One way ticket to Neverland please?

So it hit me recently, by the end of this year, I'll no longer be a teenager ...

I mean, I know after eighteen you're considered 'an adult', but let's be honest, none of us really take that term seriously. Twenty is scary. Two decades. A lot has happened in that time ...

When I turned eighteen, I decided I didn't really want to get any older so I've just been waiting for Peter Pan. I figured I could just chill with him and the Lost Boys in Neverland forever, but after a year of waiting, I'm starting to give up hope, that ship has definitely sailed ... Damn you Disney. 

There's a lot of things I miss from childhood: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Kenan and Kel, Top of the Pops, 5ive, The Spice Girls ... but mainly the simplicity, the freedom and the carelessness. I didn't care what people thought, there was no goal at the end of everything, nothing happened for a reason; there was no pressure.

When I was little I just wished all of that away, I wanted to be a 'grown up', but when I compare it to today, I had it pretty good. I like to think I have grown up, left certain things behind me and I haven't completed my childhood in vain, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a trace of Steps in my iTunes to this day ...

We all had to grow up sometime; it's an inevitable cycle. It's easy to get wrapped up in the here and now and completely forget the innocence and naivety of childhood, but it determines where you are today. There will always be a shadow of a child inside of me, and I hope I never lose that no matter how old I get. 

'Anyone for a cuppa?'

Tea. I am in a long term relationship with the stuff. When everything else is going wrong in your life, a cup of tea (or five) will sort you right out.  

When I get up in the morning, the first thing to go on is the kettle. When I get home in the afternoon, the first thing to go on (often even before I take my coat off) is the kettle. I only have to step through my Nan's front door, and without even knowing who it is, my Nan shouts: 'Roger...put the kettle on'.  

Nothing quite compares to a good, traditional, cup of tea. Although I'm partial to a gingerbread latte from time to time in Costa, it just doesn't hit the spot.

The British are known for their obsession with tea but it originates from China, where it was used as a medicinal drink as early as 1500BC. Although it was not introduced in Britain until the 17th century, we have certainly made up for it over the years, with an average of 67 billion cups being drunk in the UK alone per year.

The recommended health guideline is 4 cups a day, I however generally have between 6-8, and I'm not talking about those pathetic little tea cups, I'm talking mega mugs. Although I clearly don't drink it for it's health benefits, there are still plenty of reasons why you can afford to go overboard:

• It is a natural source of fluoride that can help protect against tooth decay and gum disease.
• It contains half the amount of caffeine found in coffee
  
  
  

  Most importantly though ...
  
  
• 80% of office workers claim this is how they find out the most gossip.

Making a good cup of tea however is no mean feat. It has to be perfect. If you're not going to make it properly,  just don't bother.

My pet hates when it comes to tea:

• When someone makes one for themselves and doesn't ask anyone else.
• When you slip with the milk and it's essentially just milk with an 'essence' of tea.
• When you leave it stewing for too long and you get some sort of floating substance on top.
• When you forget about it and let it go cold.
• When the biscuit's too big for your cup.
• When you drop half your biscuit in your tea.
• When you drop your whole biscuit in your tea.
• When it's just not a Yorkshire Tea bag.

Personally, I think Doc Brown's got it down to a 'tea' ... (excuse the pun)

 (This video does contain explicit content)

'Unexpected item in bagging area'

You've reached the end of the supermarket. You're in the ultimate state of depression: they didn't have any chocolate covered Hobnobs, you only have three items and there are queues four people deep at every single check out and ... Coronation Street is starting in twenty minutes. You trudge all the way to the other end of the supermarket, hoping, praying, that the basket queues are shorter. You have two options: let someone else do the hard work but possibly miss Coronation Street or ... take on those self-service checkouts ... There's a wedding and a murder in this one episode: shocker. You can't miss this ... It's the only option. 

There's only one person in front of you. You can do this. You're going to make it. You step up, press start ...

'Please start scanning your items'. Okay, if you insist. Oh isn't this clever, those suckers queueing ...

'Place your items in the bagging area'. Okay, putting it in the bag ...

'Unexpected item in bagging area'

What? You should be expecting this, you told me to put it in there. 

'Please remove the item' 

Fine, taking it out of the bag ...

'Please don't remove items from bagging area' 

Oh my God, putting it back in the bagging area ...

'Unexpected item in bagging area'

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? 

'Please wait for assistance'

You're getting angry. This has already taken you five minutes. The till monitor is giving you dirty looks. You're trying to get her attention but she's ignoring you. She hates her job. She's missing Coronation Street too. You're the hundredth idiot she's had to assist today. She drifts over not uttering a word, just scowling. She whips out her card for the elite, scans it, taps in a code. Simple as that. The plain Hobnobs are in the bag. Now on to the milk ... beep ...

'Unexpected item in bagging area' 

WHY GOD WHY?

Self-Service checkouts are becoming a regular feature in our supermarkets. They started innocently, just one or two for the ambitious and impatient of us, but I recently walked into my local supermarket to find shelf upon shelf of hand held scanners to allow you to scan your entire shop as you go round. Before long there will be no need for any staff; instead of creating jobs, we're eliminating them with unnecessary robots. 

I have never liked these machines not because I'm a technophobe, not because I'm lazy but because they never work and quite frankly I object to paying the ever increasing prices for groceries when I'm having to do everything myself. These people get paid more than the rest of us for purely standing there scowling at customers, scanning my items is the least they can do.

However, despite them being, in my opinion, one of the most useless creations known to Man, there are times when I am willing to increase my blood pressure in using them. For example, when the cashier is very clearly some socially challenged, crazy cat lady who just wants to talk about her cats for half an hour, or when the person in front of you is an absolute imbecile who's forgotten half their shop, and picked up several items without bar codes. My favourite though is when the cashier kindly informs them it's buy one get one free and despite them very clearly not needing or wanting another packet of ham, as the sell by date is only two days away, they still have to go back to get one because it's free. What they don't realise however is that it's not free, they've simply increased the price of one packet of ham to justify giving the other one away for free. 

I'm not even going to try and defend the fact that this is a rant today. I went to Tesco for two cartons of milk and some garlic bread and ended up spending more time trying to scan the items than actually finding them in the supermarket. Next time, the only 'unexpected item in the bagging area' will be probably be my fist.

Changing the World at Fifteen.

Education. 

Something we all take for granted here in England. 

It's free.

It's compulsory. 

It's a right. 

Not everyone has this privilege though, particularly girls living in the Swat district of Pakistan, girls such as Malala Yousafzai. Since 2003, the Taliban have ordered schools to close and restricted education just to boys. Malala has been bravely campaigning against this since she was just eleven-years-old, keeping a diary and creating blogs under a pseudonym for the BBC about the girls' strife. 

I'm sure most of you are aware of Malala's tragic story but for those who may not be, she was shot in the head by the Taliban in October last year when she was just fourteen-years-old for going against the Taliban regime and campaigning for women's rights. 

She has since been receiving life saving treatment in England, and today she spoke out: 

Even after the horrific shooting, she remains fearless and is continuing to pursue her strong belief that everybody has a right to education.

Up until today I have to say, I'd only heard snippets of her story, and just placed her as part of that sad, helpless image that is the Afghanistan war, but when I saw this footage, it truly humbled me.

At fifteen, she's standing up to terrorism, representing all of the women everywhere whose voices have been stifled by the Taliban: she's changing the world. 

What were you doing at fifteen? Your biggest predicament was probably what to wear to that party on Friday. 

I think back to school and I'm ashamed: ashamed of all the girls who used to mess around in class, throw abuse at teachers, and skive off; ashamed of myself for all the mornings I just looked at my alarm, turned it off and rolled over back to sleep; ashamed of all of us for taking such a privilege for granted. 

Nelson Mandela said 'Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world' and never was there a truer example of this. Her courage, her strength and her modesty are inspirational; teenagers everywhere could learn a lot from her ...

I hope Malala's vision comes true but also that the United Nations will continue to support her in her mission. 

None of us could ever relate to what the citizens of these war torn countries are suffering but I found Khaled Hosseini's novels, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, not only great reads, but particularly powerful in portraying the horrific, individual suffering, that we are ignorant to, going on on the other side of the world, the side the media doesn't portray. 

'When I was a youngster ...'

So today I encountered a six, maybe seven-year-old girl, with an iPhone 5 ... at the risk of sounding like my Grandparents, 'when I was a youngster' I was happy with a colouring book. 

Here's what phone I was sporting at her age: 

That's right people, the Playmobil 6GS. With an incredible nine buttons, it was one of the most far forward for  its time among the under 8's. You could get coverage anywhere, it came in several colours, and the camera was so complex and high quality, it had to be purchased separately; you were set for your birthday and Christmas present that year.  

If I wanted to dial 999 for Fireman Sam, I could. If I wanted to have a three hour conversation with Scary Spice about the possibility of having a sixth Spice Girl, I could. More importantly however, if I dropped it, like I inevitably would, it didn't smash to pieces, and it would probably only cost £4.99 to replace. I had a childhood ...

Now I hear you ask how I knew it was hers, well her Mother was absorbed in her own iPhone, and I didn't think her Father was a pink diamanté casing kind of guy. 

'Maybe she was older than she looked?' Maybe you're right, but in my opinion she was still far too young for such a phone. 

What is a child honestly going to use an iPhone for? 

First off there's the expense; if you put her on contract, she'll probably be calling Hong Kong and you'll have a £300 bill at the end of the month, alternatively you're looking at £500-£700 to buy it outright.  

Secondly, how do they even know how to use it properly? I struggle to move my way round iTunes lately. They can't have Facebook or Twitter, they're not interested in the stock market, and they're hardly going to be pre-booking their luggage in on an airline app. 

Can they be trusted? Who is to monitor who they're calling and texting? The emergency services get enough prank calls as it is and it is this kind of naivety that paedophiles search for. 

This was my first mobile aged eleven. It was my Mum's old one and I used it purely to play Snake as none of my friends had a phone of their own. 

I recognise the instinctive parental concern in today's society for children's safety, and the justification will be 'I need to know where she is', but why would a child so young be out on their own? 

Times change, technology progresses, and we are undeniably caught up in this roller-coaster which has no intention of stopping just yet, but although we have to move with it, an attempt to retain childhoods, is not too much to ask. 

The Weird and the Wonderful.

Having two jobs, I get the privilege of meeting a diverse range of people. The jobs couldn't be more different, nor could the people that I encounter, and today was no exception. I seemed to be a magnet for strange people approaching me. 

First off, a guy in the street tries to convert me to some religion. No other mug stopped. The heads went down, eyes diverted, the shuffles became quicker. I however, blindly walked into the trap. As soon as I saw him I wanted to run. He wore a hat (which obviously makes him dodgy) and a long coat, and I just knew he was going to try and sell me something. Quite frankly, I was on my lunch break and really quite hungry, I didn't have time to talk to this odd ball.

Secondly, there I am stacking books in the library, and a man who I've never met before just comes and stands, less than a metre away from me and just stares. Uncomfortable with the situation, I ask him if I can help him but I get nothing, just a glazed expression. So I try to ignore him and carry on with my work and he starts smiling, then giggling, then waving ... I mean ... what the hell?

Then finally, another extremely odd man comes into the library. As soon as he comes in there's something not quite right about him. He looks shifty. He's holding some dirty carrier bag. He's got narrow eyes that flicker way too fast and he literally can't keep still, up and down like a yo-yo.  As soon as I think he might have found something to occupy his clearly wired mind, in reading a paper, he springs up, strides towards me and says (far too loudly for a library environment I hasten to add) 'can you hold this', extending his carrier bag. Upon my confused expression, he follows it up with 'it's not a bomb, I need the toilet' ... Oh right ...

See, even before any of these people spoke I instantly thought 'these people are freaks' and would have avoided them at all costs but honestly, who knows what's normal? Maybe they're the normal ones and I'm odd. Who am I to judge? 

As it happens the monk gave me a book. I'll probably never read it and his conversation was wasted as I have no intention of converting religions, but a nice gesture all the same. One thing he said struck me though: 'thank you for taking the time to stop'. He seemed genuinely grateful that I'd given him the chance to even explain his ideas, nobody else in the street seemed to. I found he wasn't weird, he was just different. 

The second man turned out to be schizophrenic. He regularly come's into the library, has imaginary conversations with the photocopier and generally invades personal space. Before he left, he made a point of coming to the desk and telling me to 'have a nice day'. I found he wasn't weird, he was just different. 

The third man, didn't have a bomb in his carrier bag, just a kettle. Okay not the conventional day to day items you carry around but again, he was completely harmless. 

We're all guilty of it; judging other people by our own standards but time costs nothing, in that five minutes out of your day, you might meet some very interesting people, different, but interesting.

10 Years of Musical Genius

Coldplay: controversial to say the least. I can honestly say I have absolutely nothing against them; I'm not one of those 'Coldplay should die' protesters. In fact, I am a proud owner of their  album Parachutes and Yellow and The Scientist hold valuable spots as some of my all time favourite songs. However, by the third album in 2005, I like many others I'm sure, were seeing a pattern emerging, and they were becoming a little too easy listening, so easy listening, you could quite easily fall asleep to their repetitive material. 

In light of this, I was somewhat surprised to hear that Clocks was voted the greatest song of the past decade by Radio 6 listeners this week; Clocks? ... not bad but certainly not great. What's more, they were closely followed by Elbow and British Sea Power (I know ... who?).

Now I have a lot of respect for Coldplay, they've stood the test of time and are one of the few bands left who have consistently had hits in the last decade, so maybe this award is well deserved in that respect, but then I thought about all the great songs this title has been stolen from:

Adele's Hometown Glory only at 28.  

Amy Winehouse and Rehab at 25. 

Damien Rice, Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine, James Morrison, Bloc Party, Empire of the Sun, Kings of Leon, The Temper Trap, The Libertines, Klaxons, Arctic Monkeys ... none of these great artists even made the top 20.

I know only one song could take the top spot and with hundreds of amazing artists since 2002, it must have been an incredibly hard decision, but I have tried to compile my own list. It's eaten up a large chunk of my day contemplating the wealth of music in the past ten years (so long in fact, I just missed a Friday post time wise!), but here's how my top five would have looked: 

5# Coldplay - The Scientist - 2002

4# The Kooks - Naive - 2006

3# Damien Rice - Cannonball - 2003

2# Snow Patrol - Run - 2003

1# Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out - 2002

I'm sure everyone will disagree, and add their own personal variations, but I can safely say I will never get bored of listening to these songs and to me, that is how a song should be valued. Although my greatest songs of the last twenty, thirty and even forty years would certainly look a lot different, Stop Crying Your Heart Out would still be up there with the greats, The Beatles, Bill Withers, David Bowie; the list is endless and timeless.