simon clauson

I think this picture says otherwise...

Published by Simon Clauson at 2:32 pm.

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I was Tagged on Livejournal but am posting my response here.

I have to tell you 5 random facts about myself that nobody/not many people know about and then 'Tag' 5 friends to do the same.

So:

1. When I was 4 years old my mum took me shopping while on holiday in the Bahamas for a T-Shirt and forgot I was with her and left me in the shop for half and hour.
2. I once ate a tablespoon full of chilli seeds and chilli oil for a bet and spent 45 minutes on the toilet the next day.
3. When I was 10 I swapped the salt and the sugar around. My sister covered her Corn Flakes in salt every day for a week.
4. In year 6 I wrote "SEX!" all over the walls in the boys toilets and blamed it on the school bully and got away with it.
5. When I was 8 I stole my teachers wedding ring and sold it to her son who was in the same year as me. When she found it in his room he told her it was me who sold it to him and she didn't believe him.

This is going to be imported automaticly into Facebook, so I'm going to Tag 5 people there, but would like Abscond, Brianshizniz, Alendaris, Dandavies and ECAkeris to reply with theirs here, if they want.

Labels: five facts, random, tag

Published by Simon Clauson at 2:39 pm.

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Inspired by a video on YouTube. I thought I'd do a written one.

Dear Body,

I write you this letter as both an apology, and a thank-you. You've been with me for twenty-two wonderful years and I want you to know how much I love you.

Hair: I'm sorry for putting so many chemicals in you over the years; but thank you for not following the same route that my Dad's did. Thank-you for such a beautiful hair line.

Eyes: Thank-you for your perfect 20-20 vision and your subtle green colour. I hope you stay perfect until the day I die.

Ears: I'm sorry for sticking so many holes in you and damaging you with deafening music. Please don't give up on me in old age.

Lips: My best feature, I should look after you more. The lip ring accentuates your beauty and makes you even more kissable.

Arms: I'm trying to bulk you up a bit; one day you will lift that car.

Hands: Thanks for being so perfect; not too skeletal and not too chubby.

Belly: I'm sorry for filling you with so much junk food and beer. I will have you back to the way you were when we were sixteen soon.

Legs: You hold me up, you move me; without you where would I be? Thanks.

Feet: I'm sorry that you seem to always have something wrong with you; but thank you for helping my legs do their job. You are the perfect team.

I promise I will continue trying to look after you and hope you will never give up on me. We belong together and will remain so until we die.
Here's to the future, I love you.

-Simon

In other news there is no other news.

Labels: arms, dear body, ears, eyes, feet, hair, hands, legs, lips

Published by Simon Clauson at 12:53 pm.

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Words often fail me, but I am compelled to write an entry about something today.
The only problem is I am suffering from a rather nasty bought of writers block.

In spite of this I have decided to persevere nonetheless and hope that as my fingers tap across the keys of my laptop, that something obscure and profound other than the utter drivel that is currently being produced will sprout forth like a Springtime Daisy. It doesn't look like that's going to happen though, does it?

I took some time out, had a cup of tea and looked around for inspiration and all that I managed to find to write about that would probably make for interesting reading was a Gold Fish tank. So I'm going to talk about that!

On Saturday we got Gold Fish. Three of them. Kebab, Baby and Pirate.
Kebab got ill so my Mum and Sister took him back to the pet shop and got a new one, Marmalade.

Marmalade also got ill, so instead of taking him back as well I decided I would try and get him healthy again.
I took him out of the tank away from the other fish and stuck him in a bowl on his own with some Formaldehyde and some food and looked after him.
He started to move a lot more than he was before, except this time he was swimming upside down and around in circles...Google told me this wasn't what fish normally do but I let him carry on and rest a bit.

When I woke up this morning he was back to his normal fishy self so I emptied some of the water out of the tank (as I realised this was the main cause for the illness, as there was too much and not enough oxygen) and he's been fine all day.

Call me Dr. Pieman.

There, I wrote something. Utter nonsense, but I don't care - it's kept me mildly entertained.

Labels: baby, fish, gold fish, kebab, marmalade, pirate

Published by Simon Clauson at 3:07 pm.

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Right, it's terribly (do you love how English that sounds!?) cliché and even more predictable as every blogger around the world will be writing something related to Valentines day either today or tomorrow; but I couldn't give two shakes of a monkeys doo-dah.

I have never been that big on this 'holiday' and have only ever celebrated it once, which wasn't really by choice. I have very passionate feelings towards February 14th:

I HATE IT!

It's just an excuse for those tossers at corporate companies like Clinton Cards to hock their stupid, crappy, pointless products. Honestly, is a tacky cutsie wickle teddy bear with "I wub woo" in a pretty, glittery heart on its chest and a really expensive meal really affirmation of your true, deep undying feelings for one another and the only opportunity to get the best night of sex you're bound to get all night? The hell it is! If that's what it takes, then there's a problem with your relationship.
It's a whole heap of commercial, corporate bullpoo.

I know what you're saying: "Oh, Pieman, it's just because you're single". No it's not!
This farce has been going on since the land that time forgot and every year it becomes more and more pathetic. It's tragic.

Every single restaurant, club, pub, supermarket, card shop and brothel all jump on the Valentines Day bandwagon offering discounts, roses, candles, wine and free chocolates just so you'll give them money.
It's things like this that make me sympathetic to the 'hippy cause' because they really do have the right idea. I don't like the way that the bigwigs have totally destroyed two Christian holidays (the other being Easter, which is also round the corner) by sticking price tags on them.

My ideal Valentines Day would be sitting in the pub with my partner with a cold pint of Guinness, a BBQ Chicken and Bacon Melt watching the football and hanging out with my mates. That's enough love for me.

I urge all you hapless romantics just for once to put everything on hold and to sit this one out just to see how much more fun it will be.

Do the right thing; tell cupid to go swivel.

Labels: cupid, february 14th, love, rant, rubbish, valentines day

Published by Simon Clauson at 10:45 am.

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I'm sick of seeing 'quit smoking' adverts all over the place. TV, Newspapers, magazines and on public transport.
I know and respect that there are people who do want to quit, who do need help and who will probably gain from having this kind of media thrusted unceremoniously 'all up in their grill', but how about those of us who like being smelly, having yellow parts and shortening our life-span?

I've been a smoker since I was 14 years old (I'm 22 at the moment) and have "given up" four times. Three of those times it was for financial reasons, the last time was just to see if I could and to see if I could make myself healthier (read: New Years resolution that, like so many, didn't last long).
The longest I managed to fight the addiction was 1 month and 4 days, not at all impressive by some peoples standards, but for me that was quite an achievement.

The problem is I really love smoking. I know what it's doing to me, I know I'd probably have a nice flat and no debts if I quit; but I still can't give it up. I know 90% of the addiction is psychological. I'm not going to list the reasons why I smoke and why I started because that will just lead to someone emailing me with a counter-offensive.

On March 26th 2006 the United Kingdom introduced 'the smoking ban'.
Starting in Scotland on that date it became illegal to smoke in an enclosed space and in pubs, restaurants and clubs. The rest of the countries that make up Great Britain all, eventually (after the initial 'trial run' in Scotland and Ireland), became "Smoke-Free" ending with England on July 1st 2007.

It's the last one that affects me (being English) and I have to say it has been a minor inconvenience. In the summer, when it first came into play, I wasn't that bothered. It was reasonably nice weather. Now, it's winter and no pub that I go to has a decent way of keeping you warm in the harshness of the weather. Those heat-lamps don't work at all!
So, like many, I'm 50-50 on the ban: good in summer, bad in winter!

I do agree that sitting in a smokey pub or restaurant for a non-smoker is...unpleasant to say the least. Subjecting someone to endure my filthy habit is unfair; but sending us out in to the cold is inhumane!
The amount of times that I've been ill over the winter this year [so far] has been more than last year. I put that down to the July 1st ban.

On October 1st 2007 the government raised the legal age for cigarettes to be purchased from 16 to 18. Not something that affects me but I do think that was a smart move and one cigarette related ruling put in place last year that I do agree with. It's not because I'm old enough to do everything in this country now (except go to an over 25's bar, which are quite rare) but, and this makes me sound old, things were different when I started smoking.

My sister, who turned 16 in August, has asthma and I often wonder if she didn't whether or not she would start smoking. She's very intelligent though, so I doubt she would.

I do have one anti-smoking related hate though: Cigars. I hate the smell of someone smoking a cigar. Vile. Although it is hypocritical (and I freely admit this) I will smoke a cigar if something is being celebrated. It's like drinking Champagne, really. But to smoke them regularly for the nicotine I don't like the idea of.

OK, that's that done. Time for a fag.

Labels: habit, quitting smoking, smoking, smoking ban

Published by Simon Clauson at 1:30 pm.

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With all the spare time I've had lately I've been thinking about my old website/blog and how best to go about bringing it back.

I first launched I R Pieman back in 2005 but had been writing blogs since 2004, nothing too interesting, just something to distract me from the world that I was in back then.
I started writing about music - albums that I had heard, unsigned and undiscovered bands I'd found on Last.fm and occasionally music videos.

It never really grew to anything, nobody ever visited and I lost all interest in running a site that I couldn't be bothered with (and this became very apparent in my posts).
So just before I was about to leave for Christmas in Barcelona I deleted all of the pages, the blog and dumped everything in the database and deleted it.
Last year it had a brief reprise, but due to a disagreement with my webhost it went again in October.

It's been three years (I'm not counting last year) and I'm starting to make plans to bring it back, resurrecting it, starting afresh, with a new name and a new purpose...which I haven't quite worked out yet (it's all part of the thought process). I R Pieman will be reborn as Piecore?.
I don't know why I decided to have a question mark in the name, I might lose it; as I said, all part of the planning. I might not even use the name Piecore.

All I need is a website (and the money to get a website) to start the ball rolling.

Labels: blog, piecore?

Published by Simon Clauson at 9:00 am.

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