2011: The end is nigh- Paddy

Its new years eve, and if I'm honest, I don't really care that much. To me it is the 4th least worthwhile holiday, behind Valentine's Day (because I'm single), Thanksgiving (because I'm not American), Fireworks Night (because I don't like the bangs) and Pancake Day (because pancakes are underwhelming). I know that was 5 holidays but I forgot about Pancake day to start with. Anyway, the reason I don't value New Year's is because it doesn't actually commemorate anything special. The other holidays I listed have backgrounds and traditions that they celebrated for, New Year's is for no reason in particular, there is nothing exceptional about the transition from one day to another. It happens everyday and I don't understand why this one transition is celebrated simply for happening once every year. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to go to a mates house tonight and get drunken, but that's just because I don't want to stay at home whilst all my friends (read as people who tolerate me) party without me.
Also a secondary reason I've just thought of as to why I'm not a big fan of the New Year's is the social networking aspect. I am definately not a fan of the status and tweets along the lines of ""lets hope 2012 can be good for me! Good bye 2011" or "Thank god 2011 is over #worstyearever". I just made those examples p, but I'm sure you'll all see the sort of thing I mean tomorrow.
Final point of the year from Alex'n'Paddy, thank you for reading our little blog .As a reward for your suport for this year here is a picture of Alex with icing on his teeth:


 Please continue reading it and also tell your friends. Lets make 2012 the best year ever! It can't be worse than 2011 #worstyearever (see what I did there? Its like one of those stupid statuses.)

14% and counting - Alex

My phone currently has 14% battery charge remaining, and I aim to finish this blog before Apple and their under performing batteries get the better of my blog and your favourite website. 13%! I shall refer back to the point I made about this being your favourite website, obviously it isn't quite as useful as websites like BBC news or YouTube but for the small amount of time you spend on the toilet/bus/naughty step Alexnpaddy fills the hole perfectly. 12%! Soon, it cannot have escaped your attention, a new year is set to begin. How does this tie in with the FACT that Alexnpaddy is my favourite site? 11%! Well you surely know the phrase (or something similar to) "New year, new me". Well on Patrick's behalf I promise that during 2012 Paddy will change his ways and entertain you*. 10%! Over the next calendar year he will write a novel, compose a song, make an amateur movie and pose for a naked photo shoot. 9%! All of these activities will be recorded, analysed and joked about on Alexnpaddy. So hold on tight for an even better year!!!! 8%!

*I'm sure he currently entertains you stupid amounts, he'll just entertain you even more.

Stronghold- Paddy

Alright chaps. How's it goin'? Good to hear.
I got a new game for Christmas. It was a video game. You might assume it was a modern new-fangled game like Skyrim or MW3 or Assassin's Creed: Revelations (well actually I did get Revelations but that is not what I'm a-blogging about), but in actual fact, the game I have played most since Christmas is Stronghold: Crusader. It is an unbelievable game and I what strongly recommend it to anyone who has some form of computer with a disc-drive to play it on. For those of you who have not played it, Stronghold: Crusader is a historic real-time strategy (RTS) game set in the Middle East during the Crusades (oh how I love Wikipedia).
Anyway, the thing I love about Stonghold is the building of magnificent castles. Castles with walls ten squares deep and towers with ballistae mounted upon them. Also I like to fight lions. Yeah you can fight lions! Lion-Fighting rocks! Admittedly fighting lions isn't a major part of the game and is instead just something I like to do.
I'm going to stop writing this blog now, and go and fight some Lions and probably some Arabs too, while I try and colonise the Holy Land.

Silky smooth on the nip + hair update - Alex

I wear clothes pretty much everyday, but that's standard practise where I come from (unlike Essex). Because I wear clothes with startling frequency some people even decided to buy me some for Christmas. Nothing even slightly shocking there. I got given 3 t-shirts, 1 polo shirt, 1 shirty shirt and then get this! SOMEONE GOT ME A CARDIGAN. I have nothing against cardigans, Patrick looks suave in one from time to time. I actually said I liked the particular cardigan I was eventually gifted with and then my Mum got me it for Christmas. The thought behind the title for this blog is the way 2 of my t-shirts feel. Don't misinterpret me, the third t-shirt is still lovely. Just these 2 t-shirts are so smooth and soft on my nipples and other parts of my upper body anatomy. They are both "topman" t-shirts, and the tags that were attached to them at time of opening said that you could purchase any two of these t-shirts for £12. I'm certain you found that interesting.

IN MY HAIR NEWS! Here are three pictures of my hair progressing since shaving, it's been 97 days! Although now it's in the awkward messy stage where it's not a jewfro but it's not easy to tame.

The Christmas Cup. - Paddy

Ten days ago I wrote this post about a game of football happening ten days from then. I have just finished that game of football and am about to tell you just a few key moments in it.
1) We kicked off.
2) We went 1-0 down.
3) I came on as a substitute.
4) We equalised.
5) We had half-time and I ate some gammon.
6) We kicked off again.
7) We went 2-1 up.
8) I had a shot saved.
9) I got injured and was substituted
10) We went 3-1 up.
11) The final whistle went.

For those of you who are concerned, my injury was not serious, just a spot of cramp in my right calf that prevented me running. Running is a key part of football, especially for a winger (which is where I was playing) and therefore a replacement had to be made.
I am going to go now, and eat turkey left-over soup, probably the best soup... in the world.

When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut - Alex

It's rare that I consider anything vaguely "artistic" to be touching or moving. I'm not a culturephobe, merely an individual who doesn't appreciate, for example, the emotional intentions behind a painting. Despite this for Christmas I asked for and received an illustrated book of poetry, and I can throughout recommend it. Here's a link to it. Even Patrick likes Scroobius Pip!* One poem particularly appealed to me as the subject matter is something I have genuine feelings on. An extract from the poem is here...

When I grow up, I just want to roll
From one experience to the next without having a goal
When I grow up, I want to evolve
Into a person not defined just by their job or their role
When I grow up, I just want to roll
From one experience to the next without having a goal
When I grow up, I want to evolve
Into a person not defined just by their job or their role

Here are the full lyrics (I say lyrics because Scroobius Pip recorded it with YILA).

I like this specific poem/song because I fear that I am the exact opposite of the type of person Pip is talking about. This poem made me think about it and I realised that the vast majority of targets and goals I set myself are based around a successful career. I always pictures myself wearing a nice suit and a flash watch whilst sitting in a swanky office. Driving a luxury car back to my modern pent house in which I have a valuable collection of whisky and aftershave. Pip says that "We are encouraged to pick a job in which we seek success, instead of thinking about what we really need for happiness", and in an interview he elaborated to add...

"I feel that at school we are often given goals that have very little to do with actually being happy. I know some people that are very successful in business but are not so happy in their lives. There are others that are still working in retail but are totally happy and cheery.
There are people who think that if they achieve the goals and targets set for them in school, then they will automatically be happy. But that’s not always the case. There’s not a step by step guide of how to be happy.

So really I should just picture myself with a smile on my face and a spring in my step as opposed to being "successful". Because, obviously, what's the use of money if you've got no time to use it?

*The start of his song Introdiction, anyway.

It's Christmas- Paddy

MERRY CHRISTMAS READERS!

Christmas eve - Alex

Well look at the date guys and girls. It's less than 24 hours until we get to open our presents, eat too much food and go to bed late. Oh the excitement. As I've got older the draws of Christmas have changed. Obviously as a small child I was all about the presents and the time off from school. Nowadays I savour the opportunity to spend plenty of time with my friends and eat enough food to feed a small army more than anything. Whilst Michael Buble sings that "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" I actually think that Christmas sort of sneaks up on you. Like a ninja. Christmas is the ninja holiday. One minute you think "It's a week until Christmas, soon I'll feel festive" but here I find myself, the day before Christmas, and I feel about as festive as this guy....

SCROOGE DUCK

I'm sure come tomorrow I'll be reppin the Christmas ting though. Colourful paper crowns, carefully discarding wrapping paper and an evening on the Xbox HERE I COME!

Mornings- Paddy

Its just past 1pm on a Friday afternoon and I bet you think I'm about to say I have just woken up. Well... I woke up over 3 and a half hours ago! In the morning! In fact, rather surprisingly, I have seen the morning every day so far this week! If I'm honest though, I don't see what all the fuss about the morning is. It is similar to the afternoon but less pleasant and then makes you sleepy in the afternoon. Next week I shall return to my usual ways and sleep in until roughly 4pm, like a hibernating walrus. Well not exactly like a walrus, walruses (walri?) don't hibernate. I shall therefore change my simile to "sleep in until roughly 4pm, like a hibernating bear." But what have you done to warrant your early starts thus far in the week? I hear you cry out that question and I answer with: on Monday I rose early to empty my bladder and could not return to sleep; Tuesday was a similar scenario to Monday; Wednesday I went to buy my father's Christmas present and then on to the cinema; Thursday I went shopping with my female friend Sian; and today, today I was forced up to go and play football at 10.30am. Not even a proper game, who gets up at 10.30 for a kickabout? Fools that's who. And apparently me.
OMG NEXT TIME I BLOG IT'LL BE CRIMBO/XMAS/CHRISTMAS, depending on what decade's slang you use.

Crunch - Alex

Today two things have gone crunch, and neither of them were particularly desirable. The first thing that went crunch was something inside the doughnut I had for my breakfast. I'm sure you can imagine the horror on my face as I sunk my teeth into the jam filled, microwave heated pod of perfection only to discover a rookie mistake on the bakers hand. I was traumatised to the extent that when I had a doughnut but a minute ago I bit into it slowly, just in case.

Secondly (and more seriously) my knee did a weird crunching noise. That in its self is not too disconcerting, my knees creak all of the stinking time. The worrying part is it that it crunched whilst my knee cap decided to pop its self out and then back into where it should be. This is especially worrying because my knee has a history of going where ever it pleases. Darn tootin'.

Films- Paddy

Today I went to the near by town of Basingstoke. For why? Because Basingstoke has a cinema, something the humble Farnborough is yet to acquire. By Basingstoke, I mean Camberly, which is also a neighbouring town with a cinema. We went to the cinema to see the new film "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows". It is, according to Wikipedia, a 2011 British-American action mystery film directed by Guy Ritchie. It also, according to me, a jolly good film starring Robert Downey Jnr and co-starring Stephen Fry, who is seen naked at one point. It is, however, not as good as its predecessor "Sherlock Holmes" also starring Robert Downey Jnr, but not co-starring Stephen Fry.
In other film news, I saw the new Dark Knight Rises trailer for the first time yesterday. I am a bit of a Batman fan and in short the trailer BLEW MY MIND! And I mean BLEW! I was stunned into silence and all my excitement for this upcoming superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan (also from Wikipedia). It stars Christian Bale and Tom Hardy and Michael Caine and its definitely going to be very good.

Would you like help packing your bag, Sir? - Alex

It is currently 08:03 AM and in 12 minutes I am leaving to spend my day packing customers bags in a near by supermarket. A troop of other fellow world challengers are also doing it with me, so we'll take over the tills (well perch awkwardly towards the end of the conveyor belt) and fill our buckets with loose change and buttons. FUND RAISING EXTRAVAGANZA. The specific supermarket is Marks & Spencers in The Meadows. If you don't know where that is, I don't blame you, you're probably not from my neck of the woods. If you do know where that is, why don't you come on down today? Buy a whole host of brittle goods and one mallet and watch me struggle to pack your bag. As long as you toss 20p in my bucket afterwards I'll give you a gleaming smile and a genuine "Thank you very much Sir/Madame". Manners are important, my Mummy told me that.

Yesterday Patrick showed you the pictures of the rubix cube cake we made. There is something else we did yesterday that he didn't tell you about. Something much less innocent. Something that when I got in and I told my Mum what we had done she said "Tut, boys will be boys". Something that on more than one occasion brought a look of sheer anguish to the face of every gang member. I've made it out to be worse that it is, we just drank a bottle of food colouring each in the hope that it would make our wee a funny colour. So far I have urinated three times since drinking the dye and not one has even been vaguely red (my food colouring of choice). Also we watched "A Serbian Film" yesterday, whilst beginning off vaguely comically it ended up fairly gross. I wouldn't recommend it unless you are seriously mentally disturbed.

Right I need to leave now, I'm going to listen to either Michael Buble or Common in my car on the way there. There is no real reason for me to tell you that, I just thought you deserve to know everything that's going on in my life.

NOTE TO SELF - TELL THE READERS ABOUT THE IPAD STORY IN YOUR NEXT BLOG

Rubik's Cake- Paddy

Ace of cakes, eat you heart out, there's a new cake making gang on the block. A gang that consists of me and alex and to other non-important friends. Today we made a cake you see, and it was next level! Feast your eyes on this:

Thats not our cake. Thats a rubik's cube and it gave us an idea for top notch cakery. Have a look:

Thats also not  our cake. That was the cake we were inspired by. It is from the internet website called www.pimpthatsnack.com and we thought it'd be fun to make this multicoloured deliciousness ourselves.
Our cake ended up looking rather more like this:

 Yeah! Thats our cake! Completed Rubik's Cube-y goodness. Triple Layer Victoria sponge with jame, smothered in jam and coated in icing. A cavity disguised as a puzzle.

C bomb - Alex

Me and Patrick have a mutual love for cockney gangster films, Pat had a little thing for Statham where as it is Winstone who butters my crumpets. The reason I bring this topic up is because last night I watched the film London Boulevard, a film about a man who gets out of clink and whilst trying to avoid the gangster scene, gets involved in the gangster scene. The plot is slightly thin and some of the appeal is lost due to the all to widely used "extreme violence solves everything" approach. The one thing I will remember the film for, though, is the alarmingly natural use of the c word. The four letter one that sounds a lot like "punt". I don't know the exact count; not even google does. But if I had to guess I would say that in the 103 minutes the c word is used at least 40 times. And naturally when the c word is present all other sorts of nasties follow. Incredibly graphic violence, drugs, and sex. And they are the three reasons I love cockney gangster films. They make me want to be brutally physical and thuggishly inclined. Sadly I am not, I am a pale, thinly built brainbox. Sadly I'm not even that brainy anymore, I've lost my mojo. I'd have to be the brains behind any operation, not that I think I'll end up involved in gangs. No matter what the media try to tell you about today's youth.

Crimbo Hols- Paddy

Yesterday was the last day of my school term. This means today was the first day of my Christmas Holidays. To mark this occasion I did nothing at all really. I slept until 1pm roughly and then once I had awoken did, as I already mentioned, nothing of note until now. I'm not sure why I determined my first day of the Christmas Holidays a worthy topic to blog about. I've already run out of stuff to say about it. Hmmm, not really sure where to go with this now, awkward. OOH I KNOW! In exactly 10 days, I have to play in the biggest game of the footballing calender, The 2011 St Peter's Church Christmas Cup. Its a much bigger game than it sounds, the church my sister attends divides the footballing males into two teams by age, The Young Legs and The Old Heads. I am a Young Leg, as it Vikki's erstwhile male companion, Stephen. However, many of the Old Head are the parents or elder siblings of members of the Young Legs and this leads to a fairly competitive and aggressive game. Last year I was called a phrase that rhymes with "Ducking Cat" for being fouled.
Right, I'll be finishing now. I'll be back on Mond'y.

Linkmania - Alex

Todays blog is something a little different, a list of links to things on the internet that I love to pieces.
Enjoy!

Possibly the best music video ever
The coolest thing ever done
One of the many reasons I love bears
OMG
Just a flamin' massive tune
Bored of videos?
Then go HERE and watch a riveting religious debate unfold, god bless Ricky Gervais ;)

1 too many- Paddy

Pengu!ns (pronounced Penguins) are an awful, awful, awful, awful band. I know this because last night I saw them perform live at the O2 arena in London. Fortunatley, I hadn't gone to the O2 to see Pengu!ns so I did not feel my money had been wasted. Nor did I go to the O2 to see Miles Kane, who was better than I'd anticipated and actually had some songs I knew. No, the reason I (and by I, I mean myself, Alex, our large friend, our moan-y friend, our bald friend and our non-descript friend) went all the way to London was to see the band known to their friends, and everyone else, as Kasabian. Alex has mentioned them before, mainly about how he has a man-crush on the guitarist Serge. Its understandable, he looks like he has been crafted out of material that is at least 75% swagger and the rest of it being made up of guitar playing-ness. Anyway, whilst we were watching the band perform many, many songs, we also noticed some strange ebhaviour in the crowd. First of all, there was the man who fell down the stairs after having 1 drink in a plastic cup too many, and then there was the other man who kept trying to climb down the rows of seats, also having had 1 too many. But not all of the unusual behaviour was alcohol induced, one man a few rows behind us fell asleep for a good 20 minutes. A man who is clearly capable of sleeping through anything, I wish I was him.
Right, that'll do me for today. I'll see you at the weekend bbz.

Shout out - Alex

Recently I was caught up in a bit of mistaken profession. A bit of cheekily Pointon induced, mistaken profession. My friend has a cousin who as part of his university course has to partake in the production  and broadcast of a radio station. Both me, my friend and then this other boy we pretend to like were listening to this radio station in a free. This is when it came to us, if we text the cousin then maybe we could get a shout out! So within minutes we had text him saying "Can we have a shout out for A. Pizzle?", and almost instantaneously we heard coming through our headphones "And we have a shout out for an A. Pizzle". That's it we were famous. Task complete. Job done. But then the co-presenter goes "A. Pizzle? He better be a rapper, otherwise it's a stupid name." Straight away we informed them that I was, infact, a rapper*. WOOPS. They then invite me to send in some of my stuff, offering to play it on air. I am now considering writing, recording and then hopefully getting a top ten hit with a rap song. But there's a moral to this story, don't pretend to be something you are not.

*I am by no means a rapper

Ps. The radio station in question is nerve radio. A small university radio station. They had 15 listeners when I was shouted out, Alexnpaddy is bigger than that!

Bit of a Nap - Paddy

I literally just woke up like 5 minutes ago. But before you all get all incredulous and demand why I have slept through the day, let me elaborate. I have not slept all day. I woke up at 9.30, went to college at roughly 10.20 and returned home from college at roughly 2.15 (yes I had a short day at college). I the watched Scrubs which took me to about 3pm and it was at this point, that I fell asleep. So really I only had a short snooze fo 2-2 1/2 hours which I feel is entirely justifiable. I'm not going to justify it, but it is possible. I was awoken from my little nap, by none other than my own mother brandishing a cup of tea at me. Actually, brandishing is the wrong word, she proffered the tea, which I duly accepted and shlurped down. Unfortunately, my snooze rather cut into the time I have available in which to do my homework, especially since I have some physics to do tomorrow. If I'm honest, I've probably done all this in the wrong order. I should have done my physics then blogged then snoozed not the other way round. Ah well it cannot be undone, I'll just go and do the physics now so no-one gets hurt.

Right pukka - Alex

Today is my mothers 26th (51st) birthday and as a little treat for her I've decided to make fajitas for tea. I didn't already know a fajita recipe, but alas the internet helped me out big time. Not only the internet, Jamie Oliver. HERE'S the recipe I'm using, very simple. Hopefully, very nice. I decided to put my own spin on the salsa though. I figured telly chefs look like they have fun so I might as well dabble in the unknown and attempt to master what is essentially just chopped tomato and then a whole host of other potential ingredients. What could go wrong? Well so far, nothing at all. And I'm not even being a smart arse, I was tempted to write this earlier and to have gone "What could go wrong? Well so far, nothing at all. But that's because I haven't started". But alas I have started, I'm just warming the salsa. WARMING THE SALSA?!?! I hear you gasp in shock. THE RECIPE YOU LINKED US TO DOESN'T TELL YOU TO WARM THE SALSA. Well that's where I used my own intuition. I saw the finished product as Jamie intended and thought to myself "Well, what do you know about cooking Jamie Oliver?". I added in a bit of mint and salt to lift the flavour a touch and then bunged it all in a frying pan to reduce the amount of liquid and intensify the flavour. Also I wanted to soften the texture a touch, so it all blended into one orgasmic mess in your mouth. Beautiful imagery. So I took on Jamie Oliver at his own game, how did I do?

Well I tweet later and let you know what Mumma P thinks, but expect me to win by a landslide.

26th December- Paddy

Tomorrow starts the final week of my first term in my second year at my fourth educational establishment. That may not sound very exciting, but it does mean that as of tomorrow, Boxing Day will be exactly 2 weeks away. "Boxing Day?!" I hear you cry "Who cares about Boxing Day?". Well, in answer to your incredulity, I care about Boxing Day and I will now elaborate as to for why. Boxing Day, or to give it its correct name of St Stephen's Day, is the day after Christmas and I enjoy Boxing Day for 3 main reasons.1) It is the day for playing. On Christmas day, you receive your gifts, but on Boxing Day, you play with them. For m it used to be a day of building lego but not it is a day of playing new XBOX games or putting batteries into new electronics.
2) It is the day of leftovers. Boxing day food is, in my opinion, as good if not a tad better than Christmas day food. Boxing day is the day of slices of meat, and thick tukey based soups but without any of the vegetables one is made to indulge in upon Christmas day.
3) It is the day of relaxation. Christmas day is fraut with cooking and bickering and mess and rubbish and all manner of other slightly strenuous activities.

These are the reasons I enjoy Boxing Day so much, and I just thought I'd share them with you.

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDZZZZ - Alex

Last night I did partying at a party that I went to. That's beside the point though, the real topic of this blog is about me being an ulti-lad. Today for lunch me, Patrick and our big friend went to the cafe (pronouncing it caff makes it much more manly) and ate meat. Not just meat though, I had other non-meat products too. But a big plate full off bacon, sausage, chips, beans, black pudding, egg and bread served with two brews filled up my tummy nicely. If you look at it broadly a fry up is probably one of the most manly meals, stopping short of biting chunks out of a live cow I can't think of anything more manly. Also take into consideration that we spent the best part of 90 minutes talking about football, drinking tea and telling rude/insensitive jokes. LAAADZZZ.

I have another piece of evidence to prove I'm a lad too. I'm going on a lads holiday. With other lads. To my fellow lads Nan's house... LAAAADDDZZZZ. That isn't even the end of it, we'd be able to ride quad bikes and get lovely sun tans. Not me though, I can't tan. Damn pale skin. Grrrr.

So now you know I'm a LAAAAADDDD I can end this blog. Seeya mate.

Super Mario- Paddy

Alex is a Manchester United fan, and therefore everything about Manchester City is regard in an extremely negative light by him. Everything that is except 1 thing. That one thing is Mario Balotelli. He is regarded by both Alex and myself as something of a lad, both for his on and off field exploits. In no particular order he has:

• Set fire to his own house by firing rockkets from his bathroom.
• Gone clean through on goal and back-heeled the ball wide.
• Buying several thousand pounds were of luxuries when asked to buy some groceries.
• Given £1000 to a random homeless man.
• Scored a goal with his shoulder.
• Told a policeman he had £5000 on him because he "is rich".
• Thrown darts at his team mates
• Celebrated by revealing a shirt with "Why always me?" on it

This list of exploits, plus many more have secured Mario's place in both mine and Alex's hearts. Despite him being a Manchester City player.
I would apologise for writing this entirely about Balotelli but I wanted to, so there.

White boy - Alex

The bloke (scrawny white boy) I sit next to in physics today wrote a rap today, because he'd "finished his mechanics mock so early that he needed something to do". And here is his comically woeful attempt at waxing lyrical...

I've been waiting,
and hating,
all this trouble
you been taking,
I'm not faking
or making
up lies
that's just wasting;
all the love
in the world
that I have for you
and I'm sorry for the pain
that I put you through
I hate myself for it
I wont do it again
I wanna move forward
so I'm writing with this pen
the words I hope you wanna hear
so I can whisper sweet nothings in your ear
and take back the cruel things I said
so we can go back, and just lay in your bed

Terrible, I know. I don't even see how it works as a rap. I hope you've enjoyed the woefulness.

Para Para- Paddy

Hiya Everybody!Today I have a song stuck in my head. It is this song. For those of you too lazy to click that link and find out what sing it is, it's Paradise by Coldplay from their latest album Mylo Xyltotolootltotlto. Its the one that goes "para para paradise", you know the one I mean. Any way, to try and get this song out of my head I have been listening to many other different songs in an attempt to replace it in incessantly playing across my mind. Amongst the tunes I've tried to replace Chris Martin (lead singer of Coldplay for those of you who live in a cave) with are LMFAO's Sexy and I know it, The Darkness' I believe in a thing called love and Dan Bull's Epic Skyrim Rap, which believe lives up to its name in being a rap about Skyrim which is epic. His rhymes are peng. (Did I use "peng" correctly? I'm not sure). Anyway, that is a fairly mixed set of musics (yeah I just used the word musics, and what?) floating around my head. Its also, by popular cuture standards, a fairly poor and geeky selection of songs, especially the Skyrim rap. Liking that rap makes me about as geeky as Stephen Hawking's fan club at a WoW (World of Warcraft) convention boasting about how good their Level 83 Paladins are.
That'll do me for now, I'll be back on Friday when it is time to partAY.





PS. I had to google all that stuff about WoW. I'm not that geeky, honest.

Essay - Alex

At the moment I have the first two paragraphs of a history essay hand written, on a piece of paper. The paper is in a closed pad of paper. The closed pad of paper also happens to be in a folder. A closed folder. The closed folder is also in my rucksack. And the rucksack is in my dining room, a whole floor away from where I currently am. Why am I telling you this? To be perfectly honest, it's probably some sort of subconscious cry for held. But I actually think I'm telling you this because I can. The generally accepted function of a blog is to inform the adoring masses* about the goings on in one's life. Referring to myself in third person, on the regal ting. And because my life is boring the biggest thing going on right now is a measly history essay. It doesn't even need to get done tonight, I'm going into college to do it tomorrow morning. I'm not really pressed for time, in fact we got set a very reasonable deadline. A whole week to write 2-4 sides of A4. I've wandered off of topic. Actually, in true Patrick style, I never had a topic. So I shall do the other thing Patrick does, leave you abruptly and feeling disappointed. Soz.

*the term masses has been used loosely

Parachuting- Paddy

I spent a good 3 hours today dropping parachutes that I made out of a bin liner off of the various internal balconies at college. (Yeah my college has balconies INDOORS, it has that much class.) I did this not just for "the lols" as some (but not me) might say but for my A-Level Physics grade. I had to do a practical experiment involving dropping parachutes and the various factors influencing the time of the 'chutes descent. For a piece of coursework, I found it surprisingly fun not least due to the fact 4 other boys were stood with me, all doing slight variations on the parachute dropping theme. One boy even rigged uo an intricate parachute guidance system to make sure all his drops followed the same path. The rest of us were envious of his genius but only briefly. It kept screwing up and snagging his parachutes and thereby made his results take a lot longer to collect. I gloated about this, because I got to leave about an hour before him.On a different note, the Young Boys will not be building upon last week's stirling 2-2 draw. Today we have a league cup tie against the Tuga Stars. The Tuga Stars are 5th in Division 1, the Young Boys are 2nd bottom in Division 2. I am not confindent in my teams ability to match or better our superior opposition. We can only hope that unforseen circumstances prevent the Tuga Stars from arriving at football on time and therefore have to forfeit the game. A non-lethal and non-injuring car crash would do nicely. Or any other way of preventing them playing will do. Anything at all.

Me - Alex

 You may or may not know/care that in my recent history I shaved off the jewfro that had become my trademark. Even before I took a set of clippers to my much loved (and probably equally detested) barnet I knew that I would grow it back. Every day since I shaved my head I've been taking a picture of myself from the shoulders up. Now I have 73 photos of my face from 73 consecutive days, all I can say is that my hair is much smaller than I was hoping for. As you can see on the left my hair is still not even resembling a jewfro at all. It's just a little bit fluffy and messy. Also you will notice that I changed location, I did that after 25 days because it's much brighter in my room than in the corner of my living room. Something else that came to my attention is how stinking grumpy I look! I understand that I'm hardly going to look too excited for a quick photo, but I look like I've just been told that JLS have broken up (I'm possibly their biggest fan, they just produce hit after hit, it's they aren't human?!).

I now fear that my hair is going to take a much longer time than I originally forecasted to morph back into the glorious jewfro that made me a recognisable happy chappy. B.C. (before cutting) I thought I'd have something vaguely resembling a jew fro withing about 4 months. Now I'm 2.5 months in I'm thinking that it'll be a solid 6 months before I have anything even close to my ex-trademark mop. Very sad times for my scalp.

Ps. Just to let you know, I'm 69% misanthropic, or at least so I'm told by this website http://www.blogthings.com/howmisanthropicareyouquiz/

Uncertainty- Paddy

Uncertainty is defined by google as

The state of being uncertain: "times of uncertainty and danger".

Something that is uncertain or that causes one to feel uncertain: "financial uncertainties".

Today I find myself expiriencing the first definition there. As I write this blog, I am uncertain of 3 things. Firstly, what to write this blog about; I'm considering writing an entire post about being uncertain but I'm not sure that would go down to well with you, the readers. Secondly, I am uncertain about what to do post-blog. I have work tonight at 7pm and do not really know how to fill my two hour gap until then. I should probably shower and get dressed. Yes, thats right, it is now 16:51 and I am yet to get out of my Pjs. And what. My third area of uncertainty is what to buy my Father for the upcoming winter festival known colloquially as "Crimbo". My mother has suggested that my sister and I purchase him either beer, a t-shirt, books or slippers. It is likely that we get one of the first 3 options as I refuse to buy him slippers as that seems like an old person thing to buy him. No offence to old people who buy slippers for christmas.

This blog is  now plenty long enough and I apologise for writing the whole thing about uncertainty. I expect my doing this will lead to a disappointingly low number of page views, unlike this post, which now has over 100. Just saying.

Community - Alex

Being an A-level Modern History student I had the pleasure of studying Britain from the tail end of WW2 right up until the present day. One them that was ever-present was the sense of community across the vast majority of Britain. Post war jingoism led to mass street parties and huge outcries of pride in being British. When you add that the style of living back in the day lent itself to promoting a deeply ingrained sense of community, it is no surprise that everyone knew everybody's news and neighbour's were usually close friends.

I find the idea of "community" awfully charming, sadly my stomping ground seems to be devoid of this sense of community. I live in a 5 house cul-de-sac, meaning, in theory me and my family could be friends with all four of our neighbours. As I have already referenced, there is no real community feel to my area. We used to be fairly chumy with one set of our neighbours, however when they moved out it all seemed to disintegrate. Working clock wise around the cul-de-sac my personal feeling towards the inhabitants of the houses go as follows...

Lovely, lovely elderly bloke living by himself. Occasionally we exchange pleasantries and swap small talk.

A family with children (now adults) just a few years older than me. I've lived next door to them for nearly 18 years yet still know very little about them.

Another family with children a few years older than myself. They probably moved in about 5 years ago, and they seem nice enough people. I'll nod at them if we see one another, but rarely hold a full conversation.

Now just a couple, used to have children who grew up and moved out. The only other house which has never changed ownership during my 17 and 3/4 years in the cul-de-sac. The husband endlessly cleans his car and mows his lawn. I know little else.

Now that's bad. I've lived within 50 feet of these people for many years and beyond their names, vague occupations and habits I know very little. It works the other way too, only the man living by himself knew in advance that I had booked my driving test. He is also my only neighbour who knows what course I want to do at university, where I want to go and how my football is going. The long and the short of it? Whilst the idea of community is a quaint one, it seems not the be feasible in my location. I dare not speak on his behalf, but I assume that Patrick is in an all too similar position.

So to end the blog on a thought, where has the community spirit gone? Much the same way as posting a letter I assume, it only over happens at Christmas.

Advent- Paddy

Today is the first day of the twelth month of the eleventh year of the first century of the second millenium since Jesus was born (alledgedly, don't want to annoy the Jews/ Hindus/ Muslims/ Sikhs/ Buddhists/ Athiests/ Scientologists/ Jedis/ Others). That means that is now only 24 days until Jesus' 2011th birthday. This in turn means that today I got to open an advent calender and consume the delicious square of chocolate concealed behind that small cardboard door. My piece was shaped like a cracker today (the kind you pull to make a bang, not the kind you spread butter and cheese on). I  realised that finding the excitement of opening the calendar so exciting is a tad wrong for someone who is now legally an adult who can vote and what not. I was somewhat shaken out of this deadening realisation when I realised my sister, who is now a 20 year old in her final year at a not bad university, was even more excited about hers and was extremely indignant when my mother suggested she not get one this year. Fortunately, my mother yielding to Vikki's requests, otherwise I fear the blood of many an innocent child parading their calendars in Exeter would have been killed. Probably not though, Vikki isn't the murdering type. Or at least she isn't as far as I'm aware...

Taking on the seasons - Alex

Come on winter, hit me with your best shot. With a coat in the post on the way to me the every day chills will be so 2010/11 winter. As well as that I got four vests today, primark basics; ready to slapped on underneath a casual tee or, if I'm feeling uber swanky, a proper shirt. Two white, one grey and then one black. That takes my total vest count up to 5, my first vest was given to me by Daniel Cook. What I'm really hoping for is snow, then I'll be able to really show off. Waterproof walking boots, water proof trousers and a decent quality warm waterproof rain coat will leave me dry and warm whilst my fellow frolicking teens will be left cursing their lack of mountain climbing expeditions requiring decent amounts of kit. Mark my words.

You know what happens in winter? It's Christmas. Despite being a firm Atheist I still celebrate Christmas, and that's because I don't really need an excuse to have two weeks off from college, eat loads of junk food and laze around the house. There have been loads of lists in this blog, so here's one final list...

Gracias por leer, adiós por ahora
أشكركم على القراءة، وداعا الآن
J'aime la musique pop, en particulier celle des années quatre-vingt

Beavers- Paddy

OVER 1000! That is how many views alex'n'paddy has got so far this month! 1,015 to this moment in time. This is nice, it shows continued increases in the number of page views per month and that leads to a good feeling in my tummy. It also means that November has recorded almost 1/5 of our total views, which now total 5,247. Thanks for looking at this that many times.

Moving on to the main section of this blog, I shall now write about... I'm not sure actually, I hadn't come into today's blog with a pre-planned topic. Oh I have one! Yesterday, at football, the (formely Hufflepuff) Young Boys did not lose! We drew a game 2-2 with 2nd in the league no less. Get us and our not being entirely awful at football for once. Our goals were scored by Will and by virtue of a calamitous own goal deflected off of one of the opposing defender's buttocks. The other team did not enjoy the game as much as we did obviously and got quite frustrated with the whole scenario. The scenario being them having wave after wave of attack and us, to quote Chris Kamara, "fighting like beavers"to defend our goal.

Thats me all done for today, I'll be back with you, my esteemed readers, on Thursday.

Maverick - Alex

I just spent 15 minutes evading the police with nothing but a pistol and a scooter. Be in real life this is not, virtual reality is where it's at. Saints Row: The Third as a matter of fact. I decided to take a break from the traditional gang overlord things to do such as finding crates of sex dolls and or blowing up boats. It was fun, sometimes it's just nice to go back to your crime roots and have a little muck about with law enforcement. Virtually of course, I would never advocate crime. In Saints Row all sorts of crimes are made fun; insurance fraud is glorified, killing people is glamorised and best of all nitrous is at the heart of all things swaggerous.

Carrying on with the maverick theme, tonight I have football, and I aim to wreak all sorts of havoc. Expect broken legs, bloodied noses and shattered hopes. The broken leg is probably going to be Patrick's though, his legs are roughly as thick as an average piece of twine. The bloodied nose? Probably Pat again, he tends to be the player who's tossed about more than his fair share. Finally, and most predictably, the shattered hopes are sure to be those of Young Boys. On that sombre note I shall leave you to enjoy the rest of your day. Mwah.

Pub Quiz- Paddy

Diet Coked Up. That was drug/soft drink pun based name of the pub quiz team that my Father, my Mother, my Sibling and myself formed but 3 hours ago for the inaugral quiz at the pub in which I work. It was a good quiz, nicely challenging and, rather nicely, Diet Coked Up finished in an impressive 2nd place with 71 points out of 100, losing out only on a tie-breaker. What type of person knows that a piece of A10 sized paper is only 26mm wide? Answer: none of my family, which is why we lost out. We did, however, get a bottle of wine as a reward for our efforts, but, unfortunately, Vikki is the only member of our family who likes wine.
In entirely unrelated and somewhat less exciting news, I noticed earlier a small red spot forming on my cheek. I gave it a prod to see if it was in any way squeezable but alas it was not. Unfortunately, my prodding has caused it to throb rather painfully since then. This is now causing me further issues as due to the throbbing, I keep reaching up and touching it, causing it to throb yet further. Tis a most upsetting scenario. For me at least, I'm not sure any of you really care.
I am going to go now, because I can't bare to bore you any further with facts about the condition of my facial skin.

Perpetually - Alex

Perpetual means to continue or to endure forever. I have a situations very similar to this in my life at this time of year. Leaves in the back garden! With Autumn (Fall) beginning to fade into winter the beautiful silver birches (they aren't that beautiful, I mean, they are just trees) have shed all of their leaves. They let you know that soon their leaves will be falling quicker than a whores underwear by beginning to display a yellowy tinge on their leaves. Once you see that you know what's coming, a leaf shower 24/7. My problem is that I am the man tasked with clearing the leaves from the back garden. It's soul destroying to spend 2 hours clearing up a carpet of leaves, and then to wake up the next morning, look out of the window, and see that the lawn is once again covered by a sea of orange and brown leaves. This got me thinking, lots of things in my life are never ending. The struggle to stay on top of college work is a good example. Just as I thought I'd got the better of my weeks work yesterday my History teacher uttered the dreadful phrase "It's time for homework setting time, and this week there's tonnes". Or at least something to that effect. Another perfect example would be keeping up with fashion. Just as I think "right, I've got this fashion thing down, bring on the ladies" something bizarre happens. Should I just give up and become a fashion outcast (people still like Patrick, after all) or should I continually be one step behind? It's a never ending duel with trying to adapt trends to myself without looking like a twazzock.

The final think that I'm hoping endures forever is you reading alexnpaddy (the best blog on the web). By that I don't mean that I want it to feel like forever to you when you read a blog, oh no, that would imply that you don't enjoy the blog. Instead, I want you to read the blog every day for the rest of eternity and keep bringing fans into our seemingly ever swelling fan base. And whilst I said you've gotta read it for the rest of eternity, I'd probably let you off if your broadband went down or you died. But they are the only two get out clauses, beyond that you are a committed fan.

Straight outta compton - Guest blogger - Daniel

Yes that’s right. It’s me, Dan Cook. A legendary entity among this blog, neither seen nor heard but ultimately omnipotent and benevolent. These were whispers among the fanbase rippling “Who would be next” as people were reduced to shivering primeval wrecks in anticipation for the next post. “When would it come?”, “Who could it be?” ; the anticipation was said to have been fatal in some cases, with a death count equalling or even surpassing the great Swine Flu pandemic [results pending].

Many of you have wondered what I do with my spare time, and since my documentary isn’t due to come out until 2013 I thought I’d give you a sneak peek. Skyrim admittedly has been a large portion of my life recently, minor mortal functions such as breathing and eating have taken a back seat, my body relying only on the atmosphere and beauty of the Tamrialin province. Attached is a picture of my character, Conan. He’s a Nord. He specialises in two handed weapons and light armour, and is an unparalleled fighter unmatched in battle.

Then there’s my secondary, Dick-ass thief. Dick-ass thief specialises in Stealth, archery and destruction magic. Dick-ass thief was a setback to the Broquest character ‘Dick-ass Thief’, who is sort of a jerk. Long story short my character runs about shooting children, punching horses, punting rabbits across mountains with overpowered flame spells and generally harassing the occupants of Skyrim. And you know what?

He’s so much more OP then my Conan build. 30x more damage with one handed weapons when sneaking, x6 damage with bows and enough traps to screw over an entire garrison of guards.

Sort it out, Bethesda.

de Hair- Paddy

This chap is David de Gea. He is, according to wikipedia, a Spanish footballer who plays for Manchester United as a goalkeeper. He is also, according to Alex and I, the owner of one of the best hairstlyes in football. I myself am currently considering getting my hair cut in such a way that, if styled using a matte wax, it would look not dissimilar to the mighty quiff of de Gea. In fact, today at lunch Alex armed himself with a can of hairspray and tried to style my hair into a quiff. It failed. It was too long so I ended up looking less like de Gea and more like this:

 Also due to the length of my hair, the spray was not strong enough to maintain a fully vertical hold on the style and it drooped back down into its usual positioning on my face. However, all is not lost in the quest for me to get some quiffing good action going on! In exactly 1 week I shall be going to the place where your hair gets cut in exchange for payment and my currently long head of hair shall be snipped and combed and trimmed down into a far more style-able length. This will mean I can de Gea it up and will therefore suddenly become irresistable to members of the opposite sex. Especially those members of the opposite sex who have fetishes for quiffs or David de Gea.
I'm going to finish this blog now, leaving you with the knowledge that within a couple of days the notorious ******* will be the second guest blogger on Alex 'n' Paddy.


PS the title is a pun, de Gea is pronounced de Haya which sounds a tad like Hair. The blog is about de Gea's hair so I thought it'd be hilarious to do that. I was probably wrong.

PPS I did reveal the name of our guest initially, but Alex censored it to build anticipation for his/her post tomorrow. Be excited.

Passion breeds heart problems - Alex

The title, I should make clear, has no backing from the scientific community whatsoever. It is just something I thought of yesterday evening. I was watching the Manchester United game and oh my golly gosh, your heart takes a beating. I turn it on 15 minutes late to find that one of the best football teams in the world are already 1-0 down. My heart didn't like that, but the antidote was fairly swift in it's delivery. A decent performance and then an equaliser showed that we were certainly able of getting the result we expected, the result we were more than capable of getting. Fast forward half an hour and BOOM 2-1 to the United, surely it was plain sailing from there. Well guess what? 80 seconds later I was left with any hope crushed. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my  belief and confidence was drained from my body in an instant and replaced with anxiety. Heat thumping, nail biting and rocking too and fro anxiety. Poised on the edge of my sofa I watched the rest of the game unfold and nothing else happened. So to summarise I spent a good few hours of my life, probably took a day off of my life expectancy due to stress, and all for a frickin' two all draw with Benfica. Worth it? Well is THIS item of lingerie worth £249?

No. (My sister showed my that, I wasn't just randomly looking at womens underwear) It especially isn't worth it with christmas coming up, I need to spend my money on gifts. I've already got one of my female friends a shewee. I don't know why I felt the need to tell you it was a female I bought the shewee for, I think anyone could deduce that a female urination funnel is most likely to be purchased for a lady. If I did give it to a bloke for a christmas present I'd be a bit of a twonk. Actually, on that note, I would like a christmas present from you please. I give you the bi-daily pleasure of my witty, insightful and honest blogs so I think I deserve something back.

Dear Santa,
                  For christmas I would please like the readers of my blog to keep on reading for long into the future, because I quite like watching the little view counter go up week after week. It makes me feel like a super star.

Lots of love from

Alex P 

PCS- Paddy

When I get into college sometimes, I like to have a little nap. Why do I have a little nap? Because I'm lazy and it gives me a nice little break between going to college and getting cracking on my homework. The PCS (Post-College Snooze not Personal Careers Solutions) as I like to call it usually lasts from about 16.30 on a 24 hour clock to about 5.45pm on an ordinary clock, when my parents come in from college and tell me to get up. However, Tuesday is no ordinary day for me college wise. I do not finish at 16.15 as on a standard college day, on Tuesday I am usually home between 12.30pm and 3pm, depending on if I have tutorial or not. Today I did have it, but I was still home by half past 2. I decided that I would bring my PCS forward two hours but I did not bring the ending forward too! I had a cheeky 3 1/2 hour nap after college today. But enough about my laziness! Today I was reading the newspaper, and I saw this article. For those of you too lazy to read that, it basically says that all female celebrities with brown hair, brown eyes and lipstick on are clones of each other and asks why this is happening. I'm not sure this is worthy of a whole page in a newspaper that isn't the Sun. Why do lots of females have brown hair? Because they have little other choice, blonde or a more eccentric non-natural shade. As for brown eyes, I'm not sure there is an awful lot to do about that, what with it being genetic an' all.
I feel thats enough on this blog for today. I'll see you on the day called they call "Thursday".

Attraction - Alex

Whilst MSN are telling me how to instantly be more attractive I also had my own little style guru moment today. The lucky little guinea pig was none other than my co-blogger Patrick. His current hair style is a borderline neat way of having medium length hair. In fact, here's a picture...

Normally it's a little neater than that, just when the photo was taken he was a few hours into a party and therefore inebriated to a point where he did not care about the position of each of his hairs. What I did to our little chap was violently scruff up his hair. Firstly I did it to annoy him, but then I realised it made him look a little bit like a rock star. A little bit like THIS guy. Me and Pat then made a pact that if he received one compliment on his hair in the following 15 minutes he would keep it like that. And in due time he received a compliment, he was told that he looked "adorable". Maybe not quite the sort of compliment an edgy rock star would want but a compliment none the less. I'm hoping this rock star hair style will see him through until he next goes to the hair dressers and gets his hair lopped into a quiff friendly design. Yeah you read that right, a quiff. Like THIS. Maybe even slightly like the front man of THIS band. Basically Patrick wants to look cool and with my help I see that as a vaguely achievable target.

I am, without doubt, the epitome of teenage male swagger. That's a massive lie. I like a bargain and as a result I have lots of t-shirts, polo shirts and such despite not having spent a large sum on my whole wardrobe. Also I wouldn't say I follow trends either, for instance people seem to be wearing lots of "berry" colour trousers round my parts (I'm on about boys as well), I wouldn't ever get caught dead in a pair of purple trousers. Unless it was for a dare. Nor would I go out in a pair of boat shoes or tie the drawstrings on my hoodie together. So I'm borderline trendy (if I don't say so myself) and Patrick is a rising star, no small part down to inspired hair styles. Gok Wan, watch your job, I'm coming for it.

Shiny Knives- Paddy

Today, I had work. I had work because I am a man , and that is what men do. We work. (Incidentally, Alex doesn't work, just saying.) I personally work in a pub as a Barman-Waiter type deal. As jobs go, its not half-bad to do, its fairly simple and I only do short shifts which is pleasant. However, it can be a tad quiet sometimes, and the lack of customers to cerve means I have to find other chores to pass time. Yesterday, I polished cutlery for 45minutes. By the end of that time, we probably had the shiniest knives this side of Penzance. Why Penzance? Well, Penzance is the knife polishing capital of the world. I may have made that fact about Penzance up, but I'm sure they probably do have some pretty shiny cutlery.
You can't tell, but I just took a half hour break there in which I ate my dinner. My dinner was a  Toasted Pork Chop Sandwich. I'm sure you can all figure out what that consists of. No? Really? It was a pork chop, in a sandwich, which I then toasted. It was very tastey, if a little small. A lot of my dinners are quite small. This is because my mother is a tiny little human being and does not seem to understand that most normal sized people do not want to eat portions designed for someone the same height as the average Giant Panda.

Pressure & genetics - Alex

Here comes a serious blog. if you're looking for innocent anecdotes and childish observations then go elsewhere, because my plan to is write a piece of text so mature and sophisticated that if Stephen Fry were to read it he would be thoroughly impressed and endeavour to meet me. Just to help explain that last sentence, I see Stephen Fry as the epitome of intelligence and sophistication. Plus I imagine he's fairly well read and approaches any topic with no bias and a willingness to understand any point of view. Also this blog is in a different font to most of mine because I wrote it on word before copying it into blogger, because I really care about this one.

I am a currently a student at college; it is also that time where I get to send off my university applications. But that’s a topic for a completely different blog. Right now what I want to talk about is stress, or maybe stress is the wrong word. Pressure. It currently feels like there are great expectations on me to excel at college, go on to do a fantastic degree at university, then enter a job where I can work up to a senior position all before I hit middle agedness. These expectations are coming from left, right and centre. I admit that I do put a lot of pressure on myself, not because of insecurities or arrogance but because I know I have the potential to do brilliantly. As a small child I was adamant I would go to university, I could see no other way my life would work out. I knew I wouldn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge, but the tier of universities directly below the big two I saw as where I was “destined” to be. Fast forward to the end of my childhood and I was still aiming for a top university place. Now it seems much more likely that I end up with a place at a decent university. Decent as opposed to top; less than I would have hoped for. I cannot, however, complain; it is all my own doing. My adversity to hard work is what has caused me to be a lesser academic than I could have been.

This is where the genetics part of the title comes into play. I seem not to be able to motivate myself for any extended period of time. In my head I weigh up the pros and cons (mainly pros) of working hard, and then I get home and half heartedly revise for some time before giving up and playing on the xbox. It seems genetically ingrained in me that I look for the easiest route through life, if I’m brutally honest it’s what my Dad has done for many years. It seems to have rubbed off/been passed down to me. I hasten to add that I don’t always give up with revision and play xbox, there are days when I can get my head down and work hard for hours on end. The only problem is that these days are too scarce. I will also state that since joining college I do think my work ethic has improved no end, I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing homework on a weekend back when I was 15, in contrast I plan to spend a few hours today and a few hours tomorrow revising for my exams in January. Imagine that, me, out of free choice, revising for exams which aren’t even just around the corner. And on that note I’m going to make some breakfast and then re-learn the entirety of Russian history so that I do less rubbish in the exam and therefore hit the offer given to me by the universities of Exeter and Leicester.

Bond- Paddy

Today was Children In Need, and in order to aid this notable and charitable cause, my college had a Heroes and Villains themed day. This meant we were supposed to dress up in costumes as either a hero or villain to raise lots of money. I went as James Bond (the Pierce Brosnan one), who whilst not being a hero in the "super" sense of the word, is still pretty damn heroic. More heroic than the guy who dressed up as Scooby-Doo anyway. I was pleased with my costume, it was basically just a suit with a mask I'd made of Brosnan's face. I didn't wear the face all day due to it not fitting my face properly but as a consolation more than one female told me that my suit made them "wetter than a fish in a leaky submarine". I may have paraphrased that a tad, but thats what I inferred from their actual comments of "Thats a nice suit you have". Also today was Man-Free. Man-Free is a free that I and 3 other of my male friends have where we do manly things. We have bought beer and fireworks in the past, but today we ate ribs. Ribs are manly. The rib eating was made manlier today by the wearing of my James Bond suit because suits are also manly.
I am going to go now and watch Snatch, a 2000 crime film written and directed by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, featuring an ensemble cast. At least thats what wikipedia says. All I know is it stars Jason Statham, and he is a god.

I know people - Alex

I know people, people who do all sorts of things. People who are destined to have wikipedia pages created for them, and about them, due to all sorts of success within an industry the public pay attention to.

One guy who used to be in my history class is the drummer in a band who make MUSIC. I'm all that certain he will one day be a minor pin up and therefore a D list celebrity. I am at the level of acquaintance with him that we nod at each other when we pass one another in the corridor. Once when using adjacent urinals we even had a little chat about our recently completed coursework.

Not content with just a rock star I also have a football player as a pal. Who am I mates with? Rooney? Ronaldo? Not quite, my buddy goes by the name of Sean Latimer. He plays for Torquay United's youth team and from my memory he can kick a ball at roughly the speed of light. Just in case you don't believe me here's a website that proves his existence. Yeah, my main man scoring in order to set up a tie with Manchester United. Bet you've heard of them! Me and Seany poo go back, I remember once he was left midfield and I was the right back in a proper league game, if memory serves he destroyed me. More recently than that I came to his rescue when a somewhat unattractive female (she was a frickin' troll) was trying to lock lips with him. To cut a long story short I interrupted a lot, he was very grateful. Because of that I reckon when he plays for England I can get some free world cup final tickets. Not that I'm being overly optimistic.

Last, but by no means least, apparently the third best female fencer in the country is in my maths class. I will concede that fencing is less glamorous than rock music or football, and I shall also admit that I have never held a full conversation with her, but I considered it relevant. So there you are, todays blog nailed. I hope you look forward to Patrick's blog tomorrow, respect.

Cold- Paddy

Today, was cold. I decided that today, instead of wearing a hoody, I'd wear my coat to college to keep me warmer. I made the wrong desicion. I should have worn both. That may just about have kept me warm today. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it gets really cold though, probably add a scarf or hat to my ensemble to try and maintain a positive body temperature. I imagine you all think I'm being a bit of a wimp, it was only 8 celsius, and where you live I'm sure you routinely go out in temperatures of down to -23 degrees in flip flops and shorts. Well, in answer to your wimp-based accusations, I'm going to agree with you. I am a wimp, but you know what? I don't care! The cold is bad! When I come to power I'm going to outlaw temperatures below 15 degrees. Thats how much I hate the cold, I would be willing to battle to power of the seasons and the climate to prevent myself getting more than a little chilly. If I can't beat the seasons, I'll stop myself getting cold in other ways like doing everythig inside! Incidently, the lack of cold is one of the only benefits to playing football inside, no longer do I have to get up and drive for an hour to play a game that kicks off at 9am in the middle of december when its only 3 degreesa and get beaten 5-0. No, now I can get beaten 5-0 at a reasonable hour, in the warm and in less than 30 minutes. All about the convinient thrashings.I shall go now, and put on a second pair of socks. I'll see you on thursday.

Sad times - Alex

Yesterday Patrick told you about the forthcoming ultimate game ever and all other sorts of massive build up. It was crap. We lost, we didn't play very well and it crushed my high spirits. I ran lots and I'm no doctor but I'm positive I was having a heart attack, that makes it much more difficult to be an effective team member. I don't want to bore you with details but as a team Young Boys scored less goals than Woking Kebabs, and that generally equates to a loss. In fact I can't think of one fair occasion when a team scored fewer goals than the opposition and won. Note the use of the word fair, no Italian mafia ting going on here.

However when I got in I quickly found the remedy to sadness. After a quick shower I put on a pair of fresh and crisp boxer shorts I made myself an nice unwinding horlicks, sat in front of my laptop and watched THIS twice all the way through. I don't think anyone on the planet makes me quite as genuinely and thoroughly happy as he can. His adorable yet moronic way of plodding through life makes me laugh, smile and I'd say cry, but then that means I cry, which I don't. I just cry with laughter at stuff like THIS. Not only does Liam Neeson do good comedy there, Liam Neeson owns comedy there. Ah, no more sad times. That's always nice.

P.s. Look at him, he's a frog.

The greatest game- Paddy

According to the internet, the greatest game of sport ever played was the 1958 NFL Championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. I am inclined to disagree. The greatest game of sport ever played has not yet been played (at the time of writing) and it is infact later this evening. The game in question is an Aldershot District 5-A-Side league game between the Young Boys (mine and alex's team) and Woking Kebabs (the team of some of our friends). You may feel I have exaggerated the importance of the game, but if you've ever lost a competitive match to someone you know at school or college, then you know how big this is. Imagine losing, and having to go into your place of education,surrounded by your mocking and judgemental peers. Imagine the blow that'd deal to a young mans self-esteem. Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky. That last point may not be my own or in fact relevant, but getting back to the point, you all know how merciless teenage boys are when it comes to mocking. If we lose tonight, the mocking would be relentless and I'd probably kill  myself rather than face the pain of seeing the jeering faces of our fellow students.I'm going to go now and listen to Eye of the Tiger on repeat to psyche myself up now. Afterall, kick off is only 1 hour and 46 minutes away.

Male spooning - Alex

Over the next short blog I shall be attempting to answer the question: Male spooning, necessity or luxury? As Patrick made clear to you I spent the weekend in a forest with other people who I get to climb a mountain with. As one of three men (boys) in our team I was lumped with the other two knuckle dragging penis bearing individuals as a tent buddy. I managed to get myself one of the sides as opposed to awkwardly sleeping in the middle. The one big problem that did arise though is spooning. No matter what happens the person in the middle has to either stare at another mans face from 2 inches or spoon with them. As it happened in the middle of the night all three of us ended up facing the same way, making a "spoon train". A bit like the "lol train", only with one subtle difference. I now have dinner and then I'm more than certain I'll fall asleep instantly. Speak to you lot on Tuesday :)

My Plans for Today- Paddy

Hey guys! Back to the norm for now, back to Me and Alex until our next guest in a couple of weeks or so.
Today is for me quite a busy day. That is why I am awake in the morning, a very rare occurence. I am about to eat a brunch which is like a breakfast-lunch where you have cooked breakfast just really late to call it breakfast. The reason for brunching is that I am going to have an early dinner at roughly 4.30-5PM and to eat a full breakfast and lunch would marr my appetite for dinner. I am eating dinner so early because it is not possible for me to eat dinner at the normal time due to my being at the England Vs Spain match at Wembley Stadium. I am looking forward to attending this game despite the fact the the English will undoubtably be beaten by the Spaniards. Post-Football, I have to attend a party as one of my friends has reached the milestone of being 18 years of age, and here in England (not sure about the rest of the world) that is deemed cause for celebration. Unfortunately due to the afformentioned game of football, I shall be arriving a little over 1 hour late for this fiesta, which I think is past being fashionably late and borders on just ordinary late.
I'm done now, I'm not sure if Alex will be able to blog tomorrow as he is in the New Forest on a practice hike for when he climbs Mt Kilimanjaro next year. Personally, I don't think the New Forest is a particularly good practice place, due to the lack of mountain.

Leprechauns - Guest blogger - Rachael

I have two beautiful friends. Two beautiful smart, blog-loving friends. Their names are, of course, Alex and Paddy. Betcha kind of jealous that I get to blog as a guest on their o'so'popular blog. (I reckon they're already famous because of this web-master.)
As you can already most probably tell, I am not a frequent experienced blogger, however I'm willing to give it a shot. :D

First of all I'd like to say that I am a very lucky person to have a friend like Alex. Through out the years, I've grown to love this once-afro'd strawberry blonde named Alex. I wouldn't change him for the world, so. Although I'm old enough to have my own eBay now. I won't be selling an Alex anytime soon. He's for keepsies. And I'm not lying when I say Alex is one of a kind, of course this applies to Paddy too. Their like two perfect build'a'bears. It's like buy one get one free with A&P.

Basically for my first blog post, ever, I think? I'm feeling pretty intelligent cos if you've ever met me, you'll know I'm not the smartest pea in the pod. But who likes peas anyway!? Probably only leprechauns because they are green miniature men etc. Even with the word 'corn' in their name, I still genuinely think they'd vote for peas whilst clipping their toe nails on flimsy rainbows. What a life. I used to think Paddy was a leprechaun because he's magical and has a funny name. But i realized...

Leprechauns don't exist, but thank god Alex and Paddy do! Peace out.

Deliveries - Alex

My house is a thriving centre of parcels and boxes at this very moment. Mini frying pans. Retro ukuleles. New computers. The lot, you name it, it's on route to my house right now. In a big van, with the driver wearing a high viz waist-coat. This is undoubtedly because of the approaching festive season, not only are gifts purchased and delivered but the approaching date (December the 25th) makes people think "Oh golly gosh, the year is almost over and I haven't even done that thing that I planned to do early on in the year." That's precisely the reason there is a new computer hurtling towards my current location. Out with the 9 year old rickety steed and in with a brand spanking new, cut price, entry level machine. My mummy gave up with waiting 14 minutes to load a web page and spending 7 hours and 36 minutes sitting in front of the screen patiently watching Microsoft XP do its thing and start up. Now Windows 7 will open before she can blink and the Internet will power through any web page she can think of. The world will literally be her oyster once again. What a pleasant thought.

Now for some exciting Alexnpaddy news, guest bloggers! The plan is (well my plan anyway) to publish the first guest blog ever tomorrow and then depending on how many guest bloggers we can get I would imagine we may well have a guest blogger once a fortnight. I hope you enjoy him/her and that you appreciate this new interesting snippet on our humble web log.

Its guy love- Paddy

Before reading this blog, watch this video. Did you watch it yet? No? Go back and watch it. Ok, that was the official video to Guy Love by the Blanks. It is a song about a bromance, between two men and their totally non-gay love for each other. That song explores a similar feeling to the relationship between Alex and myself. We have a bromance, and we are ok with that. It puts us up with great fictional pairings like Joey and Chandler, and JD and Turk, as well as the oh so real bromance of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Today, the pair of us (Alex and I) went on a guy date together. It was jolly good fun. We had a Frankie & Benny's, just the two of us. And, as if we couldn't get any camper, we then went shopping. I bought a hoody, a t-shirt, some jeans, and a hat, to keep my ears warm in the winter. Alex bought a pair of trackies, because he has a casual swagger like that. I almost bought a casual blazer for wearing over t-shirts but was unable to as the only one they had in the shop was slightly too small for me to be wearing. Post-shopping, the two of us returned to Alex's humble abode (not that humble really, it has 4 bedrooms) and played many hours of FIFA, and scored many virtual goals.
Righty-ho, I'm off now internet, I shall see you again at some point in a few days and it will be merry.

Cookery - Alex

Firstly for those of you who are interested me and Patrick are fairly happy after a 5-1 defeat. 5-1 actually flatters the opposition a little I feel, if it weren't for a few individual mistakes I think we could have left the arena with a 3-1 or maybe even 2-1 defeat. Also I basically saved a penalty, which means in my whole time playing 5-a-side football I have been in goal for three penalty kicks and not one has been scored. Impressive stuff.

Now for the main body of today's instalment of witless ramblings. Cookery, the art of taking a bunch of seemingly unrelated ingredients and crafting them into a mouth watering piece of magic. Or something like that anyway. I cannot cook anything that doesn't come with instructions, which is a bit of a shame. My youngest sister, however, is a glorious desert maker; the things she can't do with flour and sugar aren't worth knowing. It's truly astounding. She isn't too shabby at making starters either; she makes an incredibly crusty fishy pot thing. Crusty and fishy, if I was immature I'd make a joke about that but I shall demonstrate my reserve by not even mentioning anyone's private parts. My favourite meal? Well for starters I really like bruschetta, it is scrumptious. For main course I love a nice lean steak, cooked medium rare. To accompany the steak I'd like nice British fat chips, onion rings, mushrooms, roast tomatoes and maybe even some asparagus. Also I'd like a healthy serving of blue cheese sauce on the steak, blue cheese is magical. For desert I'd be stupid if I asked for anything other than warm apple pie with high quality vanilla ice cream. So if any of you readers ever host me for a three course meal now you don't even need to think about what to cook.

Part three of "Cookery" by Alex Pointon (lion tamer extraordinaire), guest bloggers. One of my close friends recently quit college in order to pursue an accountancy apprenticeship, but he doesn't start his apprenticeship until January, leaving him with a lot of spare time on his food filled hands. I suggested to him that he could write a blog for this website, to spruce it up. Something new to keep Alexnpaddy ahead of the competition (I literally have no idea who we're competing with). This made me think, if I could convince enough people who I find funny maybe we could maybe it a regular thing. Once a fortnight you could hear from one of our friends. It's an idea Patrick knows nothing about, but I shall put it to him today! If I remember too, that is.

There you have it, a nice long blog to make up for my shocker on Sunday. Lots of love from Alex.

Days off- Paddy

This week I only have a total of 7 lessons in college as opposed to my usual 13. "Why?!" I hear you all cry, flabberghasted by this news. Well, tomorrow my tutorial has been cancelled and on Wednesday and Thursday there is no college at all for anyone due to something. I'm not sure what the something is, but it is worthy of the entirety of my college being shut for two days. It is likely that, because I'm a square, I will spend one of the two days doing college work and the like. The other day, however, will most likely be spent with Alex in a nearby town, shopping, on a little guy date. Don't judge us. We both need clothes, its just easier to go as a pair. I need to buy a pair of jeans and a hoody and a hat to stop my ears getting cold in the winter time. Whilst I'm on the subject of doing things with Alex, we have football tonight. As per usual we expect to lose this game, especially since the team we are playing is currently top of the league. Sometimes I wonder why we persist in playing this 5-a-side every week, but I think the (very) rare wins make it worth it.
I am off now, I shall blog once again on the glorious day of Wednesday, November 9th 2011 AD.

Gangster - Alex

Today I have spent a lot of time wishing I was a very wealthy gang leader, with an unparalleled arsenal and huge respect in da hood. But then that's because I'm super excited for Saints Row: The Third. It has literally glamorised the gangster lifestyle to such an extent that I think I'd be happy to ditch middle class British life for it. Aaahh the impressionable minds of today's youth. I have a little phrase, "Any video game where you can beat someone to death with a three foot long purple dildo is the joint best video game ever." Ok I just made that up, but I'm all buy certain that it is a statement that will prove true. As I write out this blog I have Saints Row 2 in my Xbox and my character is standing in one of my more luxurious cribs with many scantily clad digital women dancing around him. Some of them women are even in the pool. A pool in a penthouse! What isn't to want?! My tea is ready, so I guess I'm going to have to leave you short changed in terms of blog quantity. From this gangster, peace out.

Fireworks- Paddy

Hello Internet, welcome back to Alex'n'Paddy. Or alternatively: Welcome to Alex'n'Paddy if this is your first visit and you only stumbled across this humble blog during your unending search for pornography.
Today, I am going to blog about... Fireworks. Today is the 5th November, and in the UK that means it is Fireworks Night. Fireworks Night, alternatively known as Bonfire Night and Guy Fawkes Night, is an evening upon which most of the country has either a) Fireworks, b) A Bonfire or c) Both of those. The reason for this celebration is because many hundreds of years ago in the early 17th century, a Catholic chappy called Guy Fawkes and a couple of his mates tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, which at the planned time would have contained our king, James I. Fortunately the Fawkes Posse was foiled and they were all horribly excuted and to this day we celebrate this. There are even a poems about it which go along these lines. However, I think that Fireworks Night is amongst the least worthy celebrations and now, along with Halloween, New Year and Valentine's Day, has devolved into an excuse to have a party and get drunken. Call me a kill joy, but thats just my opinion. The only good thing about Fireworks is the involvment of fire. Not that I'm a pyromaniac or anything.

Great outdoors - Alex

I am going to climb a mountain. Not today, not tomorrow, not even this calendar year. Next summer, just so you know. Obviously climbing a mountain requires some training, the training that I am receiving in just eight days. I am spending a weekend camping in the New Forest, as close as you can actually get to an African mountain. This required me to buy some kit of my own (remember this?). so today I decided to give my walking boots their first real taste of the outdoors in the form of a gentle stroll through a soggy local woods. Tell you what, nature's actually alright. Cute little squirrels, dog walkers and bird song don't actually do a bad job of putting a spring in your step. And I will admit to whistling all of the way home, how cliche. In my brand new fleece, fairly old coat and technological walking socks I was cosy as you like. And before you think about it too much, my walking socks are technological because they have two layers so that the sock rubs against itself instead of your foot, preventing blisters forming. CLEVER. Now here's a picture of me looking ready to take on the great outdoors.

Sexy

That's what I looked like at about quarter to eleven this morning, now I'm just wearing boxers and a vest. I feel I do my best work when I'm all but naked. Now I'm off to my relaxation hub, the toilet, I will speak to you on Sunday :)