Is it ever to early to get a real Christmas tree?

No this can’t be true? You’ll probably thinking I’ve edited this photo in photoshop or something? Well I can tell you now you are not seeing things.

You see this is a photo taken in June last year, of a shop (in Brighton again) selling real Christmas trees. Just look at that glorious blue sky!

In recent years I have always had a a fake Christmas tree, but from what I can remember from being a lot younger (when my family bought a real Christmas tree each year) the pines started to fall off the tree after just a few days. So if you bought one in June how would it last until December? Plus you would have to keep it in the garden or in your home and water it to keep it alive. I’d love to ask them how many trees they sold a week.

Slightly on this subject, the off licence near to where I used to live in Palmers Green always had this expensive bottle of champagne that cost £500 a bottle. It was in a tattered box high up balancing on a shelf behind the counter. One day I tried to get out of them how many they sold of these a year – they could only laugh and wouldn’t give me an answer – and from this I expect none have ever been sold! Who on earth in their right mind would buy a £500 bottle of champagne from an off licence in Palmers Green???

You can't say you get nothing for free in this world

If you could just picture this scene inside my head for a moment – a couple are driving around Brighton with their dog Bruno. They are trying to choose a place to wash their car when they suddenly see the deal clincher.They spot the dog bowl in the picture above, ‘a complimentary dog bowl my dear! this is a deal we can’t turn down!’

No I can’t see this happening either, no matter how good the dog bowl is. In this case the dog bowl is a small rubbish bit of plastic, the water is warm from being in the sun and there is a fly in there. In fact the state of this dog bowl would make me want to choose somewhere else instead.

This photo was taken outside a car wash near the harbour in Brighton last summer.

Wow, how time goes my by. It is one year to the day since the ‘U Couldn’t Make It Up’ blog launched!

Firstly I can’t believe I have kept this going, I can easily get distracted by things so to make it to one year is no mean feat for me. I’m very pleased with the first year’s work, so many great and not so great stories have been told and are still to be told. All the posts from my university ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’ book have been turned into posts and posted. Now anyone can see my book here.

So a few little things that I haven’t mentioned before – you may wonder why my university book is called ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’ and the blog is called ‘U Couldn’t Make It Up’? Pretty simple, someone already had the WordPress URL ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’ so I had to go with this annoyingly. My favourite post so far I would have to say is the ‘Zoo Man Photo Shoot’ – when I went back home once some people I hadn’t seen since school had even read this post (through a Facebook link). I often get asked about some of my blog’s stats, well here are some of the interesting ones…

• 186 posts
• 5,512 unique visitors
• 170 was the most in one day
• 65 comments - I really want to improve this next year
• Most searched for term by a mile is ‘cherry chevapravatdumrong’ - due to my post on this person from the ‘Family Guy’ TV show
• Some of more unusual terms include ’simon cowell’s girlfriend boob grope,’ ’spank man’ and ‘oxford busker fluff you tube’ - these 3 are from just the last few days, just imagine all the others there are

So what are the plans for year 2? Well don’t worry, there is still plenty of material waiting to be told including eating chicken nuggets with a professional football player, my self assessment rant post in full and how I smuggled a 5ft mushroom into my car. I also plan to finally get round to publishing the first ‘U Couldn’t Make It Up’ book with a few new additions so the general public can buy it in time for Christmas – this is a top priority this year! I also intend to do some research on how to promote this blog further so more and more people can hear about these stories.

I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who reads this blog – I enjoy writing these stories out, but hearing the enjoyment it brings to others really makes it worthwhile!

I promise I won't

Now where would find a sign like this? Seriously where would you put a sign saying to lay off the hippies? I suppose a place where there are a lot of hippies around (to warrant the sign) but are also victimised because of their hippy nature?

Well, not really, it was on the door of the men’s toilets (it was not on the women’s toilets) of an old man’s pub in Brighton. Obviously the owner of this pub really felt there was a cause to fight for – the defending of hippies being teased.

Good job that sign was there to remind me, I had almost forgot. Silly me!

I never intended to!

I think I might as well do a few posts in succession on my love for unusual signs, as the last post was a sign related post. You should have seen this theme coming, it was… SIGN POSTed.

Anyway, enough rubbish jokes, onto more rubbish signs. This one was taken on the 3rd floor of a hostel in Lancaster Gate… in a kitchen, where the window barely opened. I suppose pigeons must have got in through the window before or else this sign wouldn’t have been put up.

My point is if a sign has to be put up here, why is there not a ‘do not feed the pigeons’ sign next to every window in the whole of London or even any place with a pigeon. I also hope that if a pigeon came into your kitchen, especially while cooking your reaction would not be ‘awwww look at the cute pigeon, wait there pigeon I’ll just get some great tasting Kingsmill bread for you to eat. You can stay for the night if you want pigeon or just pop off later up to you?’ I hope most people’s reaction would be to get the pigeon out of the room asap!

The thought never crossed my mind

It’s very simple this post. A sign inside a phone box in Baker Street underground station stating ‘do not store rubbish bags in this phone box.’

A few points to consider – firstly, who would have a rubbish bag on them to leave in a phone box in an undergound station? Secondly had this problem got that bad it warranted a sign being put up? Third and finally, if you can’t store rubbish in this phone box, does this mean there is a nearby phone box you can store rubbish in?

Either way, the sign must have worked as there was no rubbish bags in that phone box when I took this photo.

This whole story began a few years ago back home in Worcester. I was on a night out with some friends and we ended up going to Gonzos nightclub. It was a standard night until just after midnight when something unexpected ran past me as I was sat on the couch.

It was a cat! How did a cat get into a nightclub?? The cat then decided to sit on the armchair next to me – yes not only do I attract weird people I attract weird animals too. Being tipsy and loving opportunities like these I decided to get several photos with the cat.

Me and Gonzo working the camera

Everyone loves Gonzo

That night we decided to name him between ourselves – Gonzo, after the nightclub. A Facebook page was set up and he was a very popular social networking cat.

The thing was, a cat in the nightclub, you would expect that to be a one off. Well… it wasn’t. It turned out Gonzo was a regular shape thrower with all the other nightclub scenesters! While I was back in London my friends informed me they had seen Gonzo a few more times when they went back to this club.

A year had passed since I had been back to the scene of the crime, but here I was, about to enter Gonzo nightclub again. Will I see Gonzo the cat a year later?? Will I? Well not only did I see him, he’s such a focal point of the nightclub he now even has his own stool!!

Gonzo's throne

I recently went to buy some gym trousers from Sportsworld’s biggest store on Oxford Street. I couldn’t tell whether these trousers fitted me so I thought I’d better double check and try them on.

I had been in this shop a couple of times over the years but when I thought about it I couldn’t remember ever seeing some changing rooms. There must be some somewhere, the shop is huge and has several floors. I asked a member of staff and they said they were upstairs, so there I went.

I then saw the changing rooms were infact just one changing room right next to the till and a large queue of people. It was so bad I just refused to try them on and took a chance on their size (for the record they did fit). I can officially say they are the worst changing rooms I’ve seen in a major chain’s shop in England.

Sportsworld's finest changing room

During my time at primary school a new kid joined our form in my last year. He had moved school and we later found out why. It was rumoured he was bullied because he walked into a corner of a table with such force that he ended up loosing a testicle.

I was telling this story to my mate Jason when he had a similar story that was miles more impressive.

One of Jason’s mates at school was a kid called Wayne Ball. One day Wayne decided to skive one of his lessons and decided to go and hide in a field of horses. One of Jason’s friends saw Wayne walking into the field through a classroom window.