Looking Back at 2011

As it’s the last day of 2011 I think it’s time to look back on my year and see how it was and if I’ve learnt anything from it.

January: I returned to uni for the start of a new term and things seemed pretty good. Looking back it seems that I went out and got drunk quite a bit as well as doing other fun things like going to the zoo and London for a day. It wasn’t all good though as there was some tension in the house and I somehow managed to destroy various people’s opinions of me which I think even now have not been completely restored. I was also fixated on a girl at that time which I realise now is a mistake. Fixation like that is only ever likely to lead to heartbreak.

February: Mostly a rather good month, apart from a lapse in the middle where I barely left my room for days. Once again I had several brilliant nights out, one when my mate Chris came to stay which was probably one of the best nights of the year. I also reaching new levels of being a geek when I travelled all the way to Bristol for the Nintendo 3DS launch event. I loved it so much I pre-ordered the console there and then, which it turns out was a good decision, though perhaps not financially. I think February gave me the realisation that I didn’t have to be the shy, weird guy I always came across as and could be however I want to be. The month changed me and I even joined the uni gym and lost a fair bit of weight.

March: Despite containing my lowest point of the year, March was actually a rather good month. For a while everyone hated me once when I was having a huge lowpoint and refused to leave my room despite an army of people trying to get in. I was avoiding everyone but particularly upset one person and ended up awkwardly telling them we’d talk when I got back as I tried to close the car door in her face. I have literally no idea what happened to me then. It was all OK in the end though and from that point the month went rather well. I became nineteen and had a little party and my gadget collection became updated with a new laptop and the arrival of my 3DS. I did a presentation dressed ridiculously and I also stayed with my housemate Josh at his home in Norfolk for a few days, which was really rather awesome.

April: Most of April was my Easter Holidays and so very little actually happened. I had a few days out with my best mates and there was a sort of reunion as I saw a load of other mates for the first time in months and months. Beyond that not much happened. Doctor Who returned though which was brilliantly news and I was very excited by.

May: Another fairly unexciting months but nothing went wrong so I can have few complaints about it. My love of comics first started in May when I went to Free Comic Book Day which started me off on the Flashpoint series and was the start of my newest obsession. And for reasons I never really discovered, my friend Louise took me on the Doctor Who locations tour in Cardiff. It was a long day but I loved it. And I now have photos of me pretending to me various members of the Doctor Who cast in the exact locations they filmed things. That was pretty awesome.

June: Month of the year! I had another day trip when I went to London with Book Club but two weeks of the month were spent on placement in school. This went much better than the first two weeks in the previous December what with me getting an excellent report and teaching several lessons, including one where I spent most of it pretending to be Captain Cook. My first year of uni finished and I was very happy. It has been quite a struggle at times and the fact that I’d proven to myself I could cope was fantastic and that last day was something else. Loads of people said by to me and said some really lovely things and I felt a huge sense of belonging. It was perhaps the happiest I have ever felt in my life.

July: It began with moving into my new uni house, where I ended up with the basement room. It felt weird living there for a few days but I had an awesome time with the housemates that were there especially at the bizarre Winchester Hat Fair, which sees loads of street performers arrive in town. I then accompanied my family on an enjoyable holiday in Majorca, though I couldn’t help feeling that I was a bit old for the type of family holiday we were having. It was mostly enjoyable though and I came back with quite a tan. When I was back home I went and saw the final Harry Potter film (the emotion!) and spent another couple of days in Winchester, with a different combination of housemates this time. It was all a bit mad and every morning I woke up I didn’t know where I would find myself. It was rather brilliant to live like that though.

August: Dullest month of the year! After two wonderful months, August was a massive letdown. It was my summer holidays and pretty much nothing happened. I worked a bit and went out with friends a few times with the annual Bournemouth Air Festival being one of the best days out. My phone got broken too so I couldn’t really contact anyone. I mostly just sat in my room doing nothing. It was quite rubbish.

September: It continued on with August to begin with but at least I had a great few days with Chris and Mike as we stayed in my uni house, though the night life in Winchester is non-existent out of term time. We watched The Inbetweeners Movie during those few days which was so brilliant and hilarious. After a couple more dull weeks I returned to Winchester for the new term and had a great laugh with my friends after the long break without seeing each other. I also entered a new era of trouser wearing and replaced by jeans with much more comfortable trousers that suit me much more.

October: Social difficulties amongst the friendship group made life much worse again. It was all rather unpleasant. However, October was also the month of different night’s out. I went to the rock night in Winchester, Detention, which I found myself rather enjoying apart from the enormous queue at the bar and I also went out in Southampton with friends Chris, Paul, Mike and Mike’s housemates. That was an awesome night but the best was one out in Bath with Chris, where he goes to uni. It was somewhat made worse though by being extremely ill the next morning, probably from a combination of alcohol and dodgy sausages.

November: Not a lot happened in November. I was just busy going to seminars and writing assignments. I had a massive Pizza Hut meal one night, went to the opening of the Christmas Market with a lantern parade and professional ice skaters and randomly went to London for the day by myself, where I really enjoyed spending time at the British Museum. I did finally find out the true thoughts of the girl I liked for most of the year and it became obvious that is was never going to happen. But I got over it as one must.

December: At least the year ended pretty well. My parents visited which was nice and I had a night out which finally increased my self-confidence when it comes to the opposite gender. I was rather hungover though for the arrival of Chris for another weekend stay but then we both went out the next night and had a brilliant time. The whole weekend with Chris around was excellent. There was one more week at uni then which featuring some fun lectures and our friendship group had our home-cooked Christmas meal and did secret santa. The Christmas holidays saw a few awesome days at work and a couple of shopping days with friends as well as a night at the pub seeing all those friends I hadn’t seen since Easter. All in all, it’s been awesome.

Instinctively I want to say that 2011 was a terrible year but actually when I look back I’ve got more good things to say about it than bad. I’ve certainly changed this year and in fact the me of a year ago would struggle to recognise the me of today, both physically and metaphorically. I have been out and got drunk a fair bit like students are stereotypically supposed to and had days out to Cardiff, London, Bristol and many more. I have to thank all the people who helped get me through an often challenging year with the two best at that being Chris and Mike. And also to you reading this for being a loyal reader over 2011. And if you weren’t I hope you will be next year!

That’s me done. See you next year!

Friday Review 11#: Christmas TV Edition

It’s Friday and that means it’s review time. Christmas has given me huge amounts of materials to review from presents I received to things on TV and the latter of those is what this post is all about. Here are reviews of various things that were broadcast or in Merlin’s case finished being broadcast over the Christmas period, in order of when they were shown.

TV

Merlin: Series 4

Merlin is a retelling of the classic Arthurian legend. I watched the first two series on and off and missed the third entirely. And then I suddenly got into the Fourth series and loved it. Times move on in this series with Uther dying and Arthur finally being made king. Shenanigans ensue. Morgana is constantly up to her nasty tricks with Agravaine betraying Arthur from by his side. It all ends with a two-parter in which Morgana takes over Camelot and there’s an epic battle to win it back. Merlin does several things that other TV shows fail to do. The chemistry between Arthur and Merlin is brilliant, hence lots of Merlin gay subtext blogs on Tumblr. But Colin Morgan and Bradley James have a chemistry which much more experience actors fail to pull off. And in fact they are both fantastic actors. Merlin also manages to get the balance between comedy and drama perfectly. It manages to be the funniest show on TV at times yet also deals with all sorts of dark issues about betrayal and death. It feels silly yet brilliant when you watch it and that makes it awesome. It’s just a shame the series was slightly let down by one or two “reset” episodes where the events of the story are irrelevant to the overall plot. Still, this has been one of the best things on TV in 2011 and perhaps might even have topped Doctor Who as the best overall. Not by much though, I will always love Who! ★★★★★

Outnumbered: Christmas Special 2011

Reviewing one episode is hard. There’s much less to talk about than a whole series. In this episode of the sitcom the family have Christmas early in time to fly off on holiday later on Christmas Day. Of course things go wrong and Karen has to go to the dentist and Granddad is in hospital. It’s the usual, if a little tired, Outnumbered fun. It didn’t feel much like a Christmas special though as it starts after all the present opening and then just turns into a typical Outnumbered episode. The eldest child, Jake, didn’t have much of a part to play and the outcome was pretty obvious. However, it was still very funny and there was a great comedy mix-up. And it wasn’t entirely without emotion as a scene with Ben talking to a recent widower about death was both touching and amusing at the same time. As I said of the fourth series, still good but feeling like it should end soon. I’ll miss it though. ★★★★☆

Lapland

Lapland was a one-off Christmas comedy drama starring The Royale Family’s Sue Johnston as a recent widow accompanying her family on a trip to Lapland to visit Santa. And I can’t help but be drawn to my big issue with this program. It was rather depressing. There was the sadness of the recent death and then lots of family arguing that all in all added up to something quite unpleasant. It’s Christmas, we don’t expect that from anything apart from the soaps and especially not when it’s advertised as a comedy drama. There was some comedy moments which were pretty funny but there just wasn’t enough. I was saved from hanging myself using tinsel by the final scene, the family all together and happy staring at the Northern Lights. “He’s still up there”. Aw, how heart-warming. This was well done but not light-hearted enough for a Christmas show. ★★★☆☆

Doctor Who: The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe

I have to try and not rave too much here. Regular followers may know that I am obsessed with Doctor Who and love it, lots. So as you can imagine I of course loved this episode. In it the Doctor attempts to reward a favour by taking the woman and her children on a Christmas trip to another planet. Typically things don’t go as well as planned and it becomes very dangerous. There are some fantastic scenes like the Doctor escaping from an exploding spaceship and him giving the family a tour around his modified house. My biggest criticism is that the Doctor was a bit useless in this episode and didn’t do a lot but he can’t always be the hero. Unlike most Christmas specials, this felt like less of a one-off especially with a cameo appearance from Amy and Rory. Another brilliant Doctor Who Christmas episode. “I know”.  ★★★★☆

The Borrowers

This was a new one-off adaptation of Mary Norton’s book about little people who borrow things from us big people or “beans” as they call us. And it turns out it was brilliant. Stephen Fry brilliantly played a zoologist trying to prove the existence of the Homo Sapiens Redactus. All the other actors put in fantastic performances including Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston as Pod. The scenery was done wonderfully and soon had you believe that these people really are tiny. There was the odd issue with green screen and a few liberties were taken but there are minor quibbles in a show with a good little story and fantastic acting. Go and watch it if you missed it. ★★★★★

Felix and Murdo

Felix and Murdo was a one-off channel four sitcom featuring comedy duo Armstrong and Miller as the 1908 gentleman of the title. The two men like sex, alcohol and drugs yet are posh Edwardian men. The plot surrounds Murdo trying to win the Olympics and Felix trying to postpone getting married. Most first episodes of a sitcom spend much of the time trying to establish characters and situation but this doesn’t really do that and it doesn’t need to. The characters are easy to connect with and laugh both with and at. It’s brilliantly acted by the duo and the supporting cast, almost all of which I could name other UK TV appearances. This was a brilliant half hour of comedy and I really hope that a full series is commissioned. It was really rather good. ★★★★☆

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on all these and if you watched any of them let me know if you agree! In next week’s Friday Review I shall be mostly reviewing various items that I got for Christmas. I’ll see you tomorrow when I shall be looking back at 2011!

End of Month Extravaganza 5#

Normally I would say that that time of the month had come again but I’m a little early this month. This is good as being late normally indicates pregnancy. Anyway, this post has to happen today due to other posts being scheduled in for the next few days. All will become clear in time. So let’s get on with it.

Everyone’s Talking  About… “My Blogs of the Year 2011”

So I gave out the title of Into Geek Blog of the Year 2011 to five blogs yesterday and the bloggers have been saying thanks and stuff.

Abby Noel: Thank you so much! This really means a lot :) and I don't mean to correct you, but I'm actually ensemble in West Side and the lead in another play, it's not a big deal, just thought I'd point it out. Thanks though!

Oops. I make mistakes sometimes, I’m only human. I have corrected said error as I do with any errors that people point out. I listen to my readers!

Alice: Thank you for this! As you said in the post, I don't have many followers, so this means a lot :)

Sam R: Awww, thank you so much. :3 How long have you been blogging now? I think I've been following you for almost a year!

No worries guys, I think you all deserve some recognition. And in answer to Sam, I don’t really know for certain. This blog on this page stretches back to the end of 2008 but hosted it on another page for a bit before then. However, those posts are largely pretty rubbish and not what I would really consider proper blogging. Proper posts started somewhen in 2009 but I’m not quite sure why. It’s quite cool to have had this blog all that time and hopefully it will continue to be around for many years to come.

Oh and the final bit about this is that Jay made a quick mention of her award on her blog, here.

Poll Position

After myself and my friend Chris had a big discussion arguing whether Coca-Cola or Pepsi is better, I decided to attempt to settle it online. You voted in your, um, tens, and I collated this with similar polls on Facebook and Twitter. And so now it’s results time. The best fizzy cola drink is…. Well actually it was a draw. Despite all the votes, no decision was made. Apparently the public view both drinks with equal views. I’m a little disappointed really. But that’s the public for you.

Minion of the Month: Scrolling through my comments and only one person comes to mind for December Minion of the Month. She is a regular commenter and I love that. She was Minion of the Month last month as well so I can promise you this is the last month for a while she’ll get the title. If you want it, get commenting or if you’re really keen a little promotion for my blog never goes amiss. Anyway, this month’s winner is once again, Jay!

The One Post You Should Go Back And Read: This is a tricky decision as I have to say that the majority of posts in December have actually been of a pretty high standard. My selection is The Well-Meaning Shop Assistant, largely because it’s simple yet quite fun. Several posts have been made up titles for people recently and I think that I might well use this idea more in the future.

Blog of the Month: There isn’t one! It seems a bit pointless promoting a blog here when my whole post yesterday was about just that. So of you want to read some awesome blogs, check out My Blogs of the Year 2011.

And as this post draws to a close, it’s the point where I review the month in terms of how good it was for me. Usually I come to the conclusion that it was pretty rubbish with the odd highlight. December though is different. In fact I would say it’s been pretty brilliant with the odd lowpoint. My parents came to visit, I had not one but two brilliant drunken nights out with one containing some kissing and the other being part of the brilliant weekend with my mate Chris when he came to visit. Then there was a Christmas meal with my friends and it was back home for the Christmas holidays which have included some good days out with friends, some good days at work and a better than average Christmas. All in all, it’s been wonderful. Hopefully this wonderfulness will continue on into the new year!

I shall see you tomorrow for the Friday Review Christmas TV special, followed by a look back at the 2011 I had on New Year’s Eve. Told you it all made sense!

My Blogs of the Year 2011

I tried this out last year and it was pretty popular so once again I shall select my five favourite blogs of the year. I have high standards too when it comes to this. All the winning blogs have posted fairly regularly throughout the year with the majority of their posts being of some interest to me. Also the quality of the writing must be pretty good, I can’t stand people who spell everything wrong or write like a five year old. And these blogs must look pretty good too, otherwise I just can’t stand reading them. All of the blogs can take the little award I made below and slap it all over their page if they want. So without further ado, let’s announce the winners!

 

Always Abbey Noel by Abby Noel

This blog makes me laugh loads and that’s part of the reason I love it. Abby usually writes short posts which could be about literally anything. She’s been busily rehearsing for a leading role in a play which sounds lots of fun. There’s not much else for me to say other than “go and check it out, it’s an awesome blog”.

Happenings From an Undisclosed Location by Jay

As well as being lovely and commenting on my blog loads, Jay has a brilliant blog of her own. She mostly blogs about her life and things that’s she’s into and does this with great enthusiasm. There’s also the odd fashion and make-up review which isn’t really my thing but I can still appreciate that they are well done. Jay hasn’t got that many followers yet so I demand you go and follow her if you are not already!

The Life of an Ordinary Girl by Rebecca

This one is a relatively new discovery but I am glad I did discover it. Rebecca writes in a friendly style making it feel like a good friend has sent an e-mail saying what they’ve been up to recently. It’s a great style to have and works brilliantly. I also love the design, it all fits together wonderfully. Go and visit!

Phile Not Found by Nano

Being all technical (a computer science undergraduate), Nano has made her blog look amazing and it stands out from any other. Her posts are almost impossible to describe, their being such a wide variety of subjects tackling. They are often science-based but not always. I think you have to go and read a few and decide for yourself if you like them. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic blog.

Unstoppable Nerd by Alice

The first thing that strikes you when visiting Alice’s blog is the wonderful Pacman theme but actually that’s only a recent change. Throughout the year Alice has been blogging about all sorts of things. I think that if you like my blog you will like Alice’s too as there are various similarities. We sometimes blog about the same geeky stuff around the same time, like when the last Harry Potter film came out. Alice hasn’t many followers either so go and follow!

So there we have it, five fantastic blogs. Hopefully this will give them all a good bit of promotion and they will all continue to blog for a long time. I urge you to check any of them out that you’ve never read, it will be worth your while I promise! See you soon!

Christmas 2011

So Christmas is all over for another year. I hope you all had a lovely time. My Christmas was fairly standard but fairly satisfactory. It was all very nice and we avoided any Christmas disasters which have in the past included my brother being operated on, suspected meningitis (it wasn’t though) and the death of the family cat. It’s rather a relief that our family has avoided this kind of thing for another year.

I was dragged out of bed so I was ready in time for the arrival of my Granddad and as family tradition dictates, this is the start of present opening time. Most of my present were relatively unexciting but still lovely to have including several DVDs and various Doctor Who items, including the T-shirt and socks I am wearing right now. The two 3DS games I received I am particularly excited about, Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land. From what I have played so far, they are both fantastic. Full reviews coming a week on Friday. My main present though was an Amazon Kindle.

For anyone that doesn’t know, a Kindle is an e-book reader which allows you to read electronic versions of books. This will save me money as e-books are way cheaper than the real thing and also save me the hassle of carrying books around between uni and home and indeed anywhere I might be going. I think it will take a little while to get used to reading from it but it’s quite awesome. Another gadget for me to carry everywhere!

I have to say that I am a little disappointed that I didn’t receive the other main present on my list, and probably the one I was most excited about too which was a box set of Doctor Who Series 1-4. But I received a fair bit of money from various friends and family who didn’t know what else to get and have put that together and ordered one. And the Box set of The Specials. It basically means I will have four whole series plus seven specials. I will have a never-ending supply of Doctor Who to watch on DVD and this is so brilliant!

The presents I purchased for the rest of the family seemed to go down pretty well. I feel a bit bad that I didn’t spend more but it was literally all I could afford. They all seemed happy though and for me that’s probably the best part of Christmas. The joy is after all in the giving rather than the receiving. 

One Grandfather left and another arrived, along with his significant other, for Christmas dinner. Oh and it was so good. I love roast dinners and my favourite meat is probably turkey. Plus the parsnip is my favourite vegetable and in fact one of my favourite food stuffs. So Christmas dinner is my favourite meal of the year for these reasons and because it’s pretty much the only time the whole family sit together for a meal. Being the greedy lump I am, I made sure no food went to waste by finishing any leftovers. And then I had a big bowl of Christmas pudding which was also awesome.

Then once the food had been devoured and my granddad had left Christmas was pretty much over for another year. I really don’t find it exciting anymore. I’m moved past the excitement over material things and whilst it’s nice to spend time with the family, it’s not like I hardly see them. My brother is very much the younger and immature one these days and it feels like three adults and one teenager. He might well mature at some point in the future.

Now in the evening we went to a family friends. And when I say “family friends” I mean “parents’ friends”. I did say I wasn’t particularly keen on going and because my Mum and Dad didn’t want to leave me alone on Christmas Day they said they wouldn’t go. Except then they wouldn’t stop going on about how much they wanted to go. So I had little choice but to say I would go. The first hour was pretty horrendous. My parents and their friends sat in the kitchen leaving me with my brother, their daughter and her boyfriend. My brother promptly started playing on the Xbox Kinect with the boyfriend and just kind of sat and watched. Incidentally, playing darts on the Kinect looks horribly like players are tossing off someone who is really tall.

7PM came around and I reached a new level of sadness when I was given a room to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special in. Alone. It was an awesome episode though which I really enjoyed. And I watched it again today with the rest of my family. I shall no doubt be quoting it in general conversation continuously for the coming days and weeks. I shall review it fully on Friday in a special Christmas TV edition of the Friday Review.

An hour later and I found everyone had now got together to play some games. We played Family Fortunes, a game called Panic Buttons which involving thinking of something like “A girl’s name beginning with B” when your button lit up and “Who’s in the Bag?” where you had to describe who was on the card to your team. My brother was particularly amusing on this one and described the Dalai Llama as “religious and has the name of an animal. For Sinbad he said “from The Lion King” and when my Mum said “Simba” he said add a D. Bizarre logic but it worked. During all this merriment I consumed a lot, and I mean a lot, of turkey sandwiches. It turns out I love turkey sandwiches. We never really have them at home because we only get a very small turkey.

All in all I have to concede that the evening wasn’t that bad. I laughed at least several times. But whilst my parents are saying it was the best Christmas in a while, I feel it was just another average one. Christmas 2009 was still the best ever. Today has been a fairly laid-back day apart from our now traditional Boxing Day walk, though my brother refused to come with us. It was a nice walk though.

So that was Christmas. Of course it will happen all over again in a year and might be better. Who knows? We’ve now reached that horrible point between Christmas and New Year but never fear, my blog will be very busy this week. I’ve been scratching my head trying to work out how I shall fit everything in. So stay tuned for all sorts of fun!

Christmas Eve 2011

So, Christmas Eve! You might notice that the header looks all Christmassy. Isn’t that nice?

I’ve little to report in terms of my life. I worked yesterday which was pretty good. Whatever my thoughts are on my ability to work with children, I must be doing something right. There are a few children who are always particularly pleased to see me and parents that always ask how I am. And that’s really lovely. Apart from work I seem to have spent a lot of time watching episodes of Doctor Who. All the Christmas specials from 2007 onwards have been repeated recently and are all online. I’m rather looking forward to this year’s Christmas special tomorrow. With most of the magic of Christmas vanishing, the Doctor Who Christmas special has become one of the big reasons to look forward to the day. And if I receive the Doctor Who boxset I asked for, and slight slip of the tongue from my Dad suggest I might well, then more of my time will be spent watching the show. I’m becoming such a loser!

I did also go for my usual afternoon walk today and I am very glad I did. It made me feel a little more Christmassy and filled me with a warm glow. The atmosphere felt wintery without feeling wet and dull. There were extra cars all over the place as friends and family visit their loved ones. And the sound of excited children playing with visiting children filled the estate, their giggling echoing around brilliantly. It was so lovely.

That’s enough words though and I shall finish with a quick Christmas message I recorded for you all.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Ringwood Workhouse

Part of my history assignment this year was to create a resource pack for an area of local history. I thought this might well provide the basis of an interesting blog post, to some people anyway. I looked into the local workhouse or to give it it’s full title “Ringwood Union Workhouse”.

Like many workhouses in Britain, Ringwood Workhouse still exists. Many former workhouses are hospitals or museums now but Ringwood Workhouse has been converted into a row of cottages. You can even go and stay in one of them during your holidays. It’s bizarre that you now have to pay large sums of money to stay somewhere that people were forced to go to because they had so little money.

The image above shows the building in the present day, though it was originally a bit bigger. This picture taken in 1905 shows what the workhouse looked like when it was being used for it’s original purpose:

A plaque above the entrance informs us that Ringwood Workhouse was built in 1725.

The point of a workhouse was fairly simple. Around this time poverty was a significantly bigger problem than it is now. From the time of Elizabeth I the law was that parishes had to give “outdoor relief” to the poor. This meant giving them a small amount of money each week. However, this caused the creation of a group known as the “idle poor” who were perfectly able to find work and work was readily available yet took advantage of the system by just claiming the money every week and using it to live of. Workhouses were created to prevent this. Help to the poor changed to “indoor relief” where the poor who couldn’t or wouldn’t work for whatever reason were sent into the workhouse. This method officially became law in 1834, with the workhouse being a last resort for the poor.  Conditions within the workhouse were supposed to be made worse than the worst conditions outside of the workhouse so only the most needy would enter them.

Each parish was supposed to have a workhouse unless they were too small to justify it when they were grouped together into unions. The Ringwood union consisted of Ringwood and four other parishes, still small villages today: Burley, Ellingham, Harbridge and Ibsley. The union was run by a Board of Guardians, nine in total with one for each small parish and the remaining five for Ringwood.

As this little graphic shows, even today the building is some way from the town and this was the idea of keeping the poor “out of sight and out of mind”.

The 1881 census gives some interesting information about the residents of the workhouse. It was run by Stephen Street and his wife Amy, who had an eight-year old son. The only other full-time member of staff was a school-mistress. There were 57 inmates at the time, with all but one born locally. The most common occupation of inmates before they entered the workhouse was farm labourer. All of this is very different to some other workhouses. The census of the same year for Birmingham Workhouse, one of the biggest in the country, shows us that there were thirty-two member of staff controlling 2,427 inmates. Occupations were much more varied in the Birmingham Workhouse, with the more industrial nature being obvious.

So what was life like in the workhouse? This clip from the BBC’s 2009 adaptation of Oliver Twist gives an idea of what the atmosphere was like. There are only boys present because in most workhouses inmates were separated into men, women, boys and girls.

One thing you may have noticed from that clip is the poor quality of the food. This is a sample of a weekly menu from Hertford Workhouse, which shows the lack of excitement in the food.

 

However, various sources tell us that Ringwood Workhouse may have been better to live in than others. It’s small nature meant that there was something of a family atmosphere. At the beginning of the 20th century the visiting doctor, Doctor Little, recorded that the Board of Guardians provided free beer for the inmates on Christmas day as well as other extras for the Christmas meal. He also said that “the food was always excellent, for all the vegetables were grown there, the bacon came from their own pigs and the House had its own poultry and eggs”. Compare this to the great scandal of Andover Workhouse where the inmates were so hungry they were sucking the marrow out of the bones they were supposed to be crushing. It would seem that though Ringwood Workhouse may have not been somewhere you wanted to go, it was better than being in many other workhouses. Ringwood Workhouse finally closed it’s doors in 1936, more recently than you might have imagined. 

This post has been another factual one, though in a rather different area to “Earth 2.0”. Let me know if you enjoyed this posts and if there’s good feedback I shall do some more in the new year. Thanks for reading!

_{Images 2,3 and 5 are Copyright www.workhouses.org.uk . Much of the research into this came from that website to. Visit it to find out about your local workhouse if you are in the UK!}

The Well-Meaning Shop Assistant

Hello. It’s that hectic time of the year as we all try and get everything done before Christmas. Somehow even I, well-known amongst friends and family for spending my time doing not a lot (due to lack of a life rather than laziness you understand), have found myself rather busy over the last few days. My Filofax is pretty jam-packed. Yes, I own a Filofax. Without it I would be completely lost and would be wandering around wondering if I was supposed to be somewhere. It would be disastrous.

So after a couple of hours of work (which was really enjoyable) I met my friend Paul for a bit of Christmas shopping. Some people might consider this a bit last minute but I would buy presents on the day if the shops were open and when it comes to birthdays often do so. I haven't seen Paul for about a month and even then we were drunk for most of the time we were together so it was nice to be able to meet up and chat properly. We did the same thing exactly a year and a day earlier so it’s sort of become an annual tradition. And long may it continue! Though our shopping styles are rather different. My method is usually have a few ideas, go and look in the relevant shops and buy something which would be a good present and is fairly cheap. Paul on the other hand doesn’t go straight into the buying stage and prefers to go around other shops and see if anything better appears. Which I found rather frustrating. Somehow we even got a bus to another shopping centre, though I must admit that was probably be a good idea.

It has become common when you enter a shop that the sales assistants come and ask you if you would like any help. There are few things in life that I want less than being forced to talk to a stranger in a shop. I headed into a shop called Lush which sells various bath and shower type-items. The first issue was that as I looked at gift boxes I had little to no idea what the things in them actually were…

So I was imaging this sort of thing when a female sales assistant comes up to me. I expected a “Would you like any help?” but instead I got a “Who are you buying for”? This meant a conversation had suddenly become unavoidable. I briefly toyed with the idea of saying myself but I would have looked a bit weird. And then I realised that other people my age in the shop might well answer “my girlfriend”. But no, not me, I had to stand there and say “my Mum”.  The woman then gave me a tour of the shop, suggesting various things I might like to buy. Everyone I’m getting presents for this year is getting very cheap presents as I really can’t afford to spend large amounts of money at the moment.  The well-meaning shop assistant showed me various items from £30 and upwards and I had to nod along as if to say “hmm, maybe”. Once she’d finally gone away the panic finally took over and I hurriedly left the shop.

In the end I did buy some items from that shop, a few bath bombs which it turns out are nice smelling things rather than the home equivalent of a car bomb. Have you any idea how much these things smell though? My bag is going to smell nice for months to come. And as they are currently hidden in a cupboard in my room, that also smells really sweet and flowery. My Mum must have worked out what I’m getting her due to the overpowering pleasant smell coming from my room. It never smell too bad (unless I had a curry the night before) but it never smell this good either! And I reckon I’m allergic to the stuff as it makes me cough loads. It’s all powdery and yucky.

Moving on from sickly sweet smells, last night I continued to be social my going to the pub with the guys. And one girl. Here “the guys” means “that group of people that always hung around together at school and sixth form and meet up occasionally now”. Apart from Paul and my best mate Chris, I hadn’t seen most of the group for months and in the odd case years. We’ve all gone off to do various different subjects at various different universities across the country. But despite this actually our experiences remain fairly similar. I kind of feel that I am getting as good a uni life as I would anywhere else, apart from the going out side of things. Most of the group go to universities in fairly sizable cities with lots of clubs whereas I go to Winchester which claims to have two clubs but they don’t even count. One inevitable topic of conversation was my beard as it’s the first time most people have seen it and it’s actually proper beardy now. This is of course down to people who read this blog and voted for me to let it grow. It’s part of me at the moment and I reckon it will stay for the short term at least.

All in all it was nice to catch up. It’s nice to have this small group of friends that still keep in touch though I imagine in the next few years my social circles will gradually dwindle out. At least for a whole combination of reasons most of my friends will end up finishing uni at the same time as me, despite the fact that I’m doing a four year course (it’s normally three years). I love to have everything meticulously planned but the next few years in my life are so uncertain. Due to that extra fourth year at uni I have no idea where I will end up living for that year and then once I have graduated as a teacher I have no idea! I will have to see what jobs are available and where I get a job will probably determine where I will end up living. It could be at home again, which would be rather strange, with a friend or, perish the thought, alone. I have no control over these things and I hate it! Still, it will all be an adventure.

And after that quick thought about the future, here is a look at the past. There’s a Facebook app which shows ten status’ from the year and mine has actually created a good summary of the year. The benefit of hindsight has changed thoughts on some of them loads.

Music Monday 7#: Christmas Special

This is the last Monday before Christmas so how could I not make it a Christmas special?  And rather than just throw the usual Christmas tune at you, many of which you may already be fed up of, I shall be choosing a slightly more obscure selection from more recent years.

But first of is the Golden Old ‘un and my selection for this comes from two legends from the world of music. It’s not as well known as it should be but I really love it. This is Bing Crosby and David Bowie with Little Drummer Boy.

Next up is from a favourite band of mine, The Feeling. It’s their own Christmas song and has a fan-made video which could almost be real. This is Feels Like Christmas.

The Killers do a Christmas song every year, which I think more bands should. This is my favourite of the lot and it’s pretty weird but that just makes it more brilliant. It’s called Don’t Shoot Me Santa.

The next song is perhaps the most popular Christmas song of recent years. It’s by The Darkness  and is called Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End). It’s kind of impressive they managed to released a Christmas song where the phrase “bell-end” was so prominent.

And my Record of the week this week is last year’s Christmas effort by the brilliant Coldplay. It’s a beautiful and brilliant song and it’s kind of a shame that it's a Christmas song because I’d love to listen to it all year. This is Christmas Lights.

And as it’s Christmas I’m treating you to an extra song! From one of the greatest films of all time (The Muppet’s Christmas Carol) this is The Muppets with It Feels Like Christmas. Love it so much…

Hope you enjoyed this lot and feel all Christmassy now! Let me know your thoughts!

Home For the Holidays

Goooooooood evening! Today I shall attempt to make a vaguely worthwhile post despite at this point having no idea whatsoever about what I shall talk about.

I guess I could tell you all about the last few days of my life. Thursday began with a science lecture, and it was largely “student led” which in other words means “the tutors couldn’t be bothered to do anything so got us to do it instead”. Basically in small groups we had to choose an area of science to brush up on and then teach to the class. Ours was the incredibly dull topic of separating materials. All that dull stuff about filtering and evaporating water to leave the salt crystals behind. Other groups topics were more interesting and perhaps the most fun one was about refraction of light. They had us trying to spear “fish” (carrots shaped like fish). The point is that due to refraction the fish is not where you think it is. But actually I was rather good at spearing the “fish”. Maybe I should become a fishermen.

Or maybe not!

Wow, I just made that myself. My first ever cartoony thing! Go me!

The second “event” on Thursday was receiving back the English assignment I spent loads of my time on over the past term. It was the best one I’d ever written and I had high hopes for a really good mark.

So I was hoping to get a first, which is 70%. And 57% is considerably below that. It’s not even the best mark I’ve ever got (that was a staggering 58%!). I find it really frustrating when I work hard on it and put in loads of effort but then get only a few marks above people who will openly admit they could have worked harder and didn’t finish ‘til the early hours of deadline day. I looked at the feedback and out of the eleven lines, only two of them were saying what was wrong with it. As far as I can see I simply didn’t read enough so my bibliography was too short. Next time bitches you are getting pages and pages of references. I shall consume the entire library if I have to!

Still, after this it was time to tidy and pack and then head home. I do feel slightly guilty that I can get home so quickly compared to everyone else in my house but then again that was one of the main reasons I chose to go to Winchester. It’s about thirty miles away from home meaning trips back and forth are fairly straightforward. Though having said that, getting there by public transport or coach takes several hours despite the distance. Ringwood is so poorly connected it’s ridiculous.

So as I write this I am sat at home. Things haven't really changed at all here. I’m already running out of ways to entertain myself and I’ve only been here since Thursday afternoon. One of the cats is depressed because she’s had a terrible flea problem and so has been banished from upstairs and has been sprayed numerous times. I think we might have to put her on suicide watch. The Christmas decorations are all up and the house seems to be waiting for Christmas as much as I am. Yesterday we received a card through the post addressed thusly:

^{“The Very Nice Hough Family”}

I am currently hiding from the final of Strictly Come Dancing, that show where celebs do ballroom dancing. I am becoming more and more of an old man when it comes to reality TV. Talent shows like this and The X Factor are totally out as are those horribly scripted ones following people around like The Only Way is Essex and Geordie Shore. These people don’t deserve to be famous just for being on TV. The only reality shows I watch are things like The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den where it’s a test of life skills rather than how well they can sing or dance. And the moronic general public don’t have a say. This is just my opinion anyway.

The local countryside looked magnificent in today’s cold but sunny weather. I shall end the post with photos of this magnificentness. See you soon!

Friday Review 10#

It is once again time to review some of the things I’ve watched, read, played and listened to recently in another Friday review. Will anything get five stars today?

Movies

Superbad

There are various plot points to this but largely the point is that best friends Seth and Evan are going to different colleges and want to try and have sex before they go. There’s also “help” from Fogle a.k.a Mclovin. It’s another high school comedy, but one of the better ones. In fact it reminds me lots of American Pie only way better and funnier. Two useless but friendly police officers are hilarious as are some of the situations the main characters find themselves in. Main characters that are very likeable I might add, even if Michael Cera does just play the same role he plays in every film he appears in. Fortunately I rather like that role. It also has a brilliant ending which perhaps shows that alcohol is not the way forward and relationships aren’t all about sex. It’s not exactly life-changing but it’s a funny coming of age film that is as good as that description ever could be. ★★★★☆

The Nightmare Before Christmas

A rare thing that is a Christmas movie which I haven't seen…until now! Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas Town, and is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween…but they can't get it quite right. I kind of expected to love this film, but I don’t. It’s perfectly OK but I didn’t really find it particularly entertaining or engaging. To me, the songs are fairly average and actually this is a Halloween movie rather than a Christmas one. And I don’t even consider Halloween worth celebrating. ★★★☆☆

TV

Young Apprentice (Series 2)

Young Apprentice is exactly the same as the normal version of the show but features 16 and 17 year-olds doing the same tasks as the adults. This year’s contestants were largely very good with many of the tasks being very close. It’s quite good to know that teenagers can do as good or perhaps even a better job than their adult counterparts. The tasks were often brilliant and saw the typical amusing outcomes. Lord Sugar’s assistant Nick Hewer is always brilliant with his one-liners and amazing faces. The penultimate episode saw the entire losing team fired as well as one member of the winning team which made the task more exciting and thrilling. The final was a bit predictable but I think the right person won it. This is how reality TV should be, showing real talent and skills rather than following random people with an accent round with a camera. If it weren’t for a fairly low-key final, this would have been a perfect series. ★★★★☆

The Walking Dead: Season Two (Part One)

The zombie show based on Robert Kirkman’s best-selling comic of the same name is currently on it’s Christmas break. It began dramatically with a herd of zombies staggering through a graveyard of broken down cars. The drama was largely with the kids, with Sophia going missing and Carl being shot. After the opener the show slowed down lots with the drama mostly coming from character interaction on a farm. Whether this was a good thing or not is debatable. Whilst it’s good that the survivors chat, the large lacking of zombies and action meant the show got very slow. But the cliff-hanger at mid-season finale was fantastic and actually went against the comics. Apparently there is supposed to be more action in the second half and if so that would make the show pretty-much perfect. The first half gets four stars but the season as a whole might  ★★★★☆

Games

Nintendo 3DS Update

An update downloaded from the internet has improved even further on the console. The biggest update is the ability to now record videos on the handheld, in full 3D. That is a brilliant feature and the quality is awesome. There are also additions to the Streetpass features so if you’ve unlocked everything from connecting with other people’s 3DS’ there is considerably more to do. And though not part of the update, there is a new app from Eurosport which shows there’s Watts videos in full 3D. All in all the fantastic console has been improved further and several of it’s few weaknesses have been improved upon.

Nintendo have released some Game Boy Advance games for free to 3DS Ambassadors (people who bought the console before the price went down, i.e. me). Giving them a review is hard at this stage but here are my first impressions on some of the titles.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Mario Kart Wii, this ain’t. Graphically it’s much different and the kart’s are harder to control than in the DS version. But if you look past these things, it’s still great crazy racing. There’s little to say about it other than that it’s the pretty much the same brilliant Mario Kart formula you might know from more modern versions.

Yoshi’s Island: This game sees you playing as various Yoshi’s as you try and take Baby Mario to safety. It plays very much like the Yoshi levels of New Super Mario Bros Wii but it’s even more extensive. And this is brilliant, I think I will really enjoy playing through this platformer.

Warioland 4: I’ve never played any Warioland game until this one. It’s very similar to a Mario platformer but obviously features Wario as the main character and therefore enemies and moves are different. It seems fun but I’m not sure it’s as good as the Mario equivalent.

Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: I’m not quite sure what this game is. Donkey Kong steals a load of Mini Mario toys and you play as Mario going after them. It feels like a platformer but I think it’s more of a puzzler, with gameplay involving pressing buttons to get to the next item or door. Kind of fun to begin with but I imagine it might get a little tiring.

Web

Facebook’s Timeline Feature

You can only opt-in to this feature at the moment but you will be forced into it any day now. Basically it’s the new Facebook profile which you can customise much more than before. You can make a big picture (a “cover photo”) appear at the top. Then various bits of recent activity is laid out as shown above. It’s now easier to go back to a certain date by using that timeline in the top right. This means embarrassing things from when you first joined Facebook are way easier to access. I’ve yet to decided whether that’s good or not, I guess it depends on what you’ve got on your Facebook. I can’t really rate this but it’s the biggest Facebook update in ages and probably the best in ages. There will be lots of opposition I would imagine but eventually I think it will become really popular…

And there we have it! I shall be reviewing more things very soon and as usual let me know if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said here today.

Christmas Meal and Other Things

Hiya! First of all you may or may not notice that I have changed the look again. I don’t like changing it too regularly but I just felt that the old one had loads of floors. Hope you like it. Now on with the post.

My friend Chris has now returned to his own uni after an awesome weekend here. It was so good having my best mate around for a few days. Nothing at all gets done but it was such a laugh. Every night when we should have been asleep lengthy conversations happened which went from being really serious to hysterically funny and on occasion very sick. I can have conversations with Chris that I can have with no-one else. He knows me better than anyone else and this is awesome. Plus no joke is too far between the too of us. And I mean literally no joke.

One discussion we had was whether Coca-Cola or Pepsi is better. Personally I think Coca-Cola is much better but he thinks otherwise. I hate it when I’m buying a drink and ask for coke and they go “Is Pepsi OK?”. NO IT ISN’T. I ASKED FOR COKE YOU MORON. Anyway, seeing as though both Facebook and Twitter couldn’t come up with an answer I thought I’d get my blog minions onto it. So go to the poll on the sidebar over there →→→→ Thank you and hopefully this will give me the conclusive answer!

My penultimate lecture of 2011 was pretty good yesterday. Part of the assignment was a resource pack for an area of local history and in the session today we informally presented them. I found this really interesting and found out lots of things I didn’t know before. One person even pulled out a sword entirely unexpectantly as a resource for teaching about pirates. There was also the tutor’s “Christmas Quiz” which had nothing to do with history but lots to do with history. Fortunately my general knowledge of history is fairly good and combined with my teammates we did well. I think we won but the results were never properly found it. History is probably the module I’m most looking forward to next semester.

This afternoon was our social group's Christmas meal. Last year we booked a table at a pub but this year we headed to our friend’s house where two of them cooked the dinner. After playing Buzz on Playstation 2, as per usual (I won, twice) dinner was ready. It was a little cold by the time we got it but it was still surprisingly nice. I love roast dinner’s so much and apart from at Christmas it’s very rare that I get them. Plus parsnips are the bets vegetables ever and one of the best food items ever!

Then it was time to find out how the Secret Santa we did between the houses. Secret Santa is where each person is assigned one person to by a present for, usually saving the awkward decision of who in the group you ought to get presents for. Most people seemed fairly pleased with the presents they received and the person I bought a present for was pretty happy with it. I’m usually quite good at buying presents. The present I received caused me to me a little underwhelmed. I know exactly who it is from because the person told me and it was just a bit..odd. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s better than nothing and part of it was chocolate which I will happily eat, even if it did lack some imagination.

So I have one lecture tomorrow morning and once I’ve tidied and everything I’m off home. My third semester at university is over tomorrow. I find it weirdly emotional to be leaving actually. The past week has been so brilliant. And being at home, though it’s nice to be with the family, is largely pretty dull.  Then again it will be lovely to go home, though I kind of wish it was a week or too less. But if anyone who has made the last week so good or helps get me through the rest of the time, be that friends in the house, in my group or otherwise, thank you. You make life worth living.

Music Monday 6#

It’s Monday. Music starts with the same letter as Monday. Therefore, it is time for Music Monday!

This week’s Golden Old ‘un is Bat For Lashes with Daniel. Obviously the name has a lot to do with why I like this song but it’s still a brilliant and haunting love song.

Next up is a song I discovered on an advert for some fragrance or another. There are so many adverts for fragrances on TV at the moment, they all mould into one. Normally it’s a man and a woman making out with some music playing and some arty filming. Anyway, this is Friendly Fires with a cover of Strange Love.

Thirdly is a song that reminds me of my antics on Thursday night. It’s properly romantic, though perhaps a bit much for a first meeting! It’s the lovely Bruno Mars with Marry You.

This another old track but it’s awesome. It’s not really very well known but I love it. It’s The Coral with Dreaming of You.

This week’s record of the week is a brilliant track by one of my faves bands The Feeling. This wonderful track is Set My World On Fire!

As ever, let me know what you thought of this week’s selection. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow!