The Christmas Post

Nice pun.

It's been a not-very-Christmassy Christmas here. I got a guitar amp - yes, riffage! - and the new FM2006 which I may have to leave at home once I go back to Bournemouth otherwise I expect I'll fail the year. Some general other stuff too which has all been very nice, and I count myself lucky that etc etc.
The trouble with Christmas is you start preparing with the shops - in about September. You spend 3 and a half months building up to one day. And it never quite delivers. Sure you get lots of nice new things, and you have a fantastic lunch which is always the best part of the day. But really, as celebrations go, it's a bit flat. It's just one day for crying out loud.
This is of course from an aethiest's point of view. I have nothing to celebrate on the 25th of December, it just marks a point where I can give and receive presents with the people I want to do this with the most, so why should I start thinking about it so far beforehand? (Answer: because capitalism wants to make as much money from the 'event' of Christmas as possible). As an actual date, an event, New Year's Eve is much, much more significant. There's something far more finite, about the end of one year, and the start of a new one: looking back and being able to file away, if you like, the events of one year, and to contemplate and look forward to the new.

This may all seem a touch pessimistic, but this year I started to see a futility in it all. All the effort - even in little things like rolls and rolls of wrapping paper, hundreds of cards - for one day. Maybe next year, I'm going to say to people: "don't buy me anything, buy something for yourself" and I'll do the same. Instead of everyone spending their money on everyone else, no one spend it on anyone but themselves. The result? You probably save money, unless you go crazy, and get all the stuff you want for Christmas!

And anyway - next time I shopping, I'm off to the sales to pick up what I didn't get for Christmas. They started Boxing Day! So people spend 3 months or so buying buying buying for christmas, have a day off and then start again looking for that must-have bargain.

Perhaps that's what the 25th of December marks. The one day a year that consumers have off.

Music For Africa project

In a backstreet in Hove, Brighton's bastard sister, on a freezing cold night in bleak mid-December, in the cellar of an unassuming cafe that looks like any of the hundreds of small cafes in Brighton and Hove, I had the priviledge to be present to an evening of musical brilliance in the name of charity. The place (it is a cellar after all) holds about 40 people, but the 40 that were there were in for a bit of a treat.

MusicforAfrica is a project set up by Dani Wilde, one of the performers during the evening, to raise money to provide a primary school in Kenya with the resources to teach the kids there musical education for one year. One school, one country, one year. It's not much - in fact in terms of the recent WTO talks it's barely a grain of wheat in the sack, but it's a start, it's something, and what's good is that it happened. Dani recruited 4 other musical friends, and put on a charity concert, simultaneously selling a Music for Africa EP - every penny made to go to the cause.

The peformers were Dani Wilde herself, a phenomenally talented singer who would walk a 'talent' competition like The X Factor; but in hindsight it would be a waste of such a voice. Al Brown, another fantastic singer in the mould of jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald, managed to overcome a middle-aged drunk woman, possibly a hobo, trying to match her note for note during 'I Just Wanna Make Love To You'. Phil Bentley, who was the first act supported by a cellist called Sarah, opened the night with a set of gentle piano songs sung in an even gentler voice, akin to James Blunt but much more listenable. Sarah-Louise Boyle, who can't have been a day over 18, was absolutley gorgeous ;) and sang her own songs with lyrics and musicality that belied her years. And finally, Roger Davies, Yorkshire man born and bred (that's a fact), finished the night with his brilliant songs, gently-comic lyrics accompanied by warm acoustic guitar playing.

The night finished with the whole reason I was lucky to be there - Roger closed with a song penned by a certain Dad, called 'Bushfire'. (The song is called Bushfire, not my Dad). He also helped put together the CD for Dani - and last night (19th) it all came to fruit in a great night of pure relaxed entertainment that didn't take itself to seriously, and the benefits were all for charity.
Buy the CD.
www.musicforafrica.moonfruit.com

"Goodnight and goodbye..."

On thursday, for the last time, Trevor McDonald closed the 10:30 ITV news and so ended his association with it. The one respected face on ITV1 will not be disappearing from our screens, or even ITV, but will no longer be presenting the news - which is a shame since ITV's news has always tended to be a bit sensationalist, aiming at the News of the World reader first. It's hard to say whether it's been a case of McDonald bringing the channel up, or the channel dragging McDonald down.
In his stupidly short interview about his retirement (I suppose the BBC didn't want to give him that much coverage - they didn't even say when his last broadcast as newsreader would be) he mentioned a few points about how television news is still vital, important to people today as ever before. McDonald is obviously a person to listen to and has the knowledge to know what he's talking about when it comes to news and media, and it will be interesting to see what he does next after getting to air his own views on the industry he has worked in for so long, in his last moments in it.

Sports comment

So Harry Redknapp, 'Judas' to Portsmouth fans a year ago, has done a U-turn down the M27 and gone back to Pompey, where the fans hope he'll turn into Jesus and rescue them from their thus far shit season and impending relgation.
It was quite clear last Saturday (3rd) that Harry Redknapp has never given much of a damn for Southampton FC. Usually so clever in the transfer window, he did nothing for us - Ricardo Fuller? you can go back to Fratton Park as well. And our indifferent form in a League populated by clubs so much poorer than us isn't deserving of him leaving us in the lurch - we should have sacked him. Oh well. We've got Theo Walcott!

On the England world cup group: Paraguay, Sweden and Trinidad/Tobago. We've got to be looking at 7 points there, really 9 since we're the "2nd best team in the world". We'll probably play Germany in the knockout round, and it will be a case of reproducing THAT 5-1 win vs home nation form. Then it's (probably) Argies in the 1/4 finals, Brazil in the semis, then regardless of who in the Final, if we make it that far, by God we deserve to win the damn thing.

Dear blog...it's been a while/cuNTL

Dear God! According to this site, it's been 4 and a half months since I last updated this lovely blog! And it is true, it has been. Why, I hear you cry. Well I'll tell you.
It isn't a lack of interest, it really isn't. What has happened is this: since the end of September until today, I have been in Bournemouth at my beloved Uni, doing my second year. Pressure of work? Nope. Going out too much? Nope. Access to internet at home? NONE whatsoever! Therein lies the problem, faithful blog readers. I have had no internet access in the house I have been living in for the last 2 and a half months. I haven't had time to update this when I have been able to get on the 'net, since whenever that has been, it has been for a specific reason, often related to Uni, and I have had no general time to do this. Woe is me.
NTL, the media company, are wankers. We signed up for a connection on the 29th of September. Here we are, December 11th....nothing. Excuse after exuse after misplaced details after broken waterpipe after excuse. It's been ntl:hell as one website, devoted to ntl: customer service problems, has dubbed it.
So what has happened to me in the last 4 months? I've been studying hard (hahahahahahaha) at Uni, and going out a lot while my relaxed workload permits me. I saw Bloc Party in October which was superb/awesome/brilliant. I've learnt a fair bit about Narrative Structures, Joseph Conrad, InDesign, Photoshop, Marxism (somehow), Gatekeeping, Framing, ooo lots of exciting stuff. And Content Analysis, which is a crock of shite.
I got thrown out of The Old Fire Station last friday week for being very sick, and banned til next term, but sneaked my way in friday 2 days ago anyway for an excellent 6 hour marathon party. I can't remember many more specific things now since it's been such a long time but not at least I can hopefully update whenever I want now I'm home.
Goodboo, blog!

The future is passing me by.

I don't know what I've been doing in the 3 and a half weeks since my last entry, but there's certainly not much worth mentioning. Oh, I went to the biggest music event in history, Live8...

...but apart from that, nothing. I meant to come on here sooner and moan about how I've been spending money that doesn't exist, that is; my overdraft, and doing nothing about replacing it. After failing with Sainsbury's, or more accurately, Sainsbury's failing ME (still undecided whether or not to write to them arrogantly asking to be removed from their pool of holiday staff), I even went as far as to sign up to an employment agency, the sort of place Eastern Europeans go to for job help, which was a complete waste of time - by the time they got back to me with work, I had in the two weeks it had taken, already fixed up two jobs for myself. It's taken me a month and a week to find work since coming home from Uni, which is a month and a week of income wasted, so that's why I'm going to try and balance the two jobs.

The first is at Next, the department store which, I'm told, is great for women's clothes. It is not, and this I know for a ffact, that good for menswear - overpriced, underfashionable in my opinion. Happily, I work there and don't shop there :) . I have a long week of big shifts, started today (YES, money going IN to my bank!) then I'm hopefully going to be able to pick and chose some part-time work, which suits me fine.
Because the second job is at a local Brewers Fayre, doing bar work/waiting, but this is limited to 2 evenings a week. So more regular, but less work - which means I can arrange shifts at Next (hopefully) to fit in with how much work I want to do in a week, (i.e can be bothered), or how much money I want to earn. If this does work out, I'll be laughing.

"Dear Sainsbury's...."

************************************************************************************
Oh, yes, I know what else happened, I got my Uni results back from my first year. A pass: 62.96%, which I am well chuffed about. It's always the way, but as I look back on how I felt the exams had gone originally, it's quite a contrast to the actual results. Media I didn't do too well in, I got that feeling right, but Interpersonal, god! There's me thinking it went well, and it was a pretty poor result! Luckily, Language turned out to be as easy as it seemed on the day and I pulled out a 2:1, just, in Literature: thought it had gone horribly, so it must have been me responding to the pressure of such a shit exam paper.
Anywho, no resits, and a pass at 2:1 level. That'll do me.

************************************************************************************
There doesn't seem a lot to say about the new terror situation in this country. It was always going to happen sometime, and it could, to be honest, have been a hell of a lot worse. Measures taken so far have certainly gone some way to preventing more attacks, if we are to believe the media, though perhaps have simultaneously heightened the feeling of paranoia among the public. Despite this, at any rate, the way in which the country as a whole, as well as Londoners, dealt with the actual attacks on July 7th, was superb. ENG-ER-LAND! and so on.

general catch up / Very real problems

It's been a month, readers, according to bloggers time-keeping, which I'm sure is accurate, but I can't believe that I've somehow filled the lat 30 days with actually doing things and keeping busy. Oh wait, I haven't.
There was the Summer Ball weekend (I got drunk on the wrong day, but otherwise ace), System of a Down concert (bruising but phenomenal again) and the Highdown tour which was, as ever, immense. So there's about 10 days worth of doing stuff, but leaving no excuses for my month long lack of blog activity! Except the truth: I'm home from Uni now, and the sole computer with internet access is a) shared by 4 people, b) has 56k dial-up, c) shit, d) has windows 98, e) has 128mb ram, f) really, shit. So actually taking the time to write a blog entry requires almost the full attention of this poor, tired, battered computer (soon, finally, to be replaced).

But I feel forced into it (onto the serious stuff now) because of things in the media recently. Taking the most recent first: two deaths, in Manchester and Oldham I think, with two things in common. The killers were teenagers, and the deaths were pointless to the extreme: one, apparantly, occured when the formerly-living-now-dead man refused to give the teenage boys a lighter for cigarettes. The other was due to the man suffering a brain haemorrhage after having to chase off the yobs, from throwing stones, eggs etc at his house for no given reason. So there are now parts of the young generations of society capable, in a situation of dispute or argument, of going far enough as to actually kill another person. I thought things were bad but....what the fuck is wrong in our society today when things like that take place? It's not the answer, but part of it is: respect. No one has any respect for anyone else anymore, and it's a situation that's becoming dangerously close to spiralling out of control (I seem to have said that before...).

The other thing is my attempt to defend Happy Slapping, or at least it's reputation. Not, however, to condone raping 11 year olds and filming it on video phones. Or stabbing people and filming the aftermath. That sort of thing is so wrong it's not really possible here to do justice to a scathing attack it deserves. Suffice to say the people that do it deserve nothing better in life than to have a bad one. Perhaps one cut short by cancer, something like that.

But anyway, the point is that atrocities like the above are NOT instances of Happy Slapping. Originally, Happy Slapping was literally filming someone running up to a complete stranger in public, slapping them without the intention to actually hurt, and running off again. While it's an admittedly strange line of humour, at the same time it isn't exactly rape. Part of the problem lies, I think, in the media - the notion of Happy Slapping has been misused or misplaced. 'Happy Slapping' has become an umbrella term for an ill-informed, misguided media to cover anything they like with - which is why is has been so attacked recently; wrongly, in my opinion. I'm not saying slapping strangers is funny, or even worth doing, and certainly not saying that rape, violence and muggings are the sort of things that should pass for entertainment. My point here is to make the distinction between the original idea behind Happy Slapping, and the crimes that are now wrongly assigned the title of being occurrences of it, and to simply suggest that the problem is not Happy Slapping itself, originally fairly harmless and pointless, but the types of person who have taken it too far. If you look past the media-frenzy of citing countless 'shocking' examples of Happy Slapping, the real problem lies in the fact that there are simply more people, partiularly youths, that are likely to act criminally in society today, or to go to the extremes of violence and now, in Manchester and Oldham, murder. It is that which needs to be sorted.

Crazy Frog is the last straw for this society.

The most recent chart countdown revealed the worst kept music secret in years; that a sample of a 17 year old Belgian boy impersonating a motorbike planted on top of a cheesy, TV theme tune has become the best-selling song in Britain. Yes, Crazy Frog (die die die) reached number one in the singles charts. It rather nicely creates an identifiable point to mark where society has reached a very very low status indeed.

First of all, who is buying it? Who would spend money on a single like that? It's actually tripe. No one over 18 would seriously consider it - it's so far beyond bad that it's not uncool enough to become 'ironic-cool'. It really is shit. So it falls upon the shoulders of the 'kids': pre- and early-teens who are pure suckers for a bandwagon. At that age, easily influenced and desperate to fit in, companies and merchandisers plug the latest crazes to the helpless kids for all they're worth, creating constant awareness and apparant need for whatever rubbish the craze happens to be - Jamsters advertise up to three times in a commercial break during primetime evening television. Thank GOD for BBC channels. According to the Guardian, Jamsters have made £10million from the crazy frog ringtone...and that was before the single had been released. I can't help thinking some of that £10m would be wisely spent putting the kids with that ringtone through school...

Secondly, news last week was that 3 sisters under the age of 16 have all given birth. In other words, ONE family has produced THREE teenage pregnancies before the three pregnant girls should legally be having sex. One of the girls did it when she was 12, another had already had 4 abortions (though admittedly that came from the News of the World, so take the number '4', and in fact the word 'abortions' too, with a pinch of salt). Though this news is shocking, it is only because it is a new level of shocking. It is not out of this world, or indeed that surprising - after all, Britain has the highest number of teenage pregnancies in Europe. But where does the problem lie?

It could be argued that there has been an increase in the problems associated within the youth environment: teenage pregancies, mindless vandalism, burglary of ill pensioners, hoax calling firemen in order to attack them, and more general problems - more kids on streets, more truant from schools, failure of discipline in schools, underage drinking, a resurgence in nationalism/racism etc. This is a core issue in society and needs addressing. It is not a positive feature of this country that gangs of teenagers in 'hooded tops' hang around in public places in the evenings vandalising property, threatening/mugging innocent people and getting each other pregnant. The mother of the three underage pregnancy girls (you could only call her a mother because she gave birth to the sisters, she certainly doesn't seem to qualify as a mother in any other way) blamed the schools. In reality, though (stupid cow), the schools don't have the ability to stop 12 year old girls going to boys' houses and having sex - it's the parents' job. An upbringing plays a huge part in how an individual eventually turns out.
In that case, then, the environment and surroundings a child is brought up in seems the focus for improvement if society is NOT to spiral out of control into a state of dominance by a disrespecting yob culture. Reducing the glamorisation of this status, quelling its appeal, more effort to put the youth through a disciplined education, recreating a certain level of respect for authority.
And the immediate putting-to-death of anyone who publicly transmits any form of the Crazy Frog - song, ringtone or joke impersonation.

post-exams at last!

I begin tonight 3 days into my long summer which stretches out gloriously before me. Friday was my last exam for University this year, and I now have no more committments to Uni until I start year 2! Except finding out whether I'ved passed the year of course. Oh. Scary stuff. I only started last week, it seems.....

Anyway, the last time I posted was in the middle of my exams, now they're all done. Last week was Language Matters and Literature, which I thought would be ok.

• Language Matters, 24/5/2005: This exam was made a lot easier by knowing the first half would be a choice of 1 out of 6 questions, so doing enough revision meant learning 2 topics well and a third as back up. This sufficed, and I was able to answer the question on Grice without much problem. Then the second half of the exam was on an unseen passage - the makeup advert was the obvious choice in this exam, because it was so lucrative to write about as it asked about the use of 'persuasive language'. In fact, it was almost enjoyable, and I rather stupidly, in my conclusion, wrote as though I was the makeup company talking. Definitely a good exam, however, as they go.

• Literature, Genre and Communication, 27/5/2005: Being an open book exam, I arrogantly did not revise for this until the 2 days before it, since before any of the exams started it seemed likely to be the easiest out of the 4. How wrong! It was, incredibly, the hardest. I made the mistake of revising 4 texts badly, rather than 2 texts better, and the questions weren't nice at all. I wasted around 10 minutes at the start of the exam just looking at the paper trying to work out questions I could answer. Not a good end exam to finish with, but it was soon forgotten after getting on the whiskey by about 8 oclock.

So now what. No exams, no work due, free time until end of September. Sunny Bournemouth until July 4th. Classic.

Exams stuff.

Not updated this since before the exams, but then this blog was never intended to be a day to day diary. After all, I've got my day to day diary to do that.
Anyway, I write today half way through my four Uni exams (so that makes 2 done, 2 left). Unbelievable; in about 8 days from now, I'll have officially finished year one of University, bar the partying. So far - media and interpersonal have been done.

• Media, 17/5/2005: well it wasn't that great. The questions weren't brilliant, didn't like the look of any of them really. I did the 2 that seemed the best of a rather bad bunch, like eating the last few edible grapes while avoiding the truly off ones. I had to really work hard to make what I was writing fit the question, and to be honest in some places I struggled to make it happen. Couldn't answer the Frankfurt School question, nor the Media Imperialism one. The more I think about this exam, the worse I feel so I'll focus more on:

• Interpersonal, 19/5/2005: This exam was about as far removed from media on tuesday as possible. The questions were specific, made the asnwers easy to structure and they were about topics that I'd luckily revised pretty thoroughly beforehand. In fact the first question was so enjoyable (as exam questions go) that it was with some regret that I had to conclude it and move onto the second half. Which wasn't nearly as nice, but still better than media on tuesday.

Anyway - Language Matters (it really does!) is my next exam, followed a week today by Literature. I was thinking these would be the lighter of the four exams, so I'd take it if they were as difficult as Interpersonal was yesterday.

Last day disaster....

Unbelievably, almost (it's not really sinking in) - today's results mean that Southampton have been relegated from the premiership. Our ever present status in England's top football league is now no more. We certainly didn't play well enough to stay up today - indeed, all season if I'm honest. We haven't done enough at times when it couldn't be seen how massive a win, or a late equaliser might have been. This late surge has been just that: too late, and it's time I think for some changes to be made. 2 years ago: FA Cup Finalists. Today: officially the worst team in the Premier League this season.

Couldn't believe it, really: at half time Norwich were losing, Palace were losing, and Pompey weren't losing to the bottom placed team. We were on a point - we were safe. I said to Matt - it's the last 45 minutes of the season and it's all come down to it. Then Palace equalised and went in front, Pompey rolled over right on cue, Norwich died a death, and we went behind and just couldn't break through. Then in the last 10 minutes we had 4 half chances, including one which Crouch, or anyone taller than Camara, wouldn't have headed onto the fucking bar. A draw wouldn't have been enough as it turned out, and the last 5 minutes were heartbreaking. Our fans couldn't muster the motivation to cheer for a goal which still would have left us needing another anyway. Going out of the EPL bottom though, when 45 minutes earlier we were 17th, really isn't fair and I don't think there's many, bar Pompey fans, who could say otherwise. We've certainly not been the worst team this season.

For next season - we won't be incredibly ruined financially, I'll grant you that, Lowe. (In fact, you could argue that Lowe has spent SEASONS preparing us for relegation. That's forward planning for you). I feel a bit sorry for RL, I get the feeling that Lowe is the unfortunate figurehead of a rather nasty board, for want of a better word. He takes the brunt for things which are not entirely his own doing. I don't think he should go immediately, give him (like we should have given Sturrock) til Christmas to see what he pulls out.

In other areas, we've got a fantastic youth set up, and providing we can keep a stable hold in the Championship for one season, it could prove to be a transitional year for Saints, and see a new younger team emerge the year after to challenge for promotion again. Player wise, I'm resigned to losing Phillips, and/or Crouch, Camara and Bernard won't stay, Le Saux I think will now retire. If anyone like Newcastle, Spurs, Boro or Everton have got any sense, they'll be itching to tak Prutton away too. He really is EPL quality. Niemi has pledged to stay, but we could do with £5/6m - Paul Smith is more than a capable Championship keeper, and would go from strength to strength playng regularly. (Even now, there's whispers of England call ups with his name, albeit probably stemming from our own fans).
Not only will some of our players be bought, but I think now is the time for a clear out. Anders and Tessem are off to Sweden, Nilsson will probably be too. Parhars should stay, he'd thrive in the Championship. Kenton, Van Damme, Baird and Michael Svensson - that's where our defence should now lie. Jacobsson, sorry but you've not been cutting it, and Lundekvam, your time is almost up too. The manager? Honestly can't see him staying. In other circumstances you'd be crazy to let a manager like Harry go, but if he wants to then it's probably for the best - for both him and Southampton.

The one positive I can take from today is that, before now, I haven't always been sure myself where I stood personally with Southampton. A fan; yes, obviously, a supporter; most certainly, but did I really love this club? The scratching of my now hoarse throat, the sickening feeling right in the pit of my stomach, and the urge to switch off the lights, cover my eyes and let tears seep out, tells me that I do. And that's just a little thing that makes me a bit happier.

Southampton: we'll be back soon.

Just stuff.

Thought I'd get back into the blogging mode, it's fittingly 12:37am at the moment, so prime time for me to write lots of flowing drivel.

Casinos - Why? I was on £35, from the tenner I started with...why did I aim to hit £40 and quit? Damn chips! Damn casino! Damn blackjack! Damn 'just one more round' mentality! If you go to a Casino, you expect a few lows against the peaks. So why didn't I take the £25 profit, instead of plugging away and ending up with a £5 loss? Stupid. To be fair, what are the chances of getting 20 (playing Blackjack, 21 is tops) twice in a row, only for the dealer to get 20 twice in a row as well? You always think your luck is about to change, but it never does, or it never changes enough to get you back on track.
The problem with gambling isn't having being good at it. There isn't really a skill in gambling, any idiot can see rough patterns of occurrence. Wait long enough, and something you need IS going to come up sooner or later.
What you need to be good at gambling is time - you've got to have the patience to sit through the bad times. You need to spend 6 hours at a Casino to make anything decent, and even then that might only be £25 profit at the end. But you can't turn up for a couple of hours like I did, expect to churn out £50-100 profit and wander off to the pubs. Granted, it might be your lucky night (going on a friday the thirteenth may have been a factor tonight) but it really isn't going to happen often.
Luckily, I am not a gambling man. It really is a mugs game. There's no skill, no value in it other than a bit of fun: I took £10 into a casino, came out with £5. I'd have spent more on getting into a club and 2 drinks, to be fair. Nevermind, eh.

I would go out tonight....

Yes despite bemoaning the amount of revision I have to do (I revised from 2 - 9pm yesterday...with breaks) I take up my pen (metaphor, kids) once again on my blogging site to talk about: going out to clubs. The title of this entry is culled from arguably The Smiths' finest release, This Charming Man and I give, here, a nod to my Politics teacher from my A-Level years as the inspiration of the points I'm about to make. To be honest, it's practically an irrefutable argument, and I was impressed enough to make a mental note of it as one day I was sure I'd be able to use it - and here it is.

Why do we go 'clubbing'? (An ageing phrase now, but it will have to do). It is one of the fundamental social aspects of the lives of people between the ages of 18 and late 20s; in fact, the aforementioned politics teacher said he was about 30 before he realised how stupid clubbing seemed. Yet, the reason for it being a such a focal point of young people's lives is hard to pin down.
The positives of going out are probably as follows. You're doing something sociable with people you want to be with; you go out in search of a 'good time'; you drink alcohol which allows you to have more fun, at the time perhaps; you can hear your favourite songs (ha); if you're single you can go out looking to pull or just for a bit of fun; the atmosphere at a decent club is worth experiencing several times; but really, that's all.

And so, the argument against going out. Let's start with the obvious: cost. Even as a student, a night out with 'enough' drink is going to cost between £12-15, and then that isn't counting travelling or entrance fees.
Into the club, then, and here's where it borders on ridiculous. You're in the club for social reasons, but can you socialise? No, not really. It's undeniable - you can't see, properly, the person you're talking to. Under blinding, flashing, any-colour-but-normal lights in an otherwise very dark club, what position are you in to tell what a person even looks like? Is she actually fit? Is she blonde? Is that top black, or red? Are they looking at me? Are their eyes even open? Are they smiling? etc etc.

And if you're struggling to see, then listening and speaking to another person is practically impossible. Without fail, to actually talk to another person you have to press your lips against the side of their head, and shout. Not speak loudly - it doesn't work - but shout. And of course, you have to repeat everything you say because the first time you say something, all you get is polite, embarrassed looks that clearly indicate "I'll smile because I haven't a fucking clue what you just said". So socialising in a club - talking to people you can't really see, who can't really hear you, and who you can't really hear. To be honest, for social interation, a nightclub could scarcely make it more difficult.

Then we move onto wider points. You go into a club, smelling all nice and looking fresh. You come out feeling anything but. A popular club, by nature, is cramped; you will be sweating within minutes. You sweat, uncomfortably hot, for most of the night. And what's worse is you come out of the club absolutely stinking head to toe of cigerattes. Your clothes, your hair, your skin even smells of it. For non-smokers this is a bit of a nightmare, there's a reason you don't smoke, and smelling as though you're on 40 a day isn't going to be on your list of things to aim for. For smokers, too, even they must concede (as my A-Level teacher did) that it makes for unpleasant breathing. Passive smoking; no, I'm fine thanks.
Incidentally, the crampedness menitoned above is a point on its own: you can't really move, certainly not dance, without bumping into people or have them bump into you, and you just can't get anywhere without treading on people (especially when you can't see them).

It's rather late so I'll draw to a close here. Clubbing then: it's socialising except you can't because talking to someone is made virtually impossible. Moving around is difficult when there's no room to do so. Breathing becomes a task. You come out hot and sweaty, smelling of fags (cigarettes or otherwise). You spend around £20 a night to do this. You go home, sleep for a far less amount of time than you would had you not gone out, and wake up with a headache wondering why.

Which, if you're still reading, you must be asking too. Since I obviously go clubbing, why do I do it? The answer is; because I want to go out with the people I go out with. The experience is nothing without other people to share it with. And, because I know I'll never be doing it after I reach the age of about 25, I want to be able to hit 30, look back and think "Well, that was pretty stupid after all, wasn't it?"

University - exams and revision

Let me get this straight first of all - I don't hate doing exams. I quite like writing, I don't mind actually having to write for 2 hours, and if I know what I'm talking about (in my exam I mean), then having to write a persuasive argument is a challenge I quite enjoy.

There is the argument, of course, that an exam doesn't show anything other than that person having an ability to remember significant bits of information. But at University level, it isn't how much you know so much as what you can do with it, as the lecturers like to drive home. The thing is, though, knowing anything-

We're University students: between, mostly, 19 and 25, in places like Bournemouth, Warwick, Cardiff, Manchester et al. Can we be expected to sit down and read and make notes, furiously, when we're at this age, in these sort of vibrant places, surrounded by thousands of young, intelligent, beautiful people, all of us thinking we'd rather be doing something else - at the pub, beach, football, sleeping?
I'm trying to revise, ha, and managed to do three consecutive afternoons worth earlier this week, but failed today - Bournemouth beach in the sunshine as a default choice of somewhere to go; who wouldn't?! And that's the trouble - sit down in your room and pour through pages and pages of text or hastily scribbled notes which look vaguely like real words, or....well, do anything else? (Like watching the election on TV until 2am).

Blogging - arrogant? probably? gahahaha

I sort of covered this in my initial post on here but I'll expand, since I've nothing better to do. I only seem to write lucidly at about this time in the morning - it's coming up to 1 am here.

You could aruge that by creating a blog you are, in essence, making the statement "I'm arrogantly assuming you care what I have to say, and even if you don't, here you are reading it anyway". That is my opinion but with an escape clause.
Blogging should not be people, incapable of using a recognisable standard of English or substituting numbers for words because it saves time, writing pointless drivel about how they got stoned for the first time or got off wih their best mate's ex at a party because they were drunk on 4 Bacardi Breezer's their sister had bought for them. (Actually, on a side note, what sort of self-respecting person would do this anyway?). The wider internet really doesn't care about these aspects of your life; keep it to text messaging, messageboards and e-mails, please, and to people who won't ask for the 3 minutes of their lives back after reading it.

Blogging should be about people conveying opinions and attitudes to things relevant in the world today (this post) or of an interest to many people (my Smiths one ;)) - since bloggers are apparantly becoming the new journalists (some claim, to be fair), then discussion should, surely, take place on issues which matter. It is a chance to create debate, it offers new opportunites for individuals to educate themselves and participate in discussions they want to, it doesn't lend itself to only certain groups - the chance is there for anyone. The privelidge should be treated with some respect, not destroyed by self indulgent ramblings about "teh day uve had 2day".

Blogging, then, should be worthwhile comment, not introspective drivel. I intend to keep my blogging lively and interesting, but not about things happening to me in my life, but things other people can relate to. I can moan at the Samaritans if I get suicidal, or just go out with my friends. I don't need to post it on my blog, ffs.
What I only hope is that even if you don't care what I have to say, or what appears on here, it will have been, at least, a comment that has been worthwhile making.

Although if you don't care what I have to say, 'I'd get such a shock I'd probably lie, in the middle of the street and die'. (Nowhere Fast, Meat is Murder).

The world won't listen

Just thought I'd build my second post by starting on how I came to decide on my URL.
Basically went through a host of Smiths album and song titles, then was about to try TheWorldWon'tListen but then it struck me - what better for a blog title, since this is my own thoughts to the world, than the world isn't listening (to me, you see)?
This leads me onto The Smiths, sort of, in a tenuous link. People (you may be one) often criticise The Smiths for being miserable, but this is a misinformed point of view. The Smiths' lyrics (Morrissey) are works of genius; the imagery they conjure, the stark reality which they deal with, and the brilliance in the actual way the come about make them into this genius: Morrissey is an astonishing user of the english language, which helps. The music, while in terms of chord sequences may be sometimes tried and tested, is otherwise fantastic - Marr's songwriting and playing is just out of this world at times. The Smiths' music isn't written so much as crafted; in Meat is Murder opener, The Headmaster Ritual, for example, there are close to 12 guitar tracks in that song. It's breathtaking.
In less than a year, after picking up The Queen is Dead for a fiver by chance, I've become an absolute devotee; I now have every LP and the two compilations released in their era (no point getting the posthumous singles collections unless you're a passing fan), and I only don't have Rank, their live album, since most Smiths fans I have talked to have dissuaded me from getting it. But I'm going to anyway, next time I see it.
That's it on The Smiths, for now anyway.

First blog entry....christ

To be quite honest signing up to this thing has been a mission in itself, - it's taken me half an hour to give acceptable usernames and URLs - but I've stuck it simply becaue LiveJournal is starting to fill up with rubbish. Millions, it seems, of 14 year olds moaning about their crush or text sex partner, or leaving suicide letters (better than putting on your blog, becuase it's unlikely anyone will read it, let alone give a damn, if the rest of your posts are that self indulgent), and in fact self-indulgence seems to be the overriding thing with a lot of people's blogs. Ironically, here I now go, but I hope to make mine worth the time other people might spend reading it.

It's interesting to read on the welcoming page of this site, the apparant change in journalism styles the 'blogging phenomenom' is having. Certainly, it's not doing much yet except for online journalism, which is a different kettle of fish to the established mediums of newspapers, TV and radio anyway. An overexaggeration, probably, since blogging has - let's be honest here - only taken off in the last 24 months.

Posts to come, then, will include thoughts on University - exams, revision, the sunshine stopping me from doing either- how it's 2am and I shouldn't have watched the snooker for 4 straight hours, music, media, and comments on events/news of the day that I can be bothered to write about. And if I ever start an entry with "Well, wot a day i av ad lmfao!" then feel free to report me as a suspected terrorist or paedophile or something.
Cheers.