Into Geek

Chart Chasers #1

2012-01-30T17:24:00.001Z

Hello and welcome to something new. I am extending the Music Monday feature to include this. The normal Music Monday post will be here every other week and in the other weeks will be this, Chart Chasers. In this feature I shall share with you the top five highest new entry singles in the UK chart (i.e. the top five singles that are new to the chart). I shall no doubt decide I really dislike some of them but some of them may be great. It’s time to go and see which of those today’s songs will be!

1) In at number 29 is everyone’s favourite ginger singer, Ed Sheeran and he’s been at the alcohol again and is therefore Drunk…

First of all, that is a brilliant video. Funny and emotional at the same time. The song is a typical Ed Sheeran song, this one focusing on a break-up it would seem. The songs all feel a bit samey but having said that I rather like this one. Well done Ed, nice work. I give this 8/10.

2) The next track is at number 19 and is by an artist called Redlight and is called Get Out My Head. I have literally no idea what to expect for this but here goes:

Well that was a bit weird! I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t like it very much either. It’s mostly the word “get out my head” repeated a lot with some horrible noises along the way. I should also point out that the correct grammar would of course be “get out of my head”. And it would be polite to add a “please” in as well. I give this 4/10

3) In at number 14 is Lana Del Ray with Born to Die. Sounds cheery. The media seem to think Lana Del Ray is going to be pretty big this year but I’ve yet to hear any of her songs. Until now…

I have quite a lot to say about this. Firstly, I really don’t approve of tigers being used for a music video, that doesn’t seem right to me at all. Secondly, Lana has very odd lips. They look lopsided to me. Thirdly, though the song does go on a bit I quite like it. It’s certainly different to most of the other stuff in the charts. I wouldn’t really want to listen to that if I was feeling a bit down though. I shall give it 6/10.

4) Number five in the chart is Flo Rida with his new track Wild Ones. It also features the CIA apparently. Oh, my mistake it features Sia. I don’t have high hopes for this one. I’ve never like Flo Rida very much, partly because he just used the place where he came from as his name. If I did the same I would be Hamp Shire which would be ridiculous. Anyway, it’s called Wild Ones:

No video apparently. Sia has a decent voice and her sections are OK. Flo Rida, as usual, ruins this song by appearing on it. It’s a shame really. Apparently Sia also appears on David Guetta’s latest track Titanium. She doesn’t look like you’d imagine her to look though…

Anyway, I give the song 5/10, mainly for her efforts.

5) The highest new entry is actually at the top of the chart and is by a “band” called Cover Drive. The song is called Twilight though fortunately it’s nothing to do with vampires. I’ve heard this one a few times before but here it is for anyone who hasn’t:

I really quite like this tracks. The lyrics might not make much sense and it’s blatantly obvious Mini paid the band to have their car in the video but it’s a great pop track. It’s another 8/10.

And now for the fun bit of this feature which I really hope will work. I’d very much like it if you would also rate each track out of ten. Then in the next edition we can get an overall rating of each track by combining all the scores! Just comment on this post or the link to it with the number of each track and the score for each track. You could even send it as a Tweet to @zotwot! I’ve done mine as an example in the comments section!

Muppet Mania

2012-01-29T14:03:00.001Z

There is little point to this post but I couldn’t resist it. I love the Muppets and this all stemmed from The Muppet’s Christmas Carol which remains to this day on of my fave movies ever. So the prospect of a new Muppet movie got me very excited indeed. It’s frustrating that the film came out in the US at Thanksgiving in November but doesn’t come out here until February 10th. I could have illegally downloaded it but that would be wrong and I want that trip to the cinema to me really special. Over the last week the Muppets have been in the UK promoting the movie and I’ve been watching and reading every interview that’s been on. This post will pretty much just sum all that I’ve seen up!

It all began with my picking up this week’s copy of the Radio Times which has a big Muppet feature and an interview with Miss Piggy. Michael Caine also tells the magazine how wonderful it was to work with the Muppets which is lovely. My favourite part is where Miss Piggy is asked “Is your first name really Pigatha?” to which she replies “No. But congratulations, that is the silliest question I’ve been asked since I started this press tour six months ago.”

By pure chance I happened to be online for the press screening which was broadcast live on the internet on Friday. Kermit, Miss Piggy and the movie’s director were there, but Miss Piggy turned up late, as always. The Muppets handled the questioned brilliantly and were hugely funny as ever. My favourite bit was Kermit saying green screen didn’t really work with him because it just looked like an ad for ping-pong balls!

After that I watched the Muppets appearance on The Chris Moyles Show from Friday morning. It features Kermit, Fozzie Bear and later Miss Piggy, when she eventually turned up. I see a pattern here. Here’s the interview for those in the UK (and US people can’t complain because you’ve probably already seen the movie!):

Thanks to the lovely Miranda at “A Bit of a Geek”, I found this brilliant video showing a Muppets level of Playstation’s Little Big Planet. It’s a fantastic watch!

On Saturday night Kermit and Miss Piggy appeared on ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show. Whilst it wasn’t the best interview ever, it was quite fun. Particular highlights included Miss Piggy talking about the pair’s sex life, though hardly graphically, and comedian Jack Whitehall getting drunk and flirting with Miss Piggy. UK users can watch the show on ITV Player here, for the next seven days. The Muppets section starts at 33 minutes in but there’s lots of behind the scenes bits all the way through.

That’s all the Muppet press appearances from the last week. I shall leave you with three Muppets videos which appeared on their Youtube channel over the last few years (they’ve ben building up to this movie for ages!). I hope you enjoyed this random post and expect more mentions of the Muppets here in the near future, especially once the movie is finally out here on February 10th!

Here’s the Swedish Chef making popcorn and making a right mess of it as usual:

Next up is Beaker singing Ode to Joy, playing all the parts at the same time:

And here’s a recent Muppet classic that you’ve almost certainly already seen but it never gets old: it’s The Muppets singing Bohemian Rhapsody!

And finally here is the trailer for the actual movie:

The Bowling King

2012-01-28T18:53:00.001Z

I believe it’s time for one of those posts where I talk about the recent happenings in my life. It’s been a fairly average week really, not especially bad but not especially good either. I’m not sure how you describe that sort of week in works. Middleish? That’s not really a word. But it could be if it gets enough uses! I now require you to use the word “middleish” as often as possible in the hope we can eventually get it into the dictionary. Anyway, on with the post.

The biggest news is that I’ve finally found out which school I’m going to be spending my next placement in. The placement is pretty much the whole of March and it’s in a school which is a half hour train ride away. This is frustrating as the uni have provided no transport and are just giving me £10 a week to get there. It’s going to cost be about £8 a day so I am going to be hugely out of pocket. Still, the school looks to be really very good so it should be a good experience. The form says I’m in a class of seven/eight year olds though there is a chance this might change. But even if it doesn’t, I’m fairly happy with that, it should be a fun year to teach in. I don’t yet know the other student I’ll be working alongside but after some Facebook stalking I’ve decided that she seems OK. It’s by no means a perfect placement but at this point I remain fairly optimistic about it. I now have to wait five weeks before it starts though!

I’ve even been out on a couple of evenings this week. One was last night where we all went on a bit of a pub crawl which was quite fun. I didn’t get drunk. Well not that drunk anyway. And that was mostly because I ended up drinking something hideous. Tiff bought a drink which was supposed to be a margarita but was very salty and pretty horrible. It changed glasses and then various other bits of drinks were added to it. Jaz promised that he’d buy me a pint if I downed it in one and being one to never turn down a freebie, I decided to drink it. I’d got about half way through before anyone noticed what I was doing and Jaz’s expletive made me laugh which lost me my freebie. To be honest it wasn't that horrible but for some reason it was ridiculously cold. My teeth have never been that cold before!

On Wednesday night we hopped on a train to the nearest bowling alley and went bowling. Actually it took a while before we actually did any bowling because most of the gang got very excited by the various amusement machines and tried their best to get lots of tickets. They did get a fair few in the end though, mainly because Tiff is a demon at the Deal or No Deal machine. Jaz managed to injure himself on the basketball one too, the one where you try and score as many baskets as you can. I kept out of this and hung around with Louise and Katie mostly. Eventually we did actually do some bowling and I am proud to say I was the victor. Top place out of nine is pretty good and I got a whopping score of 133. I have now worked out how to bowl well so I expect a higher score next time I play. Perhaps bowling is an actual talent I possess!

In terms of lectures, this week hasn’t been the best. Wednesday’s lectures may have been missed because I was still in bed. Oops. Sometimes sleep is more important. Science was an odd seminar because it was for the most part very dull. I spent much of the seminar looking longingly into the adjoining art room where all sorts of fun things were going on. But said seminar did hold one of the highlights of this week’s lectures, a random tug of war. I won’t go into explaining how this was relevant but it sort of was. My friend Stefan was on the winning side and got very excited to say the least. There was quite a cheer. The people in the art room probably thought one of us was having a nervous breakdown having seen are incredibly bored faces.

Today I continuing my recent cooking craze and made another cake. This one was a victoria sandwich, namely two bits of sponge with buttercream and strawberry jam in the middle. Here’s a picture:

Unfortunately it’s a bit too sweet. I thought that and I have quite a sweet tooth so I dread to think what others will think when they have a taste. Still, I felt very energetic after having a slice. I shall probably do some more cooking soon as it’s beginning to become a new hobby of mine, much to everyone I knows surprise. That was pretty much all I did today apart from meet my fried Mike but by the time I got his message I could only spend a few minutes with him before he had to go home. It was great to see him though.

I also wrote a short children’s story this week which is inspired by my walks around the local nature reserve. It’s called “Neil and the Duck” and you can read it by clicking here. I’d be really appreciative if you could comment here with your thoughts but I doubt anyone will. People never comment when I ask them too!

This blog seems to be going through a busy period at the moment. Stats are up and the number of minions has risen hugely. It’s hard to give an exact number as there are people that follow on Google Friend Connect, people that are members of the Facebook and Google+ groups, people that are following on various blogging website and people that follow through my personal Facebook and Twitter accounts. Details of where to find most of those are on the sidebar to the right and on my About Me page. It’s absolutely wonderful to see my little community grow and I hope this continues. Thanks to all who read and comment (and if you do read but don’t comment, why not?) and I shall be working hard to make this blog as great a read as I can over the coming weeks and months. I’ll be back with a fun and unique post tomorrow!

PS: My post titles are getting more and more obscure as time goes by. I have to call them something!

Friday Review #13

2012-01-27T19:58:00.001Z

It’s time for another edition of the Friday Review, where I review things I’ve read, watched, listened to or played recently. As always let me know if you agree or disagree with any of the things I’ve said!

TV Shows

Sherlock: Series 2

After a fantastic first series, the modern retelling of Sherlock Holmes returned for another three-episode series. And though three episodes seems short, they are all ninety-minutes so it’s more like three films. This time round Sherlock deals with Irene Adler, the hound of Baskerville and face Moriaty for the final time. All three episodes were very different but brilliant. My personal favourite of the three was The Hound of Baskerville as it was a clever retelling of the story which I thought worked brilliantly. The series was left with a big question about how something was achieved and this makes me look forward to the next series all the more. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are the perfect Holmes and Watson in my eyes, with fantastic acting and a great chemistry. The show is also brilliantly written and cleverly put together with some fantastic visual scenes. One in the Hound of the Baskerville cleverly showed us Sherlock’s thinking process like an iPad app without the iPad. It even had a random snippet of Elvis’ Hound Dog in there. I can rave about this show forever but I shall contain myself. It will take a true masterpiece for anything on TV this year to better this. One of the best TV shows to have aired in my lifetime. ★★★★★

Books

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Wow! There's a lot of hype about this book and I somehow doubted that it would live up to the high expectations I was given. It did though. The concept of a dystopian world where children from different districts forced to fight for the state's entertainment is both interesting and scary: it almost seems too possible.

Katniss is an easy character to relate to and the first part of the book introduces her and the world she lives in without being too slow. From when the games begin the book is a real page-turner, full of action and suspense. Despite the dark premise, there is actually fairly little violence and its skills and wit which win the games. At first I thought it was odd that Collins wrote the book in the present tense but actually this makes it more exciting as the events are happening as you read them.

This is the point where I'd normally say the bad things of the book. I'm really struggling though with this one, it is so brilliant. It's catapulted itself into my list of favourite books and I just hope that the next two books in the trilogy live up to the first! ★★★★★

The Warlock by Michael Scott (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5)

I have very much enjoyed the series until this point but felt a little let down by this one. Don't get me wrong, it's still good but it's clear The Warlock is the build up to the end of the series. In terms of what actually happens there isn't really that much. It focuses much more on the history of the mythology, a mixture of mythology's from all over the world, and on how the characters are developing and connected to each other. In fact it seems that every character has a link with another that you wouldn't foresee.

I like how it flitted between several stories but it seemed to lack the plot of the others. I was expecting another huge battle at the end but it just didn't materialise. And Nicholas Flamel has suddenly become a fairly minor character which is disappointing considering the series takes his name.

It won't be until the series is complete that this book's full value will be known but I feel that it's the calm before the storm. It's good as a continuation of the series but if it was a one-off book I would be really slating it now. ★★★☆☆

The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Having read The Jungle Book some time ago, I thought it was about time I read the sequel. It's certainly a development from the first and sees Mowgli as a teenager being used to death and the way of the Jungle. There's quite a focus on humans in this one and it is clear from the start that Mowgli is destined to return to live with his kind and this ending is brilliantly done. It's heartfelt and Mowgli isn't sure what he is doing is right but his friends in the Jungle tell him it is.

There's also a couple of great other stories, including a particularly interesting one featuring Inuit's but quite how that is supposed to relate to the Jungle is beyond me.

It's every bit as good as the first and Kipling's writing is beautiful, if quite dated. It's a classic and is well worth reading if you liked the first. ★★★★☆

Sliding Void/Transference Station by Stephen Hunt

These are actually two separate books but they tell one story and are so short that I have reviewed them as one. Reading eighty pages and coming to a cliffhanger is very frustrating but apart from that these books are great. They follow the adventures of a space ship and it’s crew as they travel the universe trading anything they can. The first book sees a new crew member, living on a planet in the dark ages join the crew and the second sees him begin to fit in as the ship goes on a mining mission to an unknown planet.

There are some fantastic sci-fi ideas in it and the characters, not all human, are both entertaining and engaging. There’s also a sense that there is an overall plot. The captain, Lana Fiveworlds, lost her memory and we find out the android knows how and why. At some point no doubt it will all be unveiled but I get the impression it will take a while. The series is pretty much being released in an episodic formula, which is very frustrating. I await the next one eagerly! ★★★★☆

These book reviews come from GoodReads, a site where I share reviews of all the books I read including some which won’t ever appear on this blog. You can visit my profile and add me as a friend here.

Other

Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

This is a retelling of HG Well’s classic novel The War of the Worlds but with music. It is narrated by Richard Burton and tells the story of Martians invading Earth. It’s dramatic and very emotional in places. Now I despise most musicals but this almost doesn’t even feel like a musical. It’s tracks vary from sci-fi noises to tracks which sound almost classical to the odd one which sounds like a pop song. It’s a great combination and not a single one of those tracks feels out of place. I fully recommend downloading or purchasing this, especially if you are a sci-fi fan. It’s impossible to describe really but listen and you’ll realise why I recommended it. It’s awesome. ★★★★★

That’s all for today but they’ll be another edition in a few weeks. Thanks for reading!

Guest Post: Vegetarians

2012-01-26T21:01:00.001Z

Hi Guys! It’s been a while but today I’ve got a new guest post and it’s a fun one by Lilly about vegetarians. I love it and I hope you will too!

I love meat! A choice cut of beef is enough to set my little omnivorous heart a flutter. That being said about 25% of my friends are vegetarians, with 75% of that going the total vegan. (Of course those are on guesstimates since 68% of statistics are made up on the spot) I mention these numbers to illustrate a point. When I ask these people why they chose to cut meat from their diet the main argument I get is animal cruelty. “It's a living thing.” While I do feel the plight of our furry four-leggers, I do feel the need to ask, mostly in jest, what about your salad?

In college I made a video: Vegi-cide:Salad Slaughter. I had a choice; a film about death or taxes, and a film about taxes seemed too depressing. In the film, my friend played the avid reporter trying to find the truth about the terrible injustice done to plants when they are plucked and forced to slowly die for our consumption. My favourite part was a moment of sheer brilliance. We see an apple picked from a tree. Suddenly another apple cries out, in obvious voice over,“OH NO FRANK! NO! He was still green! I can't live without him. I can't take it anymore!” At this point the other apple drops and hits the ground. We had the VRG, Vegetable Rights Group, and they spent most of the film shouting at people as they ate their salad, tofu, and bread. In one scene we even doused someone wearing a hemp shirt in tomato juice while chanting murderer. It was campy and not meant to be taken even a little seriously, but some (and I reiterate some, not all) vegetarians got offended. Truly and honestly offended. I guess some people just have no sense of humour.

We are Vampires, the ones who drink blood not the ones who sparkle. We kill living things and devour them to survive. If you stopped eating anything that cost a life our diet would be very similar to that of an earthworm, dirt with occasional hints of excrement, or maybe not because even dirt and excrement have tiny organisms that are killed upon consumption. Don't worry, our quadrupedal friends consume life to survive as well. Cows eat grass, grass is a living thing. Plants eat other plants. Animals eat other animals. It's natural.

I know this will sound crazy when I say it, but it's true. Plants actually put off a chemical when plucked signifying pain. El Ron Hubbard did a test with his e-meter to see if tomatoes felt pain. He claimed his results showed they felt pain when sliced. For years it was debunked as a myth but in the end several scientists got together and found that plants see, touch, smell, hear, and taste in ways we are just beginning to comprehend. Mimosa leaves respond immediately when touched, trees germinate during fires to spread seeds and keep the forest alive, seeds can pull themselves into the ground., Venus fly traps eat bugs. Pretty awesome for a sentient faceless being. “But plants don't have a face or nerves.” You are correct. They don't. Neither do worms. Chow down my vegan brother.

That burger I just finished came from a cow. He was completely dead when they cut him up and ground him down and fried him into that patty I just consumed. How do I know, because a friend of mine gave me the meat and he knows how to properly, and quickly slaughter an animal. Disgusting to think about right? What about the tomato on top. Unlike animals when they are properly slaughtered, death is instantaneous and painless, no matter how you pick a plant it has to wait to die and will technically still be alive if it arrives to you in it's whole original form. That apple you just popped into your mouth, it's still alive and crying out in it's own appley anguish. The sliced cucumber in your salad, clinging to it's crunchy life. Have you ever seen what we do to plants, imagine if those were people or animals. Disturbing isn't it? If we waited for plants to die they would be inedible. It's not until the plant is processed that it becomes truly dead.

In all seriousness I have total respect for those who choose the vegetarian lifestyle. You have a belief that we should not raise animals in the horrible conditions they are in for consumption by the masses. Great! I think the we were given animals to eat. I don't tell you to drop your belief system. I expect the same in return. Do not turn your nose up at me for eating a burger with chilli, bacon, and cheese while you nibble self-righteously on your salad. I am an equal opportunity eater. I will never be a vegan and you will make sure your food never had a face. So grab your multivitamins and I'll grab my chicken fingers and lets just all agree to get along. Signed, the Rodney King of Turnips.

Trouser Trouble

2012-01-24T21:16:00.001Z

Hello there. It’s been a difficult few days for me. More on this later but let’s talk about the good stuff first. Well the not totally depressing stuff anyway.

By far the highlight of my life at the moment continues to be my wildlife walks. I have a lovely walk at home but it’s nowhere near as wildlife-rich as the local nature reserve. I have literally no idea what the next thing I will see is. I was stunned yesterday when a pair of roe deer were stood staring at me from across the river. I really didn’t expect to see deer there considering how close it is to the town. And I got a perfect look at them until they ran off. I try and go at the same time every day, just before it gets dark as I know that’s when I will see the most wildlife. Over the last week and a bit I’ve got to know individual birds as well. There are a pair of kingfishers which live along the river. You see little more than a blue flash though with them. Then there’s Mr and Mrs Swan, who go off separately in the day but meet in the evening to sit by the river together. And hiss at me to go away. And there’s also Tom and Stella, a pair of ducks who sit in the shallow water at the edge of the path every evening and find bits of food. To be honest I see most of these birds more than most of my friends. I’ve even got to know Tom and Stella a bit. When I first saw them they would run away from me but now they will let me crouch down right next to them and take photos. The duck from the photo post the other day is Stella.

This morning, for reasons which weren’t really very clearly explained, we were instructed to go and visit the cathedral rather than attend our history lecture. So we did. It didn’t really take very long to go round and most of the group left but a few of us ended up going on a tour. There was a point where I thought this could well become the dullest few minutes of my life but the guide was pretty engaging and it was actually rather interesting. I learnt various bits about local history, national history, architecture and the cathedral’s history. The cathedral has some great bits of British history attached to it. Mary Tudor married King Phillip of Spain there, William II’s bones are supposedly in a chest and the windows were all smashed by the Puritans in the English Civil War. The locals kept bits of the smashed windows and eighteen years later the biggest window was replaced with all the broken pieces stuck together. Turned out it was really interesting.

Now onto trousers. All my clothes have to be purchased really cheap and therefore are a bit rubbish. For no apparent reason, all of the trousers I’ve worn have ripped lately. It’s not because I’ve put on loads of weight, if anything I’ve lost a bit of weight recently. It’s just because they are so cheap. I also recently bought a lovely new hoodie now which is black. Then I realised my one remaining pair of trousers is also black. This led to the challenge of finding a pair of trousers that fitted the following criteria: not black but not a hideous brown which seems to be all the fashion at the moment (goodness knows why), not hideously expensive and not too bad quality. All this in a town with only one cheap clothes shop and very few shops that actually sell clothes at all. I wandered round all the shops, which are spread out much further than is really necessary, desperately attempting to find some trousers which fitted the bill (and me!). I ended up returning to several shops several times. It was a nightmare. And people kept getting in the way and being generally annoying. I hate people in town centres. Humanity becomes mindless, just staring at phones and rushing to get whatever needs doing done. Anyway, I found some trousers in the end but had to skip the good quality bit of the criteria in the end. At least I wear my new black hoodie now without looking ridiculous.

Now here’s the tricky bit. I don’t want to sound like a miserable sod but life has been pretty damn awful for me lately. My timetable means that everyone else in my house has only just got up when I’ve got home and then they’re off to lectures. I sort of feel they’ve all moved on anyway. That cosy friendly atmosphere we used to have is pretty much gone due to girlfriends, new groups of friends and things. I barely really see anyone and most of the time there’s not a lot I can do about it. But it’s not just that. I just feel empty. There is so little to look forward to. In fact the only thing in my life is teaching and I sat studying often irrelevant things rather than actually teaching. It’s still another three years pretty much before I am actually fully qualified. And there’s massive chunks of holiday time when I have no plans whatsoever. Any day now I will find out about my next school placement which takes place in March and it’s this knowledge that’s keeping me sane. Hopefully it will be good. I just have to keep going no matter what, no matter how bad it feels. Times are very hard at the moment.

That’s enough pointless rambling for today. I’m sorry for the quality of this post. You probably get the idea why. Normal service will be resumed too, promise!

Music Monday 10#

2012-01-23T19:34:00.001Z

It’s Monday and it’s time for another five tracks that I’ve been loving lately. The future of this feature is really in the balance. Should I ditch it, change it a bit or keep it as it is? There’s a poll over there → somewhere for you to let me know and feel free to add a comment to expand your opinion. Now let’s get on with today’s edition.

Today’s first track is one of the lesser known songs from Adele. Whilst this track still has her beautiful voice and is full of emotion, it doesn’t make you want to cry every time you hear it. As lovely as Someone Like You is, there are times in a person’s life when it’s all a bit too much. Here’s Cold Shoulder with some lovely ice sculptures in the video:

Next up is a recent rediscovery of mine. I loved this song when it came out but for some reason it never found it’s way onto my iPod and I’d pretty much forgotten it. It’s Freemasons Feat. Sophie Ellis Bextor but it’s Sophie who deserves top billing for that wonderful voice. I love S.E.B. and it’s a shame she’s married to Richard from The Feeling. She’s far too old for me anyway. Here’s Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer):

Next up is a song which randomly popped up on a music channel the other week and I realised I rather like it. I’m not really sure what an earth the lyrics are trying to say but no matter, here’s Bohemian Like You by The Dandy Warhols.

Something a bit different for the next track. It’s from Jeff Wayne’s wonderful Musical War of the Worlds which I think is quite possibly the best version of the War of the Worlds that has ever been created. Expect more raving about this in the upcoming Friday Review. This is my fave track from it Forever Autumn. And you have to listen to the talky bit, it’s all part of it!

And it’s now time for record of the week. The rest of this week’s choices were fairly obscure and unexpected so I think I can justify having one current popular song in the mix. As usual it’s been around a while and I’ve only just got into it but this is Aviici with Levels.

I hope you enjoyed the selection, now go and vote on the poll! Thanks!

A British Winter [Pics]

2012-01-22T18:15:00.001Z

Over the past few weeks I’ve been walking all over the British countryside and I’ve been taking my camera along with me. I imagine you know where this is going now. Here come the photos:

This was a sunset that happened one evening before I returned to uni. It’s lovely isn’t it?

I love the local nature reserve, Winnall Moors. It’s wonderful no matter what season.

Here are some swans. I am very pleased with the second shot, which I was very lucky to get it!

And here are some ducks. I love ducks.

And here’s a blackbird.

Today I found a place called the Magdalen Butterfly Reserve. Obviously it’s the wrong time of year for butterflies and there wasn’t really much there at all. But there were some cows.

This is a lovely view over Winchester from St. Giles’ Hilltop. The city looks even lovelier from here.

And here is the incredible statue of King Alfred which is at the end of the High Street. It’s an inspiring sight.

And there you have it, that’s all the photos I’ve got at the moment. I hoped you like them. And before I go I thought I should tell you I’m changing round some of the regular features I do. It would have been a Thoughts From the Dungeon video today but no-one really seems to watch them so it’s been axed. I think I will probably ditch some other features too if there’s no demand for them. The Friday Review is definitely staying and so is Music Monday for the time being anyway. If you really want to see a feature stay then let me know as a comment. Don’t worry, the content will be largely the same!

The Master Chef

2012-01-21T19:09:00.001Z

Hello there lovely person. My,my, what a crazy week the first week back at uni has been. That’s largely because studying to become a teacher leads to some lectures turning pretty odd without any warning whatsoever. But that makes it brilliant!

Amongst various typical lectures, there were several that stood out. One of these was English where we were looking at picture books as inspiration for children’s writing. The main book we looked at was Gorilla by Anthony Browne. In the illustrations there are lots of hidden gorillas and we ended up spending far longer than we probably should have. I think every book should have hidden gorillas in it, it makes it much more fun. We also looked at Not Now Bernard by David McKee in which a small boy is eaten by a monster but his parents don’t notice. This led us to doing some fun activities, one of which was called “Conscience Alley”. One of the group pretended to be Bernard’s mother and walked between two lines of people and we took it in turns to say things from her conscience. I was on the negative side and informed the mother that she was being a terrible parent. My conscience is as honest as they come.

Science was a fairly ordinary lecture about energy but in the middle of this we were suddenly given a load of toys to play with. You might not expect a group of young adults to be that bothered by this but actually we all got very excited and played with everything we could get our hands on. All of the toys needed energy to work and then we had to explain this. I had one of those toys which has a suction cup and a spring which eventually launches itself into the air. This happened lots of times during the lecture because I couldn’t leave it alone. I now want said toy to entertain myself with at home.

The university are throwing assignments at us from all angles at the moment. Though actually nearly all of them are pretty straight forward. A few presentations, a leaflet (it’s A3 size though which is really silly) and an essay based on some lesson plans are what lies ahead for me. None of those are really causing me much worry which is good and there’s a hope that I’ll get some good marks somewhere amongst that lot. It’s just a case of actually doing them all now!

On Thursday evening I gave blood for the fourth time. It’s all fairly routine now, though I can’t say the experience is in anyway pleasant. Still you get to save a life and get free biscuits for doing so. I was in the middle of giving blood, quite literally, when a voice says “Are you Richard’s son?” and a woman who I’d never seen before in my life appeared. I am indeed Richard’s son and although it’s not implausible that someone would know him thirty miles away, it seems fairly unlikely, especially given the circumstances. I was a little stunned and said “He knows everybody!”. The woman turned out to be the mother of my brother’s friend and proceed to have a conversation with me. As nice as this was, I’m not really in the conversation mood when the life is being sucked out of me, pretty much literally, so my responses were probably complete rubbish. It was all very weird.

Now cookery show Masterchef, where amateurs try and compete to be named the country’s best cook, returned to TV this week and I’ve been watching it avidly, along with new fave daytime show Come Dine with Me. All this cooking and the bid to lose some weight has inspired me and this week I’ve been cooking all sorts. It began on Wednesday with these lovely cheesy potato skins I made (with a few chicken nuggets):

On Thursday I cooked a huge jacket potato and the biggest achievement about this was putting it into the oven before I gave blood so it would be ready at about the time I got back. Fortunately it all went to plan and was perfect for my return.

Friday night saw the most ambitious cooking yet, with a Tuna Pasta Bake being made. Tuna, pasta, cream of mushroom source and cheese made this delight. The pictures a bit rubbish but I can tell you it tasted wonderful.

And today I spent several hours baking. First ready was chocolate brownies. This picture makes them look horrible but they looked better in reality and were really tasty. And to make things even better they’re low fat because the recipe uses mayonnaise of all things. It worked wonders though.

But the best looking item of the day and indeed the week is this wonderful chocolate cake. It was more challenging then everything else to but I’m really pleased about how it’s come out. I’ve yet to eat any yet but if it’s anywhere near as good as it looks it will be lovely.

Now you may be thinking none of this looks or sounds particularly impressive I never cook. Most meals are just something pre-made shoved into the oven. To produce all of these wonderful things, and all in the same week, really is quite an achievement for me. I think cooking could be a great new hobby and I have promised my Mum that I’ll make something for the family next time I’m home. That will be quite a challenge but I hope to continue cooking things over the next few weeks and hopefully I’ll be reasonably skilful in the not so far away future.

Tales From Childhood (Part One)

2012-01-19T19:54:00.001Z

In which my childhood self causes lots of mischief.

I was wondering what to blog about today and was struggling with a topic, seeing as though there continues to be little of excitement going on in my life. Then I realised that there’s a massive portion of my life that I haven't ever talked about here: my childhood. I shall share a few of the funnier stories with you, written in the same fun style as current stories are. Lots of fun, here we come!

Let’s begin as young as I can do really, when I was in my first year of school so must have been about four or five. As the first year of school is for most people, we could pretty much do what we wanted most of the time, with a little guidance. There was water and sand trays, painting, a little robot you could make drive around the carpet and various types of building block, with a new object you were supposed to make every week. At that time I was very good friends with a girl called Sarah. Now it would be silly to say that there were proper romantic feelings there but perhaps there was as close as a five year old could have to romantic feelings. We went everywhere together and on the day of this story we were walking across the classroom holding hands when we came across a fellow pupil building a house with wooden blocks. (Quite why we were holding hands I don’t know, but during her sixth birthday we jumped into bed together so make of that what you will.) Now the theme for the week was cars and so technically the boy should have been building a car rather then a house. At least, that was the excuse I used when the two of us kicked his wooden house over. As any five year old would, the boy quickly told the teacher who was not a happy bunny. We were given the worst punishment available: our names were written on the blackboard (and yes, we had a blackboard in those days kids). To make matters worse, the teacher’s teddy became very upset due to our naughty behaviour and so was put away in the cupboard to cry. This seems quite a bizarre method of keeping discipline and I’ve never come across it outside of that classroom but somehow it worked. I felt very bad for my actions and didn’t want to upset the teddy again.

The rest of the day passed without incident as far as I am aware, until hometime came. Now I was desperate to tell my father about the most dramatic thing to probably have ever happened to me at hat point in my life, but I didn’t want to get in trouble for having been naughty, so I informed him that another child in the class who shared my name had got his name on the board. Said child quickly defended himself, quite rightly, and informed by father that it was yours truly that had actually been the naughty one. Now I was in the position where I had not only got in trouble at school, but lied about it. My terrified five-year old mind panicked and it just legged it. I ended up in the grounds of the adjoining Junior school before I got exhausted although this wasn’t really that far away, but I was pretty small then. Of course my father found me and I was in lots of trouble and got a smacked bottom. Now is not the time for a debate on smacking but I have nothing against my Dad for smacking me, I probably deserved it anyway for being a little shit. Of course if I’d have just been able to keep quiet about it the name on the whiteboard would have been the end of the incident. I think I probably learnt a valuable lesson that day!

At another point in the same school year, probably a bit later, one afternoon we were given an activity. We were going to draw a detailed diagram of a bicycle, with all the little parts. At that point in my life I had already realised that art wasn’t my forte and this seemed a hellish task. To be honest I would really struggle with that task now as an adult! This was at the point in my life where much of my time alone was spent pretending I was a superhero and perhaps it wasn’t entirely wrong as my body did something quite spectacular. The daunting task in my head somehow connected to my stomach, which then proceeded to empty it’s contents all over the classroom. And I really mean all over the classroom. The poor cleaners must have had their work cut out that day! Of course because I’d been ill I was sent straight home and therefore conveniently missed the diagram task. It wasn’t like I was sick on purpose either, I doubt my brain could have understood that concept at the time!

Let’s whiz forward to year six when I was nine. Our yeargroup was taken to a random bit of forest to do some team building activities. Quite what the point of this was I’m not sure but we went all the same. The teachers thought it would be a good idea to film the whole thing and several weeks after the event we all sat down to watch the video. Humiliation came when there was a shot of me very obviously picking my nose. I was a pretty disgusting child though I imagine most of classmates weren’t any better, but fun of me they made all the same. Unfortunately that wasn’t all that embarrassed me on the video. One of the things we did was all be blindfolded and then walk in a long line with only a rope and instructions from the front to help. I remember stubbing my toe on a big log and wasn’t enjoying the activity very much. Then my teacher came along with the camera and as I moved accidentally bashed me with it. Now I of course was blindfolded and so didn’t have the slightest idea that the camera had been anywhere near me. On the video it was quite audible of me saying “bloody tree!” and at the time that as foul as my language ever got. Goodness me that was embarrassing. I really hope that video has been destroyed and isn’t in some random cupboard somewhere.

That’s it for today. I hope you liked that and if you write a lovely comment below I’ll know to write a second part. I’ve heard about some bloggers having trouble receiving comments so if it’s refusing to accept your comment e-mail me at intogeek@hotmail.co.uk and I’ll fiddle with some code and get comments to work properly. Thanks for reading!

Trips with TIM 2#

2012-01-18T18:24:00.001Z

Hello and welcome aboard TIM, my Time and Infinity Machine which is permanently stuck as a British postbox. TIM can take us anyway in time and space and in the coming weeks and months we’ll be going on lots of exciting adventures together. So let’s open the door and see where and when we’ve landed today!

The Globe Theatre, London, June 1613

Oh my goodness, that’s William Shakespeare’s actual Globe Theatre! And by the sound of things a play is about to start. Let’s go in and watch!

Check that out above the entrance. There’s a picture of Hercules holding the globe with the quote in Latin “Totus mundus agit histrionem” which means ‘all the world’s a playhouse’ if I’m not much mistaken. The phrase was slightly reworded to create the famous line “All the world’s a stage” in Shakepeare’s play As You Like It. Oh, pay the man the money, otherwise we’ll get in trouble. When the play starts that admission collector will put the box into a room backstage- the ‘box office’! It’s so cool that we’re here in the place live entertainment we know to day originated.

And we’re in! I’m afraid we only had enough money to be groundlings, meaning we have to be stand in the area in front of the stage. The richer visitors to the theatre are those in the stands. The theatre was designed like a coliseum and even acts like one at times too: they hold bear-baiting events here. Phrowar! Now I can understand why groundlings were also known as stinkards, the smell is horrific!

Ooh, there goes the trumpet. That means the play is about to begin. I wonder which one it is? Ah look, there’s a red flag which means it’s a historical play. I’m not sure which one though. Ah yes, the Globe has had music since the start of the century. And here come the actors, be quiet a minute whilst I work out which play it is.

Oh dear, it’s Henry VIII. During a performance of that play a cannon was fired and the whole theatre burnt down. That was on 29th June, which is today! We’ve got to get out of here, now! Yes I know we are turning down the chance to see a Shakespeare play performed exactly how he’d want it to be performed but we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ll tell you about the play as we leave. Now come on!

Henry VIII was an odd sort of a play really as though it’s described as a historical play it could quite equally be classified as a romance or a tragedy. Unlike the other historical plays there are no battles at all, it’s all political about the struggle for power in Henry’s court. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn are amongst the other main characters and I think we saw Catherine of Aragon and Henry walking onto the stage as we left. Of course all the parts were played by men, I very much doubt Catherine of Aragon was that manly. We can go and check at some point if you like.

Henry VIII isn’t performed much in your times, partly because it’s considered unlucky because of the fire that’s about to happen any minute and also because it’s a bit rubbish. Shakespeare is well into retirement as this point, he’s probably in Stratford-Upon-Avon as we speak. Some of the scenes of Henry VIII were written by John Fletcher and they’re just rubbish compared to the Shakespeare ones.

Oh, there goes the cannon now, it’s a good job we got out. Shakespeare plays were known at the time for their special effects with cannon fire, fireworks for battle scenes and flying entrances using rigging. Don’t worry too much about the Globe burning down, another will be built next year. Though Puritans will tear it down in 1644, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell because all stage plays were banned. Madness really. The site of the globe theatre was rediscovered in the 20th century and a replica was built nearby, meaning we can safely go and watch a play in your own time. Let’s get out of here!

I hope you enjoyed another Trip with TIM! The idea is that I share some information about various things in a fun way. Of course it’s Doctor Who inspired… Next week TIM will be taking us on another adventure so watch this space!

Happiness

2012-01-17T21:52:00.001Z

In which wildlife and TV, amongst other things, put a smile on my face.

Hello. In a change from the recent norm, I’m pretty happy and smiley today. Things are going pretty well now that I’m properly back at uni, doing lectures and things. In this post I’ll cover the things that have caused this recent change.

I’ve been on a lot of walks around the local nature reserve, Winall Moors lately. I’ve always loved being outdoors and seeing wildlife but having somewhere like this almost literally on my doorstep is incredible. Every time I go I see a fairly wide variety of wildlife but my walk round today was particularly incredible. I saw a buzzard, a bird of prey, which is always a good spot and a Little Egret, a fairly unusual wader, flew overhead but these aren’t very exciting really compared to the rest. In the distance I managed to spot a fox lurking around but the most exciting spot of the day was that of a Kingfisher. I’ve never seen one before and it was great to see the vibrant blue and orange bird sat on a branch over the river. If there was any British bird I wanted to see, that was it. It’s so brilliant to wander around in the countryside, never knowing what you are going to see and with the sound of birdsong being the sound you can hear rather than the hideous drone of traffic. I love it so much and it’s really made me happy. I’ve been taking photos here and there when I’ve been walking so there’ll be a special post featuring a whole load at some point in the future.

So as I said earlier, lectures are happening again and my first was the return of my history specialism today. We had a whole session on the Tudors though I’m quite an expert on that period having done it for my A-level exams (and I got an “A” so I must have known something). The next few weeks of history sound fun though with a visit to the cathedral, and another to the city museum as well as one session doing a history with drama session which I’m intrigued and excited by. Today I got the marks back on my history assignment I did before Christmas, and I began to panic when the tutor wouldn’t commit to an answer when asked if anyone had failed. Fortunately I did pretty well, matching my best essay mark on the essay section and getting a First, meaning it’s very good, on the resource pack. I’m really pleased with the result and it’s given me some confidence. Perhaps I’m completly incapable of getting good marks after all.

After all this uni stuff, it was time to go and buy some food now that my student loan had come through. So off to the supermarket it was. Now it’s all part of the plan to eat a bit more healthily this term and so I had to resist buying all the rubbish I’ve been eating at uni. Most of the meals I bought were relatively healthy and I bought much fewer fatty and sugary foods. Plus I’ve been buying things to actually cook. And this involves more than just shoving things in the oven, it’s actual cooking. Tonight I cooked Cheesy Potato Skins. I made the sauce and everything. Here’s a picture, along with a few chicken nuggets I had with it:

Yeah, check me out with my culinary skills. I’ve got some more dishes coming up in the week which are more ambitious. Considering I don’t usually do anything more than put things onto a baking tray and turn the oven to the right temperature, this is quite an achievement for me. Round of applause please!

It’s fairly rare that I really rave about a TV show but oh my Goodness, Sherlock! Sherlock is a modern version of Sherlock Holmes and the finale of series 2 was on Sunday night. In it was the big face-off of Sherlock Vs. Moriaty. I won’t spoil it for you, but it was brilliant. It leaves you with the big question of “how” something was done. The two, three episode series, have both been brilliant and it is one of the best things on TV that I have ever seen. It’s just a shame that the third series is going to be a long time away. I’m already looking forward to it immensely. Full review of the series in the next Friday Review.

And I have been getting into daytime TV at the moment, watching things whilst eating lunch and sorting things out. Come Dine With Me, where people take in turn to host dinner parties is great fun largely because a lot of the people that appear on it are complete weirdo's. And then there’s also The Jeremy Kyle Show in which the general public have lie detector test to prove they haven't cheated and various other things. It’s often very funny and you get to boo the dodgy boyfriends and other bad people, pantomime style.

So that’s my life at the moment. Fairly satisfying. I very much hope this run of happiness will continue in my next life update. Fingers crossed!

Music Monday 9#

2012-01-16T17:22:00.001Z

What with Christmas and the Sound of 2012 it has been a long time since I’ve actually done a “normal” Music Monday. For anyone who may have forgotten, I choose five songs I am loving with you at the moment and share them with the world. I hope you like them all (or at least some of them, let’s not be overly optimistic).

As usual I shall start with a Golden Old ‘un. I’ve chosen this one simply because it came up on my iPod the other day and I remembered how brilliant it was. It’s by Welsh songbird Duffy who was last seen cycling into the sunset drinking Coca-Cola. It’s her most popular and I would say best song Mercy and the video makes me laugh because she appears to set fire to the dancers in it. What an evil woman!

The next track has been around for a while but it’s only fairly recently that I decided I rather like it. It really surprised me that a Greek maze could make such good music. And not a Minotaur in sight! This is Labrinth with Earthquake. Oh and Tinie Tempah appears on the song too.

The next track is pretty well known but I don’t like to attempt to be all obscure all the time. It’s still a brilliant song. It’s Jessie J with Domino though I feel she has missed a trick in the video. Where’s the Domino outfit. I dressed as a domino years ago (it’s on this blog if you fancy a challenge of finding it) and if I can I’m sure Jessie J could. Anyway, here’s the song.

Next up is a song that has yet to be released and it sees the return of the Scissor Sisters and also features Krystal Pepsy. Fun fact: One of the people who make up Krystal Pepsy is Azealia Banks who I decided I didn’t like very much in last week’s Music Monday. This is a great track with Jake from the Scissor Sisters doing some rapping, which unbelievably works. Here’s the wonderful Shady Love.

And time for this week’s record of the week! It’s from my fave band at the moment Rizzle Kicks and is a catchy song which you just have to dance to. The video features Rizzle Kicks’ mums and James Corden. Who#d have thought?

There we go, another odd collection of music for your earholes. Hope you liked it and they’ll be more great music next Monday!

Thoughts From the Dungeon 7#

2012-01-15T19:36:00.001Z

It’s back! That thing I do where I sit on a bright red chair and talk rubbish! This week, it’s about weather! Enjoy and please comment below!

The Expiring Passport

2012-01-14T15:44:00.001Z

In which renewing my passport becomes a frustrating challenge.

Hello! Unfortunately I am still suffering from a case of the January Blues. The sort of fun things that usually happen to me having really been happening which is a shame. I am now back in Winchester ready for another semester at university. This is my fourth semester that is starting! FOURTH! It only seems like yesterday I was a bumbling fresher, timidly trying to work out where the hell I was supposed to be. Now it’s a tedious stream of occasionally interesting lectures and essay writing. Still, sometime soon I will be finding out which school I shall be spending my second year placement in and with which year group. I’m on placement for four weeks this year, pretty much the whole of March, and I’m really looking forward to it. Fingers crossed I get a year group I’d rather be with and the school is pretty close!

Over the last few days not a whole lot has really happened. My last day at home was Thursday and it was a bit of a letdown really because everyone else was out. I went and did a bit of shopping and decided to buy the two most recent series of Doctor Who on DVD. I shouldn't have done that really what with low finances and everything but now I have all six series. Which is brilliant. I’ve been watching random episodes over the last few days and it’s so brilliant to have them all. What’s even sadder is that I’ve got them all in a big disc case, in order with spin-off series Torchwood interspersed in the spaces where each series fit chronologically. So happy about having it though!

I also go some more practical things. This including a form for renewing my passport. Said passport expires in February but apart from the immense cost I’m thankful to be getting a new one. Because I don’t yet drive, my passport is my only proof of ID and therefore age but my photo is me when I was fifteen. I’m nearly twenty now and as you imagine look significantly different. It’s very embarrassing having such a young photo as my proof of age. I went into on of those photo machines to have a new photo taken. The instructions are hilarious. They tell you to keep your eyes open and to move your hair away from your face. Obviously! But then they show a picture of a woman with her hair dangling in front of her face with a big red cross next to it in case you still hadn’t worked it out. My photo turned out fairly well, for a passport photo anyway. I hate the fact that you aren’t allowed to smile in a UK passport. That and the plain background makes every British traveller look like a convict. I’m not sure if this is the same for other countries, but I imagine that no-one looks good in their passport photo. But I'm still fairly satisfied with mine, it’s considerably better than fifteen year-old me and a bit better than the photo that is used for my student card.

Frustratingly though getting a new passport is a right pain. For one thing it will cost nearly £80. And because I have changed significantly since my last passport, I need to have the picture certified by a trust-worthy member of society to prove it’s actually me. Like I know any trust-worthy people! Maybe I should go out onto the street and find someone who looks trustworthy. “You look trustworthy, this is me isn’t it Sign here. And here. And here. Congratulations, you’ve adopted me”. OK so that last bit wouldn’t happen but you get the idea. The most annoying thing about getting a new passport though is the fact that have to send the old one away. Which means I have no ID for several weeks or possibly even longer. That would be a disaster! Whilst I wouldn’t even be that bothered about not being able to drink, it might mean that I couldn’t even go out with people because I would have no ID. The plan to avoid this is to send it off just before I go on placement, a time when going out won’t be happening. They better send my new one out quickly though.

Yesterday I returned to Winchester but before my Dad left me to it he treated me to a nice lunch. We went to Italian restaurant ASK and it was pretty awesome. I had a lovely pizza followed by a pudding called “Our Chocolate Nemesis”. Whenever I look at a dessert’s menu, the choice is main almost instantly. If it has the word chocolate in and repeated several times in the description, that’s what I’ll be ordering. Easy decision. I then returned down to my dungeon, which I must confess I have missed being at home. For those of you who don’t know, my room of the house is down some steps in a basement I like to call it “Dan’s Dungeon” for dramatic effect. I’m pleasantly surprised to find there is no new mould anywhere. When I was at home in the Summer there was mould everywhere and it was horrible. Not this time though, thankfully.

Being back in the dungeon isn’t great timing though as this is the weekend that the temperature is getting low. It’s always cold down here anyway but I think I’ll have to use my little heater more otherwise I will actually freeze. The Winter has been unusually warm though this time, with night temperatures going below zero only a couple of times. I love the winter. Not the rain and the cold so much, but beautiful winter days like today when the sky is blue and frost makes the world magical. And I love snow lots and I hope we get some this year but it seems unlikely at this stage. It’s so mild in fact that the flowers think it is spring. There are big shoots outside my window here and I think they’ll flower pretty soon. It’s still January, it’s ridiculously early!

So this is an insight into my life right now. Not a lot is really happening but my timetable is fairly busy this semester, though I do have Mondays off. Three day weekend! Come back tomorrow to see the return of Thoughts From the Dungeon, in which I sit in a red chair and talk about stuff to a camera. Tune in for the new video tomorrow!

Trips with TIM 1#

2012-01-11T20:51:00.001Z

Hello and welcome aboard TIM, my Time and Infinity Machine. T.I.M can take us anyway in time and space and in the coming weeks and months we’ll be going on lots of exciting adventures together. So let’s open the door and see where and when we’ve landed today!

Mars, Present Day

A relatively short trip this time, we’ve arrived on the planet Mars, a mere 225 million kilometres away from Earth (approximately). It would appear that TIM’s gecko circuit has broken and instead of blending in with it’s surroundings it has stayed stuck as a British postbox. Fortunately it’s much bigger inside where we are but I don’t have time to fix it now! Get your space-suit on and let’s go explore…

It’s rather fortunate you’ve got that spacesuit on really. Despite looking rather warm the average surface temperature of Mars is around –63 degrees Celsius. It’s quite nippy out there! Mine you, we’re at a fairly low latitude,it would be even colder if we headed to the polar ice caps, similar to those of Earth. These suits also allow us to breathe. The air here is 95% carbon dioxide. If we tried to breathe it the carbon dioxide would replace the oxygen in our red blood cells and we’d probably die in around three minutes. I suggest you keep your suit on… The gravity here is only 38% that of Earth so we can do awesome jumps and somersaults like you’ve always dreamed of!

Ooh, look behind you. That’s only the largest volcano known to man! It’s called Olympus Mons and and rises an incredible 24,00 metres above the plain we’re stood in. It’s not just big height-wise either as you can see, the volcano is 600km across with the crater alone being 90km across. Compare that height to the tallest mountain on Earth, Everest which is a mere 8,848 metres. It’s pathetic compared to this giant, which I don’t think we’ll attempt to climb. Scientists estimate that it’s most recent eruption was around 25 million years ago which they say is relatively recent but I don’t think we’ll worry too much about an eruption today shall we?

This plain we are stood in is called Tharsis Rise and extends some 8,000 kilometres. That’s about the distance between the grand canyon and London. For Earth standards it’s huge. In the sky you can just about make out the two moons of Mars. Unlike everything else about Mars, these are tiny compared to the Earth equivalent. Phobos is 26 kilometres in diameter and Deimos is even smaller, a mere 12 kilometres at it’s widest. They look very different from our moon too and are lumpy rather than spherical. The most likely explanation is that they were asteroids which were captured by Mars’ gravity and taken into orbit.

What’s that you say? “Martians”? No, don’t worry! Science fiction disagrees hugely with science fact in this area. There’s is still no conclusive evidence that there was ever life on Mars though it’s seems likely that there was at some point. But even these wouldn’t have been little green men. There may have been bacteria and possibly even plants. Though water cannot exist on liquid form here due to the frozen conditions, the surface suggest that water may once have flowed here. There are various channels which can only have been formed by water. These only suggest water though and though there have been various possibilities to prove there was once life on Earth, all have so far been inconclusive.

Oh dear, TIM’s ringing the alarm. That means danger, probably a solar flare. We need to get out of here now! Quick, back to TIM!

Phew, that was worryingly close. Let’s leave this planet and return home. I think perhaps we should go to another time though, that could be fun…

I hope you enjoyed the first Trip with TIM! The idea is that I share some information about various things in a fun way. Of course it’s Doctor Who inspired and die-hard fans might be able to spot some references that others might not get. Next week TIM is taking us to the past!

The Little Things

2012-01-10T23:25:00.001Z

In which small things help me to stay upbeat.

Hello there. I seem to be suffering from a case of the January Blues right now. The future is looking rather bleak and I’ve generally been a bit down. The fact that I’ve not really been to anywhere more exciting than a supermarket in days hasn’t helped and neither is the prospect of returning to uni at the end of the week. It’s not that I really hate it but I’m reasonably happy at home and last semester was pretty awful and I’ve already seen signs that suggest this one won’t be much better. Still, I have to remain as optimistic as possible and it’s the little things that have been keeping my spirits up.

Sunday night was mine and Chris’ farewell drinks before we head off to our respective universities for the next semester. Chris is really not enjoying his uni experience so we were both a bit down about our empty and fairly rubbish lives. Still, alcohol helped and we did managed to get a little tipsy before closing time. We went for a walk around the local lake, along a path which is really muddy in full darkness with only our phones to light the way. By some miracle I seemed not to be too muddy when I made it home though.

Part of the reason I’ve been pretty much housebound over the last few days is the various visitors to the house. I was my Dad’s “technical support” when a man from BT came to install the new internet hub. We now have “BT Infinity” internet which is good news as it just means it’s super-fast. I tested it yesterday and it is literally as fast as you get which is pretty awesome. Oh and because of this and the slightly drunken conversation we had, an intimate part of Chris’ body is now called “Infinity”…

I also had to be around today because my Dad was busy working somewhere and a tree surgeon was coming round. The title “tree surgeon” is inappropriate really as this implies no more than amputation but Mr. Tree Surgeon and Mr. Tree Surgeon’s younger brother had the task of taking down the long dead tree from our garden. Miraculously they managed not to let it fall on the conservatory. It’s weird not having that tree, it’s been there all twelve years I’ve lived at this house. Now the garden suddenly feels bigger though it’s covered in dead leaves and sawdust so I would hardly go as far as to say it looks good.

Perhaps the highlight of my dad was receiving a long voicemail from my Dad. He had tried to phone me and had missed me but somehow failed to press the “end call” button on his phone because it’s quite new and he can’t work it yet. I then had five minutes of noises coming from my Dad’s car as he drove home which included music, The Calling’s Wherever You Will Go, passing traffic, my Dad whistling and the phone sliding around wherever it was put. This was quite amusing to begin with but then it dawned on me that the only way I could delete the message was to listen to it all the way through. Five minutes of what I mentioned is pretty boring. I was still listening to it on speakerphone when my Dad arrived home so at least I could tease him about it.

Another little thing which I found fascinating is a huge flock of birds which gather in a tree outside a supermarket in the town centre every evening, from around half past four. They have any tree in the area, heck the New Forest is only a few miles away, yet they decide to sit in this tree. It reminds me a little of this sort of scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”:

Having said that, the birds above are crows which are fairly sizeable and menacing but we have Pied Wagtails which are tiny and look like this:

Hardly scary at all, in fact they’re rather cute. Hundreds and hundreds of the little birds gather in this one tree and it’s a cacophony of sound as the little flit between branches in the twilight. It’s quite a mesmerising experience really.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time promoting this blog over the last few days as well and it seems to be paying off. I have a few quite exciting things to share with you though. First is the fact that I’ve put together an e-book featuring some of the best bits of my blog. And the good news? It’s completely free. Just click here and press download and it’s all yours. Secondly I have completely re-written the About this Blog page so you might one to go and check that out. Best of all though I can announce the Into Geek Blog Carnival! The premise is simple. I post a topic, which will be really rather broad and then bloggers write a post on that topic. All the bloggers give me the link to the post and if all goes to plan they'll be nice long list of blog posts here and on the main page of my blog. It will happen on the 29th February, a little way away yet, but perhaps you might like to make a mental note to take part. I’m also looking for sponsors to donate prizes be they physical, a service or a voucher so please contact me if you’d like to do that. It should be awesome and you can find out more about it on this page.

That’s about it for today but tomorrow I will launch a new feature! It’s in the line of my factual posts but rest assured it’ll be interesting and humorous at the same time. Don’t miss it!

Music Monday 8#: Sound of 2012

2012-01-09T11:40:00.000Z

It’s the return of Music Monday after the Christmas holidays. And we are going to start with something a little different. Every year the BBC create a list called Sound of “INSERT YEAR” which suggest artists which might do very well in the coming year. Last week they unveiled the top five for 2012 and so I shall share them with you along with one of each artist’s biggest songs to date.

5) Niki and the Dove

Niki and the Dove are a Scandinavian electro-pop dup. That sentence probably tells you all you need to know about them. This track is called The Drummer and I’m not a fan. It’s a bit odd and I find it uninspiring. You might like it though.

4) Skrillex

Skrillex is a dubstep producer. Oh God, dubstep. This feature seemed like a good idea and now I’m going to have to listen to a whole dubstep song. *LISTENS* For a dubstep track this is OK. Compared to any other genre it’s pretty awful. Still, dubstep might be your thing though I would imagine you already know about this guy if it is. Either way, here’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.

3) Azealia Banks

The second difficult to spell artist on the list, Azealia Banks is classed as a “rapper/singer” and her work is compared to that of Nicki Minaj, which gives me little confidence for how I much I’ll like her. This track is the randomly titled 212. Don’t listen to it if swearing offends you, it’s full of filth. The singing bit shows promise but unfortunately that’s a tiny bit of the track which is otherwise just awful. I hate it. Here it is for you to listen to.

2) Frank Ocean

At least this guy has a normal name. And as far as I can make out that’s all he got, no talent anywhere. This is a song about drugs called Novacane. Clever video but the song itself is pretty dull.

1) Michael Kiwanuka

Topping this year’s list and therefore supposedly being an equivalent to the likes of Adele and Jessie J, Kiwanuka is a soul singer. This gives me a bit more promise than the other artists on the list. His current single is Home Again and rather pleasingly I quite like it. In fact I love it. It’s a beautiful track and quite Jack Johnson-esque, which is no bad thing. Here it is for you to listen to:

This year’s list is rather disappointing but I do love Kiwanuka so he deserves to be top of the list. It must be pointed out that these artists are predicted to do well this year and therefore may well produce a new piece of music which is fantastic. I dobut Skrillex is ever going to release anything I will like but the others all have potential, even if I think their best song to date is complete rubbish. I guess we shall have to wait and see what the music world throws at us. I shall be back with a more traditional Music Monday next week so stay tuned for some great tracks!

Money Saving Tips

2012-01-08T17:32:00.001Z

Today I am going to help save you money. But I’m not going to write this particularly seriously. All of these tips would help save money if you could do them successfully though some may be illegal or disgusting. I am not to be held accountable for anything that goes wrong in your life due to these tips!

1) Avoid washing, especially if you pay for water. Having a shower costs money and perhaps isn’t always entirely necessary. For one thing not washing saves time and time equals money. Not washing means you don’t have to pay for water, gas for heating it or products to help you get clean. Possible Problems: You will smell and probably lose all your friends.

2) Wash clothes less often. Most clothes go into the washing before they really need to. Socks can last no more than a few days but depending on the weather shirts, trousers and other items can last longer. Also remember you can wear underwear for four days before it needs to be washed. Normal way round, back to front and then inside out and inside out and back to front at the same time. Possible Problems: See above.

3) Steal Stuff: Get whatever you want and need for free by stealing it! Possible Problems: It’s illegal and immoral. You could get in lots of trouble.

4) Eat rubbish. I don’t mean literally, though that would save you money. Healthy food such as fruit and veg is expensive so just eat the cheap stuff. McDonald’s is particularly recommended. As long as you are being kept alive it doesn’t matter. Possible Problems: Death from malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, scurvy etc.

5) Pick up coins off the street. There’s loads of money lying around if you go and look for it. Be aware though that if it’s in a guitar case or similar in front of a beggar you may get in trouble for picking it up. Fountains in town centres are full of free money. Possible Problems: Back injuries, pigeon faeces and chewing gum.

6) Kidnap a rich person. All you have to do is keep them for a few days until their family sends you the amount of money you want. Possible problems: Illegal, depending on the rich family you might be killed, risk of Stockholm syndrome.

7) Become a prostitute. Like having sex and want money? The solution is obvious. Possible Problems: Arrest, Unwanted pregnancy, horrible diseases, loss of self-respect, do disgusting acts with disgusting people. Not recommended.

8) Sell everything you own. Who needs possessions? Possible Problems: You have nothing left.

9) Eat roadkill. Roadkill is basically free food, without the hassle of having to hunt it or steal it. Dinner will also become much more of a surprise, it’s just whatever’s been run over locally that day! Possible Problems: Getting run over yourself, disease, unpleasant meals.

10) Travel in time. You could travel backwards a few thousand years to when there was no need for money or try forwards in the hope a true Utopian regime has been created where money no longer exists.Possible Problems: Never tested, never been done before, building a time machine would likely cost a lot, living in a different time would be challenging.

11) Keep the lights off. Find your way around using candlelight. As it is said in A Christmas Carol “Darkness was cheap and Scrooge liked it”. Possible Problems: Likelihood of accidents severely increased.

12) Get a job which requires no effort yet inexplicably has an incredibly high salary. Suggestions include banker, MP, football player, reality show star, TV presenter. Possible Problems: Might take time, Most require some form of talent (though you can get famous from things like Big Brother without talent).

13) Become a student. If you choose the right course you can three or even more years of free money without putting much effort in. Possible Problems: You might have to do some work, you have to have the right qualifications to make it in.

14) Marry an old and unhealthy millionaire. Con a millionaire into marrying you in the hope they’ll die soon and leave you with all the money. Possible Problems: You have to pretend you love an old person, possibly even have sexual intercourse with them. Lose respect of friends and family.

15) Die. If you are dead you have no need for money, whatever your belief system may be. Possible Problems: You’re dead.

And there you have it, fifteen (mostly) foolproof ways to save money. DO NOT try any of these out. I will not be held responsible by the consequences of anyone trying any of my fifteen tips!

Friday Review 12#

2012-01-06T00:47:00.000Z

It’s time for another edition of the Friday Review where I briefly review and rate various things I’ve watched, read and played recently. As always if you have opinions on anything I’ve talked about please, please share them as a comment!

Movies

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I must begin my confessing I haven't read the book or seen the original Swedish film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo so I can’t say how this compares to them. But I thought this was a brilliant adaptation. A disgraced journalist, played by Daniel Craig, who investigates the missing niece of a wealthy patriarch from forty years before. He’s aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander, played by newcomer Rooney Mara. It’s quite shocking and the storyline is brilliant. I love the character of Salander who proves that she is one tough cookie and can bounce back from anything. I’m trying to be particularly spoiler-free but if you know the story you’ll understand what I mean. David Fincher gives us a great adaptation of the book, apart from a slight change. My mother explained to me what the change was and actually consider it to be quite a good one change for once, ensuring the movie didn’t go on forever. Fantastic story, fantastic characters and fantastic acting. Watch it. ★★★★★

Nintendo 3DS Games

Mario Kart 7

Apart from having a really unimaginative name, Mario Kart 7 is wonderful. At a basic level it takes the graphics of the Wii edition with controls of the DS edition to create the best Mario Kart ever. There are two new elements to driving. One is the diving underwater which works well but isn’t really very different from driving normally. The other is gliding which feels quite a lot like Pilotwings Resort. You can also now customise karts by choosing a chassis, wheels and glider that you want to have. In terms of tracks there are some brilliant classics and some great new ones. Melody Motorway is brilliant and this is also the first Mario Kart game where I like the Rainbow Road track. It strays from the traditional three laps, as do two other tracks, and instead is a straight start to finish race with three very different sections. I have to say though there is the occasional dull track with Koopa City being the an example of this. Sixteen tracks, eight of them being retro ones, does feel like a bit of a let-down. I want more! One day I hope they’ll release all the Mario Kart tracks there have ever been on the same cartridge. I doubt it will ever happen though. Online racing makes up for the lack of tracks though and is fantastic, even better than on the Wii. Quite simply this is the best Mario Kart game ever and therefore one of the best games ever. ★★★★★

Super Mario 3D Land

Another stupid title but that can’t be helped. This title is sort of a combination of New Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy. It sounds like it shouldn’t work but it does. Some levels are classic platformers, some play very much like Galaxy (there’s a level very much like the Flipswitch galaxy) and others are something entirely different. The graphics are sublime but this is the first game for the 3DS where 3D is more than a bonus. The 3D effect becomes part of the gameplay in many levels. Switch it off and you struggle to land on the right platform or enemy. It’s hard to describe and I guess you’ll only understand if you play it. The biggest issue is the difficulty. I am rather rubbish at games, as much as I love them, but even I found this one really easy. Fortunately there are some additions to combat this. Instead of just progressing to the next level, sometimes you need to go back and find the star coins hidden in other levels. There’s also a lot of levels. You complete the main game after just eight worlds but in fact there are then another new set of eight worlds to combat and it does get harder here. It’s a very different type of Mario game but is executed wonderfully. Oh and the tanooki suit which allows you to bat away enemies with your tail and perform a flutter jump is awesome. ★★★★☆

Books

S.T.O.R.M.: The Death Web by E.L. Young
My rating: ★★★★☆

The final book featuring the S.T.O.R.M team sees them head to L.A. in the hope of finding out what happened to Will's father. As always in the series there's lots of gadgets and technology which make it all seem more real. An American equivalent of S.T.O.R.M was a nice idea but overall I would say this book is not as engaging as it's predecessors. The end result is really predictable and the ongoing plotline of Gaia and Will having a crush on each other dragged a bit.

Still a great book but disappointing compared to the rest of the series.

The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams
My rating: ★★★☆☆

The cover suggests this is mostly the unfinished third novel featuring Dirk Gently but actually it's mostly a collection of various articles written by Adams for various magazines and newspapers. Whilst some are of interest, many are outdated now and of little interest to most.

However, there are also several short stories, one of which being "The Private Life of Genghis Khan" which is very funny. The ten chapters of the unfinished Dirk Gently novel are brilliant and I would argue better than the openings of the two finished novels starring the holistic detective. Dirk starts to receive $5000 deposits to his bank account and decided to follow a complete stranger in the hope that this might somehow help. His horoscope also predicts he will meet a rhinoceros called Desmond.

It is only a shame there is not more for I think it would have been the best Dirk Gently novel which is really saying something. Overall this book is great for people who have read all of Adams book's and want more but would probably not appeal to most others.

These reviews are taken from my Goodreads profile. On it I shall review every book I read, including some that won’t make it onto this blog. View all my reviews

And that’s it for this week but another edition of the Friday Review will be coming soon!

Big Kids

2012-01-05T22:56:00.000Z

Hello. I have just returned from my second trip to the dentist in as many days. Yesterday I had to get up especially early to go and see the hygienist, a woman who takes pleasure in stabbing your gums and scratching your teeth, only to find she was ill and was going home. So I had to come back today for an 8PM appointment! What dentist offers 8PM appointments? Well, mine apparently. It was an unusually pleasant experience though as this hygienist was lovely, in a motherly sort of way. I’m rambling about dentists now.

Though whilst on the subject of dentists, I feel is the prime opportunity to share the love/hate (actually just hate) relationship my granddad has with his hygienist. Every time my granddad goes he says something rude to her. If I remember rightly he called her a bitch one when she prodded his gum. On one occasion he said “See you next time, unless one of us dies and I really hope it’s not me”. Last time he said “When you get on your broomstick and return to Hogwarts give my wishes to Harry”. I quite like that my granddad is modern enough to use such a phrase though I’m not sure calling the hygienist a witch is the way forward. Since my granddad’s last appointment with the hygienist she has left the practice, much to my granddad’s pleasure. Either he drove her away or she is as horrible as he claims and he’s been sacked. My granddad doesn’t care either way though…

Yesterday myself and Chris went to Southampton because it was somewhere we don’t go that often and we wanted some entertainment. It turns out that we are massive kids. To get out of the main shopping centre to street level on one of the exits involves either going down a lift or down seven flights of stairs. We choose the stairs and a spontaneous race broke out. It’s probably fortunate no-one was coming in the opposite direction as we may well have knocked them over. We decided to visit IKEA, because that’s the kind of wild people we are, and realised the only way to the entrance was up several sloped conveyer belts; “travelators” I think is their official title. Anyway, we discovered that if you walk up them pretty quick you can go really rather fast without putting much effort in. Though if you want to try this, be careful if there’s a barrier near the end as it’s quite tricky to stop!

The other big kid thing we did was go around Toys ‘R’ Us (a massive toy store). For a few minutes it was like all the adult experiences I’ve ever had melted away and I was an excited eight year old again. The Scalextric and Hot Wheels were the highlights but almost of all of it was hypnotising and incredible. The store felt much smaller than when I was a kid though. If only the proper excitement I used to get about literally everything could come back. Ah, the delights of childhood.

I did a rather stupid thing during the day out. In some stores the up and down escalators run parallel to each other. We were going upstairs and I very nearly stepped on the wrong down escalator to go up. It was only Chris pointing out my mistake which saved me. If I had stepped on it I would have probably ended up falling over. Thank goodness that didn’t happen. Not that I haven't fallen over in a shop in Southampton before but that was due to a really narrow set of stairs. My feet are bigger than narrow steps. This causes me to fall off them all the time. Plus I’m really clumsy.

Chris did something a embarrassing as well which he will love me for sharing with you. We often say “tune” when a song we like comes on somewhere and Chris did that in one store. Except the song was by boyband The Wanted. I hadn’t realised Chris was such a big fan of theirs. Apparently he is though…

Today has been very windy. Getting home from visiting my granddad became quite the challenge because all loads of roads were closed due to fallen trees. Every time we tried a new route the road was closed and we had to go another way. It took 45 minutes to do a ten minute journey. When we came home we found a rather disconcerting sight. One of the trees in our garden, that is around twenty feet tall, has been dead for well over a year but we haven't managed to get around to having it taken out. Well the strong winds of today meant it was moving a lot. In fact the ground was moving at it’s base and it really looked like it would fall down any minute, crashing onto our conservatory. Amazingly though the tree is still standing but if I hear the sound of smashing glass in the middle of the night I know what it will be. It’s added a little bit of drama to my day anyway.

Oh and highlight of the day today? My brother getting moody first thing this morning because I was in the shower. “Dan’s in the bloody shower”. Then, after only several minutes when he was in the shower himself: “Why won’t it work? Bloody thing!” WHACK, WHACK, WHACK. “I haven't got time for this!”. My brother getting in a mood is a brilliant way for me to start the day. Probably not so good for him though.

Tomorrow I shall be reviewing stuff. Lot of stuff. So come back for that. Over and out.

The Addictive Amusements

2012-01-03T23:02:00.001Z

It’s been a while since I actually wrote about the things that are happening in my life what with Christmas, New Year and everything. I’ve been enjoying my holiday, which is unusual. Don’t get me wrong, I like having time off, of course I do, but most of the time I am faced with being in a town with nothing to do and few people to do it with. Though my uni town is hardly a lively place to be, it’s considerably more lively than here. But I’ve actually kept myself relatively busy and have actually been doing things. Who’d have thought?

The best day of late was Thursday as myself and my two “besties”, Chris and Mike, headed to our usual haunt that is Bournemouth. We’d spent a fair while trying to come up with a more original place to go but with none of us being able to drive we could only get a bus and that narrows the options down to about three places. So Bournemouth we went as usual. Between us we had a few shopping tasks to do. I purchased a new watch. I do actually own a watch but the strap broke about a year ago now and my father was supposed to go and get a new strap put on. He forgets thing though. Also that old watch is so massive it’s like having a grandfather clock attached to your wrist…

Though if it was that small I doubt it would be a problem.

We ended up visiting the amusement arcades as we so often do. First we played our old favourite, Nascar. Chris and Mike race properly and try to win but I like to win AND take out as many of the other cars as possible. If this Nascar game was real life I would be dead about twenty times by now. I rolled the car several times. We also went into the other amusements arcade and were surprised to see it had been revamped with a desk and new machines. It turns out that at this amusements arcade you can collect tickets from the games in exchange for prizes. You might be able to guess what happened next. I used up a bit of my spare change and by sheer luck won some tickets. We decided we may as well collect a few more tickets so we could get a tiny packet of sweets between us or something. I played Deal or No Deal in the hope of getting a few more tickets but was then offered 100 tickets. DEAL! It was a good choice seeing as though it was three tickets in the box. So all of a sudden a hundred of these little tickets came pouring out of the machine and I had a massive pile of tickets. We then decided we may as well win some more tickets and get a better prize. Eventually we each ended up with one of these:

I think this proves once and for all that we are big kids.

Oh and another highlight of this day was me walking down the street and saying “I want to go to sex”. I actually meant C.E.X a second-hand entertainment store but it must have sounded a bit odd to passers-by, especially considering there’s an Ann Summers on the same street.

I have spent a hell of a lot of time reading over the past week. Now I have my Kindle I shall be reading everything on there but I want to finish the proper books first. I’ve read two Torchwood books which were both awesome and several others as well, some of which will be in this week’s Friday Review. Today I created an account on Goodreads and shall be rating all the books I read there. Click here to view my profile and feel free to add me as a friend if you also have an account.

A big box from Amazon arrived at my house today and I nearly died from excitement. One item it contained was a case for the previously mentioned Kindle which is useful but not very exciting. But along with that were these:

I now have every episode of Doctor Who featuring Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. This is rather wonderful. I shall purchase the Matt Smith boxsets when they become a bit cheaper and then start working backwards and getting Classic Who DVDs. I am now a happy bunny!

Hmm, that was a weird little post. I am dying from a terrible cold right now. I can barely breathe. And I’m quite warm. I might have to go and stick my head out of the window like I did last night. Tomorrow the joy of visiting the dentist are happening. I might give this nasty cold though which will be revenge. See you soon guys!

2012

2012-01-01T23:34:00.001Z

Welcome to 2012 gang! I hope it brings happiness to all who deserve it. Yesterday I looked back at 2011 so today I shall look forward to 2012.

A new year is a chance for a new start. That’s really what I need right now after the difficult times that happened last year. Instead of resolutions here are a few targets of things that I would like to have achieved by the end of the year.

1) Lose weight. Pretty much all I did last year was put on weight. This was mostly because I ate loads and loads and hardly did anything. I would like to lose two stone which would make me a decent weight for my height. I shall obviously eat much less, especially when it comes to chocolate and the like. Doing exercise is a bit challenging when I am no good at any sports and don’t really have the money to go to a gym but I can at least do a bit now and then and rather than sitting around doing nothing could go for a brisk walk.

2) Be happy. I shall try and be less negative and pessimistic this year and actually enjoy things. And if something is rubbish I shall endeavour to make it better rather than sit and moan about it.

3) Become more sociable. I haven’t entirely worked out how I shall do this but basically I would very much like to again have a brilliant circle of friends like I had a few years ago. I guess I shall mope in my dungeon less and go out to things if I’m invited more often.

4) Watch more films. If it’s one area of popular culture I am rubbish at, it’s films. Therefore I shall try to watch more. One a week would be a good achievement for me. I’ve already watched one, The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo, at the cinema today. It was really good.

That’s all that come to mine immediately but there are plenty of other things I would happily change. The one thing I want more than anything though is not to be sat in my room, be it at uni or home, for hours or even days at a time without really seeing anyone of doing anything. Being like that could actually kill me, either physically or mentally. Or perhaps both.

So what has 2012 got to offer me? I’ve got a few weeks to entertain myself before I return to uni where I then have seven weeks of lectures with a fairly busy schedule. Then I have a whole month on placement in a school though which school and age group that will be I don’t yet know. There’s a couple more weeks of lectures after the Easter holidays and then my ridiculously long summer holiday will begin. There’s a chance six weeks of that will be spent working on a cruise ship with the kids on holiday but that may or may not happen. If it does it will be awesome. Either way I still have a lot of time to fill so it would be good to find something to do over this holiday. I eventually have another semester at uni which I think will contain more time on placement but I’m not entirely sure. There are going to be some very busy periods and also some very quiet periods. It’s going to be quite the rollercoaster I think.

That’s it for today, a nice short post for you. The normal stuff will continue tomorrow. Have you got any resolutions? Why not let me know in a comment below and we can all have a chat about our various resolutions!

Looking Back at 2011

2011-12-31T15:25:00.001Z

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

2011-12-30T17:49:00.001Z

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.

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#

2011-12-29T20:40:00.001Z

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

2011-12-27T14:40:00.001Z

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

2011-12-26T17:00:00.001Z

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

2011-12-24T17:26:00.001Z

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

2011-12-22T15:09:00.001Z

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

2011-12-20T23:34:00.001Z

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

2011-12-19T00:43:00.000Z

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

2011-12-17T22:14:00.001Z

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#

2011-12-16T23:41:00.001Z

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. ★★★☆☆

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

2011-12-14T23:13:00.001Z

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#

2011-12-12T20:21:00.001Z

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!

Something Actually Happens

2011-12-11T18:59:00.000Z

Sorry I’ve been a bit quite on the blogging front over the last few days, I’ve been busy, mostly being drunk or recovering from being drunk. Which is really unusual for me, I’ve not exactly been Mr. Sociable of late. Time to tell the stories then!

Thursday night was the celebration’s for my mate Stefan’s 21st birthday. A surprise table had been booked at a place called Pitcher and Piano and I had to try my best to not to let him know when he rang me up asking where I was. I already had a Friday night planned so I had it in mind not to drink very much. However, I arrived at Stefan’s house just in time to play ring of fire. Being the outsider, not even knowing half of the little group, I couldn’t just sit there and not join in could I? So we played this and then various other drinking games. It would be nice to play such games in a group I know rather well, as on the various occasions I have played them it’s always been with a group I’ve ended up infiltrating. I usually don’t know the games this group plays and I’m quite a shy person anyway and in many drinking games the entire group’s attention could fall on you at any minute.

Despite this though, I was actually having a good time. We took a quick taxi ride into town and met with a load of other people in Pitcher and Piano, and the whole table surprise was unveiled. Various drinks were consumed and there was an offer on Jagerbombs, a beverage which has affected my internal systems rather badly in the past. And I haven't been out drinking in around a month so my body has forgotten how to deal with alcohol. It was safe to say I was a bit of a lightweight and ended up quite drunk.

Here is the bit where I have to be careful so as to avoid upsetting someone. I met a girl at Stefan’s house and she was pretty chatty to me on the way into town and in the early stages of the night. But as the night progressed it became blindly obvious that she rather liked me, staggering as this thought might be. We danced together and generally got very close. There was a brief moment, probably because I was drunk, where the happiness and sudden thoughts that maybe I had finally found someone swam through my head. As you are probably expecting my now, things didn’t end on this positive note. After one quick visit to the loo, the girl that was previously all over me kept walking away from me and I was suddenly out of favour. There are of course numerous reasons this could have been, probably due to silly alcoholic judgements (hey, the whole thing probably only happened due to silly alcoholic judgements). Still, I didn’t do anything wrong and because I was drunk I got all upset and went home. I then drunkenly told the story and expressed my emotions to every single one of my housemates. Weirdly, it was this bit that I most regret.

After a night’s sleep I was back to rational thinking. I was just a bit overwhelmed because this sort of thing hasn’t ever happened to me before. I’ve had no interest from any women at all for over a year and a half and to suddenly find one all over me was a bit of a shock. It was probably better things ended how they did before things escalated into something that I would have regretted. Still, there was that boost to self-confidence that a girl was interested in me, even if she was pretty drunk. And I felt like one of the guys with all the fun comments like “go for it” being fired in my direction! One wonders what the next move should be but I fear the social expectation is to do nothing. For once I think I shall follow it.

As you might expect, a fair amount of alcohol and a body that’s not used to it lead to quite the hangover and, not to go into too much detail, a bin with quite a bit of sick in it. I ended up spending most of Friday recovering, using the Muppet’s Christmas Carol as my cheer-me up movie. In the evening my best mate Chris arrived to spend the weekend here in Winchester. A few hours later and I was out once again, and was drunk once again. This was the student union’s Christmas Party night, and it was pretty awesome. We got quite drunk (yes, again) but nothing exciting happened, we just had an awesome time. We raved it up, including to some Christmas tracks which was especially good. This is my best random tweet from then that makes very little sense: “Gradually getting more drunk with @DJ_Kendo Having another disease.” We have no idea what the whole having another disease bit was about.

Between the two of us my bin continued to fulfil it’s new title of “sick bucket”. (By the way, when you are drunk blue vomit is hilarious).Two hangover mornings in a row is unheard of in my life. After all that though, I feel like I might be staying of the alcohol for a little while at least.

Saturday night eventually arrived and we went out for Louise’s birthday meal at a local pub. An unusually large number of people actually attended which was nice, although due to it being a Saturday night in the run up to Christmas we had to split the twelve of us between two tables. I had a pretty awesome time though and the dinner was pretty lush. I had a BBQ burger followed by an enormous ice cream sundae. And then I finished Chris’ sundae as well. That was an huge amount of food to consume, especially as I had barely recovered from the hangover. It was all fine though!

So I am finally writing this post on Sunday afternoon. Myself and Chris spend hours having an epic conversation which ranged from the serious to the ridiculous in the early hours of this morning. This of course led to us not getting up ‘til rather late. And even then, my get up I mean sit and entertain ourselves with random videos on Youtube. But then that is what Youtube is for.

There you have it, that’s what I’ve been up to. I have to say this has been the best few days in months. I’ve had a great laugh with my best mate Chris and various uni mates, as well as having a reason to feel mildly more confident about myself. So to all who have been part of this, thanks. And sorry if I was a pain when drunk/recovering!

Christmas Blog Hop

2011-12-08T17:06:00.001Z

It's been many a month since I last did a blog hop, it's time to do another one. Below are links to some blogs- go and check them out and add your own blog by pressing the button. It's free promo so you can't complain!

Earth 2.0

2011-12-07T20:57:00.001Z

Astronomers have announced this week that an Earth-like planet in a habitable zone orbiting a sun-like star has been discovered. The media have dubbed it “Earth 2.0”, “Earth’s twin” and other such things but it’s current name is Kepler-22b (so named because it was discovered by the Kepler telescope). So will our ancestors some day have left Earth and live on this New Earth ?

^{Artist’s Impression of Keppler-22b}

Well it could be but it seems unlikely. To be like Earth it needs a sun like ours, which is has. That star is named Kepler 22. I think if we were to live there it would need a name. You couldn’t go round saying things like “What time is Kepler-22rise?”. But that’s besides the point. Another factor in being Earth-like is having an orbit like ours. It does and a Kepler-22b is 290 days long. That’s not a massive difference, we could fiddle with the calendar and take 75 days out. October should go, it’s always a rubbish month. Kepler-22b is 15% closer to it’s star than Earth is to the Sun but to make up for it’s star gives out 25% less light, which is handy. If Earth 2.0 has an atmosphere like ours, it would have an average temperature of around 22 degree Celsius, which is pretty satisfactory.

But there was a big “if” there. Venus is a similar size to Earth but it’s atmosphere is extremely dense and the average temperature is around 460 degrees Celsius. That’s quite hot to attempt to live in (fun fact: we’d die). And in fact scientists haven't yet discovered whether Kepler-22b is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid. If it turns out not to be made mostly of rock, then we won’t be able to live there. For all we know it could be a small Jupiter. It’s pretty small compared to the gaseous planets of our planets but it’s much bigger than the rocky planets of our solar system, of which Earth is one. This means it’s gravity would be about 2.4 times that of Earth, which is troublesome. It could sustain life but living there would be considerably different to living on Earth. You’d probably fall over more often.

Perhaps we could live past all these issues and it will turn out that Kepler-22b is our future. But we’d have to get there then wouldn’t we. Kepler-22b is roughly 600 light years away from Earth. That’s about 5700000000000000 kilometres (3541815795752803.5 Miles). Check me out with my nifty calculations. It’s safe to say that’s a lot further than any human has ever travelled. A ship of some kind could certainly get there. You need relatively little fuel for space travel as once you’re heading in the right direction in space you just keep going, as long as nothing gets in the way. However, sustaining life that long would be difficult. The sort of craft you’d need would be something like the Starship Enterprise. Many generations would be born and die on the craft before it reached it’s destination and so the knowledge about landing the ship and making the new planet habitable would need to be passed on from generation to generation. And then there’s the question of how to store incredibly huge amounts of food. The craft would have to have farms onboard to have any hope of producing enough food. And then there’s the question of energy. Having enough fuel for electricity for that length of time is something the Earth probably couldn’t provide, let alone a spacecraft. Hope for this would have to lie in nuclear power, and the legendary but as yet unfounded idea of cold nuclear fusion (producing nuclear energy without the need to put in any energy).

These are just some of the problems humanity would face on the journey alone. There’s even an incredibly slim chance that there turns out to be some kind of life on kepler-22b, which could be good or bad depending on it’s form. Let’s face it, this “Earth 2.0” is probably not our future.

But one day if humanity is to survive it must move on. There are currently 2,326 candidates for a new Earth, of which 207 are Earth-sized. Most are what have been called “super-Earth’s”: planets with a similar structure to Earth but around four times bigger. Only ten of those 207 planets are in the habitable zone where water can exist. One of those ten may be our future or more likely we have yet to find a suitable second planet. I think that one day, be it tomorrow or thousands of years in the future, we will find a suitable replacement Earth. Whether we ever get there or not is another matter…

The Lovely Waitress

2011-12-06T19:36:00.001Z

Good day to you! I am currently indulging in one of my ever more common lazy days. It’s 7:30PM, I’m still in pyjamas with no plans to get out of them. And why the hell not, I don’t actually have anywhere to be until Thursday. Lucky me! So let’s look back at the last few days when things have been happening.

On Saturday my Dad and my brother happened to be playing hockey in Winchester. Whilst they were playing, my Mum and I looked around the Christmas market. Or at least tried too! Winchester was ridiculously busy, with both the high street and the Christmas market being incredibly challenging to move around. I have never seen Winchester as busy as it was this on Saturday. After pushing our way through the crowds and failing to find any presents, we decided to go for a coffee. Frustratingly all the coffee shops were queued to nearly the door and we ended up stopping in milkshake shop Shakeaway. Not exactly the coffee shop atmosphere we had hoped for.

In the evening we headed out for a meal. We tried Pizza Express only to find it was full. Then we went to Pizza Hut, which was busy but there was space for us. It began promisingly until the point that the waitress announced there was no lasagne. The waitress gave my Mum (who had ordered said pasta-dish) and said she would come back in a few minutes. After another twenty+ minutes there was still no sign of her. We were all quite hungry by this point and decided to give up and leave. Somehow I couldn’t help but feel guilty, despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything wrong. But that was not the most cringeworthy I felt in that short time at Pizza Hut. There is a waitress there who is especially lovely and efficient (OK, she’s really pretty and I fancy her a bit too). I noticed she was working but wasn’t serving us and shared the disappointment with the family. They asked me which waitress I meant and then my brother said “Do you mean this one?” and I turned to see the lovely waitress sorting the salad bar out, literally right next to me. Dear God, I was embarrassed. As far as I am aware the lovely waitress didn’t hear. But my brother tried his best to embarrass me!

Thinking about it, it would be pretty cool if I could have dinner at Pizza Hut and pretend I’m in a rom-com and leave a cheeky note on the bill with my phone number and an extensive tip. I am of course much to shy to do such a thing and the lovely waitress would probably end up putting a restraining order on me. If only life was more like the movies.

Anyway, our big family meal ended up being in McDonald’s. It wasn’t quite what I expected and in fact the day was pretty much ruined by the amount of people in Winchester. Honestly, these tourists coming over here and stealing our restaurant spaces… Still, it was nice to spend some time with the family, even if it wasn’t as good as I had hoped and expected. The day made me look forward to the Christmas holidays all the more.

Yesterday was an assignment day, where I first of collected the results of the group assignment we did a few weeks ago. We got a 2.2 which is a little disappointing but it could have been worse and at least we passed, so I guess we should just be appreciative of what we got. I also spent a fair while finishing my last assignment of the year, a history one. I’d already done the essay part but had to finish putting together a resource pack of an aspect of local history. I am doing the workhouse in Ringwood and I’m really pleased with the pack I’ve put together. For once I’ve actually managed to present something pretty well, it looks lovely. But my best hopes for a good mark still lie with the English essay which I wrote breath-takingly early and get back next week. I’ll probably be more nervous going to get it as I will be really disappointed if the mark isn’t as good as I’d hoped.

Last night I went a bit crazy and bought this massive chocolate dessert thing which said on it “serves four” but should have said “Serves four or one Dan”. I may well die from over-eating, but at least I’ll die happy.

That’s it for this post. I’ve been writing it for hours but keep getting distracted. See you all soon!

Music Monday 5#: Comedy Special

2011-12-05T21:34:00.001Z

Hurrah, it’s Music Monday! Today I am trying something a little different. This week we will have five comedy songs which as well as sounding good, are very funny. Let’s get listening then.

I planned this post last week and since then one of the acts I was going to feature has released a new song. This is the wonderful The Midnight Beast with their new Harry Potter-based song, Wands.

Next up is the Australian band Axis of Awesome. In this video they show us that to write a best-selling love song using just four chords. This is Four Chord Song.

And our next act is also Australian. This is Tim Minchin with Prejudice. He cleverly leads you to believe he is going to use a rather offensive word but listen on and you might be surprised to hear what the song is actually about.

Our fourth track today looks into the distant future to when robots rule the world. It’s Flight of the Concords with The Humans Are Dead, sometimes called simply Robots.

And this week’s record of the week is The Muppets. In the US the new film is already out but we have to wait until February! How could you do that to us? They’ve been making all sort of appearances online and on TV and I’ve heard this quite a few times. It’s never not brilliant, this is Mahna Mahna!

As ever, I hope you enjoyed today’s selection and feel free to comment with your thoughts! I’ve got a great entry coming tomorrow featuring an embarrassing thing that happened over the weekend. See you then!

Thoughts From the Dungeon 6#

2011-12-04T15:37:00.001Z

This week, as it’s December, I look ahead to Christmas and show you my Christmas decorations!

See you tomorrow for a special edition of Music Monday!

Early December Happenings

2011-12-02T18:14:00.001Z

Hiya! I have lots of things to talk to you about, mostly small and relatively insignificant things which I have randomly popped into my mind over the last few days. It’s been a fairly busy week, in comparison to most anyway. I’ve also spent a fair bit of time being social, which is unusual and pleasing.

Goodness me, isn’t December exciting. Opening the first door on the advent calendar is always particularly special. Especially when you’ve got this advent calendar and the first chocolate is a particularly big one!

It’s the same advent calendar that I’ve had for the past few years but it’s better than no advent calendar. I’m lucky that my parents are soft and still by my one. Though it would be nice if Lindt actually changed the design sometime this century. This of course means that Christmas is not too far away now and I’m fairly excited. I love that festive feeling and it will be nice to spend some time with my family. As the end of term nears, it means there are less assignments to do. History is the last one and I’ve finally finished the essay part. It was a bit short on words but I may have exaggerated on the word count to make up for it! I just have to finish putting a resource pack together and that’s all my assignments of 2011 finished! One dreads how many I will probably have to do in 2012 though…

People often speak ill of the internet and neglect to mention it’s good points. Like being able to access any piece of information instantly and my favourite thing is being able to communicate with people from all over the world. At this point in time there are people I like to consider friends all over the world. Some I talk to regularly, others less often but we read each other’s blogs and tweets and so I feel like I talk to them quite a lot. There might be times in reality where I feel lonely but there are people who are with me in spirit miles away. And I would like to say thank you to all those people, many of which may well be reading. You’re awesome.

Being a socially awkward person, I don’t like it very much when a stranger talks to me. Sometimes though the conversation is a good one, or at least a necessary one. Other time they are less good. I arrived at the laundrette ready to pick up my clothes to find there was a couple of minutes left. I stood and waited but then a fellow laundrette-user began to talk to me by saying that it was strange that clothes always grow after they’ve been through the drier. I nodded in agreement, uncomfortably hoping the machine would finish soon. The woman was not having any of the silence though and continued to talk to me eagerly about her washing and how she used to do it at home but in her current abode she no longer has a machine. To make matters worse she had a speech impediment meaning actually understanding what she was saying was rather difficult and meant my already dis-interested responses were particularly limited. Eventually my machine had finished and my clothes were in a bag. At this point the woman had also finished unloading her clothes and I feared I would end up walking up the steps out of the laundrette with her. Her clothes were in a small suitcase and she made a comment on how she now had to lug it up the steps. I responded with a little chuckle but inside I was now quite pleased as myself with the bag could zoom up the steps and get away from her. I suspect this mad woman may well wash clothes every day in the hope of her engaging conversation helping her to find the man of her dreams. She may well be still doing washing there in many years to come…

Josh’s Playstation 2 has seen a lot of action over the last few days. We spent large amounts of time unlocking locations and vehicles on both Simpsons driving games (Road Rage and Hit and Run). This brought back many memories from my misspent youth! There was also a point where some Need for Speed action went on. The funny thing is that you can never see what’s going on in the car whilst the races are going on. Perhaps Andrew was on his way to pick up his alcoholic wife Barbara after she once again was too busy downing pints to pick her kids up from school when a challenger arrived. Of course Andrew would have had to pick the kids up and perhaps this explains the erratic driving as they kept fighting and Andrew had to keep turning round to tell them off. And in the next race Andrew might now have collected Barbara but was crashing into things because she was drunkenly pressing buttons and trying to come on to Andrew. (With thanks to Josh for coming up with this idea, though I think it may have been an excuse for not being very good!)

Despite suffering from a shortage of finances, I have bought some cool things lately. This first item I ordered some time ago and it came in the post today:

It’s a boxset containing all eight Harry Potter films. I have been waiting a few years now to have this set in my personal DVD collection and I’m rather excited to have it. I can have Harry Potter marathons. And at the very least I can watch The Deathly Hallows in one go now!

Then during a food shopping trip I bought these fabulous new pyjamas:

They are quite snazzy, I think you’ll agree!

I’m trying to make December a good month seeing as though the past couple have been so rubbish. Two days in and its so far been a pretty wonderful month. Let’s hope it continues!

End of Month Extravaganza 4#

2011-11-30T18:16:00.000Z

As 2011 draws ever closer to the end it is time to look back on the penultimate month of the year. Ah, November 2011…

Everyone’s Talking About… “How to Speak Street”

At the beginning of the month I wrote a post teaching you how to speak like they do on the streets. Never before has a post I have written received such good feedback. Here’s what people have been saying.

Addman: You young 'uns and yer crazy words. Nice post btw.

Dannie (housemate): You know you basically just wrote half of Jaz's vocabulary down right? x

Yes, that was the point.

ishashime: haha. how entertaining. xD

Jay: Haha, my boyfriend is trying to teach me how to speak gangsta so I'll understand his hip hop music better. Do you know if these words are the same in American gangster as they are in British gangster?

Sorry, I don't know American gangster! Some of them might be the same I guess.

Tiff: I think reem should be added to this list tbh x

Added!

Jaz (housemate and the basis for the post): this is some sick stuff Daniel! U be jammin boy!

Thanks to everyone who commented and read it. And if you haven't read it, you can check it out here!

Comments…Best of the Rest

Here’s what people have been saying about other things:

Effie (on Bucket List): Just saying hi! Love the list aswell...and the whole blog actually. :)

Thanks Effie!

Reagen (on Crap Towns): Oh my God. A survivor. You are practically a god now to my mortal eyes. Give me tips. Tell me the ways of leaving to thee. I'll do. anything. But, anyway. I totally need to find this book. If nothing to pass the time, and rage about how we didn't make the top ten. All the important things in life. I'm gonna protest! Rile the chavs!

You just how to run at any opportunity you have!

Jay (on Lanterns and Rafts): You really need to see Nightmare Before Christmas. It's such a good movie. Of course, I'm a huge fan of Tim Burton movies. I even have a Nightmare Before Christmas purse, that's how big of a fan I am.

I've watched Nightmare Before Christmas now, thoughts in Friday Review #10!

Minion of the Month: Despite her technical difficulties she keeps coming back and keeps saying hello so the November 2011 Minion of the Month is the lovely Jay! Thank you for always popping by!

The One Post You Should Go Back And Read: Assuming you’ve already read How to Speak Street, the post you should read is “My Day in London” as it goes into a fair bit of detail about the lovely day I had a few weeks back. Me, in London by myself doing whatever the hell I wanted/could afford. It’s pretty awesome.

Blog of the Month: This goes to one of my fave blogs, Always Abbey Noel by, you guessed it, Abbey Noel. It’s fun and engaging and often makes me chuckle. You should go and read it.

And it comes to that time again to think about how the month went. Traditionally this bit is me reflecting that it was a pretty rubbish month. Rest assured, this tradition is continuing. Whilst November started and finished on a fairly high note, the rest of it has been awful. Something bad really bad happened and then life reached new levels of dull. Few exciting things happen anymore. Still, December can’t be too bad can it? A couple of easy weeks at uni with a few social things planned and my best mate visiting followed by the Christmas holidays involving work, time with the family and Christmas itself? How bad can that be…

As usual you will soon be able to see an overview of all the posts from the last month on the aptly named “Last Month” page. I hope you lot had a good November and let’s start looking forward to Christmas!

Political Ranting and Cider

2011-11-29T23:24:00.001Z

Hello. I should start with a quick note to my Facebook readers. Due to Facebook, as ever, being a terrible social network, they are no longer allowing users to import notes. This means that the life updates post’s will appear on my profile as links to here. If you want to read things like Music Monday and Friday Review you should “like” the Facebook page where links to all blog posts will be posted. Sorry for the inconvenience but it’s Facebook’s fault.

Now that the admin’s over, time to get on with the post. I have done something a little out of character and applied for something which could well be life-changing. It’s a job running children’s activities during the summer holidays on a cruise ship. This would be an amazing job. It would fill up my otherwise fairly empty summer, I’d get extra experience with children, I’d get to see a few places (albeit briefly) and I’d earn some money. The company has replied and said that they have “identified me as someone who would be suitable” and will contact me nearer the time. In the past I have seen opportunities like this and not applied because of one silly reason or another. But it is time to stop living the shitty life I seem to be and start living it.

As you may have come to expect, my life has continued to drag on with little incident. This is my last full week of lectures and so all the modules are drawing slowly to a close, making the lecture largely unimportant. Still, I have a history assignment to write and the content is at least slightly interesting. Doing research in it has led me to have a massive dislike to the country’s education secretary Michael Gove. Despite their lack of popularity, I am fairly supportive of the current coalition government. The cuts are frustrating but necessary and it is only the education aspects that annoy me. The raising of university fees is one so such annoyance but I shan’t go on about that today. I’m training to be a primary school teacher so it’s that area I’ve been looking at. Recently Gove has criticised the teaching union strike that’s happening tomorrow. And then a photo of him in his youth picketing at a strike comes out. How can you have a message about striking being wrong and have already gone against it yourself? His opinions on the National Curriculum are also ridiculous. The labour government were within hours of making a new curriculum law which would have seen pretty much the end of traditional subjects with everything being taught in cross-curricular topics. This would have been fantastic. However, Mr. Gove would like to keep it pretty much how it is but change the importance of some subjects. He wants to make history a core subject (more important one). Now though this would be beneficial to me, seeing as though I would soon be a newly-qualified history specialist, I don’t think it’s right. All the subjects have the place but there is no way history is more important than science. And Gove wants to changed the content of the history curriculum by putting a massive emphasis on British history and seemingly paying little attention to source analysis. Source analysis is vitally important in modern history teaching and it is of course impossible to attempt to teach huge amount of content; there’s just not enough time to teach the entire history of the country.

Rant over. The point is, Michael Gove is a terrible education secretary and doesn't know what he’s talking about. Most teachers would agree with this statement. I think this begins a long career where us teachers know how things should be and the government occasionally but often doesn’t. That’s politics for you.

This evening was fairly enjoyable as I went on a “man’s night out” with housemates Josh and Jaz. This, as usual, mostly consisted of us going to various pubs, moaning about things, talking about things and losing money on the pub quiz machine. Jaz is actually addicted to them, which you wouldn’t think possible. Mind you I sometimes think I can learn more from a few games on that to a lot of my lectures. Of course we made a loss on the machine. I have recently been trying to decide what my favourite cider is. I usually go for the on-tap cider whenever I got to a pub as I don’t like beer (yes, I am a terrible man) and draught cider is nicer. The standard in many pubs is Strongbow, which is OK. Some pubs have Aspall, which I consider rather vile. And then my favourite is Stowford Press. I never know how you are supposed to describe drinks but the internet says Stowford Press cider is a “light, bitter sweet cider with a fruity character. Lightly sparkling with a ripe, fresh aroma bursting with apples”. All in all, quite nice. Perhaps it suits me because I too have “a fruity character”. Whatever that means.

That was a bit of a weird post wasn’t it? Such a bizarre combination of things. There can’t be many blogs that give you political rants and cider reviews in the same post. I am gladly providing said service. And on that note, it’s time for me to watch some TV and go to bed. Goodnight.

Music Monday 4#

2011-11-28T22:00:00.001Z

After an unexpected week off Music Monday is back! Once again it’s time to take a look what’s rocking my music world this week!

As usual I shall begin with a golden old ‘un. This week is pure pop cheese from Denmark thanks to Alphabeat. With lines such as “I was not looking for arty farty love” and somehow getting the word elevator to rhyme with “solitude eraser” (whatever that is), it’s so bad it’s somehow good. This is 10,000 Nights!

I am so up to date with the music world that this next track isn’t even finished yet! It’s a demo by the amazing Marina and the Diamonds called Starring Role and I already love it. Marina’s first album was incredible and this track gives me high hopes that the second will be too. No video as it’s only a demo but listen and enjoy!

One of my new favourite bands recently is Rizzle Kicks and housemate Jaz has fallen in love with their music and rightly so, because it’s brilliant. This song is called Prophet (Better Watch It) and has the rather amusing opening lines “I’m lurking in your pocket. Better watch it”. We laughed about this for ages.

Our fourth song today is The One That Got Away by Katy Perry. Yes, I know this one has appeared here before but I still love it and it’s got a video now. My blog, my choices hahaha!

iTunes have recently changed their settings so that you can now redownload any songs you previously downloaded. I lost a load ages ago but now that I have them back I have rediscovered lots of old favourites. This week’s record of the week is much less of a pop song than some of today’s other songs and is a few years old now. It’s Fall Out Boy with Don’t Care.

I hope you liked some or maybe all of today’s tracks and as usual feel free to add a comment sharing your opinion. Next week’s Music Monday will be something a little different so watch this space! And if you haven’t already (you probably haven't) join my Facebook group to get blog posts on your Facebook feed.

Thoughts From the Dungeon 5#

2011-11-27T18:16:00.001Z

This week I think about getting older and briefly speculate what the future may hold.

Lanterns and Rafts

2011-11-26T17:04:00.001Z

It’s Saturday! I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. A post on a Saturday is unusual these days but due to the lack of internet it’s been a quiet week on the posting front. I think it’s time for me to share with you my last few days.

Thursday night was the grand opening of the Winchester Christmas Market (which is basically some sheds that sell things). It began with a lantern parade from the top of town down to where the Christmas market is. Pictured below are some examples, including the winning Jack and Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas lanterns (a film I really need to see).

We took the back alleys and raced the parade down to the Christmas Market (and won). After an age of waiting the mayor officially opened the market by cutting a red ribbon on the ice rink. The effect isn’t quite the same when you have to watch them put the red ribbon up. Surely they could have done that some hours beforehand? Then two professional ice skaters from ITV’s Dancing on Ice did their thing (i.e. ice dancing) and it was rather impressive. The poor woman was thrown all over the place but fortunately the man managed to catch her ok. It was a new experience but an enjoyable one. As soon as they finished there was a massive bang and the fireworks started. They were rather impressive and I would go as far to say they were better than the Bonfire Night fireworks. At least there was no man on a PA talking over them. Mind you, there may have been but the PA system around the ice rink was dreadful and you couldn’t hear anything. I also liked the fact that they set some fireworks off from the cathedral rooftop, though our previous idea of standing up there to get a good view would have gone a bit wrong as we would have all been blown up. So we were quite fortunate in the end.

Yesterday was one of the more interesting lectures as we had to produce a lesson plan and do some of it, loosely based on the fable “Anansi and the Turtle” (Youtube here if you want). We decided to do a lesson about floating which led us to make small rafts in the lectures. Well the people we were demonstrating the lesson to made a perfectly good raft by tying straws together but we decided to be a little more adventurous and attached some cardboard to two toilet roll tubes. Our raft then promptly sank. It was fortunate that we were not actually teaching this lesson as that would have been rather embarrassing! The people that demonstrated their lesson plan to us had a similar idea as I believe a fair chunk of the group had, though there’s involved making Anansi and then putting things in his coat pockets so he would sink, like in the story. I of course took the opportunity to make something completely seriously so here is the Anansi I made (and when I say “made” I mean “stuck some pipe cleaners into a polystyrene ball”):

I realise it would look cooler with a face but the paint is still a bit wet.

Last night I went out once again. Two nights out of the house in a row, what is happening? We went for dinner at Pizza Hut and as usual they a fair majority of the menu was not available. If you wanted a pizza you could only have a large one. Fortunately I didn’t consider this an issue as I had been waiting around to go to Pizza Hut for some time and was very hungry. I polished off the entire pizza and then it was dessert time. Two of my friends decided they were going to see who could eat more ice cream factory. Ice cream factory is where you have unlimited bowls of ice cream but of course most people don’t have more than one. Having eaten the entire large pizza I felt like I was at something of a disadvantage. Four bowls of ice cream factory later and I was declared the winner, though I could probably have forced down another bowl or two. It was on the way home though that I realised just how much I had eaten and felt so stuffed. Still, I’ve not been hungry for most of the day so that’s good.

Today is somewhat less exciting but still rather pleasing. I am having a duvet day whereby I stay in bed and watch various TV shows and films. A fair chunk of it so far has been episodes of Classic Doctor Who but I’m sure I will be watching lots of other things too as the day progresses. And I’m having a curry for tea which should be pretty awesome. All this adds up to a pretty good day. I do feel a bit lazy though. Mind you, I’m preparing to spend the majority of the week writing my history assignment so this day will be worth it!

Friday Review 9#

2011-11-25T16:21:00.001Z

It’s Friday and it’s time to review various things that I’ve watched, read and played recently. Will anything get those much desired five stars today? (hint:yes!)

Life’s Too Short

This is a tricky review to write. I however am going to be confident and share my own views. The press have hugely slated this new show written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. It’s a mockumentary following around dwarf actor Warwick Davis, though he plays an angrier and generally less nice man than himself. Some critics say it isn’t funny. I disagree. The gags aren’t constant and obvious like sitcoms these days but when one comes along it is often hilarious. Other critics say it’s offensive to small people. I disagree again and think these critics have missed the point. The comedy comes from the point of this version of Davis having small man syndrome and the way people react to dwarves. In this pretend world Johnny Depp has Warwick doing all sorts of silly things because Depp thinks it is funny. It’s not a dwarf being silly that is the funny bit, it’s the fact that Depp forces him to do these things and finds them funny. His appearance is hilarious as was Liam Neeson’s in the first episode. Helena Bonham-Carter appearance is dwarfed (sorry) by how badly Warwick David is treated yet again. Half way through this series and despite everything, I am quite enjoying it. Perhaps it’s not the best of Gervais and Merchant’s work but it’s still better than a lot of “comedy” that comes around at the moment and it’s certainly original. Of course it’s up to you to decide but don’t be put off by the critics. Personally,I quite like it. But then maybe there’s no accounting for taste… ★★★★☆

Movies

E.T.(The Extra Terrestrial)

The classic Spielberg movie featuring a friendly alien stranded on Earth who befriends a small boy. And though there are sci-fi elements to the film it’s the friendship element which I consider the most important theme. Elliott and E.T become very close and lots of silly things happen due to a psychic link between them. But then things get serious when E.T. starts dying and due to the psychic link so does Elliott. Fortunately there are no deaths in the film but inevitably E.T. has to go home. Elliott saying “I love you E.T.” is ridiculously heart-wrenching. It’s a fun film with some really emotional moments and I think there’s something for everyone, whether it be in the humour, the emotion, the sci-fi or the chance to see Drew Barrymore as a little girl. ★★★★☆

Stardust

This is based on a Neil Gaimon story and that got me excited before I even started watching the film. The plot is actually rather complicated for a film which I guess is described as a fairy tale. A star lands in the fantasy world of Stormhold, clutching a locket. Tristan from the real world, the other side of a wall, promises to catch the star to prove his love to a woman whilst a witch wants the star’s heart to keep young and four princes want the locket as whoever finds it becomes king. So an epic race across the magical land ensues and all sorts of ridiculous things happen. In the end Tristan ends up with his true love, though it’s not who he thought it was. The story is amazing and I’m a sucker for a happy ending and you cannot have a happier ending than this one. With the exception of Ricky Gervais, every performance is flawless and Robert de Nero’s camp pirate captain is true brilliance. It looks like a girly sort of film that I wouldn’t like much but I think it caters for everyone. I love this film so much. ★★★★★

Books

Muddle Earth Too by Paul Stewart and Chris Ridell

This children’s book is a sequel to what I would call the modern classic that is Muddle Earth. Ordinary schoolboy Joe Jefferson is transported to Muddle Earth once again, this time with his older sister Ella. So many children’s fantasy books are hilariously parodied in this. Randalf now runs Stinkyhogs school for wizards who play a broom game which involves brushing cheese into chimneys for a mouse to catch. Ella falls in love with a barbarian called Edward, who is a thumb-sucking vampire. The self-proclaimed rulers of Muddle Earth are King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund and Queen Lucy. King Edmund doesn’t say a word in the whole book because he’s too buy eating Turkish delight. Even His Dark Materials are parodied, with the teachers at the university all having an animals they can’t be separated from. Instead of being called daemons like in Pullman’s work, all the animals are called Damian. It’s silly and there is a whole host of madcap mishaps. I’m not sure it’s quite as good as it’s predecessor but if you liked that this is a must read. ★★★★☆

Games

Let’s Golf 3D (Nintendo 3DS, Available on Nintendo e-Shop Only)

I talked extensively about the ridiculous locations used in this game in my last post, but this is my no means a bad game. It’s never going to win any prizes for realism but it’s fun and that’s the important thing. For a game that costs less than most meals, it’s rather generous with it’s content. There are five courses, each with a load of different modes and it will take a fair while to achieve all the medals. The putting is a bit dodgy though. The whole idea about adjusting your aim based on the green’s incline is there but the execution is awful. On many green’s it is near impossible for you to tell what the incline is like due all sorts of lines and tables attempting to help you. If this was a full-priced game it would get a lower rating but it’s only a cheap 3DS download, the first piece of original software for the console on the e-shop I may add. It’s my no means perfect but for a cheap and fun golf game you can’t go far wrong. ★★★★☆

Ridiculous Golf

2011-11-22T17:08:00.001Z

Hello. Much to my annoyance I am writing this from my library. Virgin’s useless internet went down at our house yesterday morning and still hasn’t started working again. So I am now sat in the library on my laptop. Still, it’s got me out the house. If was for this frustrating reason that no music Monday post appeared yesterday. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait another week for that.

As ever my life continues to be non-existent outside of uni work. Our lectures yesterday morning were about catering for a classroom with children of different races and ethnic groups in. The seminar for this was pretty much two hours of heated discussion with relatively simple questions like “define race” turning into full-on debates. This area is something I might have difficulties with in the future, depending on where I end up teaching. In my upbringing in rural Southern England, anyway of a different race or even religion was very rare. In a school of around three hundred pupils there were only three children that weren’t white British and two of them were siblings. Ten years on and things are still not really that different. Outside of cities in the South of England there is hardly any diversity, though perhaps a small increase since my childhood. I wonder how long it will take before my homestead becomes anywhere like as diverse as most of the rest of the country.

For some unknown reason I had no history seminar this morning, which as you can imagine led to me sleeping for quite a long time. But today so far has been rather productive, with lots of reading towards by incredibly challenging history assignment. The question is “Are skills or content more important in history?” Umm… I have read lots of useful documents this morning which have helped my understanding considerably. Almost all of them were written by important Professors and discuss various methodologies of historiography and spent lots of time trying to decided what history is, with none of them really reaching much of a conclusion. This meant it was all very complicated and in some of the articles I had to read sentences several times before I had any idea what the hell they were actually talking about. My general thoughts on the essay are thus: History used to be about getting facts about the past. Now it is more about reading sources which present these facts and deciding to what extent they are reliable. Therefore whilst content has a significant place in the teaching of history, skills are probably more important. That’s my assignment right there, once I’ve added another thousand-odd words. Simples.

With a lack of internet and even when I had internet a willingness to spend all my time on there, I’ve been having to find other things to entertain myself with. One of these things was Let’s Golf 3D, which I downloaded onto by 3DS using the Nintendo e-shop (I am so down with the kids). This is a golf game which just relies on timing to hit the ball at the right time. My favourite part is how stereotypical each course is of the country they are supposed to be in. The England course is very sunny and green and set amongst stately homes and the like. Clearly the makers have never been to an English golf course. There is also a fox which wanders around some of the greens which I was also going to say was stereotypical but then realised I’ve known two different golf courses which have foxes wandering around the golf greens on regular occasions. Fortunately this stop being realistic when the fox barks exactly like a dog. Foxes do bark but the do not sound like any random dog down the park. Other stereotypical courses include one in Greece, set amongst various bits of Ancient Greek architecture of course, and Mexico, set among Mayan temples. In fact you play on Mayan Temples at times which I’m sure isn’t allowed. There is also the most impractical golf course in the world, in the Arctic Fjords of Greenland. At least they had a sense to make the ball orange so you don’t lose it in the snow. A full review of this fun but incredibly unrealistic game will be here on Friday.

And I have also been going through my box set of Frasier at quite a rate, though I am still only on the second of eleven seasons. By season two the series had really found it’s feet and is utterly hilarious. Frasier’s brother Niles is completely in love with the housekeeper Daphne, despite being married himself, and this brings in some many funny moments. Regularly Frasier returns to his flat to find Niles doing something slightly inappropriate with Daphne, although there is always a perfectly innocent excuse. And that’s just one of hundreds of reasons the show is so funny, but unlike many sitcoms it has lots of serious bits about relationships, romantic and otherwise, which make it more realistic and in fact more enjoyable. I love it.

That’s enough random chatter for now. It depends to when our internet returns to when I next post but, as ever, watch this space. Thanks for reading, come and say hello and have a lovely time until we speak again.

Thoughts From the Dungeon 4#: London

2011-11-20T15:37:00.001Z

In this week’s video I talk about my visit to London, using the occasional bit of video I filmed there to help. This week’s technical fault is the bizarre green fuzz on my chair.

My Day in London

2011-11-18T00:11:00.000Z

Today, in a bid to do something vaguely interesting in my life, I hopped on a train and headed to our lovely capital city that is London. I love London lots. Partly because I’ve had some amazing experiences there with friends and even girlfriends in the past so being there always brings in that happiness element. But it’s also because of the hussle and bussle and the fact that crazy things happen all over the city every single day.

After arriving in Waterloo train station I quickly got on the tube and headed towards the Oxford Street. I wandered around this area for a fair while and eventually got to Regent Street were Hamleys is. Hamleys is a massive toy shop which has six floors and is amazing. It has all the best toys and some amazing displays. I particularly liked the little Harry Potter section and wished I had lots of money to spend on replica wands and other great things like a marauder’s map. I spent far more time than someone my age should have wandering around the store but my low finances meant I couldn’t afford to buy anything, though I would have happily purchased most of the shop if I could. It was even better than usual because they are gearing up for Christmas and the staff were being immense.

A while later I was in Leicester Square where the new M&M’s World is. Last time I was in London they were just finishing this. It’s just a huge store that sells M&M goodies. Surprisingly actually M&Ms take up very little of the store but lots of models and bowls and things you can buy. I purchased a Christmas present for my brother there and it’s a lively and fun shop.

Next up on my agenda was Covent Garden. The piazza there is one of my favourite parts of London. All the buildings are old and there is a fantastic little market there. Also, there are always street performers there and I stood and watched one guy for ages. The guy was called Pete Dobbing and he was pretty good, especially considering there wasn’t much of a crowd and so building up an atmosphere was nigh on impossible. He began by juggling some massive knives which was very impressive. In the next bit he solved a Rubik’s Cube in about 1 minute and fifteen seconds which is also pretty impressive. And finally he juggled the knives again. But this time he was on a ladder. He climbed the ladder and walked it around a little bit. Then next thing I knew his clothes were coming off. I imagined he would stop once topless but then he whipped his kilt off. Fortunately he was wearing a pair of bright blue underwear but it still wasn’t a sight I would have chosen to see. Then he juggles the knives on top of the ladder. I found this picture online which sort of demonstrates what he was doing:

He was really rather good and full of wit and jokes. Very entertaining.

I then wandered around the market for a bit, which wasn’t really that exciting today. But the central bit in one of the halls was pretty awesome. I had a slice of pizza whilst listening to a quintet playing some truly beautiful music.

I love the fact that there are people all over the city playing music, whether it’s on a street, on a bridge or in a tube tunnel. In fact there are special places for buskers to stand/sit and play from. The sound of music echoing down an underground tunnel is magical. I doubt all the locals that rush a everywhere, running up every escalator appreciate this sort of thing. I don’t think I could ever grow tired of that magical sound. As much as the underground is criticised, it’s such a good transport system. Although it did let me down today. Pretty much everything I planned to do was on the Piccadilly line around Coven Garden station, and guess where the only closures on the underground were today? Some dodgy track I think. I ended up having to do far more walking than I planned to and my feet are killing me now.

Anyway, back to my day. Having wandered around Covent Garden for a while I realised I had more time then I planned so I decided to pay the South Bank a visit, the bank of the Thames that the London Eye is on. Along there are always a load of crazy things happening. I saw a Caribbean band, some living statues (including the best one I have ever seen, it was incredibly realistic), Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Papa Smurf. That’s a combination of words I will never ever use in the same sentence again! Also the Christmas market had started there and there were really interesting stalls (and some really weird ones).

Next up was Trafalgar Square. On arrival I saw a line of people dressed as blue dragons, each holding the previous dragon’s tail. This is the sort of crazy London thing I was talking about earlier. I found out later that I missed a big event there this morning which the Mayor of London Boris Johnson attended. It would have been very funny if I’d been able to see him. He’s more of a comedian than a politician. I got to see the Olympic Countdown clock for the first and more likely only time which I guess is pretty cool.

I then headed to my final stop of the day, the British Museum. It opens later on a Friday evening so the plan was to go there whilst London was experiencing rush hour and avoid it. The British Museum is a terribly named museum. It’s full of historical artefacts, many of which we have nicked from other countries. After going through the impressive entrance pictured below, I decided to get an multimedia guide.

The multimedia guide was pretty cool. It told you about the artefacts and put extra pictures and even videos on the screen to help. There was also the option to go some guided tours which I did. I did an Egyptian one, followed by a Medieval Britain one and then some of the Parthenon one. Here are some things I learnt during my tours:

- The Rosetta Stone is the thing that taught us to read hieroglyphs. It’s a stone written in three sections, hieroglyphs, written Egyptian and Ancient Greek.

- Hieroglyphs with a blue circle around them is the name of a King.

- Mummies were buried with little model people, which they believed would come to life in the Afterlife. They thought you had to go farming in the afterlife and so the little people were supposed to act as servants.

- Most people find dried out dead bodies disgusting, whilst I find them incredibly fascinating.

- Ramesses II had more than one name. They didn’t say what his other name was. Here’s a statue of him:

- Hadrian’s Wall wasn’t the only wall the Romans built. There were others at other edges of the empire.

- That a seemingly dull gold cup and tell a brilliant story. The pictures tell a story where a man asks a woman to marry him but she refuses. The man sells the woman to a brothel and tries to rape her but a demon comes and kills him. The woman resurrects the man and is then accused of being a witch by everyone else. She is burned at the stake but the flames split apart and she doesn’t burn. Turns out there is no happy ending though because they stab her through the throat with a spear. Bizarre and rather gruesome.

- The artefacts from the Sutton Hoo burial site I am really interested in are not on display at the moment. Not happy about that.

- The Greeks cleverly built statues on the Parthenon in a triangular shape that fitted with the shape of the roof. The carvings were amazing and they even bothered to carve the backs which no-one could see.

- Modern Greece wants the bits of the Parthenon back but if Elgin hadn’t brought them here back in the day they would have been pretty much destroyed.

- That the Parthenon was actually a temple for Athena and there was a large statue of her in the middle, but it got destroyed in an explosion.

- That some of the carvings tell some crazy stories too. There’s lots of carvings where a human race called Lapiths battle centaurs. The story behind this is that the centaurs were invited to a party and weren’t used to wine. So they got drunk and starting fighting with the lapiths.

I rather loved the British Museum, being the history geek I am. There are still parts of it I didn’t get to see which I would have quite liked too. And do the kids tour at some point as well. One day maybe.

I hoped you enjoyed this post, a bit more interesting than the usual stuff I talk about. My Thoughts From the Dungeon video on Sunday will be a London edition featuring me talking about the day in more detail, complete with various bits of video footage I recorded during the day. Look out for that, it will be a good one. See you then!

Camembert and Other Things

2011-11-16T22:32:00.001Z

Hello everyone. I am rather tired after something of an eventful day but before I get onto that, I’ve lots of other things to talk about. It’s been a bizarre few days really with one thing or another.

Back on Monday was the culmination of my first assignment of the year, a group presentation about the inclusion of special needs children in mainstream classrooms. We were fairly well-prepared and it all went rather smoothly, though I was a little disappointed with my performance. Doing presentations is one of the few things I am actually good at and my little bit on Monday was a average to say the least. I wasn’t nervous at all until I suddenly found myself stood there ready to give the presentation. Still, several people said I did a good job so I guess I must have been OK. I’m not sure how well we have done on this assignment, it’s tricky to tell. I imagine it’s towards the higher end of the marks but quite how good it was I’m not sure. I guess we shall just have to wait and see.

I have had major trouble sleeping at the moment. I need more sleep than most people otherwise I don’t really function properly. But for some reason I keep being awake until at least 2AM. When you have to get up at about 7:30AM, this isn’t really much sleep and no where near the amount I need. Yesterday I was so tired I had to have a nap in the middle of the afternoon but I think this caused me to struggle to sleep last night. Yesterday a man was supposed to come and check our boiler and he didn’t come. Although there was a point where everyone else was out and I was asleep so the man might have come in that time. And because the water meter is in my room he may even have had to come in here. I was so exhausted though I suspect I could have slept through this if that was the case. I can only imagine what the guy was thinking if he saw me fast asleep! Fingers crossed he didn’t actually come!

Today my Dad brought my Granddad along to come and visit me. This was nice as it’s been a while since I have seen any of my family. I took them through the many side streets of Winchester which was quite fun and then had to accompany by Dad back home. I had to pop into work to fill in a form so I can work during the Christmas holidays. This was frustrating but unavoidable, though it was fortunate my Dad had planned to come today anyway. I had planned to get the train back but my Dad decided he was happy to drive me back. I spent a few hours at home which was good but a bit weird. At least I got to see my Mum as well and got a free dinner so I can’t complain about it. As usual, my Dad left me with a few goodies and this time these consisted of an advent calendar in preparation for December and all the post from the last month and a bit, which was mostly rubbish but did contain a few magazine.

As usual it was brilliant to see the family again. Bizarrely I have become closer to my family since moving out last September. I guess it’s because I don’t seem them that often so the time I have with them is that bit more special. I have also grown up a lot since I started uni and I guess I can have adult conversations with my parents that I might not have been able to have before. The thing that I find weird is when I’m told how much they miss me. As a family unit we don’t exactly throw love around and I’m not really used to being appreciated by anyone. It makes me warm inside.

I also had a brilliant conversation with my best mate Chris last night. We shared our various problems and had a bit of a laugh. I am so glad that I still have my two best mates, Chris and Mike, and feel that the world would be a much less happy place without them.

Anyway, enough soppy stuff. My cheese obsession has suddenly come back with a vengeance. It died down a little recently but I have found several new places which sell cheese in Winchester including a tiny little shop down a tiny little road some considerable distance from the town centre. It is soft cheese’s that I’m loving at the moment, particularly camembert. It’s such a brilliant cheese, creamy yet still pretty strong. I love it so much. In fact I think I am going to go and have some right now.

And on that cheesy note, it’s time to end the post. I need cheese and sleep. This may cause odd dreams but I don’t really care. I shall post again soon. Goodnight! x

Music Monday 3#

2011-11-14T17:40:00.001Z

Hello and welcome to another music Monday. This week my selections are a bit more unusual which is partly because someone complained last week (you know who you are) but also because these are all songs I happen to be loving at the moment.

The first track is this week’s “Golden Olden”, a song which is getting on a bit now but is still rather awesome. This is something of a one-hit wonder by the never heard of again Fountains of Wayne with Stacy’s Mom. I rather like the fact that the video pretty much plays out like the song. Not enough videos do that, they often seem to be completely separate from the lyrics.

Next up is a track by a man called Miles Kane. I first discovered him on Breakfast TV, which is a bit odd. It means at some point I must have been awake during the time breakfast TV was on! He is the lead singer of the band The Last Shadow Puppets so if you recognise the voice it might be because of that. This track is the brilliant Come Closer.

Our third track today has found fame thanks to an advert for tea. It’s a version of the song Wherever You Will Go originally by The Calling. This version has turned it into a full power ballad and it is sung by a lady with a lovely voice called Charlene Soraia. It really is a beautiful rendition of the song.

The next track is Cage the Elephant’s latest song Aberdeen. I quite like the song but the video is the saddest video involving a dragon/dinosaur thing you will ever witness. Really.

And finally it’s time for my record of the week. It’s a few years old but I’ve rediscovered it this week and love it all over again. It has a very 80s sound and they even made the video look like it’s from the 80s. I love this track so much and I hope you do too! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mystery Jets with Two Doors Down!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s selection and as always let me know your thoughts, good or bad, and suggest any songs I should listen to. See you soon!

Crap Towns

2011-11-12T21:49:00.001Z

Hello darlings. I am rather happy this evening, which makes a change compared to the rest of the week. I have once again been bombarded with various things to upset me and Thursday night particularly was rather unpleasant. I shall not go into reasons why this was but some people may know or have an idea. Anyway, the whole things blown over now and my life is back to it’s normal dull self.

So everyone else see,s to be busily doing work of some time but I have done all of mine. So whilst everyone else is busy, I’m sat on my bottom not doing a lot. At least today I have had the opportunity to live up to the student stereotype. My sleep pattern is severely messed up and I’m not feeling tired ‘til at least 2AM yet I still require lots of sleep. This means I don’t end up getting up until the middle of the day. When I finally did drag myself out of bed, I realised that I had no plans for the day. So I decided to stay in my pyjamas and put on a DVD (E.T. which is such an emotional film). After that I decided to watch the football. England were playing Spain, the world and European champions, in a friendly match. And they won, which is a brilliant result. Towards the end of the first half I decided I may as well continue with the way the day was going and instead of cooking something for tea, ordered a pizza. I ate it during half time and it was a amazing. I had Mozzarella Sticks too and they are brilliant. After writing this entry I shall ring my Mum and then watch at least one but maybe some more than one other film. This is the life.

There as recently a news story about crap towns, where rubbish towns were slated terribly. I have found the entries for my home town Ringwood and they amuse me greatly. Here a couple of extracts:

“On the streets everyone is either 60+ or under 16. Anyone who hasn’t either not yet matured into an adult or gone senile has long ago deserted this barren wasteland.”

“But in defence of Ringwood, I should point out that there is actually a pretty and historic side. If you can look past the small-minded people and the odd small town attitude that hangs in the air like the smell of death, the town itself has some wonderfully charming features:
1 – The Cobbled High Street, a … wonderfully charming feature.
2 – Blokes in the Pizza place; only words they know are ‘you’, ‘me’ and ‘bed’.
3- The Sports Centre where ‘Brittas Empire’ was filmed – still the most exciting thing to happen since King Henry III granted Ringwood the right to hold a market.
5 – The church.
6 – The public toilet building; a great piece of architecture (look out for the fourteen year olds who aspire one day to be druggies, proudly showing off their first step on the ladder by smoking cigarettes).
7 – The New Forest Owl Sanctuary – great if you like Owls.
10 – The Millennium clock. A clock with the word Millennium written on it.”

Those are so brilliant and mostly accurate. I think Ringwood is a nice enough place to retire to or commute from but as a young person, especially one without transportation, it’s a terrible place to live in. I’m rather glad I escaped. Weirdly Winchester was voted the 5th crappest town in 2003. I know that actually they’ve changed the town’s looks loads since then and our university has become a university since then and livened things up a little. Either way, it’s not that rubbish compared to Ringwood.

And one last thing to talk about before I finish. And that is to say I have made a wonderful new pen pal called Lauren who reads all the rubbish that I write to her and then replies with her something far more interesting. She reads this so hello Lauren. *Waves*

That’s it for today. Usual video nonsense will be here tomorrow.See you then.

Friday Review 8#

2011-11-11T23:55:00.001Z

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta do some reviews on Friday! Everybody's looking forward to the ratings,ratings! Yes, I just did that. As usual, ★ is the number of stars each item got out of five and a ☆ is an empty star, showing how many away the item was from getting top stars.

Movies

Top Gun

So Tom Cruise gets to go to the top flying school in America. He has to deal with the loss of a friend and falls in love and all this stuff means he isn’t keen to fly anymore. But what do you know, he manages to sort himself out and save the day. It’s not a bad film but I’m not really sure it particularly inspired me or that I loved it. If you prefer romantic stuff, it’s got some of that and if you prefer action stuff, it’s got some warplanes battling. I found it very middle of the road. I don’t really have any reason to slag it off but equally I have nothing to rave about. Watch if you want but you know what, I don’t really care either way. ★★★☆☆

Games

Doctor Who Adventure Games: The Gunpowder Plot

Last year the BBC created four Doctor Who PC games which were pretty good. The biggest issue was that they were rather short. This one is much more expansive though and sees the Doctor, Amy and Rory infiltrate the infamous gunpowder plot as the Sontarans and their enemies the Rutans get up to all sorts of trouble. Essentially it’s a Doctor Who episode you play. The story can’t really be faulted- Guy Fawkes is great, as is whole Sontaran regiment is equally as good. Plus we get to see what the Rutan actually look like (they’ve only ever appeared in the show where they were possessing humans). The gameplay is varied with a few puzzles and a lot of running around finding things. The biggest issue I have is that computerised Rory doesn’t look much like actual Rory but that’s fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Quite simply this is the best Doctor Who game ever released. ★★★★☆ (Download for free here, UK only though I think)

Books

Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

This first book of a new series throws us straight back into the world of Percy Jackson, where the Greek Gods and indeed monsters are still alive in modern times. Percy Jackson is missing though and we are introduced to three new demigods: Jason, who seems to be Roman, Piper, beauty queen and much more besides and Leo, engineer and fire breather. I loved the Percy Jackson series but actually I think this is better. Having three main characters rather than one and written in the third person rather than the first, the format may have changed but the style doesn’t much. It’s still very funny and there are still some epic battles. Gaia is rising once again as are the giants and as you can imagine, this isn’t good. Riordan has cleverly come up with a way to bring back some famous ancient Greek humans like Midas. There are so many ways in which this could have gone wrong but he manages to avoid them all. And with Percy Jackson returning in the next book, I think I may be hooked once again. Utter perfection.And there’s a giant metal dragon. ★★★★★

Death in Paradise

This is a murder mystery series set on the Caribbean island of St. Marie and stars comedian Ben Miller as a policeman involuntarily transferred from London. The first three episodes have aired so far and I’m quite enjoying it. The first episodes reminds me of the film Hot Fuzz with the series London policeman forced to move to a different location, though this being a tropical island rather than the west country. It then turns into a tropical Midsummer Murders, where every week someone is murdered and the detective sorts it all out in the end. It’s not exactly groundbreaking but I am really enjoying it. Miller plays the role well and it’s not actually a comedic role- the laughs we get are from this series character being out of his comfort zone. The murders are not unnecessarily gruesome like many often are on TV shows these days and I like the style. The flashbacks to during or just after the murder have a great look about them. It’s a light-hearted murder mystery show and if that sounds like something you’d like, you probably will. But watch out for the CGI lizard. ★★★★☆

Magazines

SciFiNow

I’ve never reviewed a magazine here before and I guess that’s partly because the only magazines I get are ones I’ve always got. This one looked good though and I wanted something to read. If you’re a bit of a geek like me and like sci-fi and similar things, you’ll probably like this. The enjoyment probably varies depending on how many things in it you watch/read. I thought I would end up skipping huge chunks but actually I read most of it. There was an article about season two of The Walking Dead, one about DC’s New 52 comics, an interview with Terry Pratchett and a bit about Neil Gaimon. I liked all of those things and a few other bits so was pleasantly surprised. It’s a decent little magazine and unusually I actually felt I got my money’s worth. Some magazines are expensive for what they are but this one felt OK. Fully recommend it for people like me and I will probably buy it again. ★★★★☆

As always readers, let me know your thoughts on any of the above things! I shall see you soon!

News Review 2#

2011-11-10T22:21:00.001Z

It’s all happening been in the Eurozone this week. The Eurozone means “countries that have the Euro” which essentially means Europe apart from the UK and Switzerland. First the Greek prime minister George Papandreou was forced out of his post first and any day now it will be bye bye Mr. Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. Creepy old Silvio no longer being in charge had got to be a good thing, as well as sleeping with all sorts of considerably younger women he has been in court for a whole number of things. Being an Italian prime minister is perhaps not the respected position it is in this country. I recently found out that a stupidly high percentage of prime minsters were found to be corrupt, with many having to force resign due to it. And if you weren’t found to corrupt you would probably be found dead instead it would seem. My top tip of the day: stay out of Italian politics.

Whilst the other members of the Eurozone argue internally, apparently France and Germany are busy trying to sort the whole thing out. Better late than never I guess. The radio said something about making a smaller Eurozone and it seems a lot like France and Germany deciding to ditch the less economically stable countries. It’s not like the French have not been known for running away from their problems is it? I just hope this economic slump, or whatever “technical” word the media decides it should be called next, is sorted out soon. Apparently the UK is back to 1992 levels of unhappiness. It was around that time when a special baby was born and everyone cheered up again. (That was me by the way). As far as I can see things won’t get better until I have a child, which I can promise you won’t be anytime soon. I know, I’m selfish.

Here’s a creepy thought for you: what if the credit crunch never really happened and none of it’s really real. All this debt the various governments are in: how do we know they really are in debt? They tell us they are and that’s why they are making cuts, but what if it’s all a massive lie. In 1984 the government tells the people what to think and changes history to suit this. And the scary thing is that it could actually be happening. Think about it. Almost anything about the economic slump could be made up or orchestrated by someone.

That’s conspiracy theory of the day done with now. The CIA will probably come and get me for that. Onto another story now and it’s News of the World Hackgate time. It turned out that the Sunday newspaper had hacked pretty much everyone’s phone, whether they were a celeb or family of a murder victim and there are various suggestions that they bribed the police and the like.The hearing is ongoing and whether they ever find someone to blame is questionable but we all know that it was a pretty horrible organisation. A fairly unknown MP called Tom Watson today said to the former boss James Murdoch “You must be the first mafia boss in history who didn't know he was running a criminal enterprise." Brilliant! We’re supposed to go “But he can’t say that” but actually we are all going “Nice one mate”. It seems likely that News International acted in many ways like the mafia and like the mafia, most of the people involved will probably get away with it.

Most disturbing story of the week: that some mothers in America are buying lollies purposely infected by chickenpox in an attempt to give their children chicken pox early to avoid them getting it later in life when it could be more serious. It’s just so wrong. How can making your children ill possibly ever be justified? Most children will end up getting it anyway and it’s rubbish that you can only get it once. Plenty of people get it more than once and in America they even vaccinate against it too. Ever since that Doctor linked the MMR vaccine to autism (he’s been struck off now) people across the world have been overly wary of them. The best thing is do what you are told to. Loads of experts are involved in making these decisions so do as they tell you. Chickenpox lollies indeed! Worst flavour ever!

And finally, Dr. Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter over the death of Michael Jackson. One wonders if he’s just become the one to blame. Or maybe he did massively mess up. Either way, perhaps the Jackson family and the world can finally move on now. Jackson should be remembered for his brilliant voice and the creator of modern pop music. Tracks like Thriller, Billie Jean and Beat It are so brilliant yet the poor man’s memory is being tainted by the way he died. Let’s let it go now, it’s sorted.

Living The Dream

2011-11-09T18:38:00.001Z

Hello! This week so far has been unusually productive. Well I say this week, I pretty much mean yesterday. My horrible English assignment is done and dusted and I’m rather pleased with it. It’s the best assignment I’ve written so far so I should get a decent grade unless I’ve somehow done something completely opposite to the mark scheme. As well as finishing this monstrosity I spent nearly three hours doing the resource audit bit of out group assignment. I had to review various resources that support inclusion of children with special educational needs in the classroom. It sounds vaguely interesting but turns out it really isn’t. But at least it looks like we are pretty much ready for our presentation on Monday. Today’s title is sarcastic based on all this. It would be a rubbish dream

In other news, I saw on the Uni website and opportunity to volunteer at the Olympics next summer and one of the positions was called “costume wearer”. Being one of the Olympic mascots walking around London would be amazing but it turns out the uni were talking out of their backside. Positions were only for lighting and production or costume making, both of which you need to be studying or have qualifications in. My mega-excitement was ripped apart.

However, I am doing something fairly exciting, although not exactly in Olympic levels. Myself and my housemate Dannie have signed up to do Superseed Challenge. They send you a seed and then you have to trade it for something better, and that trade that for something better. After four weeks you sell whatever you have at that point and the money goes to charity. Quite how we are going to go about this I don’t yet know but I will of course keep you updated with our progress. And if you’re friends with me on any social networks I may well be asking for your help so keep and eye out!

After all that work yesterday I went a bit crazy and decided to move my room around. I have a brand new layout which has created a bit more space. The desk is now under the shelves, where it looks like it belongs and the bed is now against a wall rather than stuck out in the middle of the room. It looks something like this. Well actually exactly like this:

It feels so much easier to live in than how it used to be set out.

It’s a bit rubbish when there is little more to life than doing essay writing. So little things become rather exciting. A new Co-op convenience store has been opened just round the corner from our house. In theory I can do most of my weekly shopping there. This cannot be a good thing for my already rather high laziness levels. And talking of new places, on Monday we went to a pub we’d not been to before. It was quite nice but had odd decorations. There were loads of keys hanging from the ceiling in one place and there was also a stuffed monkey wearing a tie and a kilt. We called him Nigel. You just couldn’t make it up. But apart from being weird the pub was ok with nice cider and a warm fire. If a pub’s got that perfect combination I will never complain that much.

And one last thing before I go! It seems all the rage for blogs to have Facebook Pages these days and as I like to be trendy, this blog now has one too. A link to every post will appear in the feed so if you “like” the page, every post will pop up. So it’s a handy way to read my blog regularly without putting too much effort in. Click the big Facebook button below.

That’s all for now, I shall see you very soon though!

Music Monday 2#

2011-11-07T14:46:00.001Z

It’s Monday and the new week has begun. It’s such a horrible feeling. But not to worry because I have five awesome tracks to cheer you up a little!

Let’s kick things off with a “classic”. Once upon a time I got pretty drunk and sang this song rather loudly and out of tune. The video of said dance has an embarrassing 300 views. It’s Shania Twain with That Don’t Impress Me Much. It’s the dance mix because it’s better and if you fancy the lyrics are there for a bit of a sing-song. Plus you can check out Shania’s hideous leopard print outfit.

Back to the modern day I think! This awesome little tracks is Gym Class Heroes and features Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine. In fact Mr. Levine sings most of this song. It’s a catchy little number which sort of compares love and music. Or something. Worth playing the video just to here the “yeah” at the end. It’s a good “yeah”.

This next song has really grown on me over the last few weeks. I like the song as a whole but the “Wiggle,wiggle,wiggle,wiggle” bit is pure awesome. It is LMFAO with Sexy and I Know It. I have chosen to put the lyrics video here because the actual video disturbed me. You can go and check it out if you wish but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Hurray, it’s David Guetta time! Him and Rihanna pretty much own the charts and this is one of the best tracks he has created recently. Usher gives us the vocals and it is called Without You. The video is a typical David Guetta video with some partying and Guetta not really doing a lot. It has a nice bit of tectonic movement though even if it goes against virtually everything I ever learnt in geology.

And finally it’s time for this week’s record of the week. And after loving their new album Mylo Xyloto, it has to be Coldplay. This song is Paradise and and the video is sheer brilliance. One of the best videos I have seen in a while. It features a man in an elephant costume. Perfect song and perfect video.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s selection, as always let me know and suggest any tracks for future editions. See you soon!

Thoughts From the Dungeon 3#

2011-11-06T19:21:00.001Z

It’s a Sunday so it means it’s time for me to talk rubbish for around six minutes. This week I talk about shoes, a fireworks display and other things too. Enjoy!