The Act of Giving

It's that time of year again. That time when everyone feels obligated to play their part in relief of world poverty and global warming, saving polar bears, curing cancer, or whatever it is that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. One can hardly move in shopping centres for the hundreds of volunteers dressed up as childhood cartoon characters, shaking yellow buckets at passers-by. After emptying my wallet into the hand of a grown man in a Tigger suit, I decided enough was enough, and as much as I support the Marie Curie Cancer Trust, Unicef, Norwood, and the British Red Cross, I could not help but feel guilty that I was not the one shaking a bucket at innocent strangers.

So it came to be that I gave up my Saturday to schlep the whopping FOUR tube stops to Brent Cross station, where the RockCorps "Pump Up" volunteer team was supposed to meet at 11am sharp. As always, I had overcompensated for travel time and sat, at 10:33, on an ice-cold bench to wait, shivering, in the snow. At 10:50, I began to wonder. Surely the team leaders should have arrived by now? At 11am, I still appeared to be the only person to show up, and as I slowly began to lose feeling in my extremities, I began to panic. Fifteen minutes later, and the leaders still were nowhere to be seen. Other volunteers arrived looking toasty warm, bundled up in coats and hats and gloves and snoods. Eventually, at half past 11, the leaders arrived, at which point we trekked through the unyielding blizzard to Brent Cross shopping centre. Cursing my choice of canvas shoes that morning, I wondered if my toes still even existed, and whether I would ever feel my fingertips again.

Finally, we arrived at the centre, and sat in the blissful warmth of the charity reception room filling in the necessary(?) paperwork. Name. Age. Phone number. I amused myself by filling in the anonymous research form- Sex? Transgender. Education? PhD. Sexual orientation? I don't know. Nationality? Jamaican.

At 12:35, we had split up into our teams, and, sporting embarassingly bright yellow high-visibility jackets, were ready to set to work. At which point our fearless leader slid calmly back into the room to announce: "Unfortunately, because of the snow, the centre's closing in twenty-five minutes... sorry guys." I glanced out of the window at the blizzard and desperately wished for the ability to fly, simply to be able to get home.

My mood momentarily lifted by the hot volunteer (whose name I can neither spell nor pronounce) who asked for my number, I jumped aboard the 142 and prayed for the snow to vanish for twenty minutes so I could get home to a nice cup of tea. The bus journey home that normally takes me twenty minutes, took two hours and eighteen minutes, halfway through which my iPod and my phone decided to simultaneosly run out of battery. I think it may be safe to say I have never been so bored in my entire life.

Walking through my local shopping centre with a friend three days later, I heard the familiar sound of chinking coins on plastic, and turned to see a man dressed as a Christmas angel shaking a yellow bucket at me. I briefly considered my failed attempt at charity, and reluctantly dropped a few coins in.

Merry Christmas, Marie Curie. Merry bloody Christmas.

Druggies, Winos, and Whores Galore

There is a side of of New York, where catty teenage girls sit on the steps of the Met, eating yoghurt and gossiping, while their Abercrombie-model-esque boyfriends casually smoke a joint in Central Park. And there is the other side. The side where failed actors inject smack in broad daylight, where the whores are underage and even the news reporters have laddered tights. Where bums loiter outside innocent florists, grade-school dropouts sing stunning solos in the streets, and alien plants feed on human flesh.

Welcome to Skid Row.

For the second time this decade, my school has selected Little Shop of Horrors as their biennial musical production. Our tri-weekly rehearsals somewhat resembled a bad family drama; the insane "mother hen" director screaming herself hoarse, the bubbly music teacher hopping with excitement, and the heavily medicated wardrobe attendant frantically scrambling for her fix amongst the piles and piles of badly mismatched clothing.

Our cast, on the other hand, gradually became a family; and as soppy as that sounds, we truly were, frequently alternating between being gathered around the piano during our short breaks singing happy-clappy Broadway hits, and throwing sharp things at each other.

But, at the end of the rehearsal process, and with both my eyes still in my skull, we somehow managed to take the production from the clamorous mess that was the dress rehearsal, to a near-perfect, if slightly technically-flawed, musical. Our lead roles, played of course by the crazy redhead, the geek-gone-chic, the token gay and grumpy old man, were spectacular. As mentioned above, our eight "Ronettes" were the life and soul of the play, each of them of course typecasted.

After the minor trauma of watching several of my dear friends be eaten by a flytrap, I now intend to steer clear of the bonatical industry. And motorcycles. We shed a tear for the end of Little Shop... but the real world, it seems, is safer than Skid Row...

Grab Life By the Balls... Grow a Moustache.

Next to road accidents and suicide, Cancer is the third largest killer across the world; and these days, everything causes it. It seems that we cannot step out of our homes for fear of getting too much sun, inhaling second-hand smoke, or even breathing too loud. Even in our own homes, there are a million and one things that cause Cancer. But even for those teetotal non-smokers who don't drink carbonated drinks or greasy food or use mobile phones or own microwaves, have perfect parents who passed on perfect genes, don't vote Republican and use SPF-80 in winter, Cancer may still sneak up on you. Because it just knows. When you least expect it, it might just jump over the garden fence and hack you up with a machete.

"Surely not!" I hear you cry. "There must be something we can do!"

Well, dear readers. Just you wait.

All across the world, men are sprouting moustaches of all different shapes and sizes in support of Movember. The month formerly known as November is now a thirty-day sponsorship to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer, as well as money to be donated to charities that help research the disease and aid those affected by it.

These disturbing thigh-ticklers have sprung up throughout my Sixth Form; two of my close friends, Pedro and JB have grown a set of rather shocking womb-brooms (at the protests of Pedro's girlfriend Audrey). JB sports a blonde, Swedish-paedophile-esque crumb catcher, whilst Pedro's is more caveman-meets-Judaism.

You too could be saving balls all over the world! Make a difference at http://uk.movember.com/ - donate your face; SAVE YOUR NUTS.

Why Rhythm?

In high school, we stereotyped. You've all seen Mean Girls; even across the pond we have the jocks, the becks, the chavs who come high to the exams and fail their GCSEs; the nerds, the dorks, and the ones that utter about three words per term and whose name you probably don't even know. In Sixth Form, everyone breaks down that invisible barrier, and, more or less, integrates themselves. With this kind of social climate, it's easier to admit that you're a Harry Potter geek; a Twilight nerd; a Trekkie. And, as it turns out, everyone's a secret nerd for something.

I, for example, am a movie nerd.

Every few weeks, I gather a few of my closest friends and host a movie night. We sit in, we cuddle up, and we watch. Due to my rather expansive DVD collection, I will probably be hosting these well into my thirties. And though this alcohol-less, drug-less, sex-less event may seem dull and ordinary to some of you, nights in may surprise you.

Taking advantage of the rare four-day-weekend, on Sunday evening, six good friends braved the cold, English winter weather, and gathered in my living room to experience the mind-blowing phenomenon that is Fight Club. Now, this short episode of my life is not about the film itself. Make no mistake, Fight Club is an extraordinary, marvellous piece of culture, and I could talk extensively on the topic. But we shall leave that discussion for another day.

When the film was over, we were far too energetic and excitable to settle down and watch another. Our bubbly and mildly hilarious friend Pedro leapt at the opportunity and introduced us to a new game: Party Quirks. The game is played as follows: one person, the "host" of the party, leaves the room, whilst the others decide on different "quirks" that one another will have as the different "party guests." The host comes back into the room  and must guess the different quirks that the guests at his party have.

Our various party guests included an old man in a bathtub, a Chilean miner, a dentist, along with the entire evolution of man. Perhaps the most difficult party quirk given to me was the inability to speak any vowels; I immediately tried to think up as may vowel-less words as possibile, but could only come up with "why" and "rhythm", which in itself made for some very interesting conversation, and some pretty radical dance moves.

As you can see, my friends and I are a very particular class of nerd- but at least we have rhythm :)

Until Next Time...

To New Beginnings

For those of you who endured the excruciating literary torture that was my last, much older blog, I extend my sincerest apologies for the diabolical writing style that featured. The Whistling Kettle came to a sad end last year, and although it is a comfort to think of the sheltered, innocent life of a GCSE student, I must accept that I am now a member of a much darker, sinister class of student.

The A-Level student is a curious species. Not unlike the Upper East Side girls, we live, go to school, play, and sleep- sometimes with each other. Curious to discover the various other opinions on the Sixth Form student, I consulted the Urban Dictionary. It regurgitated the following: "A machine that turns coffee into essays, charts, and various equations."

I cannot help but notice that the key term in this definition is "coffee". The truth in this is inexplicable. I do not recall the first day I began drinking coffee, but on the other hand, I can barely remember life without it. In fact, I often feel that there is far too much blood in my caffeine system. After finding this linked so humorously to the A-Level student, I searched for the definition of coffee.

The results were side-splitting.

COFFEE: "some people drink it because they think they look cool walking into class with a big ass cup off caribou coffee talking about how they need to wake up yet its 40% cream 40% sugar and 20% coffee"

COFFEE: "It is the lifeblood of nerds, and the drink that keeps America's workforce complacent on their journey to work."

COFFEE: "The master of many slaves that make up the working class."

In naming my blog, the only obvious choice, moving on from the kettle, was to associate it with a hot beverage. My mind, of course, turned only to coffee; my loyalty never wavering,  I searched for the appropriate synonym. I bounced from the questionable "forty weight", to the seductive "hot stuff", to the masculine lover "Joe", before coming to the realisation that, essentially, coffee is the fuel, the battery, that keeps me running.

My choice was clear.

Stay tuned, dear readers, for although I may bullshit my way endlessly through ridiculous rants and anecdotes, I entertain myself at least. Perhaps one of these posts may strike your interest and I will have you hooked; not unlike caffeine, you may say.