your presenting me with my ideal day off.

But, as we all know, life is never that simple and somewhere there sits a man who invented the errand. Now, for a laid back chap like myself this man is the root of all evil. He is the man who makes me get changed out of my comfortable clothes and lift myself off my perfectly indented sofa. He is the man who insists I spend the day venturing out into the freezing wastes to confront life's busy bodies and get things done, and frankly I'm sick of it.

I recently needed to purchase some light bulbs for my car. So I managed to drag myself out of the house and headed to a small local shop. I knew that this little haven could supply my demand with little fuss and I'd be back to my paradise in no time. Imagine my horror then as I walk through the shop door to find a queue, of what must have consisted of the entire Ferrari pit stop crew, with only one man serving behind the till. My plans had hit some turbulence, and I was unsure where to turn to. The sheer volume of bodies in the shop had thrown me. In a state of confusion my subconscious kicked in and I suddenly found myself in the car park of a well known "errand runner" hot spot, Tesco. I wasn't even sure that this food based store would be able to cater to my automotive needs but I decided to give it a try anyway. I parked my car and embarked on the 10 minute hike back to the shop.

"This place is going to be busy," I sighed. Now, I am normally an easy going guy, but dealing with the "to do list" generation on my day off never fails to send me over the edge. These people are an unknown species. They don't walk quickly and they don't walk slowly, they just meander their way through life like they aren't wasting anybodies time. Then there are the shopping trolley users. They have an adorable knack of getting in your way from further afield than the normal errand runner all because they have a metal storage device, that they cant control, attached to their hands. These kinds of people and this pointless raising of my blood pressure are the exact reasons why I never leave the house on a Saturday.

Suffice to say I was out of there and back in my car in a relatively short space of time. I counted to ten, cleared my head and let reason took over. I went to Halfords, bought the necessaries and returned home a little wound up but happy to have got through the ordeal without leaving shopping trolley marks all over somebodies face.

All that was left was to fit the damn things and then realign myself with the perfectly indented sofa.

What's In A Name?

As the next famous female face grimaces during another contraction, her handsome other half searches the dictionary for a unique name that will send his child to the front pages quicker than ever before. "Hey honey, how do you like Apple?" he may enquire. Outside, the gathering media have already got the angle of this now all too familiar story covered. "Celebs take to naming children after fruit etc etc". However, it seems the rich and famous have been on to something all along after a recent survey was taken to coincide with the launch of the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

The survey grilled 6,686 people on their perceptions of names, revealing that certain sounds and links to royalty give the impression of success, luck and/or attractiveness. According to the poll female names that promote attractiveness are soft sounding and end with the "ee" sound. Attractive male names, on the other hand, are short and harder sounding, while links to royalty are said to promote success. In short, this survey does nothing but confirm that Peter Andre and Katie "Jordan" Price are infact genius' for naming their daughter Princess Tiaamii.

So in the interest of giving my future children the best possible start in life, they can have no complaints when they come to realise I named them Empress Fluffy and Prince Nail.

When The Blogging Began

As I sit infront of this glowing laptop surrounded by scribbled notes and what is now a cold mug of coffee I wonder how on earth I am supposed to start this blog. You see, these are my first tentative steps into the increasingly popular world of weblogs and as yet, I haven't quite nailed down a definitive topic for my newly created bundle of joy. All I know is that I want to write.

At this moment in time I am an amateur journalist, desperately trying to break into the media industry. However, while I look for a vacancy that I feel adequately qualified to apply for I am finding myself distinctly out of practice in the writing department.

So here I am experienced bloggers and potential employers, wobbling towards you like a new born foal hoping that my future posts of opinion, anecdotes and anything else that may catch my imagination finds you with open arms, but right now I need to make sense of these notes.