Rock Climbing! (Blog 55)

Is the rock climbing I went to on Tuesday funny? That’s what I’ve been wondering about over the last couple of days. In the end I thought ‘screw it’, let’s just write (something) about it, even if it isn’t. And it really isn’t. Even the music that was playing in the background at the time was annoyingly normal. I heard none of the stuff that I mentioned I heard recently, such as the following: ’As the rain came down my window I heard the wind blow all around. I was stuck under the weather felt like forever out of the sun. But then I looked at my garden and saw at the bottom my old trampoline’… etc. Yes. Random.

Even though I would rarely admit it, deep down, that’s what I wanted to hear. Whatever ever happened to the fun/stupid old pop music about what it’s like to be coloured blue or made out of chocolate? Who cares if it’s unfeasible? Modern pop is rarely the same, other than of course the song I just mentioned. It’s easy to joke about the old stuff, as even some of the performers seemed to think the topics they sung about weren’t exactly meant to be taken seriously, at very least. The odd amused smirks can be noticed in their videos I think, but maybe that’s just me. Still though, at least that stuff actually made sense. If you used your imagination, I mean. In contrast, take the lyric ‘my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.’ What’s that about? (Ok, I know that’s an old song as well, but it is new relatively speaking, in that it’s a couple of years older. Well, whatever, I’m sure there are other examples).

Unsurprisingly however, the real crazy stuff comes from random lyric generators which are a lot of fun. Have a look at this website… https://www.song-lyrics-generator.org.uk/ In it, you put some words of your choice in some gaps, press a button and the website does the rest. Check out this material that I in part came up with… (The tune is to Judas Priest’s ‘Painkiller’). ‘Faster than a sheep, terrifying goose. Enraged and like a kreep, he’s half man and half grape juice’. Brutal, right? I don’t know what a ‘kreep’ is, though. Maybe it’s creep, but harsher. That ‘k’ is ever so slightly more aggressive and metal, don’t you think?

Alright, NOW I’ll talk about rock climbing. (As I have milked the music and I’ve had some ideas). So, the different colour grips for the hands and feet (I have no idea what they are called - might just be grips) show the various routes you’re supposed to climb. There is the purple route, the yellow route, the green route, etc. But overall, what is the world’s toughest/easiest colour and why? When it comes to different cultures, it seems no one really agrees. Orange was arguably the simplest course in the climbing thing, but in karate the lowest belt isn’t orange, but white. The highest belt is black and in judo, the highest belt is either red OR black! Make up your mind, there needs to be order! Imagine having no agreed upon alphabet, and consequently not being able to find out what words mean. That’s what’s going on when it comes to colours!

Anyway, so unsurprisingly the only route I could personally manage was orange, and even that was really hard. On some of the other courses you had to hang off the grips horizontally and pull yourself up to the ones higher up. What is that nonsense, is that even possible? Maybe it would be for Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the massive blue sponge to sit on/land on underneath (again, no idea what it was called), took away some of the manliness from the obstacle. But there are safety laws, aren’t there. It would also be manlier if there were no ropes allowed for the higher courses, but again, too far. However, the advertising slogan ‘the world’s most hardcore climbing centre’ could be associated with the place, simply by taking various climbing equipment away. It is something to think about, right? No? Yep, fair enough. Alright, that’s enough, byeyb.