13 Shisha Bar (Photojournalism)

Recently Bar 13 in Buckingham opened up a new Shisha bar in addition to it's already popular selection of places to relax in the venue. It's owned by an Egyptian family, and aims to recreate the feel of an authentic Middle Eastern Shisha spot.

 

 It's rather dark and enclosed, yet there's lots of bright sheets and patterns all over the inside of the tent. As well as this there is comfy sofas, a TV, and speakers that customers can connect their devices to whenever they want! It's a really nice vibe inside and suits the bar very well, whilst creating a relaxing area for people to socialise.

When The Queen dies

This is just a random thought that occurred to me, but when the Queen eventually dies Britain will temporarily be a crazy place.



There she is.



I would say at least half of the people living in Britain at this moment were born after The Queen began her reign.

Meaning they have never experienced life without The Queen being around. Now she really doesn't do fuck all other than pass the occasional law and waste tax payers money on ridiculous personal services. But that's a different topic.

When Queen E eventually passes her sell by date, there will be a shitstorm among our population. In particular those sad bastards that basically worship The Royal Family. I really can't understand why people love them so much but whatever, I'm not here to judge...

On the day of her death and possibly also funeral, we will have a national holiday every year after the day arrives. Can't complain about that, even though they fuck up schedules for a lot of people but at least we get to slob around all day to commemorate The Queen's final day on this planet.

It will be one of the biggest  breaking news stories of all time. Bigger than Michael Jackson and Tupac's death combined. Eastenders will be interrupted to tell us what's happened, maybe even Jeremy Kyle. Pure pandemonium..

Now I won't really care when The Queen actually pushes daisies. She is 88 now, and even with her Royal Family exclusive multi-million pound medical treatments she will eventually decease. I don't want her to die, I'm not a sick fuck. I just won't be crying in my bed for days when she does.

The point of this pointless blog is to just make you think how The Queen's death will affect you.

Don't lie, you probably won't give a shit.

Ambition

People with literally zero ambition in life might as well just go grab that bottle of bleach from under the sink, and chug that shit down.

You get people who are happy to accept the bare minimum and slug away at a boring job they don't enjoy, day in day out repeating the same old cycle. Sleep, work, sleep work. This is a perfectly fine lifestyle choice and I have serious respect for these people. Not the direction I want to go, but at least they have the motivation to get a job and make a living. Sure they'll never inspire anyone, but getting out of bed everyday to earn a wage deserves respect regardless of your occupation.

Then there's the scum. The individuals who are nothing more than a waste of a human life. They likely have 5+ children, and because of this they don't need a job due to the Government paying for their weekly supply of Space Invaders, Sterling cigs and a few bottles of Frosty Jacks. Sometimes rare breeds of these strange life forms DO have jobs, but they'll just work 3 hour shifts at their local corner store and steal Wotsits from under the till, go on a fag break every 10 minutes, and wait for their shift to be over. But most of the time these fucks are un-employed and literally do nothing other than sit at home ALL DAY.

I can't comprehend how lazy bastards  can live with themselves knowing they are literally worthless. What do they contribute towards society? Do they actively improve the life's of the people around them by doing the square root of fuck all for their entire existence?

I'm not at all saying if you don't have a job you're a scumbag. Jobs are really quite difficult to obtain. If you're jobless but trying to sort yourself out you're a brilliant person. My issue (as you probably realise) is the one's that don't even attempt to make something of themselves. There's literally hundreds of millions of other human beings who would kill to be in the same situation as these lazy mugs, and they would work so hard if given that opportunity.

Our culture has created an acceptance towards doing nothing. It's so depressing knowing so many humans don't, and will never try and make something of themselves.

Fuck Relationships

I'm convinced there's a strange subconscious desire among young people, who think we need to be in a relationship.

Obviously this isn't true for everyone. I personally don't want one at the moment, and haven't done for a long time. I don't intend on looking for one until I sort my life out and actually have the confidence and motivation to do so, or that day I genuinely meet someone who absolutely blows my mind. There's a lot of people in my position. I want to have fun being young, I want to spend time going out with friends and I don't want to be concerned with keeping my other half happy 24 hours a day. Ain't nobody got time for that right now.

Particularly in younger people, I see them switching in and out of relationships like they're a fucking outfit. Do they actually love the people they agree to go out with in the first place? No. Then why create the fake relationship based of something they never plan to last?

There's so many couples who try to stay together, but their relationship is full of arguments and they're constantly 'on a break' from each other. Tell me the point of this. Your connection clearly isn't working, and it creates way more negativeness in comparison to positivity. It's like buying a meal you only enjoy 1/4 of every single day, you're left with so much unnecessary hassle is it really worth your time until you meet someone you truly adore?

In this society I honestly view so many relationships as nothing more than child producing fuckups. These people get together for what, six months? The girl gets pregnant, and because they're complete morons they are in no way capable of looking after their own romance let alone the life of a child. The child grows up with a horribly unstable family, and then they end up repeating the same scumbag cycle as their irresponsible parents. Good one.

Playstation One - Nostalgia Bomb

I'm assuming you're reading this on some form of modern technology that probably wasn't around when the mighty Playstation One was released. I used to spent a lot of time on the PS1 as a youngling, not quite as much as the PS2 but still enough to have probably impacted my mental development in some way...

Here's my top three, not necessarily 'best', but more 'most nostalgic' games I used to devote hours to.

Crash Bandicoot 

Everyone knows this guy. Crash is possibly one of the most iconic Playstation game characters ever, he's a likable, human sized, partially literate Bandicoot. Which if you look to your right, you'll see a great little real life photo of.

Crash is a failed science experiment that escaped from the evil Dr Cortex, and you spent most of the time trying to defeat him.
The game itself is a simple platformer, set in the fictitious Wumpa Islands, and man, I loved it so much. At the time, the gameplay was insanely addictive, and just plain simple really. Re-live your childhood by watching this sad man complete the whole game, with every special gem in just under two hours, or watch about two minutes, because ain't nobody got time for that.

Driver 2 

Fuck me I honestly forgot how terrible the graphics are in this one until just now, look at this pixelated mess of a game. But I tell you it was ridiculous amounts of fun in its day, and at the time those graphics were pretty cutting edge.

Driver 2 is very clearly the sequel to Driver. If you didn't figure that out I don't know how you're using modern technology at this moment, but anyway this one is a gem. I played the original Driver game randomly after playing this one, but I didn't care much for chronological story-lines back in these times.

Before Grand Theft Auto was a full 3D clusterfuck of an amazing game, Driver 1 & 2 started the whole free-roam sandbox game popularity for me personally. More so in D2 because you can actually get out of your vehicle, in order to get into another vehicle. Which sounds so simple but it was such insanity way back in 2004 or whenever it was I playing this. 

It starts off in Chicago, then moves to Havana, then Las Vegas and finally Rio. ALL THESE CITIES IN ONE GAME IT WAS SO GROUNDBREAKING! But you mostly have to complete vehicle based missions, e.g steal a car, smash up a car, delivering car bombs, follow cars... Yeah so it's called Driver for a reason. 

Witness some classic gameplay and feast your eyes upon the glory that is Driver 2. I enjoyed this so much mainly because you can drift like an absolute boss, it's a fully explore-able open world, and the missions vary just enough that they aren't too repetitive, well especially if you're 8 odd years old and are playing it. Which is another reason I liked this game, it was made for 'grown ups' and I thought I was so savage by completing it all on my own. See, my parents let me play this 'violent' game as a youngster because they knew I wasn't an easily impressionable little fucktard that will try and steal a car after playing it. And they also thought it was just a harmless car game that featured the occasional swear-word. LITTLE DID THEY KNOW I was smashing through police roadblocks, telling fools to 'move out the fuckin' way' and sometimes killing  people in this virtual world. But I think I turned out fine...

Tekken 2

If you've never played  any Tekken game before I genuinely feel for you. I even used to play against my Dad on this one, and all he would do is press all the buttons as fast as he could, somehow always managing to beat me. He didn't even know which button was 'punch'...

I believe Tekken 7 is out soon for Playstation 4 and Xbox One. There's been a whole 5 games released since I used to play this, damn.

It's a simple (recurring theme with these PS1 games) side on beat em' up. Literally one vs one fight until a player is knocked out. It's amazing. 

The game is based around The King of The Iron Fist tournament, and you choose a character to take through the multiple stages of increasing difficulty. At the end you fight a boss, who is a motherfucking Devil, literally a huge purple Devil that shoots lasers from his forehead I shit you not. 

My favourite character was Yoshimitsu, check him in action here, and also this time to your left. I still don't quite understand what the hell he is. But I was 8 or so and I thought he was a goddamn Alien with a glowing green sword, of course he was my favourite. The internet says he's a 'mechanized human'. Apparently half of him is made of metal; I NEVER knew that, probably because the graphics were so bad. 

Really there's not a lot of detail to explain in Tekken. There is a storyline involving the tournament itself, and how some characters are corrupting it or something pretty cliche along those lines. 

I enjoyed Tekken mainly because once you complete the game with one character, their weird alter-ego/variation character becomes unlocked, and they have all kinds of different moves and look completely different. This simple incentive was enough to keep me hooked for hours on end, trying to every single hidden player. It was like getting my next heroin fix, I HAD to unlock Kunimitsu (female version of Yoshimitsu funnily enough)

I hope I triggered some good memories for some of you, and if I didn't I'm surprised you're still reading at this point. Bottom line - The PS1 days were glorious. 

MC DRS Part 2 - Blackhearted - Lyric Discussion

MC DRS - Blackhearted - Lyric Discussion

Earlier in the week I spoke about DRS' Soul Remembers. Hopefully you've seen it but if not you can check it out  here.

I sent it over to the man himself and he said some real positive stuff about it and even said "It's an accurate breakdown of some of his ramblings." So I'm honored as fuck. Big up everyone that took the time to read it, I'm happy as Larry people actually bother to read what I write, if you're reading this now, you're a don. 

Anyway, I promised a follow up to again prove DRS is way more your standard MC. I'm sticking to 'I Don't Usually Like MC's But.....' as it's his most recent full album. I could choose A LOT of songs to talk about but we'll keep em linked together for now.

(Photo taken from the video from HeavyFeet & DRS - Dirty & Stinking, listen here. Sick song and equally as sick video)

Blackhearted is the tune of choice, you can listen to it with this madness of a hyperlink I just inserted. To fully judge the song you need to listen to the whole thing, I just write about a tiny proportion of it.

Lynx is the beat maestro, throwing in a powerful bassline that adds to the tone of the song, and this one is a lot darker than Soul Remembers.
It focuses on the youth of today being quite simply 'Blackhearted.' It's relatable to more than just the usual DRS audience, it really is a massive issue in Britain's youth culture. Sure, the youth has always been fucked up, but here DR accurately spits about issues the current youngens (including myself) have to deal with growing up in this ever-grey country.

Both verses hold an insane level of impact and expression, but I feel verse two fully hits the nail on the head and is the most powerful lyrically. Plus I don't want make this a 10 page essay.

"Blackhearted children, the city's lost souls.

Millions of tortured minds, their stories not told.

At the end of their rainbow there's not gold,

Hard to be positive or find someone that's not cold."

Even though this intro to the verse doesn't use any ridiculously complex rhyme or vocabulary styles, it's still so relevant and true. A lot of the time it is hard to be positive. The majority of things we hear and see are usually death, poverty, hatred and money issues. How can kids growing up be positive when that's all they know of the world? Adults have become cold from being treated like shit, seeing a lack of hope and generally losing trust in society as a whole. Bang. That's what these bars make me think anyway.

"Millions of tortured minds, their stories not told." Insane impact, "Tortured minds" with "their stories not told" speaks to me. So many of us have our minds rammed with paranoia, or the fear of not amounting to anything, or wasting our lives away, whatever the situation is. But because so many are in the same situation, no one speaks about how it is up in their head. Hence why the youth just act cold-hearted, and walk around "hood up expression frozen". It's a thought process that usually ends in people doing stupid shit because they 'don't care' - but you know it's not a smart choice.

(Or maybe kids smash stuff up purely for fun, who knows)

"Short lived escapes can be bought in ready amounts,

If you need weapons no worries plenty about"

Truth. Again. "Short lived escapes" is an accurate metaphor for drugs, which are ridiculously accessible to the youth. They're all short lived escapes, you just leave reality for a little while and eventually come back with a hole in your pocket, or a hole in lining of your nostrils... The second line is self explanatory, tools used to kill another human are just way too easy to get hold of. 

"Nobody cares that they've been led astray, 

just that they were carrying a knife when they left home today."

This one hits hard, and is the final line of the second verse making it hit even harder. Few actually give a fuck that our youth are growing up with all of these issues, but they're ready to pounce on the troubled ones that feel as if they need to carry protection to not get robbed or attacked. Yeah there's a LOT of fuckers that carry a weapon as a form of intimidation to get what they want, but if their world was a kinder environment that doesn't prioritize money and power, they wouldn't have adopted that mindset in the first place...

I hope you enjoyed reading what I have to say, sorry it's quite negative overall but these are some real concerns DRS is making which he delivers with talent and originality. 

Will our culture ever change? Probably never. These are just current problems too, if DR was around 50 years ago he'd probably still be making similar observations, but talking about the issues that those kids have to deal with in that era instead. Straight up inspiring stuff for me. 

Download 'I Don't Usually Like MC's But...' here https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/i-dont-usually-like-mcs-but.../id895366432

DRS' second album 'Mid Mic Crisis' is out in March, be sure to listen, I'm certain it will be top notch.

You can also give him a follow on Twitter @MCDRS 

- Peace

MC DRS - Soul Remembers - Lyric Discussion

MC DRS - Lyric discussion

Probably about 90% of the time, since I was about 15/16 the music I choose to listen to is Drum & Bass. Now DnB has a pretty shitty reputation for itself. People that aren't a fan tend to think it's too fast and is just a collection of sounds and weird noises you can only enjoy after dropping some pills in a dingy rave, which is a bit closed minded for me.

People can listen to whatever they want as long as they themselves enjoy it. I hate how so many music genres are associated with an inaccurate stereotype.

Another typical DnB stereotype is that the MC's only perform at super fast speeds, and their lyrics have no real meaning. It's SO much deeper than that, I wish people took the time to understand. But then again I don't really give a shit as I enjoy it regardless of what commercialized chart loving Route 94 and Disclosure fans think.

MC DRS is probably my favourite MC, he has been for ages. I've seen him live many times, and particularly at Fabric and Critical's Xmas Party his stage presence blew me away. His lyrics aren't really posted on the internet often like most stuff, so I've chosen some words from one of his songs that I think demonstrate something more than just 'spraying bars'. It's closer to poetry than anything else in my opinion. Later this week I'll dissect another song of his to prove it's not just a one off. 

I know some people might think this song and music is terrible, but you can enjoy whatever the radio tells you that you should enjoy like most do, I don't really mind either way. 

Soul Remembers (Ft Dub Phizix & Fox) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI1fScNj5_Y (Listen and read at the same time for the full effect ya dig)

"She brings me warm feelings in cold seasons,

 Makes me feel like I'm alive when there's no reason.

Feel like I'm kissing summer sky, she intoxicates, 

So addictive I'm impatient if I ever have to wait.

Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the oak tree but don't lock the gates,

Special when she smiles genuinely when I serenade.

Beautifully dangerous the tactic of this game we play,

Look passionately into each others eyes when we lock and brace.

It's not a trend, I need her because fashions change,

When she glances at me my heart beats a rapid pace.

My soul remembers, every step along the way,

The time we shared is precious, something that you can't replace."

DRS' lyrical talent and flow, paired with Fox's vocal chorus over the top of Dub Phizix' dark bassline and piano riff come together to create a fantastic song. One of my favorites from the 'I Don't Usually Like MC's But...' album. 

This sounds like a love song to an ex, usually these are tragically cheesy, but here I can't help but think each line is genuine emotion. He uses a nice amount of elevated vocabulary, which straight away destroys the stereotype of MC's being 'thick' and unimaginative. 

"Feels like I'm kissing summer sky, she intoxicates, so addictive I'm impatient if I ever have to wait" is one of my favorite lines. The sibilance (repeated S sound) works so well and really makes their love feel almost toxic and dangerous, as he explains in the next set of lyrics. 

Each line rhymes perfectly, and the non stop flow makes it seem he's just pouring out all kids of emotions almost non stop. 

(I'm pretty sure I'm in this photo right at the back, shout out Fabric)

"It's not a trend, I need her because fashions change" is an awesome line. At first I didn't understand what he meant by "fashions change", I thought it literally meant fashion as in current trends because he just used the word trends, but he's referring to the manner in which he acts, well that's what I'm guessing it could mean something completely different.

A lot of people seem to want a relationship to look like they're doing well or are with the 'relationship trend' of this stupid generation, where 15 year olds think they should be getting married. But DRS is saying the opposite, he doesn't want a 'trend relationship', he wants a genuine one because he's changed the way he acts or goes about doing things. Deep shit.

I apologize as this blog ended up being insanely long, but I hope I kept your attention throughout and you have maybe changed your opinion on DnB MC's. Honestly, if you haven't I don't mind. But don't get me wrong some of them are definitely fucking fools. 

Peace out