Apocalypse Now Now review

Charlie Human - Apocalypse Now Now (2014)

First sentence: 'There are questions that run through your head when you find out that you're a serial killer.'

Plot: Let me introduce you to our main man Baxter Zevcenko, he's the youthful chap with the questionable insignia on his forehead! Alongside running a successful pornography business within his school in Cape Town, Bax is bossing rival gangs with the help of his odd-ball, yet loveable, wolf pack of friends. In this adult novel, Esme, his girlfriend, is pronounced missing and everything he knows, becomes incredibly weird. Basically, shit starts to go wrong and strange, dark, bizarre things leak into Baxter's life, with a pinch of apocalypse to add flavour! As any responsible teenager would, Baxter embarks on a mission to find who took Esme, with the unconventional aid of a supernatural bounty hunter. Yes that's right! You heard me right! Walk, and sometimes frantically dart, with Bax and Ronin as they explore Cape Town's twisted underworld.

Review: Now, I urge you to scroll back up and take a look at that cover. For a debut, Human does not scrimp on the wild appearance of his vision. I picked this book up at my local bookshop because of the artwork. Before peeling the first page, we are treated to comic illustrations of dark creatures embossed with blood, maroon tentacles circling praying mantises and a selection of gothic characters dwelling firearms. I mean damn, this book hit the spot for me. It screams gothic, urban fantasy, which is essentially what it is.

Apocalypse Now Now reads like butter, the quality of writing cannot be knocked. It is infused with wild imagination and gave me the similar feelings as Neil Gaiman's Coraline. The prose is weird and violent, yet compelling. Not dissimilar to watching someone start a fire inside a house, or try to make friends with a feisty cobra. The pace is fantastic and the chapters are short, allowing the story to move comfortably. The author is eloquent in capturing Baxter's twisted, adult sense of humour in dialogue, which complimented mine like cheese to wine. I read chapters thinking, does this Charlie guy know me, does he read my blog or summa?! When I laughed, of course, I grew a relationship with Bax and the equally hilarious Ronin; I often myself, gleefully pondered the real life consequences of hanging out with a middle aged, gun dwelling, alcoholic, unpredictable hunter.

Readers learn how Baxter deals with unconventional family life (very relatable), help him face otherworldly decisions and dive into a chaotic underworld. Reading this book felt like walking down a darkened street when you should be in bed, lined with shady gentlemen and the occasional hooker, not knowing what you're going to be greeted with. One aspect I found incredibly charming was the incorporation of Baxter's psychiatrist's reports; including these, which gave the reader an honest insight into Bax's twisted personality, also balanced out the high amounts of contrived fantasy and made up beasties.

Give it a go, I highly recommend. Great, original story that's funny and relatable. There is a book 2, called Kill Baxter that I found just as compelling, may review soon! Funny side note; please remind me not to awkwardly use social media as a vessel for showcasing my admiration of books. I don't think Charlie Human appreciated my sickeningly sweet compliments on Twitter...or maybe he did. Maybe he's too cool and awesome to reply...

Sarah

Does Anyone Else Do This?

Evening, nosy bastards.

I could think of many words to realistically describe my current mood as I type. First, allow me to set the scene for this blog post. Yes I am doing one. No I am not consistent. No It probably won't be groundbreaking. Yes it is really funny and probably explains my temperament.

In the dull drone of the afternoon, I found myself at the Give Blood centre. The place I go is a little church that they temporarily fancy up to look like it's welcoming enough for humans who are giving selflessly (I'm not sure I find leaflets and posters about taking God's hand particularly comforting but it's a nice building). Name called, I saunter in and the old lady, who looked like she'd been hitting the shit since the 60s, pulled me into a booth and did the test to see if my Iron/Haem levels were good enough. Although her composure no doubt reflected her years of experience, the placid look on her face soon changed when she asked me why I'd ticked that I was a male donor who'd had unprotected oral or anal sex with another man. Theeeeeen, a whole load of awkward stuff happened and at one point I lay in the middle of the donor room, legs elevated because I felt faint; who knew I solicit sexual favours AND have such unyielding nerves of steel.

Although a good laugh, that put me in a bad mood. I really value giving blood and I hated being told that I couldn't do something selfless with my time.

Which brings me back to describing my mood. It's nice to sum it all up in a realistic word. I don't want to think and worry in circles about things, I just want to reassure myself that I am merely an adjective and that my theatrics will roll over.

Manic. As I type, it's cascading into indifference but for the sake of pessimism we'll stick with manic. It hasn't been a great day guys. It's like the things I worry about are separate pieces of a pie, regulated by wires linking them together in a logical, manageable system. When I get panicky, a pair of malificent hands tangle all the wires and some are hanging out of their sockets and some are put in the wrong order and I'm trying to think about every single worry at once and sort it all out and then the system fails. 

I don't know if this happens to anyone else but to accompany a sour mood, I often like to rise daggers at myself. Why don't you have a car? Why aren't you saving more money? Why haven't you moved out? Why are you writing this shitty blog po....

Spending time on my own can be most therapeutic and quite equally an absolute ballache. Not that I have said appendage.

A warm embrace to fellow worriers out there who are feeling these things too. We all know that it'll end up being okay, and if it's not okay, it most certainly isn't the end.

Holiday offer: half price oral and/or anal packages upon presentation of large latte!

Someone Touched My Wobbly Bits

Before the heartfelt sympathy starts pouring in, no, I have not been physically assaulted. I know I've had a few run ins with the police force recently, but this is a nice thing.

I want to talk about a spa treatment, bought for me by my generous older (though questionably not wiser) sister Lucy. She treated to a magical full body massage (The Comforter? Treatment) at LUSH Spa Kingston. I use the adjective magical quite literally, as there were bubbles in the little, darkened room and music from Willy Wonka playing. It felt like I was in a mini, pleasantly scented spaceship.

First of all I must credit LUSH as a company on how the entire day was delivered. I am not a self conscious person, but I did have my realistic reserves about how the treatment would take place. How naked is full body? Will I cope with someone seeing my wobbly bits? Shit, I need to shave my legs/wear suitable underwear...ETC. Don't laugh. We all have our moments. OH HOW WRONG I WAS.

On arrival we were sat down and we had a cute chat with our therapists. We were offered a drink & shown to our massage rooms. The spa area itself was like someone's living room who has incredible talent with home design; beautiful colours, smells and ambience. We were told exactly what would happen and what products would be used where. When we'd stripped down to the bare minimum and had snuggled into a heated duvet spa bed, we rang a little bell so the therapist would know to begin. Through this whole process, Aquarium by Arthur Fiedler was playing which made my mind feel gooey. If you aren't familiar with this piece of music, educate yourself...you won't be disappointed.

The treatment itself was a hot chocolate exfoliating body scrub and a rose scented medium pressure massage of the arms, legs, chest and back. It was bewitching. When she hit my lower back...good god. My skin still feels soft and healthy and the whole day made for a fantastic memory.

Word of the day: SATISFIED. I would recommend the LUSH Spa to any human being I know. It is no gimmick; just blissful. I am over analytical and anxious by default, so trust me.

My treatment is priced at £75. If you're looking to REALLY treat a best friend or family member to a day of infinite indulgence, I would whole heartedly get on this website and splash zee cash; https://www.lush.co.uk/products/treatments-0

Thank you for listening to my selfish post! :) and I know there's not many pictures on my blog to accompany the words, but we're all adults and to be honest you should know how to enjoy a wonderful chunk of writing by now.

My Encounter With Racism

I've always hoped that if I were face to face with unjust crime, i'd stand up to it, like any Marvel superhero. Like Spider Man does to all of those back street thugs when they steal wallets from old people or rob the convenience store. And I am quite proud to say that yesterday, I did.

On a fairly normal day of work, I encountered very blatant, shocking public racism at a bus stop against a chinese family. I found myself, albeit with shaking knees and hands, standing in the way of and stopping, a profoundly abusive man who was being physically and verbally racist. I spoke to the man and challenged his strong racist views and stood up to his inappropriate, personal probing. I reported the incident to the police and have spent the first day of my holiday off of work in a police station, giving a statement. YAY!

Don't get me wrong i'm no hero and this is a pretty isolated incident of racism. It, however, showed me that every person, has the right to stand up for what they feel and think to be right. DO NOT be afraid to step into a hero role, whether it be confronting a bully, stopping a crime, or standing up to a stranger. DO NOT think that it is not worth reporting an incident to the police.

Racism is not acceptable. Look after the world and the people in it by protecting yourself and your fellow humans against attacks of prejudice.

We all deserve equality & to live our lives in peace.

FIST PUMP!

BLAH

Today I found out that I hate change. I like to do new things (however small) every day, to make my life interesting. However, there comes a point when too much change occurs at one moment in time and it ends up in me getting teary eyed and grumpy.

Life isn't static and I am just very aware of this today.

Wallow wallow wallow.

I just ate a whole cold poppadom in defiance.

Pray for me. (haha)

Hello

Having an early mid life crisis and thinking about this side note made me feel nostalgic. So i'm going to type something; probably not of worth to anyone but myself. Don't intend to promote this to social medias or anyone close. Don't intend to check through to edit spellings or layout. I am not doing this for a purpose other than to satisfy an itch.

So here's the news from the press. Not boring life news that depresses other people. I have nothing to envy going on. I hate that...having to hear about other people and their successes. If i'm brutally honest it's a fat cause of stress for me so I am not going to try to use the blog as a throne to glorify myself. But yes...me. I am happy...i think. Know what i mean by that? I am in a lovely, warm fuzzy kind of job which doesn't involve the general fucking public. Being around children does quite the opposite to me, it's enlightening and wonderful. I read a lot at the moment; i'm having an affair with a paper copy of The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins (don't tell my kindle). In July i did a 10k run for Cancer Research but have been regularly eating 'out' and so have no life savings and a bigger gut than when i last did a blog. I smile as i write that, body weight makes me whimsical.

Is a person defined by their successes and what they can tell other people they have done? Of course they aren't. I hope rather to take you on a bit of an emotional, philosophical journey here. It's not just for bucket list moments.

Also there's no such thing as a perfect piece of writing. So i won't dwell on what i type. Like i said, i just got itchy.

Will call in soon.

P.S. Ironically i am actually physically very itchy, the pollen count is seriously affecting me!

Yo

Hi everyone.

I fully intend on continuing my blog. I'm aware I haven't done it in a couple of years, or what feels like that anyway, but this is my vibe, and I am going to be irregular with my input, cus I can (and because I forget to blog and am a sloth reincarnated). So I won't excuse myself for those reasons again (I'm too English with manners).

In absence of writing, I've taken to reading, believe it or not. I bought a Kindle Paperwhite and it's spurred me on to spend time enjoying books rather than Facebook and Twitter. So far i've read Doctor Sleep by Stephen King and am part way through The Shock Of The Fall by Nathan Filer. Doctor Sleep is the sequel to The Shining and focuses on Danny Torrance, the little boy who got away from the psychotic dad in The Overlook Hotel. It was excellent as expected from a man of his calibre. The Shock Of The Fall is kind of depressing and deals with death and mental illness. I haven't fully taken to reading it for long periods of time, but i'm hoping it will develop into something more warm and enjoyable. BUY A KINDLE GUYS. They're awesome and have a beastly battery lives. Plus an e-book is a fraction of the price of a paperback.

ANYWAY. Quick reminder; don't be a dick or say dick things to anyone in your lives, work or play.

xxx