Today, volunteer for jihad on behalf of the West

Okay, so I'll admit it - I had no idea how the fuck I could even attempt to do this one. The aim was to, and I quote, 'drop everything, book a ticket to the Pakistani badlands, and tell your proud family you're off to join the battle on behalf of Mozart, Shakespeare and Rembrandt.' Oooookay. Well, because I a) am not suicidal, b) am against war, c) don't have a lot of money, and d) don't take this book THAT seriously, it was immediately obvious that there was no way in hell that I was gonna actually gonna go to Pakistan and start slaying soldiers so I could make Europe proud.

So, I tried really hard (and I mean, I've been thinking since I got the book), about ways around this. When, one day, my beautiful friend Jay, beacon of knowledge that she is, told me that there are two forms of jihad, lesser jihad and greater jihad. Lesser jihad is pretty much battle, going to war to protect your country/beliefs. However, greater jihad is battling for oneself, one's country, one's beliefs - but without any physical violence involved. Kind of more spiritual, and more patriotic in a less jingoistic way.

So, being the genius that I (debatably) am, I decided that the only way around this was to be super patriotic on behalf of Europe for a day! I figured this pretty much makes sense, although my loose grasp on politics (even though I find politics kinda interesting) means that my way of thinking is probably slightly special. Twist the term 'special' to how you feel it relates to me.

Being super-patriotic wasn't easy, although that's mainly because I had no idea how. So, unfortuantely, I didn't go about it the best way. But here's what I tried.

I planned to wear a t-shirt that was made and sold in Europe in the morning. However, I was in a rush, so I just threw on my McLovin shirt, which promotes an American movie, and was probably made in some factory in China. Bad, bad start.

On the way up to Uni, I got out some money from the cash machine, and kissed the picture of the Queen. Now, I feel that THAT was pretty patriotic. I don't think that anyone saw me, which is a very good thing, because I felt a bit odd for doing it. But that's how I show my love for Europe, dammit!

Upon leaving the bus up to Uni, I decided to use a very British phrase (you can see this is mainly patriotic towards the UK, I should've spoken a bit of German or something); 'Cheers, mate!'. Or it could be a very Australian phrase. Depends on how you say it in your head. In my head it's Australian, weirdly. It sounded very unnatural coming from me, I sometimes use the word 'mate', but it usually depends on company, and it's not something I say a lot anyway.

However, the main thing I did to be patriotic was to only listen to music from Europe. I listen to a lot of music, as I always have my iPod on shuffle when travelling. So today, I skipped any bands that weren't European, and instead listened to loads of British bands, with the odd German or Swedish metal band thrown in for good measure. The good news is, this meant I got to listen to a fair amount of Jesu and Fuck Buttons. The bad news is, it meant I had to listen to Tom Jones (and if you're wondering why he's on my iPod, he did a Bond theme). Actually, I didn't really mind that too much at all, he has quite the set the lungs! It meant I had to skip a lot of awesome bands (I was totally in the mood for Between The Buried And Me), but I still got a whole load of decent tunes.

I only cheated twice. Once was because I really wanted to listen to 'Dear Jamie... Sincerely Me' by Hellogoodbye (I've been craving to listen to that song for ages, so I YouTubed it), and once when we listened to Pink's (or P!nk's, I'm not sure what it is) 'Funhouse' album at Jay and Kate's. However, this was very much made up for by the fact that I didn't actually tell anybody I was only listening to European music (though I probably should have), and because we also listened to Fleetwood Mac and The Levellers.

So what have we learned about patriotism today, kids? Yes, that's right! We have learned that to be truly patriotic, you must only listen to music from your own continent! Now all I have to do is tell the whole world, and maybe all the wars will end...