A Memory

I sat in the back of the car, and I watched as my mother-in-law slipped a sweet out of the bag. Something caught at my memory, and I frowned. I recognised the packaging - the red Bassett's logo, the green text... the way the wrapper curled around at the edges - even the sound the hard pastille made as it was unwrapped. I tilted my head, and I knew immediately what it would taste like, what the texture would feel like, pressed against the inside of my cheek - the raised dots rubbing against it, the sugar inside teased out, causing a kind of numbness. I took one, and as if in a half-remembered dream, I pulled the two ends gently, slid the hard pastille out of the crinkled wrapping.

I put the Sherbet Lemon in my mouth, and I remembered.

I was twelve, maybe thirteen, and I wrote for the school newspaper. We were a tiny prep school, barely 170 pupils, and so the scope of the articles wasn't particularly grand - an expose on the removal of chocolate splodge pudding here, an appeal for the older boys to be allowed to sit on chairs at assemblies there - hardly Watergate, but we got by. The newspaper was 10p, and I remember that we used to give away a sherbet lemon with each one - it was an early exposure to 'value-added' marketing. We never sold many newspapers - even fewer when I became editor, but we got by, and given that parents print-shop published the newspaper, there were never any costs to cover. What little money we made went to sponsor a young boy in Africa somewhere. His name was Issa, and he used to send us letters. I wish I knew what happened to him. The newspaper was short-lived, and didn't survive my leaving the school, but for a while, it was important. I hadn't thought of it in years - The Chorister News. I wish I still had a copy.

It was an unimportant memory, but it was a good one. Sometimes, that's all that matters.

Dear Mr Gove, Thank You for Devaluing My Education

So I saw this today, and it kind of frustrated me. I've become used to the standard stories every July and August of how A-levels are too easy, how they don't really mean anything any more, and how the youth of today are probably stupider than previous generations. These stories, of course, come out just when students are receiving their results, so that, at the moment when they should feel proudest of themselves, they are told that their achievements should carry an asterisk.

So when I read that Michael Gove wants to change to A-Level systems, I figured it was just another July "Exams? You were lucky! When I were a lad..." kind of story, and was ready to dismiss it. On further reading though, I became intrigued:

[Gove] said he wanted to switch emphasis back to examinations taken at the end of two years of study in order to revive "the art of deep thought".

Really Michael? The art of Deep Thought? Now I have no idea what that phrase means, but I'm guessing you want it to mean 'students being able to write long essays in three hour exams potentially two years after they studied the topic the question is about'. Which to me, seems a little silly.

Regular examinations encourage you to stay on top of your learning. Modular exams allow you to focus on one topic at a time, and thus to study it in more depth. One exam at the end of two years encourages you to kick back and do nothing for those years, and then cram in a mad panic. Of course, if that's what you mean by Deep Thought, I suppose that's fine.

But hang on, Mr Gove says:

"We need to ensure that the knowledge expected of A-level students is such that they can hit the ground running (at university) and they don't need, as some have suggested, four-year courses or catch-up tuition"

His argument is that we should make A-Levels more like university exams, so that people are more prepared for university. That makes sense I suppose... until you realise that universities have exams at the end of every year, not every two! Added to the fact that many universities are moving to, yes, a modular system, and you start to wonder whether Mr Gove knows what on Earth he is talking about. Where are these universities that have two years between exams?

http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/structure.html

Oh, I see. Well, good to know where our priorities lie, right?

An Angry Rant About The England Football Team

You know how I'm usually the person who calls for restraint and to give managers time? The one who says that managers get to much blame for poor performances? Not this time. Fabio needs to go - ridiculous starting elevens (Heskey up-front next to Rooney... twice. Upson when Carragher was available, Ledley King who clearly wasn't going to last ninety minutes), ridiculous substitutions (WHY was Gareth Barry, a defensive midfielder, still on the pitch when we were two goals down? And then Heskey... for DEFOE? And why the hell was Milner taken off?); ridiculous over-loyalty to players (Rooney and Lampard played every minute of every game, and were pathetic); ridiculous formations (remember Rooney in left midfield in the the USA game?); and to top it all off, ridiculously poor performances from supposedly elite players in the biggest competition they will ever play in.

 I don't care how much it costs, we need to start over - let's get a manager with proven international credentials (Guus Hiddink?) and tell him to start with a blank slate - no-one is an automatic selection any more. We should pick our best player (probably Rooney, although you'd never know it from this tournament) and build the whole team around him - players are only selected based on their ability to help Rooney score goals. Either that, or go with my previous idea of using the team that wins the Championship that year. 

OK, Rant over. No, wait, no it isn't! Have you heard all the England players? They're blaming the no-goal, and saying that the scoreline doesn't reflect the tempo of the game. Why are they being allowed to get away with this? The team played crap, and they LOST BY THREE GOALS, not one! Fabio should be doing a Marcello Lippi and apologising. The scary thing is, Germany weren't even that good - we gifted them at least three of their goals. Argentina could probably have scored seven or eight. It's time to start again. We may not be the best footballing nation on Earth, but we're better than THAT.

David Cameron's Arm Longer Than Previously Advertised

A Short Explanation of Why British Politics is Messed Up

So I was speaking to an American friend, who was asking why electoral reform was so important, and what was wrong with the system that we had. I came up with this example as the best way of explaining it:

Imagine you live on a desert island. (Not like the one on Lost - this one doesn't have a make-up department) On the island with you are 99 other people. You decide that, in order to survive, you will need a group of ten people to be in charge, with one of those people further selected to be the Chief. So, you have an election, right? Everyone votes once for their preferred candidate, and the five people with the most votes get to be the ruling council, and the one with the highest vote total gets to be chief. This makes sense to everyone, and is very simple to organise.

The British electoral system is NOTHING like this.

Let us return to our island. Imagine, if you will, that we are having our election once more. Only this time, instead of having 100 inhabitants, there are 1000. So, let us expand our number of representatives to 100. Now, we have a problem - 100 people are unlikely to be able to reach a consensus through discussion alone, and so we introduce a system of voting - if a representative likes an idea, they vote yes, if they don't, they vote no. An idea requires more 'yes' votes than 'no' votes to be passed. The representatives are still voted for by the population, with the 100 people getting the most votes getting to be representatives, and once more, the person who has the highest vote total gets to be Chief.

The British electoral system is A BIT like this.

Once more, back to the island. We still have our thousand voters, our hundred representatives, but now, the people are spread out a bit, and so the representatives are assigned to a specific geographical location. The people who live round the waterhole get to vote for one representative, the people who live on the beach get to vote for one representative, and so on. The Chief is decided by all the representatives getting one vote for who among them they would like to be in charge.

The British electoral system is KIND OF like this.

For the last time, we return to the island. This time, the areas that elect a representative are all different sizes, with the largest comprising five times as many people as the smallest. People who don't subscribe to one of three sets of largely interchangeable sets of values have no chance of becoming representatives. When, inevitably, someone from 'The Big Three' is chosen as a representative, their ability to disagree with the other people who say they hold those values is almost non-existent, reducing them to little more than puppets. The three value sets, despite being broadly similar, are so antagonistic towards one another that any idea proposed by anyone will only be agreed upon if the people who came up with it have more representatives than anyone else, and so are able to force it through. Any discussion is treated more as an opportunity to score points off other people, so much so that the second largest group of representatives has the official title of 'The Opposition'. Oh, and the chief? The leader of the biggest value set gets to be Chief... no matter how many votes he got, regardless of what the population of the island think of him.

The British electoral system is EXACTLY like this.

Except that we don't live on a desert island. It rains. All the time.

Now do you understand why we need electoral reform?

Thank Goodness I'm Never Miked

So this story really bugged me.

Basically, Gordon Brown spoke to a woman briefly on camera, and then got into a car, and got frustrated about his inability to answer the woman's questions succinctly. He made a few remarks, including calling her a 'bigoted woman'. Unbeknownst to him, his microphone was still on, and the Sky news crew decided to broadcast it, and play it to the woman in question.

I'm not going to talk about my views on the Prime Minister, but I promise you that who I'm going to vote for has nothing to do with my opinion on this incident, which put briefly, is this: this was a low-down dirty trick by Sky News that was all about sensationalism and nothing about journalism. The clip should never have been broadcast.

Gordon Brown was having a private conversation about a woman he had met for all of thirty seconds, with close advisors. I work at a High School, and I have said plenty of things about the kids that I work with which, if played to their parents, would cause me to have to do a heap of explaining. Do I always mean them? No. Usually, they're said in the heat of the moment, and there is a reason the conversation is private. Sky News invaded Gordon Brown's privacy, and they should be apologising profusely themselves.

How does playing this clip serve the country's best interests? How does it do anything but cause scandal and gossip about an incident that frankly, doesn't matter. I'm sure David Cameron and Nick Clegg have said things just as bad in private, and I think they should have a right to.

To put it simply, I'm pissed off that this is the level that our newscasters have lowered themselves to. Shame on you, Sky News.

Things I Remember From Growing Up in the Nineties - The Sodastream

Get Busy With the Fizzy

This may have been the coolest thing ever when I was growing up. I tried to explain the concept of having a machine that could make fizzy drinks to the teenagers that I teach - they just didn't really get it. "But you could have all different flavours!" I argued. "And it cost significantly less than buying bottles of the stuff!" They looked at me blankly. "You could also choose how concentrated you made each drink!"

In desperation, I showed them this advert. It didn't help.

To A Volcano

Nature looked up, and saw,

That we were all taking her just a little bit for granted.

"I've put up with it for years." She said,

"And frankly I've got bored.

"You people need to understand that I placed you here.

I provided you with food.

And water.

I gave you things to build your houses with.

And animals to marvel at.

And all you care about is getting from Place A to Place B as quickly as possible.

I don't know why. I made Place B, you know - it's just as dull as A."

And Nature looked at the planes, belching their way across the sky,

Filling her eyes with smoke,

And staining her new white dress until it was

Quite, quite brown.

And Nature said. "That's enough of that."

So Nature opened her window, and threw out the contents of her chamber pot.

And all the planes were grounded.

The Other Type of SMS

OK, So the other day I posted about advertising, and mentioned this article about women in advertising as being a springboard for the post. I realise now that this gave the impression that I was writing a response, or tackling the same issues as she was. In all honesty, the post was not designed as a response to Alex's - I try to leave commentary on 'women's issues' to her because she says the same things I would, only better - but more of a cataloguing of interesting things I have noticed about adverts, with a couple of trite and not particularly well thought through paragraphs about sexuality on the TV screen tacked on the end.

This one, however is a response, and does address the same issues, hopefully in a bit more depth. Well, similar issues, anyway. I know less about a narrow image of beauty in print ads, so I'm going to talk about presentation and objectification of women on television instead, because as we all know, I do watch a lot of television.

Before we begin, however, I'd like to quickly some up with a useful catch-all term that I can use instead of continually reusing phrases like 'objectifying women', 'sexist behaviour', 'characters who exhibit chauvinistic attitudes', 'promoting an unrealistic expectation of beauty' and suchlike. Let's just lump all of these (and many others) under the phrase Sexist Misogynistic Shit, or SMS for short. The categorising of what makes material SMS follows the old rule about pornography - it's hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

So, those three prologues out the way, let's talk about SMS in advertising. Why does it happen? Well, as I intimated earlier, it works. This is not really something that we can argue with, and thus in a discussion based on pure efficiency, SMS is clearly a tool that should be used as often as possible. So, that's settled why it is used - advertising is the ultimate capitalist idea - it's sole purpose is to sell things, and if SMS works, then it will be used. Those of us who oppose it therefore, must look to legislation and guidelines such as those mentioned in GT's post to curb the use of such tactics, rather than reason. If the legislation passes, fantastic, we no longer have adverts that contain SMS. Job done.

Except that it isn't. Because yes, we've treated the symptom, but we haven't even touched the cause. While it can be argued that removing these adverts from TV will avoid young women being exposed to them and thus allow them to develop a more positive self-concept, and young men not to be pushed towards objectification of women, SMS still surrounds us. So the legislation that has been mentioned is amazing, but it can only be a first step.

An example of SMS surrounding us can be seen in movies. The award-winning movies, the great movies, those tend not to be SMS, but they're only a small number. Off the top of my head I'm sure we can all think of several movie adverts that we have seen just in the last few days for movies that will make millions at the box-office that are based on SMS (The most recent example I can think of is the trailer currently running on UK TV for 'Extract'). The same ideas apply here, although in perhaps a less directly commercial way. The easiest way for a bad movie to make lots of money is for it to contain an attractive women disrobing (see 'Wild Things'). The second easiest way is to fill it with ridiculously attractive women becoming more attractive and snagging attractive men who are attracted to them because of their sheer attractiveness.

So, can we apply this guidelines and legislation further to all types of media? And if we can, should we? Is there a way that as well as discouraging SMS, we can also promote positive content? Is it possible to change a culture so that SMS is not the easiest way to higher profits and greater returns from the box office?

It seems a bit of a cop-out to end with so many questions, but unfortunately I don't have any answers. Let's hope someone does

If You Buy This Toothpaste, Your Life Will Be Better

So Alex over at Galactic Teabag recently wrote a post about presentation of women in adverts. I won't quote the whole article here, but the cut and thrust of it was that there should be more honest and positive presentation of women and girls, which is an idea that we can all get behind. However, it got me thinking about a number of other issues that I was going to leave as a gigantacomment, but I thought worked better as a blog post in its own right.

Advertising as a whole is endemic to our society. It's not going away, no matter what the recession does, and so it is something that must be coped with, rather than ignored. There are a million different forms of advertising, but for the purposes of this post, I'm going to look at TV ads.

As far as I can tell there are 3 main types of ads aimed at adults:

Tangential - These are adverts that don't necessarily talk about the product in the slightest, but make us feel good about the advert, and thus fell good about the product. They can do this either through taking our breath away (the bouncing balls Sony Bravia advert almost single-handedly kick-started this trend) or making us laugh (Compare the Meerkat, anyone?)

Blinding Us With Science - These are adverts that throw enough fancy sounding words 'nutrients', 'polypeptides' etc, mixed with bizarre three animations of things bouncing off other things to convince us that our continued survival on earth depends on these products. Toothpaste, make-up and dishwasher tablets are the most common producers of these adverts.

Lifestyle - Oh, look at that B-List movie star/former soap star/glamour model/wife of a pop star! She shops at that supermarket and she and her Equity-carded children are so happy! I want to be happy, and therefore I shall shop at that supermarket!

My point is this - there are very few ads out there that do anything other than these three techniques, and it's been this way for a long time. So why do advertisers continue to use these same techniques? As a species, I'd like to think that we're pretty smart, so why don't we see through these shallow templates that ad-makers hang their products on?

The answer is simple - because they work. The most popular ads usually fall into the tangential category, and the most successful usually fall into the latter two. Every time it comes on, I deride the Febreeze 'Have you smelt this chair' ad, and yet if I want to buy an odour remover, I buy Febreeze. How do I know it's the best? Why, because it's the most advertised.

In this environment, is it any surprise that sexualisation of women is one of the major methods of selling products? Sex sells, and in such a lazy world, why ignore that? This is not to condone this behaviour, or justify it, but merely to realise that, sadly, a woman wearing very little draped over a product tends to be the easiest way to get people's attention.

This is not to say that this cannot be subverted. A mouthwash company recently used an image of a naked woman walking through a field, tastefully panning up her ludicrously toned and tanned body until it reached her mouth, where the image of beauty was shattered by her horrific gum disease. These adverts, however, are very much the exception rather than the rule. Advertising is, by definition, interested in finding the easiest possible route to the buy centres of the brain.

Thoughts and Musings

So we're getting closer and closer to W-Day. Today marks 3 months and 3 days until we walk down the aisle, with the betrothed walking down a little after me. Today we were considering music to accompany this exciting event. My suggestion of the theme from James Bond was not met with widespread approval.

We're very privileged that some of our friends are going to be playing the music, and even more so that one of the best men is going to be writing it, but this has produced some extra difficulties. He's asked us to put together a playlist to give him some inspiration about what kind of things we like. Apart from some of the things being wildly inappropriate - Baby Get Back is apparently not suitable, despite providing excellent strutting opportunities; it turns out that most of the things we like aren't particularly instrumental, or, you know, good.

We've put something together using the magnificence of Spotify, which mainly consists of Sufjean Stevens, Coldplay and some Divine Comedy, but it's amazing how indecisive we can be when faced with something of this importance. We figured that it would be easy - I've been listening to music for most of the past 23 years, you'd think that I could decide on some favourites, but apparently not.

While in the gym yesterday morning, I totally invented a new hobby...it just needs a name, because "Listening to the audio from BBC News 24 while watching pro-wrestling" is a bit clunky. I love watching the television banks at the gym - it makes me feel like a jogging Ozymandias. Their choice of channels is...interesting to say the least. Yesterday, aside from the wrestling and news that I mentioned earlier, they also had a football match between Paraguay and Ecuador (making me think of this clip), Good Morning (or This Morning, or GMTV or UNIT, whatever it's calling itself these days) and what appeared to be a music channel entirely devoted to Miley Cyrus.

Today we're heading down to Dalkeith, which may actually be in the middle of nowhere - we're going to go look at samples of A6 card for the wedding invitations. We had considered just making paper aeroplanes and throwing them in the general direction of our friends, but the prevailing winds were too strong.

OK, that's all for now - I have to go figure out where the heck the Hardengreen Industrial Estate is. It sounds like somewhere they should be using as the set for a Doctor Who episode.

By the way, I've decided to give this newfangled 'Twitter' thing a try. I'll give it two weeks. If, after that, I don't feel that my life has been revolutionised, I'll return to being a hermit on Facebook. (Wasn't that a rock album?)

In The News This Week...

So just some quick-hit thoughts on this week's news - me and the beloved are off to a wedding in about an hour. This is the last milestone before our wedding, and so we're doing our best not to be in a constant state of freaking out.

For those of you who enjoy schadenfreude (something of a tautology there), our flight back to Edinburgh is smack-bang in the middle of the Newcastle/West Ham match. I couldn't have actually planned it any worse. I'm trying to figure out if wearing my scarf while watching the recording will give them retroactive good fortune. Anyway, on to my thoughts (apologies to Facebook readers if the links don't work - you'll have to check out the original):

Joanna Lumley Saves Gurkhas - Next Week the World!

So this week, Joanna Lumley single-handedly secured the right to settle in Britain for any Gurkha who retired before 1994. I mean, there might have been some lawyers involved at some point, but I'm pretty sure they were just window-dressing. It was clearly dear Joanna who did all the hard work.

It probably had a lot to do with the way they protested, too. One of their signs read "Please do not Discriminate Gurkhas" This tells me that these chaps truly are British - nice and polite. After the protest, they probably all had a nice cup of tea.

Still More MP Insanity

Another day, another hundred ridiculous expenses claims. My fiancee suggested that instead of a second home in London, Parliament should just have a big dorm that all the MPs could stay in when they were in town. I couldn't think of a good enough argument against it. The only potential difficulty is that MPs might actually spend some time in their constituencies, and we'd all realise what useless layabouts they actually are.

Woman Gives Birth to Sextuplets

This story is pretty interesting, not least for the fact that according to the BBC news story, 30 medical staff were involved in the delivery, which took five minutes. How did they all fit around the bed?

Toddler Buys JCB for £8,000 on eBay

Aside from the terrifying fact that a three-year-old is better at using eBay than I am, the really upsetting part of this story is that the parents aren't actually going to buy the digger - poor wee girl. We're hearing more and more stories of children using technology they shouldn't. There is clearly only one possible outcome here.

Grading MPs' Expenses Claims

With all the row over recent expenses claims, it's my belief that people are missing the real point - what's matters is not whether claiming the expenses was justified, but whether or not they got cool stuff with the money. I am perfectly willing to accept an MP claiming £40, 000 on expenses if he spent it on a jet-ski, but £2,000 on carpet cleaning? What a waste.

With this in mind, I have set out to grade the various expenses claims offered by those who seek to represent us.

Alistair Darling - D

£2,339 on 'magnolia carpets'? Really? For that kind of money, you could have at least got an interesting colour. Unless you meant Magnolia as in the movie, in which case it's probably just an uninteresting mishmash of stuff that people pretend to like because it makes them look smarter than they are. Also, if you're going to spend £765 of other people's money on a bed, you could at least do better than Ikea.

Hazel Blears - C

£5,000 on furniture in three months - based on the apparent MP predilection for Ikea furniture, Hazel has probably bought 787 Jeff chairs.

Andy Burnham - B

Not sure how much he claimed for, but he did write a note claiming that a divorce would be imminent if his expenses claim was not processed quickly - probably because he hadn't bought enough chairs.

Paul Murphy - A

Spent £35 on a toilet roll holder. People say that this was an extravagance, but he had to make sure it matched his platinum towel rail.

John Prescott - A

Paid for his toilet seat to be repaired twice in two years. I don't need to add a joke here.

Bob Marshall-Andrews - A

I may have no idea who this guy is, but after he spent £1,300 on an intercom, brass name plaque and other 'entryway adornments', I do know that he has a nice door. By the way, what on Earth are 'entryway adornments'? A sign saying 'You don't have to be unethical to work here, but it helps!'?

John Reid - A+

Spent £29.99 on a 'black glitter toilet seat.' He's not planning to invite John Prescott round any time soon.

David Willets - C

Claimed for £80 to 'change light bulbs in bathroom'. Under this logic I recently claimed for £20 for 'Putting rubbish in the bin'

Douglas Hogg - A+

Spent £2,115 to have a moat cleared. Recently won award for 'Best Conformer to Conservative Party Stereotype'.

Nick Clegg - B

Claims for calls to Colombia and Vietnam may explain Mr Clegg's recent tendency to carry around large quantities of suspicious white powder, and his increased popularity in the Commons.

Chris Huhne - E

Regularly claims for milk, chocolate biscuits and 'fluffy dusters'. How often do you need a new fluffy duster? Either he has a very dusty home, or he is some kind of silicon-based lifeform that enjoys eating dusters. The jury's out on that one.

Sir Menzies Campbell - A+

Spent around £1,500 on a new king-sized bed. Are you taking notes, Alistair Darling?

90 Minutes of Madness

It's been a while since I last blogged, but in honour of perhaps the most important game on Tyneside in a long, long while, I decided to keep a running diary of my thought, emotions and musings during the game.

19:58 Right here we go, then. Blaydon Races has been sung, and despite a terrifying moment in which I couldn’t find my scarf, I am ready for the World Cup Final of relegation battles.

20:00 My thoughts on the pre-game adverts – The voice on the advert for the Fiat Panda definitely makes it sound like “Beer Panda”, which is my kind of endangered species. My sister sums up boxing as “Punch me, and I’ll punch you, and one of us will end up on the floor, yeah?”

20:04 Michael Owen bursts towards the box, and looks odds on to score…unfortunately, he’s forgotten to bring the ball with him.

20:05 My sister giggles about Nicky Butt’s name. As she does every single time I’m watching a Newcastle game. I’d like to stand up for him, but it is a pretty funny name.

20:06 Newcastle 0 – 1 Middlesborough

Oh for goodness’ sake! Of course, in a game where neither team has scored in a month, the first goal would have to be an own goal. Gutting that the players at fault were our best ones this season. Habib Beye, who is rapidly becoming my favourite Toon player c couldn’t have done much more about it, but still, stupid mistakes are why we’re in this predicament in the first place.

20:07 How on earth can 2.5 thousand Middlesborough fans make more noise than 50 thousand Newcastle ones? My sister sums up the own goal well. “It just makes me sad.”

20:09 How did Viduka not score there? The blandly named Brad Jones (Seriously, what is he, an Action Man doll?) was away with the fairies, and only the post saved Boro.

20:10 I remark that Kevin Nolan may have the most forgettable face in all history. My sister asks if he is the son of one of the Nolan sisters. My flatmate points out that if they’d got married, they would have changed their names, and so he probably isn’t. This is why I don’t watch football with girls.

20:13 Newcastle 1 – 1 Middlesborough

GET IN! An incredible header from Steven Taylor. That goal was as good as the last one was bad. I’m pretty sure he jumped around six feet forward and four feet up to get to that one. And he had a mean look on his face when he did it. Cracking goal.

20:17 There is a LOT of space behind the back four, especially considering they’re not the quickest we’ve had. So far though, they seem to be quick enough…just about.

20:18 Mark Viduka somehow manages to head a ball that’s coming in at face-height straight up into the air. Surely the laws of physics should prohibit that. And just who the hell is that standing next to him? Oh, it’s Kevin Nolan.

20:20 I think Jonas Guitterez has the approximate stopping distance of that train in Goldeneye.

20:21 I think we’ve had more shots on goal in this half than we’ve had in the rest of the season combined. Not a lot of singing going on at the moment, which is a bet of a surprise given that we’ve had 75% of the possession in the last five minutes.

20:24 Bizarrely for Newcastle, we’re having quite a lot of success bombing down the flanks. We should make the most of this before Boro remember we don’t actually have any wingers. At all.

20:25 My sister and I discuss whether all the random people milling about the technical areas would be able to stop a pitch invasion should Newcastle win. We surmise that the stewards probably place lots of fat people in the first few rows to provide effective barriers. I nominate Mike Ashley.

20:27 Mark Viduka, buoyed by excitement over a bit of skill a while back forgets that he is not Leo Messi and attempts a bizarre curving lofted ball for Owen.

20:29 My sister and I are terrified when we see Ant at the game sitting on his own. What’s happened? Is Dec lost in the jungle? Has the cutest midget on the planet finally been subsumed into his own cheeky grin? Luckily the camera pans up to show him standing just behind. Crisis averted.

20:29 That’s more like it, Mark Viduka, kick the ball really hard and let Michael Owen flick it on. Clear handball on the corner, by the way.

20:31 And finally here comes the chanting. Newcastle, Newcastle, Newcaaaaastle! Whoever came up with that tune must be making a mint. Actually, music piracy has probably reduced him to living in a cardboard box. A mention of Juninho reminds me of the fact that when I was about seven, every time we played football, we’d all add ‘inho’ to our names because we thought it was cool. It stopped being cool after

20:32 Emnes goes on a brilliant run, only to remember that he left something in the oven just as he gets in a scoring position. Should have been 2-1.

20:33 My sister remarks on the ‘silly leggings’ worn by some of the Middlesborough players. I look up what they’re actually called and discover that ‘silly leggings’ is actually more sensible than their real name of ‘compression stockings’.

20:35 “I can’t really see anything. I don’t really know what’s going on. I’m not sure what’s happened.” Thank you, Craig Burley, don’t bother coming back.

20:37 Guttierez is clearly playing the ‘wandering minstrel’ position. If I didn’t know better, I’d say his mates had bet him he couldn’t touch every blade of grass on the pitch.

20:39 Huth gets a yellow card for giving up on tackling and just shoving Owen to the ground. We look dangerous from set pieces. Boro just aren’t marking well, and Danny Guthrie seems to have mastered the ball that looks like a strike but then drops just inside the six-yard box. Twice now we’ve come close to getting a header in the back of the net. We need to capitalize on this now before they wake up.

20:41 Michael Owen has seriously got into Huth’s head. He’s just got a free kick from him again. This is something we should exploit.

20:43 Yet another long ball that snuck just behind the Newcastle back four – they’re getting back for them in enough time at the moment, but we need to clamp down on this pretty quickly.

20:51 Halftime. Newcastle have looked significantly better than Boro, but they’ve stayed in the game, and look very capable of scoring again. Chances are this one will go down to the wire

20:53 Setanta shows an advert for a whole series of sporting events that no-one has either heard of, cares about, or indeed, knows what the hell their three letter acronym stands for, although I’m guessing they weren’t advertising the Navel Research Laboratory playoffs.

21:05 I missed most of the half-time show due to the fact that my printer went all Gutenberg on me and decided to print everything I own. Can’t imagine I missed anything worth watching.

21:06 I was right. Steve Mcmanamanamanaman has just continued the fine tradition of pundits mangling the English language by claiming that Newcastle were ‘quite’ dominant.

21:08 John Champion informs us that there’s a four foot slope on the field that is in Newcastle’s favour. Maybe we should just leave the ball and let it roll into Boro’s net – it would probably have a higher likelihood of producing a goal than any of our strikers.

21:09 Jose Gutierrez stays up when fouled and goes down hard when not fouled. How very Argentinian.

21:11 Steven Taylor is suspiciously tanned for a Whitley Bay lad. We wonder if he is a cleverly disguised Brazilian. We decide against it based on the fact that he usually waits until he is in the opposition half before shooting.

21:13 Robert Huth levels a Newcastle player again. He does know that we’re not playing by Graham Poll rules, and it’s only two yellow cards to be sent off, right?

21:14 The biggest difference between our defence in the last few games and at the start of the season? Multiple bodies closing on unmarked players fast. Marlon King was completely open on the edge of the area, and as soon as the ball came near him, three black and white shirts engulfed him.

21:16 The Boro goalkeeper looks very nervous for someone with a name more boring than . If we can get some shots on target, I reckon he could bobble one.

21:17 Damien Duff just got fouled, fell to the ground and rolypolyed back into a dribble. Sadly, something else is taping on our Sky+, so I can’t go rewind to see it again. Reason No. 247 why I hate Project Runway.

21:18 Great save from Steve Harper. I’ve seen nothing this season to dissuade me from my belief that he was actually cloned from Shay Given in a secret lab. Perhaps the Naval Research laboratory.

21:20 Another "Who’s that? Oh, it’s Kevin Nolan" moment.

21:23 And another one, only this time he’s had a shot.

21:24 Seriously weird close-up of Gareth Southgate’s lips followed by a mercifully quick cutaway.

21:26 Lovenkrands to come on for Jonas Gutierrez. Fair enough, I suppose. Gutierrez has started to really sum up Newcastle in the second half of this season – lots of hustle, not a lot of end-product.

21:28 Shalky forgets what team he plays for, and passes to Lovenkrands, who has a shot - Newcastle have had a lot of opportunities, but just haven’t been able to make them count. This is starting to look depressingly like the Portsmouth game.

21:30 Aliadiere is warming up on the touchline – his new hairband makes him look a lot like the ‘sensitive’ member of a boyband. You know, the one that reveals his sexual preference after the break-up, and everyone pretends to be surprised.

21:31 Owen off? I guess I can agree with that. He gets applause for his efforts, but he hasn’t really produced anything, or indeed looked like he could, unlike Viduka.

21:32 Martins had slicked his dreads back. I can only think that it’s for greater heading ability, because stylistically he looks way cooler will all those fuzzy spikes on his head.

21:33 Newcastle 2 – 1 Middlesborough

MARTINS SCORES! He’s been on the field a total of fifty seconds, and he’s put the ball in the back of the net. I locate a bizarre feeling inside of me…is this what it feels like to enjoy watching a football match?

21:34 Newcastle need to be careful here, they need to just tighten up a bit. They look a little starstruck – your first lead in two months’ll do that to you, I guess.

21:35 Slow motion replay shows that there was an offside on the goal. I couldn’t care less.

21:36 Newcastle finally look like they’re enjoying their football. Passing the ball about, stretching the opposition – amazing what a lead can do for a team’s spirits.

21:38 Relief as we realise that John Champion did not, in fact, utter a racist slur, but referred to Adam Johnson as ‘Jinky’.

21:39 The Shearer chants have started. About time too.

21:41 Boro gets their first corner. Nerves are seriously present. Harper takes easily. This is weird. I can get used to Newcastle playing well, but it’s been a long time since they’ve looked so…well, competent.

21:45 A bizarre yellow card for the mysterious Kevin Nolan. Referee asks him for his name, and then promptly forgets he is there.

21:47 Martins is looking like the Martins of old – bristling with pace, demanding attention, and a threat to score at anytime…

21:48 Newcastle 3 – 1 Middlesborough

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES! Peter LOVENKRANDS! I take it all back Kevin Nolan, you produced a beautiful ball in to Lovenkrands…who actually looks a lot like you. As in, even if you mugged me, there’s no way I could pick you out of a lineup.

21:52 There is no celebration like celebration after abject misery, and my goodness are we celebrating right now. You will never see anything like this Man Utd and Chelsea fans. You have to really walk through the wilderness to experience joy like this.

21:53 I think they just announced Mark Viduka as man of the match. Can’t say I really disagree, but this was a true team victory. A victory of grit, desire, and superior execution. Every man in black and white deserves the accolades. I can’t believe how much hyperbole this game has brought out in me, given my cynical, cynical start.

21:56 Fulltime. I couldn’t have asked for more.

And so the future is upon us...

...or at least me.

I got my degree result yesterday. Suffice to say I was very happy with it.

The only thing is that now I'm...well, done.

As in done for good.

I'm never going to study at Edinburgh University again. (And, if I'm honest, that's probably it for organised learning in general.)

I guess I hadn't realised how much my university experience shaped my life. I think of years as starting in September and ending in June, I'm always thinking of the next exam, the concept of staying in one place for more than a year seems insane, and having a regular work schedule is something I just can't get my head around.

And yet here I am, done with university, heading inescapably towards gainful employment, with the prospect of staying in Edinburgh for a good few years.

And I'm totally fine with that.

Life is pretty good right now.

Maybe I'm Just Growing...

I think I'm growing up.

It was Eric's wedding yesterday. The Eric in question being Eric Hanna, my former flatmate and good friend. And now he's married.

I should be more freaked out by this.

In the run-up to the wedding, people kept asking me 'don't you find it weird?' or 'does it make you feel old?', and I laughed them off, saying that Eric was a special case - that we had long felt he had been born at the age of forty, and that marriage was inevitably going to happen sooner, rather than later. The truth is though, that I think it didn't bother me because I'm growing up.

What? Did I just write that?

I have pulled out the old adage so many times - "I have to grow old, I don't have to grow up", and to an extent it's true. I still say and do really stupid things, still laugh over-loudly at simple jokes, and today at church I spent ten minutes making faces at somebody else's baby. I still love watching cheesy sci-fi TV shows, and drawing moustaches on photographs in the newspaper. I still get excited about colouring in, and I still hold tightly to the childish hope that Newcastle United might actually win...something before the 50th anniversary of our Fairs Cup win.

What this doesn't change, however, is that I am actually maturing.

What, me? The person who still thinks the highest form of humour is tapping someone on the shoulder and then hiding? The person who spends most of his shift at work singing and coming up with ridiculous nicknames for the kids? The guy who once invented an entire imaginary rock band and who has spent the years since trying to convince people they exist?

Yeah, me.

I have duties now. People who look up to me, people who I'm in charge of, people whom I'm
responsible for, a good job, great prospects, and a whole lot of stuff to do with my life. And you know what? I'm loving it.

I think I'm growing up.

Don't get me wrong - I don't intend to stop doing any of the ridiculous things that I do now. I don't intend to become a 'suit' or to sell out to the man (or given my chosen career path, the woman). In fact, I intend to be the same person I always was...just doing a bit better at it. I have no intention of turning into someone who counts the pennies (Unless it's for change for the bus) and complains about the youth of today. Frankly, I'm not that keen on leaving the youth of today.

I guess that I'm switching the adage around. I guess I'm not keen on growing old, but maybe, just maybe growing up might be OK.

That's What She Said! Part II

Another few months, another bunch of awkward, hilarious, inspiring and meaningful quotes. But mostly just awkward ones.

"Stop putting s**t on our bodies, David Blain!" - From David Blain: Street Magic!

"They're not just Eagles, they're like...Big Eagles!" - Myself

"Yeah, you're going to miss us, but at least you can wave at the plane!" Rav

Me: So they got busted by the Park Rangers
Mark: Queens' Park Rangers what?

"She don't screw my friends
And she cleans up my house
All of this love girl is creeping me out!" - Ima Robot, *Creeps Me Out*

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom.
Only a person who risks is free. - "Risks"

"What you do may be unimportant to anybody, but it is significant that you do it." - Ghandi

"Nik Myers already has a pending relationship request. This must be resolved before another request can be made." - Facebook clearly isn't run by Mormons.

Apewhale (17:19:22): are we going to make lots of farm puns now?
OsoGeist (17:19:39): I don't know but stop being a hoe
OsoGeist (17:19:50): which works both ways
OsoGeist (17:20:00): like a bisexual
Apewhale (17:20:10): or a combine harvester
- Oh the hilarity of AIM

Guy 1: I know how many letters there are in the alphabet
Guy 2: May I sub-respond before you finish?
Guy 1: Sure
Guy 2: Do you?
- I love Sonic Ads

"Look at all these people, there are wearing all of the clothes mankind has ever worn!" Krisse, on the Eurovision Song Contest

"You wanna KISS me!" - Erin

Me (Reading Headline): Workers rescues from giant vat of fish feces.
Nik: The Onion?
Me: No, CNN.

"The leaders of the US and UK...or as I like to call them "Primesident Blush" - Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

"You don't know a handful!" - Sarah Sidle, CSI

"My hair has more volume than a pensioner's telly." - Russell from Five US

"im gong spratly to nil" - Andrew on MSN.

"It's four in the morning, Mr Wilder. Do you know where your children are?" - Lieutenant Flores, Runaways

"He was with that guy, you know the one who won that thing at the thingie." - Fran showing her loquacity.

Me: Martin, we don't any Lionel Richie!
Martin: NO! Everyone has SOME Lionel!

"You know, those helper monkeys that answer the phone for you." - Fran rather overestimates the abilities of the average monkey.

Simon: Have you seen my DI box?
Sandy: I put it by your computer... [long pause]...and by computer I meant cello case.

"I am whatever you say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am?" - Eminem

The Gift That Keeps On Taking

So I'm pretty much writing this to avoid doing actual work.

For a change.

The main news story (and by main I mean 'only') of interest in my flat this week was the return of Kevin Keegan to the post of Newcastle United manager. For those of you who have no idea who Keegan (henceforth referred to as 'Sir Kev') is (read: Americans), let me enlighten you with a visual metaphor:

Imagine you're dating this really hot girl/guy, (Sandy Radford: Champion of Gender Equality!) who's fun, interesting, witty and loves all your friends. They love your hobbies, support the same sports teams you do, and are completely and utterly loveable.

This is nothing like supporting Newcastle United.

Newcastle are known locally as 'The Magpies'. Many people believe this is because of the black and white football strip. This is a mistake. It is because of Newcastle's love of snatching things, namely:

- The capacity for rational discourse - "I know we've been a disappointment for the last thirty-eight years, and none of the players we've bought this summer have actually won anything, but I'm telling you, this is our year!"

- The ability to watch a football match without worrying - "OK, we're actually winning this game...perhaps this is the game we turn it all around...oh no wait, Michael Owen's got injured again"

- Defeat from the jaws of victory - see 1997-1998 season.

But this time, this time Newcastle has actually given its fans some hope. With the appointment of Kevin Keegan, maybe we'll finally get a manager who lasts an entire season. Maybe he'll work the magic he did first time around, when he lifted Newcastle United into the Premier League, a place they've stayed ever since. Maybe he'll show his usual genius in the transfer market, and maybe we'll qualify for Europe this year.

Maybe.

I'm Wrong, Because I'm Sandy Radford!

Sometimes, it's really nice to be wrong.

Those of you to whom I talked to about it know that I was incredibly negative about returning to Edinburgh before I did so. I felt like I was back-tracking, that all my friends would have moved on, that classes were going to be awful, that, frankly, I just wasn't going to enjoy it at all.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I made what turned out to be an amazingly smart decision to come back very early, before most of my friends had returned to the 'Burgh. This meant that had time to hang out individually with all of my friends before others got back, and meant I didn't feel left out of some kind of clique. Which probably wouldn't have happened anyway, but this way was fun anyhow.

Work is great fun. Any job in which they pay me to work with great people, help kids learn and just generally dance around making a fool of myself is OK in my book. Added to that is the fact that I'm in the process of applying for a full-time, salaried position for the same company in a managerial role, and suddenly my life seems to be getting very adult. Yikes!

Now on to the most surprising thing - I'm actually enjoying my course. I've started to specialise in Language Production and Psycholinguistics, and in every one of my lectures I'm thinking to myself "How the Hell am I enjoying this so much?" and yet I am! I never thought I could be so interested in speech errors.

I am such a loser. :D

Church is also amazing. I'm taking on a leadership role this year, which is very scary, but also very exciting. I'm looking forward to it greatly, and I expect not only to help people, but also to get a heck of a lot out of it - I've always been best when thrown into the deep end.

Also, I'm thinking of coming out to Chambana in early March - will be people be around?

Looking to the Future...

Well, I made it home. At least for a while.

I'm currently staying at my parents' house in Durham for a couple of weeks - I'm back home to Edinburgh on Wednesday, and back to work on Friday - hurrah! Not sure when classes start - quite a ways away, I think.

It's going to be a bit going back to classes at Edinburgh - I haven't been to a lecture there since March 2006 - well over a year ago. In that time, a lot has changed - in the world, at Edinburgh, and within me. I almost feel like I'm backtracking in going back to Edinburgh. I know it's the right thing to do, I just don't think I'll appreciate it for a while.

Switching to full-time Psychology should be interesting - as I go to a Scottish University, and spent my third year in America, my final year will be the first year that I won't be studying other subjects outside my major. I'm not quite sure how I'll handle it - I'm sure I'll figure it out, although if my fourth year curriculum doesn't improve on the second year stuff, I might go completely insane.

It's also starting to get to the point where I need to think about *gulp* life after University, aka The Real World. My current aim is still to emigrate to the United States as soon as I'm able - in an ideal world, Chicago, but Philadelphia is a more likely option, due to my contacts there. The next year is going to pretty hectic, what with looking for a job, working, classes and writing a dissertation - ah well, at least I won't get bored, eh?