The First Ever Piece of "Confessions" Merchandise

I think I've finally discovered my calling in life. I'm going to design, distribute and sell my own t-shirts. I can't believe I've never thought of it before. It's perfect. I wear t-shirts. And I've seen other people wearing t-shirts. And sometimes I'll see someone wearing a t-shirt and I'll say "Hey. That's a nice t-shirt" and they'll say "thank you" and I'll say "no problem". And you know what? It really is no problem. I can just look at a t-shirt and decide whether or not it's nice. I don't even have to think about it for that long. It's like I just know. Like some kind of sixth sense. And so I thought about this and I thought: "wouldn't it be great if I combined my love of t-shirts with my ability to distinguish nice t-shirts from not nice t-shirts and designed my own t-shirts?" And then I thought about this for a while and then answered myself: "yes. Yes it would".

So I've designed my own t-shirt. I wanted a slogan. Something witty and punchy, packed with hidden depth and meaning. Something that you could read once and find hilarious and then keep reading again and again and every time you get something new out of it and then you speak to someone else about it and you say "hey, did you see the new t-shirt?" and they'll say "yeah what did you think?" and you'll say "I loved it. I think it means this:..." and they'll say "oh really? I thought it meant this:..." and you'll be all like, "oh my goodness, I never thought of it like that but you're so right".

And so, bearing all that in mind, I came up with this:

Pretty darn brilliant right? You see, the guy who's wearing it is asking a girl (whichever girl might be reading it at the time) to go out with him. And then, to sweeten the deal, he conjures up a cozy image in which they're going out and she's borrowing his clothes. And the girl will think "You know what? It'd be great to be in a relationship in which I can borrow and wear someone else's clothes. Yeah. Let's do it."

However, upon the completion of said idea, I realised that I hadn't thought it through properly. What happens when the girl goes out with the guy and is then wearing the very t-shirt in question?

This issue would have to be addressed

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On the t-shirt:

But this is just an observation. I didn't want the girl to think that this was acceptable behaviour:

But now all I'm doing is highlighting the problem and no girl is going to want to go out with any guy who is complaining about the relationship before it's even started. The t-shirt would have to provide a solution. This, I figured, could be addressed on the back:

Ok. But then I started worrying that a lot of guys might not want to buy a t-shirt which effectively states that the wearer will be boyfriend to whoever reads it. What if an ugly girl reads it? What if another guy reads it? What if a bar full of ugly dudes squint in the wearer's direction and drunkenly absorb the text? What will the wearer do then? He can't take it back. It's on a t-shirt. I took care of this with a cleverly worded disclaimer:

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A pretty much perfect t-shirt which can be worn by virtually any man on the planet:

Except it's not. Not yet. You see I realised that, in striving to design a t-shirt which catered for heterosexual men looking for love, I had overlooked an important demographic. A whole culture of men who would be desperate to buy my t-shirt but who would feel excluded by its message. But that's ok. I've taken care of that as well. The t-shirt is reversible. For all my fans in the homosexual community, simply turn the t-shirt inside out and voila:

This is going to be the best t-shirt ever.

The Return of the (Blog) King...Get it? Like in Lord of the Rings. Except with blogging.

Right. Here goes. I've decided to restart my blog. From this point on, I hereby swear to update my blog at least twice a week. There. I've said it. I've made a promise and I have to stick to it. However, like any good promise, this one has a few provisos.

Reasons it would be ok for me not to blog twice a week:

1) If I am hit by a car.

2) If I fall down some stairs.

3) If the internet breaks (or is stolen).

4) If China rings and asks me to stop as my blogging is further aggravating the economy.

5) If I find a brick.

6) If I am mauled, seduced or written to by a bear (of any size).

7) If I am having a bad hair day.

8) If I feel like a sandwich.

9) If I forget.

10) If I remember and am fully able to but then can't be bothered.

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I'm also thinking of running for election.

Personal Statement

So I am currently in the process of updating my CV (I say updating but, seeing as I have lost any evidence of any CV I may have previously written, what I am actually doing is writing my CV from scratch).  For the most part this has been a tedious but reasonably easy process.  However, the thing that I have struggled with – the thing that I have always struggled with – is my personal statement.  I don't know why my brain refuses to cooperate for tasks such as this but, for some reason (about a sentence or, more often that not, half a sentence in), it gets bored and then I start writing nonsense.  Here are some of my Personal Statement attempts in the past couple of days:

"I am an experienced and passionate youth worker who is well known for creative solutions to difficult problems. In 1923 I invaded Poland. But then who didn’t."

"I am a 25 year old schools worker who is currently staying with his friends Andy and V. Right now I am sitting on the sofa in their lounge while V makes an omelette in the kitchen. Andy is there too, talking to her. Probably something about translation or languages or translating languages. My anti-social behaviour is currently being permitted because I am supposed to be working on my CV. However, as you can see, I am not achieving a great deal. So I might join my friends in the kitchen instead."

"My goodness I’m sexy. You should employ me...because I’m sexy."

"My name is Glyn (diddle iddle iddle um)

And I’ve got no chin (diddle iddle iddle um)"

"In 1983 a child was born. A child with five fingers on each hand and a mole the size of his little baby fist on his chest. 25 years later this child grew up to become a man of undeniable breeding. A man who can drive a car and likes custard. This man...is Glyn Harries...and you should hire him...here is his CV:"

Jeff and Peanut

I have recently discovered the comedic wonders of Jeff Dunham and his trunk load of friends.  I wasn't expecting to like it so much (as Verity said when I showed her this: "most ventriloquists are rubbish but this guy is actually quite good").  I felt I had to post the following clip on my blog as it spookily reminds me of the relationship I have with one Mr Andrew Hill.

I'll leave you to guess who is who.

The hills are alive with the sound of contact sheets being dutifully filled out.

Maybe it's a sign of the times.  Last Friday, I was invited to go and see Sound of Music with one of the high schools in Chelmsford (one of their drama teachers used to work in the West End and so was able to get really cheap front row seats).  Normally this wouldn't have interested me but I was really keen to build up relationships with the drama department of this particular school so I agreed to go along and, for good measure, brought Katie along with me.  I sat down (close enough to the stage to smell the tears of child actors) with a certain degree of scepticism.  I wasn't expecting this to be any good at all.  All cheesy and feel good and bleurgh!  But then, about half way through, something hit me.  As I sat and watched Maria comforting the seven Von Trapp children in her bed as they sang about their favourite things whilst forgetting the world around them, something dawned on me:  This violates so many child protection guidelines.

And it was then that I realised...my purpose in life...is to write a sketch entitled: 

The Safe and Sound of Music

In other news (whilst I have your attention) I am repeating my advent poems from last year in my other blog.  They'll be exactly the same as last years but if you were a fan and would like to rediscover the genius of the Glyn Harries advent poem challenge (some reviews: "powerful", "inspiring", "inane") then please help yourself.  Thank you.  Goodbye.

Glyn Writes - No, seriously!

As well as restarting this blog, I have decided to reawaken the sleeping ferret that is my anthology page.  I am writing more and more sketches and poems for people who ask and also for my new drama cell (Kerygma).  I thought I would share (also, this saves me having to email people copies of my work when they ask).

Feel free to check it out...

Hip Hip Hooray!

My very first blog post on my new shiny silvery macbook.  It arrived last week and despite having no keyboard backlighting and being told by my father that he "prefers the white one", I'm rather happy with it.  So happy, in fact, that I wrote a poem to celebrate:

Interesting fact

I own a Mac

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t

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book

Thank you!