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The city of Baltimore and the federal government unveiled the terms of a sweeping 227-page consent decree Thursday morning, a legal document mandating reforms to the local police force. The deal emerged 21 months after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died while in police custody in April 2015, and five months after a scathing Department of Justice report alleged a litany of unconstitutional, racist, and just plain mean-spirited policing practices in Charm City.

"Through this agreement, we are moving forward together to heal the tension in the relationship between BPD and the community it serves," US attorney general Loretta Lynch said at a press conference in the city. "The agreement is robust and comprehensive," she added, emphasizing that it was negotiated to ensure effective policing, restore the community's trust in law enforcement, and advance the public and police officers' safety.

Like 14 similar deals currently being enforced on law enforcement jurisdictions across America, the Baltimore consent decree lays out a number of new rules and systemic changes. Among other things, it calls for a community-oversight task force to recommend tweaks to the current civilian oversight systems, insists on respect for individuals' First Amendment rights to protest and monitor the police, imposes guidelines on proper use of force and transport of people in custody, protocols on constitutional stops, searches, and arrests, requirements for annual "community policing" trainings for all officers, and new procedures for conducting sexual assault investigations. While the BPD has moved to implement some of these reforms already—which the decree acknowledges and commends—Baltimore now has a legal tool to help cure what critics believe is a broken culture of often-brutal policing.

The deal also represents one of the last chances for the Obama administration's activist Justice Department to leave its fingerprint on the American criminal justice system—and to rein in rogue cops at the center of Black Lives Matter protests. The only question is how aggressively a new, law-and-order happy White House under Donald Trump will enforce it.

The Baltimore City Fraternal Order of the Police, the local police union, quickly issued a critical statement after news of the decree broke Thursday, bemoaning the fact that they were not included in the negotiations. "Despite continued assurance by representatives of the Department of Justice that our organization would be included in the Consent Decree negotiations, no request to participate was ever forthcoming and we were not involved in the process," the statement said. "As we were not afforded an advance copy of the agreement, neither our rank and file members who will be the most affected, nor our attorneys, have had a chance to read the final product and, as such, we will not have a comment now. Be assured, however, that a response will be forthcoming at the appropriate time."

Police unions in other cities have worked to block reform efforts through their collective bargaining agreements, and Baltimore activists say they are bracing for similar resistance from the local FOP. The Baltimore police union has opposed reforms to the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights, which governs how officers accused of misconduct are treated in Maryland. Some activists say the statewide law stands as the city's biggest barrier for meaningful police accountability and transparency.

In October, for its part, the Baltimore FOP issued its own recommendations for inclusion in the consent decree, calling for things like increased whistleblower protections, more cops, and technology upgrades.

Check out our look at how a Freddie Gray protester got slapped with a massive bail.

During his confirmation hearings for US attorney general this week, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions expressed skepticism about using consent decrees to force change in police departments. "These lawsuits undermine the respect for police officers and create an impression that the entire department is not doing their work consistent with fidelity to law and fairness," he said. Sessions also once wrote that court-ordered consent decrees were "undemocratic" and "dangerous," which taken with his more recent comments has served to send a chill down the spine of police reformers nationwide.

Still, outgoing attorney general Lynch assured the public at Thursday's press conference that the consent decree "will live on past this administration." After all, it is court-enforceable, and there will be an independent monitor overseeing the agreement.

But Lawrence Brown, an assistant professor of public health at Morgan State University, told VICE he has "no faith in Trump's folks, especially if it's Beauregard Sessions" and that he expects the police union to oppose key elements of the agreement. "Other means will have to be utilized to ensure this is enforced," he said, pointing to ongoing efforts to change or repeal the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights.

Meanwhile, DeRay McKesson, a Black Lives Matter national activist and administrator in the Baltimore City Public School system, praised the agreement on Twitter for its scope, and noted that it's the first consent decree he's ever seen to include school police.

Skepticism that the new administration will hold local cops' feet to the fire abounds, however. One member of Baltimore Bloc, a grassroots group focused on police reform, told VICE that she and her fellow activists have no confidence in a Trump DOJ to enforce the consent decree, even if they had their doubts about enforcement under a Hillary Clinton DOJ, too. "I think Baltimore Police is going to resist it all the way, FOP's statement is already obstructionist as hell, and it was the police gleefully violating people's rights that got us here," the activist said.

The city has been under pressure to finish the consent decree before Inauguration Day. That's because once the agreement is finalized—it still needs court approval—a federal judge will be empowered to enforce it, no matter who is president or US attorney general. Still, legal experts generally agreethat if the police department or city political leadership fail to follow through on the terms of the agreement, it will be up to Trump's Department of Justice to take them to court to compel change.

Follow Rachel M. Cohen on Twitter.

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

The first time Rai Waddingham heard a voice it told her to kill herself. Except, well, it wasn't just one voice—it was three. "I was staying overnight at a friend's house, and I heard these men talking about me, saying things like: 'She's stupid,' 'No one likes her,' and, 'She should kill herself.' I initially assumed it was my friends, because three guys lived in the house, so I went down to confront them, but they were all asleep, which was really weird. Plus the guys I heard sounded middle-aged."

Waddingham was 19 at this point. The voices didn't stop, and she swiftly came to believe someone was watching her through cameras. Who has the resources to put surveillance in her home? The government. And aliens, of course. A twisted logic sprouted from her mind, and she progressively became more overwhelmed and paranoid, fearing the people around her. A doctor eventually admitted her to a psychiatric hospital, where she was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia and ending up taking "a huge amount of medication" to cope.

Two decades later, Waddingham now hears roughly 13 voices—more than she ever has. The original trio still exists, and still talks about her, but others pop in and out regularly. Like Bunny, a funny but curious five-year-old ("she's constantly cracking jokes"). The big difference in all of this is that Waddingham no longer sees herself as having a mental health problem. Or rather, it no longer gets in the way of her life. "When I was in hospital, I was absolutely terrified of my voices because they etched away at my self-esteem and confidence," she says. "I hear the same voices I heard several years ago, but they don't crush me in the same way. I don't believe the voices literally anymore; I believe them symbolically."

People who hear voices often instill suspicion in the imaginations of those who don't, but it's more common than you'd think: Between 4 to 8 percent of the population experience what's known as "auditory verbal hallucinations." That's potentially 600 million people worldwide. And while 40 percent of us will hear voices at some point in our lives, many affected, like Waddingham, lead fulfilling, healthy lives. A common misconception, perhaps fed by the kind of "drug-crazed schizophrenic" headlines you see in the Mail, is that people who hear voices have a form of psychosis. It's one of the most common features, granted, but the majority of voice hearers aren't diagnosed with schizophrenia. For them, voice hearing is an everyday experience that isn't associated with being unwell.

Take Nikki Mattocks, for example, who heard her first voice at age 14. Five years later, she currently hears up to 20 different voices a day. "It's very confusing," she says. "They say things like, 'You're ugly,' 'You're fat,' 'You're stupid.' I used to be terrified—I'd have panic attacks and tried to kill myself just to get rid of them. But I'm used to it now. I function as anyone else would. I'm hearing them right now, and I'm still chatting to you because I've learned how to manage them."

Sometimes the voices are so intense Mattocks can't hear her friends chatting, but she'll simply sit there in silence until it passes. "I've got very patient friends," she laughs. Drinking is also unpredictable. "The other day I went clubbing, and for the first two to three hours, it was great," she explains. "But then I started to sober up and felt shitty again. The voices don't get nicer when I'm drunk, just a bit weirder. They can change to noises—I'll hear random bangs, like they're trying to scare me." To cope, Mattocks never leaves the house without her headphones. She uses the analogy of putting a plug in the sink to stop water from escaping: The music holds the incessant flow of sound in place, and at bay, if only for a short time. For Waddingham, she finds that writing things down or talking directly to her voices is useful. In her head, though: "People look at me funny if I talk to them out loud, which is sad, really, isn't it? I should get some Bluetooth headphones. No one would know the difference."

At her lowest, the English Hearing Voices Network (HVN) was also a huge help to Waddingham. It's a charity that supports a network of peer-support groups and gives people the opportunity to talk freely about their experiences. While traditional approaches aim to suppress symptoms with medication, HVN encourages people to explore and change their relationship with the voices. It's an approach that worked for Waddingham: "What I do now is reassure my voices. So I'll go: 'Thanks for letting me know I'm a bit anxious—I think I'm safe, but I'll keep an eye out.' If I acknowledge them, they get quieter."

The HVN is part of the much larger International Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) that's spreading its message across the world. Founded in the Netherlands in 1987, through a partnership between a psychiatrist, voice hearer, and journalist, it sees itself as a civil rights movement. So rather than the experts defining what's going on, the person who actually hears voices makes the choice about what help they need. It's about opening up the conversation, rather than closing it down, and despite the well-established link between hearing voices and traumatic life experiences, the HVM accepts all explanations for hearing voices and regards them as a meaningful—if sometimes painful—experience.

Waddingham, for instance, had suffered years of sexual abuse as a child. She knows the abuser was outside of her family, but kept it bottled up until she started university. People who have survived trauma are far more likely to lose touch with reality, hear voices, and feel fearful. "All my voices are split off parts of myself," explains Waddingham. "I'd spent years squishing all those feelings and emotions down, and that's what caused me so much trouble. I'd internalized so much badness about myself that didn't belong to me."

Looking forward, it's something she'd like to see changed. At the moment, we tend to talk about the diagnosis as explaining the symptoms: Someone is feeling low because they have depression. But we're not so great at asking: Why do they feel low? What's going on in their life? And while we've got better at speaking about anxiety and depression, there's still a significant stigma attached to voice hearers. "It seems to be a step too far for some people," explains 31-year-old Jaabir, who heard voices for roughly six months last year. He's suffered with mental health problems since he was a teenager, heightened by the death of his father at a young age. "It's fine if you've got anxiety, depression, or borderline personality disorder—people can kind of understand that. But voices? That's pretty messed up." Removing the misconception that people who hear voices are violent is also important, says Mattocks. "I hear a fucking lot of voices, but I have never, ever heard one that has told me to physically harm anyone else. Even if I did, that doesn't mean I'm going to do it."

Despite the good intentions behind Theresa May's plans to "transform" attitudes to mental health, we've clearly got a long way to go. But if you've ever heard a voice, the answer isn't hugely complicated: Let's talk about it. If more people come forward and say: "I hear voices, so what?" we might just begin to tackle, and unravel, the "mad person" stigma.

The more radical change? That one might prove harder to fix. "Distress from voices can be linked to lots of stuff that happens in our world: trauma, sure, but also poverty, racism, victimization, and bullying," explains Waddingham. "I just want us to have a society that doesn't mess people up."

Follow Louise Donovan on Twitter.

Ten years ago, Michaela Coel was a celibate, ultra-religious Pentecostal Christian who wept when her friends got tattoos and begged them to believe in Jesus. Now she's one of the biggest rising stars in television, creating and starring in Chewing Gum, the BAFTA award-winning Netflix and E4 comedy described by the New York Times as one of the best TV shows of 2016.

Losing your faith isn't exactly a typical route to stardom, but Coel is far from your typical comedy showrunner. She started off by writing and performing poems about Jesus, before abandoning religion at drama school and penning Chewing Gum Dreams, a one-woman play about growing up in public housing. Her performance electrified audiences in fringe theater, and Coel was asked to develop the idea for television. The result, Chewing Gum, is a filthily inventive, bubblegum-bright vision of inner city London that bypasses all the usual TV cliches about working class life and female sexuality.

Read more and watch our interview with Michaela on Broadly

On Thursday, the Department of Justice's internal watchdog announced that it would be launching an official investigation into how its own department and the FBI and its director James Comey handled its probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, Politico reports.

At the request of "numerous Chairmen and ranking members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of the public," DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz said the investigation will look into the public comments Comey made about the FBI's findings on July 5, when he called Clinton's actions "extremely careless."

It's also going to look into that letter Comey sent out to Congress just a few days before the election, explaining that the FBI would be reopening the investigation after finding new information on Anthony Weiner's laptop. Comey ended up clearing Clinton for a second time just two days before the election.

Democrats and Clinton's camp have blamed the timing of that letter for her election loss to Donald Trump, arguing that it reinvigorated his supporters and caused irrevocable damage to her campaign just eleven days before the election.

According to the statement, the investigation will focus on allegations that the DOJ and FBI did not follow their own set of policies and will look into any indication that employees made decisions regarding the investigation based on "improper considerations."

On an all new episode of Fuck, That's Delicious, host Action Bronson heads to San Francisco's Bay Area to eat everything from soul food to Burmese.

Fuck, That's Delicious airs Thursdays at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head here to find out how to tune in.

On this episode of 'The VICE Guide to Comics,' we dive deep into the world of religious illustrator Jack T. Chick's Christian comics, which became the most distributed comic book series in the world. 

Chick saw his Chick Tracts as a tool to recruit the "unsaved," and the comics are full of what many consider to be hate speech. Thankfully VICE art editor Nick Gazin is back to teach you about them so you never have to pick one up yourself.

Today, the retirees and confused, stoned teens who were watching C-SPAN got a taste of some Kremlin-sponsored programming after the public-access station's web feed went out and was replaced with a Russian TV station called RT.

At around 2:30 PM, the feed was tuned in to a Securities and Exchange Commission proceeding before it swapped out to a program called World's Apart, featuring a groovy travel segment about visiting San Escobar before jumping back to host Oksana Boyko. The feed switched back to C-SPAN after roughly ten minutes, but it didn't take too long for people on Twitter to notice that something was up.

C-SPAN released a statement on Twitter addressing the swap, chalking it up to a simple technical mixup, instead of something more sinister or deliberate. As Gizmodo pointed out, the recent US intelligence investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 US election found that the Russian government used RT during that time to "undermine faith in the US Government and fuel political protest."

"We are currently investigating and troubleshooting this occurrence," C-SPAN wrote. "As RT is one of the networks we regularly monitor, we are operating under the assumption that it was an internal routing issue. If that changes we will certainly let you know."

"This is barbasco, a suicide plant," Edmundo Salazar says. He motions to the young leafy bush in front of him. The leaves are elongated and a vibrant green.

For centuries, the plant Lonchocarpus urucu was commonly used by indigenous tribes in South America for fishing. When ground into a paste, it's a particularly potent substance that can stun fish in stagnant pools or slow-flowing streams.

It's also used to commit suicide; three kids in Salazar's small town of Rukullacta had killed themselves with the plant over the holidays.

"Because of love sickness," Salazar says, touching the leaves of the plant, briefly pausing, remembering.

Soon the moment is over and we move on. After all, the barbasco is just one plant in Salazar's garden of plenty. All around, there's an abundance of edibles and medicinal foliage. For food, there's yucca roots and leaves, mushrooms, cocoa, edible ferns, and Amazonian cinnamon, vanilla, and grapes. There's also taro, various citruses, bananas, green plantains, and toquilla palms—whose leaves are used to make hats and whose young hearts are edible. (Hearts of palm, after all, come from palm trees.) There are herbs that act as natural antibiotics or insect repellants. Some plants act as seasonings, others are just food for the birds.

Read more on MUNCHIES

When we speak to babies, we talk kind of like babies too. Our voices go all high-pitched, and we deliver sing-songy, sweet-sounding gibberish. There is actually an official, scientific term for this: infant-directed speech.

Contrary to beliefs held by people who play Beethoven to their kid while it's still in the womb, talking to your baby like an actual baby—not a full-grown adult—is very good for them. Babies have been shown to prefer infant-directed speech to adult-directed speech, and key developmental outcomes—like speech perception, and adult–infant social interaction—are also better facilitated by infant-directed speech.

As it turns out, dogs feel quite similarly.

A new study published yesterday in journal Proceedings of the Biological Society found that while puppies enjoy this high-pitched baby-talk, older dogs (much like their human counterparts) don't feel so enthused.

To discover this, researchers recorded human adults speaking to dogs of all ages: from puppies through to more elderly mutts. They found that no matter what the dog's age, people spoke in the same way they would to a baby. Their annunciation slowed down, their tone became more melodic, and they pitched their voices higher, especially high when addressing puppies. The study called this "dog-directed speech."

When those audio recordings were played back to canines young and old, "only puppies were highly responsive to dog-directed speech." They got pretty hyped up. As the report put it, at a young age, there is a "functional value" to this speech pattern: it makes pups pay attention.

Meanwhile, older dogs did not particularly care. Researchers noted "the behavioural reaction of adult dogs to the playback was not significantly influenced by the pitch of speech sequence." In fact, their responses were basically the exact same when addressed with adult-directed speech. Unlike puppies and human babies, they don't really have a preference, and researches found this "rather unexpected."

Is it because they're more mature? It is because they're just more selective about who they respond to? These are the questions scientists will be looking to next.

They're also wondering why we feel compelled to use dog-directed speech in the first place. They suspect it's not just because puppies cue the same protective, gentle feelings within us as babies do, as previously hypothesised. After all, we talk to adult dogs with the speech pattern too, even when it doesn't actually better engage them.

The researchers involved believe it has something to do with a switch we make, into "non-speaking listener" mode. That is, whenever we're talking to a listener who we feel can't fully understand us, human or not, we change the way we talk.

From here, we could look at developing ways to speak to our grown-up pets that they really enjoy, and find ways to better train and connect with our beloved pups.

So hey, maybe your dog is only ignoring you because you're talking to it like a child—and evidently, it knows it's better than that.

Photography via Flickr user Loren Chipman

Growing up, game shows were part of my family's nightly TV ritual. I'd imagine myself as one of the kids on Jungle Run, collecting bananas and being harassed by out-of-work actors dressed as monkeys, and then host Dominic Wood proposing to me because of how impressed he was with my dexterity. Later, I encouraged us to graduate to Chris Tarrant's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, beating the contestants and my parents to answers, and fostering the belief that meaningless trivia and television was my route to riches.

So what was I going to do when someone asked me to go on a game show? Obviously say yes.

Sadly, the episode of Pointless I'd be appearing on wouldn't be televised and there would be absolutely zero cash prize. Instead, the aim was to teach journalists what it's like to be on a game show. No one else at work wanted to do it, so I took them up on their offer. I'd never seen the show, but that was fine. 'I'll prep the night before,' I thought. Trouble was, I did no prep. I had absolutely no idea what happened on the show or how to play the game. My little brother messaged to tell me I was a moron. I started to feel a bit sick.

Pointless is filmed at Elstree Studios, a little way out of London. When I arrived there, late, in a sweaty mess, other journalists were tense, tapping away on their phones in a big tent. I was already nervous about the fact I'd never seen the show, but the real panic set in when I realised no one wanted to make conversation because they were ruminating on the challenge ahead.

I got out my phone and scrolled through the Wikipedia page for Pointless. The premise of the game sounded confused – there were multiple answers but you had to pick the most obscure one. I told someone from Buzzfeed that I'd never seen the show. They looked bemused, as if I was either lying for something to say or utterly stupid. Regrettably, it was the latter.

After waiting for ages I was introduced to my partner, Keith, a very nice man from the newspaper Metro. The other three pairs lined up next to us and each took a numbered counter from a bag to determine what order we'd play in. We were left with "one". Judging from the sighs of relief from everyone else, this was very bad news. Keith said he was a regular viewer of Pointless and had even been on a journalists' version previously. He jumped straight into strategy: what we should and shouldn't do, how many risks we should take. I didn't have the heart to tell Keith my dark secret.

Keith and Hannah: the Official Press Shot

Studio sets are shiny and fake when you see them in real life, like when you see a celebrity in the flesh and they're really small, perfect and oily, like a troll doll. The producer told us a fun list of what not to do based on previous contestants' mistakes. "Make sure you can see the question screen from here, otherwise you're not going to get much correct! And don't trip off the edge of the walkway!" He gestured to the blue floor in the centre of the walkway. "Someone actually thought that was water. It's not water!"

We were shown to our podium. I thought about all the greats who'd been there in my place, according to Wikipedia. Antony Costa. Paul Hollywood. Michelle Heaton. Now it was just me and Keith, "Hannah and Keith".

Back in the tent we had name badges attached and mics rigged up. My forehead was sweating my powder off. Everyone was casually prancing from foot to foot, trying to talk about anything else, only to swing immediately back to nervous remarks about the show that no one answered.

Suddenly, we were ushered on. It was go time. We piled out in single file, and Keith and I shuffled up to our podium. Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman were there in suits, waiting, chuckling away and making jokes with the crew. I don't usually find middle-aged men in suits all that funny, but you know what? They're reasonably good. Mostly they just bantered about print media dying and new media essentially being children typing shit onto the internet, which went down nicely between old and young, print and online journalists. Fuel for the competition.

The first challenge was to think of words ending in "eak". Easy, I scoffed. Then I remembered the premise of the whole fucking game: that I had to pick something no one else could think of, and that me and Keith had less time to do it in because we were first. Bleak. Squeak. Break. Heartbreak! Heartbreak was good, wasn't it, Keith? A light went on in Keith's eyes. He knew it was good.

Alexander Armstrong also knew it was good. "Oh, that's good," he said, when we told him. "That's really good." I could feel the jealousy. I wanted to laugh, my chest filling with pride. Check out my face below – that's what's going there:

Alexander Armstrong asked the other contestants for their answers. All of them were shorter words, and thus more likely to be picked by the general public. Buzzfeed gave their answer: bleak. The scoreboard column became animated. You want your column to fall and fall because the smaller it is, the smaller percentage of people picked your answer. Our column began to fall, but then stopped prematurely. Alexander Armstrong smiled and confirmed that yes, Hannah and Keith had won that round. I went to fist-bump Keith and we missed. No matter.

Onto the second question: countries beginning with C, O, U, N, T, R, I, E or S. Again, Keith and I were first. I can't remember the name of the country Keith said because I'd never heard of it before. He turned to Alexander Armstrong and said the name of the country. Richard Osman looked impressed. The score fell and fell until it stopped just one or two percentage away from the bottom.

Smug as fuck

You think gameshows are quick-fire: cameras swinging around, answers rallying back and forth. But it's not like that. There's a lot of waiting around and long pauses in which nobody seems to do much. A 20-minute show might take an hour to film, but this only builds the hype for contestants. It gave me and Keith time for pep talks, more failed fist bumps, building a connection. Under Keith's wing, I was learning strategy fast. Don't listen to anyone who says you can't blindly jump into anything and wing it. I was living proof.

Before I knew it, it was head-to-head time. Us versus some TV journalists – people who no doubt worshipped this art form, studied its loopholes, wrote think pieces about the similarities between Pointless and classical liberal theories, fanfic about the kinship between Armstrong and Osman. This beginner's luck couldn't go on much longer. Until I heard the next category: musicals.

Keith looked stressed. I was sweating from the adrenaline. "Keith, leave this to me." I love musicals. I was always in them as a kid and teenager, will willingly watch extended cuts of film versions, and one of the happiest moments of my entire life was watching Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. What I'm saying is I know my Kiss Me Kate from my Whistle Down the Wind.

The task popped up on the screen. It showed tabloid headlines loosely describing different musicals. This was easy; laughable. Of course that one was Miss Saigon. Obviously that one was The Sound of Music. "Come on, Pointless!" I wanted to scream. "Let me flex!" But which one was the most obscure? Keith said Mary Poppins. I went with Little Shop of Horrors. We beat the others. Of course we did.

One more win and it was ours. I wanted this so much I was dribbling. I thought my IBS was going to take me out before we saw it through. I wanted it for myself, as some sort of boost? I wanted it so my little brother would think I was cool. But most of all, I wanted it for Keith. He was a TV journalist, too – these were people he'd see around; I couldn't embarrass him.

The next round was "general" knowledge. General knowledge where the answers all had "general" in. Between us we swept up the answers to the questions on the screen. One of the questions I didn't know the answer to was Keith's suggestion of General Custer, the guy who killed lots of Native Americans in battle. Plenty of Brits know nothing about early US history. On that logic, we placed our bets with Custer.

Me and the lads

In slow-motion, Alexander Armstrong's mouth twisted into a grin. We'd won. We'd fucking won. I barely managed the now routine fist-bump with Keith. We stumbled for a double cheek kiss. I could have thrown myself on the floor and done a school disco skid, middle fingers blazing down the walkway. The only thing that restrained me was knowing that my peers would think I was a massive arsehole. But, by god, my heart was soaring.

We shook hands with the hosts and took our prize: the Pointless 1,000th episode trophy. Everyone was coming to shake hands, everyone was happy and smiling, congratulating us. I understood what it meant to be Roger Federer at Wimbledon, Beyonce at the AMAs, an acoustic singer-songwriter at the Brits. This was why you wanted to be good at something – to feel this golden. I never wanted to be a loser again. This was me now: a winner. Taking the congratulatory winners picture with the hosts, I smiled into the lens of my future, a future starting now, the rest of my life.

Winners only

I began my misguided journey into Elstree with no knowledge of a game show and came out with a glimmering glass trophy and grossly inflated sense of achievement. I'd learnt. Learnt that people who work in TV are having a lot more fun than the rest of us. That the weird coffee they have backstage isn't very nice. But most of all: that you should always just say yes to doing something you're enormously unprepared for, stagger in blindly, letting competitive rage and a dose of newfound friendship be your guide. Reap the rewards and repeat until you're dead.

The 1,000th episode of Pointless is on BBC1 on Monday the 16th of January, 2017.

@hannahrosewens

More on gameshows:

TV Gameshows Are Dying

When Did British Gameshows Turn Into Just Laughing At People Falling Over?

Dickhead Contestants Are Ruining Gameshows

We don't know what the world will look like 33 years from now. By the the Trump era, uncertain as it may seem from our vantage point, will become the stuff of history textbooks—or more likely, of history VR experiences. No one can say whether drones will be a fondly remembered fad like pogs, or whether huge flocks of them will fill the skies all the time like passenger pigeons. Some of our pop stars will have died, and new ones will have taken their place. Video games will probably be cool as hell.

But one thing we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the planet is getting warmer, and that there's no going back. Warming trends in the present are most likely caused by greenhouse gas emissions from anywhere from six to 30 years ago. In other words, the emissions causing temperatures to rise today aren't from your most recent unnecessary airline flight, but from things like the George W. Bush-era giant SUV craze.

So even if tomorrow the world makes a sudden switch to sustainable energy (and it won't), some of the effects of our past and present greenhouse gas emissions are inevitable. Thousands of species are going to go extinct. Sea levels will rise, and major US cities will be flooded more often. Ocean ecosystems like coral reefs will be decimated.

To examine some of these consequences in detail, every two weeks in 2017 I'll be talking to the scientists and scholars best equipped to show us a small window into the year 2050—a time when most millennials will still be alive, but much of what we take for granted about our world will have changed. Each entry in the Year 2050 series will be the best educated guesses we can find about things like future consumer habits, where we'll choose to live, how we'll eat, and how we'll get around. I'll also find out how the next 33 years of atmospheric change will affect political and sectarian conflicts, famines and other humanitarian disasters.

I don't want to say Earth in 2050 will entirely be a Hunger Games–style hellscape, since humanity is taking steps to deal with climate change, and that means we already know some of the most frightening predictions of future climate (known as "business-as-usual" projections) probably won't actually come to pass.

But make no mistake: We will be living in a world that's uglier, less biodiverse, and generally crappier than the present in a lot of ways, and this series aims to identify those downsides, without resorting to hyperbole. If we can get our shit together by 2050, maybe my future self, on the verge of retirement at that point, will write another series of articles about a world in 2083 that's slightly less bad. (Or maybe by then, I'll have had all my optimism drained out of me.)

But in the meantime, we're going to have to deal with the consequences of the choices our species has already made.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Follow illustrator Corey Brickley on Instagram.

Lazar Dimitrijevic first came to Samos, Greece last March. The 23-year-old, who was earning his master's degree in human security, took a short trip to the island to see the situation "with my own eyes." What he found rattled him.

Dimitrijevic remembers "the sight of men, women, and children being detained in an open air prison resembling a concentration camp." He says the camp was closed at the time of his visit, so the people were locked inside. He shook their hands through the fences, an experience he described as "a very strong experience that urged me to take action." He decided to come back to do something.

On his return, he worked with an NGO at one of the outdoor camps on the island, unprotected from the cold winters and brutally hot summers, distributing clothing and working with the unaccompanied minors. Three times a week, he gave lessons in English, art, and music, while completing academic research on the teenagers in the camp. "I would feel overwhelmed at times because there were times we had to say, 'No, you cannot have two pairs of pants' to someone who clearly has nothing," he told me. "We would have to say no because if we don't stick to the system in place and display favoritism to one it would be unfair to others."

For Dimitrijevic, who is Swiss and earning his degree in Denmark, the reality in the camps felt like worlds away from his own life.

"At the beginning, it was really hard," he said. "I would cry very often. I couldn't control my emotions."

Once, a man intentionally set himself on fire in the camp. "It was during the afternoon when many kids were playing around," he told me. "It changes your perception of problems in your life. It makes you nauseous to compare the problems."

"There were times we had to say, 'No, you cannot have two pairs of pants' to someone who clearly has nothing." — Lazar Dimitrijevic

Since 2014, more than 1.5 million people have sought refuge throughout the European continent. Many of them entered through Greece. According to the United Nations, almost 400,000 people entered the country's territory during the peak of the refugee crisis in 2015 and today, there are still over 62,000 in Greece. The vast majority come from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and arrive in the country saddled with trauma—from ongoing conflicts and wars, memories of violence and death.

"When I first [arrived at the camp], not everyone was willing to talk. They didn't feel trust between us and them. It takes a lot of time and a lot of dedication to achieve that," Dimitrijevic told me. Over time, though, the refugees he worked with opened up about their stories—including details, of war, torture, and loss. "I feel proud that I have been able to enable this trust with some of them. Many times they cry and you cry together—there is a very strong sense of suffering."

But with that kind of trust comes a psychological burden. "You have to find this way to be OK and positive even though you work in a context that can take you out of balance," he said.

There aren't any public official figures on how many volunteers and humanitarians currently work in Greece's refugee camps, but many of them are young people like Dimitrijevic. And while the weight of handling the crisis was divided between state and European agencies, local or international NGOs, volunteers often have little or no connection to other helpers.

Nikos Gionakis, a psychologist who trains volunteers in emergency mental health aid at the Babel Day Center, a mental health unit for immigrants located in Athens, says the traumatic situations refugees bring with them to camps can be "transferred" to volunteers who deal with those situations day in and day out.

Gionakis says it's important for volunteers to "be aware of their motivation, expectations, [and] preparation," when arriving in camps, as well as staying consistent with the healthy habits they had before arriving. He reminds volunteers to sleep, eat, and rest when they need to, lean on their teams for support, and try "not to forget they are not able to save the whole world."

Many camps have experimented with offering psychological services for volunteers. "These initiatives take the form of stress management training, individual or group supervision, and training in specific skills that will allow [volunteers] to become aware of the nature of the phenomenon they try to manage and of the appropriate interventions," Gionakis told me.

Dimitrijevic's NGO, Save the Children, offered psycho-emotional support, which he described as "support provided by professional therapists hired by the various NGOs." But Dimitrijevic said he never used it, and in the time he worked at the camps, "I personally don't know someone who specifically made use of this service."

Jasmine Doust, a 23-year-old from London, came to Samos five months ago and had to take a break in November before ultimately returning.

"I was burned out, and the burn out was built up because of bad emotions," she told me.

While at the camp, Doust worked seven days a week, with hardly any breaks. "In October alone we had 1,400 arrivals. That's an average of 45 people a day," she said. "It's a really heavy workload."

Doust, one of three coordinators for the Samos Volunteers group, started to feel the weight of the situations she saw on a daily basis. But when a therapist came to the camp to work as a volunteer and offered to hold therapy sessions with the volunteers on the side, Doust says she was so busy that she says she didn't have time to attend.

Gionakis says it's essential to provide volunteers with support on their teams—and remind them that they aren't alone in these situations. "You need to have support for your own if you are going to support others," he said. "We emphasize on providing this support both to professionals as well as volunteers too."

But Doust, like Dimitrijevic, says that "after Samos, everything looks insignificant." Psychologists sometimes refer to this re-framing as "overview effect," a situation faced by astronauts who fail to see any meaning in earthly problems. For Doust, it's a re-framing that won't go away even after she leaves.

"I think that most likely [volunteers] do leave in despair," she told me. "When I go home, I will be in a very bad way."

Follow Nick Tsirabidis on Twitter.

This story was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

I used to have a pet turtle in prison.

I began my bid at Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois, where I lived from 2000 to 2002. The entire yard abuts a rocky bluff, and deer would occasionally emerge from the surrounding woods to peer down at us. In the summer, I could always find myself a pet; garter snakes, frogs, and turtles would often break onto the grounds. At night, I could look out my window and see more than a dozen raccoons hanging out on the roof of the storage building, planning their assault on the chow hall dumpsters.

Once, I smuggled a baby turtle the size of a quarter to my cell. Its shell was so dark, it was nearly black. I built a small aquarium out of Styrofoam trays and cellophane, and when guards would walk by, I would push the aquarium out of sight under the bunk. During shakedowns, I'd cuff my turtle in my hand. The confused guards would destroy the empty aquarium, and I'd have to build another.

Everyone who saw my little turtle coveted it. Neighbors would often ask me to let them play with it for a day, and everyone would bring back anything they thought it might like to eat.

Before I could see it grow, however, I was transferred to another prison.

I spent the next decade of my life at the super-max facility in Tamms prison, which was renamed Tamms Correctional Center and has since closed. The super-max "yards" were also a misnomer — every yard was an isolation chamber, as no more than a single person could be out on each yard at a time. They were about the size of a one-car garage, made of concrete, with a corrugated steel and chain-link roof overhead.

The only fixtures were a flood light, a video camera, and a red steel door with an emergency call button. If pressed, the button was usually ignored; when answered, it was usually to inform the inmate that he would be written a disciplinary ticket if he pressed it again.

Fortunately, Tamms was surrounded by woods and wildlife. From our cell windows, we would often see hawks, turkey buzzards, deer, skunks, and raccoons.

When it rained, tree frogs would scale the wet cement walls, as if to gain access to us. But as soon as the sun dried the walls, they couldn't climb back over, and they were imprisoned just like we were.

After holding one of these frogs for a few minutes, they'd get used to me and not be afraid. Once that happened, I would sit them on my shoulder while I speed-walked in tight circles around my mini-yard.

After a decade of solitary confinement, though, I couldn't bear to put another living thing in a cage with me. So before leaving rec, I would let each frog escape.

Check out James Burns's solitary confinement project on VICE.

In 2012, I was transferred to Pontiac Correctional Center, where I was housed on the former death row as part of a "step-down" program to make my way out of isolation. For the initial three-month phase of the program, we had to go to rec in 8-foot-by-15-foot cages.

I was immediately advised by both staff and inmates not to touch any part of the cages. When I asked why, I was told that there were a lot of "shit-slingers" who used the cages prior to us — mentally-ill inmates who threw their shit around like a weapon. And sure enough, there were animals and birds everywhere in that prison, but they steered clear of those cages.

Finally, I arrived at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, where I've been since 2012. Stateville has no ducks, no rabbits, no squirrels. There are no frogs or turtles. It does have at least one fox, though, and groundhogs.

We feed the groundhogs daily, which makes them incredibly fat. They know the pulse of the prison — they'll often ignore us as we walk to chow, but when we're leaving chow, they will line up along the walks waiting for handouts.

It's nice to be around other living things that are not instinctively terrified of us. They've been confined with us without being harmed. They are capable of forming their own judgments. They can decide for themselves which of us are a danger to them, and which are not.

Joseph Dole, 40, is incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, where he is serving life without parole for murder and aggravated kidnapping, which he was convicted of in 2000. Dole maintains his innocence.

At about 1:30 AM Thursday, the Senate voted 51 to 48 (Democrat Diane Feinstein of California was absent because she was recovering from surgery) to pass Concurrent Resolution 3, the official name for the first of several steps in the GOP's chosen strategy to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.

This resolution didn't do anything to damage the ACA by itself. Nor are the Republicans who passed it unified about how exactly Obamacare should be repealed or what will eventually replace it. Instead it was a budgetary actionthat could empower Congress to gut Obamacare with minimal resistance. Utilizing parliamentary rules surrounding this process, Democrats sought to initiate a "vote-a-rama" Wednesday night that would force Republicans to go on record choosing, in vote after vote, not to safeguard popular, even life-saving, elements of Obamacare down the line. But after a seven-hour voting marathon, the Democrats were only successful in generating a few sound bites. Despite the lack of fireworks, last night marked a major stepin the most consequential congressional battle of the year, with Republicans determined to make good on their promises to repeal Obamacare, and the Democrats equally determined to preserve their party's signature policy achievement.

The budget resolution process, initiated last Tuesday by Senate Budget Committee chairman Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, is parliamentary arcana: Basically it calls for deficit reduction by a certain date and lays out a roadmap for how to achieve it—in this case in large part by stripping core elements of Obamacare. Senate Republicans favor the process because it's filibuster-proof—repealing the ACA by standard methods would require 60 votes, which the GOP has little hope of getting, whereas this procedure only requires 50 of the Senate's 52 Republicans to line up. (Democrats like California Representative Nancy Pelosi have labeled this strategy an act of cowardice.)

But before the resolution could move to the House (which will presumably also pass it, after which the real work of repeal will begin), parliamentary procedure opened it up to 50 hours of debate—and an unlimited number of votes on amendments. These amendments wouldn't even necessarily have been binding; they were just a chance for Democrats, by naming them and seeing them rejected, to voice their concerns to the public that an Obamacare repeal could mean the scrapping of policies like those that forced insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions and the defunding of women's health services.

As Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana told McClatchy, "It's great messaging." The vote-a-rama was also part of a larger Democratic blitz, including a five-hour Monday night Senate floor protest by 24 Democrats and nationwide demonstrations in favor of key elements of the ACA planned for Sunday. The passage of the ACA was a drawn-out mess that cost some supporters their seats in Congress—it appears that Democrats want the same kind of fight this time, only in reverse

Democrats duly loaded down the resolution, proposing the vast majority of the 189 amendments that were proposed. Many were near duplicates of one another and most boiled down to symbolic bids at blocking legislation that would reduce the level or quality of healthcare coverage, end popular elements of the ACA, or allow a repeal of Obamacare without a replacement in sight. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine's Amendment 8, "to prohibit legislation that makes America sick again," was archetypal.

A few, like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders's Amendment 19 "to prevent the Senate from breaking Donald Trump's promise that 'there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,'" seemed designed to drive a wedge between the GOP and the president-elect.

But the Senate voted on, and rejected, just 19 amendments (17 by Democrats), compared to 101 in a 2013 vote-a-rama and 40 in 2015. (Five other amendments, including 8 and 19, were killed over previous days and five more were withdrawn on the floor.) The mood was subdued, and the GOP remained united. The only senator to break ranks was Kentucky Republican Rand Paul , who voted against the resolution—he's long insisted that the GOP not repeal the ACA until a replacement is prepared.

Democrats reportedly closely tracked who voted against what, likely for use as ammunition in protecting the ACA and in future campaigns, and some of the amendments at least sounded bad, with the GOP voting not to promise to protect Medicaid and Medicare or ensure that people under 26 could be covered by their parents' health insurance, among other items.

Chris Condeluci, a GOP consul to the Senate Finance Committee during the 2010 Obamacare debates, doubts these votes signify much. Many senators likely voted against amendments they believe in because adding them would bog down the process—and right now speed is the priority. These votes weren't outright rejections either, he said, but sidesteps, "saying [each amendment was] not germane for the purposes of this budget resolution." Senators will have plenty of time to describe what they want to see in an ACA replacement in the coming debate. Even when it came to possible attempts to needle the GOP-Trump relationship, like Sanders's amendment, Condeluci told me, "I don't think it'll play."

Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado echoed Condeluci, telling the Morning Consult, "I'm sure the political strategists are over here trying to figure out the votes that can be used in the political process. But the voters of people's states understand they're just playing politics."

The most prominent amendment actually may have divided the Democrats more than the Republicans. Proposed by Sanders and Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar, this amendment was designed to suggest US residents be allowed to order medication from other countries where pills are cheaper, particularly Canada. A dozen Republicans supported it, but it was defeated anyway thanks to 13 Democrats going against it—most notably New Jersey's Corey Booker. The argument against the policy is that foreign-bought medications might not meet FDA standards, but that's hardly going to satisfy progressives angry at how much influence the pharmaceutical industry seems to have bought.

The other intriguing amendment, put forth by five moderate Republicans, attempted to ensure there was a good ACA replacement by slowingdown the timeline for drafting repeal legislation—but it was withdrawn before a vote. GOP leadership reportedly assured the senators that the January 27 deadline for repeal legislation is a placeholder and that the party will be prioritizing replacement plans and interim steps to prevent chaos after repeal.

"That's the only significant amendment that I, at least, had a reaction to," Condeluci told me.

In the end, the vote-a-rama wasn't nearly as dramatic as many had hoped. It was just another venue for Democrats to voice their dissatisfaction about the repeal rolling through Congress right now—as they explicitly did over procedural objections in the last 13 minutes of the night.

This wasn't going to be the hill anyone died on. Several GOP senators are worried about repealing Obamacare without a replacement, and negotiations over a replacement are bound to be fraught. This first pitched ACA battle was conducted in the dead of night during a busy news week—expect the next rounds to be fought when a lot more people are paying attention.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

American Hero isn't just a forgettable Nick Love superhero movie; it's also a cultural concept that stretches beyond a common definition. It's the presidents and the senators, the actors and actresses, the soldiers of every war, unwaveringly. The men and women of industry who laid the foundation of the most terrifying capitalist behemoth the world will likely ever see, a Usain-Bolt-like GDP stretching out in front of all global competitors.

But where are the American heroes now? From where I'm sitting, 3,500 miles away at a desk in London, it feels as if the USA is going through a low ebb in terms of heroism. Every major piece of news is more God awful and agonising than the last. An injured beast of civil fractures demanding to be made Great Again. It is hitting itself in the face and telling everyone to watch. It's hard to look away.

But there is one man bucking the trend. If you want an American hero, then don't look to celebrities, politicians or businesspeople. Don't look to the soldiers or the doctors or the lawyers. Instead, look to YouTube, and the channel of competitive eater Randy Santel.

Randy Santel is a man on a mission. If I didn't know better, I would say the mission is a result of pure Providence. For the past five or six years, Randy Santel has been doing food challenges. He goes to restaurants, films himself eating and leaves. Before he does each challenge he goes through near enough the exact same routine, which includes an introduction, the swerving of his hat (which bears the name of his alter-ego, "Atlas") and a crossing of himself.

Randy played college football but gained a lot of weight. His life changed after he sculpted a new body for himself and escaped – as a butterfly would, breaking free from a flabby cocoon – his obese life, landing a role on Spartacus: Blood and Sand. After that, he began doing food challenges in restaurants in his home state of Missouri with his friend "Magic" Mitch Dombrowsky, who also edits his videos. It was here that Randy decided that he would be The Man. He would be The Man who does food challenges – who travels to the farthest reaches in pursuit of a holy goal: to have defeated more food challenges than anyone else on Earth.

But it isn't just his raw dedication that makes Randy Santel such a pioneer; it's his sense of exploration and curiosity. Americans gush over their history of discovery, yet by and large they're quite content to stay in the plot they've carved. Randy, in the chasing of his dream, has been to places in the UK I've never even heard of. He has met and eaten with a greater cross section of people across the world than probably every living politician. He's an international man in every sense. But he's also a charitable one. Though the goal of demolishing even the most base food challenges in the world is a personal feat, he does everything in his power to promote the restaurant he does it in – a globalist one-man ad campaign.

Randy Santel is a real American. Gregarious, a lone wolf, braving terrains he's unfamiliar with, rapaciously hunting his desires and goals. He calls French fries "chips" when he's in England, he talks with a broken Czech accent when he's in Prague. Have you ever known an American to behave with such respect for the nation he's visiting?

Randy's dream is an American dream, maybe The American Dream. It's the belief of anything being possible if a superhuman amount of effort and love and thought is pumped non-stop into it. To become a celebrity – even an internet one – to earn a living doing what you want through sheer force of will. It's domination at all costs, but for the harmless aim of being able to eat more food than anyone else.

While his home country encircles itself with petrol and holds a Zippo with a shaky hand, Randy rises towards the heavens, the light of the sun beaming from his shadow – a beacon we can all follow. Randy Santel is the hero America needs.

@joe_bish

(Top image: Screengrab, via)

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We're living in interesting times, folks.

Some may say they're tense times or scary times while others would classify them as exciting and hopeful. No matter your disposition, the one thing you can't dispute the fact they're interesting.

At lot of people never thought the United Kingdom would leave the EU and likewise about a reality star being elected leader of the free world. It feels like nothing is concrete anymore. Not even the things we hold hold as modern day gospel, such as the airtight economic, cultural and military relationship between Canada and the United States.

But while we all take this strong relationship for granted, it wasn't always as good as gold. The US has invaded Canada on several occasions—albeit back when Canada was still a British colony. In the 1920s and 30s the United States even had a contingency plan to invade Canada and, tucked away in a dusty corner of the Pentagon, they almost certainly still do.

The thing is, now, America's new commander-in-chief is a little, shall we say, unpredictable. One can't help but wonder about the worst-case scenario. There's never been a better time to think about what exactly would happen if the United States decided it needed to invade and conquer Canada.

To answer this question I got in touch with Dr. Howard Coombs, an Assistant Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada with a doctorate in Canadian military history. During Coombs' service he was awarded the Order of Military Merit and the Canadian Forces Medallion for Distinguished Service.

To start, Coombs said, we have have to look at some cold hard facts about the difference in military might between these two nations.  

The Canadian armed forces are woefully small and ill equipped compared to the United States.

The 60,000 or so regular Canadian force is a pittance compared to the 1,400,000 or so in the United States and that's not even bringing in the reserve (20,000 for Canada, 800,000 for America) or technology and weapons into it. Canada has around 120 tanks to America's 8,850. Canada has under 100 active military aircrafts compared to the 13,000 or so military aircraft in the States (I won't even bother comparing the CF-18 to what the Americans have.) The Canadian military budget sits somewhere at somewhere near the $18 billion whereas the US's is over $700 billion, which is, well, a little different.

Need I go on? Sure, I will.

In terms of naval might, Canada has around 30 ships (half of which are being repaired) compared to the 430 American ships in active service or reserve. In terms of the greatest equalizer, nuclear weapons, well, it's bad. Canada has not maintained nuclear capability since the late 80s and the States have 6,970 which is enough to pretty much wipe out every living life form on this planet.

Yet another thing working against Canada is the fact the US is considered a very close partner, so if they started amassing on the border and explained it away as a military exercise Canada would, most likely, accept it as true. The great white north wouldn't see this coming and be without a well known and practiced contingency plan.

Frankly, Canada's biggest military advantage for the last century has been our close friendship and proximity to the United States.

In terms of planning, well, a significant amount of time would go into the particulars of the attack on the American side, said Coombs, it would be planned for months if not years. The attack would be quick, surgical and attempt to have as little bloodshed/casualties as possible.

"Strategically, it's about paralyzing an entire country," said Coombs. "It's not about killing a civilian population, it's about bringing a country and their capability to their knees."

When the trigger is finally pulled, the first thing Canadians would feel wouldn't be the shockwave or heat of an explosion but simple annoyance. Across the country, Canucks would look at their phones and wonder why our tweets won't post and our calls just dropped. The reason for this annoyance would be that an extremely sophisticated telecommunications attack was just deployed—something Canada doesn't have the capability to defend against, according to Coomb.

This is when the American troops, most likely made up of highly trained special-ops forces, would begin to move simultaneously from their positions on the borders.

"The way militaries work with high readiness units, you could mount those units and have them cross the border in a heartbeat," said Coombs. "They would be seizing key population centres, key transportation and communications hub, things that enable all the different systems that allow the country to go."

In terms of the direction of the movement and deployment Coombs estimates that the plan of deployment would follow very closely to a plan laid out in the 20s and 30s of a US invasion of Canada made in anticipation for a war with Britain called War Plan Red.

"The plans that the US made, they still have validity today, it's about seizing population centres, transport hubs, paralyzing the country," said Coombs. "Most of those areas are still the same for us."

"They would update it of course, but it wouldn't look all that different."

So looking at this plan we can see the direction the troops would move into the Great White North on three fronts.

On the east coast, troops would move into Halifax and New Brunswick. The troops would land by sea via St. Margaret's bay (a bay on the south side of the Island near Halifax) rather than going overland. In the original plan, it was to was kick off with a poison gas attack on Halifax because of Canada's eastern navy (Yankees don't fuck around) to stun the province but, modern day, there is a high likelihood that wouldn't happen as casualties would want to be kept at a minimum. On the same front, troops would move into Quebec from Albany, NY and Vermont to occupy Montreal and Quebec City.

If the seizures of both Quebec and the Maritimes went well it would cut off Canada from the Atlantic and block off key entry points for a counter-invasion from another country.  

In British Columbia, troops would move en route to Victoria naval bases from Washington State (possibly Port Angles) while also moving into Vancouver. This seizure would cut Canada off from the Pacific. Further east, troops would also move in Manitoba for Winnipeg from Grand Forks, North Dakota to disrupt the railway and transportation systems there.

Finally, in Ontario, troops would spring from Buffalo across the Niagara River, from Detroit into Windsor (America can have it though, amiright?) and Sault Ste. Marie (the Michigan one) into Sudbury for control of the Great Lakes regions. While moving through southern Canada, troops would be compromising communication infrastructure and seizing key political figures (mainly military) like the Chief of Defence.

Toronto likely would be left alone and, because it's Toronto, the citizens probably wouldn't notice anything was out of the regular until they received their American drivers license. They would also probably be awfully upset they were left out.

Fortunately, there was also a Canadian counter-plan created in case of a US invasion during the same time period as War Plan Red, called Defence Scheme No. 1 (the Canadian military is apparently not that creative with naming battle plans), which would involve a pre-emptive strike on the States. At the time it was described as "suicidal," a sentiment that's only grown with the growing disparity between the two countries' armed forces.

"A pre-emptive strike of that nature just wouldn't work," said Coombs. "It would be completely out of the question. The people who did it would be a speed bump on the path of the US Army."

An artist's interpretation of if Canada preemptively invaded the United States. Photo via Lisa Bell

In terms of the question about, say, Toronto getting nuked, well, we most likely wouldn't have to worry about it. If nuclear weapons were to be used it would most likely be to take out strategic military areas, like the Cold Lake Air Base, but the likelihood of a nuclear strike is extremely low. As said earlier, the attack would attempt to have as little casualties as possible so as not to alienate the Canadian population.

Another major part of the plan would be to isolate the military bases from communication. This, according to Coombs, would be accomplished by swift movement and a display of air support.

"If they were to isolate the key parts of the military, the national defence headquarters, the chief of defence staff, those types of things, there are no leaders except in the location where there are military forces are and they will be reluctant to start moving and acting with a complete lack of information," said Coombs. "It would take days to sort out what happened."

"I would say if this was well planned, it could be done in 24 hours. If we didn't know, they could do a very quick strike simultaneously from east to west coast."

This is where the hypothetical situation splits to two options. If the remaining ranking military leaders at the Canadian Forces bases (CFB's) wised up to what was happening they would have to make a snap decision on whether to remain and, almost certainly, be conquered or to become decentralized and fight.

"The smartest thing to do, based on experience, would be to allow everything to become very decentralized, create some command and control capacity that you could do in a guerrilla and insurgency fashion, allow decentralized weapons caches, things like that and allow very loose resistance," said Coombs.

"In the end, if you're the insurgent all you have to do is not lose. Just outlast your enemy... That's the only way a Canadian resistance would be triumphant."

Yes, this is the plotline for Red Dawn.

To become decentralized, the forces would have to make it to a population centre and blend in, which would be difficult for many bases as they would have to travel a far distance. The Edmonton and Valcartier [outside of Quebec city] bases would be able to disperse and disguise themselves but the majority would have to travel significant distances—making it easy for US air surveillance to monitor them.

Many Canadian forces would have to risk a Highway of Death situation attempting to make it to population centres. CFB Petawawa for example, which houses 4,655 regular military personnel, is two hours outside of Ottawa with a major highway connecting the two. That seems like a small amount of travel time until you factor in how fast military planes and unmanned drones can travel.

The Highway of Death in Kuwait where American and Canadian aircraft and ground forces attacked retreating Iraqi military personnel. Public domain photo.

If Canuck troops were actually able to get to major cities quick enough and blend into the population then the Canadian insurgency could conduct low impact fighting with the enemy. The goal of the fighting would be small attacks which put the Americans in a situation where they could possibly alienate the population with civilian casualties. Coombs said the fighting would be very similar to what was seen in Iraq in 2003 to 2004.

However, barring a Canadian insurgency, after that initial 24 hours, Canada would be conquered, surrender would be imminent and the US would quickly attempt to co-opt the Canadian military. Over time provinces would become US states and Canadian identity (L O L) would be swallowed up even more by the American machine.

Get ready for Nascar and a return to the imperial system folks but, hey, on the bright side we'd get HBO Go.

If the US was content with merely annexing Canada and weren't conducting mass killings or any other nightmarish action while making it clear they weren't interested in taking more territory, well, there really would be no humanitarian or strategic reasons to intervene. Sure, Russia would be upset about the Arctic and the UK livid about losing their Commonwealth buddy but, most likely, there would simply be finger waving and possibly some sanctions with no one making the decision to whole-heartedly intervene.

"The United States is our closest trading partner and our closest military partner so if they were going to become the aggressor there would be no groundswell from the rest of the world to come to Canada's aid," said Coombs.

Even if they did, the idea of crossing the oceans to wage war with one of the world's superpowers from a strategically poor position over lil' ol' Canada isn't an appetizing one.

"Let's face it, the people that would support us, it's too hard to do. How could they project sustainable force to the United States?"

God, I hope this article doesn't give anyone ideas.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter .

Ben Carson, the nominee for secretary of housing and urban development, gave a very special speech during Thursday's confirmation hearing. He decided to tell the American public a little bit about his backstory—which involved how he used called his childhood haters "turkeys."

During last night's episode of Desus & Mero, the hosts discussed Carson's childhood tale and how the HUD secretary let it slip that he isn't planning to do anything for anyone during his time in office. He might need to reread his job description one more time.

You can watch this week's Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

We don't know much about the memo compiled by a former M16 official alleging collaboration between Donald Trump's campaign and the Russian government as well as salacious "kompromat" that could be used to blackmail the incoming president. The contents are explosive, but also unverified. The fact that the information was given to the president and key members of Congress, however, is not all that unusual, according to former FBI and CIA officials.

After investigating over the summer, intelligence officials reportedly presented the classified information to President Obama and Trump Friday as a two-page summary attached to a larger report about Russia's role in the US election. Trump's senior advisor, Kellyanne Conway, denied the president-elect knew about the report, and Trump has labeled it "fake news."

But former intelligence officials speaking to VICE News said it's normal for intelligence briefings to the president and other top officials to contain unverified information like that in the memo, which had been circulating for weeks before BuzzFeed published it in full Tuesday night.

"If you're a department head, you're thinking, 'My boss should know about this before the media gets it,'" said Milan Patel, a former supervisory special agent with the FBI's cyber division and current managing director of K2 Intelligence's Cyber Defense practice. "It's a very natural part of bringing your leadership up to speed. You want to tell them everything you know but also everything you've heard."

The report notably contains errors, among them, that Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly met with the Kremlin in August 2016 in the Czech Republic to arrange compensation for Russian hackers working against Hillary Clinton. Cohen denied he had ever traveled to Prague, and unnamed officials told the Wall Street Journal the FBI found no evidence he had.

Continue reading on VICE News.

Listen, you're not going to get out of your twenties without sharing your space with someone. This is a fact. This is a verified fact. Like, I'm trying to think of some situations where you can make it to 30 and live alone – alone-alone, playing music loud and leaving the washing up as long as you want; or living the fantasy I have of an American Psycho-style, fresh-pyjama-bottoms-and-push-ups-and-ice-palace-type existence, with lots of classic music and extremely long morning routines where I'm really slowly getting ready, only without all the murders – and this is as best I can do:

– Born a billionaire????

– Banking?????

– You're one of those really driven people who eschew all forms of fun during their twenties – "No lunch for me, thanks; I bought slightly warm corned beef sandwiches from home!" "Cab back? Heh, no thanks: my sturdy old bicycle will do me!" "I know I've got an actual job but I've taken some hours at the bar and, what's more, they let me have all the leftover bits! Tonight I nearly made a pint of Jägermeister!" – just to save and save and save again, and save, and save again, and finally on the cusp of your 30th birthday – literally the day before it – you sign the dotted line on the mortgage you have been working all your life towards. Also your dad really helped you out with the last 20 grand of it.

We can all admit we are not those people, which means we – the scum, let's be honest; the remaining dregs – we have to beg our way past landlords and lose every deposit we've ever had and keep getting damp in the same places and with the same cast of characters, all just with slightly different faces and slightly different university hoodies drying on the kitchen radiator. Here they all are!

THE GUY WHO GOT DUMPED AND GOT REALLY, REALLY INTO PRACTISING FOR HIS 'MASTERCHEF' APPLICATION

At first this is fine, because six days after Allison came and got all her rings and interior design bibles, suddenly it's like you live at a real-life, all-you-can-eat restaurant. "Taste this," he says, swooping a spoonful of unctuous ragu into your mouth. "Try some of this." You were going to have a frozen pizza for dinner and watch a Match of the Day repeat, but now he's making ice-shocked fennel and some pork meatballs, and you're sitting in the kitchen with an old Nutella jar of wine and having a civilised chat. This is fine, actually? This is brilliant? And plus, now you don't need to navigate all of his ex's speciality shampoo in the shower every morning?

Two weeks in it's not so fun. You tried to dry a rack of laundry in the kitchen but he's decided to do an overnight lamb roast – on a Tuesday – and now all your work T-shirts smell like tagine. The middle two shelves of the fridge are packed with tupperwares filled with string beans and meat. The spice cupboard has overrun into the bit of work surface below the spice cupboard. You have three types of salt.

Week seven and he's using every ring on the hob to make fucking pasta and sauce, and in the end you give up on making noodles and just take a plate full of un-toasted bread up to your room.

Week nine you realise you haven't seen him cry yet. He books an "epicurean holiday" to southern Italy and comes back with a suitcase full of ham.

And then, finally, one night you come home at 2AM, pissed, and you find him alone in the kitchen, a stark single light illuminating him from above, sobbing over a barbecued pineapple. He doesn't make it through to the heats.

THE CANADIAN PhD STUDENT

Sometimes the PhD student is a really polite guy from Holland, actually. Occasionally someone with a really mellow accent from, like, Hungary. But they are normally Canadian and they normally look like Thibaut Courtois, and they normally wear pastel-coloured polo shirts tucked into khaki trousers or, minimum, khaki shorts, and they volunteer ( volunteer!) to be in charge of the bills, and they eat pasta in their room and silently practise on their drum-pad in their room, and they come home late on Tuesday nights in a soaked-thru XXL white tee from playing at Badminton Soc, and that's the only time they go out, you're pretty sure – maybe they went out one Sunday once (to church? Maybe?) – and then once, 18 months in, while you're all steaming on a hangover and making beans on toast in the kitchen, their incredibly full-on Canadian mom bursts in and starts marvelling at the things you are ashamed about – "These FRIDGE MAGNETS? So CUTE!" or "Oh my gosh you guys get so much DUST HERE, huh?" or "Wow, you got some real old rice in these cupboards! This went off in 2012!" – and then you all seize up and have to be really polite with her for the agonising duration of a cup of tea.

"Yeah I signed us up to one of those veg boxes. What're you meant to do with a radish? Shall I just leave it two weeks until your mum comes over to tidy and throws them out?"

THE TEACHER

Dunno what it is but you always end up living with a teacher (you will know you live with a teacher because they hold their head a lot and when you ask them what's wrong they go a bit red and say "marking", and because they are the only person who irons their clothes every morning before leaving the house) and they are pretty much always 100 percent sound as fuck until one time you kick a football into a barbecue and set the lawn on fire a bit and they yell at you like you're all naughty five-year-olds, and it's never really ever the same after that, between the two of you, is it? You never quite move on from an adult bollocking.

THE PERSON WHO REALLY THINKS THEY COULD CHANGE THIS PLACE, YOU KNOW, WITH A BIT OF ELBOW GREASE AND IF WE ALL DID A LITTLE 'HOUSE POT'

"A house pot!" they're saying. "Little house pot!" They are motioning the curtains, the soiled rag-rug, the dying cheese plant. "It could be nice in here, you know!" They look at the yellowing poster of La Dolce Vita that someone got out of the Independent in 2009. "Some prints. Tommy, you could put your art up!" What does this mean? It means all of you putting £30 in a washed out beans tin and trekking to IKEA on the weekend to buy a load of frames, fall-apart furniture and exactly one jazzy lamp. And then you get it home, and unpack, and assemble, and behold: it's exactly the same shithole it always was, because nothing can improve magnolia walls, because nothing can wash the despair-like stench of this place out.

THE PERSON WHO SENDS THIS EMAIL ONCE EVERY FOUR MONTHS WITHOUT FAIL

"Hi everyone—

When I got back last night from work, the kitchen was, frankly, appalling. Like, really, it was as if a bomb had hit it. [ Extremely, extremely long bit where they explain why they were working so late]. It's just not fair, and it's not on, and I've had enough.

So here's what we're going to do: I've drawn up a rota (attached) which somehow manages to pick the least convenient time for any of you to do anything and says you now have to clean the bathroom in that time instead. So next time you're out playing the same football match you've been playing every Tuesday since 2014? Now you need to wash out toilet skid-marks. Those guitar lessons you just signed up for? Sadly, that's mopping the kitchen floor time now.

[ Extremely long explanation of how they cleaned the kitchen] AND I put the pile of teabags in the bin. This is the rules now: no arguing, no leaving out spoons with butter on, no changing your dates around. If we don't stick to it, I'm moving out.

Thanks."

[ REPEAT AD INFINITUM, THEY NEVER MOVE OUT]

THE DUDE WHO JUST TOOK UP CLIMBING

Good you know what a crampon is now, mate, and it's nice that a lot of the kitchen surface space is now given over to a big box of energy gels, but if you're going to clump out of the house at 7AM on a fucking Sunday morning then be quiet about it please I only just went to bed.

"Guys, I found a possibly haunted picture and a box of candles on the way home! Check out your new front room!"

THE GUY WHO QUIETLY LEAVES TO GO AND LIVE WITH A GIRLFRIEND YOU'VE NEVER MET BEFORE

"Hey guys," he says, walking into the lounge one day while you're all playing FIFA. "Bit of news: I'm moving to Walthamstow to live with Eva," and you're like – you've paused FIFA, at this point, even though you were in possession – you're like: who is Eva? Where is Walthamstow? And he goes, "So yeah, maybe we could organise a little house drinks before I leave? I move in three days, but I'll pay rent up until the end of the month. Cheers." This is weird. This is so weird. How can you know so little about the guy you steal milk, teabags and the occasional bit of olive oil from?

THE ONE WHO BOUGHT A SWEET POTATO AND PUT IT IN A PLASTIC BAG AND LEFT IT IN THE BASKET EVERYONE PUTS THEIR FRUIT AND VEGETABLES INTO, A TRANSACTION THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED ANYTIME BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND FOUR YEARS AGO

Listen, guys: whose potato is this, and do you mind if I throw it out? I've been looking at this thing longer than I've had wisdom teeth.

THE FRAGILE GIRL WHO JUST WENT THROUGH A REALLY BAD BREAKUP AND REALLY WANTS EVERYONE TO HAVE THEIR MEALS TOGETHER NOW

Oh man, what: you've come downstairs on Saturday morning and the kitchen is fucking immaculate and someone's baked and iced an entire cake? Dooooooope! Breakups are dooooooope! But oh no: Rachel's just come back in from putting the bin out and she's wearing an apron and slightly – ever so slightly – sobbing. "Oh, you like the cake?" she says, nodding at your breakfast. "I put a bit of lavender essence in there." You tell her you can totally taste that. "I quite like baking," she says, turning to the oven and taking a tray of frangipane out of it, then sits down opposite you and opens a tub of freshly baked brownies. They look so good. Gooey. Dark. Chocolate-y, yes, but not too sweet. Is that? "I made salted caramel butterscotch and put a layer of that in there, too," she says. Great girl, great girl. Bit annoying. Quite annoying. But great girl. "I was thinking it'd be nice to have a house meal—" she says, her fragile voice just breaking, and you nod. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? One Sunday. All get together. Make a thing each. Get drunk. Listen to songs "— every Wednesday, and Thursday." Ah, hmm, yeah, that's: that's not good. But you can't say anything now because she's listening to Adele and trying really hard not to cry. Best… best leave it, yeah. Best just put up with this, forever, until you move out.

THE GIRL WHO KEEPS BRINGING A SUCCESSION OF TALL IDENTICAL BOYS CALLED "LIAM" BACK TO FUCK

You're all there, in the front room, 11PM and maybe time to wind down – but just one more Mock the Week, eh lads, just one more – and then you hear the inevitable succession: heels up a staircase, giggles, shushed silence, keys in the door, clumping. And then a face peers around the door, followed by a looming tall boy with his hands in his pockets. "Hi guys," your flatmate will say, keys still clasped in her hand. "This is Liam." And you all raise a single palm in greeting, and he does a little noiseless "hi", then when you're brushing your teeth in the bathroom next to hers you hear her put on a Paolo Nutini song and you know it's going down, and fair play to her, pal, fair play. (NB: One of your other flatmates is secretly and inevitably in love with her, though, please note, so you might want to text him some emotional support.)

DUDE WHO JUST ISN'T THERE

You realise you haven't seen Malik for a bit. "Doesn't he spend his weekends with his Irish girlfriend?" one of your housemate thinks out loud. "Isn't he… he travels a lot with work, doesn't he?" You see him, briefly, come home late one night, wrapped tight in a cold-to-the-touch peacoat and pulling some travel luggage. "Hey man!" you say, brightly, brushing your teeth before bed. "Hey, good to see you! Just off to sleep now but I'll see you in the morning, yeah?" and he says "sure" and then: no. You're not going mad. Are you? You're not going mad. You bust into his room: nothing, no one. There's a neatly made plain bed and three books on finances. There's a small wooden decoration and a hairdryer. That's it. Where does he go? Why doesn't he have stuff? One day he moves out and doesn't even tell you all until five days later, via email.

"Yeah, I just got it. £80! Going to teach myself off YouTube. You can't hear it in your room, can you?"

LAD WHO JUST GOT A HOBBY AND THAT HOBBY IS FIXING BIKES

Ah, so that's why the bathroom soap's black and there's three fixed gears in the hallway suddenly that keep getting caught on your backpack when you're coming in from work. That's why a dude with "FUCK" "TAXIS" written down his calves was sitting in your kitchen the other day, refusing to turn his courier walkie talkie off. Adam's got into biking. Ah, what's this in the bottom of the shower stall? Is it– it is! It's a completely uncoiled, barely washed bike chain! Brill. Brillo. Brilliant.

THE PERSON WHO DOES MORE LAUNDRY THAN THEY WEAR CLOTHES

Mate, all I ever see you wear are black jeans, slightly off-white T-shirt, the most fucked up All Stars I've ever seen and, occasionally, a grey hoodie where all the hems have flopped open on it. How are you doing six laundry loads a week? What are you washing in there? Why does it all have to hang, stretched and barely drying, over every door in the house? You put your duvet cover over a sofa, my boy! It won't dry there in a hundred years!

BLOKE WHO JUST EATS HOTDOG SAUSAGES AND, LIKE, RAW POTATOES, AND YOU WONDER HOW IT IS HE HASN'T DIED YET

You very rarely see this guy, because he has a system – in a way, he is more attuned and plugged into the house than you ever will be, ever will know, because he knows everything. He showers in silent pockets of time when nobody needs the bathroom; he runs downstairs at 8.15PM, just when he knows three of you are finishing up cooking dinner, right before the 9.30PM washing up rush. He has this thing: chop a sweet potato into a Tupperware, microwave for five, big tablespoon of margarine, mash mash mash, raw cold tin of hotdog sausages drained of their juice on top. Or: he's eating white rice with a tin of baked beans on them. Or: did he just pour soup into a loaf of bread? Only two ways living with this guy ends: he just disappears one day, and you tiptoe into his room for the first time to find it bare and empty; or coroners have to ease him out on a stretcher after he becomes the first man in the 21st century to die of scurvy.

PERSON WHO ANSWERS THE DOOR EVERY TIME YOU COME HOME EVEN ONE SECOND LATER THAN 11PM – EVEN IF YOU OPEN THE DOOR SILENTLY, EVEN IF YOU CUSHION IT FROM HITTING THE OPPOSITE WALL AND VIBRATING IN THAT WAY IT DOES WHEN IT CLANGS THE LETTERBOX AND THE LOCK, EVEN IF YOU TIPTOE AND SHH, NO NOISES – THEY STORM DOWNSTAIRS WITH A FLUFFY DRESSING GOWN ON AND A HERBAL TEA ON THE GO AND ARE FURIOUSLY MAD AT YOU

WHO GOES TO SLEEP AT 9.30PM, JESSICA?

THE GUY WHO HAS LIVED HERE FOR TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS AND, BEYOND MOVING HIS BED ONCE WHEN HE THOUGHT HE DROPPED A MALTESER UNDER IT AND KIND OF LIKING THE WAY IT LOOKED AND SO NOT PUTTING IT BACK, HAS DONE ABSOLUTELY ZERO – NOTHING – TO IMPROVE THE APPEARANCE OF HIS ROOM

Dude, you're paying £750 a month to look like you're living in a squat because you won't even invest in a laundry basket.

CONVERSELY, THE GIRL WHO IS STRUGGLING TO PAY RENT BECAUSE SHE KEEPS SPENDING MONEY ON FAIRY LIGHTS, CANDLES AND GREY SOFT-TOUCH THROWS

Martha why are you paying for Farrow & Ball paint to paint a rented room have you even heard of the concept of getting your deposit back? STOP SAYING HYGGE AND PAY ME FOR THE ELECTRICITY.

THE COUPLE

They speak with one voice. They share one brain and, crucially, one room. They've "really thought about it", and even though they only pay £200 each because they split their rent between them they "think they should pay less because they share one bed". You're pretty sure he's massaged the figures a little bit so you all pay a little extra for WiFi and they don't pay at all. They clutter up the lounge, the living areas. They've got both their parents over this weekend. They're getting one each other's nerves. She's gone to her sister's for "a breather" that lasts three weeks. He has no allies in the house. "Hey," he says, to everyone in turn, highlighting the order as to which he likes you all, clumsily playing his hand. "Pint tonight?" You all say no. Their wedding is getting ever closer and none of you are invited. "Well," he says, dressing in his morning suit. "Guess I'll see you all." His dad's going to move their stuff out when they've gone. They'll start a life together, have a child together. He'll get really into wearing fleeces and she'll get really into early nights. All the spark is gone but they muddle through. And you know what? I hope they fucking choke on it. I hope they fucking choke on their misery. That's for taking a 40-minute joint shower every morning, Stuart!

"This is an art space! This is an art space! THIS. IS. ART SPACE!"

THE GIRL IN A HOUSE FULL OF SINGLE GIRLS WHO JUST GOT A BOYFRIEND

Gentle ecosystem, the house full of single girls. Real house of cards, that one. One shock – one small thump to the base of the table – and the whole thing collapses. Because when you all move in together, one summer, it's so fun isn't it: Nadia makes those cocktails, Louisa doesn't mind approaching groups of boys and getting them over to your pub table, Rae's just got done with her degree boyfriend and started mildly fucking a dealer, Nicola's just really fun – only, shit, no, now it's October and the summer has come to an end. Listen, it's fine: all just cuddle down for the winter, hibernate almost, just us girls and the Virgin Wine Club subscription we all pitch in for, and we'll wait until March and then get back to all night clubbing and splitting a cab home an– sorry, did someone shave in the sink this morning? Why's that Ben guy from TGI Fridays still here on Sunday morning? What is… oh god. Oh god. Louisa's got a boyfriend.

What follows now are these various events, all inevitable but the order unfixed: extremely awkward quiet kitchen table conversation where the house has to ask Louisa if Ben is going to pay rent; screaming match; crying match; ten-day period where three out of the four housemates don't talk; temporary Louisa-Ben break-up but everyone is still too mad at her for welshing on Nicola's birthday to talk her through it; inevitable Louisa-Ben reconciliation; Ben moving in "for a bit, so we can save up a deposit on our own place"; a "bit" somehow becoming "18 months"; ill-advised housemate side hook-up with one of Ben's rugby mates; all moving out in the same day in absolute silence and un-friending each other on Facebook.

Boys. Just don't do it.

THE HOUSEMATE WHO THINKS IT'S ACCEPTABLE TO SING

It's not, Craig! And Frank Sinatra would have dropped a hell of a lot fewer plates in the sink while he was washing up!

THE CREATIVE HOUSEMATE WHO HAS SOMEHOW CONFUSED YOUR LIVING ROOM WITH AN ART SPACE

"Favour to ask, guys," says Heather, whose name on Facebook is "Mystique Heath" and who runs an art collective in Hackney Wick in between her exceptionally lucrative work for a label. "Is anyone about this weekend?" Everyone nods that yes, they are about this weekend, the time people statistically spend the most time at their house. "Ah. Only I told a couple of drag guys from Denmark that they could use this space – " she gestures to your front room, your shallow bowl of spaghetti bolognese, the little plate of garlic bread you overdid " – for their latest show." Ooh, this is awkward, isn't it! However will this one go!

That's why it's Saturday morning and your front door is propped open and six Nordic guys are assembling… something in your front room. "You have a lock on your door, don't you, yeah?" Heather asks. No. Nobody has a lock on their door. "Shit. Okay: can you run out and buy… six locks?" What in– what the fuck is? "Listen: I've done a hummus and breadsticks spread in the kitchen, help yourself to tzatziki and then fuck off out of here for the afternoon, yeah?"

When you get back it's 8PM and there's already a glass of wine on your carpet and a load of pale topless art kids are milling around your sitting room. And so inevitably you end up doing art gak with the weirdos until 6AM in the morning. "Is it OK," Heather asks, "if someone does a little photoshoot in here tomorrow? We'll get £150 out of it." Do you ever see that money? You do not ever see that money. One of the Danish drag guys platonically sleeps in Heath's bed for six entire weeks and when they finally take down the catwalk it leaves holes in the carpet that docks you £800 from your deposit. And they say art isn't bullshit!

Party ended three days ago and one of them still hasn't woken up. Are... do they live here, now?

THE CURIOUSLY DELUDED HOUSEMATE WHO ALWAYS COMPLAINS THAT HE OR SHE IS THE MOST PUT UPON, DOES THE MOST WASHING UP, THE MOST TIDYING, YET YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THEM EMPTY A BIN, HAVE YOU, THEY ARE ALWAYS THE ONE WHO SHEEPISHLY COMES DOWN FROM THEIR BEDROOM OF A SUNDAY WITH ALL THE GOOD MUGS THAT THEY'VE BEEN HOARDING, THE ONES WHO PLAY THEIR MUSIC TOO LATE, WATCH TV TOO LOUD, HOG THE CONSOLE, TALK WHILE OTHERS ARE TRYING TO UNWIND, BRING ALL THEIR FRIENDS OVER, USE ALL THE HOT WATER, LEAVE ALL THEIR DETRITUS ALL AROUND, THEN THEY TURN AROUND AND GO, 'IT'S YOUR TURN, YOU KNOW. I WASHED IT LAST TIME,' AND GO AND SIT ON THEIR FAT ARSE AND WATCH FIVE CONSECUTIVE (FIVE!) EPISODES OF STORAGE HUNTERS UK, AND YOU KNOW THEY WILL NEVER MOVE OUT, BECAUSE THEY WILL NEVER IMPROVE – THEY ARE BAD AND UNMOVING IN THAT INOFFENSIVE WAY, WITH NOBODY AROUND TO MAKE THEM BETTER, NO GREAT LOVE TO MAKE THEM WANT TO PUSH ON, AND PLUS THEY ARE NOT MAKING ENOUGH MONEY TO LIVE LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE ON EARTH, AND THEY'RE CERTAINLY NOT SAVING ANY – AND IF EVERYONE SUDDENLY DECIDES TO MOVE OUT THEY WILL BE FUCKED, THIS PERSON, BECAUSE THEY NEED THIS RENT ARRANGEMENT – NO, IT'S SO CHEAP, NO COME ON, BOYS, WHERE AM I MEANT TO GO, WHERE ELSE CAN I GO? – AND THEY NEED THEIR HOUSEMATES BECAUSE THEY NEVER MADE ANY REAL FRIENDS, AND SO, AS THE JOKE ALWAYS ENDS WITH THESE ONES, THESE LONG ONES TOWARDS THE END, SO IT ALWAYS GOES–

That's you, that is.

HONORABLE MENTIONS TO:

– The girl who fills up the Sky+ Box with Friends episodes, and not even HD ones, I am talking about standard definition Friends episodes;

– Guy who just drinks on the front steps of your house with his weird large silent mate from uni until the council finally sends your entire household an anti-social order complaint;

– The girl who talks in very serious tones for three months about "adopting a house dog!" and starts googling dogs and then even gets a guy from the RSPCA in to assess your house for dog suitability and then… just… drops it… forever?

– Guy who moves his Tinder date in after one shag!

– Girl who moves her Tinder date in after one shag!

– Guy who emails the landlords about major issues without once consulting the rest of you, causing the landlords to remember you all exist and issue you with a reminder that a load of gas checks need making and oh yeah, £75 extra a month in rent now, please;

– Person who buys a new block of feta cheese every time they want feta cheese even though there are six mouldering blocks of feta cheese in the fridge from the last time they bought feta cheese and didn't just wrap it the fuck up before they put it back in the fridge oh my god oh my god!;

– Guy who opens the fridge, says, "What's that smell?" opens it again, closes it, opens it, closes it, makes the entire kitchen smell like that smell, then just leaves the room and never investigates it any further ever again, leaving it to you – and you alone – to fish out that rogue, bad, wet spring onion;

– The Girl Who Has a Very Particular Way She Wants All the Front Room's Cushions to Go;

– The Guy You Know Did Drugs All Weekend And Yet Is for the Second Month In a Row Asking You If He Can Borrow Money;

– The person who just won't move out even though they've fallen out with every person in the flat and they were the last to move in and even though you all explicitly said "I think you should move out" or "I'd like you to move out" or "I called the lettings agent and they say with the circumstances it's fine to move out," and they just won't move out;

– The person who gets their mates over every Friday night without fail for pre-drinks, like do you know any other place you can go, like do you know how much easier it would be for me to make a toastie here without all your mates in the way, and that's how you end up spending your Friday night with a pair of wired old PC speakers stretched across the gap in front of you, politely drinking a vodka-cranberry and trying not to take ecstasy, wondering on the whole – as you do in these moments, in these dark little moments when the shapes don't quite line up and nothing quite seems according to plan – what you always think at those times: where did my life go wrong.

Yeah! Being a sad twat saving up for your deposit doesn't sound that bad now, does it!

@joelgolby

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