It is only fair, dear reader, to put you our of your misery. I did, with great courage, manage to survive my snakey ordeal. This was partly down to my own magnificence, partly down to heavy ethanol-therapy for the entire weekend, and partly down to the snake itself being mis-represented a bit. It was billed to me (whether through being told, or simply imagining it) as a lethally poisonous snake. This was not quite true. The snake was not poisonous to humans. It was still poisonous to mice and small rodents, but only really by virtue of it having bigger, sharper teeth. The threat this snake posed me was much more likely to be of the "oh bother, I appear to have soiled myself in fear" variety, than the marginally more unpleasant "oh dear, my foot/arm/head has fallen off from snake".

So, I managed to survive the snake. I also managed to survive the ethanol-therapy, the being-nice-and-polite-to-relatives, and even going to church. Now, I don't go to church very often, and hadn't really planned on it this weekend, but the family-gathering was due to my Uncle and Aunt having their 30th wedding anniversary, and they were renewing their vows during the normal Sunday service. Unfortunately, nobody had informed me that this would be happening (of certainly not informed me until I had understood) so I was forced to attend this occasion in a scabby t-shirt. Classy. The service (in between the bits where you have to stand and try to sing, and the bits where you have to look solemn while everybody does the chanting/praying bits) gave me some time to think. That weekend I was reading Louis Theroux's excellent book The Call Of The Weird where he travels through a lot of American sub-cultures, including visiting/revisiting some cults. It struck me how cult-like the religious ceremony was. But then of course, that's the wrong way around, it's cults which base themselves on religions, not the other way around.

Perhaps, then, it was that mindset that got me stuck with another of my cretinous irrational fears. You know when you get stuck on something, and your mind won't let it go? Well, my mind got stuck on the possibility that the (very nice, and actually quite funny) vicar would be carrying on with the service, and then break into "and so we say, as one... KILL THE UNBELIEVERS!!!". Now, the likelihood of this happening is admittedly pretty small, and I recon I would have had a good shot at outrunning most of the (largely elderly) congregation, but even so, it managed to lodge itself firmly in my brain on loop, and didn't remove itself until I was safely outside.

I have some sad news to report. My car, Jennifer (don't ask) is dying a bit. Not only has the driver's-side lock jammed, meaning I have to lean inelegantly in through the passenger door to unlock it/her, the clutch is now failing as well. This is a bugger, as it means that I have to be extra careful in my driving until it's fixed, my already rather stunted acceleration power is even further limited, by the fact that the clutch doesn't take if I push it too hard, and finally unless I concentrate super-hard on driving, the engine spins wildly and embarrassingly every time I change gear. This is upsetting. Hopefully I can get her patched up soon.

Anyway, on to nicer things. Yesterday, finally accepted that summer had arrived, and shed my winter-coat. I had been getting used to my long hair, but it was getting a bit unwieldy, and it had to go. I am now near-bald, and it is refreshingly cool. The hairdresser was amusing about it, how much I wanted off.

"What'll it be?"
"A 5 on top, and a 4 'round the sides"
"Really?"
"Yes, it is a bit shorter..."
"It's a LOT shorter"
"Yes, I know."
"I mean, there'll be no curls left'
"yes... I know..."

It took him a while to accept that I wasn't going to have a breakdown in his shop when he removed my cherubic curls, and that I really did know what I wanted.

To celebrate my new-found hair-freedom, I went for a drink in town. Upper-street, for all of you cool-cats who know about that sort of thing. It was pretty cool, we even bumped into Alan Davies at the bar. But the best bit was on the way home, when we found a toy by the bus-stop. It is a small plastic model of a ninja-cat of some variety, doing some form of martial-art. If you press a button on his back, his legs kick and everything. Brilliantly, his arm also twists around, and doing so makes it look as if he is performing a number of different actions, from break-dancing to interpretive dance. A great find. I sort-of feel a bit sorry for the kid who lost him, but then again... free toy... so...

Anyway, I'm off to bask like a lizard in the sunshine.

Distress.

Today is, so far, not a good day. It has started off with me cowering in my room, hiding from our new cleaner, who is bustling loudly with a hoover and various other instruments of hygiene. I shouldn't complain, as this is a radical departure from our last cleaner, who failed rather regularly to make anything noticeably cleaner. Her departure from tenure was brought about by her completing her descent into total laziness, and failing to even turn up to collect her money.

Losing old-cleaner, however, has been a bit of a double-edged sword. For all her many faults, she was at least trained to leave my room well alone. This meant that my intricately piled belongings would remain undisturbed, rather than filed in interesting places around my room. This would be a relatively minor inconvenience, however I am not feeling particularly on top of my game today.

This is due to having very little sleep. I could NOT get to sleep last night at all. After about an hour of trying, I put on a podcast, to see if that would make me drop off. It didn't. Then at about 2am, the telephone downstairs started making hideous noises. It has been making these noises for a few days, but we were waiting to see if the "fix" performed yesterday night had worked. After unplugging the telephone, and clumping back upstairs with some refreshing swearing, I tried again to get to sleep. This time, I was marginally more successful, and managed to drop off, only to awake at the end of a full-on sweating screaming nightmare.

I am not somebody who dreams. I mean, I have the occasional one, but by and large I don't tend to have any sort of dreams which I remember in the morning. If I do, they are usually unbelievably tedious, and tend to just be me going through normal boring life, with only a marginally higher proportion of naked ladies. Anyway, this means that having bad dreams is even more of a rarity to me, and this one took me by surprise. Although the details have (mercifully) faded from my memory, the dream was largely about the menacing and immediate threat of being bitten by a poisonous snake.

Now, I'll stop you there. Some of you may be among those who believe in the "meaning" of dreams will be analysing this. The snake, a phallic symbol, very Freudian, the nightmare, anxiety... etc etc etc... Blah blah blah. I hold roughly as much stock in dream analysis as I do in magic crystals or organised religion. I can offer a much more simple (and less pervy) explanation, in two parts. 1) I am shit-scared of snakes. 2) I am going to be near one at the weekend.

1) My terror at snakes. I have always been afraid of snakes, but then I have until relatively recently been a bit scared by most animals. Anything big and cowardly, like a horse or a cow, was fine as long as they were at a distance. Dogs were fine as long as they were both small and not moving quickly or barking. Little things like mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters etc etc, were also fine, as long as I was nowhere near the sharp end of them. This has changed however, recently. Partly because I am now an adult, and having a fear of cuddly animals is less-than-manly but mainly because spending time working with little furry things has sort of immunised me a bit. I am pretty much fine with most things with fur.

Not so snakes. Snakes are still absolutely horrific. A proper, blood-curdling fear. I don't even like looking at pictures of snakes. Oddly, I can sort of tolerate looking at them in a zoo, because I know they are behind 2 inches of bullet-proof glass (SHUT UP, THEY ARE BEHIND THAT MUCH GLASS, PLEASE DON'T RUIN THE ZOO FOR ME!!!), and are looked after by highly trained snake-wranglers, such that they definitely won't escape. Going to the zoo is therefore scary, but tolerable. People who keep private snakes, however, are another matter.

2) My proximity to snakes. This weekend is a family gathering to celebrate the wedding anniversary of my Uncle and Aunt. It should be one of those nice affairs with lots of booze and tasty nibbly food, and relatives remarking (with bumbling surprise) how much you've grown over the last 6 years. Anyway, this would be fine, except that at the house where it's being held, down in Brighton, there is a snake. As far as I am aware, it is a poisonous snake. This could have been fine. I could have convinced myself that it was fine, and that the cage really was made of the same bullet-proof zoo-glass, and my cousin has become a master snake-wrangler. Except for the fact that I know that the snake has previously escaped from its cage, and eaten their hamster.

It's difficult, unless you have a phobia of anything yourself, to explain how this makes me feel. Even the pretty-certain knowledge that everything WILL be fine, fails to make the prospect of the weekend spent near the serpent any less daunting. Even some (brief) research on the internet that suggests that the snake isn't even actually that poisonous to humans. No matter. It's a snake and it might escape, and if it does, it's certain to make a bee-line straight for me and eat me.

Sigh. On to nicer things. I have been busy bumbling around having a nice summer. A trip to the beach the other week was pretty cool. As evidenced by this exciting album of photographs (you'll need a facebook account to see them). The only thing that really needs explaining is the victory fish and chips. These were my prize for a bet between myself and my brother. It stemmed from a conversation a bit like this.

"My car is rubbish"
"it's still a car though"
"yeah, barely, about 12 horsepower..."
"Nonsense, you know nothing about power"
"Okay, how much has it got then?"
"Got to be well over a hundred".
"fine, bet you a fish&chips it's less than a hundred"
"you're definitely going to lose, you know nothing about power."

Predictably, the answer was somewhere between 12 and a hundred, at fifty, and my Brother, with his masters in Engineering, sheepishly paid up.

Other than that, I have been gainfully "employed" as a taxi driver extraordinaire (which other cab-service offers you fees of zero, and Lionel Richie at full-volume for entertainment?) and cultural guru. Two film recommendations for you today. The first is Stardust. It's a "fantasy adventure" that feels very much like a childrens fairytale, but surprise of surprises, it's actually really very good. The cast helps of course, with Ian McKellen, Sienna Miller, Peter O'Toole, Mark Heap, Rupert Everett, David Walliams, Michelle Pfiffer, Robert De Niro, and Ricky Gervais, just some of the names involved. You could say it's a bit of an all-star cast. The writing is also pretty fabulous, and despite the ending being as predictable as day following night, the film is good enough for that not to matter.

The second is Wall-E. By rights I should have hated this film. It's one of those CGI fests, where graphics tend to take precedent over all else. It also manages to be preachy about both the decay of our planet and our obesity epidemic, hardly what I would class as entertainment. It finishes with a nauseating Peter Gabriel track, and even worse, the central character is a rip-off of Johnny 5, from one of my favourite films of my childhood. And yet... I absolutely loved it. Why? Because it's an absolute masterpiece. The character of Wall-E the robot is only capable of very limited speech, and so much of the film relies on the message being conveyed by subtle movements of the robot(s) themselves. It really is magnificent, capturing a childlike innocence, and joy of exploration of the world, even one set in a post-apocalyptic rubbish-dump wasteland. But it also manages to have some excellent little quirky touches, like the fact that his recharge-noise is the apple boot-up sound, or the fact that as he crashes into some satellites, one of them is Sputnik. These little subtle touches combine to make a good film utterly splendid and spectacular. Not just the best CGI film I've ever seen, but up there with my favourite ever films. Genuinely. Drop whatever you are doing and go to the cinema to see it.

Right, other matters, and my fast-evaporating music review. Fresh from radiohead, my first big pop-gig ever (even having realised, foolishly, that it was in fact my second, having gone to see the MTV Hits Spanking New Music Tour last year) I went to another one. The iTunes music festival, now in its second year, is currently running at KoKo in Camden, with tickets being free via an internet raffle. The other night I went down and caught one with my Brother, a double bill consisting of Lykke Li, and the Guillemots. Lykke Li is kind of like Bjork, except she's Swedish not Icelandic, and she is perhaps marginally less bonkers, but only marginally. The set was funky and upbeat, jumping between pleasingly varied short songs, each pleasingly as mad as a box of frogs. The crowning insanity of the set was a kazoo solo.

Anyway, the main act, the Guillemots, absolutely stormed it. They are apparently one of THE live acts to see at the moment, and they lived up to this reputation. They rocked. Hard. It was a high octane show, and at times they absolutely stormed it. But there were also some much more tender songs, and the highlight of the set for me was when the lead singer introduced a special guest, and Martha Wainwright joined the band for a couple of numbers. Bonus! I certainly got my money's worth.

Anyway, I'm off. My lunch becons, before an afternoon of hard taxi-driving. Today's cartoon is a moan about petrol prices.

toothpastefordinner.com

Nighty night.

Garnier Rapaedo.

So, the other day I was watching television, and the adverts came on. One in particular was for Garnier "Rapido" sun cream. I noticed that "rapido" sounded a little bit like "paedo".

Just 4 short hours of pissing with a video editing programme, and the advert was greatly improved.


Indeed...

Culture.

So, after another long and fairly inexplicable bout of laziness, I am back at the keyboard. So, what on earth has been filling my days, and keeping me away so long?

Well, I have finally moved out of the west country and back to London for the foreseeable future (if by foreseeable, you mean until the end of the summer) in a highly planned and well-executed exercise. Instead of loading up the car and heading straight back along the M4 and home (this is the most sensible route) I decided to take a slight (72 hour) detour around liverpool. In a little over-laden noddy-car such as mine, that is no mean feat, but there was a rather good motive.

You see, I have this friend, a friend in high places. He not only works atop the tallest building in the whole of liverpool, but he is a big cheese at the main commercial radio station there, Radio City. Okay, I'll stop exaggerating. He does indeed work for that radio station, but it is only the second tallest building in liverpool, and he isn't right on the top floor, and by "big cheese", I mean "reads the news for which he is paid like a slave. Here he is. Look, isn't he sexy? The job is not entirely without its perks, however, perks that drew me to the capital of culture 2008 in the first place. The chief one of these is a pair of free tickets to go and see Radiohead. Radiohead are a pretty bloody good band when they are recorded onto a CD, but seeing them live is pretty bloody spectacular. They played pretty much all of their new CD, filling in the gaps with the old favourites from their back catalogue, and absolutely all of it was mind-blowing spectacular. Personal highlights were "idioteque" and "just", but absolute favourite was "everything in its right place, where they used this peculiar hanging light-display thing, and scrolled the lyrics of the song over the band's head. Absolutely awesome.

Here is a video I took, showing just about how far back we were, the awesome flashy light things, and the video screens at either side.


As strange as it may seem (given my obvious music-fetish) that was about the first "pop" gig I've ever been to. Classical and jazz notwithstanding, and ignoring dodgy "band in the corner of a pub/student union" gigs, that is my very first. It certainly would have been the first I'd paid for... had the tickets not been free... Anyway, radiohead were utterly splendid, and I had a big smile on my face throughout.

Whilst in the grim frozen north (admittedly, it was a lot sunnier up there than it was in Wimbledon...) I encountered a couple of bits of culture. One of which was the "super lamb bananas", which adorn the streets.

Mmmm... cultural...

The second of which was the Anthony Gormley sculptures on the beach. I very much like Anthony Gormley, having been to his exhibition in London and was excited to hear there was some of his stuff on the beach not 5 minutes from my friend's house. Well, upsettingly, the quality of our friendship is NOT matched by the quality of his direction-giving, and we ended up walking in a 45-minute circle, arriving at the beach far too late for any sensible photography of the sculptures, over a hundred life-size male figures, cast in bronze, all up the shoreline. We were very cultural when we looked at them.


And we DIDN'T hide behind them...


Upsettingly, (or perhaps handily) photographic evidence of any further "acts" with the statues are at present unavailable.

Anyway, pleased that I had really experienced the cultural life of liverpool, I headed for home. This is a lot easier said than done. My car is NOT built for motorway travel. Especially when it is laden down with clothes, computer, and cookware. Driving it, when laden in this manner, is rather like driving a bungalow. Only with less acceleration. And worse handling. If I wanted to crawl along at 55 in the lorry-lane, this was all fine, until of course the lorries started EALLy slowing down, and I had to overtake. There's something terrifying, in a very real sense, about having to fully commit to accelerating for an overtaking manouver roughly 45 seconds before you actually pull out, just to build up enough speed. This is compounded by the certain knowledge (gained whilst wrestling the car to a stop in the services) that your brakes are merely a decorative feature, and pressing them has no connection to slowing the car down. Ah, modern motoring, an excitement every minute. But, it wasn't all bad. The car also has no air conditioning, and a crappy ventilation system, meaning it was like driving a mobile sauna, and of course, opening the window just lets more hot air in, and means the "whisper-quiet" ride is made even louder. A roll of electrican insulation tape I happened to have in the boot actually melted on the journey back, the car got so hot.

No, I am being a bit unfair, there was some nice things. The ability to sing along to Lionel Richie, at full volume, with total impunity, is a great joy ("That's why I'm ea-sy"..." Ah, ah, ah ah"... "Easy like sunday mor-ning"...) and there really is something very childishly satisfying about doing an enormous smelly poo somewhere you are never likely to return, then driving away at great speed.

So, I arrived back in London relatively safe and sound, and have had a pretty quiet week. At the weekend I went back and did a gig with HYM, the youth music organisation I used to play with, which was nice, but not particularly inspiring, and today I went shopping for a new computer mouse and didn't but it. (indicentally, the mouse I want is this one, and it is awesome...). About the most exciting thing I have done is watch the tennis final. Yeah, life is a dizzy rollercoaster.

Right, have I waffled on for long enough? No? Then it's time for a film revue. When I first saw the trailers for This is England, I was put right off. It looked like one of those violence-centered films that appeal only to the perpetually adolescent. My initial impression, however, could not have been more wrong. From start to finish the film is gritty, moving, and utterly inspired. The main character, a troubled 12 year old boy growing up in the early eighties, gets taken under the wing of a local skinhead gang. This rowdy-but-affable bunch are just the gateway, however, to a much darker and more sinister world of xenophobia and hatred, which comes to a terrifying head at the end of the film. The real magic and beauty of the film comes not (fairly obviously) from the violence, but from the way it tries to explain the violence, and the way it has come about. It's a film with some really tender moments, as well as scenes of heart-wrenching inevitability and sadness at the climax. An absolute must-see.

Some other things that have been pleasing me this week. As I leave Bristol, this magnificent news story has caught my eye. "Please don't cut down the bushes, as that will make us have to stop our illegal outdoor sex, which is discrimination". Now, I have nothing against people going up to the downs fopr a spot of light bumming, but complaining against making the area more family-friendly on the grounds of discrimination sounds like a bridge too far to me...

There's also this little gem of an essay which I found this morning. Why nerds are unpopular. Well worth a read.

Just briefly, before I go and throw away my ovaltine (long hot car journey has not done it any favours, taste-wise) and head for bed, I dealt with my facebook problems. I accepted the "I've forgotten who you are, but am willing to accept that it's my fault" one, and rejected the psychopath. Thus-far, no scary people have hunted me down. As ever, I'll keep you posted.

toothpastefordinner.com

Ah, science-jokes.

Social niceties.

Ho hum. A few things have been playing on my mind the last few days. My mum is (as I type) on her way to grab most of my stuff in the big car and send it back to London. I am going to follow later in the little noddy car. The weird thing is not that, but where it's being sent. As in, which place is "home". When I first started at university, many moons ago, home was London and I felt awful the first time I said "home" to my parents, meaning Bath, not London. They probably barely noticed, but it felt a bit strange to me, viewing somewhere else as home. Then again, the other day, when I was talking about the procedure for getting my stuff between Bristol and London, I referred to both places as "home" in the same conversation. I mean, the truth is that nowhere really feels like "home" at the moment.

I have not really lived in this house (Bristol House) for long enough for it to really feel comfortable enough to call it "home". I still feel too uncomfortable to walk to the bathroom in the dead of night in just my pants, which is as good yardstick as any to measure "homeliness" with, but yet coming back to London the other weekend didn't really feel like coming home either. Not to say that it's not still nice, comfortable and familiar, I just don't feel settled and "permanent" there any more. And that's a really strange state of affairs. So where do I call "home" then? Well, for the time being, I have decided to start defining it as wherever my CD collection happens to be at any given moment. This will mean that for a while, my "home" will be a car somewhere along the M4, but it's as good a measure as any.

Now, more oddness, this time concerning the delicate etiquette of facebook. Facebook, (for those of you in the peculiar situation of being able to find this blog and still not know about it) is one of those exciting social networking things, where you can find your real friends online and have superficial meaningless typed conversations with them, and/or find near-total strangers, and have superficial meaningless typed conversations with them. It's a revolution!

Anyway, the etiquette surrounding the process of "friending" somebody can be delicate. To reject the olive branch of friendship is pretty much the ultimate slam, almost as bad as accepting the offer and THEN deleting them. The easy way is of course to just accept all offers of friendship, and make facebook a meaningless collection of half-remembered people who you never really wanted to talk to in the first place.

I currently have two pending reqests, neither of which I have worked out what to do with. In one case, the individual is one I haven't seen for quite some years. At least, I think it's been years. To be perfectly frank, I have absolutely zero memory of this individual. None. Not an ounce. To reject their friendship coul be rude, but what if I've blocked them out for a reason, and we were actually mortal enemies? And in fairness, if I have forgotten entirely about your existance, EVEN when prompted with a photograph of you, are we really going to be that good friends? Doesn't look likely...

The second pending friend request is equally problematic, of not more so. It's somebody I remember very well, chiefly because I utterly loathe and despise them. Every time we meet (which is mercifully infrequently) I am cold and indifferent, not wanting to make a scene, but they are just about the most reppelant human being I have ever had the misfortune to come across. Rude, obnoxious, aggressive, violent, sexual politics of an orang-utan, and generally utterly repulsive. I would be very happy to never have any dealings with them again. And yet... I can't bring myself to reject his offer. Partly out of popriety (I have never actually voiced any of my opinions to him, and a snub such of this out of the blue would be cruel) and partly because I am a little bit scared of him. If you are reading this, and think it describes you... then... er... it doesn't. Please don't hurt me.

Right, as it's taken me about 3 days to finish just that little bit, I'll call it a day. Film and music reviews soon...

Pretty. Bloody. Awesome.

Today has been a rather good day. Well, I say rather good, when what I really mean is pretty damn world-class awesome.

It started fairly inauspiciously, with an alarm going off at 7 am. 7 am is never a nice time of day to be woken up by an alarm, an particularly not so when you have to actually get up and get ready to work. Urgh. Anyway, after a balanced and nutritious breakfast of tea and doughnuts, it was time for a quick blast on the internet, where I came upon this. Apart from the photographer using the one photograph where we're all making jazz hands and looking like we ride the special-bus, it's not too shabby i suppose. Anyway, it put me in a good frame of mind before I set off to school.

School has been a bit of an odd one the last few days. I mean, I was expecting it to be a bit different from my old school, the kids to be little horrors and everything to be a bit scary, but it's not quite as bad as my worst predictions. In fact, even the worst classes I've seen have looked as though they'd be at least fairly manageable. Ish. Anyway, it was the last lesson of the day that was really awesome. One of the teachers had a lesson planned to demonstrate a dissection of a sheep's heart and lungs, and as I was a biologist and she a physicist, she let me do the demonstration and the dissection instead. It was pretty strange doing dissction again as I haven't done it in years, but the really cool thing was the kids (and this is not the most well behaved class in the world) were actually quiet and interested and paying atention, even asking intelligent questions. It was pretty awesome, in spite of the gore.

If that wasn't exciting enough, apparently I am being let loose teaching an entire lesson next week as well, which should be pretty cool. Yup, school is pretty much awesome. As a brief school-related aside, I was directed today to the tv show Summer Heights High. Tres funny.

I was also directed to this awesome link, J.K. Rowling doing a speech at a Harvard Graduation ceremony. Pretty awesome. I hope there is a speech like that at my graduation ceremony...

Oh... yeah... there's 1 more thing. I checked the university intranet today, and just happened to glance at the "marks checker" page, and again, just happened to catch out of the corner of my eye that my results have been posted for the year.

Now, these aren't official. Well, they are official, but not OFFICIAL official. They still need to be checked by the exam board next week, and it won't be until the 3rd of July that I find out for CERTAIN certain, but unless they knock me down by about 15% in every exam (about as likely as hell freezing over), I am coming out with a first. BooYah! Even the exam in which I was pretty sure I had scraped a pass at best, I was a high 2:2, more than adequate.

Yeah, you could say that today has been pretty bloody awesome indeed.

Awards, RRB's, and lumberjacking.

It's been a bit of a roller-coaster week. There has been a number of rather good things, as well as (of course) some mild stupidity on my part.

Thursday saw the awards ceremony, which was a rather strange occasion. On one hand it was a really, really nice evening, wearing the nice suit, all dressed up, and getting an award. It was nice to see my Mother and Sister trying their very hardest not to be too offensive in the polite company, and also highly amusing making "cripple" jokes to the shocked faces of my friends. To clarify, my sister (the one currently using a wheelchair) doesn't mind the gentle mockery at her predicament. Incidentally, the present I mentioned a couple of posts down was a cup-holder for her wheelchair. On the other hand, however, it was a really strange occasion because with the odd exception, I am unlikely ever to see these people again, and they've been really good friends. A bit sad.

This sadness, however, was tempered by the excitement of the weekend. Friday saw a journey back to London in my mum's car (augmented by some tremendously exciting cutlery shopping) and a chance to eat food that was neither (a) bought in a restaurant or (b) largely consisting of frozen peas, the main businesses of the weekend began.

Saturday during the daytime was a time for exceptional Ray Mears-esque manliness. I chopped down a big tree with an axe. I am man, hear me roar. The tree was some tremendously ugly palm-tree-like thing, covered with dusty ivy and leaning alarmingly over our Neighbour's car. It clearly had to be removed. Now admittedly, the lion's share of the actual WORK was divided up with me and my Dad, him being the only one of us willing to perch up a ladder wielding an electric saw above his head to remove the top branches, but when it got down to lopping off the main tree bit, the big trunk, that was my job. The saw kept binding in the rather wet wood, and this gave me the chance to scamper off and grab the axe.

Now, I will admit that I had been angling to use the axe for most of the day. I would have been using it to take the lid off the milk in the morning and spread butter on my toast if left to my own devices, because playing with an axe is brilliant. After being told (in no uncertain terms) that it was NOT the correct tool for removing the ivy (boring, rather un-manly clippers were apparently much more sensible) I worked diligently, biding my time until I was allowed to wield the axe.

Now, excited as I was to be allowed to chuck this axe around, this excitement wore a bit thin somewhat quickly. The axe I was using was not a big, manly felling-axe, it was a much more ladylike hand-axe. So, instead of taking big, productive swings at the tree, I was reduced to rather less flamboyant chopping. Even this has left my fingers and shoulders rather painful a day later. Anyway, I was, in the end, triumphant over the tree. Here is a picture of me and my chopper, in sweaty triumph. Ah, a double-entendre that's brilliant either way!



After rinsing alarming quantities of foliage, it was time to don my finest black-tie, and un-do all of my previous energetic exercise with a big meal, and lots of wine. A friend's rather civilised 21st birthday celebrations at the local golf club was the setting, and considering that by the end of the evening I had almost entirely forgotten the pain in my arms, I think I did rather well. I mean, I still have scratches up my arms that look like I've been juggling cats, three of my fingers are so stiff I can't quite straighten them, and my shoulder is about twice the size it is normally, but it feels good.

Right, on to more depressing matters. Rail Replacement Busses. There is not much more depressing (certainly in the field of mass transportation) than to be told that your train is to be replaced with a bus, and there isn't a blind bit you can do about it. Urgh. It added probably about an hour onto total journey time, and the break in the middle meant I couldn't risk snoozing on the train (or indeed the rail replacement bus) but there were some up-sides. The bus-driver was pleasingly mental, his phone went off repeatedly with this ringtone, which pleased me greatly. His hands-free also was amusingly loud, enough to hear the conversation all along the coach. Nice and bonkers.

Anyway, with a few details brushed aside, we are up to date, and I am off for an early night. I start my school placement tomorrow morning, and want to be fresh for it. Especially considering that I have a nagging fear that they will have forgotten I am coming, as I haven't spoken to anybody from the school in a couple of weeks, and they have always seemed rather busy and distraced when I have spoken to them. Fingers crossed it'll be okay...

No music again today, I got a brilliant new album, and really wanted to listen to it, but then left it in the CD player at home, like the idiotic boob I am. And I got my chopper out for the earlier photo, which covers the comedy image meaning we're all wrapped up.

I'm not saying people are stupid... but...

I was at the supermarket today, picking up a few essentials. The bill came to £3.33. The budding genius behind the till rang up the produce, took the fiver I offered him as payment, and then looked pained.

"I've rung this up wrong..."
"Sorry?"
"I've put in £4, not £5, and it's going to give you the wrong change..."

Oh. My. God. Genuinely this wretched creature couldn't handle adding a pound to the change he gave me, and had to be told what change to give. Painful.

Oh dear.

You know when you have a moment of clarity, and suddenly realise that you've done something remarkably stupid? Yes... I have...

I am getting a prize this thursday, for services to music at the university. This is most excellent. It also means I get to meet the composer "David Fanshawe" who as well as being a famous composer, is also apparently very pleasingly bonkers. My kind of fellow. There is also free food and booze, which can only increase the overall excellence level. To "share the wealth", I invited my mother and sister. So far so good. But...

My sister is still in a wheelchair, and the building where the ceremony is being held (The Royal West of England Academy) is a very large grand building. Of course the ceremony is on the top floor, and of course, there are, to my recollection, no lifts. I am wondering if my invite is going to look a bit like mockery.

Of course, the last and only time I was there was a year ago, when my quintet were playing at the event. I made full use of the free alcohol, so my memory the place may be a tad flakey, but still.

Ah well, at least I got her a good birthday present. And by good, I mean useful, but ever-so-slightly rude and offensive. Bugger...

The painful and the peculiar.

I am a little irritable today. This is due to having to sit a bit oddly on my (already not-very-comfortable) chair. This is in turn due to a golf-ball-sized lump of insect bite on my back, which again in turn is due to some ill-advised smug-ness...

On sunday, I was out in the park, going for a nice walk with a nice young lady, and developing the pinkish-red tinge that is what passes for a sun-tan on me. Although this didn't seem to have much of a positive effect on my lady-companion, the insects around and about were having a field day, and I glanced down at one point to see a very large horse-fly feasting on my ankle. I managed to swap him away, just as he broke the skin, but seemingly had shooed him off before he had managed to inject anything particularly nasty, and I escaped what could have been a rather nasty bite. Our whole family tend to attract insect bites rather readily, and they have been known to swell pretty alarmingly (once swelling up so much as to render my long-suffering mother blind in one eye). Naturally, I was rather pleased with myself at having averted a minor disaster, and felt just a little bit smug. That as, of course, until I felt a familiar itchy prickly sensation on my back, and found where the real damage had been done. And the one on my ankle has come up a bit today as well. Bother.

Other than providing a light snack for small insects, I have been relatively good the last few days. I watched a lot of the french open tennis, and generally chilled myself out rather spectacularly. It has been nice. Unfortunately this relaxation has meant I have slipped into a rather lazy routine, meaning that increasingly 1am seems like a perfectly reasonable time to put a film on, and 9am seems like the middle of the night. This would be fine if I didn't have to be back on a normal school-day next week. I think I am going to have to get back into work-mode rather sharpish.

Another thing that is going to have to find it's way into work mode is my hair. It's been rather a long time since I had it cut, and it is getting rather excitingly out of control. For the most part this is fine. While my daily activities consist of the internet and maybe wandering off for a pint of milk, I really don't need my hair to be anything more than clean, but there are a number of things coming up for which I need to be a bit smarter. There is the big prize ceremony on Thursday, where I get paraded in front of the great and the good of the university, and a visiting dignitary, for being good at music, and then of course my school placement next week, for which I think vaguely respectable is the very least I should appear. I am either going to have to get it cut, or learn rather quickly how to make it not look like I've fallen through a hedge backwards...

Today's music. Hmmm... it's a puzzler today. I am in a fairly tight financial situation at present, and my CD-shopping has been rather limited. Thus any free music I find is pretty cool, as I can hear new interesting stuff without feeling guilty. Todays comes from here, the Avant Garde Project, which is a collection of avant garde music put on the net for free for anybody to download and listen to. In particular, today I have been listening to the "editor's choice" sampler disks. This stuff is, in a word, bonkers. I mean, really mad. Mad as a bag of weasels. Odd, seemingly unrelated collections of noises and sounds, some bits electronic, some produced by instruments, all pretty completely impenetrable. I am completely flummoxed by this stuff, and have no idea whether it's good or bad, even whether it's enjoyable or not. I genuinely can't even tell. Madness. If you fancy a listen, you're going to have to find something to play "FLAC" files, but the very excellent "VLC" media player is free, and also a darn site better than windows media player for video files as well, so not a problem. Handy hint, of you start playing the file, and it sounds like somebody dropping their keys into a washing machine, and killing an otter, then don't adjust your set, it appears to be meant to sound like that. Who knew?

Right, I am off to read my book in the sunshine for a bit. Ah, the joys of summer.

marriedtothesea.com

Indeed.

Morons. (Me, obviously, but mainly others...)

Since coming back to Bristol, I have been hit with my new-found freedom. It's great being able to just do things when you want. Really feels nice not to be tied down to revision, and be able to go and do fun things whenever I want.

This... fun... however, is sometimes a bit more than I can handle. Yesterday, I sort of accidentally ended up going to laser-quest. It started innocently enough, I needed to send a letter or some forms or something to one of the MANY people I need to be sending a letter and/or forms to, so I nipped to campus to buy an envelope. On the way, I got stopped by a couple of my musician friends. "We're going to laser-quest". They said. "Would you like to come?".

"LORD, NO!", my mind screamed at me, "It will be full of idiot children screaming and sweating, running around like idiots, and still being better at it than you. You will get hot, sweaty, and embarrassed, and you'll probably feel stupid." This is what I should have said out-loud, but in the spirit of adventure I decided to play along with the game, and go to laser-quest.

Our "session", after a nutritious trip to McDonald's for dinner, started at 8pm and by 8.01, I realised I'd made an error. Laser-quest is like a disco. It is dark, and there is loud music. This music wanders between "shit" and "painfully shit", and also between "loud" and "pant-shittingly-loud". It is also hot, and full of what I SINCERELY hope was dry-ice, but could well have been just vaporised body-odour. It smelt very much like the latter. So far, so good, but unlike a real disco, there wasn't even the mitigating element of over-priced dubious-quality alcohol. This whole sinister experience was conduced stone-cold sober.

Now, the "point" of laser-quest, as I understood from our ten-minute "safety briefing", is to shoot your laser-gun at anything that has flashing lights on it, and to avoid getting hit yourself. So, as well as all of the other horribleness going on, small children are doing their best to blind you with a thousand tiny laser-pointers. Not only that, but a good number of the children were cheating, holding their fingers over their "kill zones" (the bits you had to shoot at that made you win and them lose) so they could stand their zapping you (me) with gay, reckless abandon.

As you can tell, I didn't have an enormous amount of fun. At the end of our 45-minute session, I was firmly of the opinion that it was 6 pounds rather unwisely spent. Then I saw the scores. Incredibly, I had come 4th (out of 16), the best from our little group, and even managing to beat one of the group of chavs who clearly viewed themselves as semi-pro. To congratulate myself, I bought a slush puppy, (a "drink" consisting entirely of crushed ice, coloured poison and sugar) and nearly left my new phone behind. Highly successful. I don't think I'm going to go back to laser-quest.

Right, time for something amusing. Today, I stumbled upon a website. It is called spEak You’re bRanes. It is one of the best things that exists, in the whole world. One of the most horrific things to happen to the internet, and in particular internet-news is the "Have Your Say" section. This is designed expressly for... well... idiots, to spout off nonsensically about the news topic in question, or indeed, not about the news topic in question, just about their own personal stupidity. For example...

Voted for the first time this year… well, I say vote but actually mean ruined my ballot. I wanted to vote BNP but saw there was nobody standing for BNP in my area so instead I drew the flag of Saint George and in big letters wrote ‘BNP FOR ENGLAND’. I know it won’t count but it shows where my loyalty is.

LukeTheDude, Soham

That’s very good. Shall we stick it on the fridge next to the fire engine?

By the way, you should remember to take a red crayon next time, otherwise it looks like you’re voting for Finland.

Yup, that's just one example. The site is chock full of them. Here are a few more of my personal favourites...
spEak You’re bRanes » Atom John, Racist
spEak You’re bRanes » Open Your Eyes
spEak You’re bRanes » Will Somebody Think of the Children?
spEak You’re bRanes » Penny, USA
..
Is it okay to laugh at these people? Yes. Should it be encouraged? Yes.

Hmmm... now time for some music. The CD is a "best of", from the frankly awesome band, Irakere. This collection, whilst being far from exhaustive, gives a magnificent flavour of their particular flamboyant cuban jazz. From the opening squealed trumpet riffs and dancing percussion, it's an absolute treat, giving a far better taste of summer than the luke-warm drizzle that's falling around outside. One track in particular is truly amazing. It's a re-working of an Adagio theme by Mozart, and it's possibly the funkiest thing in the world. Go. Buy it. Listen to it. You won't be sorry. And if a certain person is reading... Yes, I have remembered it's your CD, not mine, and I fully intend to return it one of these days.

No picture today, I think...

Idiocy, broken wings and paperbacks.

It feels like forever since I've sat here and had enough energy or inclination to fill you (my non-specific "reader" figure) in with the smudged-over-details, and embelished half-truths that constitute my day. It has been about 2 weeks since I finished my exams, and I am just about getting my brain back into some semblance of working order. It's a curious and counter-intuitive phenomenon that during the build-up to exams, I get stupider and stupider. I tried some maths the other day, and managed to incorrectly add up two double-digit numbers. Yes, my mind is rather pathetic.

It is still rather pathetic today, but (handily) in a more amusing way. Ad it was today's event that triggered me to jump back to my keyboard and do some typing. So, I was at the supermarket, stocking up on mints, ribena, and other sundries. I was wearing a "hilarious" t-shirt in the supermarket, one with a slogan that reads "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant." As well as obtaining some rather incredulous looks from passing children, it also got me into a spot of stupidity at the counter. The checkout girl made a comment along the lines of "Pregnant, eh? That's surprising for a boy!".

Now, in my head, I quickly formulated a great riposte. My line was meant to be "You're surprised? What do you think my mum said?!". Unfortunately, in the yawning chasm between my brain and mouth, some of the words got broken, and the sentence I actually managed to produce was "You're pregnant? What do you think my mum said?". Note the subtle, yet tremendously important difference. I picked up my packed of dishwasher tablets, and paid for my shopping in silence.

Upsettingly, I then left the supermarket to find my car wasn't quite in the condition I left it. The left wing mirror of my car was hanging off, all disheveled and bent. It has happened before, and the wing mirror already sported a fetching gaffa-tape and wood-screw mend. Seeing this after he had knocked it off, the culprit presumably thought that they had only knocked it gently, and it was the wing-mirror's fault, and therefore didn't stay around to apologise. Mercifully, with some careful ramming of the thing back into position, and some replacement electrical insulation tape from B&Q, the thing is as good as new. Well, if not new, at least nearly as good as this morning.

So, language and car-maintenance issues aside, how is the rest of my world? Well, not entirely without incidence. I have finished my degree (touch wood, barring any (relatively unlikely) failed exams) and (barring a mound of paperwork and formalities) pretty much finished the procedure for entry into my PGCE course. Life is, professionally speaking, pretty good. My "love life", is still a barren wasteland of poor-timing and missed opportunity, but it is not entirely without positives, so on balance I can't be too displeased.

I also can't be too displeased with several other things that have happened. I have inherited Dad's old car, and successfully driven it away to Bristol with me. This is a minor triumph of mine. Not only managing to drive the little noddy-car all the way to Bristol without it exploding, but referring to the car so often as "My Car" (when it was clearly my Dad's), that it actually became mine. Now, that's a pretty good skill. Maybe if I start referring to Kiera Knightley as "My Girlfriend", the same thing may start to occur. Unfortunately, it may also be a bit true that riding around in the car a lot before it was really "mine" may have contributed to its change of status, and this doesn't seem very likely with Ms. Knightley. But hey, positive thinking and all that.

One more stupid story before the music review? Yeah, why not? It's been a while...

On Friday, I went into town for a beverage. Some wine, punch, and rum may have been consumed with gay abandon, followed by some gin, supped lovingly from the bottle when we went up to the downs to throw a nerf-ball around. Aside from a minor injury sustained when attempting the hilarious gag of shouting "Put some clothes on!" when somebody is on the phone to their friends/mum/bank manager, all went magnificently well. Morning arrives, and by breath and head are both heavy with gin-and-kebab fumes. A couple of hours of chatting, and some water, gave me the sense that I had escaped major hangover. I really did feel great. So great that as I strode out from the house party onto the street my inner monologue went roughly like this.

"wow, what a nice day"
"I feel great, almost like a normal person out for the day shopping. not a drunk rolling his way home"
"I AM a normal person just out shopping, this is fine"
"wow, a second-hand-bookshop, I'll have a look. That's what normal people do when they are out on a sunny day"
"I'll get these three books, they are only a pound for the three of them"
"this is a great decision"

With the benefit of sobriety and hindsight, those three books are not the wisest of purchases. They were too big for my bag, and had to be clutched all the way back, and frankly, once truly sober, they don't look like very exciting reads. Ho hum. I'll give them a go anyway, and keep you posted.

So, with the epic return of my blog, it’s also time for the epic return of my music review. Some of you will have nearly given up music altogether for the lack of any reviews. Well, it’s time to dust off your gramophone, and fire her up. Over my exam period, I have been listening to a lot of music, most of it fairly “backgroundy”, music that can be put on and forgotten about, whilst concentrating more on the features of goldblatt hypertension, the development of epidemic disease, or as is more likely, who has just uploaded pictures of their bum onto facebook.

Come the evening, however, I have been seeking out immensely calming and beautiful music with which to relax, and the artist that is shaping today’s review is the legendary Nick Drake. Nick Drake was an utterly splendid folk singer, who died, in rather tragic circumstances. A sufferer of depression, he released “Pink Moon”, his final album, in 1972, before becoming a virtual recluse, living back at his parents house, and eventually dying from an overdose of antidepressants. It’s hard to separate the wistful, arching melodies of the album from the tragic, romantic circumstances of his life, and for me, thinking about his life and death when listening to the album gives it a whole other dimension.

In a contrast to his other 2 albums, which are often more fully orchestrated, with string arrangements, and even the occasional French horn, ‘Pink Moon’ is just Drake and his guitar, and all there is to listen to is the beauty of the melody. From the surreal opening title-track, which glides along with a low husky vocal, the album never strays far from the slow(ish) tempo wistful songs. A personal highlight is “things behind the sun”, a slightly darker number, which is contrasted with the most up-beat number on the album “Know”. It is the final track, however, “From the Morning”, which is the best track on the album. It’s a wistful number about times past, and longing for moments lost, and it’s a typical lonely ad beautiful Nick Drake song, which peters out and finishes on a repeating guitar phrase, which never quite resolves. Magical.

It would be easy to prattle on (as I was (nearly) intending to) about how it feels almost like a goodbye, or how it feels like he’s moving on, and putting stuff behind him, but then again you could say that of any wistful music, combined with a sad tale about the artist as sad as that surrounding Drake. It’s utterly compelling music, and sitting in my room, contemplating the coming end of my year, and indeed life as a “proper” student, it’s just about perfect.

Right, I'm off delve into one of my new paperbacks and maybe call Kiera Knightley. Time for a quick image though...

toothpastefordinner.com

Aren't all bored board games like this?

Exam stress, exam calm...

It's been a while, but I couldn't sleep, and so I have been numbing my brain with calming tasks to soothe me and try to make me sleep.

The Stephen Fry novel didn't help AT ALL, as it's too bloody complicated, and too bloody interesting, and after a very un-sleep-incuding 2 hours, I gave up on that, and turned my mind and fingers to calming my nerves.

You see, my first exam is on Wednesday. I am nervous, but nowhere near as nervous as I was about half an hour ago. You see, the way my degree class is calculated is all numbers, and instead of trying to work them all out in my brain, I cranked them using excel.

Right, ready? So, the degree class is worked out simply in percentages, hit 70 for a first, 60 for a 2:1, 50 for a 2:2, and below that for a degree that equips you perfectly for life as a Mc-A level. This percentage is worked out by a weighted average of this year and the last, with last year counting 25% and this year counting 75%. Within each year, only the top 5 (out of 6) modules are used for calculating your degree class, so if there is 1 dodgy exam, , it doesn't drag you down.

Anyway, when working out my spreadsheet, I had to make up a couple of numbers, as I haven't had some of my coursework back yet. I (generously, it has to be said) awarded myself 70% for both pieces of coursework, which seems a little like tempting fate, but this a relatively cautious estimate, as my other coursework marks for this year have an average of 79%, and one of the marks is for "effort and initiative" in the laboratory. Considering I was in there every bloody day for about 3 months, I think I have to score pretty highly.

So, I plugged all of my coursework scores, (real and imaginary) into my new and exciting database, and then set about seeing what exam scores I would have to get, in order to get various degree classes. With un-checked optimism (even when I am staring down 2:30 in the morning, without so much as a scotch to take the edge off) I looked at what I’d have to get in order to get a first. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it surprised me no end to find that I can walk out of my exams getting an average of only 59% in them, and STILL walk out with a first. Amazing. BUT, this is merely a chocolate-coated bonus. The real issue keeping me awake at night is whether I will get the 2:1, the grade required for me to get into Cambridge. I started dropping my exam scores, and seeing how that affected the total, and when it dropped below the magic 60.

It’s worth pointing out, at this point, that the pass mark for any UWE exam is 35%. This scraping-the-barrel mark is a sort of line in the sand, and if I fail to achieve this in any exam, it’s a definite re-take.

BUT, even if my average exam score in these 4 upcoming exams (or rather, the best 3…, as my lowest overall module would be discounted) is 35%, I still, STILL, manage to come out with a rather comfortable 63%, nicely above the 60% needed to secure my place at the nice shiny University on the other side of the country.

Big, hearty, relieved sigh. BIG. I am going to go to sleep now, and I think I am going to sleep rather well.

This is going to be my last post for a while. Possibly for ever. I am kind of fed up with blogging.

It just doesn't seem to "do it" for me any more. I mean, I could write about how I am developing a slight phobia of our toilet, or I could wax lyrical about my lovely shiny new computer, or indeed do a review of the several really rather good CD's I've bought recently, but I won't. I'm knackered, it's the end of a rather long and stressful year, which can only get more stressful before it gets better, and I'd much rather go and sit calmly in front of my new computer, or listen to a new CD than write about doing it. When I emerge from my exam-stress mess, I may well start up writing again, so it's best to consider this an au revoir, rather than a goodbye.

Until then, loyal readers...

Urgh.

I am back in Bristol. I have been since Monday evening. I came back to start the mammoth task of revision for my finals. Unfortunately, that hasn't gone very well. Cleverly, I managed to pack with me some nice germs on my return trip from London, which have rendered me rather incapable of doing much in the way of work. This displeases me greatly. I have been attempting to hack through various bits and bobs, but alas it seems fairly fruitless at present.

The only thing I have learned (and I warn you in advance, this is a TOO MUCH INFORMATION moment...) is that the lemon stuff they put in Lemsip is not, I repeat NOT lemon. I say this having just been to... *cough*... powder my nose, and found that the lemon fresh smell is just as potent coming out as going in. This is an interesting development, but doesn't say much for delicious Lemsip.

Other than that, not much has happened here. Something has come to mind that I really should write about, however, which happened last weekend. My sister had her engagement party, and managed to invite Harry Potter. No, I am not making this up, I really do think it's the ACTUAL tiny wizard himself. He goes under the pseudonym "Tom", but that's a flimsy disguise. The build and face are identical, and he even has the haircut and glasses. If that weren't proof enough, he even claims to come from Dursley. (For the literarily challenged, the Dursley's are the family that Harry Potter stays with when he isn't at Hogwarts (for the even more literarily challenged, Hogwarts is Magic-school)). Incredibly, getting Harry Potter wasn't enough for my sister, and she even managed to invite a ginger guy who looked very much like Ron Weasley. Strangely, neither of these characters were quite as pleased to be unmasked as I was to unmask them.

Right, I have a temperature, and am off to bed again. No music... well maybe a snippet. We are doing the Verdi requiem later this term, and I have been playing the "listen along to the CD and hope to learn your mart by magic" game. However, even the magic of Verdi has been sending me to sleep. Even this bit.

Yeah, if that's doing nothing for me, it's definitely time for bed.

Ubuntu, eggs, and stinking dog hair.

I am typing this from inside an ubuntu. For many of you, this will mean absolutely nothing. Just in order to bring everybody up to the same speed, ubuntu is a particular flavour of “linux”, an open-source operating system.

Having decided (in terms of ease-of-use, and downright childish lust for pretty toys) to get the pretty little mac with the book money, I have also decided to strip down the laptop for use as a portable machine, just internet and some typing. The idea of playing with linux, all open-source and cool, appealed greatly, and so on my lazy week off I have been doing a little bit of reading about it. I won't go into a tremendously boring technical detail, but handily I did find a little thing called a “wubi”, which lets you put linux on your computer to play with, but still keeping all of the windows stuff the same. Cunning. Anyway, when the pretty shiny mac arrives and I have made sure to rescue all of my data and important things, I can get a bit more into the ubuntu groove(fixing the wireless card so I can get onto the interweb being a top priority). I quite like teh idea of becoming a proper power-nerd, and writing computer code, but I can't see my simple biologist brain being able to cope with it somehow...

Anyway, if you are reading this, as an avid follower of my blog you will be no doubt wondering how the Cambridge interview went. Well, after I left the interview, I wasn't that confident, but it turns out that I needn't have worried. They offered me a place. I haven't found out the terms of the offer yet (the letter being sent to Bristol and me not arriving back in Bristol until tomorrow) but it's nice to know that I wasn't rejected out of hand.

The rest of this week, (ignoring the nervous checking and re-checking of the PGCE applications site, and the somewhat embarrassing celebratory dance when I saw the positive update) has been rather relaxing. A spot of tennis, a spot of snooker, a little bit of driving in my car, and generally not thinking about my impending revision mountain. On Wednesday, I went for a drink with an old music school friend. It was an odd evening. A lovely evening, I hasten to add, because I know the friend occasionally reads this blog, but a odd one none the less. The oddness arose from the fact that we don't really know each other that well. Coming from opposite sides of the wind/strings orchestral divide (the two factions may exchange pleasantries, but almost never be friends) we were never great friends in our orchestra days, and have only seen each other a couple of times in the intervening 5 years or so. The only real connection we have (apart from the occasional facebook message) is reading each other's blog. This means that although we knew a fair bit about the other and their goings on, we were somewhat un-practiced at actually talking to one another. It raises the question as to how well you can really know somebody by reading what they write. Apparently, the subtext of my blog is that I am a relatively nice, yet rather geeky individual. I had always assumed that this was the open premise of what I write, but maybe I am subtler than I give myself credit for. Luckily, we seem to get on rather well, (or at very least my company was tolerated for the evening, with no cause for rebuke) and the evening passed very pleasingly.

The other big event of the week has been the excitement of egg-day today. Being non religious, the worship of brightly coloured chocolate eggs, and the subsequent prayers to the "Oh-God" of feeling sick (prizes* on offer for spotting original location of the stolen joke) are as close to a meaningful celebration at this time of year as I come. There is, of course, the ritual of the Easter-egg hunt, where the aforementioned chocolate is distributed, which is the giddy highlight of the day, but apart from that, all has proceeded without major incident.

A quick "news" roundup. This couple need medical help. I can see the appeal of having a dog (though why you'd chose it over a cat is beyond me) for companionship and what not. I can also understand being distraught at the loss of that dog, having grown so close to it. I can even understand the desire for a memento of the dog, to keep and treasure. BUT, when you have a dog, the very worst part about it is the hair, the smelly hair. The idea of wrapping yourself up in smelly dog hair, from your dead dog, is really rather revolting.

Right, the witching-hour approaches, and I am going to bed. (Well, as I am sitting up in bed writing this, I am not going far, but I'm going to do the whole clean-teeth, lying-down, preface-to-sleep routine) No music review today. I have been largely listening to 1 cd this week (Dad fixed my CD player, but I neglected to bring any CD's home with me to play). It's a new one, and despite listening to it probably 20 or 30 times, I can't make my mind up what to say about it. It's a puzzler, and no mistake. As usual, I'll fill you in as and when...

Today's image. I REALLY want to learn how to do this, but knowing my bad luck and poor coordination, I would probably end up skewering myself in a crevice unholy. I'll leave it to this guy, who seems to be the master at it.



Thumbs-up, big-guy. Thumbs up indeed.


*no prizes whatsoever.

And your starter for 10...

I am not panicking. NOT. Well, I am a bit.

I am applying for PGCE courses for next year, and setting the bar pretty high by applying to Cambridge. To add even more difficulty to the mix, I also managed to do a silly thing and move house during the applications process, so that all of the important forms I was meant to be receiving went and sat in a drafty post-box on the other side of town. With reckless disregard for common sense, I simply assumed they were taking their time to get to me, and didn't chase things. It came as something of a shock on tuesday, therefore, to find that my interview, the big interview that would decide my Cambridge fate, was THIS FRIDAY. TOMORROW! I can feel my stomach knotting even typing it. This, understandably, makes my plans for coming home somewhat more complex (I would have been either packing the car or tucking into a greasy IKEA breakfast at the time in question). It's a portion of stress I REALLY didn't need at the end of a long stressful term. I should find out my fate fairly soon afterwards, though, with 2 weeks the stated time for notification... Ill keep you posted on my developing ecstatic or traumatic state.

With regards to trauma, handing in my project was a right pain. The library, where the computers are, was full, so I had to go to anther computer room to send my work to the printing server. Then of course I realised I'd sent it in the wrong format, all colour, meaning it was going to cost me a fiver to print it. Not a chance. So I went back and re-sent the thing the sensible way, and went to get the requisite cover-sheets from the office. Wherupon I found I had to submit 2 copies of the thing! Back to the library, and cue more faffing for a computer and another trip to the computer room and back. By the time I had got it bound and practically hurled the things over the desk to hand them in, it had taken me over 2 hours. But, at least it's done.

To celebrate, I went and read a book. The book is Starter for 10, by David Nicholls, about a student who becomes involved part of the University Challenge team at... well, university. The book starts very well, and for the most part I really REALLY enjoyed it. There were some absolutely hilarious passages, such as when the main protagonist describes seeing his student digs for the first time.
"My digs look as if they've been dug. The room has the appeal and ambience of a murder scene;a single mattress on a metal frame, a matching plywood wardrobe and desk, and two small wood-effect formica shelves. The carpets are mud brown and seem to have been woven from compacted pubic hair. A dirty window above the desk looks out on to the dustbins below, whlst a framed sign warns that using Blu-Tack on the walls is punishable by death."

A lot of his humour comes from the same sort of place that mine has here in the past, the elegant (or otherwise) re-telling of embarrasing incidents. In short, it seemed like the sort of book that I would love to be funny enough to write. Well, that was until right near the end, when it went a bit weird. The whole book builds up to his appearance on University Challenge, and I won't spoil it by telling you what happens, but after this central climax of the book, it goes a bit... well... Hollywood. The ending is all sort of tacky and sentimental and doesn't feel anywhere near as clever or original as the rest of the book. It's the sort of ending I would expect in the film version, not the original book. I mean, I know it had to end some way, and as it's a sort of university, coming-of-age thing, then maybe that all makes sense, but after how clever and funny the book was throughout, it took the edge off a little bit.

On to happier things, but a MAJOR dilemma. I have just found out how much money I am getting for writing that book what I was writing (see, I can done do good Eng-er-lish). I don't know why, but I was half expecting it to be a book-token sized amount, and I'd buy a copy of the book to see my name in print, and that would be that. Without being indiscreet, it's a fair bit more than that, and I am going to go wild, and blow the money on a new computer. My laptop is getting to be a bit of a dinosaur, and I want a new toy. It really will be a new toy, as I am definitely moving away from Windows. The new windows (called Mac OSX, I think, after what they stole it from... but I;m not too sure) as far as I can tell is far too processor-hungry, and I am going to make the leap away from it. BUT, I only want to get my head around a new operating system ONCE, which means I either need to make the leap to Mac, or to Linux.

Ay, there's the rub. I was very tempted by the pretty little Mac Mini. It's about the size of a (short) stack of CD's, visually it's pure machinery-porn, and it's altogether very lovely. I want one. BUT, they are very pricey. And a check of Dell's website shows that for a chunk less change, I can get a Linux-based machine with .66 of a GHz more processor speed, double the RAM, and 200 extra Gig of hard drive. It's a poser. With the Mac, everything will be integrated and pretty and sexy and lovely, and it will come with programmes that work instantly, and everything will be pretty and simple and plug-and-play. But with the Linux machine, I can apparently make it all function largely the same way, (except faster, because of the better processor speed) it just might take me longer to get used to everything. It's a tricky one. As ever, I'll keep you posted.

Right a quick news round-up. This made me a bit angry. Not because of the sentiment, keeping prisoners busy and occupied on matters other than fighting and obtaining illegal drugs, but because of where it says that participation can earn prisoners early release. Er... what? Firstly, any pleasurable activity, that makes prison more fun, should hardly mean you get out earlier. But more sinisterly, it's a beauty pageant that gets you out early, so it's early release for you if you happen to look pretty. GOOOOD!

This other story, however, managed to top-out my anger-quota. So, the Vatican, and our new pope have decided the things that are properly evil in the world.

Environmental pollution

Genetic manipulation

Accumulating excessive wealth

Inflicting poverty

Drug trafficking and consumption

Morally debatable experiments

Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

I am happy to accept most of these. Pollution, greedy fat cats, inflicting poverty, drugs, and the catch-all of violation of human rights are all fairly okay. BUT, point 2. "Genetic manipulation". So, the vatican is against any genetic manipulation, whether it's as a disease cure or anything... fine. Even this I can live with, just about, as they are trying to say that DNA is god's work and shouldn't be messed with... I can just about cope with that. BUT "morally debatable experiments". I mean, REALLY. So, the first time you actually have to think before doing something, it's instantly one of the 7 worst things in the world. Any time where you need to make a moral judgment about whether something is acceptable, even if you decide that it IS morally acceptable, the fact that you've had to debate it makes it evil.

Brilliant. The vatican is against science. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, but it really makes my blood boil.

Right, lecture time. I have to run, and I mean RUN. Later on, dudes.

Yes, I know.

Yes, Yes, YES. I know. I get it. I am a frightful human being. But wait and let me explain first. I have been BUSY. Not just busy in a "hmm... not enough time to go and get biscuits" way, in a "my life is only full of work, and I really can't face sitting and typing in my meager hours off" way.

So, yeah, sorry, and all that. "but hang on!" I hear you cry, "what is he doing here then?" shouldn't he be finishing his project, his magnum opus, before putting finger to grubby keyboard and wittering on here?"

Well, quite. If you're really wondering, and I mean REALLY wondering, what the effect of Lactobacillus plantarum is on the invasion of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium into Caco-2 cells, and what implications this might have on the nature of the probiotic effects that L. plantarum demonstrates in-vivo, then there's a whacking great document sitting (backed up in about 4 separate folders and in 3 separate devices, for the sake of rampant paranoia) around in my room that can tell you. And the best bit about it? As of about 11:30 this morning, it's finished. For the time being, I am free. The saddest thing about that paragraph was that I have been so intimately acquainted with these disgracefully long words that I didn't even have to check the spelling.

So, what did I do with my freedom? Fuck all. Apart from re-reading through my
project a couple of times, I have done nothing. I made a phone-call or two, I did some horn practice, but other than that, I managed to waste an entire day doing the square root of sweet bugger-all. And I'm not even sorry. Well, that's not quite true. There's another little project that, if I'd been inclined to do a lot of work on it, I could have done some work on, and I feel a bit guilty that I left it entirely alone, but it's not really due until after Easter, so I can be excused a little bit.

This evening, however, has been far more productive. I liberated a film from a friend's room, and had a little private viewing of... Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The film was awesome, and I shall now commence a short review. I have been wanting to see this thing for ages, as I am a major fan of Johnny Depp. I mean properly major. He's a bit awesome isn't he? Anyway, as you might expect from a film with him involved, the rest of the cast fills out quite nicely, with sparkling performances from Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall. There is even a nice little role for Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G, and Borat, for the ignorant few) as a rival "italian" barber. What's extra special about their performances is their singing, they all sound magnificent. The star of the show, however, is Sondheim's music. Ranging from vastly powerful orchestral surges to sparkling bird-like passages to accompany the lighter songs. There is brilliantly devious humour throughout, and I won't spoil any of the jokes by quoting them out of context here, and if dark humour is your thing, you really won't be disappointed.
Go and see it. Or get it on dvd, or something. Or just steal it from the internet.

Some news stories that caught my eye.

Anyone else remember "Brass Eye". Well they had an episode devoted to drugs, most particularly a fake drug called "cake". In the episode, lots of people who ought to know better were taken in, including an MP, who even tabled a motion about the threat from "cake" in the house of commons. It's refreshing to know that hoaxes like this can still fool people. Bless him, poor policeman.

Also, I will share this story. Not because it's any good. I take issue with some of their figures for instance, like spending on average 52 hours a year dealing with junk mail. Well, yes, if you actually sit and READ all of the dubious business offers from nigerian businessman and viagra dealers, but if you're a normal person and simply delete them when they arrive, that's maybe 5 seconds a day, working out to about 30 minutes a year. Chumps. But the funniest thing about it was that it was the most emailed story of the day. Imagine if you're one of the people so snowed under by your email that it's ruining your life. You then get ANOTHER EMAIL linking you to an article making light of your predicament. Brilliant.

Today's music review. Hmmm... It's a pop one. Top o' the charts quite recently. It's Adele, with her debut, "19". Hmmm. There seems to be a lot of this about recently. Sultry lady-singers, strong voices, often with cheeky regional accents to make them seem more "real" and "edgy". I seem to like a lot of them. Their archetype, of course, is everybody's favourite venerable crack-head Amy Winehouse, building up through Lily Allen and Kate Nash (both of whom I rather like) to today's new crop. Adele, I'm afraid to say, falls a little bit short of the mark however, and it's annoying. I saw her live on telly a while back, and she can genuinely sing, and her album has some great tunes on it. It starts well with "daydreams", a stripped out vocal-and-acoustic-guitar number, and some other tracks, such as "crazy for you" and "first love" which has a splendid vocal, very remeniscent of the first Amy Winehouse album, the really good one, you know, before all the crack and that. The best track is the slow ballad "make ou feel my love", which is good, but almost feels out of place here. It should be in a west end show, as the female lead looks up to a window at the side of the stage and sighs. The problem with the album, though, is that it feels so manufactured. The big hit "chasing pavements" could be buried in the middle of any mediocre pop abum and some of the studio over-production really starts to take away from her undoubted vocal talents. Don't get me wrong, I do like it, It's not a bad album, but I just feel that the album feels a bit too directed, and I'd prefer to see what an artist can do under their own direction. Maybe I'm being too cynical, and poking needless holes, but it just feels like I've heard too much of this before.

RIght, that's enough of a curmudgeonly rant. Today's image is a homage to Gary Gygax (he invented dungeons and dragons, and in doing so kept generations of nerdly sociopaths safely away from the rest of society). Try saying death's words out like Terry Pratchett's character, it improves it even more...

Come and see me play.

(The bit where it says "soloist".... that's me!)

Becoming a grown-up, and getting new toys.

I am sitting at my desk. This is nothing particularly new, I have been sitting at my desk pretty much constantly all weekend. The big topological change is that I am feeling nice and relaxed, chilling to some cool music, and supping on a nice grown-up glass of port (Dow's Trademark Finest Reserve, it's on offer in Sainsbury's and it's proper-job). Anyway, it's time to do some catching up.

So, when last we spoke, I was getting myself into the groove of being grown up for the big wedding. Turns out, I needn't have worried. When thinking about how grown up I was going to have to be, I neglected to remember that I am actually an old man, trapped in the nubile body of a young man. Therefore, when the time came to be sensible, in the actual ceremony part, I had no problem doing just that. I didn't giggle, or ANYTHING. Whilst the ceremony itself bored me rigid (no matter how good friends you are with somebody, watching them say "I do" to somebody else is hardly gripping), the rest of the day was pretty awesome. It was the first time I'd seen and spoken to any of the pharmacology guys from Bath since the... incident*... Mercifully, since then I have fixed myself into a right little bodrick and am no longer really embarrassed by my stupidity in front of them. This allowed me to drop right back into my old role as a comic genius. My proudest moment being the timing of a particularly potent witticism, so as to induce a fellow reveler to spit wine all down his shirt. How grown up am I?!?!

*the incident, in case you don't know, was me deciding (in a rather devil-may-care manner) that doing NO WORK AT ALL for 2 years of a university course was the best way to succeed. Unfortunately, when it came to exam-time, myself and the markers had differing views on what constituted a "correct answer" and I was told in no uncertain terms that perhaps it was best if I went away to be intellectually inferior elsewhere.

Anyway, after an excellent dinner (confusingly named the "wedding breakfast") the evening progressed merrily, and a good time was had by all (helped magnificently by plates of bacon rolls and a mound of chips, which arrived just as the alcohol needed soaking up). The next morning, after a disappointing shower, which we'll meet again later, it was time to head home. Well, I say morning. I had done a silly thing when I booked my train. In order to save myself about 57p, I had booked specific trains each way, rather than getting an open return. I had also got myself worried about what time everything would wrap up so I could get to the station, and had booked myself a train for half past 3. When we were dropped off at Shrewsbury station at 10 past 11, I realised the true extent of my error. 4 hours to kill in Shrewsbury is a very long time. Even after a fairly epic bit of CD shopping (the proceeds of which we'll meet in a while) failed to kill more than half an hour or so, so I went into a bookshop and bought myself some light reading. The book, which engrossed me for the hour-or-so I spent in a coffee shop nursing a small latte and the hour-and-a-half-or-so I spent in the pub near the station nursing a refreshing pint of beer, was the magnificent "Tricks of the Mind" by Derren Brown.

If you haven't heard of Derren Brown, essentially he is a psychological illusionist, and his book is a look at various aspects of magic tricks, hypnosis, suggestion, pseudo-science and the paranormal. And it's bloody brilliant. The first thing that is brilliant about the book is that he is ENORMOUSLY funny. When you see him on tv, doing his illusions and what-not, teh nature of the stuff means he has to be fairly serious, but in book form he is tremendously funny, full of sarcastic, witty humour, and sly jibes. But on top of this comedy gold the book is also really interesting and informative, with some interesting hints on how to try some of his techniques for yourself. It also covers some fantastic elements of pseudo-science versus the scientific method, an area which I feel strongly about, and explains things in a really eloquent and unpatronizing way ("patronizing", of course, means "to talk down to people")* Essentially, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Everybody should read it.

*witticism shamelessly stolen from the book.


Right, onwards and homewards, where I have done a good thing and bought myself a new toy. My CD player, still geriatrically, wheezingly failing to play CD's, has been causing me no end of upset and I caught myself thinking "maybe I should just buy myself a new one, there's one here for £*insert ludicrous amount of money that I clearly don't have*". Serendipity, however, has come to my rescue. Richer Sounds, once my very favourite shop in the world for their free-coffee and cheap-hi-fi combo, send out a weekly email, and on it there are deals for cheap bits and bobs, reduced to clear their stocks. This week there was an offer for a DVD player. A cheap one. My line of thinking was that I'd buy it, use it until either my proper CD player is fixed, or I can muster enough money to get the one I really want. So, for a frankly tiny amount of money, I bought myself one of these. And it wasn't even for the high-price you see on that page, oh no. I paid £15. Yes, £15. No money at all, really. The shiny little thing is pluckily playing CD's to it's hearts content, when it barely costs more than the disks themselves, bless it, and I am a happy man.

So, the disk that it's playing? Well, it's a corker. But first the story of how I bought it. It was part of my epic record-shopping in Shrewsbury. I walked into the record shop, and was browsing around the jazz records when I noticed the record they were playing over the tannoy was actually very good. I wanted it. It had to be mine. I decided to seek out the desk, to ask what it was. As I approached the desk, I spotted that the assistant was a young lady. Not just any young lady, but a pretty young lady. "This will be a chance to show off how suave you are", said the drunken, traitorous voice inside my head. Bear in mind that I was devastatingly hungover, and hadn't even had a proper shower. The one at the guest house was one of those that comes up from the bath-taps. This would have been fine, had there been any shower-curtain, or any sort of bracket to hold the nozzle. In order to not flood the bathroom floor, it was necessary to kneel in the tub and sort of hose yourself down. Needless to say, this was less than effective, and I was hardly the freshest of puppies when I strode manfully up to the desk.

Failing to indulge in any sort of opening "hi", or pleasantries of any kind, I immediately jumped in the conversation with a "what's this?", holding my finger aloft pointing upwards, in a manner I hoped would indicate the music regaling us from the speakers above. Unfortunately, in my drunken haste, the finger-based gesture came over as a finger-wag, much as one might give an errant child or pet. Some bumbling ensued, whilst I explained my error. Further bumbling ensued when she had to phone down to ask what the record was. Finally when she told me what it was, I must have looked so blank and puzzled that she came around the desk to find it for me. Bless you, kind lady.

Anyway, it was worth all kinds of embarrassment to get this disk, because it'd bloody ace. It's called "Dreams" and it's the debut album from "The Whitest Boy Alive". The music is funky, simple riff-based stuff, with all of the guitars, basses and drums you could ever wish for, and it's enormously funky. It's all extremely laid-back and chilled-out, almost with a Jack Johnson feel to some of it, but then in parts dropping into more film-music-closing-credits kind of stuff. Standout tracks include "don't give up", which is that afforementioned film-credits stuff. It feels sad but optimistic. Track 6, "above you", is the most "Jack Johnson" of the album, and the one I bought the album on the strength of, with jangly staccato guitars, and a pendulous bass-riff. My favourite track, however, is the stripped out stunning guitar playing of the final, closing track, "all ears". It's quiote empty desolate stuff, but remarkably beautiful. The whole album is splendid from beginning to end, frankly. Go buy it.

Right, that's surely it from me. I'm off to do some more shopping.

nataliedee.com

Handy, no?