Language, Sex, Violence, Other?

On Your Marks... London Marathon Preview

2011-04-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

The London Marathon takes place on Sunday (17/04/11) and 30,000+ are expected to run the 26 mile course through-out the capital.

Read my article on some of the inspiring and slightly quirky entries this year.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Virgin-London-Marathon-2011-Fun-Runners-Including-Ben-Hammond-Robin-Harvie-And-Faith-Binckes/Article/201104215971783?lpos=UK_News_Second_Home_Page_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15971783_Virgin_London_Marathon_2011%3A_Fun_Runners_Including_Ben_Hammond%2C_Robin_Harvie_And_Faith_Binckes

HMAS Adelaide Scuttled Off Oz Coast

2011-04-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

A dicommissioned navy frigate has been scuttled off the coast of New South Wales in Australia to make the basis for a new artificial reef...

Check out my short story on Sky News...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Frigate-HMAS-Adelaide-Scuttled-Off-Coast-Of-New-South-Wales-To-Form-Artificial-Reef-For-Divers/Article/201104215971593?lpos=World_News_Second_World_News_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15971593_Frigate_HMAS_Adelaide_Scuttled_Off_Coast_Of_New_South_Wales_To_Form_Artificial_Reef_For_Divers__

Gagarin In Pictures...

2011-04-13T03:50:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I published a few blogs and articles to mark the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarins first Earth orbit in soviet shuttle Vostok 1.

Here is an image gallery I designed for Sky News Online which tells his story in a few snaps.

Enjoy.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Space-50-Years-Since-Russian-Cosmonaut-Yuri-Gagarin-Became-First-Man-To-Orbit-Earth/Media-Gallery/201104215970933?lpos=World_News_Second_Home_Page_Strap_Teaser_Regio_0&lid=GALLERY_15970933_Space%3A_50_Years_Since_Russian_Cosmonaut_Yuri_Gagarin_Became_First_Man_To_Orbit_Earth

The next stop is bankruptcy, where this train terminates...

2011-04-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

I've spent a large percentage of my time on trains, those stupid, silly, wobbly tubes which take you through every single town you can name, then some you couldn't name and then some made up ones... whilst you're sitting backwards, facing someone sitting forwards, without a seat belt, to your destination, oh wait, not yet... To a destination, then you have to wait around in a windy, rather unclean building for another wobbly tube to take you through the whole ordeal again until you arrive to the station of your choice.

Now, thats a rather wordy first paragraph I hear you say... Or attempt to say as your numb lips and sore eyes try to absorb what I just wrote. And before I go on I should just say that if it just so happens that Chanin Lloyd is reading this, look away now my friend, otherwise I fear the backlash and death threats which may follow.

Yeah, so you guessed it. After much sensible blogging i'm finally back with a teeny tiny rant about train prices.
The wobbly tube in itself isn't that bad to me, I don't pay attention to the quiet zone sign and I just listen to my ipod and laugh at funny passengers thinking "doesn't matter if they can hear me, because I can't hear myself" which with that outlook, I've found, life becomes a lot easier.

I've been training everyday for the past couple weeks and I have to say, the sacrifice of NOT EATING has become tired. I pay a very heavy price to get given a ticket which doesn't tell me which of the hundreds of stations in my direction I can go to but one place I can NOT go to...

That place is London. Yes, my ticket just says 'not London'. Thanks for letting me know. My overall destination is somewhere in London, so after a brief investigation I worked out a route that gets me to my desired location.

If I describe this route, it could be compared to, and get ready because this is ridiculous, as my similes usually are. It could be compared to a man running a long, long race on a looped track, arriving within 5 yards of the finishing line, turning around and taking the whole route back again to cross it from the other side.

My train driver is laughing at me! The pigeons are laughing at me! The public are laughing at me! Mental system, mental price, mental hassle and for what? I still arrive late everyday then get home late... Everyday. It's an utterly pointless trip (its certainly the only way I could get to work so its not pointless but I feel i'm winning now) which I would avoid if possible and save myself my own weight in currency, which is in note form!

anyway... Breathe...

Mandela Family In London To Launch New Safety Scheme

2011-04-12T00:16:00.000-07:00

The family of Nelson Mandela are in London this week for the launch of their new road safety scheme.

The initiative aims to crackdown on the number of fatal accidents on South African roads following the death of Mr Mandela's 13 year old great grand-daughter Zenani Menadela.

Here is my Sky News article covering the story....

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Mandela-Family-In-London-For-Launch-Of-New-Road-Safety-Scheme-After-Death-Of-13-Year-Old-Zenani/Article/201104215970243?lpos=Home_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15970243_Mandela_Family_In_London_For_Launch_Of_New_Road_Safety_Scheme_After_Death_Of_13-Year-Old_Zenani

Published Sky News Articles...

2011-04-11T04:37:00.001-07:00

See below the links to my published articles for Sky News online...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/A-Blind-Terrier-Is-Looking-For-A-New-Home-With-His-Guide-Dog-Companion-After-Their-Owner-Emigrated/Article/201104215970109?lpos=UK_News_Second_Home_Page_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15970109_A_Blind_Terrier_Is_Looking_For_A_New_Home_With_His_Guide_Dog_Companion_After_Their_Owner_Emigrated
Will you adopt these lovely doggy dogs?

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Nasa-Swift-Hubble-Telescope-Discovers-Mystery-Cosmic-Blast-In-Distant-Galaxy/Article/201104215968722?lpos=World_News_First_Technology_Article_Teaser_Region__0&lid=ARTICLE_15968722_Nasa_Swift_Hubble_Telescope_Discovers_Mystery_Cosmic_Blast_In_Distant_Galaxy__

My self-sourced article on the death of a distant star

href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/Jack-Wills-University-Outfitters-Overtly-Sexual-Pictures-Banned-By-Advertising-Standards-Agency/Article/201104115966622?lid=ARTICLE_15966622_JackWills:UniversityOutfittersOvertlySexualPicturesBannedByAdvertisingStandardsAgency&lpos=searchresults">http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/Jack-Wills-University-Outfitters-Overtly-Sexual-Pictures-Banned-By-Advertising-Standards-Agency/Article/201104115966622?lid=ARTICLE_15966622_JackWills:UniversityOutfittersOvertlySexualPicturesBannedByAdvertisingStandardsAgency&lpos=searchresults

Jack Wills in the s**t for shagadelic advert

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Skin-Cancer-Rates-Have-Risen-Among-Britons-Between-The-Ages-Of-15-And-34-Says-Cancer-Research-UK/Article/201104115967113?lid=ARTICLE_15967113_SkinCancerRatesHaveRisenAmongBritonsBetweenTheAgesOf15And34SaysCancerResearchUK&lpos=searchresults Nothing to worry about, just put on suntan lotion... http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Video-Elephant-Killing-Zimbabwe-Clip-Of-Bob-Parsons-On-Hunt-Raises-Thousands-For-Charity/Article/201104115968049?lid=ARTICLE_15968049_Video,ElephantKillingZimbabwe:ClipOfBobParsonsOnHuntRaisesThousandsForCharity&lpos=searchresults

American billionaire is a little naughty... BIG GLOBAL STORY this one...

I've got a gig in Russia, so Moscow!

2011-04-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, that title holds little to zero relevance to this post because this post is a celebration, a commemoration, a toast to an achievement, which, in my opinion, in terms of relevance to technology and age, hasn't really been beaten... And that title was just a poor joke.

Yes, it's 50 years tomorrow (12/04/11) since the Soviets launched Vostok 1, the first mission to send a man into space, orbit the earth and return safely.

In 1961 the Soviets were in a space race with the US to send the first man into orbit, the US however had to settle for second place when news filtered through that Yuri Gagarin of Russia, had successfully entered orbit at 18,000km per hour from a base in Kazakhstan.

The young cosmonaut orbited earth in just under 89 minutes seeing sunset and sunrise inside this time. He described the beauty of the oceans from above and pleaded with humanity to saviour the planet we inhabit instead of destroying it. He also spoke the famous quote "I see no god up here".

Nobody could have even imagined seeing what Gagarin saw as he travelled around the globe from space. The fear and adrenaline he must have been feeling from the word go must have been almost too much to cope with! Locked up inside that little pod with nothing but his own thoughts must have been terrifying.

BUT, lets not forget what Gagarin got to see when he looked out the little window of Vostok 1. The amazing, gorgeous, blue planet below him and nothing but inter-stellar space surrounding him. The pride, the glory, the triumph, even the god-like status he was going to receive when he returned to earth surely could not have beaten the feeling he got when he first turned his head towards home from orbit. A short lived trip, a less than safe return but all dramas aside, an extra special expedition which will remain at the peak of human triumphs forever.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Video-Gagarin-Space-Russia-Marks-50-Years-Since-Historic-First-Space-Flight-By-Yuri-Gagarin/Article/201104215970704?lpos=World_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_3&lid=ARTICLE_15970704_Video%2C_Gagarin_Space%3A_Russia_Marks_50_Years_Since_Historic_First_Space_Flight_By_Yuri_Gagarin

Sky News Online.

High Flying At Sky

2011-04-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

It's Friday 8th April and today marks the one week mark of my short study at Sky News. The newsroom here in Isleworth, which opened in 2005, is a constant hub of activity in contrast to the usual WINOL broadcasting which I previously experienced once a week. When I think about the amount of work that went into each WINOL broadcast, it shocks me to think how good the standard is at Sky and how obvious it is from inside that they're at the top of the game. I'm not trying to blow smoke up their backsides because i'm sitting in the newsroom typing this as we speak. I'm being serious actually, as hard as that may be to believe. The stresses and strains of the weekly WINOL broadcast can really get under peoples skin, i've seen it happen plenty of times. If WINOL broadcasted 24/7 then it would be pure chaos! The fact that Sky, much like the BBC, broadcast 24 hours a day without rehearsal time is an example of the level you have to be at to be the best in the broadcast journalism industry. The presenters, sat behind me as I type, present from any of 3 desks situated directly in the middle of a rounded newsroom. They can see, hear and witness every event that takes place, from home news, to the online team rushing around, to people lugging tea's and sandwiches around, yet they appear totally tranquil. It's almost as if they've learnt to zone out completely. I remember once when Stuart Appleby was presenting WINOL and I was operating the auto-cue, I made a very lame joke and let out a light giggle towards him and, though I must add, he did keep his composure very well and broadcast another flawless bulletin (in terms of presenting, not packages) he did get a slight case of the giggles and this goes to show what can happen when you broadcast once a week with one other person around you. Imagine this 24 hours a day surrounded by a constant buzz. The technology here is something to admire too. The large video wall that Sky have installed is the second largest in the world, being beaten by Al-Jazeera's screen in Doha. The look is certainly fresh, up to the minute stuff and this really reflects the attitude that they have here at Sky. I'm enjoying learning each day, it doesn't seem to slow down here much and thats great because you can find something new to watch in on at every turn. I've been fortunate enough to have been given the responsibility to write stories whenever I choose and so having published work on the website is a great feeling. Especially reading the somewhat hilarious comments which appear so rapidly. Outrageous opinions of the British public always make me chuckle my old man chuckle, a hand on belly type chuckle... If you follow? Eamonn Holmes strutting his stuff down on the Sunrise desk every morning is another highlight of mine, walking in each morning and seeing him and the gorgeous Charlotte Hawkins doing their thing is an inspiration for one but also a fun experience. Could I be there in years to come? You can't help but ask yourself that question when you're here in the flesh, wearing a staff pass at the age of 22 with a passion for reading the news/seeing yourself on camera. Anyway, much to do today. I pitched my first, fresh idea and it got accepted by the chief sub so I better get to writing that instead of boring you folk... Cheers

An astronomical engagement - The rings of Saturn

2011-01-12T05:02:00.000-08:00

Wondrous things are happening all the time in our solar system. Some events took place years and years ago, some events are taking place as we speak and some are yet to happen.

The current state of humanity allows us to explore light years beyond our own planet and to discover incredible areas of space.

When Galileo turned his telescope to the stars in 1610 and found Saturn, he described it as "the planet with ears". We now know of course he was looking at the rings which circle the planet.

The rings of Saturn are a natural phenomenon, as are all events in space. They are said to be as little as tens of meters thick but stretch out as much as 250,000 km across, that's almost the same distance as us to our moon. So imagine standing on a hill and looking out at a sheet of glistening ice that just goes on and on into space.

The ratio has been compared by scientists as a sheet of paper the size of San Fransisco.

Saturn has kept scientists and astronomers baffled for years due to the sheer complexity of the planet and the distance it is from earth. This changed when NASA sent Cassini Huygens into space in 1997. Its mission, to enter Saturn's orbit. In 2004 it reached its target, slowed down and successfully entered Saturn's orbit and has been sending us incredible images ever since.

Cassini managed to show us that the rings were made up of billions and billions of separate particles, some solid rock (mostly inner) and some ice (mostly outer). This is the reason why we can observe these beautiful rings from earth, the relationship between the bodies in our solar system is somewhat poetic and the particles, some as small as fleas and some as large as houses, made of completely pure ice, radiate photons from the reflection of our mothering sun. We are wonderfully placed in the middle, a perfect position to witness this connection.

Of course plenty is happening inside this glorious battlefield. 62 moons orbit Saturn and some are of huge value to the rings. As I mentioned in my article about Enceladus, Saturn's tiny moon, way out on the E ring. The gravitational attraction and unique orbits of the moons contribute greatly to the structure of the rings. Enceladus in fact is responsible for the whole E ring. Its beautiful plumes of pure water particles shooting thousands of km into space and freezing into ice are being caught in the gravitational spin of Saturn and are orbiting nicely around the outside. This is a prime example of my first point, events are happening as we speak and others have happened in the past. The main rings are believed to have formed from icy moons which plummeted into Saturn's gassy body and the remains of their shells have been left out in space, orbiting between the moons and their parent. Another example of natural phenomena.

Cassini managed to show us that the rings are not perfectly smooth however. The orbits of the moons moving closely to and then away from the rings throws a net of gravity onto the particles and tugs them and twists them, some get thrown out into deep space. Other moons which orbit closely to each other but on opposing sides of particular rings are having a constant tug of war with them, pulling and distorting them into beautiful liquid like positions.

The rings however are not consistent from one edge to the other, of course we have separate names for these rings so we know this. One gap, the aptly named 'Cassini Division' is somewhat special. Mimas, one of Saturn's moons sits way outside the rings and orbits Saturn once for every two orbits for particles which lie in the Cassini Division. So during every other orbit for the particles, they fall perfectly in line with the orbit of Mimas. Mimas' gravitational pull then tugs at the particles and this sends them into random fits, tugging and kicking them out of position until the field is cleared completely. I suppose we could liken this to when a large lorry passes you on a motorway and the tailing wind disrupts the balance of your car, in simple terms.

This brilliant and rather epic situation is, as earlier mentioned, happening now and the main rings do not date back too far in regards to the age of the solar system. So we are very lucky to be able to observe them as they are.

Allow me to get theoretical for a moment. The anthropic principle ties in nicely with the previous point. The idea that the universe is how it is because we can observe it and ask these questions. If the universe was in a different state, then of course we wouldn't be able to observe it and ask 'why?'. So Saturn's rings, much like many other amazing features of our solar system are here, so we can observe and study them. They share space-time with us and what an incredible neighbour to have. Certainly more attractive than my neighbours.

A touch of frost

2011-01-11T09:23:00.000-08:00

Whilst sitting in my living room sipping a frosty Dr.Pepper I started to think about the end of the universe, as you do. This thought led to another and I started to think about the beginning of the universe too! A story i'm far more in touch with, I like a happy ending.

So to release some of the mad ideas rushing around my head its obviously blog time.
I love physics, I love cosmology and everything in between (bar the maths) and it really fascinates me to think about the insignificance of the human race in terms of the history of the universe.
When we observe the universe we ask ourselves why things are the way they are. Why? It's a simple question and one that humanity has the pleasure to call its own.

We have evolved to the state in which we are able to calculate the age of the universe, the age of our solar system and the age of our planet. We can also, very accurately predict the end of all of these. Scary thought when you think about the step below us in evolution, the Ape. They can pick their noses.

The reason, in scientific theory for the state of the universe being how it is, is widely accepted in the anthropic principle. This suggests that the universe is how it is because we are here, able to observe it and ask that exact question. If it was any other way, we wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be able to ask that question.
So thats a nice simple way to move past the hurdle of the state of order in our universe.

The state of order is an interesting thing. We move through 'time' which is something we use only as a reference.Therefore we can have imaginary time right? This is how we accept quantum theory. The general theory of relativity and the special theory of relativity break down when we trace our steps back 13.7 billion years to the big bang singularity, the beginning of the universe. The laws in these generally accepted theories do not stand up when we consider the idea of there being an infinite curvature of spacetime with infinite mass and maximal strength of gravity. We cannot really envision these conditions so we need to adopt a different theory! A unified theory of quantum gravity and general theory is yet to be put forward in full with wide acceptance. shame. Quantum mechanics are the set of laws in which we use to study the elements of the universe at the macroscopic level. The general theory describes gravitational force on a larger scale (planets, stars etc). Its been suggested that the 3 remaining forces which quantum mechanics deal with are incompatible with general relativity, but there are circumstances from beyond the beginning of the universe where we can show that the general theory follows on from the quantum affects. Lets leave that there for now, my dinner is almost done.

The arrows of time which we know of point in the same direction, we can say forward, to make this easier. The thermodynamic arrow deals with the 'time' which a high state of order decreases and we get a state of disorder. The psychological arrow deals with what we perceive as time passing, the past to future if you will, and the cosmological arrow deals with the 'time' in which the universe is expanding.
Now, if these all point in the same direction (forward, as we've said) then as time passes for us, order becomes disorder and the universe continues to expand. So, the universe currently expands at just above the critical rate. The critical rate is the rate in which we need to be expanding to avoid being over taken by the force of gravity. Gravity is the weakest force, but remember, there is strength in numbers and the combined force of all the gravity in the universe is extremely strong and if our universe cools off and the expansion slows, gravity will gain control and the universe will start to contract. NOW, if this happens then the cosmological arrow surely starts to point in the opposite direction (backwards, if you will) this means then the disorder will reverse and a state of order will again begin to take shape.
This is where it gets interesting, because there is a far higher chance of a state of disorder than there is order. The beginning of the universe was of high order, smooth and simple,we think and after the big bang an inflationary rate of expansion occurred which created disorder, dense areas of matter slowed and collided to form galaxies and much like our own, solar systems. Take a puzzle for example. The odds of order to disorder are very slim, 1 to many in fact. If we have the complete puzzle, we get one logical picture. If we shake the box we are likely to end up with a high state of disorder, after all it would only take one piece to be moved. So if this contraction of the universe starts to create order then we would realistically start to see the form of order. Much like the puzzle joining back together to form one logical picture. Gravity goes down, not up so when we see a mug fall from a table and smash, its just logical disorder taking shape. But with the reverse in the arrow of course now we could see the mug collect and rise back to the table top in a complete state.
This is such an interesting thought. The idea of being able to remember the future.
The direction of the thermodynamic arrow and the cosmological arrow should always point in the same direction for the weak anthropic principle to work. We can observe the state of order and question it, remember.

This is how we simply escape this problem. We would have to be around to witness the contraction of the universe which will not happen for another ten thousand million years at least! I'm not planning on staying around that long. So the idea of 'time' wouldn't exist, therefore (and this is just me speaking) the psychological arrow would disappear, right? Nobody could measure the passing of time. Time would be over, as would all logic as we couldn't observe it. This is the beauty of predictability.

With this contraction of course gravity would exert its powers over the universe and all the density of the matter in the universe would then of course collapse on itself and this would result in what call the big crunch... The end of the universe, thats how I got onto this subject, if you were wondering. Ok dinner is ready... Worth a little think isn't it?

What about the moon...?

2011-01-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

What about the moon? With the extreme diversity and complexity of the planets that make up our solar system its easy to bypass the moons that surround them. We know a great deal about our moon, which is just called 'moon' which we see once a day. But lets not focus on our beautiful moon but rather on the impact of all the moons in our solar system. Particularly Saturn's.

The impact of certain moons on their respective planets is enormous. Their unique orbital patterns and structures are the cause of many of the wonderful laws of our solar system.

How many moons do we have for a start? Well, Mercury and Venus both seem lonely without a moon between them. Our star, the sun is the centre of the solar system so with that in mind we could say our moon is the first. Not in time of course, but in order.

The red planet, Mars then doubles our tally with two moons named Deimos and Phobos which orbit far closer to its main body than our moon does to us.

Then we come to the greedy planets, Saturn and Jupiter which share over 100 moons between them. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and has 63 known, named moons. These of course include 4 very famous moons, Galileo's moons which he discovered when he turned his telescope towards the planet in the 16th century. These moons are incredible. Europa, Ganymede, Io (eye-oh) and Callisto.

Saturn is just behind with 62 known, named moons. What role do these moons play though? Well, Saturn is a very good place to start because of course its super special in our solar system. It comes with a fascinating accessory, its rings.

The rings of Saturn are a phenomena of our solar system which we knew little about until we sent a tiny craft towards the planet called Cassini-Huygens. Cassini was launched from Cape Canaveral in 1997 and entered Saturn's orbit in 2004. Since then it has been sending back incredible images which tell us a great deal about the planet, its rings and of course, its moons.

Saturn's rings are made of billions and billions of pieces of ice which cover thousands of kilometres across but climb as little as 3 metres in thickness. Some moons orbit inside the rings but most outside. Its these moons which play specific roles in the dynamic build of the rings. The characteristics of the moons atmospheres and their positioning are all factors which have had huge impact. Some of the rings are being added to as we speak such as the E ring because of the activity on its closest moon Enceladus. This is a tiny moon which is covered in a beautiful layer of thick ice, one side full of craters and the other almost perfectly smooth. This is because it has valleys which are over flowing with pure water which freezes over the surface and in turn creates brand new layers constantly.

Enceladus is a hub of activity, all the time water eruptions are happening on the scale of something we have never seen before. Water shoots out from the moons valleys, thousands of miles into space and the particles of these are then captured by the gravitational pull of others moons and the rings themselves. These particles then start to orbit along with the other clumps, chunks and clusters which form Saturn's rings.

What are these eruptions though? How do they happen so frequently? How at all? Enceladus is such a small moon with an icy core that cannot possibly retain any heat. So the energy needed to create these eruptions must come from something rather special. This is thought to be a consequence of Enceladus' irregular orbital pattern. Enceladus orbits Saturn in an elliptical way, meaning that it is out of round. In simple terms what this does is move the body closer to Saturn and then further away and then closer and then further away etc... This causes the body to flex. Inwards and outwards, the whole moon is being distorted as it orbits.This creates friction which then of course creates heat and energy which drive these plumes of water particles. Simple.

In the middle of the rings there is a rather noticeable gap, like an alley which separates parts of the rings. This huge break up which creates almost a sense of intentional symmetry to the rings is again made possible by the moons. The gap is named the Cassini division and its thanks to a well known force, that force of course is gravity. The gravitational pull of the moons which orbit Saturn influence the structure and shape of the rings. As they come close to the rings they pull the particles towards themselves and this in tern distorts the shape of the rings and twists and spirals them.

The Cassini division is caused by one of the most well known moons, Mimas, which orbits way outside of the rings. A wonderful phenomena known as orbital resonance occurs between Mimas and the particles inside the Cassini division. The particles inside the Cassini division orbit Saturn twice for every single orbit that Mimas completes and so every other orbit for the particles results in a direct line up with Mimas. The gravity of Mimas then sends a shock wave towards those particles and they receive a constant kick every other orbit, time after time. They get picked up and thrown out which makes a clear field as a result. This is the case for many of the gaps in the rings of Saturn.

In my opinion its a truly amazing thought, the consequences of all the characteristics and tendencies of the bodies which fill our solar system create beautiful images and situations. Moons of course as we've seen play a massive part in these situations.

I realise that i've only covered the activity of some of Saturn's moons but its getting on (in the day and this blog) so i'll leave it there for now. I will however finish on something amazing which on this day (02/01/11) is more incredible due to the fact that it was only announced last month, in December shortly before the turn of the year. Its a brand new astronomical discovery.

The rings of Saturn themselves have said to have been made in fact by a past moon of the planet. It is thought that moons on the inner circle plummet into the planet all the time but billions of years ago one moon was stripped of its icy shell shortly before it was pulled into Saturn. The remnant of the moon, the ice and rock, now forms the rings which orbit the planet so brilliantly. This is an unconfirmed, recent theory but it is a very interesting one which again provides evidence of the importance of moons in the make up of our solar system.

The ocean pulls me down...

2010-11-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

If you've read my blog before then this will come as no surprise when i announce that this is just an off the top of the head blog about... well, whatever may come out, we will see, and as always... i'm just as nervous as you are.

I'm currently listening to 'Animal Kingdom's' debut album 'Signs and Wonders' which i've plugged countless times. The title of the blog is a related lyric (as you asked).

If you haven't heard this band, please do yourself a MASSIVE favour and buy it, or get it on Spotify for free! What? I'm not their producer, just listen to it.
This is one of those albums that has the power to sum up your every emotion on a very chilly, November evening when you're feeling horribly sorry for yourself and you need a little clarity on a situation. Maybe its just me, actually i'm definitely not the only one that feels this, but when i need a little inspiration or even just some company... Nothing solves the complicated things quite as quickly and as thoroughly as music.

I've said that a few times so lets not dilly, dally over that subject.

So, whats new? I'm wildly thrashing my thoughts around my head hoping for something to come crashing out.
Ah, this song 'Silence summons you' on the Animal Kingdom album is really great. Fresh, funky, lovely... I would even describe it as 'pretty'. Music can be pretty right? Its the feeling that this piece of music makes you enjoy life a little more, a tiny soundtrack to 3 minutes of your day. If i came face to face with 'Silence summons you' i would definitely ask it out on a date... Conversation wouldn't last long but the shorter the date, the cheaper i suppose. This is more than i can say for most of my dates; long, boring, expensive... I should probably take a look in the mirror actually, now i'm questioning the beauty and the evil of hindsight.

My dates, thats something i'd like to deconstruct for your entertainment. I've had a few of these, the reason being is that sometimes i forget i live in reality and instead, treat it like the movies and so i ask people on dates in a dramatic fashion then its all down hill from there really.

Once (by which i mean, a few times) i have thought out an entire date, story boarded, if you will, and then abysmally failed to follow through with the plans... Needless to say these didn't go well. The walk in the park under a star lit sky, the very conveniently placed bench that we sat on and laughed, oh how we laughed about the way that dogs tilt their heads when they look at you, and then she snorted a little like a pig and was obviously immediately humiliated so i snorted too, just so she felt better but we both laughed so hard at this that we both snorted a few more times... WAIT A SECOND JOEY. This star lit night, well it was smoggy as fuck, it was raining a bit too, the bench was covered in bird turd and we didn't sit on it anyway, she wanted to get home. She never snorted, i sneezed and a bit of snot came out but i hid that pretty well, probably the most successful moment of the night.

Ah, knowing that a few lovely ladies are reading this now thinking "I want a date with this hunk, this Casanova, this playboy"... Well to your surprise, i'm not busy this year, email me.

Obviously i'm only typing this because its slightly funny, not because its actually true. Ah, and my inability to tell the truth seeps through again... I'll stop now, my head hurts.

In actual fact, since my long, tiring relationship ended i have found it impossible to look at anyone with out pulling them apart for no reason, if you're reading this thinking "not me", well sorry but you too... It's a fun way to convince yourself that nobody is good enough for you. That makes it a lot easier to justify finding nobody to blow you away, something which you've needed very much for a long time. Insecurity? Probably, i won't rule that out.

BUT, when you actually find someone who all of a sudden isn't as easy to pull apart, despite your best efforts, and lets face it... i can be a prick with total ease, this becomes scary. I feared this time, i abused the fact that i had time to pan out what i wanted by wasting that time on being a little immature and showing off in front of 'the lads'. Stupid.
Now i'm suddenly faced with a slight dilemma, being a very sensible Joey and considering the people that count, or do i pretend i'm in a movie again and destroy my credibility?

I'll probably go for the latter... hopefully i'll snap out of it before long and go back to being a nice closed book made of stone.

Cheers for the times...

Light Echoes - Freakin' awesome!

2010-10-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

So for those of you who don't know, i do have a slight love for space, the universe and other such outer earth type... thingys.

This is something that i have never found nerdy and have always said, "if i were smarter, i would have taken up physics"

But here i am, a journalist with the ability to write about what we already know. It amazes me how little people seem to know or understand about the cosmos. It truly fascinates me to think that we have discovered so much about our own and other galaxies closer by, yet such a small percentage of the public know it. Our famous galaxy, The Milky Way has been studied for generations though most people still believe it to be a chocolate bar. I have nothing against the chocolate bar, in fact its one of the tastier, lighter snacks available on the market, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm going to write a series of short blogs for the next few months covering some topics related to the cosmos but they will not be the usual covered topics. Instead i will write about things that not so many people get to read about or hear of if they don't dig too deep into such intergalactic reading, after all, we're not all as nerdy as I!

So the first topic, and i will keep it short in an attempt to hold your attention, will be 'Light Echoes'. These things are truly amazing.

Here we go, I first discovered light echoes last year when i had awoken from a light sleep in the middle of night and turned on my telly to see Patrick Moore, bald fella with a funny voice.

So i sat there in wonder as the odd, fat man explained about these phenomena's which occur in our universe but hardly ever seem to be mentioned.

A light echo is similar to a sound echo. A sound echo is when sound is directed from its source towards a... well, you know what a sound echo is.

Right, so now you're starting to think about how a light echo works. So light escapes and bounces off something then changes direction... simple? So lets get into slight detail.

When a supernova happens, which is a stellar explosion which bursts out radiation into outer space. The explosion creates so much energy and light that we can observe it, throwing all the stars materials into space at around 10% of the speed of light. These can outshine an entire galaxy for a short period of time before they fade away.

The velocity of the burst has so much gravitational potential that it can suck up all surrounding gas and dust from the interstellar medium from which it occupies and creates what is known as a 'supernova remnant'. The shock wave from the drive of the blast which creates this leaves us with a circular shaped cloud of beautiful colour light years away, these are visible from Earth, during day time until they fade away.

Now, the light echoes are just a cool add on to these. When the light from the blast is sent towards the path of our wonderful blue planet, Earth, we see it, obviously. But, of course not all the light is thrown towards earth, so when some of the light is thrown out into space and comes into contact with inter cosmic dust it can bounce off of it and redirect it towards earth. The light then reaches earth centuries after light from the same blast reached earth. A famous example of this which is relevant to us is when Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe saw a supernova remnant in the sky back in 1572. It stayed visible from Earth for nearly 16 months until it faded away in the year of 1574. Now the light of this supernova remnant has echoed off lots of areas of the universe but recently one of those echoes was redirected towards our galaxy. Therefore it ventured through our line of sight making it visible for us, because of the time it takes for the light pulse to travel, contact the inter cosmic dust and then travel again into our line of sight takes so long we see it centuries after it happened. This ties in with the laws of general relativity in the way that we can see now that time is not absolute. It is based on how you perceive it from where you are. So Tycho and us are seeing the same thing in two separate centuries.

The most poetic way of looking at this is that we see what famous astronomers of the past saw, the same thing, just centuries after. We are witnessing the same historical event as those famous people, its the same event just in another life time.

Tycho's remnant has now helped us to develop our understanding of space, like most events which happen in space, we can learn something from them. This has helped us to determine more accurately, the distance between stars in space and the distance between galaxies including ours and neighbouring galaxies. By actually witnessing the light echoed from space from a remnant which occurred centuries ago we can now genuinely feel and believe the time frame of the universe. Truly amazing.

And this is Tycho's remnant. The stellar burst which he saw in 1572, visible 400 years later. Stunning.

I was made for this place and i was made for you

2010-06-04T03:54:00.000-07:00

Finally! I hear you say. I am making the blogging come back, similar to that of Beckham in his final season at Madrid, similar to that of Micky Rourke in that film about wrestling or maybe closer to that time Louis Walsh had that little sequence when he came back to X-factor. Which ever it is is besides the point, the point being and here is the point; ... ok so there isn't a point.

I want to take the time out to chat about something that really pushes my buttons, something that gets my gears shifting, something that... well something that isn't HCJ.

We've all had a pretty busy year so far and it seriously shocks me to type and to think that its already June and currently the 2010 World Cup! Mental man...

Thats not what this blog is about though, no, no, no... This blog is about Liam Fray and The Courteeners. Yeah, thats it.

So i once wrote (somewhat controversially) that this band from Greater Manchester were better, or at least potentially better than manc super group Oasis. Following the release of their debut album 'St.Jude' which accommodated the singles; 'No you didn't, no you don't' and 'Not nineteen forever' i was captivated by the sheer attitude of this front man and his common man, lazy lyrical style which seem to sprint along side these gritty melodies.

The tracks on that album were not laid out like that of a debut album but more like that of a greatest hits, the transistion from pop punk to rock n roll to BBQ acoustic lullaby sing a longs is beautifully strung together like a setlist fit for a festival.

His voice, a strong accent, deep and rambling like he is making it up as he goes along then suddenly bleeds out with a burst of raw emotion which takes their sound to another level. An attribute which is vital for a group who want to get past the 4 0' clock slot at Glastonbury.

"Why you were standing so close, why you were kissing him, why you left place holding his hand, oh darling can't you see that its got fuck all to do with me" - The song 'Please don't' which is about breaking up with someone and not bullshitting about staying friends is a perfect example of the ideas and opinions of this group from the North. The stories of friday nights and dodgy dates are something that all their audience can relate to, and the ones who can't can just enjoy the short experience that you get when indulging in a Courteeners album.

The new album 'Falcon' is a piece of music which is almost a lesson in releasing a decent second album. If you have success from your first album then the second becomes all the more difficult to produce. The pressure on the writing and the pressure on the melodies and singles is built up to the point where you're almost comparing each song to that from the previous album. Do you follow your trend which brought your success? Do you include the same ingredients? Do you shake it up completely and try something new? You don't really want to hear an album which seems like a recycled version of the first and The Courteeners haven't done that, thankfully.

You're introduced by a slow acoustic track, the aptly named 'The Opener' which is just a good track, thats all you can say, lyrically sound, melodically pleasing and overall decent. "I miss the city i love but i've been having an affair, with L.A and New York, Dundee and Doncaster if i may dare" the lyrics are that typical of Fray and his stick to what you know attitude. It's a sing a long, it's an anthem and it's something to fall asleep to all in one. Following this you get another slower track, the first single to be released 'Take over the world'. This is a simple song which adopts the pop song template, it's a no risk, no wild card song which works perfectly because Courteeners can write these songs, they do deliver catchy, attractive, modern songs which you play and put on repeat then learn the words and charm yourself by singing them back. Even Fray notices his unique approach on writing in this song with the lyric "I've never written in cliche before and i'll probably never do so, she was beautiful though". These kind of lyrics just sum up Fray and his ideas and methods that he employs when writing, whereas in a conventional love song you might hear the lyrics; 'you're the apple of my eye' or 'you are my everything' or something else rather cheesy but with The Courteeners you get "I'm only a paper boy from the north west but i can scrub up well in my sunday best"... Honest, charming lyrical delivery from the Manchester man which gives the love song a fresh approach, a remixed version almost.

For those fans of 'The kings of the new road' and 'fallow field hillbilly' do not fear, Courteeners have still got that side to them, they are still producing festival tracks worth moshing to. 'You over did it doll' is another single which follows its predecessor quite perfectly, an edgy and more risky and original track which gives you another taste of the album and maybe makes you reconsider your first impressions on the piece.

With a large number of tracks on the album almost reflecting that of an RnB album or rap album which, although may not be as easy listening as their last album, does give you the feeling of security when you purchase. The album track list gives nothing away and as it invades the back cover you start to wonder which are the corkers and which are the duds but let me nip the suspense in the bud, they are no duds on this album, every track brings something new to the equation.

Celebrate new music and check out The Courteeners new album 'Falcon', then let me know.

The way to sum this album up is to say that with The Courteeners although you might get a new kid on the block kind of look and name, the style and sound is anything but. You just need to see the front cover of the new album to feel the sense of maturity from the boys, this isn't a Killers tribute act, it isn't a Kaiser Chiefs tribute act and it certainly isn't an Oasis tribute act. The Courteeners are a classy, new, exciting and alternative act which have restored my faith in the modern rock/pop scene.

Decision time, the beginning of the end for Brown?

2010-04-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

So it's 17 days of campaigning until polling day, potentially one of the most important polling days of our modern history. With Labour at the helm for the last 13 years, 13 long, hard years, full of terror, confusion, secrets and financial dis function. Is this now the time for change?

As things stand on a Sky News poll the Tories are ahead by 10% but is this justified?

Lets have a quick think about what Brown, Cameron and Clegg said this morning.

Nick Clegg MP of the Liberal Democrats stated that we as a country have been 'let down' by Labour for 13 years. He stated that ONLY under the Lib Dem's will your tax go down as only they have a plan which gives us our first £10,000 tax free giving us £700 back in our pockets, "Thats real change". Clegg claims that you will see change from Tory if you're a multi millionaire only, now i'm not one of those but surely a shake up is in order and a time for change is among us?
Over ten years of very little movement by Labour finally looks to be coming back to haunt them, my prediction is that England will be Conservative following this election and they certainly have my vote. The reason for this i'm not going to get into just now.

Brown has said that Labours campaign will be a team effort and a team he will need, when you look at the situation of the country when he came into power he did have a lot of tidying up to do but has he done any? I won't talk about the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan because although i have the utmost respect for our armed forces, they themselves will tell you that they're aware of the dangers of their profession and that they're fully prepared to die for their country when they move out there to serve, if we were to withdraw our troops then terrorism would rule there and soon enough our own country would again be at risk, leaving only one option, an option that President Obama seems to agree with and that is to keep troops fighting in the war against terror. As far as financial stability is concerned though i feel as though Labour really need to get their act together before its too late, or is it too late already? The unemployment rate in my city alone is staggering and continues to rise in order to amend overwhelming debts that shadow this countries hard workers. Lets not forget though, those who choose not to work and claim job seekers allowance and live off benefits. The teen pregnancies, the counselled homed young 'couples' who live off leaking tax payers? Can Labour do anything about this? Another major point that surely has to be of a high priority is immigration, this country must reduce the influx of foreign bodies into this country. It was announced last year that for the first time ever, London's first spoken language was not English...??? This cannot help English employment and the financial crises.

Regardless to what people say i believe that most gang violence in and around the capital is black on black and somebody needs to say this, stop making excuses and get this sorted, too many children and adults are being killed in the most horrific ways, in day light in our capital on our streets. Can this change? Conservatives want to increase and enforce discipline in schools, this is a great move, the current school curriculum is almost pathetic and kids are leaving school with zero discipline and almost zero common sense.

Following the introduction of the first black American President i think its fair to say that this is a time of change and thats why this is a very critical time for our country.
Brown claims that this country is on the road to recovery and that nothing they do should put that at risk, this is a defensive statement and i suppose Brown can only do that, the approach of enforcing great change could be laughed out when we consider the time that Labour has been given in this country to produce change.

The election will be intense and exciting and i hope, regardless of where it comes from, we see change in this country.

The policy and the pauper

2010-03-31T04:52:00.000-07:00

Well grow me a beard and call me homeless but the last time i checked the universities equal rights policy it clearly showed that they must do their utmost to ensure that each student gets the best opportunity to complete their education regardless to their financial or social situation.

So why is it when i turn around am i suddenly out on the streets after being thrown out of my university managed house because i couldn't settle a debt within 4 working days?

I will not name my university, a wise man once told me you should never stab someone unless you're going to kill them, if you stab them and do not kill them they will come back with 10x the man power and crush you like a bug in the ground. I do not have the power to kill these people yet so that is an article for another time, i'm sure that was all metaphorical although i haven't seen that man in a long time, perhaps a time for raised eyebrows? Let's not drift too far off course, and with a two handed tug of the wheel we're back on the straight and narrow.

so, searching through the goals and values of the university i have to ask, how much psycho babble can you fit onto one page? The extent of madness on this page to cover up the fact that all they want, need and drive towards is money!
Here is an example for you, just so you know where i am coming from

"Diversity - we delight in diversity" (extract the babble) = "The more types of people, the more money...yay"

"Intellectual freedom - intellectual freedom and it's appropriate expression are at the heart of our business" (business meaning 'a way of taking money from someone without resorting to violence') = "If you give us money we don't care what you do or who you tell, don't give us money and we might beat you up"

"Social justice - we seek to embody social justice and prepare our students to challenge the status quo and have the strength to stand up for what they believe to be true" (now seek means try so after 3.5k fall into their pockets they still cant even guarantee you 'embodiment' the bastards, anyway that was an easy one but embody social justice? Are all prospective students so deprived? They must attend this university and become strong like alpha male and then return to their childhood and destroy evil ones by force? Or the band maybe? Anyway this is the best i could come up with for this one. = "We will try to convince you that life is fair, failing this you will be ready to beat someone up a but if they are mean." - I could be wrong on that last one.

So you see rather clearly the magnitude of jargon and babble used by this institution to sway you into giving them money. An even funnier one which i failed to mention was this;
"Christianity - we celebrate Christianity" = "If you're religious, it makes us look good, so we have a party"

The driving force behind this blog is that the housing department have made my recent life a misery due to the fact that, well i'm not sure why but i now find myself homeless for the final semester of this year after a phone call at 8am explaining that; "we are sending solicitors to your house to enforce your notice to quit, this will incur a charge of £150" now this isn't what i want to hear when i first wake, to be honest i didn't know who i was i talking to at that point, as you're probably aware, 8am is very early for a student. So i asked, replacing the jargon with simple english does this mean someone in a suit will come round and drag me out, heels scraping along the floor and this will cost me £150? to which they casually replied "not quite like that but more or less"

So i decided to keep some dignity and walk out of that house myself, return my key and laugh in their faces, this all happened bar the laughing bit as i was slightly exhausted by the end of the day and i didn't see the point, that or i wimped out. So i recruited the handy hands of my two friends to find all nearest boxes and bags and report immediately to... the pub? Why yes of course a serious mission cannot be executed without a full belly and considering it was my last supper i even had a beer!

After this we packed my whole room into a box, you couldn't really tell the difference considering the size of my room. We then walked 3 guitars, duvets, pillows and 6 bags across a city in the rain to my friends house where they remain, a grueling task to say the least.
Whether i find another home or whether i manage to stab and kill the university remains to be seen, either way i'll update you.

You don't know what it's been like, meeting someone like you!

2010-03-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

Superman on an aeroplane, sitting next to Louis Liane, you got that woman but you want her gone, so you can fuck a teenage blond! - roared across Wembley Arena on Thursday 11th March 2010, the final date of Stereophonics' UK tour for their 7th album 'Keep calm and carry on'.

Lead man Kelly Jones has been growling his husky vocals for Stereophonics since the early nineties and they got their break when Richard Branson signed them up to V2 records in 1997, his first signing to the label. Stereophonics used to tour small towns in Wales with their audience in the back of a small mini van that they bought so they would always have someone in the pub to play to each night, their hard work and never say die spirit has certainly paid off as the guys managed to sell out the Millennium Stadium after releasing only 3 albums and Cardiff Castle after only 2 albums, a stunning achievement to say the least.

Kelly, vocals and guitar, Richard, bass, Javier, drums and now Adam, guitar, make up the latest line up to a new Stereophonics who have been on the road with their new album since January rocked London's o2 arena on the Wednesday before travelling to Wembley to play an extra night due to demand for tickets. This was the third time i had travelled to the city to see these guys play and the difference to this night compared to the first night i saw them was significant.

The boys from Wales walked onto the stage last night a new band with a new attitude and a surprisingly refreshing maturity. Kelly had dropped the leather jacket for which he is so well known for and sported a smarter black shirt, he didn't however, drop the shades!... The front man has taken his fair share of knocks through out his career, journalists, bouncers, 'friends' and family have all taken swings at him (literally and metaphorically) but if one person never lost faith in Kelly Jones it was Kelly Jones and if another 10 thousand or so didn't lose faith in him they were the ones inside Wembley arena last night! Kelly has always given harder than he got using his music as his ammo. The third 'Phonics' album 'you gotta go there to come back' was released during a tough period for the band, losing their drummer and life long friend Stuart Cable and finding out that Kelly's ex girlfriend of 12 years was sleeping with his photographer and best friend after just 4 months of their separation. Kelly bounced back harder than ever in 2005 releasing one of the bands best albums to date 'language, sex, violence, other?' and his lyrics and vocals on this album are the best they've ever been! Love him or loath him you cannot deny that Kelly has one of the greatest rock voices of all time and when it screams "take a look at me now!" towards the end of 'Dakota' you can't help but get goosebumps all over your body and take a look at a man who is clearly unstoppable.

His new attitude was born here, he dropped his hippy hair and created the 'Kelly quiff' that sits 3 inches off his head supported by dark glasses and a leather jacket, his Gibson wrapped round him with a studded strap and his famous, giant vain pulsating from his shoulder to his jaw bone, he jolts his body back and forth as he roars into the mic striking the back wall of every arena he strolls into. Deadhead, Pedalpusher, Devil, Girl and Superman are a few of the tracks from this album that sum up the new, hardcore, risky, gritty side of Stereophonics. The riff at the beginning of Superman make your heart skip a beat as it drills into your skull and the vocals are almost as strong as the guitar itself.

One other album followed before they set off on a tour to celebrate 10 years at the top, the second show i caught in late 2008 at London's o2 arena, the curtains falling with the band already in position and rocking out 'Vegas two times'. This was a gig, a spectacle, a triumph for the music world, Stereophonics were proving they'd never left and regardless to the great tracks that they'd released over the past decade they showed that they still had more to offer. The show at Wembley last night was a perfect example of this. Walking onto the stage and shouting down the mic 'aaaoohh' with a smile on his face before saying "lets have a party" got the crowd in the mood, they were out here to have fun and to do what they've done for over 10 years, play some real rock 'n' roll. Starting with new single 'innocent' a summery tune with hints of brit pop, they quickly moved on to some classic tracks from their first release 'Word Gets Around' an album still regarded by some as their best. Snappy, catchy lyrics mostly about people and places from their lives as youngsters, 'A thousand trees' and 'More life in a tramps vest' were played as well as they were 10 years ago and really set this gig on its way.

8 tracks were played from the new album and they went down a storm, an album which has taken its criticism for lack of passion but if the people who had written this were in the front row last night as Kelly blasted "don't be afraid to dream but live life here and now cos that's whats real, all the rest of it is just all make believe, so live here in the moment and live the dream my angel" then they would certainly have stayed back to give Kelly an apology. Kelly was most definitely taking his own advice last night and living for the moment as he sucked every inch of passion and love from the crowd walking to the front of the stage every so often and posing in the spotlight as his thousands of adoring fans screamed his name, he let the crowd give him something back during an emotional performance of Word gets around favourite 'Traffic' as he strummed lightly on his guitar in silence as the whole crowed recited the third verse in perfect unison. It was a beautiful moment that he deserved after pouring his heart and soul into every piece of music he has ever made and every song, riff and tune he played that night.

Telling the crowd stories of his days are a favourite past time for Kelly, he has told me a few over the years and last night was no different, explaining that "this song [Mr.Writer] took us ten minutes to write and ten fucking years to explain", he thanked every single person who was involved in the tour and cracked some jokes but never took his mind off his first priority and that was being the ultimate show man. His encore of 'She's alright', 'The bartender and the thief' and 'Dakota' was performed to such an amazingly high standard that it could have been the first 3 tracks of the tour, not the last... but sadly it was the last and the giant cannons exploding confetti into the crowd topped it off as the band left the stage after an emotional show which Kelly wanted to soak up as he took a while to leave, turning around after every few steps and waving to his incredible fans who worship his every move, the last words to enter the mic before he left for good were those of a man who is driven by music, passion and success, "keep supportng live music because tv and radio is fucked!" Kelly is getting old, his albums are getting old and his guitar is certainly getting old but his passion, desire, talent and raw emotion is as youthful and adventurous as ever.

Lets hope they return to London before long and maybe this time tear the roof off completely.

Setlist as follows

Innocent
A thousand trees
More life in a tramps vest
Vegas two times
I got your number
Pick a part thats new
Superman
Uppercut
Stuck in a rut
Maybe tomorrow
I wouldn't believe your radio
Live n love
Trouble
Could you be the one?
Mr.Writer
Same size feet (my favourite of the night)
Beerbottle
Have a nice day
Caravan holiday
Just looking
Traffic
Local boy in the photograph

Encore:

She's alright
The bartender and the thief
Dakota

Stanley Kubrick Vs Kelly Jones

2010-03-07T14:05:00.001-08:00

Recently i watched a selection of Kubrick films after being introduced to '2001' on the HCJ course and i wanted to share my feelings on them but as i'm in a lazy mood i have decided not to!

So browsing 'Youtube' the worlds greatest site, i found a tribute to the man himself that a guy has made and the only reason i'm showing you the link is because this guy has used 'I'm alright' by Stereophonics as the theme over the top and this caught my attention because i am a huge fan but also because the song has great meaning to me. The album 'You gotta go there to come back' was their most honest piece of work and this song especially, it's gritty, deep and personal and it's a great song which is more than up to challenge of supporting a video celebrating one of the all time greats of cinema.

So have a little look and a little listen if you will... One of the greatest rockstars of all time with one of the greatest directors of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m9C3w8-VHY

They will not control us, we will be victorious!!

2010-03-07T12:16:00.000-08:00

Well isn't it just super when your coursework material and your favourite band have something in common?

This probably doesn't happen much so you probably won't know BUT! when watching an interview with Muse frontman Matt Bellamy i was absolutely amazed to find out that the first single from their latest album The Resistance is based on the book '1984' by George Orwell.

Matt talks about how he was inspired by the books love story which caught his attention on his second reading, he is quite the book worm and also created an amazing piece of work about Eurasia joining forces with America to form the United States of Eurasia named ... *cough* 'United States of Eurasia' based on the book 'The Grand Chess Board' heavy stuff i know!

1984's topics speak of big brother watching us and a government controlling our thoughts and the words we speak and the actions we make in order to control the nation and Matt touches on this with his lyrics in the song 'Uprising'. (if you're reading this Chris then do listen to the song)

Instead of just noting a couple down i have decided to type up (manually) all the lyrics in the song so you get all the benefits!

'Uprising' - Muse

Paranoia is in bloom, the PR transmissions will resume
They'll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down and hope that we will never see the truth around
Another promise another scene another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds and endless red tape to keep the truth confined

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Interchanging mind control, come let the revolution take its toll
If you could flick a switch and open your third eye you'd see that we should never be afraid to die
Rise up and take the power back its time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that, their time's coming to an end we have to unify and watch our flag ascend

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

So there you have it. The '1984' inspired 'Uprising' by Muse, written by Matthew Bellamy (NME's sexiest man alive winner two years running)

This is proof that the works of Orwell have and are still influencing culture, art and music in our time and it also proves that the idea of the book is coming to life, this piece of music is serious and it's a serious topic with the bands frontman which he often talks about. Thankfully for now you can still write what you think in a song!

WINOL UPDATE

2010-03-04T14:21:00.001-08:00

So, it's just coming to the end of week 4 of winchester news online for the new year and in my most humble opinion it has been pretty successful, everyone is working and gelling as a team now and i can't really slate anyone in their roles at the moment, as much as my readers know i would love to do!!

I was told at the end of last semester to get more involved and make a name for myself, so i'm going to talk about me for a bit! YAY!

Firstly it's important to mention that technically i am a member of the production team which deals with all things technical, running the bulletin from the studio on a wednesday by controlling the gallery and generally watching over the website. Each week i have played a major part in the bulletin, i presented sport first week which i was pleased with, the running of the bulletin was pretty dreadful but with those big lights it's hard to see whats going on up there so i just sat back and did my job, Stu Appleby took top story for the first and second week, he is quite clearly the best journalist in this university, thats not biased... it's more or less fact.

I presented the main bulletin for week 2 which i enjoyed, i was the first to wear a full suit, this has caught on and i like that, the bulletin looks more professional and more classy and thats a major thing, video is OBVIOUSLY a very visual medium and the bulk of this society are very shallow and attraction is vastly important so the website looking good, the camera work being smooth and the presenters looking smart is vital i feel.

This ran pretty smoothly, we had a few technical issues in the gallery but we edited them out during post production, we learnt from this i feel but if i am honest i think that the directing team in the gallery for those first two weeks were not in the right job, technically i thought they panicked and weren't nearly calm enough to be able to handle a live bulletin, our very own Angus Scott put the boot in a few times which sent a striking pain down my ear drum through the talk back whilst i was in the hot seat.

For weeks 3 and 4 i have been working on the news team, over the past year i have watched every ones packages very closely and taken all the advice given to the reporters on board and i wanted to test myself and do my first news package and see how far behind the pack i was in terms of ability and quality. I went out with Stuart both weeks and i have to say we are proving to be some sort of dream team bringing in two top stories in consecutive weeks, if we get top story this week it will be the first time anyone has been on a run of that length. We have been through a lot in two weeks, we learnt a lot, we interviewed the important people, took the right angles, asked the right questions and really put in the effort.

For the first story we must have covered 6-7 miles on foot in one day and this brought us back to the news room around 6pm after starting out at 9am, we worked hard on a story that week, we took all advice on board, we avoided exposition, we avoided comment, we tried our best to avoid guilty buildings, we got news about people doing things and tried new creative ideas, sequences and noddys and this came off for us and i feel like our lecturers noticed the effort, we had good feed back.

The second piece was so much stronger, similar to the week before we had 3 interviews which was more than any other piece, we had a sequence, a noddy and a piece to camera outside the County Council which sounded good. Our sound was an issue, the radio mic was up too high and it distorted some of our interviews and my PTC which was a real shame but i feel as though story wise it was much stronger, it told a story and it was simple and easy to follow, plus it was interesting and involved people and the community.
I didn't involve enough facts, figures and number though, this needs to be worked on, i was struggling with time on the piece and had to cut some general views and so this made it harder to fit in voice overs but watching back its clearer that we did need some more facts to help the story along.

Stu has taught me a great deal, his work rate is fantastic, he doesn't sleep from monday to wednesday when working on a story and he transferred his enthusiasm for the news to me and i have really enjoyed working with him. On top of those two top stories Stu presented the last two bulletins, which i say with some bitterness he did a lot better than i did, classy and cool, calm and confident. A real treat to watch.

For the bulletin after handing in my piece i controlled the VT's whilst Josh Duffy directed and Robert Anderson worked on the visual mixer, this was a brand new team and we were told it was the best bulletin yet, mainly down to practice, we got in the studio by 12 and had loads of time to practice and run through but this never happened with the last team and i have to say Josh and Rob worked great together, there was a sudden blast of common sense in the gallery which was never there before and a real calmness which gave the presenters a much calmer attitude on the floor, we communicated and worked together, we got the technical jargon right and as a result ran through a very successful bulletin first time.

This team need to work together again and i will be trying to get top story again, being chased around by pointless, pathetic press officers sending in complaints to the uni about us being 'over zealous' in an attempt to get an interview has really given me a thirst for the news world, something i haven't really had since starting the 2nd year. We are making real news now, we are reporting real stories, we are becoming a team and we are learning loads and finally feels good to be a part of winol which is a drastic change to last semester, lets hope the final grades reflect my feelings now.

Rival kebaberies

2010-02-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF5r5WKN59s

JUST A QUICK ONE

2010-01-17T11:56:00.000-08:00

Here are some links to site where you will find more work from me and my colleagues, plus my core site run by the university

http://www.winol.co.uk/

www.journalism.winchester.ac.uk

I'm so 3008 you're so 2000&late!

2010-01-04T07:28:00.000-08:00

So here it is, my slight review of the decade! Not in the Piers Morgan sense because the last person i want to be compared to is that guy.

Anyway, What has been great about the noughties? nothing? close... i can only count on one hand the amount of great things about this decade on a world wide scale but since when did we have to consider ourselves among everyone else? Why does the constant shit being flung at Mr Brown have to bounce off and flick me in the eye as well? Why does the pressure at your job have to put a pain in my arse? Do we all really have to ache with each other? Sure, you could say we need to shoulder the blame and spread the disease between us all but what you don't need to share (if you choose not to) is your joyful moments, moments of glory, moments of movement and progress! And of these i have had a few.

I'd like to list a few things that on a very, very tiny scale have made a major difference in my life... since the turn of the century, i am not about to talk about 9/11 or 7/7 or Bad Ass Obama, these things have been mentioned in every single list of look backs, no! mine is different, its an alternative view on the decade.

In 2004 Snow patrol released 'Final Straw' and oh my god, how many times a week do i listen to that album? their first album to be produced by...a producer, putting the finishing touches on an already great band. This album means a lot to me and some of the songs to me are considered to be some of the greatest indie/pop songs ever written... for example 'Run', brought back to our attention when miss Leona Lewis recorded a cover which stormed the charts last year.

In 2003 i saw Eminem at the world famous (lol) Milton Keynes bowl, this was an experience that will live in me forever! An amazing night for many reasons, one being seeing my dad shout "FUCK JA RULE" at the top of his lungs then turning to me with a sense of sweet naivety and asking, harmlessly, "who is Ja Rule?"

In 2007 the worlds greatest band announced two live shows at the newly built Wembley stadium, the band of course, being Muse... tickets sold at an outrageous time of 0.26 seconds a purchase, thats nearly four a second! Fortunately for me... i got some and off i went after years of waiting i finally got to see my favourite band rock the roof (thing) off Wembley and this, for the thousands who attending will never be forgotten, i even cried during a very emotional performance of 'Blackout' my all time favourite song.

Manchester United won the champions league! I have really lost my patience with football but that was a truly amazing night as i sat in a village pub filled with Chelsea fans and, again, cried my eyes out as John Terry fell on his chavy arse and hit the post leaving none other than Ryan Giggs to step and up score the final goal of that tournament... this of course was followed by Anelkas miss... well, lets call it Van Der Sar's save shall we!

Editors were born, Oasis died, Stereophonics embarked on a 'decade in the sun' tour and i caught their show at the O2 which again... brought tears to my eyes (yes i cry, i cry far much more than any man should). Good things happened this decade, Daniel Craig saved Bond, Matt Damon embarrassed Bond with his take on the Bourne series... The best action trilogy ever! Michael Jackson died, yes this wasn't a grand moment but the way in which he was celebrated and remembered was truly inspiring for a nation.

Very early on in the decade, Russell Brand was fired from MTV but many years later he was allowed back (yay) and since then has pushed the boundaries of comedy and reached Hollywood, also in that category in Mr Gervais... brilliance. The BBC managed to finish their largest project ever, Planet Earth, the greatest wildlife documentary ever, showing the world... the world in a way you could have only dreamed about.

Cristiano Ronaldo signed for Manchester United in 2003 (i believe) oh maybe 2004 actually, anyway this only mattered from 2006 onwards after his cheeky world cup wink was the magic in which he needed to all of sudden make himself the greatest football player on the planet and what a player he is!

And for me, well, this decade has been a stunner, i played football for Colchester (score!!) i enrolled into University! I fell in love, i fell out again but the brief stop off was a delightful experience! I met some amazing people, i jumped out of an aeroplane with these people, i climbed the highest peak in Britain, i realised i could love Hugh Jackman without being gay and i also realised what a cul-de-sac is... this took me years to work out, i also had one of those days where you forget how to spell 'the' i think it was around 2005, a long day! And what a windmill was, i literally found myself staring a windmill saying random words out loud, i think i even shouted "MILLOW" at the top of my lungs at one point... frustration! I got it eventually.

Anyway i hope this decade has had its mini highlights for you as well... maybe we will talk about them someday, somewhere.

And to finish, Juan Martin Del Potro beats the great Roger Federer at Flushing meadows in one of the greatest grand slam finals ever! I'll never forget that one! This falls in line behind Wimbledon's most epic match ever, 2008, Federer Vs Nadal, an all day battle of sheer power, Nadal had two hands around the neck of the current world number one but disappointment since for the Spaniard as his knee trouble has seen him miss grand slams and fall off the top spot.

So a little reflection on the decade taken from my personal memory bank... enjoy the year that is ten past eight! (2010)

The sun is shining down, the clouds have cleared

2009-12-20T07:46:00.000-08:00

Ahhh handsome bunch aren't they? Well here is the thing and the thing is this... (give me a second to think of the thing)

So after a pretty dramatic start to 2009 and by start i mean 80% of it, i returned to Winchester searching for a fresh start, something needed to be different, something needed to click and help restore my faith in my choices, my ideas, my goals and my life.

Within moments of my return it was clear, everything had fallen into place, i'd loved and lost, i'd felt sorry for myself, i'd try to run away (metaphorically speaking) i'd done everything i could to dramatise my life to the point where it wasn't worth putting the effort in.

People had listened too much, i had ignored their advice too much, i'd talked again too much (which i have a tendency to do) and people had offered more advice... again a little too much. So how do you come away from this?

I'm not sure... it seems easy now as my life has changed so much in 3 months and i couldn't wish for more so much so that i am having a gift less Christmas as a way to prove a point that nothing could make me happier, so why spend the money (i'm not sure whether i regret this or not, i'll keep you posted because Josh got a helicopter and i really want to go flying with him but i already said... oh we're straying)

So forget the helicopter, point is this... my attitude needed some serious changing and i made this my mission and i firstly focused on my weaknesses and then tried to pin point moments in my life where these had affected me and then thought to myself if i could go back to that point what would i do differently?!

This helped a great deal and i finally started to see this person staring back at me in the mirror who i recognised from a few years ago, a younger more adventurous me, a happier me, a funnier me and a more willing me.

This was the most important part, i'd broken down barriers that had been stopping me from making moves in my life that i genuinely wanted to make but never did. I'm not going to point the finger at anymore in particular, my life had strayed off course for a number of reasons and i cannot blame anyone for this, well i can... it's my blog and i'll say what i like but i am trying to sound mature so i'll retract the knife and put it away...for now.

Anyway i realised in my first year at uni i was telling people about myself and it seemed like i was lying because nobody saw the person i described, i was different to who i thought i was and it took this change in my life (starting uni) to recognise this and to be able to see that i wasn't who i wanted to be, i was telling people who i wanted to be, not who i was. This needed to change and i really feel this semester just gone has been the best few months of my life, this is when the change happened...

It happened fast but thats ok, somethings do happen fast, some GREAT things happen in the blink of an eye, sometimes when you least expect it and people will run when this happens but how can you? Everybody knows (bodger loves MASH POTATO!) (oh dear) ... everybody knows that you cannot control time, no matter how rich, how smart, how clever, you just glide along at the same pace as the rest of us and so you have to take your chances, grab opportunities with both hands and when they wriggle and twist you have to sometimes hold a little firmer. I have held firm to all my opportunities that have come my way this semester and its a time of my life that i will never forget, i've changed but so has everything around me, people have become friends, friends have become best friends, some people have become very important and unmissable on my daily routine. These people have helped me during a time of evolution and they probably don't even know that, i have probably done the same with them, we all have.

I feel as though now i have made a name for myself, i'm not famous and i'm not the most popular person but i feel as though i have a role to uphold, a part to play and i'm doing it well and nothings feels better.

Some people reading this blog will probably think i'm talking about them at points...well, i am and its those people who i'd like to wish a very merry christmas to, it was hard to leave Winchester, i felt almost as though it was a mistake to leave, but in many ways i know this break is an important one... Here are some highlights of my 2nd year so far and some quotes to go with them;

Congratulations Belly of Buddha for winning Azzurri Fives thursday league...

"Thats a large single duvet! they call them doubles!"

Boo FM, a real triumph...

"Remember when i got cramp?"

Monday nights, pre drinks at mine, we didn't mean to brake robs arm and other than that those nights couldn't be better, great friends, great laughs, great times... you must all come squeeze in sometime!

Thanks for reading my christmas reflection note, i pray that things take off even better in the new year, there are a few things i want but you can't buy them so i still have to have a gift less christmas, just, i'll have to have my fingers crossed too.

OH AND THE PICTURE ARE SOME GOOD PEOPLE HAVING A GOOD TIME IN A GOOD PLACE... something that sounds cheesey but to me is worth remembering, we could all be a million times worse off and certainly no where near a million times better off... Thats what i believe anyway.

Sworn to secrecy, i might go after school

2009-12-15T15:28:00.000-08:00

So i down tuned my guitar half a step and sat there strumming away to 'an olive grove facing the sea' which is in my top 3 greatest written songs of all time and i thought to myself... whats the point? then i thought... don't think that... so then i thought, i know, i'm going to talk about weird people...

Josh Duffy met me in spoons a short while ago and was pale white and fairly shaken up, he told me he had seen a figure on the bridge over looking the train track, a dark figure wearing a hood which covered the face. The figure was staring over the edge and wouldn't turn either way, he told me of how he tried to catch a glimpse of the face of this character but it was just black. He also told me how instinctively he wanted to ask if they were ok but something inside him didn't allow him to open his mouth.

The weird person i mention first isn't josh because we found out today after some stunning research that a man threw himself onto the tracks and killed himself, this man was in connection to the murder of a mother of 4 who was stabbed to death earlier this year, apparently the only person in connection with this murder.

Tell me that's not the scariest thing you've read today!
Adrian Hicks claims that Winchester is the setting for the next alien attack, that there is an area of land just outside the city which is a hot spot for alien landings... this man claims to have watched a humanoid strolling the streets of Winchester... this man is WEIRD. I read about Bob Short, a man from America who claims to be an alien channel. He basically acts like a loud speaker for an alien from the timezone 'Koldas' named 'Korton'. This man thrashes his head back and forth until he starts to talk in a very deep, monotone voice with a lot of 'umm's' usually following the back end of his sentences. This is the voice of Korton, he tells you things about you which no human could (apparently) and keeps this up for sometimes ten straight minutes until the human form of the man collapses in a heap, stands up and asks "what did he say?"

ALARM BELLS

Sigmund Freud was as strange yet surprisingly smart i thought... nobody cared to mention that we're all sex feasting animals and damn it we probably are.. after all we are animals and a lot of the time it isn't our heads that do the talking, especially when we're out in a bar or club... the most common meeting ground for social situations. Freud claims that woman envy men because of their penis'... amen to that brother, the woman started feminism to fight back, they're snappy, aggressive, needy and often scary and this all makes sense. We put up with this most of the time but of course.... Freud strikes again, we're all motivated by sex anyway... so why wouldn't we? He claimed that society is stopping us from following our instincts and that sex is a natural instinct like food for hunger. Society makes us suppress this feeling and so as individuals we are not who we say we are... not really, like if i say to you, "i'd like to go shopping with you" i probably mean "i would like to have sex with you" and if someone said "i'd like to have sex with you sometime" they probably mean "can we have sex now please" and if they say "please" they probably mean "shut up and take your clothes off!" This analogy makes you see people in a different way which is a difficult thing to come to terms with at times. The finest example is the next time you see your mother after reading that Freud claimed we all fancied our mothers when we were young and hated our dads because of their dominance over our mothers... ahhh look at your mother with a straight face now boys. Freud is handy to have to mouth when arguing with your girlfriend though, he brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "you're just jealous" now we know the truth and i can honestly say i've seen the way you look at me sometimes.

You see humanity never ceases to amaze me, people amaze me, i am fascinated by space and the universe but more than satisfied with what we have down here. We lie, we love, we cheat, we steal, we beg, we borrow and yet all we really want to do... is shag...

Life goes on, well only due to the success rate of our destiny and favourite past time! but in all fairness the ball sits in our court and theirs at all times if what Freud says is true.

I certainly wouldn't admit to that though, i would look strange and i'd be defaming myself greatly even if everyone avoiding me thought the same as i as they did so.
Nietzsche hit the nail on the head with this beautiful line
"you may lie with your mouth, but with the mouth you make as you do so you none the less tell the truth"

So this blog has taken you through the world of suicide, aliens and now sex... deny me as a writer now!

Lack of sleep is killing me i think it's time i closed my eyes, for a while

2009-12-13T16:43:00.001-08:00

A wonderful line from Kelly Jones to get us kick started into this funky blog. Right, let's do this.

It's a strange feeling you get when someone of slight intelligence tells you that you suffer from mild insomnia. This is something of course i will know all about and i do.

On the day when i visited this person and had a good, long chat with them about my habits, my timetable and my overall life style i was told that i 'suffer' from a condition.

Now i have to disagree with the woman. People who suffer are far worse off than i am, so ok i haven't slept consistently for roughly 4 years now, i thought maybe it had something to do with my crazed ex girlfriend but she is gone now and i still find myself watching TV with the sign language guy at the bottom... why is this? do deaf people only come out at night? Surely it would be more appropriate to design a society at night for blind people because they could easily function at this time, probably a little easier than during the day with less traffic etc... anyway as we so often do... we're veering radically off track so lets give that wheel a good tug and get back to the road.

Ok nice to be back, i have tried many methods to attempt to correct my outrageous sleeping habit yet to no avail! I have tried reading, music, film, nothing, light, darkness, silence, ambiance and even running late at night to try and empty my body of all energy but again... i remain wide awake. The funny thing is that before i 'settle' for the night i often find myself feeling very tired to the point where i'm ready to just pass out yet when i close my eyes i see a million horses charging around in front of me and a sense of loud banging all until i open my eyes again. (Note to reader; i am not a freak)

Maggie Thatcher only slept 3 hours a night on average and it was claimed that this is all she 'needed' and maybe thats so or maybe it was the stresses of running a country, or maybe she kept thinking "did i leave the oven on?" we simply don't know.

Now i cannot claim that i have stress over running the country, i don't run the country (OH BUT IF I DID...) thats another blog for another time. What i will say is, it probably feels like we're all running a country from time to time in our own way, our own country in our own lives. We have to keep everything running smoothly and everyone we care about safe, in contact and happy. All these aspects of responsibility meet us head on daily and this defiantly follows us into the night, like some crazy stalker. When night time falls upon us its an interesting turn of events, what a difference a day makes... well at night nothing but everything changes. Time stands still when i'm awake at night and the things you feel, believe and involve yourself in seem to change drastically.

I would like to see how my life would be now had i had a good nights sleep over the past 4 years because i'm pretty sure i would be acting upon things differently. I am going to say things tomorrow that have crept into my head tonight that i probably shouldn't say but hey, i've been awake for... hmm.. roughly.. 35040 hours now... haha... how ridiculous. Of course on many a drunken night i have fallen into bed and been half way to heaven but then i get up at 7am everyday and probably didn't pass out until around 4 so whats that? Doesn't even count if you ask me.

I am not stressed, i am happy, i feel as though i am working hard and achieving my goals in the short term and i stroll around each day as bright and as chipper as the last so whats the harm in my 'suffering'? Well, i'm not really sure.

It's the obsession of time that keeps me up apprantly... now this i can believe, i sleep with my phone next to me and my alarm ready to bleep each morning, i check this every hour and once i get past the first check i know i won't sleep, something tells me there is no point due to the fact that i calculate the time left before i have to get up... So why bother going to sleep... meh... i can sleep when i die.

THE 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD (plus a Swede)

2009-11-24T09:10:00.000-08:00

So the ATP masters finals kicked off this week in London, the o2 arena more specifically! The top 8 players in the mens game go head to head to determine the best player in the world for 2009.

This is no grand slam but when you consider the facts it must rank up there in terms of priority for these athletes. Firstly, bar the swede Robin Soderling who has been upgraded due to Andy Roddicks injury, these are the top 8 players in tennis, this means no simple matches, no easy warm ups, none of these games will be anything less than epic. Secondly, the round robin group system means that anything less than 110% concentration from the first serve and you're on your way out before you get a chance to visit the 'Bodyworks' exhibition.

Thirdly, when you look at the previous winners of this competition, a very prestigious list indeed, it shows you that nothing less than world class will win you that trophy; Djokovic, Federer, Sampras, Becker, Agassi to name a few. These names are the names that enter your head when you think tennis. Being a member of that elite club is the dream for many of the top players in the world today, only two of this years top 8 have that title, half as many as those with grand slam titles to their name.

So as you can see, this competition is as good a chance as any to prove to the world and your opponents just how good you are.

We certainly have started with a bang, the British number 1 Andy Murray pulling through a tough first match against my man Juan Martin Del Potro in 3 sets, from the moment they walked out you could see what this years tournament was going to be like, tennis is becoming more and more glamorous and the setting for this years finals proves this. Every time the players sit down the lights go down, the screens go into advertising overload and the top 40 singles chart is pumped out at full volume, no wonder Del Potro lost concentration late on in the third! He was probably wondering how much a tier one ticket to the Miley Cyrus gig would cost him. In fairness, the o2 haven't done a lot wrong, the crowd get pumped up as soon as the players walk on, dry ice, flashing lights and music accompany them to make this look like a Heavy weight title fight.

Del Potro i mention again as i am supporting him this year, you would hope he can pull through after todays big win against Verdasco, if Federer can start to turn around that poor record against Murray he would probably (hopefully, i mean) take his foot off the peddle a bit for his encounter with Del Potro and give the 21 year old an easy ride. Mind you, saying that, after his crushing defeat in this years U.S Open it may be a game of revenge for the world number 1 and Del Potro could be in for a bit of a hiding. Its a shame to see Verdasco out so early as he played probably two of the best matches of his year but like this tournament suggests, even your best won't be good enough to see you through to the knock outs when, ranked 8th in the world, you're statistically the worst player in the competition. That fact alone highlights the standard of this event.

Into group B and another great performance by the world number 9 Robin Soderling saw him brush Nadal aside with slight ease, he must be starting to think that he deserves to be up there with the worlds best, what a great year for him. The obvious match to mention was the current champion and the in form man on the circuit right now, Novak Djokavic and the Russian number 1, Nikolay Davydenko. The Russian took full advantage of the obvious exhaustion of the Serbian after his recent triumph in Paris leading up to this encounter with an aggressive approach to his play. He matched the champ stroke for stroke until literally the last game of the final set when, unfortunately, he just ran out of steam and Novak, being the world number 3 for good reason, pounced on the Russain and punished him to the max. The two athletes showed the crowd an amazing match of tennis and showed their appreciation for each other after over 2 and a half hours of tennis by exchanging shirts for a perfect, sportsmanship ending to a thrilling night.

If Novak can have a more simple task in the next stage of the competition he could be the man to beat, well at the moment he certainly is the man to beat but how long will his dominance show? Federer is an obvious favourite again but after such an emotional year for the world number 1, winning his first ever Roland Garros grand slam, retaining his Wimbledon crown, marrying his long term girlfriend and becoming a father to twin girls, how much can he take before his body switches off? Is the answer to that a week of matches in late December at the o2 against the worlds best tennis players? Fans would certainly hope not.

Can Murray take his first ATP masters title in front of his home crowd? He has had a good year on the tour and this would maybe be the prize that would make the world sit up and take notice of him, something he has made clear needs to be done, although if you ask me he could try not being such a moody, po faced twat.

Whoever you choose, you know you're not going to be disappointed by the level of tennis on show, thats what makes this show the best on earth... when all the grandslams are done and the weather is rough you can sit in and enjoy the worlds best tennis. Although you still have to sit through the annoying Mark Petchey and you still have to look at the little dangling cross ear ring thing hanging off Pat Cashs' face. Ah its a small price to pay.

DEL POTRO TO WIN!!!

it's not different at all is it? not unless different means the same!

2009-11-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

Walking through the front door and seeing the same thing everyday for 15 years can be pretty dull.
Sometimes though you know you never ever want that thing to go away, it makes your day, everyday, without fail. It cheers you up, it makes you smile, it keeps you warm, it makes you laugh, it sometimes makes you cry.

Every time you leave the house you forget this, whats inside seems to become irrelevant, until of course you return and its there again just waiting to pick you up. It never forgets you're coming home, it never switches off from its role.

When i came home and it wasn't there for the first time in 15 years it made me realise how much i depended on it, how much i counted on it, i didn't even realise but when its not there to immediately take away the blues, the blues start to sink in and this is hard to deal with.

I'll make this more personal now, love is the strangest thing, it's as rewarding as it is heart-breaking. You and i shared a love that nobody in this world will understand, we built this bond based on pure trust and companionship, we spent hours together in silence and we watched over each other like guardians.
We will always be best friends, you helped me achieve everything i have achieved and its a damn shame you won't be here to see me carry on! But of course i will carry on because thats what you would have wanted and thats the only way to defeat pain, its to pick yourself up and keep moving.

You know the story about the woman who married the Berlin wall, we loved that story... "it must suck knowing that dogs wee on your husband". I'm laughing at that but now i'm looking all sheepish because i'm pretty sure you wee'd on me once! I think i just dug up a repressed memory there.

I won't ever sing that song about the lost woman again because i'm pretty sure you were the only one who ever listened the whole way through, no one else could stand the high note that i never managed to hit. I won't be able to sleep in until 4pm anymore as you were the only one who backed me up when i tried to convince people that this was acceptable behaviour.

I won't call home as much , i won't need to ask how you are, i won't need to tell you how i am.
I'll graduate from university soon and i'll laugh like hell when i do because you and me both know that 2 years ago the last place we would have put our money on me being is university.
We just rolled around in the mud and laughed about having to grow up, laughed about having to go out, laughed about needing a meaning. You proved everyone wrong, i didn't.

I won't forget you.

Can i have a picture of you tonight? Keep it with me always in my mind

2009-11-22T17:15:00.000-08:00

Many times in peoples lives they find sudden inspiration to do something great, say something right, make something right or change something. I have found this inspiration but i cannot make anything right, i don't feel the need to change anything and I'm alone so saying something would categorise me as a strange fellow.

So i'll do something a little different that people don't tend to do. I'll walk you through my inspiration, you can follow in a couple of ways. Firstly (and this will be the most effective way) pick up an acoustic guitar, if you haven't got one of these then i will try to describe the sound that this melody makes... because, like many things, music will sound different to everyone as everyone will interpret it differently regardless to the fact that it is only ever going to be that one piece of music.
Now, on the A string slide the 7th up to the 9th and lightly catch the D string open, slide the 9th on the A string down the 4th and then catch the D open again much like you did before. Now back to the 4th on the A string and slide onto the 5th of the A string. Leave a 2 second gap and just play it again and again.

This simple piece of melody has actually made my night, it was written by Gary Lightbody, the lead singer of Snow Patrol for their first studio album 'Songs for polar bears' an album that many people would never have heard of. If you are a fan then pick it up because it is a real gem. I believe Gary is the best modern ballad writer of our generation, plenty of people will disagree but the lyrics he writes seem to fill me with pure inspiration. As you can see, i had to blog about this. His songs sometimes make me wonder why we can't all write like him, the lyrics seem so simple, we speak the words of his songs everyday, sometimes his songs seem like anecdotes or stories but his deep, melodic voice transforms them into something else completely, something very beautiful. He, in my opinion has worked out the formula for what i like to call the 'pretty song' something that most artists just cannot get. Its the feeling that if the song were a person they would be calm, gentle and very attractive (alright this is getting off course).

There is a point to this blog, i think. The piece of music i am referring to is played on the A and the D string of an acoustic guitar and so is already going to be in a low key, it has slides in it which obviously cause a type of drag on the notes, it pulls the sound from one place to another. Higher in this case on the first part. (Are you following me?) if you can't play this then hum a quick shift of key, from low... to slightly higher in under a second... that might sound right! i don't know keys or anything like that so this is hard. Oh it needs to be quiet as well... works better, now shift all the way down (lower sound now) to that 4th fret. Imagine riding up a ramp and over the top and down the other side but the other side falls further than the side you came up. This probably isn't working at all... It was worth a try though and if anyone is trying this and can hear something in their head then this is slightly successful i guess. This deep, melodic sound has been played over and over again in my head tonight and it really slowed me down and helped separate all my current situations.

This also played over the top of images in my head from recent points in my life, it made those moments far more beautiful and this helped me to understand some of those moments. So try to play that sound or any sound you can create that is deep, slow, shifty and melodic over the top of images in your head. If you're awesome enough to have tried this, log onto YouTube now and search for an ACOUSTIC version of '15 minutes old' by Snow Patrol and listen to see how close you were to the melody... Now that sounds like fun doesn't it?

This blog is of course probably the most random blog you've ever read and thankfully its by far the most random blog I've ever posted by I'm all for trying new things and just know that when i wrote this i was in a very calm and fulfilled state of mind. The idea of trying to describe actual inspiration in the form of a tune seemed like a really cool thing to me.

Nobody will know what any of you heard but hey it could be the next '15 minutes old'...

Every single thing you do is magic baby!

2009-11-19T07:58:00.000-08:00

They did it! Kelly Jones and his Stereophonical friends are back telling us to 'Keep calm and carry on' and i'm so glad to say that this is a real triumph.

I have been an avid fan of Stereophonics for around 6 years now so i've seen the good and the bad. During a fairly low point for the band surrounding the departure of former drummer (and childhood friend) Stuart Cable in 2003 (due to commitment issues) they released 'Just enough education to perform (J.E.E.P) which struggled to produce a decent live tour as they were playing with the ex 'Counting crows' drummer as a fill in and trying to work out if they were going to release another album as Stereophonics. Thankfully they stuck it out and released 'You gotta go there to come back' an album that was probably their most honest and thoughtful piece of work and for that reason alone it was admirable but it lacked that Phonics magic which they had lost for a mix of reasons.

They seemed to fade slightly in the eyes of fans as the real kings of gritty rock and roll until, more or less out of no where they released 'Language, sex, violence, other?' in 2005 with new drummer Javier Weyler. This album, amazingly, birthed their only ever UK number 1 single 'Dakota' which has been the finishing song for their live sets ever since. This album was amazing, honest, heavy, risky and fresh. Jones' powerful, beastly voice roars across the record like a lion in the jungle, you can't deny him.

Following this they released 'Pull the pin' which really flopped but for no particular reason, it was solid, well written and had plenty of good tracks on it, i liked it a lot. Stereophonics didn't dwell on this at all though, the next year they released a well earned 'Decade in the sun' greatest hits CD followed by a tour in which they sold out the then new o2 arena in Greenwich. A show which i was lucky enough to catch and lucky is the right word. The curtain fell to the phonics rocking out to 'Vegas two times' which was mind blowing, Kelly was back, just as good if not better and he was showing everyone who doubted him that he was still a force on the rock scene. He played 10 of 11 tracks from their debut release 'Word gets around' which was perfect for the older fans and add this to acoustic versions of 'Maybe tomorrow', 'You're my star' and 'I stopped to fill my car up' made this night in late December 08 a perfect way to say goodbye to the boys from South Wales.

How wrong could i have been? I have my tickets for a Wembley arena show in March 2010 and cannot wait after hearing this new record and expecting a 6/10 at best i was so pleased to be shocked to the point where i couldn't believe what i was hearing. We are hearing what you would hear if 'Word gets around' and 'Language, sex, violence, other?' had a baby... an edgy, shifty yet classy baby! 'Keep calm and carry on' is everything you thought Stereophonics had lost; soft and tough, ugly and beautiful, light and heavy, that perfect mix that only they can really pull off.

THIS ISN'T REALLY A REVIEW... BUT BUY IT!!!

The WINOL experience. From the hanger to the launch pad

2009-11-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

After 2 dummy weeks in the news room 'Winchester news online' finally took off and is now online.

WINOL is a student based journalism news website bringing you all the news from in around Hampshire.
In the first test week we were given our roles for the news room and a run down of what was expected, so allow me to re-introduce myself *cough* Joey Lipscombe, commissioning editor of technology for the features desk, ah-thank you, or as i prefer 'tech-joe'.

This role more or less makes me the Jeremy Clarkson of Winchester which is pretty awesome, i have run through my practise weeks by reviewing gadgets and playing with toys with the help of the commissioning editor of media, Josh Duffy. Like they say, it's a tough job... but someone has to do it. So last week we travelled on a wonderful train journey to Southampton to visit a gadget store and check out their toys for a picture feature on the must have toys for Christmas, like i said... tough job. We played, we laughed, we got electrocuted, we had McDonalds... all in all, a good hard days work.

I made my way back to our newsroom where we have our zones for our departments... the production team sit in the darkest, furthest corner of the room, this i think is so you have to have to walk miles to get to them and they can see you coming so they can just stare at you as you walk up knowing that you're going to ask for a favour or an extension or something, (not that i've ever needed an extension).

Our features team seem to have a nice chemistry between us, i've found that features is a little more laid back than the news side of proceedings, they're always running around on the phone and dragging cameras, booms and tripods around, harassing members of the public. I just fly helicopters!

After a couple of weeks of training we finally went live this week from our very own studio, this is always a hectic process and one that i've yet to be a part of, you know... out flying helicopters and stuff, did i mention we flew helicopters? toy ones though... not real ones unfortunately. Anyway, the bulletins are running out once a week on wednesdays at 5. Be sure to check it out on http://www.winol.co.uk/ it looks pretty amazing and i believe has been quoted as the best student journalism site.

I'll still take all the blame, because you and me are both one and the same.

2009-10-11T05:01:00.000-07:00

If you exclude a 4 month period of my recent life then it's fair to say that most days i wake up with a big smile on my face. This is caused by a mild case of 'ataraxia'. Yeah, big word.. This is a Greek term which means you're free from worry and preoccupation! Something that i believe i have, like i said, a 'mild' case of.

I have realised in my life that arguments to a high percentage make no sense, they carry no meaning and have little impact on later life... So i generally take the blame for all arguments regardless to if I'm right, or if I'm wrong. This is a stupid, stupid characteristic to have i know, it makes me vulnerable and often paints me into corners. That being said, if i can sleep at night knowing that I'm free from worry and that very little or nothing from that previous day is going to creep up on my tomorrow then that is just super.

I used to argue ALOT. I used to fight for my corner until the cows came home, but people always pointed this out as the one thing that really made me an arsehole. Obviously nobody likes to be told whats wrong with them but eventually you have to take a look in the mirror, i mean, if a guy calls you a horse once, you punch him on the nose, if he calls you a horse twice you call him a bad name, if a guy calls you a horse 3 times then you might as well go shopping for a saddle.

So I've started to really appreciate things in my life that are truly beautiful, like, music for example... I really can't think of a time in my life when music has meant more to me or played a bigger part in my life, this is one of a few things which have replaced those little voices in my head persuading me to keep arguing and to prove my point. I believe that if i have a point to make now, i can make it with some class and little bother, a trait of mine that i am rather proud of to say the least. This means that i can keep relationships with people who i clash with on certain subjects. Avoiding tension in a group situation and also keeping valuable friend'ships' afloat. Another thing I've learnt recently is that people deserve second chances, people have pre-judged me my whole life, we do it everyday to every person who walks past us. You can't say you've walked past the guy in the expensive suit and shiny shoes and NOT said "posh prick".

I have learnt a simple lesson later than most... never judge a book by it's cover, sometimes don't judge a book by it's first 5 chapters... but really the real lesson is never judge a book by it's reviews! You know, i'm in university now and i am still a victim of dirty gossip, silly little girls and jealous little boys all waiting to try and bring you down. I've been soul searching recently and I've found that i take so much more from my friendships and relationships when i strip them down and look at the bare minimum. Why do we bond with people? Why do we care about other people? Is it fear of loneliness? Is it fear of inadequacy? I don't actually know the answer to this so i can't say for sure but i do believe that we connect with certain people when we feel safe, there is surely no better feeling than the feeling of comfort and safety. I have a few relationships where i could turn around and tell the person that i am a murderer and that i plan to strike again but i'd still love to go to the cinema with them and they would oblige... Probably even pay for me. This is the feeling of comfort and safety. Trust is our biggest black hole, it's our saten it's our god, it's our manchester united and it's our chelsea. It holds everything together but it also tares everything apart, without trust you can't have any relationship, with trust you constently live in fear of betrayal.... This is going no where...

Something will probably happen to me soon which will birth a sequal to this pointless post so keep checking... oh dear.. we've hit an all time low now haven't we?

Sequel syndrome

2009-10-05T04:37:00.000-07:00

Right, before i begin i would like to say that i do not claim/believe to be a love guru but i can say that i have been through a few experiences which have taught me a thing or two.

When asked about love, lust and relationships everyone loves to give their own little verdict on how others should live their lives, me included. So, let me get right down to it! Everybody has that magical moment in a relationship, that second when everything falls into place, the moment that when you look back you say "yeah, that was the moment i realised things were going pretty well".
This moment often comes up at the end of a Hollywood movie, for example; when the right guy stops the wrong guy marrying the vulnerable girl at the alter and then in the next scene the right guy and the girl get married at a nicer, fancier location... you've all seen it.
Now the funny thing is, after this moment the credits roll and the couples head off to bed and the woman shows the man how much she appreciates him staying awake during the movie.
What nobody seems to think of is what happens next? And the reason for this is you never see it... But how does the wrong guy react to being shown up at the alter... and how does he get over the money he spent on her and the wedding?... and probably the house which always seems to be huge in those movies. I mean that guy is probably going to be a little pissed. And what about the girl? She will always have a little something for the wrong guy... she will always ask herself "what if?".
This is what i like to call 'Sequel syndrome' (and I'm trademarking that phrase). Basically this is when real couples come out the other side of 'that moment' when everything goes right and they realise they're perfectly in love, (Q the credits) and then all the details from before catch up with them! For a completely random example, say you were sneaking around with someone who had a partner for a number of years and then they realised that they're not happy in their old life and that they want you full time, so they leave their partner and stay with you... that's the end of the movie right? Wrong!! The partner comes back with revenge, the parents hate you, the mutual friends hate you, the differences between you and your saucy new partner start to show and finally... well i think that's it but it's certainly enough. That's why they do not make sequels to 'Rom Com's' because they would be VERY depressing!

So when you pass the end of the movie and onto the sequel how do you know what to do? Hide? Elope? Change your names? These ideas all seem a little extreme... you could be grown up about it and face these problems, you could be the bigger person and show that your love is stronger than any past problems but of course all these things are easier said than done.

Once, someone told me when one door closes a new door opens, which i can say with some confidence is true but, what about when a new door opens by itself? Do other doors close? No! They do not close, they remain open and issues come running after you like a fat kid who didn't get to the ice cream van in time! (you being the Ice cream van in that weird simile).
So it's obvious that someones past is going to eventually crop up in a relationship at the wrong time and hang a big old black cloud over a lovely day in paradise. I believe it's how you prepare for these things, the key factors of any relationship is trust, communication and understanding. I believe that 110%. I mean even if the past doesn't show up in human form, if somebody has suffered a relationship with lack of trust from before then that is going to put a whole heap of pressure on the partner to play superman at all time just to stop the other half from losing faith in the relationship all together, regardless to if you've done anything wrong or not!
What i tend to do is to look forward and see what I've taken from past experiences and how i can use them in my future relationships... not worrying about how the past may catch up with me. Being sure that I've gone about everything in the right way and been as grown up as i can be, because at the end of the day it's not how you react to a situation at the time that matters, it's only how you bounce back from that. I've taken a million lessons from my experiences and i know that these will serve me greatly in the next part of my life. (sorry to get a little serious at the end there! be sure to read some jokes in the next blog so you don't all think I'm a complete square!)

I'm not going to end by dishing out answers for all these problems because like i said, i am no guru and i wouldn't want to disappoint! I merely wanted to share my observations with you and if you've been in any of these positions then you can at the very least relate to this blog!
Cheers :)

'i've had the same jeans on for several million years now'

2009-02-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

Meaty stuff there in the title i know.
Darwinism, for me, is the only theory.
It's been 200 years since the birth of Charles Robert Darwin and yet his theory is as relevant today as it ever has been, if not more so.

Charles Darwin, to sum up very briefly, published his ideas of evolution by 'means of natural selection' in his book 'the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life'. Wow quite the title there. Anyway, he believed that god didn't create the world and that it was millions of years old and that we have all evolved from one particular ancestor, meaning that we are all animals.

In fact if you held your mothers hand and she held hers and she held hers and so fourth and a chimpanzee did the same opposite you, you would both end up holding one hand each of some creature that is neither a monkey nor a human, and that line would only be about 300 miles long! If the entire timeline of the world was an hour for example, humans wouldn't come in until about the 59th second of the 59th minute!

The idea is that the only thing that is forever going is 'genes', they are passed on when we reproduce and random mistakes occur called mutations which create new characteristics that are designed to be better, if you like, in the next life time at living!

Pretty much that's about it although Darwin did spread that out a little more over like 500 pages in a very very small font but we will let him off, he had a lot to get off his chest, especially considering he didn't publish his book of ideas until about 20 years after he had recorded them because he didn't want to offend people. When Darwin was born he was brought up in a society that believed in the christian god and that the earth was little over 6000 years old. His wife was a strict christian and this seriously affected their relationship because Darwin argued against everything his beloved wife believed in, they vowed never to speak of it. (talk about bottled up emotions)

Now Mr christian god told everyone he made the earth, if you're going to lie make sure you keep it realistic right...I've learnt this myself in my lifetime. god? no! he went off on one, he got carried away and made a mess of it, "yeah i made the world, everything i did and i didn't even have any help aaaannnddd i did it in the dark!"
yeah, sure...although that might explain what went wrong with manatees... and the ginger one in girls aloud! They are surely creations of a midnight experiment! but anyway that's not the point. I'm rambling, listen to me i sound like horrie!

Darwin born in 1809 dropped boring old school to travel the world on the HMS beagle, he saw
everything including 'fossils' this is where the thinking started, he figured that all fossils looked similar to particular animals, this he thought meant everything in some way must be related why are these creatures that are almost the same as these ones extinct? Why didn't this one survive? and out of all the animals he could have chosen to love HE BECAME 'DA DA DAAA' a pigeon lover?? yeah, he studied pigeons, back home in 'down house' in Kent he looked at all the differences, how some had slightly larger beaks and some had slightly larger wings. This turned out to be evolution, every reproduced animal is a slightly evolved version of the one before,
this is evident now, pray escape predators more, predators can now catch pray easier.

The latest in the modelling line of giraffe has a slightly shorter neck because the trees in its habitat are shorter than before! Basically our genes started off in one creature and are passed on with new, edited information in them every time. The DNA inside is made up of 4 chemicals; A, T, C & G and whatever order these are in determines what species you are. So when 'the view' said I've had the same jeans on for four days now, they really meant, 'I've had the same jeans on for several million years now'.

The reason many people disliked Darwin's theory was that it had no magic, no badda-Bing, no charm, no mojo, it was dull and pointless, we're put on this earth to survive, we then tell our descendants how to do it a little better, our genes are like little instruction manuals.
The stronger, faster and more adapt to your habitat you become the more your genes develop and the longer your species will live. Awesome hey? The funniest question is... when the animal kingdom is so ruthless and cruel and the idea of life is to out wit your opponent then why are humans not like this? We give to charity, we have doctors etc... the reason is the selfish gene. We are the fifth monkey, sorry if you dislike it but its true, in fact a great fact is this- we are actually closer in relation to a chimpanzee than a horse is to an ass!

The reason we are the way we are is because we are the most evolved species, we have outgrown our selfish gene, we have developed such a huge brain that we managed to rebel against our selfish gene, now we have society and laws... and what is the next step? 7 out of 10 people in Nairobi have HIV but some now have something in them that makes them immune to HIV, does this mean that we are evolving to defeat viruses? Could we, millions of years from now possibly live forever???
It seems every animal is a prototype and they live a struggle, the good ones pass on their resistances to the next and they then become stronger.
Darwin quote "the race is survival, the finish line is reproduction".

I'm a huge Darwin fan and hopefully this shows why, if the human brain has evolved so much that someone can work that out then only 'god' knows what we will be able to discover years from now!

If monkeys were put in a situation that was more humane than the ones they live i now then possibly they could at some point grow the brain to think and create like humans! Every part of the human brain can be found in the chimps brain, just slightly less developed! AMAZING ihear you say? cheers for reading!

"Jesus!... JESUS...can you play football?"

2009-02-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

So if you didn't know... i play for this football team called the fist of Christ right and i wanted to take out five minutes to talk about the future of this once great team...

so this whole idea was to bring together some lads from the first year at uni and make some new friends in a strange new world... this worked.. my stand in best friends all play for this team and we get along pretty well, we look forward to our Thursdays and we have some awesome post match drinks...

we ended our first season with runner up medals which we earned fair and square i believe. now our second season is underway and its a whole new situation. our defence is finding the new league really tough..faster, stronger attackers and quick passing midfielders are tearing us apart.
our midfield is sloppy and lazy and our attack hasn't turned up yet. the attack from last season was amazing...fast, flowing and feisty! this season we've scored 4 goals in 2 games but conceded 7 which is so unlike us.

we are bringing in new players and casting out the old... we're arguing, this isn't how it should be but it is. unless we rack up a couple of points soon this could be the beginning of the end for the mighty fist.

confidence is at an all time low and this is evident on the field. the midfield is lacking in speed, creativity and passion and the attack is lacking a pair of teeth... we're unable to bite anyone with out our soccer teeth!! our goal keeper bless him has had the worse luck of all, if it could strangely some how go in using all the elements and a bit of satins bad karma....it has! last year was a dream season and i guess this season will be an eye opener. the team will fold if we have a really poor season because everybody is falling to pieces on the field and this is affecting the group socially.

so lets hope the luck picks up soon and we can make a claim for the top of the table like last year.

loosing the fist of Christ would be like loosing a child but it's on the horizon! with a huge game this week it's almost make or break at this early stage. fingers crossed.

HEY! Whats your name again?

2009-02-15T15:49:00.000-08:00

so i was speaking to Nader and we got to talking about this and that...you know how you do and all.

we thought, funny how you can trip over in the work place or the town or the school area and be ridiculed, laughed at and simply abused by the most brain dead of people and then you could trip in the Amazon rainforest in front of over 1500 species of bird and 50,000 species of insect in a single square mile and they would hardly notice.

it's this strange thought that keeps my faith in the human race at a consistent 'little'! sure there are some very special people out there and some great legends of history which i admire greatly but that doesn't sugar-coat the greed, the betrayal, the fraud, the deception, the cruelty and the crazy, mindlessness flowing throughout the rest of humanity.

humanity? humanity has adopted a new meaning over time... it's meaning has broadened, it has made a semantic shift. we now believe that being humane is to feel, to understand, to believe and trust but how very wrong we all are! we say that if someone does something reckless then it isn't humane... but how many acts against the name need to be done before the semantic shifting begins again? lets wake up and smell the coffee, humanity is reckless, vicious and spiteful.

in the animal kingdom animals fight for food, territory, young ones and their life. they simply fight for survival. we live in a completely different world socially to these species, we had the intelligence to create a democracy, create laws and create a system that over 80% of the human race follows. thanks to this, we do not need to fight for food, fight for survival, fight for territory of fight for our families... we think? now i've never seen a monkey grab a plastic bag and wrap it around another monkey's head whilst he was tied to a tree and make him beg for mercy using only the fear and torment in his eyes buuuut, it could well have happened, i doubt it though. anyway my point is we as humans are ruthless killing machines, we can destroy anything, we can bully the smaller things like insects and things, thats easy, we all do that by being what is called 'bigger' but even without claws and huge teeth we can shit all over lions and tigers! we are killers and so why did the almighty give us the brains of the world, we can destroy the world...we're doing it! i'm not going to bore you with talks of your carbon footprint now but come on...Elephants can weigh a ton and be harmless to the planet and we can destroy the earth with our size nines? hello? killers! TERMINATORS i prefer to call us, it has a ring to it and it doesn't automatically file us for some good old time in the big house. wow the big house, us killers are so ruthless that with our brains we made a place to detain the really good ones!

all this crazy speech is about is...and bring on the drum roll please... did the intelligence get delivered to the wrong species? is humanity anything more than the most amazing killing programme ever created?

you could imagine the episode of 'Holy Dragons Den'

the boss of all this madness-"so who are you?"

god-"well, i'm god and stuff,"

the boss-"did you invent the animal things?"

god-"ahmmm"

the boss-"thats pretty awesome those things are good, i mean really good."

god-(slight blush) "cheers"

the boss-"so? a new idea?"

god-"yeah right these things that can do all what animals can but better... not as good looking and not as nice and not as cute...not as sensible, not as thoughtful, not as curious, not as awesome... but they will create this thing called monopoly and you will LOVE IT...then they will cover the earth with crap things like buildings and stuff then eventually blow it all up... a film will definitely be made about it as well...

the boss-"awesome, go for it"

that was weird i know but i think it might of happened... probably!

a guy stabbed another guy on the bus once because he asked him to NOT throw chips at his girlfriend... all the other 'humans' on the bus just sat and watched... well all you can say is... whats wrong with throwing chips at someone? thats humanity right?