Sky Piracy. The best job in the World.

Today, I have the exact opposite of writer's block. My head is awash with so many ideas and topics that I'm restraining mysel from allowing it all to flood out now and leave me with nothing to write about for some weeks. However, before we begin;

Just so you know, the idea of switching to this new format is to make my blog, videos and everything else totally interactive.. just like everything else in the world. Please feel free to bombard me with your thoughts, ideas, comments, photos, videos and anything else. I will try and show as much as I can and will do my best to answer all questions. Got a problem? Uncle Benji is here for you.. well most of the time anyway.

Right, with that out of the way time to crack on with today's topic. I'm starting with one I felt was perhaps weaker than my other ideas as I want each days update to be prgressivly better and more personal than the last. Today's topic is a pretty generic question we've all pondered, but with a very unique answer on my part.

What would you do in the event of a lottery win? We've all wondered, dreamed and maybe even lived the experience, but truth be told if you have spent your life with almost no money what do you do when you find yourself suddenly awash with cash?

Give it to charity? Fuck off and stop lying to me.

Take your mates on Holiday? Hmm... original.

A Massive house and fleet of expensive cars? Just to check, you are cool with everyone hating you and possibly beating you around the face and neck then? Cool-io.

What would I do then? Well, upon telling Mike v.1.0 this today he was quite surprised at my answer, declaring that I "continue to astound me in ever more bizarre and interesting ways."
At least I keep it fresh, eh?


My Masterplan is all down to a pact I share with my childhood friend, Joe. We both agree that the whole damn world and his wife thake themselves far too seriously. The world has lost all sense of magic and wonder and nobody does anything original, inventive or interesting these days. So, with that in mind, we would pool any cash winfall and purchase.. A Zeppelin. That's correct, an Airship, a Blimp, whatever you want to call it.

It's a method of transport so whimsical and wonderful you just know Willy Wonka has one somewhere. It would of course be elaborate in its design, with solar panels for power, a system to get a water supply from rainfall and moisture in the air, high-speed broadband, a huge T.V. and a party loungue with a glass floor and walls so you can lazily float over a city at night, all the lights twinkling away below as you party the night away. Imagine to possibilities for sex on a floor like that! Sound a bit far-fetched all this? You have to agree its surely not beyond the realm of human invention, so the question needn't be why? It should be why not?

As a species we never do anything any more just for the hell of it. No moon landings, No pointless large bridges over vast chasms, No solar powered supersonic paragliders. Nothing.
Its all about image, being wealthy and being seen at the right parties, and it pisses me right off. Especially as this zeppelin would have enormous potential. Imagine the stories I'd have living and travelling on such a Zeppelin with the whole crew. Spending all the dough on a personal party Zeppelin/palace in the sky may sound a bit selfish, but its really not.

I'd have many opportunities to be all benevolant, with our high-speed internet connection and scrolling message boards on the side I could travel the world spreading the message of love, giving sound financial advice, showing marriage proposals, dropping aid in Sudan and making charity appearances. Raffling tickets for charity to party on The Hardcore Zeppelin.

There are other benefits that aren't immeadiatly obvious. Firstly, on all my official documents I could change my occupation to "Sky Pirate" or "Explorer/adventurer extraordinaire".
Secondly, parking or going to the pub would be so easy, just slide down a rope, knife in teeth right outside the pub. Drinking and driving? no sir. You can hardly arrest Admiral Hardcore for flying the world's slowest and gayest Zeppelin under the influence of 12 pints of Carling.

Theres more too, imagine this over your hometown on a night out, scrolling a message downt he side such as; "Benji Hardcore Says: Always tell your Mum where you are going"

If this whole concept doesn't sound like the best idea ever to you, then frankly I imagine you are a very dull person who votes conservative and goes to village fetes.

So if you fancy doing me some concept drawings, I'd love to see them.

An Introduction

Welcome,
I've been having a crack at this for a long time now and figured it was time to set the world to rights, over a beer on a bigger stage. Just to save time for the moment I'm going to throw in a generic introduction i've recycled many, many times;


Basically, Im a f**king hero. Im responsible for everything good.. ever, this stretches up to and includes; the rotary engine, Sausage and cheese sandwiches, casual sex, those cans of corned beef with the ring pull that doesnt work, monkey knife fighting and most of the plots from hollyoaks.

Famous people always steal my ideas.

I have a habit of offending people and making outlandish and controversial comments, this is a marked improvement on my previous habit of having sex with girls I didnt know.

I'm always right. I'm very opinionated and will soon be Prime Minister of Britain and possibly the moon.

My 2 most favourite possessions are my snowboard and my guitar.. it only has 4 strings and 3 of them are E but it has a lot of special meaning to me and is heavilty stained in beer.

Don't take me shopping, I'll only complain.

Now thats out of the way, time to move onwards and upwards and start as I mean to go on.
Cue something original;

I Genuinely thought at the time that I would be the only person alive who could possibly have had that idea. With the benefit of hindsight its easy to see this was more than a little bigotted.. just like me.
My moment of genius struck in The Yorkshire House [The Greatest Pub in all the Land] around 2 years ago. By someway or another the conversation had turned to death and funerals, a strangely morbid subject for what was a a very positive group of good friends but nevertheless it took hold.

I was doing my usual thing of using my funeral to plan some elaborate and crazy booze party with naked go-go dancers and some baboons when just like that, it hit me like a train of depressing realisation. If my friends knew me at all, upon my [probably early] demise they would arrange such a crazy funeral in my honour knowing my wish would not be for sadness, but more for celebrating my far from normal life and having fun and wherever posssible a bit of beer fuelled casual sex. Why? What was the point? I'd be pushing up daisies, or more likely, having my testicles removed with a rusty hacksaw by one of Satan's minions. albeit deservedly - because frankly, I was a right bastard.

I felt it important that I be there for such a spectacle, so right there and then I hired the upstairs portion of the bar for some three weeks hence, I was going to become the only man in history to have two funerals. A good friend of mine, Chris, was one of the first to hear about the idea, partly because he's a top bloke and partly because his family owns a funeral parlour and I thought it would be hilarious to announce my death in the local rag and show up, in a coffin, only to burst out with my beer in hand right as the priest began stripping to some funky eurobeats. Sadly this wasn't to be. The night itself was pretty damn good considering many people were unavailable adn when you host a party you become alarmingly aware of nay empty space that should be filled with merrymakers.

The whole affair fell into place nicely, many turned up in suits, the beer flowed, my "ex" (we never made anything official and I was too drunk to tell you what happend in that month) brought her mum and spent the night slapping my ass in front of my new girlfriend.
Top that off with some awesome rock tunes and you got yourself a party ,sir.

However, that bloody theiving bastard from Hollyoaks the did the exact same bloody thing no less than a week later. I can't remember the details but basically some character staged his own death and threw a funeral/wake type affair to gain the affections of some stereotypically attractive actress type and promote his art/fashion/music/stereotypically youth culture thingy

This of course took the shine off the whole plan, even though I was first, could I ever prove it?
So the point, yes there is a point, is this; what next? How can I redeem myself? what stupid thing can I pull now, if only to put this whole "persona" to bed?

Since that night my life has settled into a routine so dull that even a carpet salesman or Ian Beale would gladly hang himself. My surname was replaced with the word hardcore for some good reason I can't remember. How can a man whose moral standards, general behaviour and alcohol consumption are so poor his last name was switched for such a word allow himself to get that dull?

It may be that its all out of my hands, after all Im one of the few who didnt opt for uni. Co-habitation and my only [almost] normal relationship are likely to tone some things down. Maturity perhaps has its part to play?

but if this is the way its meant to be, why am I so far away from being content?