Master of Darkness

Do you consider the light switch a last resort?

I don't need lights. Every single time I enter a dark room and leave without turning the light on I pat myself on the back three, maybe even four times. Preparing dinner? Grabbing snacks? Pretending to be a ninja? None of these require light. It's a personal failure if you have to flick that switch, it means cats and bats both beat you.

Also I'm saving the planet because I'm not using its precious lifeblood to compensate for my inability to find a Pepperami at midnight. I'm practically an eco-warrior.

But, as with all the best things in life, there are pros and cons to being a darklord.

PROS

• Sheer misguided pride
• Get things done slightly faster
• Easier to hide from people you don't like or question the point of
• Easier to sleep while performing mundane tasks
• Lower risk of electric shock

CONS

• Freak out anyone you live with who enters the room. 'Why are you in the dark?' '*Scowls* I DON'T NEED THE LIGHT!' (this has actually happened)
• Potential injury - but most of my posts carry that risk
• Culinary mishaps
• Eye damage
• Move slower
• More vulnerable to surprise zombie attack

Do you shy from the light?

GUEST BLOG: Commute Superstar

Do you turn every commute into a music video?

I don't do these things, but a person called Morsho (@QueenMorsh - she's not a real queen) does. If you like my words you'll probably like hers.

This is not me

I spend 2 hours a day (at least) commuting to and from work, so I listen to music on the train. I fly into a RAGE if I forget my headphones, but when I listen to music I always unwittingly end up pretending I am in a music video.  

Sometimes it's quite subtle, I’ll listen to the song and move my head to look up and down the carriage in time to the drum beat, or cross and uncross my legs in time to the music. Sometimes I'll wait until a line of a song says something along the lines of “the first time I saw you” and then glance up and stare intensely at the nearest man, pretending that we are both in a music video and the song is about us. That tends to get me a few weird looks and restraining orders though.  

I have been known to pause a song on my iPod because I am about to get off the train and the song I am listening to is the perfect song to accompany my walk to the next platform. One of my favourites is Are You Gonna Go My Way by Lenny Kravitz when you are walking from the Bakerloo Line to the Central line at Oxford Circus – the guitar riff at the beginning is perfect for a purposeful Britain’s Next Top Model style walk down the long corridor at the bottom of the stairs.  If the song is started the minute you step off the train, you can even fit in a glance left and right and then a full pelt model strut towards the stairs that perfectly fits in time with the music.  

I also HATE it when there's a break in the song when you're walking downstairs, but the song starts up again before you've reached the bottom. I've legged it downstairs before just so the music doesn’t beat me.

Do you own the secret imaginary-commute-dance scene?

(Incidentally if you do things and want to know if other people do them send an e-mail to doyoudothis@gmail.com or buzz (not sure what that verb means in this context) me on Twitter @jallford)

More to follow from Morsho later!

Bus loyalty

Is every movement you make an inevitable betrayal of every passenger around you?

The perfect bus experience is getting the slightly raised chair, not sitting next to anyone and staring wistfully out the window like you're in a terrible movie that no one would watch.

The reality is often your favourite chair is taken and you're forced to sit next to someone ugly or foolish.

If I sit next to someone I will want to bail as soon as possible, but in a way that makes it look like I did it for practical, rather than personal, reasons. It's very hard to convey this message in a movement, so my solution is simple: do it fast. Just run, don't give them time to think or be offended.

There are times when you freeze in your chair out of 'bus loyalty', that is if you move you feel you will break the status quo. I've seen whole buses frozen by cold because no one stood up to close a window, and the person next to it didn't even know it was open. Why? Bus loyalty. As soon as you stand up the bus world is SHAKEN, everyone's disturbed, it's like you're steamrolling through a jungle.

You have exactly 2 minutes after sitting down to stand up again, after that point if you stand up when the bus hasn't stopped you are some kind of maverick who might kill someone or everyone or ask for money or start dancing and no one wants that, not at 7 in the morning.

Where do your loyalties lie?

Safe word

Do you make a noise when you're in pain?

When I was young I did karate (I was a Karate Kid, HYUH!) and when you did a second punch the instructor said you had to make a sound to 'release your energy'. Most people made the following sounds:
'HYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!'
'HOOOOOOO!'
'HAAAaaauuuuh!'
When it came to me I made the following sound:
''
And I was promptly told to 'SHOUT!!' so I said the following:
'Haaa...'
Instructor was not impressed. But then I beat his favourite pupil in a spar and I didn't even have to make sounds like a baying gorilla to do it.

I don't know why people make noises and this especially applies to pain. If I get hurt, hit or burnt I don't swear, make a sound or do anything. Am I an invincible juggernaut? As far as you know yes (no), but how does saying useless words or grunts help relieve the pain or express it? I normally REFLEX MODE to get out of the way or hiss to myself but that's it, there's no time to think to say words!

All it does is draw attention to you and, say you've just hit your head on a door that you were shutting which I totally didn't do yesterday, the last thing you want is for people to notice by shouting loudly as if to say 'LOOK AT ME, LOOK HOW FOOLISH I'VE BEEN'.

I've never had my arm cut off or been attacked by facemelting acid and maybe then I would make a sound. Up to now though? Nothing. I am the silent pain man.  I can only hope someone somewhere finds that arousing.

So do you shout when you twist?

Never been less like a statue

Do you have difficulty standing still?

I don't mean you're a hyperactive gitchild who, when told to stand still, freaks out and starts kicking everyone. I mean more like, you're standing there, but you're doing everything possible to not just be standing there.

For me this sense comes from the fact I look a bit suspicious, and if I'm just standing there doing nothing I look even more suspicious. No I'm not about to maul your child, I'm just waiting for a friend.

So what happens?

I KNOW, PHONE!

I don't get texts, so when I take out my phone it's either to look at the time or pretend I have texts. Now you can whip out your phone, but there's an etiquette to fake-phone using. You can't stare at your phone slack jawed you have to be doing something, so you hit buttons but which buttons? You don't want to call someone by accident or you'll have to talk to them and I don't know if you've met my friends but I don't want to talk to them.

So instead you flip through bizarre phone functions you never knew you had like a useless calendar system or memos. Maybe you'll change your phone background to a picture of a flower or something I don't know.

Anyway the phone can only last so long otherwise people will twig on that you're fake phoning so we then...

LOOK AROUND

Looking around without coming across like a psycho is difficult if you're standing still, alone, in plain sight of everyone. You can't rotate your head sideways like a turret, but if you move your whole body it looks like a terrifying dance.

What I do here is probably the worst way to handle this: I rotate my whole body one way, then rotate it the other way. My arms normally swing with me, aimlessly. At this point I usually get a weird look, and what do you do then?

LOOK UP OR DOWN

Looking up or down while in public is the stupidest thing you could ever do, especially while standing still. You look like you're on drugs if you look up at nothing (unless you're looking at what someone else is looking at, to judge if they're on drugs), and if you look down you look petrified of the world.

But there's no choice if someone's cornered your gaze and you're standing there. So you look down slightly as if you've seen the most interesting thing in the world slightly below them and then you look away and the situation is disarmed.

Well that's nice, so now you can...

SHUFFLE UNEASILY

At this point you're busted: or at least paranoia and awkwardness have taken over and you think you're busted. Either way at this point your body is moving of its own volition and you're rocking backwards and forwards and while you probably don't think it's that weird it looks very, very weird.

You don't look like a zombie, but it's the sort of thing a zombie would do in its more docile, aimless moments. You're somewhat stuck at this stage. You have one option and really it's something else a zombie would do at this stage too.

WANDER AIMLESSLY

There are shops and signs which, while normally irrelevant to your life, are now the most fascinating things in existence. You need to stay within view of where you said you'd stay, but that could mean anything. You have essentially at this point given up standing still.

At this stage I will half-examine any piece of literature, signage or advert around me. If I wander into a shop (god help you if you do) I will realise I don't want to spend any money, but will continue scanning products that I don't want or need, whilst trying to convince any shop attendants that yes, I will eventually make a purchase and am not, simply, an idiot occupying space or a criminal mastermind hoping to steal a million Wispas.

I reckon this is a long shot but, well, do you do this?

Two step Tommy

Do you take two, perhaps even four stairs at a time?

I can't go up stairs one at a time anymore. Even if I'm carrying heavy suitcases or a koala or something I shouldn't be carrying I have to go up two at a time. The one exception to this rule? When I'm with a group of slow ass mofos.

Walking as a group is generally quite stressful for me because I can't hear people very well and I naturally want to zoom ahead whereas they walk slow because 'that's how people walk'. Then you get to stairs: you can't talk on stairs, and it's very hard to keep to any formation. I end up behind or in front.

IF you zoom off on the stairs you end up having to turn around and then it's just goddamn awkward really isn't it? You look like some kind of crazy stair maverick.

So I slow right down and seriously almost lose my balance: I'm just not used to it. How the hell can you go so slow? Even going downstairs I go two at a time.

So how about you? Are you a slow ass mofo? If you are, you're probably less likely to to fall down stairs and die, which is good I guess.

Washing up with MAGIC

Is everything magically clean when you wash up?

For some reason even though I'll wash my hands after touching someone or even looking at something dirty, when it comes to washing up I assume bacteria don't exist.

I pretty much rub a sponge across stuff, using liquid that I'm not even really sure what the hell it does, and then as long as there's no marks I slam it in a cupboard and leave it. I assume this ritual will destroy all bacteria ever and go on my merry way.

During this process I'll leave dishes on dirty cabinets, not clean things properly, wash with clearly dirty sponges and yet, despite all this, I remain reasonably confident that everything is clean. Even though I know it isn't.

The one thing that is never clean? The bottom of the sink. Even though it's probably no worse than the sponge, the bottom of the sink is germ hell where every bad thing ever lives and if your dish touches that then by sweet jebus you better throw that dish away before it infects your brain and or soul.

So do you do this? Part of me hopes you don't.