Risk

Quote of the moment: Kerrang single of the year - Last Train Home - Lost Prophets (Sigh!)

I can't remember whether I actually mentioned that before, when I first heard it, or not. But anyway: super stuff, what what? It's such a brilliant song... I can lose myself in it, just stand in the middle of my room, shut my eyes and feel my skin tingling every time I play it...

On a totally unrelated train of thought (no pun intented :p)... The guy who has been taken hostage in Iraq, Kenneth Bigley. There's been a huge fuss about it - his family have been on the news non-stop. And they've been complaining about the lack of intervention from Tony Blair, when negotiation with terrorists is quite simply NOT DONE. It's blindingly obvious - give in, and more hostages will be taken, and more demands made. They've been complaining about how the Americans should let the Iraqis decide what to do with the female prisoners that the hostage takers want freed (they are in American-run jails) when the Iraqi prime minister has already said there will be no negotiation. Now the British goverment has even printed leaflets asking people in Baghdad for help in finding him - more than done for anyone else - but still they whine. FFS! He chose to go there! He actually volunteered to go there, and when given the option of returning after the kidnappings became rampant, he refused. Quite simply, his only real chance from the point of being taken hostage was that somehow a patrol would find him, either on a random house-to-house search or while he was being taken to the safe-house. Appealing to the kidnappers won't do anything except strengthen their position and reinforce their belief in their methods. He was, in effect, a dead-man-walking from the time of kidnap.

If it was a British soldier taken hostage, what then? Would there be all this fuss? No - it's a risk of the job they went out to Iraq to do. They didn't volunteer - they were sent. But it's the job they chose to do, and that risk is inherent. Bigley actually voluntarily placed himself at risk. When his luck ran out, it isn't the fault of Tony Blair or George Bush - they didn't send him there. He went of his own accord. There were failings by the security contractor - guards didn't turn up. They might be blamed for the kidnapping, but he still placed himself at risk.

It's noticeable how the opposition leaders have been keen to avoid this topic. Charles Kennedy, interviewed on Channel 4 news because of the Liberal Democrat conference, was asked repeatedly - what do you think of Mr Blair's attitude to this situation? The Bigleys think it's crap - Kennedy ducked the question because he doesn't want to praise his opponent on live national television. Michael Howard too has issued a small statement on the impossibility of acceding to the demands of terrorists, and then stayed off the subject.

Something must be done, but the emphasis must be on disposing of Al-Zarqawi and his followers, not making deals with them.

I Am Invincible!

Quote of the moment:
"Hi folks, this is Boris Johnson here. Welcome to my blogsite, where I hope to be blogging for some time to come. You may ask yourself why on earth I am filling the electronic ether with yet more of my stuff, given that I can already be discovered in the pages of the Henley Standard, Daily Telegraph, Spectator etc.

It is a damn good question."

Boris is blogging! Ha! A good thing he is a level 4 programmer, hey? Go to http://www.boris-johnson.com/ and type password "K-N-O-C-K-E-R-S"... :D Have a jolly good time, old chap!

Michael Moore is a Skaven?

Quote of the moment: "The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to the same catergory" - quoted on a Bush A-Z poster in HMV... A quote from another prolific invader - a Mr. A. Hitler...

Also in that display rack, a Happy Tree Friends poster! W00t w00t! Not sure whether Jimmy has it yet... :p

On the topic of quotes, I was browsing in Waterstones yesterday, and saw a book called "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man"... I even picked it up and read the first couple of chapters quickly (it's not particularly challenging reading) and all was going well - until I came across a quote, supposedly by Mr. A. Hitler: "The greater the lie, the more chance of it being believed"... As the Bud adverts would have it: FALSE... That was Joseph Goebbels... This from two guys criticising Moore for misquoting and hypocrasy. I should have stopped when they called him a "Moore-on". Oh dear.

The Village People

Quote of the moment:

• Let the bad colour not be seen. It attracts them.
• Never enter the woods. That is where they wait.
• Heed the warning bell, for they are coming.

Watched "The Village" last night at le cinema avec ma petite amie... We were thinking Dodgeball, but we'd have had to wait 2 hours, so pffft... Anyway: The Village was quite pr0... Background: A settlement in the midst of a forest, which is apparently the domain of some strange wailing creatures... There are flames lit all around the village every night, because the creatures hate yellow, and the guards in the towers at night wear yellow cloaks... (The creatures prefer red, obviously - the "baaad colour"). All very fun stuff... But it did make me wonder about a couple of things:

1. Why do the creatures look exactly like Skaven from Warhammer?!
   
2. The whole ethos of the village was peaceful, but surely one of the young guys must have thought at some point "Why don't we just ambush the woodland monster things", as supposed to hiding in the cellar from things that are admittedly "scary" looking, but are never seen moving at any great speed (for reasons that are obvious by the end) and, compared to, say, a goblin on a Warg, are pansy opponents :D A sharpened pole would be all they'd need...
   
3. Following on from that, if they made the logical step of attacking the skaven with a burning torch, they'd be bordering on being pretty ownage...
   
4. Obviously, given how the story pans out, that might have made for an interesting discovery...

Apologies to those who haven't seen the film - that was probably rather confusing since I was trying not to spoil your viewing pleasure :p

Who you gonna call?

Quote of the moment: "Yes, it's true - this man has no twinkie"

I'm watching Ghostbusters on video... And the editing of that line was REALLY bad - there was an Rrrrp then "Twinkie" then Rrrrp again... Oh dear! (I think you can guess the original word :p)

Also of note: the video is from the 1980s, so the advertisements are hilarious... Plenty of mullets and shoulder pads :D There was even a Smash advert, with the Smash robots going on holiday and the customs aliens on this holiday planet confiscating their tin of Smash... Oh no! Disaster! W00tage... Does anyone else even remember Smash? We used to have it on holiday in Scotland, back when I was a lad! It's flakes of dried potato, and you have to add hot milk to make it, I think... Go here to refresh your memory :D

Hammer-time

Quote of the moment: "Hi Coffee, how are ya?" - Dubya goes to the UN, footage shown on C4 news...

Today, when I eventually got up, I was tasked to fencing... Of the type with posts and panels, not foils and helmets... It was super fun: today we were removing the old fence put up by the previous guy who lived here: He'd dug holes, put the posts in and filled around them with concrete... So we've been unearthing huge balls of concrete, that weigh more than me! The posts have rotted and broken off, so I had to dig out the rotted wood from the socket, and also smash the things up as much as possible with a long steel pole and a sledge-hammer... Unfortunately I broke the handle of the bigger one, so I was left with the titchy 40lb one... But I still managed to send a chip of stone flying off to hit my dad on the head... SCORE!

Seven Deadly Sins

Quote of the moment:

• Outlaw all guns. ALL OF THEM. Then replace them with the SUPERSOAKER 3000.
• Engage in a presidential affair/scandal just because I can. Except I will have sexy interns. Like Avril Lavigne, or like, Kate Beckinsale. Yeah, they would be my interns.
• Proclaim Matt Good Vice President
• Get rid of the Office of Homeland Security completely
• Break California off of the U.S.A, Escape from L.A. style, because no one likes them anyways.
• Allow Canada to annex the USA so I can rule from a civilized center of operations. There is something ironic in the fact that the traditional house for the President of the USA was made famous only after us Canadians burnt it to the ground in 1814.

Vote Andy for President! W00t w00t!

In other news:

Today I turned up at the college to discover that, once again, my timetable was wrong... So instead of a lesson at 11am, it was at 2pm. How handy!

While waiting for my lesson, I headed out into the garden bit out front, and sketched the pond that runs along between the garden and the main road (there's a one-way road between the houses and the gardens) with my biro. While adding in the overhanging branches, etc etc, I was bombed by chestnuts from the tree I was sitting under - fortunately none hit me on the head :D

During my lesson, I could hear the recorder group of "The Perse Preparatory School For Girls" playing in one of their school buildings, which are behind the line of terraced town-houses that the college is in (it's two run together). This reminded me of Green Wing on Friday night... Awesome stuff - especially the recorder and the bit when Guy has a scalpel stuck in his arm when he's being an arse. It's just like: he says something smarmy and the other bloke doesn't even look round, just reaches out and sticks a scalpel into his arm... LOL.

I'm currently watching The Patriot while blogging: a God-Bless-America film, starring Mel Gibson (Australian), Heath Ledger (Australian) and Joely Richardson (English) as the patriotic Americans... OH DEAR! The blatant own0r of the film is Lucius Malfoy) though... He's thuper... The ultimate in English baddies :D

Was talking to Rosie on the topic of Along Came A Spider/Kiss the Girls/Se7en... I got myself onto working out who'd be the 7 kr3w sinners:

• Sloth = Will (For staying in bed for WEEKS)
• Envy = Jim (For bindings and beach-babes)
• Greed = Rob m8 (for his collection of Uplink CDs)
• Gluttony = Podge (<-- OBVIOUS!)
• Lust = Prillo (For Will Richards, and all fit guys seen anywhere)
• Wrath = Paddy (For anyone who gets in the way of the KA)
• Pride = Will T (For being a pseudo-pimp)

How did I do?! On the same topic, while checking I'd remembered them right, I found this:

Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins

Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.

• Wealth without Work
• Pleasure without Conscience
• Science without Humanity
• Knowledge without Character
• Politics without Principle
• Commerce without Morality
• Worship without Sacrifice

Along Came A Spider

Just watched "Along Came A Spider"... IT R0><0125... Lol...

Tis a film about police criminal profiler, played by Morgan Freeman (of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves!) who's trying to catch a kidnapper... Except the twists and turns are in at least double figures! A very twisted film - just right for me!

In other news: go to Podgy's blog - she's finally updated and it's HUGE...

Knickers and Numbers

Quote of the moment: "I stepped out of my door and this drunk guy asked if he could get in my knickers" - Lol

After my thrilling lessons yesterday, I had some chips in the basement canteen (70p - top stuff) then headed back up for another "study skills" session... It was rather more useful than the first, which was about "planning" (my favourite :p), but more importantly was vastly more entertaining... Apparently, you remember stuff better the more senses you use to learn it with. So reading something aloud to yourself is better than better than just using your eyes, and if you can use other senses it's even better. Taste is a bit tricky, but you can use touch by writing things on the carpet - apparently very good for learning vocab for languages, or dates in history - because the memory of the feel of the carpet stays with you as well, linked to the words/numbers... So of course we all had to try writing something on the carpet - super...

There was obviously the normal stuff about revision cards etc... But also, for example, writing things on post-it notes and leaving one in a specific place in your room: when you need to remember, visualise your room and you'll associate what you look at as you look round it with whatever you had stuck on that object. Then there was recording tapes of stuff and playing them back in the car etc - Speaking them to begin with and then listening to them - basically the more varied the better. There was one clear winner though: when you need to learn something repetitive, for example declining verbs in Latin or a list of Kings and Queens, you should jump up and down on the spot, saying each one in turn as you land... Tis like forcing it in through your feet :D Obviously you could do it jogging or just walking (or if you could bear it, listening to drum and bass :p) but that wouldn't be so ridiculous! :D

After the joy of jumping up and down, I headed back to the basement and played pool... 50p a go which is unhandy, but then the table isn't so... "featured" as the elwyns one - no intimate knowledge of the deflection from rips in the baize and lumps in the slate is needed... BORING :p
Twas me and a girldoing resits whose name I didn't get, but who lives somewhere in Essex and got up at 5.30 ( 8-0 ) to commute, against a couple of blokes doing first time A2s in her class... Since I am the grand high master of jamminess, one guy potted the white with the black, so we won by default... :D Said girl, who has a Malteser addiction (she talks to them as she eats them - scary...) was also the one who said the quote oop thur... ("I stepped out of my door and this drunk guy asked if he could get in my knickers")... LOL. She said we should come down and see have the tour of the dump that is Essex... I chortled (in my joy :p).

To continue my frabjous day I rode the bike back to Shire Hall, home of Cambridgeshire County Council, (surprise surprise) and had a wander around... It's built on the Mott of the original Mott and Bailey Cambridge Castle... W00t w00t! It was later fortified in stone, but it was abandoned in the 1500s and Elizabeth I sold the stone off... It was used to built parts of Emmanuel and Magdalen colleges, along with Great St Mary's church, if I remember correctly... During the Civil War it was refortified, with cannon mounted on earthen bastions and ravelins, and was the headquarters for the Parlimentary "Eastern Association"... Of course, I'm sure Will m8, Mr 295%, knew that bit already... :p

I then walked back through Cambridge, past the college, and out to the Park and Ride. This is because I am a n00b, and thought that my return bus ticket from the previous day would be out of date... However, it did mean that I walked past the front of the college at exactly the same time as Sophie Clark emerged from St Faiths Prep School next door. LOL. It was one of those classic - that woman looks familiar - oh yeah, a bit like - hang on, she's giving me a funny look back - moments... I was amused, partly because it was probably more words than we'd ever exchanged at Felsted! Further down the road I went past a house that was obviously newly built, because it still had a skip outside it... It was inserted in between numbers 9 and 10 on the road, but it wasn't 9a... There was a big wrought-iron number by the gate:

9¾

W00t w00t! Harry Potter fans on the loose! (For those who are ignorant, the train to Hogwarts leaves from )It kept me smiling pretty much all the way to the Park and Ride - even though it had only taken me about 20 minutes to reach MPW from Shire Hall, and 45 from there... Oops. And I could have got a bus in the centre... NM, it was good for me... and bad for my belly :D Plus I got home without missing a single turning - HOW RARE!

Today I had a lie-in and savoured not having to get up... for about 5 hours. Tee-hee... :D I then wandered around in my dressing gown, being lazy and definitely not starting my maths homework. I eventually got dressed just before going into school to see the Army Careers Adviser (Officers), East Anglian Schools (W00t!)... It might have been a bit embarrassing otherwise! I saw the new year 10 cadets having their first drill lesson on my way in to the Careers Room - extreme amusement to be had by all - they'd attracted a small crowd :D Talked about Uni, resits, etc - his office is about 100m from my college - found out that the experimental admission of guys with ACL repairs is finished, and they now go on an individual assessment to see how well it's repaired - and I'm going to receive some stuff through the post soon for the visits etc I'm going to go on this year:

1. A familiarisation visit to the Royal Engineers at Chatham, to see what's what and also meet their recruitment guy, be interviewed and hopefully be provisionally accepted by them and sponsored for a Sanhurst place by them (according to the slightly archaic system, you need a backer - it can be the ACA(O) but if you get your chosen regiment/corps to back you, they put you in their books (or hard drive) and will almost certainly take you when you leave Sandhurst). There will also be some command tasks, stuff like that for assessment, just to check for totally incompetent people...

2. A similar familiarisation visit to the Infantry training place, at Pirbright I think... Which is along the same lines but without the interview and assesment bit - just seeing what infantry officers do, some command tasks just to stop the boredom maybe!

3. Pre-RCB - The Preliminary Regular Commisions Board visit - The first stage of potential officer testing, involving some command tasks, some theoretical situations where you have to write what you would do, a medical, etc etc... only basic fitness required... You then get rejected/passed to the next stage:

4. RCB - Full Medical, aptitude testing, fitness testing which involves a middle-distance run in a certain time, certain numbers of press-ups/situps etc etc... Obviously I need to improve a bit before that! There's also a written assignment, just to prove you're literate and capable of expressing yourself properly in a report, etc etc... I'm hopefully going to take RCB in the summer, having received my thuper maths grade and having had a few months to prepare... If I pass the RCB, I get a place at Sandhurst to start my officer training upon leaving university. If not, I can try again while at uni. If I pass well enough, I can get a Bursary, which means £7000 spread over 3 years... how handy! Normally it's the final three years, so if I upgrade to an MEng course from a BEng, I guess there'll be one year without Bursary funding after upgrading... But I may well decide not to, given that apparently the Royal Engineers' accelerated course gets you qualified for a Charter in the same time regardless (You do have to have an accredited Civil Engineering degree to start with though.) Anyway, enough of the accronyms etc... Basically I'm happy because I'll hopefully be sorted by the end of the year, possibly with extra dosh :D

Speaking of accelerated courses: Here are the parachuting ones I'm currently considering... The advantage of doing it in southern U.S.A. is the rather more consistent weather(USUALLY)! The Florida airfield might get a bit buggered by Hurricane Ivan though!

1. Florida
2. Arizona

G'night, childs! Have a fun weekend, since I probably won't be online to talk to anyone again til at least Sunday... When I get to see my new relative: Alexandra Beatrice Grace O'Gorman... Abgog for short?! She's about 2 months old, I think... So she'll probably be determindly filling her nappy all the way through Sunday lunch with the grand'rents and the proud parents... Should be fun!

Like a N00B over troubled water

Quote of the moment:

I'm Bridge Over Troubled Water!
Which Simon and Garfunkel album are you?

W00t w00t! Podge m8, I hope you cower at my music selection :p

I'm back at t3h college, between 1 hour of M2 and 2 hours of P2/P3... Oh what fun! :D Plus I was a touch on the late side after walking Renee to work, (with her on her bike) so I borrowed her spare bike-lock key and rode her bike to the college - ie right through the centre of town. And her bike is my sisters' old one - it's about 2 sizes below normal (mine's one above), the saddles about my knee height, and it's pink and green... LOL... I kept whacking my knees on the handlebars :D

In Cambridge - without a lesson!

Quote of the moment: "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!" - The White Rabbit

Follow the white rabbit... w00t w00t! So, here I am in Cambridge, again. I rushed up here super-mega-turbo-fast, only to find A) a crash on the A14 made most of the teachers late, and B) I don't actually have a lesson today...

This is due to me doing OCR maths, not Edexcel... I was supposed to be doing p2 and p3 with another guy, but since we're doing different exam boards with slightly different syllabuses, I'm not. Which means I get 2 hours 1-2-1 tuition a week, instead of 4 hours small group (a pair, in this case). Which is fine, but I was supposed to be having a lesson this morning, and because of that I'm not... I just have 3 hours 1-2-1 tuition on Wednesday. Super! M2 at 9am, then P2/P3 from 11 til 1... ARGH.

Considering the positive side: I now have only one day a week of commuting! :D So although I'll still need to do maths stuff for 2 more days of the week maybe, I might have a better chance of getting a half-decent job, (with Wednesdays off, obvs) which would be thuper, indeed...

"College" - Day One

Quote of the moment: "The cake is t3h pr0... plus you didn't get lost as badly as me! There was a huge crash on the M11 when I was coming home from Cambridge today, so about 3 fire trucks, 4 ambulances and a handful of police cars went whizzing by... And I was so busy getting over that I missed my turning. Then I missed the next one cos that was where the crash happened, and it was all buggered up, so I ended up on the M25... OOOPS..." - by me :D

LOL. But apart from that hiccup, my day was quite fun... Drove up in pissing rain, but it stopped by the time I parked up and walked to the college. Had some introduction stuff, a tour... Everyone had to do two tests for extra time purposes: one multiple choice fill in the missing word one, which was basically a reading test, so I owned it... 10 mins in one colour pen, then carry on for 2.5 more mins in a different colour, to show how much peeps can do and how fast. I finished in about 6 and sat getting bored... The other test was writing - pick a topic, plan it in 2 minutes, then write for 20 minutes, leaving a 2 line gap every 5 minutes so that they can see whether you speed up or slow down... Also assessing your planning. They suggested things like a holiday or a pet - I can't write for 20 minutes on my dogs! Sigh. So, having been sorting through my gcse stuff yesterday, I decided to write a little story as a counter-part to my legendary English coursework "Personal Fiction" piece, "The Raven". The one that G-R thought I got off the internet... Well, it should be more interesting than 90 peoples' holidays!

Oh yeah: Who's seen the new Lynx advert, the one with the 2 peeps walking back to the supermarket putting their clothes back on? Isn't the music pr0? Some guy singing a version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"... it's just really slow, and kind of... atmospheric :D

BTW:
Monster, monster feeding like says:
i can do basic but not roasts
[Cue dirty laughter...]

Don't you just love Podgy?

BATS

I'm watching a pr0 nature film at the moment... It's about a colony of bats that are all born in one cave in New Mexico... It's the biggest bat colony in the world when all the mothers give birth... They all fly back there in a massive cloud after getting pregnant, then give birth to one baby each (The males are elsewhere). Then the mothers fly out and harvest a cloud of 250 million moths migrating to their summer feeding grounds... All perfectly synchronised each year... And there's a colony of hawks surviving by feeding on the annual influx of bats! And one of snakes doing the same, and the floor of the cave is infested with larvae that have their hatching triggered by the bat urine, and eat fallen babies... stripping them to bare bones in 45 minutes... And humans can't enter the cave without gas masks because the gas given off by the guano is so concentrated it's deadly... Ditto predators like racoons - they die within an hour!

When the babies are ready, the whole colony of 14 million bats leaves in one huge black cloud, 5000 per second... They fly up and up into a tornado shape, until they're all flying in a towering black swarm... then they fly off in a long line back towards the breeding colonies, looking like a bee swarm right across the sky... And no jet planes can fly in that area because the bats get sucked into the engines... No flights from the local airport all that day...

I love "Sign Zone"... It's like TV, distilled - they only show decent, interesting programs (obviously with a translator at the side - mostly a big bald bloke with a goatee)... Plus it's on when I'm up blogging... Improving my mind, my composition and my typing all at the same time!

Something Ironic: Hurricanes are named with a letter from the alphabet in order through the year, and given a first name starting with that letter. The hurricane that is currently advancing across the Caribbean, and looks set to move on from Cuba into the US, is called Ivan...

[Edit - For the benefit of Podge, Ivan was a nickname for the Russians during the Cold War - Cuba was the Communist base in the Carribean...

B.T.W. Go here for a round up of our medals at the olympics, if you, like me, were left wondering where the hell half of them came from!]

Bejewelled

Quote of the moment: 23 thousand and something on Bejewelled... w00t w00t!

Owned the previous best score on my "Buddy List" (which is admittedly reset every time there's a new version of Messenger, ie 6.0, 6.1, 6.2) which was 12 thousand and something by Prillo... I was having a totally demonic run... It was mahooosive fun... :D

I'm sad, I know... Challenge me! Please!

Canal Tripping...

Well, here we are... I'm slightly at a loose end... I have been for a week or so, because I finished "The Count of Monte Cristo", and haven't found a satisfying book since... I've read The Times a lot, polished off a couple of my sister's Jacqueline Wilsons, read "A Breed of Heroes" by Alan Judd in parts of one afternoon, and am currently halfway through a double edition of "The Demon Headmaster" and sequel... Does anyone else remember watching that on TV? Was on CBBC when I was 8 or 9-ish, I think... With the Headmaster looking spookily like Jack Straw...

***

Wife: "How was your day at the office dear? What do you think of the Foreign Secretary?"
Foreign Office worker: "The Foreign Secretary is a wonderful man and this is the best Ministry I've ever been in."

***

Ahem... you probs didn't get that if you haven't seen the prog/read the book, so go HERE for an explanation.

Also: I'm currently watching "Easy Rider"... be jealous Podge m8 :P

THE CANAL TRIP

*** This has been put off so long that I probably won't remember much to write***

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, a convoy of starships set off for an outpost satellite on the edge of an old meteorite ring... Or, tbh, we set off for the boatyard. We amused ourselves on the way up by overtaking, undertaking and generally waving and making obscene gestures at the other car in our little convoy... which was fun :D

The actual boating itself was quite kewl... obviously everything was smaller than I remembered it from Yr7... We went through a tunnel the first afternoon which got the trio (Will T, Vicky and Jenny) screaming away happily on the front of the boat when they got dripped on... Next day, or maybe the one after, we were in the middle of Birmingham... Went to Cadbury World, then went shopping in Brummieville... Here me 'n' Will saw our first celeb of the week: Harvey Keitel, shopping with his family... Well, a guy of remarkable resemblance, with an American accent... If you want to get picky, find out if he has two kids of 5-16 (wasn't really looking at them, tbh...)

After that, boated on some more, saw Terry Pratchett cycling along the towpath near Wolverhampton... Also went down a triple lock staircase, as in 3 interlinked, not just in a row up a hill but actually opening one into the next... which was quite pr0! Plus the day we saw Terry, we also went through a lock with a cave next to it, hewn out of solid rock, in a long rectangle shape... about the size of my room but a bit longer, with a rock bench sticking out all around the edges... Which was very pr0, and reminded me of the Hobbit.

Ermmmmm... other than that, we stopped in Worcester on Friday night and went out to a chinese, which confirmed my theory that all chinese restaurants play Celine Dion (that one, the Boote, the one I went to in NZ at Xmas... Please confirm :D). The next day we went around "The Commandery", which is a large old townhouse, Tudorish I think, which Prince Rupert used as his headquarters during the siege + battle of Worcester during the Civil War. The last time I went around there I was 8... so that was nicely nostalgic... And I got prints of the Arrest warrant and Death warrant for Charles I... mainly cos they were only 50p each :D I might use them as oddball posters, I suppose!

One night along the way, Will was getting narked with Vicky and Jenny, so he poked the bottom of her cot (which was above his bed)... And he knocked it out of the slots, so Jenny collapsed on top of him... LOL... The last day we did something like 36 locks... all in one long ladder, about 50 - 100m apart... in shifts... it was joyous... we then moored up near the boatyard, right by a bridge, and me and Will went off to fetch the Polo to go home early... We got the car fine, then spent a hour driving around the village of Alvechurch, trying to find that bridge... We eventually ended up in approximately the right place, in a housing estate, but it was a dead end, so Will hopped out and asked a woman putting her babyseat into her car in her driveway for directions... As it turned out, the bridge was through a load more little backroads in the housing estate... Grrr... Totally unsigned... More grrr... Plus the only person to fall in all week was Ben, the dog :( But it was all made up for on the way back that evening, because for quite a while we followed a car with this number plate:

RX012NUB

W00t w00t! Super stuff... :D

Beating The Retreat

Quote of the moment: "This is the third fire alarm in 2 days! Will SOMEONE teach the yr 9 how to make toast?!"

Went into school today with my 'rents to see the aforementioned beating of the retreat, aka a Marching Band doing their thing on the front... Was quite pr0... It was the Band of the Parachute Regiment, and they had the Regimental Mascot... A Shetland pony called Pegasus... LOL.

Afterwards I wandered around on the Front and talked to Will T, Skippy and my sister... Then went over to Elwyns and talked to the "lads", as Rob would say... Henry Cullen, Will Richards, Pratto, Burrett (sporting an injury as usual - a black eye from Rugby already)... Prill, don't get too jealous though, cos A: His new, Xmas ordered haircut is poo, there's a fringe across the middle of his forehead, and B: The fire alarm went off after about 2 minutes... So everyone headed outside, which gave me a chance to inspect the newbies... There's a load of TINY Yr9... At least 4, Will Devitt sized... Plus Blackwell Min, who makes up for them by being rather rotund... And there's a new LVI German called Arnold - Seriously... :D

2 Posts A Week!

Quote of the moment: Avg Posts Per Week - 2

Hurrah! I was planning to complain about the maths behind this average, because I was pretty sure I was above 1.5 mean posts per week...

Ok - first post, 19th March, it's now the 7th of September. So thats 5 months plus 19 days... so about 25 weeks... Hmmm... I guess they round down then! You have to have a mean of 2 posts per week, not 1.5 :( Nm... I'm happy! :D

In other news: Israel hits Hamas training camp...

Sounds super to me! Instead of a helicopter strike on a car in a busy street, they hit a group of Hamas recruits being trained on a football pitch... Killing 14 and injuring about 30... But crucially, there were no civilian casualties. The Palestinians bomb buses and other "soft" targets, but always cry murder when the Israeli targeted strikes kill bystanders accidentally. But of course, they turned out to march and protest anyway. Same old constant revenge strikes... But while I don't approve of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian areas (which are, very slowly, being withdrawn), their methods are undeniably far less distasteful...

A Quibble

Something I just remembered... There's a television advert which at least someone must have seen: it's one of those "THINK" road safety ones. There have been several: one in a bar, where the two blokes sitting at a table "hit" the girl walking across in front of them; the mock "MTV Cribs" "Don't die before you've lived" one; the one with the guys crashing and dying covered in blood/crashing with seatbelts on and getting covered in pizza topping; the "After killing his mum, Thingy sat back down" one with the kid in the backseat not doing up his seatbelt...

They're all fine and dandy, but there's one that annoys me: In it, a man is driving along a road (surprise surprise!). He sees a motorbike in his rearview mirror. The voice-over says "Now you see him". Looks again: "Now you don't". Sees bike in wing mirror: "Now you see him". Looks again: "Now you don't". Bike is now in the "Blindspot", hovering just behind and oustide a car, where the driver cannot see him, and where he should not be. He's too close to the car. He should go past, or drop back and pull in. But he doesn't, and the car driver indicates to turn right. He slows down, he turns, and the motorcyclist, too close to the car and on the outsidw so that the car turns across in front of him, hits the car.

The Voice-over says: "Now you see him. Now you see him. Now you see him." Excuse me? You see the pratt whose bad driving has bust up your car and possibly cost him his life. And the message at the end? "Look out for each other." Excuse me?! Howabout: Motorcyclists: keep in lane, and keep your distance! :@

Other notes: Podge can be proud of me - I videod American History X last night... watched it earlier tonight... Pr0 stuff... Reminds me of Police Academy: "Niiiice haircuts, men!" Appropriate for Willy T at the moment? :P

Anyway, that in turn reminds me of Enemy of the State...

Quote of the Moment:
Selby : Jones, Krug, what, are you guys from Communications?
Jones : No, we're Ops.
Fiedler : You can tell by their haircuts.

Super... Fiedler was played by Jack Black, btw... spurious info r0x0rs :D

G'night!

Stuck in a rut...

I've already pretty much made my thoughts on Beslam clear in comments on Podge and Prill's blogs... Much as I tend to idealise, there is no easy answer, as usual. And as usual, things could have been done a lot better. I was reminded while reading the gospel according to Podge (only wry humour intended :p) of a very revealing article from the Times concerning "Aid".

"Aid" covers a multitude of sins, everything from weapons to nuclear secrets, but the article was referring to what happens when charities move in to a disaster area such as a famine in Africa, a flood in Bangladesh, or post-war Afghanistan, from which the author had just returned.

I cannot find it anywhere, and "Times Online" charges a subscription fee or something of the sort, so here is a short summary:

1. Charities compete for donations in their native country. They thus waste money on advertising campaigns etc.

2. Charities move into disaster area. Here they compete for the best sites, and accomodation for their workers. With over 2000 major charities incumbent, this sent Kabul property rents soaring above the reach of any of the residents. An added irony: most of these buildings were owned by the same local war lords that were causing the original problems.

3. The charities proceed to hire practically anyone with a reasonable education or desirable skills: for example, those able to translate for the "Aid workers" and those able to drive lorries. This prices local businesses out of the labour market, as the charities offer far highers wages than they can.

Together this means that revival of the economy in such areas is massively hindered.

Also: "Food Aid" is normally either captured by local warlord-type figures or distrubuted under their direction. Thus it is always their subordinates and supporters that benefit first from such schemes. Even rackets involving gangs commandeering newly built wells/taps and charging for their use have been known (mentioned in a different source).

All in all: it sux0rs. However, no one is likely to do anything about it, and this seems to be what Darfur can look forward to...

Quote of the moment:
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World...

Google Goo!

Quote of the moment: "It's time to get hands-on with a fistful of Google Goo"

Lol... Look HERE for details... :D

Yet another day gone, with little or no useful aim achieved... Today did see me disposing of a large part of my childhood: all my GCSE folders, plus my Yr 9 Latin one which escaped the previous clearout because my sisters were using it for cribbing... Apparently my room was cluttered because my cupboard was full of junk like that. AS IF?! :P

Also, I went over to my grandparents and mowed their lawn and had tea with them... Cue amusing interlude as my grandpa (who is mildly diabetic) tries to argue the case for him having the last Jammy dodger, and my granny tells me to eat it to save him from temptation. Tis normally the other way around at home... :D

A maths joke...

Quote of the moment:
The Flood is over and the ark has landed. Noah lets all the animals out and says, "Go forth and multiply."
A few months later, Noah decides to take a stroll and see how the animals are doing. Everywhere he looks he finds baby animals. Everyone is doing fine except for one pair of little snakes. "What's the problem?" says Noah.
"Cut down some trees and let us live there", say the snakes.
Noah follows their advice. Several more weeks pass. Noah checks on the snakes again. Lots of little snakes, everybody is happy. Noah asks, "Want to tell me how the trees helped?"
"Certainly", say the snakes. "We're adders, so we need logs to multiply."

That made me LOL muchos... :D Spanx for that, Rob m8...

Reminds me of the test I had to do at one of my interviews last week... I forgot that logA - logB = logA/B... The guy was like, "Sigh"... :p

Comments

Since Blogger comments seem to have improved considerably, and Haloscan comments seem to be getting worse and worse, plus they delete your old comments anyway, I am switching to Blogger comments... So you can complain about the Blogger comments thing using the comments thing itself, if you want...

Also: I just watched a thing on TV saying that more people turned out to see Avril Lavigne on her Taiwan tour dates than live in the whole of Canada. Ahem. LOL.

Personality? Absent...

Quote of the moment:

Strategists
The four aspects that make up this personality type are:
Summary of Strategists
Quiet, easy-going and intellectually curious
Use logical, objective thinking to find original solutions to problems
Think of themselves as bright, logical and individualistic
May forget practical issues, such as paying bills or doing the shopping
More about Strategists
Strategists are quiet people who like to get to the heart of tough problems on their own and come up with innovative solutions. They analyse situations with a sceptical eye and develop ways of measuring everything, including themselves.
Strategists are the group most likely to say they are unhappy in their job, according to a UK survey.
Strategists are generally easy-going. They are intellectually curious and enjoy abstract ideas. Sometimes they like thinking of a solution to a problem more than taking practical steps to solve it.
In situations where they can't use their talents, are unappreciated, or not taken seriously, Strategists may become negatively critical or sarcastic. Under extreme stress, Strategists could be prone to inappropriate, tearful or angry outbursts.
Strategists may be insensitive to the emotional needs of others or how their behaviour impacts the people around them.
Strategist Careers
Strategists are often drawn to technical or scientific careers, where specialist knowledge is required. They also seem to enjoy jobs that involve long-term planning, abstract thinking or design.

That's me, apparently... seems to fit quite well!

"May forget practical issues..." such as coursework deadlines? Hmmm? My bad...

"Sometimes they like thinking of a solution to a problem more than taking practical steps to solve it." Uhuh, sounds familar... hence je deteste le pure maths...

"...Strategists may become negatively critical or sarcastic." I think that applies too... Sozzles...

Go here to find your personality type(if you didn't watch the programme on Thursday).

The canal trip opus wasn't saved in full form, so it'll be up when I cba, having finally worked out how to post again (because I'm on the school site, my directory root thing for saving has been changed from U6 to U604). Rob can convert that into sense, perhaps :D

G'night!

Here iz t3h updatez

Quote of the moment: "This is the wrong 352 bus - you want the other one"

Lo! I have been somewhat lax in my blogging, due to a guest for the weekend, then going to Cambrdige on Tuesday and staying the night... Anyway: The result of my cambridge visit is that I'm starting at a crammer place in about 10 days...which should be fun! It's called MPW, and it's pretty near the station, and also right by Downing College... and it has a pond outside with ducks :D Also a pool table in the common room, and a projector with touch-screen whiteboard... How fun! Plus they're set up for peeps like me, so I can be allowed out of exams with the clock stopped so I can eat chocolate, munch sugar or whatever to keep up my energy to stay awake in there... I'll probably be in a group of 2 or 3... Quite possibly med students who didnt quite get AAB or whatever... a slight difference from me! Oops!

I also tried out the public transport method of travelling between here and Cambridge, on my way home on Tuesday... I got the train to Stansted, bus to Braintree and then again to home... However, it did cost £10, one-way... Ouch... Thats with a Railcard as well! But then, single bus tickets cost about half as much as week long passes, so... Pfft, nm. I'll be mostly commuting by car, and either parking at a park and ride place (the stop is right opposite the school) or parking in Cambridge, nearby, behind the Botanical gardens I think, cos it's free...

I haven't got the timetable yet, but it'll be 3 periods a week of 2 hours each, on each of the modules I'm retaking: P2, P3, M2. (All of which, apprently, Vicky is taking by January as well... Lol) I'll probs also resit P1, since I only got 77 last time, which might be easily made higher once I've been trained in Pure Maths...



Will - I know Pure Maths
Vince - Show me...



Apologies for that, but it was irresistable...

Anyway: in other important news: I've reached page 800 in "Le Count", I made an ownage tape for my commuting of The Rasmus - Dead Letters, the classic Linkin' Park - Hybrid Theory and, since there was a space at the end, a bonus track: Breakout, par ces hommes magnifiques, les Fighters de Foo... And I'm well aware my French is far from magnifique... :p