life, oooooh life.
It has been a busy time for me, from being to an amazing festival in Leeds, the first I'd ever been to, in which I got to experience the delightful toilet facilities (not that bad, but I have the excellent adavantage of being a man, which probably helps), and the over priced food. Still, for a set that included the Eels, the Zutons, the Flaming Lips (who started with the lead singer climbing onto the audience in a large bubble....) and finally the Who. It rocked, and some bad elements in the crowd did nothing to discourage my enjoyment (although it might have been different if the thrown beer can had hit me rathe than someone to my right). Of course the train journey home was less than fun due to various shennanigans leaving us a delightful two hour wait. But then we got free tea, so that probably makes it worth it.
Additionally, I have had my first driving lessons, in which I have pushed the boat right out of the harbour and gone all the way to second gear, zooming through the countryside at shockingly fast speeds of twenty miles an hour, only stopping when told. And stalling at junctions. Because stalling at a junction is what all the cool kids do. My instructor is a slightly scary man who seems to get a little angry if you do something wrong, which, considering I have now driven for approximately 50 minutes in my whole life, happens reasonably frequently, from not steering properly t not steering at all. Still it's a necessary part of life unfortunately, the whole technology that inserts stuff into your brain from the matrix still not being very common.
Finally today I gave blood, having finally recovered from the ignomity of fainting
before I gave blood, so now a pint of my fine and, I imagine, excellent blood is going off to save someone's life. I imagine that for people as excellent as me they save my blood for emergencies, as in all probability it is twice as good as normal blood, and increases the chance of your life being saved by three. And that's a big number in medical terms.
new futurama
New futurama!
Victims have a say
I have to say
this does not inspire me with hope. A lot is made, at least over here, of "victims rights"- the idea that somehow the criminal is favoured over the victim in a court of law. This is an interesting notion, as I'm fairly sure one of them is going to end up in jail. Heres a hint- it's not the victim.
I do understand that the victims of crime can feel a little upset by this whole process, and they should be counceled and looked after, certanly, but ultimately a court of law is a place where you decide on someone's future, and it must be just and fair, and frankly letting the victim decide the punishment does not seem particularly just to me. Admittedly this is just a statement, but does this mean that if a victim is more upset in court, and puts on a better performance than one who is perhaps more forgiving, the criminal has a longer sentence. Surely the crime is wrong no matter how well the victim takes it emotionally......
I hate this government, I really do.....
Creaking stair
When I was younger I used to read books in which the intrepid hero would avoid his parent's notice (or sometimes evil aunt. Aunts are often evil) by avoiding the creaky stair. This to me, always seemed more fanciful than the rest of the book, which would normally have unicorns and dragons or whatever (or, in the case of Tom's midnight garden, ice skating. But in the past. Oooooooh.). The reason for this is I live in one of the creakiest houses in the known universe. Everything creaks, or, if it does not, is squeaks. Some kind of noise is the point I'm trying to make.
This is hardly the worst thing to be inflicted by, but for a large and already loud guy like me, it can be somewhat difficult not to make noise at night. When I remember not to anyway, as my parents attest to.
On a complete and utter tangent, I am getting annoyed by things at the end of credits. Yes, yes, it's cute having something at the end of the credits, but a little warning would be nice. I re-watched X-men 3 today, just for the tiny bit at the end, and I mean the end of the credits, which took about 10 minutes to finish, lavishing us with detail of who was head gaffer and who was best boy's grip. I'm not sure how anyone would know to stay to the end unless they were told, which is rather frustrating, especially as it is quite important. Never mind.
Finally, I'd also like to say that for a place called pizza hut, they don't do very good pizzas......
Good lord
An appropriate title for
this. In my mind, the church of England has always been one of moderation, so that article, along with the other related
link. I will deal with them in turn.
First of all- C of E schools want freedom to discriminate against homosexuals- at least that is the implication of this article. Are they mad? Surely no civillised nation would give them that right, to pick on people who are at their most vunerable, who are just discovering their sexuality. Thanks to steps forward over the past few decades, while coming out can hardly be easy, it is less frowned upon on than the past. The last thing any kid coming to terms with that sort of thing needs is a teacher condeming it. I don't think this kind of thing will be allowed- I hope not.
The second one is another weird move. I know Britain is supposed to be a religious nation, with a national religon, but honestly, does anyone believe that? We are mostly a nation of agnostics and atheists, who shouldn't be forced to worship every day. So schools have mostly pretty much ignored what is supposedly law- after all there are quite a lot of laws in UK books that aren't really followed anymore- the nation has moved on, even if the law hasn't quite managed it yet. The idea of enforcing a law which is out dated is silly- the sensible thing would be to get rid of it.
Scientologists
Apparently
this is really
scientology doctine...
Kieranmail
Way back in the day, and by way back, I mean 5 or 6 years ago, which, when you've only lived 21 of them, is like.. well a quarter of my life, I wrote a precursor to this blog called Kieranmail. Essentially, enamoured by this fancy new email, and being in possesion of a large amount of email addresses (some of which I actually have no idea when I acquired. But then my memory of past events is so incredibly poor this is hardly surprising), I decided to email my views on everything. Looking back on some that I have saved causes some amusement, as well as some embarrasment, as apparently I felt the need to point out to everyone how lonely I was, being very much girlfriendless at that age. Emo, would be the word, although a little more self deprecating than the word suggests.
I actually gathered a small following from these emails, and indeed Alice's first knowedge of me was not through any personal contact but by reading these emails instead, which seems to have turned out ok, so I can't have been doing everything entirely wrong- unless her affection for me is in spite of those emails, a reasonable sentiment. Of course, some people were less pleased to get unsolicited bulk emails landing in their inbox, for some reason. Sadly, many of my readership from those days did not transfer to my blog- clearly actively clicking a link for my ramblings is too much, which is, on reflection, probably fair enough.
A friend went as far to suggest that I should email out these entries, something I considered but, to be honest, could in no way be bothered to do. This was brought to mind by this brief video by Neil Gaiman, of whom I am quite a large fan- I have recently read Ananansi Boys, and would reccommend it, although I would point out that every book he has written has been about a guy who's life is turned upside down by some supernatural occurences. Admittedly I have yet to read the Sandman graphic novels, but I except the principle to hold.
I would post some examples of my better writing back then (I'll spare you the emoness, more for my own sake than yours) but the computer with the big archive is currently switched off, and I'd hate to utilise any kind of effort.
Packing
Packing is usually an activity to be avoided until the last possible moment, with possible exceptions being an uncoming nuclear missile or similar. I was very amused, back in those very much post 9/11 days, to get a leaflet telling me what to do in case of a nuclear holocaust. Being within an hour of London, I suspect my option would be to die.
They are now making films of 9/11, indeed, one, United 93 is already out. It looks quite good, I have to say, it has had very good reviews, although I can't imagine it makes for fun viewing- but that's hardly the point. I don't know about the other one, WTC, but the trailer makes it look quite desperately mawkish, perhaps Oliver Stone was a little wary given his history with JFK of offending people, and made a film which looks like pap.
I know some people are saying this is too soon. I don't know, to be honest. 9/11 was a horrible thing, but to be fair they did actually consult the families directly affected when they made these, and ultimately thats surely all they need to do? I mean no-one else really can claim anything but a visceral reaction. Ultimately, in our crazed capatilist culture these films were always going to be made- it remains to be seen if they are artistically worth while.
libertarians....
Libetarians get on my nerves. Or rather, the way the philosophy is used anyhow. I'm not entirely sure what exactly libetarians are, apart from they love freedom a lot. So much that they think there should be little or no rules. Some have argued to me-through this grand thing we call the internet- that tax is an evil thing, and wrong, they believe government should not exist. Except for an army apparently, although I forget how they're supposed to raise money for this, seeing as tax is evil and everything.
After this I had written a huge rant about speeding, but actually this article is a
far better discussion than I would have had, and is worth a read.
It's good to relax
after a month of revision. We went to the seaside on sunday, which is something I haven't actually done (in the UK at least) for quite a while. I love coastal towns because they are almost all uniformly tacky. British readers will probably know what I'm talking about, but for those who aren't... hmm.
Well to start with you have the arcades. Games arcades on the whole are very tacky places, all flashing lights and loud noises, but you get the added treat of an electronic bingo announcer coming over everything, saying strings of numbers meaninglessly. There is of course the penny machines! These are fantastic money eaters, where one puts in a pound worth of 2 pennies and get nothing back! Every now and then the precariously balanced piles of pennies will shift and it will make you very excited, convincing you that soon big prizes are to be had- perhaps even the small toy car will be given (according to the machine I used, apparently one can trade in three cars for a motorbike. A toy motorbike.) Once you tire of this, you can go on the aging arcade machines, on which generally the guns will not quite align with the screen, and, in one case, the screen so old the graphics look awful.
Tiring of this, one can emerge into the light and enjoy the fine cuisine available at the seaside. Fish and chips. Somewhat is made of this being the UK's national dish, a depressig thought, and while if you go a mile in land you will find all different kinds of food, here you are trapped in the land that time forgot, where fish and chips are your only option, or, for the vegetarian.... chips. In defence of one place, they did have a vegebuger, but frankly I did not hold my hopes too high, deciding instead to bank on eating sweets. Of which there is plenty, my favourite being rock, even if it did collapse in my hands to fall to the floor, causing me to become very petulant. Alice promised to buy some more, thus avoiding a large wailing tantrum (and honestly, wouldn't it be fun to actually just let go and DO that one day?)
As well as the arcade, there is always the pier, where along with the arcade machines from back on shore, there is also a host of fairground rides, some of which look like they will collapse under your weight, and there are the dodgems, which, thanks to various new regulations, apparently you are forbidden from bumping into other people (which makes me wonder what the hell the point of the things are....) We actually avoided this to use a machine called "pirate blaster. Basically, there are a bunch of plastic pirates, you put some money in and squirt them with water. I was very enthusiastic with this until a few seconds in, having forgotten that they squirt water back. Still, I continued valiantly, getting soaked in the process, with the others ducking for cover like..... well like more sensible people to be honest.
Finally there is the beach, which in this case had some donkey rides going across it. This is not always the case, and I rather think it is a bad idea. Oh, sure, you get the kids being greatly entertained, but you also get donkey shit on the beach, which, frankly, I can do without. Never mind, there was a fair amount uninhabited by donkeys, although by the time we went to the beach the sea had retreated about a mile out, foiling my plans to go swim (to be honest, swimming in British water is rarely a good idea, due to extreme lack of heat, but it's a tradition that I absolutely freeze myself). Still, we made a large wall- then kicked it down- while Alice made a sand boat. And got angry at me when I accidentally broke a bit of it......
On a minor note, the way there was entertaining in of itself, Ben providing transport, although being rather poor at taking directions, at several points leading us into absolutely the wrong direction (on the way back, faced with the choice between the M4 south, north, and the M5, and knowing he had to go down the M4, but not knowing which one to choose, took the M5), while listening to his inane mix cd (including team America, "do you really like it, is it is it wicked?" and the Excel girls).
In conclusion, going to the seaside is fun, getting sand abolutely everywhere is less fun.
pretty fantastic
all I do is watch
videos on the internet....
