My 2013 round-up

OK readers, here is my round up of 2013, the year that shouldn't have been (according to the ancient Mexicans) personally it was a big year for me, I got out of my funk, I had spent too long hiding in my room scared to come out and then this year happened. I made friends, for the first time in years I made friends not friends of friends, not facebook people I'd never meet but real life friends.

 I did comedy, live on stage comedy, I'm not the best I can be yet... but this year rather than just think about it I did it, It was so scary and I was petrified... I'm not that confident you see, like most LOUD people it's pretty much a facade, mine's just better than other peoples. So that was a huge step for me, and as a result my life has improved... so for all the people who encouraged me to get up on stage for that first time (specifically Ste Callaghan, Victoria Barnet and My mum) I thank you... it's made me better, and to the people who've supported me and encouraged me along the way (Tom Urie and Anna Devitt and loads more)

This year having just started comedy I decided I couldn't hang about waiting to grow as an act so I decided to just plough on (once I get into something I tend not to recognise my boundaries) I gigged in London, I gigged in LA and I did the Edinburgh festival, I tied it all up with a performance in front of my city at the O2 to raise money for the Clutha appeal (much to the chagrin of my comedy peers who couldn't help but slag me)... 

I got exciting news about my writing work and had an audition for Scot Squad... I pretended to be a violent Australian therapist... I didn't get the part. My Granda had a stroke, I lost 21 lbs (put on a few), I hurt my back trying to pole dance, I got drunk and rapped everywhere I went, I joined an Internet dating site, Twang the aged lap dog died, I did podcasts, I got asked out by strangers on facebook... and I lived... and so without further ado here is my Best of 2013, My favourite things from the year, enjoy!

Best Moment of 2013 and possibly my life:

The moment William Shatner Acknowledged my existence and the whole world changed...

and It just kept getting better

and then mum stole him from me... 

Strangest moment of 2013:

Hosting the unveiling of the 2014 Commonwealth Culture Celebration... thing..

Best Picture of Me in 2013:
Who doesn't like looking like a Narwhal behind their mother... 

Man I fancied the most in 2013:
Jake Johnson... no explanation required... he's just a babe especially when you can only see half his head. 

Favourite Photo Ad of 2013:

Favourite TV Show of 2013:

well this is a tough one, I've enjoyed a lot of TV this year, both new and old. There's been a great slew of new shows hitting our screens and it's been a bumper year for the sitcom, I've decided to split my love into categories; Comedy, Not Comedy and Reality,

in the Comedy section I present 

The Mindy Project:

although not released in 2013, I only truly understood this show in 2013. I feel a certain affinity with Mindy and have found myself crying with laughter watching it. Also big kudos to Mindy who was one of the few female writers on the Office and famously stood her ground in battles with her co-writer BJ Novak even though it made her look like a 'bitch'.

and for the Non Comedy:

The Blacklist:

How do I describe to you my favourite hour of the week, I sit down, I prepare, I digest... so many clues, so much deception, so many SECRETS!!!! I cannot express to you how much I love and look forward to this TV show. It makes my innards happy, I spend hours pondering the secrets locked within the mind of Red Reddington... It's been a highlight!

and for Reality... this was a tough one but once again I pick

Deadliest Catch:

High drama on the Bering sea, again not released this year but I did watch it from season 1 again this year and loved every second of it (again). Captain Sig and co caught lobster a plenty and brought us touching, terrifying and tremendously funny moments all while staying alive on one of the harshest seas in the world!

Favourite song of 2013:

Bastille’s Pompeii is the most listened to song on my itunes this year, combining history with a hypnotic beat

Favourite Book of 2013:

I read a lot this year, I discovered a love for 'steam punk' which upset my mother, I reread a lot of Terry Pratchett, I found SJ Bolton and fell in love and discovered an appreciation for True crime... but my favourite book this year? It's a tough one... and I've had to hand it to two books... the first

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway 

Sons of Gangsters, Aged martial arts experts, clockwork monks and a secret underworld all play a role in this seriously magnificent, funny and exciting tale. 

Like This, For Ever by SJ Bolton

The third book in the Lacey Flint series captures 2013, Lacey is in a bad place, little boys are 

being murdered and the internet it ablaze with speculation and taunts... could it really be a 

vampire?

Plain Jane’s Ruled:

A weird phenomena of 2013 was the heart throbs, in my perusal of the Internet this year I noted a rise in love for not your Hunks but for the weedy, pale Englishmen. For some reason this year being rather witty and good at dancing made the international ladies knickers wet, and so in my honourable mentions I doff my cap to these gents (who if you saw walking down the street and they weren’t famous you wouldn’t look twice at) but because of their fame, character and charm they have stolen ladies hearts and given hope to skinny white boys with a degree in philosophy everywhere (oxford)

Tom Hiddleston                             

 Benedict Cumberbatch

Best Quote from a Politician:

“Oh, and the last thing was Olivia Gondek, that I wanted to eat her pussy. I’m happily married. I’ve got more than enough to eat at home.” Rob Ford

Favourite Celebrity of the Year:

Jennifer Lawrence, hands down Jennifer Lawrence. She was spectacular, she was outspoken and talented and feisty and the subject of every girls 'girl crush'... she fell at the Oscars but managed it with dignity, she admitted shitting herself on TV, she told Joan River where she could stick her opinions, when asked on the red carpet to describe her dress she casually said "Well this is the top and thats the bottom" and then wowed us all with her Real Housewife of New Jersey performance in American Hustle... but my favourite moment? when she geekasmed and flirted with Jack Nicholson 

Favourite Youtuber of The year:

Philip Defranco had a big year this year, he got engaged, he expanded his online empire and he helped others up the scary Youtube ladder by reinvesting his earnings in other projects. He's an all round good guy who brings us the news in a way we youngsters like it, funny and simple. I've not gone a week without watching atleast two episodes, if you've not tuned in I suggest you do now. 

Most Tear Jerking moments of the Year:

there have been a lot of videos and pictures out there that make us tear up a little, it's a good soul cleanser... here's some of my favourite moments:

NZ legalise Gay Marriage in 2013:
I think when we look back on 2013 we'll remember how big a year it was for the LGBT community, they faced rampant homophobia from Russia but the internet... the internet went wild in support with country star and mans man Willie Nelson telling Texas Monthly: 

“I never thought of marriage as something only for men and women. But I’d never marry a guy I didn’t like.”

yes there were groups of haters and religious biggots but for once the scream of the enemy wasn't the loudest... it was the song of friends... the song of support for gay rights rang true and 2013 saw a definate wind of change blow in.

as Stated in Buzz Feed, 2013 may be the year Love won out, for other out and proud moments from 2013 see this list http://www.buzzfeed.com/saeedjones/100-reasons-to-be-proud-in-2013

Bye Bye Alex:
Probably not as tearful for you as it was for me, but 2013 saw me in a blubbering heap as Alex Ferguson bowed out as manager of Man United after years of dedication... and good old Rio scored an unprecidented goal for his boss... and remember that one time he assaulted Beckham and made him a better man. God I miss him. 

Unlikely Hero of the Year:

Charles 'The Big Mac' Ramsey

On May 6, 2013, three women and a child  – Amanda Berry, Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Jocelyn Berry – were rescued from captivity in a house owned by their kidnapper, Ariel Castro. The women had been held there for 10 years and in that time had given birth, suffered torture and worse of all lost hope. That was until Amanda made a break, this woman attempted to escape from the clutches of a man who'd terrified and tortured her and had it not been for Charles Ramsey... she might not have survived, I'll let him tell you the rest... he's a delight to listen to. 

and so as I sit here full of phlegm and stinking of Olbas oil, I hope you have a wonderful Hogmany and I hope that 2014 is as interesting and as exciting as 2013 was... I'm sure it will be

I leave you with this...

Steubenville Rape

I've been reading a lot today about the two “promising” students convicted of rape in Steubenville, Ohio, I've been reading the comments and tweets people have written in support of the two young footballers “with potential whose lives have been ruined”, about how the girl who got drunk should be held accountable for her actions. How this Jane Doe should be punished for getting drunk and “inviting” rape upon herself. 

It sickens and terrifies me, it makes me question in general our society… if Jane Doe had been a John, if a sixteen year old boy had gotten drunk and been raped by the football team would he have been asking for it?  I think not… and I think that’s even more disturbing. The fact we’re questioning whether or not She is to blame is indicative of our society where women are blamed for being just too tempting… just too drunk… just too slutty. And men do what men do, because boys will be boys and that’s that.

When I see these comments like the one above and the massive slew of comments like it, I wonder if I’m odd for seeing right and wrong and not much in between when it comes to rape. I wonder if  maybe I should look more at the perpetrators side of the story and not just the victims. Maybe it’s because I am a woman, maybe it’s because I am a liberal, or maybe it is because I am the child of a victim of rape.

Yes I understand the concept of self preservation, my mother tells me to watch what I drink to keep an eye out for my friends, to never walk down a dark alley alone or get into cars with strangers… not because she thinks that if I don’t heed her advice I’ll be “asking for it” but because she knows there are evil people in the world.

I know when I go out drinking that there may be a predator lurking in some murky corner of a club waiting to attack me at my most vulnerable but if I do get drunk, if I do get my drink spiked and that sick individual does as one Twitter user describes as “what most people in their situation would do” am I wrong? No. I’ve been drunk and I’ve seen men I fancy passed out lying on sofa’s in empty rooms at house parties and at no point have I thought “I’m feeling springy, I’m going to hit that while the goings good” because I’m not a fucking psycho! But for some reason when it’s a man and he’s determined to shove his penis into a vacant hole and opts for the most stationary and least conscious of the holes AKA an unconscious teenager, we somehow fall into some sort of a grey area where we don’t know if it’s wrong or right. It’s wrong, it’s always wrong.

We as a society use alcohol as an excuse, “They were drunk!” people cry when the football team gang rape an unconscious girl… when the same boys drive drunk and kill a child do we feel the same way? Was it still just a silly drunken error? 

yes I know that in very few cases there are grey areas, there are those times where consent has been given and minds have been changed and nobody really remembers what’s gone on, but let’s err on the side of caution shall we? For the small minority of accused rapists who were in fact just confused players of one big fucked up situation, lets not call all rape victims sluts… let’s not assume all are innocent even when proven guilty because they had potential… let’s not forget that Jane Doe had potential, did Blondie mc white face the CNN reporter mention that in her impassioned post sentencing report? No…

At the end of the day here is a good rule of thumb; if you stick your penis where it is not wanted then you are a rapist. 

Star Men

( I wrote this a few years back for an online sci fi magazine I quite like it)

Both of my parents worked when I was younger, they ran a bar in the east end of Glasgow. For those of you unfamiliar with the “East end” it’s a place where the life expectancy is 10 years less than that of a person living in Baghdad… needless to say I spent a lot of time in front of the television or reading books; upstairs above the pub, listening to the ruckus but sheltered from it, alone, learning film lines or poems off by heart. I knew every word and action in Chris Columbus’s “A night on the town.” Or “Adventures in babysitting” as it was called here. It had a great scene where a little girl finds her favourite super hero in real life. And If I wasn’t watching that, I was watching musicals, again learning every line and shimmy and Yee-Haw: Mum used to say I was a gay man trapped in a little girl’s body.

On Sundays I would take my musicals down to the bar and perform them for the drunks and bums, men who spent more time talking to me than they did their own kids. I would jump up on the bar kick my legs and sing about the deadwood stage, Gordon my Manny would sometimes slide me along the bar like Dorris Day!

And then the show ended, in a bizarre and some might say Dickensian twist of fate my grandfather died and forgot to write his will down, I lost everything, my house, my tiny bedroom and the murals my mother had painted on the wall, my pub where I performed on a Sunday, my family, my friends… and along with everything went Doris, Fred, Judy, Liza, Frank and Ginger and all the other smiling, singing and happy people who represented the golden years of my childhood. Before Daddy went to bed for three years, before mum became angry, before I hid under my bed and ate whole loafs of bread to fill some void inside me.  

And that’s where my new dad comes in, he wasn’t a real man my mother found to replace my father who still found it difficult to get out of bed after all six of his brothers betrayed him, because their father hadn’t loved them. William Shatner entered my life bringing with him Star Trek and a new bunch of smiley happy and most importantly fair people, people who knew the difference between right and wrong. William Shatner has been my role model, through High school, university and even now as I work my way up the ranks as a Writer. I print mini homage’s to him in almost everything I do.  Strange as it may seem, a sex addicted space ship captain/ kinky cop/ lusty lawyer shine out compared to the special needs, emotionally stunted bank robbers I grew up with.

And with William Shatner came a whole legion of spacemen and women, from television and film and books. Strapping men with big chins who would arrive and take me away from the little space under my bed where I hid and ate bread.  Captain Picard re-sparked my interest in Shakespeare; Margaret Atwood took me to a future that terrified and delighted me, Arthur C Clarke had me looking up into light polluted skies in the hopes of an alien race who’d set my world to rights. And then Harry Potter… Harry Potter who was never a space man but was the same age as me technically, and whose world was torn apart like mine, I wept when I didn’t receive my Hogwarts letter.

When I was 13 it was pretty well established amongst my teachers that I wasn’t going to be a brain trust or a super sports star, they all accepted for some bizarre reason that I would be a performer. They were actually quite pleased about it, when the school had charity auctions of the pupil’s art work, teachers would clamour for my hideous renditions of chalk chickens in the hope I’d one day be famous and they could sell them on. Chalk chicken nest eggs!

As a precocious child who likes to perform there’s a lot of pressure on you to stick at it and become famous. Even to this day, even though I no longer harbour dreams of playing Evita, I still feel the grinding, bone curling pressure to do well. To succeed in whatever it is I’m doing, because that’s what people expected of a chubby 13 year old girl who knew every word in Calamity Jane and could do an eerily spot on impression of Sir Alec Guinness.

So with all the raising I needed, gotten from an over wrought mother who wanted to be a comedian of all things, a father who had changed his ways and now slept a lot rather than constantly and good old uncle/dad/pappy William Shatner tucked in my brain, I dreamily entered my first career meeting with Mrs Nobbs and saw the huge pile of applications for RADA and RSAMD and LAMDA and lots of other places with D’s and A’s in their titles and I panicked.

“And what do you want to be when you grow up?” Mrs Nobbs asked as if she were just going through the motions.

Mother had already told me not to say “owner of a rollerblading transvestite restaurant” not because she thought it was a bad idea but because I’d already told my teachers that was an ambition and had started a fight with a born again chemistry teacher.

“A space man.” I replied, having forgotten the word astronaut.

I’ve never seen Mrs Nobbs look so shocked, and she once walked in on a group of teenage girls watching Hard-Core gardening porn in her office. She choked on a breath mint that wasn’t really working and looked at me waiting for me to utter the punch line.

“I want to go to space.” I repeated tentatively, the stress of other people’s expectations making my spine curl.

“You dropped physics and… and you don’t take part in any physical education.” She uttered a look of shock etched in her dull face. “You need physics and… Ashley you can’t go to space.”

“oh.” Was all I could muster. To be honest at 14 how can they expect anyone to know what they want to be when they grow up? I’m 24 and I’m still not sure, some days I think I want to write for HBO and other days I think I’d like to be the person who washes elephants at the zoo and at 14 I still thought that Alec Guinness impersonator was a viable career path… I had dreams of being hired to stand in parties and say things like “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for” and “In my experience, there's no such thing as luck” In my best Guinness voice and be paid for my service, unfortunately there’s no section for that in the job centre.

I continued to live a relatively isolated life, lost in my own world of space men and wizards, I got too tall to fit in the cranny under my bed which for the longest time had served as my escape pod. The years dragged on, my school shut down and I got moved, I started to make “friends” and went out to bars where I’d nod and smile and drink and secretly wonder what I’d do if a Klingon walked in. I wouldn’t say it out loud though, I’d just smile and not say anything and let my “friends” kiss men with teeth missing in bars like that one in Star Wars “Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”  Obi Wan Kenobi’s words would roll in my head.

My father at this point had managed to cut his sleeping down to only half the day, and I discovered that he was not only depressed but that he also had Asperger’s and now an excuse for his bad behaviour. One Sunday morning at around 3am I came home, later than my curfew dictated but to be honest my mother was on the other side of the world making people laugh and dad… well what was he going to do? Go to his bed in a bad mood? I stumbled into the living room, the TV was on and William Shatner was standing there, old and fat and shouting “Denny Crane!” my dad paused the recording and beamed up at me.

“He’s got a new TV show!” he exclaimed excitedly, smiling for the first time in years as if his depression had not been the result of financial ruin and a thieving family but instead because of William Shatner’s flagging career.

“That’s good,” I said as I stared at my now aged father both on the screen and off.

“You got a letter yesterday.” He said indicating a thick envelope.

“I’m going to university.” I said taking off a pair of hideous high heels.

“You gonna be a space man?” dad laughed remembering the worried letter he’d received from my career counsellor 4 years before.

“no… I think I’m going to write about them” I said and pressed play on the paused TV show ready to see what my pretend dad was up to.