Examinations And Expression

Have you ever walked out of an exam that had been hanging over you for weeks, after finishing early and feeling like it went pretty well, causing you to be filled with the most intense certainty that you must have forgotten something, or been in the wrong exam or actually fallen asleep at the desk and dreamt the success?

That was the sensation i had at around 11 o'clock this morning as i left the Political Theory exam that has been terrifying me for the past week. It seemed anti-climactic, like the part of a movie where the good guys think they've won against the big bad, but the wise old one knows it was far too easy and there's a bigger bad around the corner. It was nowhere near horrific to justify the amount of fear and tension it had caused and that makes me suspicious.

Until i actually get the results back i guess i'll just have to put up with this sensation that it was all a trick and i'm going to find out i somehow did it all wrong any minute now.

With that out of the way and my next exam, on American politics, not until the 25th of May i think i'm going to have a couple of relatively relaxed days before launching into revision for that, though compared to today's exam i'm practically coasting on a wave of confidence.

I'll probably watch a couple of films and read a bit of a book that has absolutely nothing to do with political theory. I'd like to do a bit of writing but the inconvenience of having an utter lack of ideas is getting in the way of that. During the last year of 6th form and the first of University writing creatively was an outlet for me, a way to work out some of the stress and worries i had; it was a good form of escapism for me but recently i've not managed to write anything i actually like.

It's frustrating because i would love to find that spark again, the kind of spark that saw me write an 80,000 word story in around 8 months. Rereading that story now i'm very aware of it's limitations and the fact that it's not all that great, but while i was writing it i was genuinely happy because i was caught up in imagining this world and playing with the best ways to put it on paper. It was the creative experience as much as the actual output that i enjoyed and it's that same experience that i want to rediscover.

I've been looking over a few of the half finished or barely started story ideas that litter the documents folder on my computer but sadly looking over them i can see why i abandoned most of them. There's only one which is nearly finished and i'm just missing a chapter to precede the final two that are already written, to make the pay off feel justified and natural rather than forced. All the rest just seem cheesy, lacking the quality of character or concept that justified the cheesiness and allowed me to keep going with the few stories i have actually finished.

I'm going to spend the evening watching the second Championship semi-final (i'll write about the Forest one once i've had a bit of time to recover from the disappointment) and brainstorming ideas for a new story/the missing chapter of the short story that is nearly finished.

For now i'll leave you with a song off Frank Turner's new album 'England Keep My Bones', released at the start of June.

30 Days Of Nerves

Well i'm back in Leicester now after a relaxing month or so back in Sheffield. The next 30 or so days are not going to be hugely hectic but they could be pretty important and formative.

Two exams, one on political theory, one on contemporary American politics, which will round off what overall has been a pretty successful academically speaking; i've managed to maintain a level of grades that i'm happy with. I'm not on for anything spectacular but i never expected to be, instead barring a catastrophic collapse in these two exams i should be able to take a decent grade into third year with all the dissertation and impending future scariness that entails.

I've got wildly different feelings about the two exams; the political theory scares me in a way i haven't felt since GCSE French, there's simply so much i don't know or understand when it comes to all the various theorists and so far the revision i've done has hardly filled me with confidence. We're advised to talk about three different theorists in the exam and there's only one i'm at all confident on and that's Rousseau. I had to write an essay on the 18th century Genevan earlier in the year so he's a little less daunting than most of the others, emphasis on 'a little'.

By comparison i'm almost happy about the US politics exam; i find the subject fascinating, in no small part because US politics is really quite bonkers. Spending a couple of hours writing about two different issues actually almost sounds appealing, at least as much as any exam can.

Of course these conflicting feelings about the exams will probably mean that i ace the Political Theory one while failing the US one, purely because, to mix two crude clichés, sod's law's a bitch.

During the period around those two exams are the 1st and 2nd legs of the Championship Play Offs and they'll be taking up a good chunk of my nervousness quota for the next fortnight. I'll find out on Monday or Tuesday whether i'm able to get a tickets for the home leg, but i'll be watching both games regardless of the ticket situation. I won't talk about them any more here as i will be dedicating more than enough of this blog to the Play Offs and how they pan out over the next few weeks.

However if those games well you can add a trip down to London on Monday the 30th of this month to my schedule, but there's an awful lot of chickens i'm relying on hatching between now and then.

Then there's a week of work experience at the Leicester Mercury to look forward to/cower in fear from at the start of June. I'm looking forward to the experience but i'm not going to pretend that i'm not nervous about it. I have no idea how much they'll expect from me or what i'll have to do and that fills me with a delightful cocktail of anticipation and nausea. Plus i need to go shopping before then and get some office clothes; most of my smart clothes are a bit too night out orientated so that's another thing i have to sort out. It's a chance for me to see what being a journalist might be like, to maybe make some contacts within the industry and to get a feeling for what being an actual grown up is like, something i've avoided at all costs up until now.

The final big feature of the coming month or so is a visit to Alton Towers with a few friends. I'm quite excited about it partly because i've not been on a ride in a long time and only been to Alton Towers as quite a young child. Now a combination of a slight fear of heights and a distrust of machinery means that me and roller coasters are not normally a good combination but i'm fairly sure i'll enjoy it if i force myself to go on the rides, once i let adrenaline take over from my natural inclination to be nervous.

Really that's a decision i need to make more often, about more things in my life; anyone who knows me will know that i over think anything and everything and i tend to let my awareness of the worst case scenario get in the way of simply going for it and seeing what happens. I definitely fall into the camp of "thinks too much" without all that often thinking about anything useful.

As i'm doing these blog posts on a daily basis i'm not always going to be able to write about big, important news stories or concepts and so there are going to be days like today where the post takes on an almost diary quality. I make no apology for that because i simply don't have the time or inclination to do the research or writing involved in those bigger blogs every day.

To finish off today's post is a song is a definite classic. A lot of the time the songs i post on here are going to be new ones, from contemporary bands, because they make up the majority of the music i listen to, but i think for the next 7 days i'm going to accompany my blog posts with a link to/video of songs that everyone should hear at least once.

Just Popping In

Very, very short blog post today, i'm going to write a proper one about the AV vote tomorrow but i'm off out in a minute and am unlikely to be in a fit state to debate the finer points of voting systems when i return in the early hours.

I've done very little today and that's fine by me, but i have started re-reading 'The Northern Lights' by Phillip Pullman. I remember really enjoying the series a few years ago and fancied reading something a bit light and fantasy based to counter the revision i'm doing of various political theorists.

The song today is one that i just listened to, partly to get me in the mood for going out. It's "Heads Will Roll" by the Yeah Yeah Yeah's.

A Run In The Sun

Today was a brilliant day; it may only be April but it was in many ways the ideal summers day.

Sunshine, blue skies and just the slightest bit of a breeze to make sure it doesn't get too hot.

A run, a few TV shows, a BBQ and games of football and cricket. If there'd been some music it would have been pretty much ideal.

It's the kind of day i love, mixing active and lazy periods, enjoying some brilliant weather and just simply spending time with friends. And even better it barely cost me anything.

I ran the same route as i did on Sunday, out along the valley that is close to my home and then back again. Saw a whole bunch of horses, some sheep and some very cute Lambs. Did you know that Lambs wag their tales when they're happy like dogs? I didn't but i'm pretty sure i saw two of them wagging their tales while suckling on their mother. See, running is even educational.

I find there's something really peaceful about running, especially when i can find routes like this one where i'm not having to cross lots of roads or dodge groups of people and can really get a rhythm up, to the extent that i don't really have to think about the actual process of running and my mind can just wander, but due to the ever changing scenery and the activity it's never able to dwell on anything for too long, which for me is a very good thing. Then you have all the endorphins and whatever when you finish the run to give you a lovely dose of self-satisfaction; a rare sense of having done something genuinely good for yourself, a break from the eating, drinking and lazing around that makes up so much of my life. They're wonderful things endorphins, making sure i don't regret the run too much even as the ache sets in on my calf muscles and i notice the blisters on my feet.

I wouldn't advise running at mid-day on a day like this, especially if like me you've not been running regularly recently; the heat made it all a lot harder and i was seriously dehydrated by the time i stumbled back through my front door.

As a final point for this blog i'm just going to write a quick review of the film i watched late last night, 2012. Now it's a Roland Emmerich film so i knew what to expect and i didn't go in expecting to watch a film with great emotional depth or anything, but i was still pretty disappointed by it really. I love blockbusters (have a look at a blog i wrote in late November i think it was about my respect for the summer action genre) but this wasn't a particularly well done one. After blowing up the White House and freezing the entire Northern hemisphere i guess it was the natural next step to make a film showing the end of humanity as we know it.

He gets to play around with CGI earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunami's but when you consider the budget and his previous exploits, quite a few of the spectacles fall a little flat. That's not to say there aren't moments which i'm sure in the cinema were stunning; it's just the really good ones are few and far between and their impact is reduced by the sheer constant barrage of effects and disasters. Too many of the dramatic shots look more like a high quality video game cut scene than a big budget Hollywood film.

It's a perfect example of where a director going for quantity over quality ends up spoiling what could have been a perfectly entertaining idiotic blockbuster. Probably can't justify giving the film more than 2/5.

The song today is Arctic Monkey's new song, 'Don't sit down cause i've moved your chair'. I'm still not entirely decided on whether i like this song or not but it's definitely intrigued me enough to give the new album a proper listen when it comes out later this year.

It Costs Nothing To Be Nice

Today's blog is going to be a bit of a mixed bag.

First up last night was brilliant. I went on a night out with some of my mates which was a great laugh. We played Worms on my mates PS3 and then a few rounds of Uno; it may not have been the most rock'n'roll start to a night out but it worked for me. The night was further improved by seeing Michael Socha in the club; he's an actor that has been in "This is England", "This is England 86" and "Being Human" and therefore is pretty cool in my humble opinion, in fact cool enough that i can let him off for being a Derby County fan.

Though those factors were what made it a great night, the reason i want to write about it in my blog is because of a conversation i had last night, one which i've had several times before with different people. It centres around the, for me at least very depressing, concept that being 'nice' is almost distrusted. There are few questions that annoy me more than "Why are you being so nice?" I hate that being nice to other people for the sake of simply being nice and wanting them to be happy is such an alien concept to people. The conversation last night actually at one point involved me being told that "because of how nice i was being it made her suspicious" like i must have some sort of ulterior motive.

I laughed it off at the time as i have before, with the most simple of responses to that original question, "Why the hell not?"

It's come up in a few different contexts before but it's most commonly been asked me by girls, girls who clearly believe that there is only one reason why a guy would be nice to them, that there has to be some sort of reward on the horizon to justify an act of kindness.

This can't just have happened without provocation; there must be a reason why this belief has been able to take hold, or perhaps it always has been there and i've just been too naive/optimistic/blind to notice it. Whether it has always been there or not, it's still depressing.

I've got a whole heap of flaws, some big, some more insignificant and anyone who knows me will know that i'm often my own biggest critic.

However i definitely seem to value just being nice to someone, going out of my way to help someone or just not lazily inconveniencing them more highly than a lot of people.

I reckon i must come across as almost 'old fashioned' at times but i can live with that. I believe in holding doors, walking people home so they have company and get home safe, letting someone who got to the bar ahead of me go first even if the barman wants to serve me first, smiling at and thanking people simply for doing their job and giving up my seat on buses/trains to those who need it more. I don't do it for purely altruistic reasons, it makes me feel good to help someone, so i'm benefiting from it and often i am nice because i want that person to like me, but it seems that such humble motives aren't enough and there must be some more sinister reason for being nice to someone.

I read a book a year or two ago called "Random Acts of Kindness: 365 Ways to Make The World A Nicer Place" which was compiled by Danny Wallace, the author of "Join Me" and "Yes Man". It's a brilliantly heart warming short book full of little hints and tips of random kind acts you can do, and i have tried a few of them myself, but what struck me while reading it was how many of those acts, a definite majority, would be met with huge suspicion, especially if carried out by a teenage boy. It's a depressing thought that a simple random act of kindness to a stranger, or in the broader sense simply being nice to someone who isn't a good friend or relative, is such a bizarre and rare concept that people can't understand it.

My point of this whole blog is simply that it makes me sad that people feel the need to question a person's motives for being 'nice'.

I hope this hasn't come across as sanctimonious or self-praising, i'm sure most people reading this will have noticed or experienced this at some point, it's just it's bugged me for a while and last night reminded me of it.

To finish as always is a song, this one i must have listened to 4 or 5 times in the past few days, for whatever reason i'm really loving it right now. It's by 'The Boxer Rebellion' and it's called 'Memo'. Enjoy.

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

Love, Strings and Screams

I have now officially done a blog a day for a month, which i'm pretty pleased with simply because will power, perseverance and purpose are not characteristics i exhibit all too often. I decided to write on a daily basis for a range of reasons.

Firstly it's good practice, making myself write something every day, on a range of topics will hopefully help me improve my writing and encourage me to tackle some issues and ideas that maybe are a little outside of my comfort zone.

Secondly i simply wanted to see whether i could keep something up, stick to a schedule and reach a target i'd set for myself. There's a definite satisfaction in achieving that.

Finally because it guarantees that every day i do something at least vaguely productive, or at least more productive than i have tended to be over the past couple of years (and especially in the last 6 or so months while i've been suffering from serious writers block when it comes to the stories i try and write).

Today's post is going to be another of those collections of brief film reviews

i tend to do every so often. I'm having a week or two off before i go into serious revision

mode so i'll be watching quite a lot of films as it's up there with my favourite ways to relax.

First up is No Strings Attached (2011). Ivan Reitman's rom-com centres around that most wonderful of euphemisms, "friends with benefits". Natalie Portman's trainee nurse 'Emma' and Ashton Kutcher's aspiring TV writer 'Adam' think they've found the perfect relationship to suit their commitment light but sex heavy desires when they decide to have a purely phsyical relationship.

As you'd expect this works well for a while before running into an obstacle, the irony of this addition to the rom-com genre being that the obstacle the characters must overcome is actually falling for each other and the complications this causes to their supposedly 'simple' relationship.

There are some very funny moments and ideas; Adam's lothario dad (played well by Kevin Kline) gets some entertainingly awkward moments and the set up allows some entertaining subversions of the clichés. Too often though it strays into crude rather than clever comedy and the actors don't seem entirely comfortable with some of the lines they're given.

It also suffers from a final act that seems unable to decide what it wants, one which struggles to reconcile itself with the rest of the film and one which didn't sit all that comfortably with me.

A final criticism is that there is a line in this film, which even I, with my comparatively high tolerance for cheesiness, found almost sickening as well as being i felt out of character.

It's enjoyable enough but it's far too hit and miss to be regarded as a really good comedy.

As i'm in a generous mood i'll give it 3/5.

Next up is Love & Other Drugs (2010) which sees Jake Gyllenhaal as a cocky but charming young medical sales rep who meets Maggie, a confident 20-something suffering from early on set Parkinsons disease, played by Anne Hathaway.

Similar to No Strings Attached it's another film where the central relationship is initially one of limited emotional attachment but plenty of sex before inevitably, 'feelings' rear their ugly heads and make the whole thing more complicated.

The idea of having a romantic drama/comedy where the central lead has Parkinsons is refreshing, especially when Anne Hathaway's character is frequently shown to be the more self-assured and complex character. It's a dynamic which is comparatively fresh and works well for large chunks of the film; scenes where the full intensity of a relationship with someone with a degenerative disease are explored or hinted at lend sections of the film a depth which Hollywood romances often lack.

The problems for this film stem from the fact that the director, Edward Zwick, seems to lack the conviction to follow through on the strong central premise, throwing in too many different plot elements and see-sawing between producing a standard rom-com and something more challenging, without ever really settling on one or the other.

It's a decent effort and i'd almost say worth watching for the at times quite believable chemistry between Hathaway and Gyllenhaal, but for me it needed to be much more sure of what it was trying to be, rather than flitting between different ideas and genres.

3/5 then for this one as well.

The final film/s i want to cover is the Scream franchise. Wes Craven's original trilogy stand up as both 3 of the best horror films and 3 of the best parodies, a true achievement and now he is releasing a fourth film, promising to simultaneously make fun of and make use of the new horror clichés and expectations that have arisen in the last decade.

Now on occasion the films do annoy me as it feels a little like Craven wants the best of both worlds by mocking the genre and producing a genre piece.

(A little side note, i wanted to avoid using the cliché of 'have his cake and eat it too' so was looking on Wikipedia for alternatives and found this apparent Italian alternative which i frankly love and am going to try and use it quite often - "You want your bottle of wine full and your wife drunk".)

Back to Scream, like i said it only bothers me on occasion as for the most part i reckon as Craven is regularly mocking his own films, he's earned the right to send up and exploit the clichés of the horror genre.

I'm quite looking forward to Scream 4, hopefully it'll be Craven at his best and the plot will have just as many ridiculous twists as the previous ones.

Today's song is by Washed Out, it's a nicely chilled out song that i've been listening to quite a lot in the past few days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnTf70aX2ms (it wouldn't let me embed it for some reason, but it's still only a click away.)

A Day of Sunshine and Economics

Short post today; i've spent the evening writing an essay on the economic crisis, more specifically why the US Treasury bailed out AIG but left Lehman Brothers to fail. As i said yesterday, i struggle with the economics side of politics. It's definitely my weak link in politics, the jargon throws me and i find it utterly baffling at times. However i've tried my best and i think i've made sense throughout the essay even if i haven't necessarily wrote the most challenging or original essay.

I have to have something on in the back ground while i work, either music or tv, i can't work in silence i find it actually distracts me more, which i know makes no sense, but there you go. The music side will influence the song choice at the end of the blog, but for a large part of this evening i was watching the Chelsea v Man United game. It wasn't a classic definitely, but compared to some of the games between the traditional big 4 sides in England, it was pretty entertaining. A few thoughts struck me while i was watching; firstly Torres still looks worryingly short on confidence and sharpness, which i don't think can be blamed on the past injuries, because he does look physically fit. Secondly Man United looked a lot more assured throughout than Chelsea but they deserved a penalty right at the end when Evra took Ramires down. I wonder if Ferguson or Phelan will come out with some comment about the referee tonight? I prefer Man United to Chelsea, but i definitely like Ancelotti a lot more than Ferguson, just because of how they come across in media interviews and the like.

I absolutely loved the weather today, even though it made it much harder to focus on my work. I've talked about just how big an impact a blue, fairly cloudless sky have on my mood for a day, and that was the case today. The sun put me in such a good mood this morning there was no way i was going to spoil it, at least initially, by thinking about the economics of politics.

So eventually i got the essay done, i managed to watch a game of football, listen to lots of music and spend a load of time with friends in the sun. It wasn't the most structured day, but i got everything i needed to done while also managing to have fun. Surely that has to be counted as a good day?

The song today is one from an album that helped me get a few hundred words written, an album i hadn't listened to for quite a while, an album which i go through phases of being very dismissive of it.

A Collection of Thoughts on the Last Day of March

300. Shaun of the Dead. The Parole Officer. Pizza. Cider.

All in all, last night was pretty damn great. It was a very stereotypically "lad" night, something i've definitely missed at university, compared to when i'm back in Sheffield.

Tonight i'm off to the cinema for a preview screening of "Sucker Punch". We got the tickets thanks to a competition of sorts on the IGN website that my house mate told me about.

I've also confirmed my second week of work experience for the summer. I'm working at The Leicester Mercury for the first week of June and then another week at The Derbyshire Times during July. Quite excited about it really; i'm sure i'll be spending a lot of the time fetching cups of tea and stuff like that, but i'm sure it'll still be a good chance to see what a newspaper is really like, to see how accurate my hopes and preconceptions about the business are.

Hopefully i might even get a couple of pieces published, i know quite a few other people who have done when they went on work experience. Would be pretty brilliant to see my name in a newspaper.

To finish the blog today a song that's been around for a few years, from a band who never quite made it into the big time.

5 Years Perspective

It's another absolutely beautiful day. I am really loving this period of sunny weather, even worn shorts for the first time this calendar year. I love the feeling of sunshine on my skin, that warmth that comes from being in direct sunshine, it feels so nice after a winter of hoodies and jeans. It's a simple pleasure, but sitting in a park with a few friends, sandwiches and an ipod with speakers is something i wish i could do every day. All that was missing was a football or rugby ball and maybe a can of cider, but i'm definitely not complaining.

Tomorrow i'm going paint balling for one of my housemate's 21st birthdays. I'm really looking forward to it, though if the weather's like it is today, it's going to be completely roasting running around a forest in overalls and a mask. I've not been paint balling for a few years now but i remember it as great fun, if on occasion quite painful.

I've only got two weeks of lectures left for the entire of second year, which is a bit of a weird thought. It makes it seem like i might eventually have to grow up and be an adult, and frankly i'm not ready for that.

I'm kind of keen to cling to being a student for as long as possible, i think it suits me more than being a fully fledged adult will. I'll no longer be able to use "i'm not even an adult yet" as an excuse for the things that are missing from my life or that i've failed to achieve. It's kind of comforting that there's still this big life change to be had, it's scary to think that after that it's just being an adult for the rest of my life. I suspect the pressure to be something, to find someone and to make somewhere my home will all be more intense for no longer having the justification that i'm a student and am not meant to have decided anything.

Then again i guess it's hard to know how the change will affect me until enough time has passed that i can have perspective.

I guess the life i'm living right now will probably look very different with 5 years perspective for example. I mean i look back at how i was as a 15 year old and i'm not exactly desperate to go back to being like that. I do miss school and some elements of my life then, but i don't miss being that guy. He was even more pathetic and desperate to impress everyone than i am now, which is an achievement. He wasn't the slightest bit comfortable with who he was and let's be honest, he needed a hair cut.

I was in year 10/11, worried about GCSE's and only just starting to realise what kind of a person i wanted to be, rather than simply trying to be the person i thought i should be. I was letting my hair grow to the point that the fringe became utterly ridiculous, without ever taking enough care of it to give it a chance of looking alright.

The only thing i really prefer about the 15 year old version of me is that i used to play football regularly then. I definitely do miss that.

Taking those observations into account, who knows what i'll think of this 20 year old version, once i turn 25. A lot could change between now and then, a lot probably will and there's plenty i hope will change. It'll be interesting if in 5 years time i look back at this blog and see the person i was, whether i'm a better person by then or just a different one. There's plenty of stuff i'd like to think might be different, for a whole host of different reasons, but i guess only time will tell.

I know this blog's been a bit rambling, so to make it feel like there was a good reason for reading, i'll put a few of my favourite songs to listen to when the weather's as good as this.

I think i've posted this before once, but it makes me feel all summery so it's appropriate i post it again here.

This i discovered through one of my favourite films, "Garden State".

And this one is from a Sheffield band that i saw play in Leeds last year.

A Rare Day of Productivity

Today has been uncharacteristically productive. Or at least the first part was. I woke at 9, handed in my essay, had a haircut, did a food shop and did a bit of reading, all before 1pm. For me to have achieved anything before 1 o'clock is pretty rare, i tend to fall into the student stereotype definitely of sleeping in for a good chunk of the morning.

It probably helped that when i woke up the sky was pretty much cloudless. Sadly that hasn't lasted, it's all gone a bit grey now, but while it lasted it added quite pleasantly to what was a pretty enjoyable morning.

The morning was to a large extent sound tracked by the second White Lies album, Ritual, which i really rate. I liked it from the moment i first heard one of the singles, Bigger than us, and since buying the album it's developed into a real favourite. Their first album highlighted how comfortable they were with the epic and the rousing, but the entire album had an almost maudlin air to it. Now there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, and when i was in the right mood i actively appreciated the slightly depressing melodrama of it all, but it meant it couldn't really be music for all occasions.

The second album is definitely more uplifting, more optimistic, as highlighted by a lyric in the first track on it, "The only thing i've ever found, that's greater than it always sounds, is love." It's definitely not a lyric you'd have expected to hear on their first effort, an album that had the cheerily titled songs 'Death' and 'To Lose Your Life' as an opening double.

What makes it impressive is that it's still dark and epic in places, they've managed to retain what made the first album good, without it sounding quite so much like an album i might have written if i was having a really bad day.

In a little bit me and my mate are wandering over to the Leicester City ground to watch the varsity football matches between De Montfort University and Leicester University. Should be a good laugh and any excuse to watch a football match is one i'm going to take.

To finish this blog i'll post two songs, from a fairly new and promising sounding band, one which i've taken an interest in for musically irrelevant but geographical reasons. They're called 'The Crookes' after the area of Sheffield they formed in, an area neighbouring where i grew up. Sadly none of the members are actually from Sheffield, but they're good enough that i don't mind.

&

A Day of Ferrets, Guinness, Bad Football and Morbid Literature

A shorter post today, just looking at a few of the things that have stood out over the past 18 or so hours.

First up, fairly early on today, i heard voices outside my window and decided to take a look through the gap in my blinds, being a full on nosy neighbour. Instead of seeing someone about to try and burgle my house, i was greeted with one of the most surreal sights i've seen in a while. I looked out on the small paved over area that passes for a back garden at my house and stood there was two men and a ferret. Yes, a ferret. In the centre of Leicester.

I then watched as the two men tried and quite spectacularly failed to capture said ferret. They chased it around, attempting to tempt a small animal into a pretty sketchy looking cardboard box, for a good few minutes. They almost looked like they'd cornered it, until the ferret, displaying an IQ that put the two men to shame, darted straight between the open legs of one of the guys, and down the alleyway, followed by two confused and cursing men.

It was an interesting start to my day definitely.

The next feature of my day was potentially the most morbid trip to a library i will ever face. I'm doing a research essay on whether the death penalty actually reduces crime in the US. Naturally i went to the library to get several related books out, only to realise that i possibly wasn't giving out the greatest sociable signals, by carrying a pile of books adorned repeatedly with the word, in bold and capitalised, DEATH. It's an interesting topic, one which has no easy answer, which is exactly what makes it such a fascinating issue to research. Whether i'll be quite so effusive in praise for the topic once i've written the essay is another matter.

Last up is the disappointment that was the Europa League football tonight. Both Manchester City and Liverpool stumbled their way to elimination, never really looking likely to survive, never looking capable of scoring the goals required to keep them in the competition. Both performances were utterly lacking in passion or determination and so though i'm disappointed, i have absolutely no sympathy for their defeats. Neither deserved the chance to continue in the competition, but it's still a shame that the two English teams in the competition were dumped out with quite so little ceremony.

One plus point is that i realised i actually like Guiness. So silver linings and all that.

As a continuation of the fairly light hearted and random nature of this post i'm going to post two videos.

The first is one that is definitely meant as a joke:

The second i merely wish was a joke:

A collection of thoughts on a Sunday evening in March

Dissertation proposal done. Being Human season finalé watched. Two extremely tasty meals eaten. All in all this Sunday's turned out alright, which was far from guaranteed when i woke up.

I have to say i was more than a little nervous this morning, despite my best intentions i really didn't make the progress i was hoping for on the work yesterday, meaning that it was still seeming pretty damn daunting. Gradually though today, despite many distractions, some worthwhile, others less so, i chipped away at the word count until at about half past 8 i saved a final draft of it and made some food, chicken kiev's as it turned out. I'm quite happy with it so far, but at the same time i am glad that it isn't binding, i'm not ready to commit to the topic yet. If i'm being honest i don't think it's a question of the topic so much as just not being ready to commit to any particular future.

My parents and sister came to visit today, we went for a meal and basically just had a good catch up. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the ideas i have about what jobs i could see myself doing. I think it was partly inspired by the journalism assignment i completed, where i wrote about the challenge facing people like me, coming towards the end of their second year of university, the challenge of deciding what exactly they want to when their degrees come to an end. I've been giving it quite a bit of thought and right now there are three career paths which appeal to me, all of them perhaps slightly naively aspirational, all of them probably a far distance from where i will eventually end up.

1) First up, this kind of a continuation of a career i've had in mind for a long time, that is of course to be a journalist. I've been wanting to do this for years, i've always wanted to write for a living and i've always believed that journalists play an important role in society. It's the natural conclusion i guess to that second element that i would love to work for someone like Reuters or the Associated Press, an organisation that is global, committed to trying to present balanced and objective coverage of events. They're not perfect, they have their faults and their aims create some limits in terms of creative scope. I'd love to work in some far away country, covering events and making sure that people whose stories might never be told are heard by a potentially global audience. As aims for a future career i go i reckon that i could do a lot worse.

2) A lecturer in American Politics at university. This is a new one, a career born out of a realisation that i have a passion for the subject and that maybe if i continue to study the subject, to post graduate or masters level, i could turn that interest into an occupation. I'd find it fascinating to keep studying the politics of the country, with all it's fascinating and contradictory details. I'm less certain about that career path, i guess because it's only occurred to me as an option over the last few months. I quite like the idea of teaching, though it's hard to put that appeal into words without it sounding cheesy, even by my standards. So i guess i'll leave it at that and move on to job 3.

3) This one is certainly the least feasible and realistic, but i would love to find myself in a position where my primary occupation and source of income was writing either novels or writing screenplays for film or TV. I loved doing the screenplay writing task in film studies, and anyone who even vaguely knows me will be aware that i have some aspirations to write novels. The story i wrote when i should have been revising for my A-levels is probably the one thing i have ever done that i am most proud of, not because i have any misguided notions about the literary merits of the story itself (it was distinctly average in all honesty) but instead i'm proud of the fact i wrote something of that level, i'm proud that i followed through on an idea that i was passionate about and i'm proud that for once i managed to put one of the myriad of ideas that float around my head all the time into a more coherent and corporeal form. It was a hugely satisfying experience to print it off and hold the physical copy of my story in my hands. I still have that copy in my room at uni now, i look at it every so often just to remind myself that if, and it's proven time and time again to be a frustratingly big IF, i can maintain enthusiasm for something, maintain a degree of focus, then i'm capable of creating something i can be proud of. I'd love it if one day i could create something that lots of other people appreciate, but for now, it's enough that i am happy with it.

As usual i'm going to end the post with a music recommendation. I don't post these assuming people haven't heard of them before, or that they're the greatest thing since sliced bread, merely that they're a band or artist that i really am enjoying at the time that i write, and i believe music, like anything that can make someone happy, should be shared.

Today i'm recommending 'The Boxer Rebellion' and more specifically their most recent album 'The Cold Still', not sure how to describe it, because it is, in my opinion at least, a quite entertainingly varied album. I hear the influences of Mumford and Sons, Radiohead, Mando Diao and possibly a bit of Band of Horses. If you listen to just one song, i'd say listen to this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj-i-5SgT4E.

Saturday 12th March - A Few Thoughts

I'm a bit tense while writing this, but that's because i'm listening on the radio to the Forest match against Doncaster and as the season gets closer and closer to the end the nerves involved in every match grow to an almost ridiculous level. In the last few weeks Forest have appeared to do their absolute best to throw away a very promising position. Thankfully none of the teams around us have been able to find any real consistency either so we're still very much in the race for promotion.

Later i'll be watching the FA cup game between Arsenal and Man U and i will definitely be supporting Arsenal; i quite like them as a team, they play good football, they always have a few exciting youngsters who are given a chance in the 1st team, Wenger has shown patience in building a team with real potential and he's been given the time to do so by the board. I felt pretty sorry for them on wednesday, if the ref had shown a little bit of common sense rather than sending Van Persie off for kicking the ball away, i reckon they'd have been in with a real chance of beating Barcelona. In that atmosphere, with such a short time between the referee blowing his whistle and the incident, 99% of players would have done exactly the same as the Arsenal striker so it seems harsh that he, and his team were punished in the way they were. Still it would all have been very different if Bendtner could actually live up to his potential for once, and had finished that chance in the dying moments. I really don't think he's good enough for a top team, he shows ability in flashes but he's hugely inconsistent and you never feel confident that he'll take even the simplest of chances. Seeing as they were also unlucky against Birmingham in the League Cup final, though their downfall in the end was of their own making, i really hope they manage to keep going in the FA Cup and chase down Man U in the league as well. It'd be nice to see someone other than Man U or Chelsea win the premiership for once.

It's not impossible that part of my motivation for writing this blog and focussing on the sport this weekend is that i'm doing everything in my power to foolishly avoid doing work. I have to hand in a dissertation proposal on Monday, it's meant to be around 2,000 words and right now i really don't want to do any more work on it, but i know i'm just going to have to man up and just get on with it soon if i want to avoid that horrible last minute scramble to meet a word count. It's kind of daunting just thinking about that particular D-word, it sounds quite appallingly grown up and serious. I'm sure i'll get this proposal done in the end, just need to find a bit of focus.

I've always been pretty bad for procrastination, but in the last few months i've been even worse than usual. I don't know what it is, why i'm finding it that bit harder to muster the energy to do work or why it's taking longer than usual for the fear to take hold and force me to work. There's really not much time left in this semester of university, so i just need to actually get on with my work, however the difference between acknowledging that fact and acting on it are very different.

I'm kind of loving this song right now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFaenf1T-Y . It's called 'Home' and it's by the brilliantly named 'Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros'. From the whistles in the intro, to the slightly odd but kind of heart warming conversation in the middle, to the conclusion it's sheer feel-good music, the kind of song you put on when the sun's out and you're walking somewhere.

That's all for today but i'm sure i'll write again tomorrow when i want a break from writing the proposal.

The "Spin Doctor" Comes To Town

I'm planning a few posts for today, got a bunch of stuff i want to put down in blog form.

The first thing i want to write about is the visit of Alastair Campbell to De Montfort University. He was attending a Q&A session organised by my universities Politics society. After a few pre-set questions it was opened up to a relative free for all and it made for a pretty entertaining use of an evening. Campbell was every bit the polished performer you would expect, coming across with a combative charm and an admirable ability to get his audience on side.

Now how much of what he says can be trusted is a subject that has been debated plenty and i kept that in mind while listening to him, but in some ways that didn't detract from the experience. Partly because a degree of skepticism is a good thing when listening/reading to any politician or media outlet, partly because i went there as much to see a master of PR at work as to learn any great political or social lessons.

Like him or loathe him he is an expert in those kind of situations, coming across as open, opinionated, passionate and when he needs to be charming. He played it fairly safe on political issues; a few digs at Cameron, Clegg and Thatcher were never likely to go down badly with an audience predominantly made up of university students and lecturers, but he did impress me with how open he was when talking about his struggles in the past with alcohol abuse, depression and his time writing porn under a pseudonym.

Another reason for my interest in what he had to say is that he is a man who has worked extensively on both sides of the politics/media divide and as a Journalism and Politics student it would have been a huge waste to pass up on the opportunity.

This is a man who was involved to a large degree in many of the major political events of my lifetime so it would be remiss to not talk a little about the political issues he covered/was questioned on. Unsurprisingly i found myself agreeing with him quite regularly; he made some good points about the coalition and criticised elements of Conservative policy which i already knew i disagreed with.

Sit me in a room with a Labour supporter who spends a lot of his time attacking the Tory's and inevitably i will find plenty to agree with them on, it's hardly an achievement by him that i applauded his criticism of Cameron's poorly thought out concept of 'The Big Society' (something i'll cover in a bit more detail shortly). I do feel solid claims of what Labour would be doing instead were conspicuously absent, though another example of the open nature of his replies was a moment where he pointed out to someone attacking Thatcherism for de-regulating the banks, that Labour hadn't done anything to reverse that process. Also unsurprisingly he made some regret laden remarks about the fact that the Iraq dossier led to such a breakdown in the nation's trust of politicians, while defending the actual decision to go to war, just as he did at the Chilcot Enquiry. He was particularly engaging when talking about his memories of the Northern Ireland peace process and his pride in being involved with that was clear to see.

Overall i found myself questioning whether the fact that he is such a skilled PR man, such a professional performer, such an experienced political animal, makes him a better or worse politician? Sure he is seen by many, at times including me, as one of the prime examples of how little you can trust any politician, but somewhat sadly it can definitely be argued that politics today is as much about how you deliver your message as what the message actually is and if you believe that to be the case, Alastair Campbell has to be considered to be one of the better politicians out there.

All in all, an entertaining and very interesting evening, now i just sit back and wait for his next argument with Sky News' Adam Boulton, the first being a definite highlight of the 2010 election for me. If i'm honest, i suspect Alastair is looking forward to it to.

A decent day

I guess I'm getting in the Christmas spirit. I handed in both of the essays which I've been working on for the last couple of weeks today. It was the kind of winter day I love, with a clear blue sky, cold without being unbearable and a layer of frost covering most surfaces but thankfully not the pavement. There's something kind of beautiful about trees when every one of their branches has been coated white with frost, making them look skeletal and festive at the same time. It was one of those fairly uneventful days where the simple fact that nothing went wrong actually makes it a great day. Nothing big or dramatic happened, I went to Uni, handed in some work, played on the Xbox for a bit, went round to a friend's house and watched a DVD before wandering home well before midnight. But for once I've reached the end of a day without a single thing going wrong or frustrating me, without anything to dwell on or regret. It's a nice feeling and one I allow myself too rarely. It's not like the things that have caused me to feel a bit crap at various times this term have gone away or been solved, in fact they're completely unchanged, it's just I guess they don't seem to have mattered so much today and I'm grateful for that.

I watched 'Home Alone' this evening for the first time in ages and I'd forgotten how enjoyable that film is, simple, funny, charming and intensely evocative of a whole host of Christmas based memories and associations. It also struck me just how violent some of the traps the burglars fall for are, something which had passed me by when I'd watched it as a child, those guys would almost certainly have both died from the punishment they receive (don't worry though, I know that strict realism was hardly the aim of the film makers there and nor should it have been).

The main focus of this post, or at least the initial inspiration, isn't my improved mood. It's not about my day today either. It's another post about music, and the role it plays in my life.

I spent a lot of the last week sat in my room working on essays and it's times like that when I truly become aware of my reliance on music to get through a day. I had my iTunes library open constantly, listening to a whole range of songs and I genuinely think it would have been much more of a struggle to complete the essays had it not been for that. There was a fairly heavy emphasis on Frank Turner among the songs I listened to. I know quite a lot of people who simply can't work while listening to music, they find it too distracting but I am the exact opposite. I have a fairly inattentive mind a lot of the time, I quite rarely manage to focus on one thing in particular, even if I'm watching a film or TV show I love I'll find my mind is wandering and I'm tempted to check a few websites or read a magazine while watching them.

I have a theory that it's at least partly a defence mechanism; anyone who knows me properly will know that I have a tendency to over think scenarios. I quite simply think too much, and not in a intelligent or beneficial way, just in an overly analytical and often slightly self-destructive way. I also tend not to draw the most positive conclusions from these periods of thought, ending up with a fairly negative outlook on the way certain aspects of my life are going. It's because of this that I think I often end up doing two or more things at once, if I was to do just the one that would leave me too much room to think about the exact kind of things it does me little good to focus on. Recently I've not even been successful in transferring that energy into being creative and coming up with stories to write, it's just been a kind of self-perpetuating cycle of slight sadness.

Music seems to operate in the same part of my brain as the section which dreams up things for me to over-think (I doubt there's any actual psychological link, it's more just how it feels to me). So combining music with work is quite effective as it keeps the practical and over-imaginative sides of my brain busy and I am intensely grateful for music whenever I'm faced with work.

I was reminded of my gratitude for music at two separate points today. Firstly when I was walking into university, enjoying as I mentioned earlier exactly the kind of winter morning I love, accompanied by the Fleet Foxes eponymous debut album. It was just one of those moments where the music matched my mood and my environment so well. I genuinely feel sorry for all the generations who had to live without iPods and MP3 players. I know that could sound condescending or foolish, but seeing as I pretty much literally never walk anywhere alone without my earphones in, it's just hard to imagine a life without that. Some people might argue that people were more social or just enjoyed the sounds around them, but I never listen to my iPod when I'm with friends and if anyone can explain quite what I'm missing out on by drowning out the sounds of traffic and other people's unrelated conversations I'm willing to listen.

The second time was fairly similar, just about 8 hours later. Walking round to my friends house on my own I decided to listen to an album I'd not listened to for a couple of months. "Until the Earth Begins to Part" by Broken Records is an incredible album, but for some reason I'd not listened to it for quite a while so i enjoyed that wonderful feeling of re-discovering a love for a piece or pieces of music. I tend to listen to albums intensely for a while, then forget about them, and as a general rule the really good ones I'll re-discover, the more average ones tend to stay forgotten. In this case I was very glad to be reminded of just how much I adore that album and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who reads this.

The final musically related thing I can think to mention is the name of my favourite Christmas song atm, which is Christmas in London by Frank Hamilton. It's on iTunes and Spotify and I would really advise people to give it a listen, it's a really good folksy/acoustic Christmas song which so far is managing to make me feel festive without being nauseatingly over familiar.

A Weekend Well Spent

So my plan of writing a blog every day until Christmas fell apart pretty quickly. In my defence when i decided to aim for that I'd forgotten that the combination of a energy sapping politics essay and a trip to Nottingham meant that I haven't had the time or inclination to post sadly.

It's been a great weekend, i got the politics essay done, i saw one of my best friends who i hadn't seen for more than 2 months, discovered an incredibly nice pizza (Deano's beano - from a takeaway place in Nottingham consisting of cheese, tomato, sausage and beans, it was so much nicer than it sounds) and went to a good gig (Pendulum live at Nottingham Trent Arena).

Definitely starting to look forward to Christmas now. Or more accurately i am looking forward to the holidays. I can't wait to be back in Sheffield, because no matter how much i love my life in Leicester (and i definitely like Leicester a lot more this year than i did last, for a whole range of reasons), it isn't home like Sheffield is. I'm excited for the first night out back home, with all the old faces, because there's a guarantee there of a good night in a way i rarely associate with a night out in Leicester.

There's two things I'm definitely looking forward to between now and when i make the relatively short journey home on the 17th.

First up is the coming Friday evening. I am seeing Frank Turner live. This is a huge deal to me, i really can't think of many, if any bands or artists i'd rather see right now than him. I've been listening to his songs pretty intensively for the last week or so. At the moment i'm going on my own, which isn't ideal but won't stop it from being a brilliant night. And afterwards there's "Battle of the Uni's", a bar crawl that tries to cash in on a fairly artificial and half arsed rivalry between the two universities in the city. Last year it was a really good night out, arguably one of the better of the entire first year at uni. Once i leave the Frank Turner gig i'm going to just meet up with a few friends and hopefully it'll be a really great night.

The second one is a Christmas dinner round at a friends house. Big group of us having a lovely dinner and just hanging out. It sounds like the perfect way to end the term, can't wait.

To end this blog I'm going to post 5 links, to 5 songs that I'm really loving at the moment. As it's the main focus of my excitement currently, the 5 today are going to be Frank Turner songs, the ones I'm most looking forward to hearing on Friday.

1. I Still Believe - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKkIysX2Bow&feature=related

2. Ballad of Me and My Friends - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0sYJSibVZ8

3. I Knew Prufock Before He Was Famous - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c21SfaAwBw0

4. Wisdom Teeth - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgm6qn2ylgM

5. Casanova's Lament - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz-OZqa4igQ&feature=related

Angry Students and Indifferent Governments

This is the first of 3 updates I plan to write today, two politically orientated, one more personal.

Today students from all over the country travelled down to London to protest against the proposed raise in tuition fees. By the sounds of it the estimated 30,000 students have protested passionately and for the most part peacefully, though of course as with any big gathering there's been some trouble, which will inevitably get a disproportionate amount of media coverage. The direction of the anger is spread between both parts of the coalition, but there is a definite focus towards Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. I, like many students, especially those who voted for the Liberal Democrats in May partly because of their stance on tuition fees and the importance of higher education being affordable, feel that they have betrayed their principles and their promises with their neatly executed about turn.

There's going to be a lot of attention paid to the trouble and destruction caused by what was a minority (though from the pictures/videos a decent sized minority) of the protesters. I don't support it, it spoils the day for the thousands who wanted to protest peacefully and it gives the media and politicians something to be outraged about rather than focussing on the actual issue. However i struggle to really be annoyed at the instigators of the violence and destruction. They've done it at least partly because they're angry and that's an anger that I share. It's an anger born out of being told by wealthy politicians who never had to pay for their education that we will have to pay higher and higher fees, and face increasing debts, in a university system that is having it's funding dramatically cut to gain a degree which, in the case of many subjects doesn't actually offer particularly promising graduate opportunities. So yeah, students are angry and so we damn well should be.

That anger only intensifies when we see the very same politicians who spoke out against tuition fees, who PROMISED that there wouldn't be a rise, advocating the rise as not only necessary but fair. I saw Nick Clegg speak before the election last may, he came to De Montfort University and there was a genuine sense of hope in the crowd that he might be different, that the message he was selling was one of change and honesty. Thanks to him and the other Liberal Democrats who got on board with the Conservatives quite so eagerly, the perception that politicians are guided more by a desire for power than a desire to help the people has only intensified and become entrenched among a group of young adults who, for many of them, May 2010 was their first involvement in British politics at a national level.

I am not against the coalition in it's entirety, i actually support it as the option that was arguably the one most likely to offer stability and cohesive government after the election. Compromise is undeniably a part of coalition government and I'm sure the Liberal Democrats will do some good things while part of the coalition. But to compromise on what was to a huge swathe of your vote the flagship policy reeks of political manoeuvring and dishonesty.

I didn't go to the protests today for a number of reasons, but there are two that stand out. The second one will be explained in the second update i'll post in a bit, but the first is that deep down i don't believe any amount of protesting by students or the people in general is likely to influence government policy making. In countries like ours, where we elect someone and then sit back and hope they don't do anything too abhorrent during the 5 years in charge, i'm cynical about the likelihood of any progress being made by this protest. My belief in the power of people marching in a democratic country like England was damaged in the wake of February 2003.

On February 15th 2003 between 750,000 and 2 million people (depending on whose estimates you believe) marched in London in an anti-war protest about the imminent Iraq war. I was just starting to become politically aware and i remember watching the news that day and listening to the commentators saying it was one of the biggest public protests the UK had seen and feeling inspired to see that people cared enough to travel across the country and protest. It was democracy in action i thought, an expression of freedom of speech and a clear message to the government.

And it was a message they ignored completely. We went to war, and according to wikileaks over 100,000 people died and a country was torn apart. The masses made their voice heard more clearly and publicly than it had been in a long time and the government just went ahead and did what they wanted anyway.

I'd kept a belief in a protests being worthwhile until this autumn. What finally put paid to that idealism was looking at France. During September and October there were widespread strikes and demonstrations throughout France at a highly unpopular reform of the pension system and a rise in the pension age. Several estimates suggest that on 4 or 5 separate occasions the turnout at the marches all over the country topped 2 million. The strikes saw petrol stations run dry as oil refineries were blockaded and schools blocked off by protesting students. Trash went uncollected in Marseilles for 3 weeks and Charles De Gaulle airport almost ran out of fuel. For the most part public support stayed behind the strikes and demonstrations even as they hit the infrastructure of the country and many felt it was a comment not just on the pension reform but Sarkozy's presidency in general. By most standards it was a well attended, well organised and effective protest.

And what happened?

The reforms were passed in full and eventually people had to go back to work.

People get riled up and protest and i'm glad they do, on a different day i might quite possibly have gone along and protested too. I just struggle to think of many examples i've seen where when it comes to the big, national issues, the protests have made much difference to government policy and that's a shame, but it's a flaw in our democratic system where leaders are only accountable once every 5 years and for the rest of the time we have very little power over them.

Studying politics for the last year and a half has definitely made me more cynical and pessimistic when it comes to politicians, their actions and their intentions.

One thing to come out of the BBC's coverage which suggests something interesting could happen is a plan by students to pressure Clegg into implementing a policy he suggested during his election campaign, of voters being able to recall their MP if they feel he has committed some serious wrong doing (Clegg suggested it after the expenses scandal). The students want him to implement it so that they can then get enough signatures in his own constituency (and my home constituency) of Hallam, in Sheffield, to recall him and have another election for that seat. If this goes ahead, which i think is sadly unlikely as Clegg will probably make the decision he's unpopular enough already that it won't make much difference if he goes back on another promise, it would be a much more effective way in my opinion for voters to make it clear they don't approve of a politicians actions, thus making them surely more accountable.

Taking Clegg's seat in parliament away from him would be a brilliantly damning statement by the public of their opinion on his and his party's actions.