Jamie Ross...Seven

My Top Five Reasons To Be Excited About the Royal Wedding

2011-04-28T21:24:00.005+01:00

1. To upset people who are trying their hardest to not be excited about the royal wedding.

Murderers, arsonists and thieves. These are just three sections of society that I currently like more than the people who are loudly insisting that they don’t care about the royal wedding. Not the people who are retaining a disinterested bemusement on the matter, that’s entirely understandable, just those who are treating the occasion with such an exaggerated revulsion that you’d be forgiven for thinking that part of the ceremony includes a balloon dance from their own grandmother.

You know, maybe, if you’d acted differently and changed your ways sooner, Kate Middleton might have fallen in love with you. Maybe, just maybe, you could have been that happy corduroyed man pacing a country estate with your girl in one hand a fox-hunting bugle in the other. But, no, you have shunned the possibility of this idyllic lifestyle in favour of spending your time joining anti-wedding groups on Facebook so everyone knows how self-consciously aloof you are. Congratulations. I hope this is worth it when you die in a studio apartment and your cat, who always hated you, spends the best month of its miserable life feasting upon your bloated corpse until it’s discovered by the window cleaner. He has also always hated you, and will put an evening aside to set up a Facebook group proclaiming your funeral to be a complete waste of time and money. Being an almost entirely forgotten man already, only your immediate family will click on ‘like’, and your grave will only ever be visited once; by a feral pigeon who shits on it. Good riddance.

2. The return of the anticlimactic street party. What do the royal wedding, the Eurovision Song Contest and a rally for skinhead nationalist racists have in common? That’s right – bunting. Take a walk on Friday and you will see that there is sufficient Union Jack bunting on display in Britain to successfully lasso Jupiter and the majority of its sixty-three moons. Literally thousands of street parties are scheduled to take place to toast our new royal couple. However, whilst the term ‘street party’ may conjure up images of the shrieking debauchery of Mardi Gras and the Rio Carnival, the reality is quite different. To get a more accurate picture, just replace the scantily-clad ladies of Rio with your least favourite uncle heaving his naked sunburned torso around to a badly-produced dance remix of Rule Brittannia. Refreshments include warm sandwiches with egg inside them and just enough alcohol to create a perceptibly hostile atmosphere.

3. Kate Middleton is the single most beautiful object currently known to science. I have made no secret of the fact that I believe Kate Middleton to be my one soulmate. This is not only because she is the most attractive royal since legendary slag Helen of Troy, but also because we share much in common. For example, we both have a keen interest in the royal family, we both prefer to wear gloves when touching the public and we have both had to overcome the cruel elitist bullying that comes with being at St Andrews University with a middle-class background. William and Kate visited St Andrews last month and I seized the chance of meeting my one and only by strategically positioning myself at a street barricade next to the smallest and least repulsive infant I could find. Clearly aware of the dynastic danger of letting Kate and I meet, the jealous prince dragged his fiancée in the opposite direction from me and quickly bundled her into his car. I made eye-contact with her as they drove past. She looked, in equal measure, sad and trapped. “Forget him” whispered William like a massive posh bastard, “you’re mine now.”

4. The Royal Family are a great bunch. As a sub-honours history student who could only be closer to failing if I hurled a turd at a librarian, I feel qualified to inform you that any event in history which doesn’t directly involve the British royal family is an irrelevant waste of time. Despite this, some people can’t help but criticise our current crop of royals. “Camilla Parker-Bowles looks like a horse! Prince Harry is a Nazi! Prince Charles has big ears!” they squawk as they patiently wait for Ian Hislop to die so they can be crowned king of satire. I reject this mentality as the Queen has everything I look for in a head of state; intelligence, poise, and a variety of enormous funny hats.

5. Prince Harry is still single. One day, it could be me.

My Top Five Favourite Things About Neil Oliver

2011-04-08T15:31:00.004+01:00

1. His never-ending walk. Much like a shark, it is believed that Neil Oliver would instantly die if he remained stationary for any length of time. This is why each of his BBC documentaries feature him stomping through mountainous wilderness, as urban obstructions such as fences and pedestrian crossings present a potentially fatal danger to Neil Oliver. As a man who has been in perpetual motion for 44 years, Neil Oliver has had ample time to perfect his walk. Whether he is leaping from a mossy outcrop or slinking through a henge, Neil Oliver always walks with the confidence, purpose and determination of a man marching from a bar to a car park to bludgeon the local sex criminal to death. Neil Oliver’s never-ending walk is undoubtedly one of my top five favourite things about Neil Oliver.

2. His head. Neil Oliver famously has the face of a warrior and the hair of a whore. Often seen billowing in the Scottish wind, Neil Oliver’s resplendent plumage has quickly become as familiar and comforting to the British television audience as David Attenborough’s voice or Cheryl Cole’s racism. Bursting out of his scalp like burnt snakes desperately trying to escape his brain’s constant thoughts about brochs, Neil Oliver’s bangs frame his brooding Scottish face perfectly. The fiery eyes of William Wallace, the granite jawline of Robert the Bruce and the badgirl locks of Suzi Quatro. Neil Oliver’s head is irrefutably one of my top five favourite things about Neil Oliver.

3. His unshakable enthusiasm. Don’t get me wrong, I like the coast as much as the next man, unless that man happens to be Neil Oliver. If you asked Neil Oliver what his three favourite things were he’d say the coast, then he’d say the coast again, and then when you pointed out that he’d already said the coast he’d bundle you into the boot of his Range Rover, drive you to the nearest coast, strip you naked and drag you over miles of grating sand and jagged rock until he finally hurled your bloodied and unconscious body into the sea as an offering to his coast god. Similar rules apply to arrow heads, iron smelting and hills. I admire this passion, and I would say that Neil Oliver’s unshakable enthusiasm is unequivocally one of my top five favourite things about Neil Oliver.

4. His clothes. Over the past five years, Neil Oliver has successfully defined a brand new style of clothing - archaeologist-casual. To replicate this, all you need is; a sturdy pair of brown walking boots as, regardless of terrain, Neil Oliver has places to be and he will not be slowed down by inadequate footwear; the thickest and darkest woollen jumper you can get your hands on as, whilst Neil Oliver likes brightly-coloured t-shirts as much as anyone, he has wisely learned from history and concluded that they would be both impractical and conspicuous in the event of another English invasion; a big brown satchel in which he keeps, amongst other things, a fish-based sandwich, a jar of sand from his favourite coast and a hammer to kill Highland wolves. Yes, Neil Oliver’s clothes are unquestionably one of my top five favourite things about Neil Oliver.

5. His current Scottish tourism advert. Neil Oliver is a patriot, the likes of which haven’t been seen on Scottish television since the demise of comedian Craig Hill. It came as no surprise, then, to hear Neil Oliver’s excitable squawking in the latest Scottish tourism advert. In the advert - also written, directed and filmed by Neil Oliver - Neil Oliver has forty seconds to explain to the wider world exactly why he has such a grotesquely swollen broom-handle for Scotland. Neatly avoiding outdated arguments such as golf, whisky and hills, Neil Oliver questions “Where else can you visit a castle in the morning...and spend the evening in a treehouse?” Some cynics will answer that you can do this literally anywhere that has a castle and a treehouse, but I personally find it such a convincing reason to visit Scotland that I plan to emigrate just so I can visit a castle in the morning and spend the evening in a treehouse at a later date. Indeed, Neil Oliver’s current Scottish tourism advert is incontrovertibly one of my top five favourite things about Neil Oliver.

Keep On Rocking In The ‘Deen World

2009-07-28T19:41:00.005+01:00

Now that I’ve definitely lost the entire fan base that took me eleven months of intensive cancer treatment to build up, it’s probably high time I write something here whilst my immediate family may still bother to read it.

I would have written sooner except that, without cancer, all I am is a half-hearted member of the Skins Generation. I’d commit myself more fully but, after many months of speaking exclusively to doctors and men that could only be described as undead, young people seem terribly brash with their rap music and their clothes and their haircuts. A recent trip to the piss-drenched squalor of T in the Park finally solidified my position as the Earth’s first world-weary twenty year old man.

I now go almost anywhere where people might be just as disillusioned as me, which is why I recently decided to travel to the desolate city of Aberdeen, alone, to see the perpetually furious Neil Young performing in front of five thousand men plummeting in to the lonely depths of midlife despair. Eagerly anticipating rejoining my kind of people at long last, I bounded on to the Megabus and was thrilled to be greeted by at least thirty people, each with a face like a man celebrating Christmas in prison. The trip had well and truly begun.

The journey was unpleasant - for every molecule of air there were at least seventeen of Monster Munch stench - but it gave me plenty time to absorb some Neil Young albums and complete my newspaper crossword. However, I almost immediately regretted doing this as soon as I looked at my watch and saw that I had six full hours to kill before the concert. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Aberdeen but imagine Dundee, subtract literally everything that’s good or even tolerable about it, and then replace all of that with a miasmatic stench of fish. That’s Aberdeen. I wandered around aimlessly for at least three hours looking, at best, like a crushingly disappointed tourist and, at worst, like a serious terrorist threat.

I must have aroused a fair amount of suspicion because, at around 6pm, a man with crutches and plasters all over his face lurched towards me and asked if I was lost. He was either a dangerously violent man or a bumbling Frank Spencer character who had recently purchased some flatpack furniture.

“Yeah, do you know where I might get a taxi?” I cautiously enquired.

“Aye” he grunted Scottishly “next to the graveyard, follow me.”.

That’s right, Jamie, follow the hideously disfigured stranger to the graveyard. What could possibly go wrong?

Against all odds, he turned out to be a thoroughly decent man, I wasn’t even stabbed once, and I hopped in to the nearest taxi to take me to the hostel where I’d be spending the night. Now, I’m not very good with taxi drivers - I often find myself putting on an exaggerated Scottish accent in an attempt to impress them and end up sounding like Mrs. Doubtfire - but this one was particularly bad. After telling him that I was a student he mournfully sighed and said;

“I bet you do that fucking Law, don’t you?”

“Naw naw, ah do Unglish mate.” I replied in my Brigadoon accent, but he cared not.

“The law system in this country is a fucking joke, they should bring back hanging. I‘d hang this fucker in a second.” he boldly proclaimed, gesturing towards an article in The Sun.

I briefly protested this, dropping my painstakingly crafted working-class façade, but I quickly changed the subject after realising that discussing politics with a taxi driver is about as worthwhile as discussing race relations with Heinrich Himmler.

“So, I’m seeing Neil Young tonight.”

“He’s shite.”

I didn’t tip.

Arriving at the hostel, I was quite surprised that it looked reasonably pleasant. My surprise was mainly down to the fact that I had read a few online reviews of the place and one, by a man called Jon from Norway, simply said “This hostel made me sad.”. My room comprised of a bed, a desk, a sink and a bible - presumably because people usually use £15-a-night accommodation for the most unholy of reasons and feel the need to repent for their sins. I read a bit as I was curious to see what all the fuss is about. It’s not great, I doubt it would be serialised in The Independent. Anyway, I scuttled up to the gig, Neil Young was beyond sensational, and I crawled back to my room again, drenched in old men's sweat, to have a pleasant night’s sleep.

That was until 9.30am when I awoke to the terrifying sound of my door being unlocked. I half-expected to see my taxi driver stomping towards me clutching a bloodied length of rope. “Oh, sorry, do you want your room cleaned?” came a meek voice, perhaps realising that she had just made me soil my bed. I sternly declined and she shuffled out of the room, locking the door behind her. “He’s still in his jammies” she moaned to her cleaning mates in the corridor, as if this was the single most ludicrous thing a man could be wearing at 9.30am. They’re not ‘jammies‘ anyway, jammies are for six-year-olds and have glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs on them, I have alluring Calvin Klein nightwear. I went back to sleep for an hour, got up, reluctantly phoned yet another taxi and awaited its arrival with trepidation.

“Awrite mate, howzat goin‘?” I said, jumping in to the front seat.

Thankfully, this one seemed rather more jolly than Monsieur Guillotine, and even had one of my favourite Beatles songs playing. I asked him if he was in to sixties music, hoping to stimulate a conversation, and he responded enthusiastically. “Oh cool, I went to see Neil Young last night, are you a fan?”. “No, I don’t like any modern music.” he said, making a fool of himself. However, I graciously carried on speaking to him and even gave him a small yet appropriate tip. I climbed back on the Megabus, immediately got struck in the face by the foul perfume of a Peperami Firestick and sat down to reflect upon my busy day.

‘Well, Aberdeen’s shit‘, I thought.