Dinosaur Hunting Caped Police, Canada Day and Being Bitter

Hello all! Sorry its been a whilse, Busy busy and all that.

First things first. If you are ever at a festival and the singer of the headlining band just so happens to be blind and accidently head butts the microphone…. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT! Laugh. That’s a red light on laughing at the blind bloke head butting his microphone. It is never going to be well received by the many strangers that surround you. EVER! No matter how funny you think it is, I urge to hold that laughter in and save it for later when you can spit your beer wherever you like.

Thank god I got that of my chest. Moving swiftly on.

So what have I been up to since last I put finger to key? Well we left Toronto and went to stay on a farm and rear orphaned lambs. Then we moved to another farm for a couple of weeks where we reared organic chicken and grew organic crops. Now do not misinterpret what I am saying. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about livestock and a lot about growing my own food which one day I want to put into practice.

That said, it hardly makes for the most interesting read you will have today, it is also only tenuously linked with travelling. So, as much fun as I had, I will not be documenting here my farmyard adventures. Keep an eye out for my spin off blog ‘Lambing with Mort, putting the romance back into animal husbandry’

One thing I have started to realise about myself is that I think I may be a crazed megalomaniac dictator trapped inside the body of a mild mannered, easily angered midlander. I find myself creating new laws that I will put into effect when I finally Pinky and the Brain this planet, seize control from Obama and clean this world up. I will no longer shy from these laws and I think I will include them in my blogs when the mood takes me.

What sort of laws is he talking about? I hear you scream as you grab your computer screens or throw your generic smart phone across the room and hit a four year old in the throat.

Well first of all calm down and second of all don’t worry about the four year old. In my world, children will be shipped off to their own plot of land in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and left to survive the particularly harsh life that the island has to offer. I may even put ferocious wild animals on the island as well, or even better, dinosaurs! YES! Lets get Jurassic Park all over this!  Just imagine the perfect marriage between ‘Hunger Games’ and ‘Lord of the Flies’ With a sprinkling of savage lizards. In my mind they will create their own society. Leaders will come to the forefront, weaklings will be eradicated by the system and will provide sustenance for the lizard kings. I shall insist that they have a dinosaur task force, charged with keeping the reptilian population down, therefore halting the potential scaly domination of the Childlands. To identify the task force from the regular population, they will be required to wear capes at all times. Naturally these caped killers will form my secret police when they graduate from the island.

How blissful our streets would be without the screaming of little brats. We could sit in pubs, in the smoking area and use offensive language without corrupting some little persons mind. Because, naturally, this is the perfect environment for a child to flourish. Watching mommy and daddy do shots and argue that the child in question is, in all reality the only reason they are still together. Forget the whacky warehouse two minutes up the road. Then they have the nerve to ask me to stop calling the referee a bad word because it is terribly unsuitable for their little angel. This particularly brings my blood to a boiling point.

At the age of 19, the children, if they have survived, will return to the main land as bank managers, toilet cleaners or members of my new world army. This plan works two fold, as not only will it get rid of the children, we will never have to see headlines of our childhood idles being inducted to ‘The Hall of Saville’. I mean to say, If Rolf gets arrested there is no help for the world. The man painted the Queen for god sake! (This is a rant I will refuse to get into at this point)

As you may have already observed, children aren’t really my forte. I mean what is the point in them? I group them in with wasps if I’m totally honest.

All Jeremy Kyle people will be eradicated. I won’t kill them, I will simply take away paternity testing equipment and let them descend into a pit somewhere. Probably Manchester. Build giant wall and leave them there to fade into memory. In years to come our children will never know who these vile bastards were.

“mommy, why is our street so clean, nice, quiet and free of vulgar fragrances?”

“Because of Lord Morton sweety, he saved us from foul, smelly vagrant like folk in the ‘2015 piss off to Manchester You Smelly Bastards Act’

“God bless Lord Morton”

“Yes dear, God Bless him indeed. Now enjoy your time on the island, you annoying little bugger”

Well that’s kind of how I see it happening anyway. Not entirely sure how we got to that point. I was going to write about Canada Day.

A few weeks ago, facebook informed me that somebody had read a blog which I had written whilst in Australia. I had a quick read through it and remembered how fiercely patriotic the Ausies got and how it upset me that England wasn't the same as this.

Well Canada Day reignited this sorrow and left me in awe of how a nation should rally its people and treat them to a day of festivities, music and naturally gallons of alcohol leading to bad decisions, bad heads and great times.

Thousands of people flock to Ottawa on the 1^st July every year. The reason is Canada Day. There are stages here, there and everywhere. Street performers ask for a contribution in exchanged for exhibiting their circus skills and people everywhere are clad in red and white with maple leafs painted on their cheeks, foreheads, arms, legs, boobs… you get the idea. The day and night conclude with a fantastic firework display which produces oohhs and ahhhs from across the capital.

Whilst I was walking around, taking all that surrounded me in, I once more wished that London, Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool would put on a show like this. Don’t worry, I am not going to descend into another patriotic rant. However, what did make me think, was the amount of people from Africa, India, China and any other countries across the word that were celebrating Canada Day. In some cases they had moved to Canada generations ago, for some they had been here only a short time. Yet there they were, dressed in red and white the maple leafs painted onto their many different shades of skin.        

These people were not trying to bring their ways of life to Canada, they were assimilating to Canadian society. I cannot blame them. It’s a fantastic way of life. Recession seems to have barely touched them. Whilst their American neighbours still struggle Canada is fast becoming one of the most popular countries to move to and wonderful, new way of life.

I wondered though. If we were to have a day like Canada Day in England, nay Britain, would people celebrate so enthusiastically? I seem to read a lot about immigrates trying to bring in their own laws and ways of life into Britain and attempting to discard our ways of life that have been forged over hundreds of years.

I am not the man to come to any conclusions here and I don’t wish to start a debate. But I feel that there would be a large number of people both from our shores and away from them that would not entertain the idea of such a festive day. Nor can I see the government, be they Blue, Red, Yellow or any other colour, giving the nation the day off. Why should we celebrate when we could be lining the pockets of the already monstrously well off?

It is such a shame, as I believe we should be able to celebrate such days. I have now witnessed it in Australia and Canada, whilst just over the border in America on July 4^th the nation celebrated in much the same way. Come on Britain, the colonies are all celebrating getting away from us. Surly we should try and show that we know how to have a good time! The feeling in the nation whilst the Olympics were on was fantastic, yet as I predicted, it is too soon forgotten and we slip into a world where we are pissed off 90% of the time. 

One has only to look at facebook and see everybody moaning about everything. Moaning that it’s too hot, not hot enough, always grey! Moaning that the bus is late, that their partner is pissing them off.

Anyway, I am ranting away like a bitter, twisted old man.

In conclusion, cheer up, come to Canada and get drunk with me!

As it has been so long I have lots to write about, yet I will save it for another time as I’m sure you have plenty of things to be getting on with.

As ever tell a friend about my blog, please ‘Share’ and retweet and all that sort of stuff and feel free to give me a follow on twitter @morton1983

Thank you for reading

Mort J

Live music and orgasmic metaphors

Live music will always be the best music.

Please, if you will, imagine you are in a bar, any bar in the world you look to the stage.
First thing you notice is the fairly attractive woman playing the keyboard. Often they are confined to the back of the stage and hit perhaps two notes repetitively throughout the entire set, but not this looker, she’s there to grab your attention and it works. Secondly, you’re drawn to the lead singer. Not many categories for this gentleman: A – kind of like Jack Black, overweight with a strong voice, longish hair and sweats profusely. B – Skinny, striped jumper, he wants to be Kurt Cobain, however, his lyrics are questionable, he doesn't know pain and he hasn't locked eyes on a hypodermic needle since he had his flu shot when he was 12, which was probably 2 years ago. However, he probably has shagged Courtney Love. C – They are a mumford's Son, oh shit me are these folky types getting on my nerves at the moment. YES I GET IT! You love your woman you have some problems and you turn to cider. Now please piss off at least get the rock stations to take them off the radio. Or Finally D – they are a woman, which generally means you’re going to stand around with your males friends shouting “SCWING” and quoting “She will be mine, oh yes she will be mine” Throw in a generic Base player, drummer and an over confident guitarist and we are done.

If, dear reader, you have managed to imagine the above so far, congratulations! Now create in your mind about 100 different venues ranging from small pub stage to larger arena setting, superimpose your band and….. BOOM! Welcome to Canadian Music Week, or as we in the know call it CMW. Hundreds of bands such as our lovely creation above slog it out for a week in the fair city of Toronto, to try and get the new sound to the ears of the people in the know. The new sound, as you can probably imagine seems to sound suspiciously like various incarnations of old sounds. A bit of cooky Arctic Monkey inspired stuff, a fair sprinkling of Oasis clones poke out their noses and a surprising amount of guttural, generic grunge, which I’m afraid is not for me. I liked the 90’s, they were good fun, but lets keep them firmly in the past please children. Do your own thing and at least buy Nevermind before you pull on that nirvana t-shirt, yes they were a band, yes I know it looks kind of like a smiley face, now please bugger off!

The thing is, Grunge bands aside, there were a lot of excellent performances here during CMW. Bands travel from as far as British Columbia, and for my readers who do not have an intrinsic knowledge of Canadian geography, it is not around the corner. It is in fact a fair old jaunt. Some of what you hear may not be to your taste but the energy these bands put into their performances was actually pretty moving. Not since I was in my early 20’s have I seen bands put in the effort like these guys. It is depressing to know that hardly any of them will make it big. It’s sort of like watching a wild life show, when Sir David is telling us that 10,000 baby sea turtles hatch on the beach but only 3 survive because they get killed by literally anything bigger than them, including ideas.

These guys sweat it out on stage, they shout themselves horse and then they turn on the television on their night off, exhausted from lugging their equipment about. With their very bones aching, they reach for the remote, crack open a cold beer and change the channel and what meets there wary eyes? Simon Bastarding Cowell that’s who. Or his generic replacement for any number of mind numbing reality television shows. Simon is just telling everybody how much he respects the work of the singer who has just sang a cover version of somebody else’s song.

“Oh heres a good idea, lets find a nice fast paced song from the 1980’s”


“I have a fucking tremendous idea, lets really slow it down, cut the music, grab a guitar and sing it……… wait for it……….. Slowly”
The management gathered around the table fall into a frenzied abyss of orgasmic delight. Eyes rolling in pure pleasure, their minds have just been blown out with a shotgun loaded with ingenuity.
 “Oh my god Simon! That’s an amazing idea, you rock my world”

“Oh Simon you’re going to change the industry all over again”

“Oh Simon if we can get one of these songs onto a car advertisement or mobile phone ad I will allow you to whatever you desire to my anus”

“Oh me too Simon, Me too, Please shaft me before you shaft all of those hard working musicians. Please Simon, Please show your disregard to thousands of hard working band members by shafting me live on television whilst I gladly inform the populous that One Direction are the best band ever to come out of the UK!! YES EVEN BIGGER THAN THE BEATLES and its all because of you, you wonderful shafting maniac you!
Give me a break! It brings my blood to a gentle simmering temperature when I think of that man. I’m sure when nobody else is around, when his entourage of wankers, fools, yes men and rent boys have all left him for the night, his feet morph into hooves and he sprouts horns and laughs whilst watching himself in the mirror.

I guess in my own subtle way I am telling the independent bands of the world to keep going at it, be one of the surviving turtles! Fight off the ideas of the millions of brainwashed people. Yes, even you grunge bands, you can do it! Canadian Music Week is a beautiful thing. You can see the living beating heart of music in all its glory. No airbrushing, no idealising, no studio enhancements. Just real people, warts and all thrashing it out to entertain you with songs they have written.

Ok, that got a little ranty. Must really try and control that, all of my clothes are now ripped and I’m green! I know this isn’t a mind blowing new point of view. It’s not going to change your lives, but maybe you will go and watch a live band in the next couple of weeks and maybe they will strike it lucky and ride the wave of success.

This is, I know a short blog entry, but thank you none the less for reading.

Feel free to give me a follow on twitter @morton1983  

Mort

Friendly cartographers and snowboarding fails

Indulge me for a moment readers. Imagine if you will, being sat in a pub back home in good old blighty, enjoying a beer at the bar whilst awaiting the arrival of a companion. You’re a little early and based on every other encounter with said companion, you will be waiting for a while as their time keeping skills are somewhat absent. You start to observe your surroundings. The patrons of this particular establishment provide a good cross section of our drinking public. To the left of you are the casual after work crowd, suited up and looking self-important, probably using a hands-free set or at very least saying random numbers and dates into the latest blackberry, I believe it is called the ‘Blackberry Wanker’.

“No! I said 17, yes on the Tuesday, NO! The 3^rd Thursday, yeah, 14! Now please excuse me whilst I go and pleasure myself whilst choking on a rope created by my vanity, sense of self importance and delusions of grandeur”  (says the man writing a blog)

I can’t imagine that you are going to want to talk with this office junior. 

To your right, a little farther along the bar you have the wino collective. They have been there all day, every day since the dawning of time. At least these guys can set the imagination off. Why do they drink like they do? What happened to them? I like to romanticise that something has occurred in their life. Something almost Shakespearian, A lost love, a defeated general, a lost power! This is bull shit, they just like beer…. A lot. Then you think, how the hell can they afford to drink so much, I can’t afford to drink that much and I work hard. It is best that you avoid such negative thoughts as very often it leads to a particularly uninspiring rant about politics, broken Britain and observing how things were somehow different in your youth, which by the way, were not different.

The rest of the pub is filled with people like you. Meeting friends having fun, getting tipsy. You however, are sat on your own for the time being and could be for some time. Can you talk to a stranger? Can you, in the middle of the city centre just strike up a conversation, sober with the guy sat next to you? Surly you should be able to do this?

Think about it the other way around. If you are sat at the bar and some bloke comes and starts chatting to you, the very first thought that comes to your mind is going to be something like.

“What the hell does this guy want? What is he after? I'm not giving him a cigarette? I just had to sell my mother in law on ebay to afford 10 cat shit smokes. I ain't buying him a beer either the scrounging bastard. God I hope he doesn't want to talk to me. I hate strangers they are always after something”

I don’t blame you! I would probably be the same.

The first thing I was told about Canada is that I would be surprised by just how friendly Canadian people are. I was at first dubious of such comments. However, I was and continue to be surprised by how friendly Canadians are. It’s almost worrying how friendly they are. I have been bought at least 3 beers and shots just to welcome me to the country. This is a very good thing as a night out here costs roughly the same amount of money as it would cost to buy a premier league football team.

They are just really friendly and they love nothing more than to draw you a map. Without hesitation and with little encouragement they are on top of you, smothering you with friendliness and then, out comes pen and paper and suddenly you are sat with a master cartographer to the kings and queens of Europe. They seem to know where everything in Canada is from a city level to a national and will happily lend you the wealth of their knowledge. In fact they are so eager to help you that on at least one occasion a local has bought me and Gina a beer to keep us there until he had told us all he had to offer. This is often the result of them overhearing a conversation regarding the whereabouts of a city location. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that people from Canada are nosy bastards who butt into other peoples conversations! ;)

Thank you for than indulgence I shall leave that subject now.

One friend turns to another and says “hey man, want to try something fun and new?”

“Why yes, that sounds tremendous” is the reply from our intrigued explorer.

“Excellent, in two days time were going snowboarding”

“Oh Shit”

At first snowboarding sounds like a good idea. What could go wrong? I mean your only throwing yourself down a slope covered in concrete hard snow strapped to what is essentially a flatted out box of cornflakes. A box over which you have little to no control!

At best I am a worrier, at worst I am a nagging, neurotic scaredy pants! This I’m afraid is just not the ideal approach for snowboarding. Whilst approaching my first corner as a new snowboarder my imagination begins to get the better of me. That corner now represents the end of Lee Morton! My hopeless human eyes cannot see over the tiny dip on the edge of the corner, they cannot see the snow or even the tree. NO! I am blind in panic, over the edge of that corner is a thousand foot drop into a ravine. At the bottom crocodiles are awaiting their dinner. It is at this precise moment that I remember that I don’t know how to stop this cereal box and unless I do something drastic I am going to fall to my premature death. In the struggle with reality I am currently experiencing I forget about the speed at which I am travelling. In my mind I feel like I’m flying, I feel as though I'm going at least the speed of a raptor, flying towards my doom. I quickly realise that this requires drastic and immediate action. Personally, my method on the day was really pretty simple. Throw myself to the ground, show no shame and launch yourself into that powder. I bounced from the ground with as much grace as a rent boy being thrown from a rugby team tour bus. My limbs seem to fly uncontrollably around me, a leg flies past my ear. I feel my right elbow hit my left shoulder and I make the sort of sounds you usually only hear approaching the end of a porno as air escapes me from every possible bodily rout. Finally I come to a stop, motionless for a few seconds, am I alive? Have I survived what surly must have been a life threatening fall? Snow has gotten under all of my clothes, my ass crack is full of snow. It has managed to infiltrate my entire undergarment collection, I’m inches away from a frosted manly section. Thank the good lord it stopped just before. Cold and lonely on the side of a hill, I test every part of my anatomy; arms and legs in full working order, I can wiggle my toes, YES! I am ok. I take a deep breath raise my face to look this cruel environment straight in the eye and flip it the bird. I see two things: 1^st I see Fraser rolling around in the snow, laughing so hard he is in danger of slipping into coma at my expense. 2^nd I glance to my right and see a sign kindly informing me that on a scale of one to ten, one signifying a baby chimp could navigate the slope and 10 being the most difficult, I am in fact on number one! Even the kiddies slope is steeper that this one. I look once more to my friend in hysterics and  think to myself "Mort maybe snowboarding is not for you old pal"

Ok ok ok, I think I’ve gone on quiet enough for one instalment. I’m in danger of talking rubbish forever here.

If you made it to the end, thank you J

On the road again

And as was prophesized by the crazy ancient Mayan calendar“during the second month of the year 2013, the ranting of a mind unhinged will once more fill our facebook screens and we will be sent push notifications. For the one they call Morton will have been let out of the country and will be once more upon the road” (To which several people clicked like, 13 shared and one commented "You dickhead, you posted last week that the world would end before that!" A comment that received 300 likes and was posted on failblog.com.)  I am here to fulfil this prophesy. This is not because I feel for these crazy future predicting fellows, or through any respect for their somewhat unreliable calendar. No friends, I do this due to popular demand for my blog. It brought a tear of joy to my eye when people asked me to get back on the keyboard. Literally thousands of requests! …… oh hang on a second, Gina is requesting I make an editorial change. 

Literally hundreds of truly dedicated readers have begged on bended knee that I once more report here on the adventures I have in a far off foreign ……. Hang on a second, Gina is coughing suggestively over my shoulder…….. MMMmm OK Editorial edit number 2 …….  

A small (But very influential, important) collective have requested that despite a low readership I should continue with my writings as they believe that future generations will look back upon my observations and conclude that I personally shaped a better future….. Oh for fuck sake now she’s threatening to hit me. Ok Final editorial clarification….. 

A couple of people, in passing “wondered” if I was going to blog again and this time stick at it. Better? Prefer the truth? Its not as exciting is it! For god sake!

  

I enjoyed being back in England, don’t get me wrong. I missed my friends and family a great deal when I wondered off to Australia a few years ago. It was good to be back. My issue is the 9-5 thing. The two biggest factors must be that Sunday feeling and the feeling when you are on the last day of a holiday. 

You all know that Sunday feeling ay? Yeah the one when you have worked Monday to Friday... Many apologies, I mean, you have dragged yourself kicking and screaming through the dreary, clock watching bull shit that for many of us represents the endless torture of a working week. You get to Friday, your fingernails have been torn off, your hair can only be described as being akin to Doc Brown circa 1985-90, you have that distant look in your eyes, cracking is on the agenda. 

But no! Wait just one glorious second, the glowing light of a Friday night out is illuminating the end of the dreary, dark tunnel. To the pub you go to spend the hard earned money burning hole in your pocket. You drink and drink, consuming that poison like an old bastard buying bread the day before a snow storm! You want that tap to run air so no other can enjoy the yeasty goodness. And why the devil not? Drink deep brothers and sister for on this night you are free from the oppression of gainful employment. What better way to celebrate your hard earned freedom? Stride head held high from your metaphorical plantation, stick a finger up to the master and pickle yourself and make sure you do it with a good mixing ratio for this my dear reader is binge drinking!

Its only fair to assume that this revolution of the liver is going to continue into the earliest hours Saturday has to offer. Thus, much of Saturday is spent deep in a slumber only a free man/woman can truly enjoy. However, when you wake, you scorn yourself for the laziness on display, hours of freedom wasted. In your despair you notice the bottle of vodka on the side, the sunlight casually splashes across the bottle, it glints, it’s almost as though the bottle is winking at you. Then you remember for some crazy reason, in the fridge there lies the remains of a bottle of tomato juice, a sad victim of a pasta experiment gone wrong. Now, an epiphany brothers and sisters is a phenomenon that one should rarely ignore nor take lightly. There is a flurry of alcoholic ambition and in seconds the Bloody Mary is making everything better. Little by little you regain the power to revolt.

At this point, its lots easier for you to just reread what happened last night to get into this state. I don’t want to bore you again. Needless to say Sunday you wake up late and feel really rather ordinary. On this occasion you cannot turn to the joys of Mary for two reasons: A- because you drank the vodka after she came on to you and B – you think to yourself “ah shit, I have work tomorrow!”. Just like that my friends, the Sunday blues are upon you. The rest of the day is often spent suffering with symptoms of over indulgence and depression that you have enjoyed your last sleep in for 5 days, when naturally and inevitably the above scenario will repeat itself.

Holidays are much the same. I don’t wish to bore you with another draw out, rambling metaphor. However, approaching the last day of the holiday, it is possible to imagine multiplying the feeling you get on a Sunday by approximately  7,000,000 and you get the level of depression that one encounters.

I guess the real point I'm attempting to get across to you is that; my only real chance to avoid these things is to run away again whilst I still have the last vestiges of youth on my side. A working holiday to Canada was my option. This blog will record my adventures and events that shape my travel in my mood dependant style of delivery. Probably best to say now that if you are offended by bad language and stubborn points of view it is probably advisable that you read no further.

I want to keep my blogs relatively short and even though I have been bought beers by bearded men informing me I should be a trucker, battered my bones on a snowboard and encountered strange events in the snow, I will be talking about these next time, fear not lads and ladies with short attention spans, I have you in mind.

Feel free to give me a follow on twitter morton1983

Happy reading you influential few

Mort