Saturday, December 31, 2011

Top 32.7 T.V moments of 2011

1. Psychoville ,series 2, "Not now silent singer!"

2. Parks and Rec ,series 4, Entertainment 720 with Tom Haverford and Jean Ralphio

3. Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, series 2, episode 4 "Keep your receipts......."

Friday, December 30, 2011

Top 20 Books of 2011

Books!!! Who reads books? Books are for nerds!!!

Top 20 books? more like top ZERO books!

Alright, if I must...

These are all books that I read for the first time this year. I'm not very current, but there are a lot of books and it takes a while to read them. I don't think I'll ever catch up on all the books I want to read.


Top Ten Fiction

10."This Side of Paradise" - F.Scott Fitzgerald

9. "Huckleberry Finn" - Mark Twain

8. "A Princess of Mars" - Edgar Rice Burroughs

7. "Batman : Dark Victory" - Jeph Leob/Tim Sale

6. "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" - Michael Chabon

5. "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" - Susanna Clarke

4. "The Crossing" - Cormac McCarthy

3. "The Iron Heel" - Jack London

2. "Brights Passage" - Josh Ritter

1. "Down and Out in Paris and London" -George Orwell

Batman aside, none of these take place later than 1949, I like stories set in the olden days of olden times, ah but sure we were happy etc.

Top Ten Non-fiction

10."An Idiot Abroad" - Karl Pilkington

9. "Out of the Ordinary" - Jon Ronson

8. "Bandit Country" -Tony Harnden

7. "What I do" - Jon Ronson

6. "The Men who Stare at Goats" - Jon Ronson

5. "Paranormality" - Richard Wiseman

4. "Them" - Jon Ronson

3. "Empire" - Niall Ferguson

2. "Hiding the Elephant" - Jim Steinmeyer

1. "The Psychopath Test" - Jon Ronson

I really like Jon Ronson.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Top 50 albums of 2011

1. The Essential Bruce Springsteen (disc 1)

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Top Twenty Films of the Year.

Everyone's doing it so why not wallofblog? It's been a great year for film and I've seen them all so here's the list.

1. Fast Five

2. Jaws




Top twenty albums tomorrow, books Friday and t.v shows Saturday. Review of the year on Sunday.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Does anyone read this anymore?

A request,


Please never make me watch a YouTube video in your company. Im sure you find it very funny, but I don't like you staring at me while I watch. You're filled with anticipation, expecting me to crack up at the bit where the baby/dog/drunk/person you know, but with whom I have no connection and thus renders this video completely meaningless to me falls/sicks/rides/dances etc etc. I will do it, I will laugh when you start to laugh, but it will be fake. I don't like lying to you but you've forced me to do it. It's not funny. I also have a much better sense of humour than you and something you find funny will be a bit broad for my tastes anyway. I don't think there is a clip on YouTube that's not a bit by a comedian or a piece from a movie or television that is actually funny. Don't try and prove me wrong and give me some links because I wont watch it.

Thank you

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I hate

Babies in ads doing thngs that are impossible for babies to do.

Fuck off.

Friday, October 21, 2011

BIG NEWS

Now that I'm back blogging again, I was reviewing some of my posts from last year. They are all brilliant but the stand out ones are from last summer in which I published my teenage poetry. I note that most of my poems started life as songs but lack of talent and musical ability forced me down the poetry route..

In recent months I've picked up the old axe again, and, insiped by Brian wilson's smile album and Springsteen's completion of songs from the darkness era, I have slowly started working on these songs again. How can this be you ask? How can a person like me get back into that mindset again and complete my songs? The mindset of a friendless, chubbly little loser, who can't attract ladies or garner any respect from adults or the community at large. Who can't drive and has no money. Who spends way too much time filling his mind with pointless music, tv and movie facts. It's a challenge.

I may never complete them. I may complete them but feel they shouldn't be heard and I may just complete them and place them on this blog.

Exciting times blog fans. Exciting times.

Ricky Gervais

Ok, so it's time I weighed in on the whole Ricky Gervais Twitter Mong controversy.

Oh hang on it, it's not.

Friday, June 17, 2011

I wrote this Inner Mongolian stand up routine. You wouldn’t get it.

So what is it with people walking in bike lanes??? Are they called walking lanes???!!! No.  So I’m like “ah wheres your bike” . Not to their faces.

Monday, June 6, 2011

This post starts out good but I don’t like the end. Writing in detail about sweets is lazy.

Who is the king of the nuts?  Nuts are big here. Huge. Every shop, every supermarket, heck (heck!?) even ever street corner has nuts for sale.  Its pretty simple for me.  The cashew is the nut king.  Servings of cashews in the west tend to be pathetic. A tiny bag with ten nuts for 3 or 4 euro.  Here, although not available loose, the prepacked bags are hefty. Very satisfying. Of course there is competition from the pastachio, but its his insistence of remaining in the shell that takes some points away. Way to much work.

Any small snack that you cant just open the packet and tip directly into the mouth are never going to earn regale status. M&Ms? great. Skittles. Tip the whole bag directly in there yes please. Opal fruits??? Individually wrapped!!!!. Chewits, I love you, but your wrapping is bringing me down.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Yes We Can

The soft drink cans here have the old style, incredibly satisfying opening mechanism where one lifts the ring and peels back a tear dropped shaped slither of aluminum rather than the more aggressive western style lift and puncture action that has been in use since I was a child.

Recalling the old ways reminded me of a time circa 93 when my cousin and I both had cans of cola (with the aforementioned opening mechanism, the only tie between these two antidotes) and decided to play a game. The game we settled on was pretending to watch Jurassic Park on video. Our imaginations couldn’t even stretch to watching it on a big screen, we wanted glamorous panned and scanned vhs.

My cousin is a soon to be married, soon to be home owning, education professional.

I went on to tape Jurassic park of the telly and create my own video box art.  I later purchased the dvd in a two desk set with its inferior sequel Jurassic Park:  The Lost World. Ten months later I purchased it again as part of the Jurassic Park: The ultimate collection 4 dvd box set set which included the first two movies and the fun if light weight third entre in the series, Jurassic Park 3 and a bonus forth disc of extra features exclusive to the box set. It is worth noting at this stage that I owned both sequels on vhs.

So whats next for me??

A quick scan of on-line retailer amazon shows no forthcoming release  of the movies on Blu-ray, but once they inevitable “drop” I will buy them. If only for the new and exclusive extra features.

In the mean time I’m going to pretend to watch the much talked about, never going to happen, Jurassic park 4. On vhs.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Legs.

Tried to explain fake tan to a Chinese girl today. She didn’t understand.  She could speak English.  But I can speak English and I don’t understand either.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Lies

Maps of the world are all wrong in China. Looking at one, Europe  is on the left hand side, with Ireland the last country on the extreme left. Asia stretches across the left and this places China in the middle with the pacific and the Americas taking their place to the right. Blatant propaganda. Everyone knows Europe is at the center of the world. China sits to the right and America to the left. Thats the way the world is. This revision, placing China in the center seems to be some sort of attempt to establish China as the best and most powerful country in the world!!!! Its going to take more than poor geography to do that. Maybe if they had second biggest and fastest growing economy in the world, or the biggest army, or had America heavily in debt to them  they could make the claim.

Yeah I’d like to see that.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Power Corrupts

Now that I’m a teacher and academic, and “English expert” (thats what the wonderful Chinese Government class me as ,and they are never wrong) I have a power that I only ever viewed as a student in my prolonged education. That is, the power to grant a small child access to the toilet. One thinks that if you need a piss you should be allowed to piss, its natural, no one should be allowed to deny you a piss. Its cruel and potentially dangerous to make some one hold it in. I never understood the idea of asking permission to urinate, sure as a courtesy, tell the teacher you are going to the toilet but to place the relaxation of your sphincter under pressure in the hands of another is madness….and  yet as a teacher your first instinct is to deny the child access to the toilet. As soon as you hear “teacher teacher w.c???!!!” (w.c is the english phrase they use for toilet, it stands for water closet, and is used on building plans to label the bathroom. why they dont use toilet, I don’t know. Years ago, when looking at plans I asked the man who works with my father what w.c stood for. He told me waste chamber. I believed him for years. I still kinda do) you say “no sit down” and it takes me about five seconds to realise what I was asked and I then say “yeah sure w.c all you want,  get out of here kid”

They are probably just going to mess and get away from me for a few minutes. Which is also fair enough. Everyone should be allowed to get away from me for a few minutes, its as natural and as essential as having a piss.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Bathroom fixings

The paper inserts in toilet rolls. They dont exists here. The roll just rolls in on itself to form a solid cylinder of soft tissue.

I dont think I will ever get use to the crazy way things work here.

Also what do small children make pretend telescopes out of?? They dont. Thats the problem.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Dummies

In clothes shops all the dummies are western, there are none representing beautiful eastern people.  Racist. Mannequin manufactures are racist.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Lies

Pointy lamp shade  hats???? Haven’t seen one.  Nobody wears them.

Haven’t seen one paddy field.

Dragons? Nope. Not one.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

How is China Different Cont.

The @ is above the number 2 on the keyboard.

Can’t get sausages.

Everything is in Chinese.

You talkin to me????

I think it must be a universal law, that no matter where you are in the word or what language you speak, that taxis drivers will try and talk to you.

“I don’t speak chinese”

“I dont speak chinese”

Oh he is still talking to me

“I dont speak chinese”

LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING WE ARE GOING TO CRASH OH FUCK (in my head)

Drivers here are mental. There are no rules of the road, everybody does what ever they want all of the time. Over taking on the inside, overtaking on the outside, oh there is something coming, just blow your horn that will stop them. That was close. Thats great, take the racing line around every corner, there is something coming, blow your horn. That bus almost crushed us.

It is cheap though. About 20 european cent a mile.

I dont spell check my posts here. I hate wordpress, but blogspot is blocked.

Fuck the Queen

Having a lot of conversations with other westerns (english people) that go like this;

English person: “Ah yeah mate irish r’ ya, my (insert parent/grandparent) is Irish, what part? 

Me: “County Cavan”

English person: Ah?

If  its not Dublin or Mayo there havent heard of it. Which is fair enough I suppose. My standard response is to say, well its in the north and part of Ulster but Britian dont own it, which usually is followed up with some cheeky sparing, oh yeah didnt manage to get your hands on it did ya??? ah? ah? Hey? oh!!!

I have no idea why I do this.

Monday, March 7, 2011

The Horror

It finally happened yesterday. The thing I have been avoiding for the last month. I used a squat toilet. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I had been carrying a roll of toilet paper around with me in my bag since I got here.  The constant diet of overly spicy noodles and nuts and fruit finally caught up with me.  Its a terrifying thing.  You spend the whole time worrying “Am I going to shit on my trousers?”.  Also you can’t read a book on one.  I say on one. You cant really be on one. Just over one. Its a hole in the ground. 

In researching this article I notice wikipedia has an extensive collection of articles on toilets. That will kill a couple of hours.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

How is China different?

The light switches go the other way. You press the top of the switch so the bottom pops out to turn some thing ON.

The standard size bottle of diet coke is 600ml.

Mcdonalds and kfc do a home delivery service.

Monday, February 7, 2011

An Idiot Abroad?

A chicken club sandwich, with a fried egg on it! This is truly a world of great diversity!

An idiot aboard?

Blog fans!
To preserve it's purity and beauty, for the next couple of months, I'm moving www.wallofblog.blogsot.com (the hottest blog on the web) to www.andrewchinablog.wordpress.com*

I shall sporadically (or frequently depending on Internet availability or if I can be bothered) update this with tales of my hilarious/ tragic attempt at going out abroad travelling sure it's only six months it will fly etc etc etc etc etc

*The posts from www.andrewchinablog.wordpress.com have been worked back into this site. Andrewchinablog is no more. All posts, Chinese or otherwise, will be here on wallofblog

Andrew 10th Jan 2011

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Mind the doors

You are not special because you remember thunder cats. Or any other cartoon from the eighties and early nineties. Every cunt your age does. You are not witty and enlightened. You spent your childhood watching cartoons. Like every other child ever. Stop being so smug. Oh wow, your an adult now but you referenced an old cartoon! You have the gift of remembering stuff! How amazing!

And thunder cats was shite anyway.

At least reference something good.

Monday, January 24, 2011

No one man should have all that power......

So there it is folks. I've only gone and done it. Regular readers will be all to familiar with my distain for Brian Cowen and his reign of terror but now, due to my relentless campaign to force him to step down (started last May http://wallofblog.blogspot.com/2010_05_14_archive.html) he has buckled under the pressure and quit.

You're welcome Ireland