Orwell's Message

Now I was going to leave all my blogs on the reading until the New Year and enjoy the Christmas break but whilst at midnight mass last night with my gran and great gran I was reminded of the main theme's in George Orwells ground breaking book, 1984.

Most merciful God,
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
We confess that we have sinned
in thought, word and deed.

Kneeling in church the people around me were praying to God for forgiveness for not only deeds they have done and things they have said... but also immoral thoughts they have had. In religion not even your thoughts are your own. This ties in heavily with Orwells themes in 1984. Orwell suggested that by 1984, (he had written the book in 1948) that the government would control our thoughts by changing language. He suggested that if you take a word away then you not only take the word but everything associated with it. In 1984 if you thought about something that had been 'removed' then you were commiting a 'thought crime' and in time you would be killed... no wait not killed... also removed! Anything to do with sex was a "sex crime".

It seems that today in a way, Orwells predictions have materialised after all... for those who attend church regularly, albeit very few. The people in that church were begging to be forgiven for their unpure thoughts which shows a sense of fear of a higher figure, in this case God which contrasts with the government in 1984. I once suggested that some people go to church to give themselves standards and morals to live by but now I wonder if this is somebody elses intention. I will leave you to come to your own conclusions of what I mean by that.

Anyway... it's Christmas Day and on a lighter note, my father went to put the turkey in the oven earlier and the oven had broken! He refused to see the funny side like my mum and I. I can't help thinking it's the ghosts of the turkeys I saw being killed on BBC's Kill It Cook It Eat It, making a stand. At least this is a Christmas we won't forget in a hurry. Our next door neighbour Joyce, (pushing 80, swears like a trooper... envision the nan off of Catherine Tate) has put our Turkey and spuds in her oven, so it won't be Christmas beans on toast like my dad joked about. I love Joyce... yesterday she asked me if I had a boyfriend and when I answered no she told me "Good girl, have sex and stay f***ing single!!" I would like to end this festive blogpost on those wise words from Joyce!!

* Merry Christmas 2009 *

Looking Back...

2010 is approaching fast and here I am trying to think of one thing I would change if I could... and for once I can't think of anything! I'm not saying I've had the perfect year but 2009 has seen me make new friends, a new job, good memories, a couple of regrets and a lot of baked beans on toast and I honestly don't think I could have had a more colourful year. Perhaps there are some situations I could have handled differently but in general it's been great!

If I have spent some time in 2009 with you whether it be; watching disney, playing frisbee at Southampton Common, Chinese Buffeting it at the Water Margin, playing tennis until the pros came and showed us up, watching Hairspray in London, spending the day taking pictures in Bournemouth- laughing until our sides ache, fishing for caffe latte jelly beans, playing roulette in the casino at 4am, dancing at Lennon's on a friday night, GO APE... then you have made a part of my year! I learn a little about myself through every person I meet and befriend... each and every one of you, I appreciate you all! :) I hope to make many more amazing memories in 2010.

MERRY CHRIMBO AND A HAPPY NEW YEARRR <3

Euthanasia

I would like to talk about something that has touched me this week. I phoned a friend from home to check in like I do every now and again and when I asked the standard opening question "how are you?" I did not get the standard reply I expected. She was not in a good way. It turned out her auntie who suffered from Motor Neurone Disease had come to the end. For those of you who don't know, Motor Neurone Disease causes all your muscles to stop working until eventually your vital organs shut down. It is also the main cause of euthanasia (which I will come to later). When this disease takes over, your brain is the last thing to go so even after victims speech is gone they can feel every bit of pain but can not communicate it to those around so often family are faced with a situation where the patient wants to be taken away to die, as 'unethical' as that is... you would not allow an animal to live in excruciating pain would you?

Anyway back to my story, my friend's aunty's heart had stopped but they managed to resuscitate her long enough to take her home and have her oxygen mask removed around all her loved ones, so they could all say goodbye in turn. She had already told her family several months earlier that when the time came she did not want to be kept alive.

It made me wonder how I would handle such a situation. Would I selfishly want a loved one to be kept on oxygen and have their painful life prolonged for my own benefit or would I allow them to pass away when the time had come. I hope the latter but it must be heart-breaking and I can't bare to imagine myself in those shoes. 

The long winded point I am trying to make is... if I was in so much pain that I could no longer even tell people. I would want to die. No question. I believe that a person has the right to die with dignity and I believe in Euthanasia. Any thoughts?

End of WINOL.... for now!

I'm in the newsroom right now... and the first time I have made it in for 9am happens to be the one time I didn't need to be so I am the only one here! But it has given me a great opportunity to write a bit about WINOL and to reflect on the last couple of months gone by.

As recently as the end of October, if you had given me a Sony shooting kit I wouldn't know what the hell to do with it. Last year we had some camera training but it was so sparse and in between that none of us really got a chance to become confident. 

However... the best thing that has happened to me at Uni so far is being thrown in at the deep end by being given the role of a news reporter, forcing me to learn quickly. My very first news package was filming the firework procession going through Winchester which Colin from the 3rd year kindly assisted me on. My framing was already ok but I wasn't up to scratch on all the technical stuff so by watching Colin closely and following suit I managed to become quite confident at filming by the end of the semester. 

My second demon was editing. Editing was all just too scary for me. I couldn't pull myself together to get my head around it but slowly I started to learn and now I can do that too.

So the third years are off to work on their innocence project now and the studio is going to be taken over by us. This means all the senior roles that they did so far, i.e. editor, production manger etc, will be taken over by us... are we up to the challenge? I don't know... but I do know we have all overcome every hurdle so far so here's hoping!! 

Behind the scenes of Winol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F_XOrUp3gw

Today I have been filming a news package covering the events going on at Uni to raise money for Children In Need. Controversially I have broken away from certain VJ'ing rules and had a bit of fun with it... this is afterall a fun charity event!

For example, our Student Union president, Jimmy Weighell was performing a 24 hour sponsored silence. I decided to do an interview with him, starting with a voice-over where I said "we went to speak to Jimmy Weighell, but he didn't have much to say..." I shot a few seconds of him looking around and opening and closing his mouth and looking rather lost purely for comedy value. Obviously I got a real interview too, but by putting this in the package I thought it would be a good device to add humour to the day, a day which was never invented to be too serious.

Also whilst recording my piece to camera I had Pudsey stand with me dancing with his arm around me!

I recorded voxpops of staff dressed up as clowns to keep the silly theme going and filmed leg waxing, karaoke and other shenanigans so hopefully Monday will see me enjoy my editing instead of tearing my hair out as in previous weeks.

Remember to donate generously for Children In Need and get yourselves down to Children In Need Flirt tonight at The Vault if you have no other plans!

5 days until Winol...

Beyond The Stars...

Tonights blogpost is undoubtedly going to make me sound like a lunatic but rest assured it's just the week I am having! The theme?

Aliens
Extra Terrestrials
Martians...

whatever you want to call them

From a young age I have had an interest in alternative life forms, I think this is mostly due to the fact that my godfather was somewhat of an oddball and he had a passion for everything space. He once told me that when he was very young he saw a UFO whilst playing in the garden and he remembers being dragged in the house by his mother in fear. I have no idea if this is true... the guy loved his scotch afterall.

I always thought of all the hundreds of thousands of millions of planets, how could it be that this tiny planet was the only one that held life. Well I think it is very naive for anyone to think we are totally alone in the infinate amounts of space. If I point my finger now, am I pointing at the object directly infront of my finger? Am I pointing behind the object at the wall? Am I pointing beyond the wall? What about beyond the stars? Have you ever stopped to think if you point somewhere and you followed the direct line, what would you fine billions and billions of miles away?

Who is to say that on another planet, in another universe, lightyears away there isn't an exact replica of planet earth. There could be another YOU taking a different route in life.

I had never ever thought that extra terrestrials had made contact with us. Even when reading about Roswell and other such stories when people had apparently had a close encounter or been 'abducted'. I thought "haha, funny hoax!"That is until this week...

I can't tell you why but this week little green men have been on the brain. Last night I had the most disturbing dream that this alien, tall and slim with hollow eyes and an antenna (what do you want from me... I've never met one have I?!) kept following me everywhere. At first I thought I was imagining it but then I started seeing it hide behind tree's when I whipped my head around. Then it got braver until it was playing grandmother's footsteps about a yard behind me. In the dream I calmly got my phone out to phone the government, but it stole my phone. Then I woke up... and quickly asked myself if I had taken up marijuana the night before...

I think this has all freaked me out because talk of Uni at the moment is Adrian Hicks, the Winchester based MP who recently claimed that back in January/February time of 2004, he saw an extra terrestrial strolling the Winchester high street. Ok his basis for his conclusion wasn't sound... (he claimed he knew she wasn't human because she walked funny, had very large eyes and her arm movement was strange). But it made me think. How do we know that direct contact hasn't been made? Crop circles are rife in Winchester... are they just massive hoax's or are we missing something?

I will leave you with this thought...

Humankind has been exploring space for years. Moon landing in 1969 and now even sending shuttles to Mars to explore. If there were life form on these planets WE would be aliens. Why are we ignorant enough to believe it is just us? Do we really think we're that special?

Behind the scenes of a news package...

I'm sure all my readers are fellow students on the course and know all about what I am about to write about but I felt after my experience on Saturday night filming, I had to talk about just what goes on behind the scenes when trying to put together a decent news package under pressure.

Last week I was assigned to go out and cover the Winchester Roundtable Fireworks night. I was told I had an interview with the Mayor all set up and asked to cover the piece from a charity angle... (how much they expected to raise, who they were raising money for, had they exceeded last year's donations? etc). I worked on the package with Colin Jeffery from the third year. We knew the procession would be beginning at 6pm outside the Guildhall so we arranged to meet at 5pm in order to meet each other for the first time and discuss our ideas for the news piece. I started this project on Saturday feeling confident and chirpy but have been reduced to a stroppy, moany mess... here's why.

Problems encountered

1. We arrived at the Guildhall and set up our perfect shot that would catch Mr.Mayor making his way down the stairs to wave to the crowds of people gathering with torches, but instead of walking down the way we anticipated when setting up our shot... he walked right over to us.

2. When we had filmed the footage of the mayor we needed we had to make a dash down the high street to reach the Buttercross monument in order to get height to get a shot of the procession moving down the road... as the crowd was getting large we decided to take a 'de-tour' by going down the back roads, so we ran off- camera and tripod slung over my shoulder I might add- down a road and across the cathedral grounds, having to climb over spikey fences (sooo not glamourous).

3. We arrived at the cricket ground where the bonfire and fireworks were taking place and got split up, one of us with the camera and the other with the tripod and missed the vital lighting of the bonfire by the mayor!

4. When we were having our interview with the mayor and Julien Clegg we had a bunch of over-excited school girls screaming at us to film them behind us... we soon shut them up by agreeing to interview them later if they could be quiet.

5. When we came to edit... we nearly finished the piece and then the computer crashed causing me to lose everything- or so I thought. Restarted the whole thing then found the 'lost' footage.

Moral of the story

God hates Journalists- anticipate for the worst as whatever can go wrong, will go wrong!

SEX... Now That I Have Your Attention, Here's Some Stuff On Psychoanalysis And Modernism

...that is pretty much the approach that my highly entertaining lecturer, Chris Horrie, had to our lecture today! Before I go into the heavy stuff that I am going to try to make sense of I will ease you in with my favourite quote of the lecture.

"If I were to pull my trousers down and wave my genitals about, parts of your brains would be flashing like mad! I'm pretty average, I'm not boasting!" (I hope I don't get into trouble for this quote!)

The parts of the brain that he was referring to are called the amygdaline and the hippocampus (I think)! Which are sections of the brain which react when certain emotions are present, namely; sex, rage and fear. For example if you were shown images of angry bloodied sex (extreme example I know!) then these parts of your brain would be going crazy. I believe this was all penned by Freud but I may be wrong.

Freud... possibly my favourite philosopher. His experiments and discoveries on the unconcious mind absolutely fascinate me. I love thinking about what my repressed thoughts are that I don't conciously bring to the forefront of my mind. Although, according to Freud these things can be quite disturbing. If you are male he suggested that all boys have the desire to kill their fathers or rid of them in some way in order to become the dominant male... and have sex with their mothers! Yes, that's right! Boys... you all want to have sex with your mummy's on some inner level if Freud's theories are to be believed."I found in myself a constant love for my mother, and jealousy of my father. I now consider this to be a universal event in childhood," Freud once said. If you are female he believes you are useless. You are a man who was born without the most important part. He believed that all women are unconciously jealous of men because they have penises. This is where the term Penis Envy derived from. He also couldn't stand how women are so bitchy and self hating and found periods disgusting. In other words... a cheauvenistic pig! But there isn't a lack of those around today to be fair, they just don't have the genius brain to let them off!

We also looked at Freud's interesting take on female sexual frustration. Freud discovered that when a women is sexually repressed, frigid or even suffering from constipation she may experience vivid dreams of running up a hill to escape some form of harm. This has been reflected in some modern art forms such as music and drama in the past. This and all Freud's other theories will probably continue to be illustrated through the arts for hundreds of years to come as all his idea's are so 'out there' and complex.

'Le Petite Mort' or 'The Little Death' is the idea that when a woman has an orgasm it is actually a foretaste of the feeling of death. All thoughts and worries are pushed aside and there is a few seconds of nothingness and sheer bliss where the woman let's go of any inhibition. Freudian suggestions are that some women still fear orgasms even today as they lose control of their self and ego.

If this blog has you a little hot under the collar... "MARGARET THATCHER NAKED!" ;)

The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo

As I walk along the Bois Boolong with an independent air,
You can hear the girls declare"He must be a Millionaire."
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.

I was sitting in a lovely quaint pub with a male friend recently when we were targeted by the pub's local nutjob... or so we thought. This man was scruffy in appearance and slurring his words and spilling his Ringwood bitter as he made a pass with cheeky small talk. "Who is this lady by your side?" "I've seen you in here with a girl or two." To which my friend was quite embarrassed! But it turned out that this old man was reading us a song. He had a wad of old hall songs which his grandfather used to sing to him. The one that interested us the most was The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo, based on the casino gambler and trickster Charles Wells who 'broke the bank' (won more chips than was on the table) at the casino twelve times. Investigators were employed to try and work out his system but it is thought that he simply doubled his bets to make up his losses. Wells got away with this for some years before being found guilty of fraud at the old bailey and sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

What started as a feeling of dread, being approached by a strange, scruffy looking man who seemed quite lonely and bored actually turned into quite a fun and interesting history lesson. You can find this quirky character at the Black Boy pub in bar end of Winchester. Go for the crazy decor... stay for the locals!

...and if you thought I'd end this blog without a link to the song... you're wrong :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnspC0c1Sws

A Sign Of The Times...

The World Cup qualifier against Ukraine on Saturday will NOT be shown on television.

It has been revealed that for the first time in the history of football a qualifying match will not be shown on television, instead viewers will be able to pay in advance to watch it online for £4.99 on Wednesday with the price going up to £10.99 Thursday and Friday and £11.99 if you leave it until Saturday. The rights to broadcast the game were originally held by Setanta (deceased) - poor Angus! But have been sold to a company called Perform.

Of course it would be unfair to assume that every football fan can use a computer, which is probably why the game will also be shown at 11 Odeons across the country. It is unclear how this decision will be received by fans but I can't help thinking there is going to be bad feedback. When I think about watching football... I think of gathering round the television with family to support my team or country or going to the pub to watch with mates. Neither of these traditional scenes will be possible.

It does appear to reflect a shift in the way society consumes their media. Today it would be fair to say most teenagers and young adults are familiar with such internet players such as 4od (4 on demand) and bbc iplayer but such a popular event such as a world cup match is going to reach out to people of all ages and in every demographic. I could see it easing the more mature generation into the 21st century.

Maybe we'll come across some golden bloggers!

HA!

...Brown still thinks Labour has a chance!

IRAN!!! Now that is out the way let's talk prison hooch!

As Obama and Brown have been all over the news today in talks about the discovery of Iran's secret second nuclear plant I was planning to discuss this in a blog... however... I then got distracted by the story of creative Dorset prisoners using the antiseptic hand gel intended to combat the spread of swine flu... to make an alcoholic beverage! As soon as the lags spotted the alcohol based hand gel they started stealing it and making their hooch by mixing it with other drinks! I bet those inmates know how to throw a party :)

You have to worry about the clever young soul who thought it would be a good idea to make a alcohol based product readily available to the prisoners and naively thought they wouldn't see an opportunity and run with it.

Countdown to Christmas has begun!!

I walked into Sainsburys today with a friend (we were buying ingredients for the BEST CURRY EVER... but that's a different story for a different day) and we quickly realised that the build up to Christmas is getting earlier and earlier each year! The aisles were filled with festive treats... candy canes, cadbury chocolate tree decorations, selection boxes and mince pies.

The truth is everybody loves Christmas, it doesn't matter how old you get!

But the thing that struck me as odd is that whilst investigating the mince pies I found that the sell date was for November... a whole month before Christmas. This may be forgiven if it wasn't for the fact that the box even had a picture of Father Christmas on it! I read in The Sun today that Tesco is selling boxes of them that are sell by October.

The holiday season is taking oveeer!!

Newborn Tot Found In Bushes

One story this week that has really upset me is that of the newborn baby found in some bushes in Buckinhamshire. The baby was found on a piece of open ground in High Wycombe with her umbilical cord still attached, suggesting that the birth of the child was not supervised by medical professionals.

Although the baby was thought to have been safe and well whilst being cared for by staff at the Wycombe General Hospital, what emotional pain will this child feel growing up knowing that she was abandoned at birth?

I suspect that the mother was maybe a young girl who accidentally got pregnant because she doesn't think contraception is important... in the words of Jeremy Kyle "Put something on the end of it!"

Who am I to judge though? This girl/woman could have some serious deep rooted psychological issues, but to leave your own baby after birth is far beyond any mental illness I have ever come across. I fail to understand the sheer cold heartedness of this. To call it a severe case of post natal wouldn't do this defenseless child any justice.

I hope that this anonymous mother will come forward and seek help.

This weeks guilty pleasure...

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

This week I have been listening to Wake Up by French internet sensation Sliimy. I don't quite know why I like it but I do!! It is a very uppy song and even though the lyrics are mostly gibberish and you can't sing along it does leave you with a smile on your face! Just don't listen to it infront of anyone if you want to be valued as a respectful member of society...

Sliimy has been described as the "French Mika". He has been posting songs on myspace for 2 years but it was a cover of Britney Spears' Womanizer on Perez Hilton's blog that got him noticed and landed him a signing with record label Perezcious Music in the US.

A level results day!!

Congratulations to everybody who got good A level results today! I'm sure there is alot of celebrating going on across the country with the overall pass rate being a staggering 97.5%!! I personally failed 2 AS levels in my first year of college and spent the second year attempting to catch up so it's nice to see that a majority of college students are taking their futures seriously. In hindsight I wish I knuckled down a bit more but I had fun and I still made it into Uni so MEH!

1 in 4 entries got an A grade this year which is a significant progression from last year and there are 60,000 more applicants for university from last year.

Maybe the hold of the recession is making teenagers more keen to stay in education right now!

Biggs is free!! (but on verge of death)

I would just like to point out that while all the newspapers are sensationally claiming that Ronnie Biggs has finally been released from prison on compassionate grounds, the actuality is that the guards from his hospital bed have been dismissed as he is going to die any minute!

Girl dies from undiagnosed diabetes as her father prays...

Just a quick point to add on to yesterdays blog...

I remembered the story of Madeline Neumann, the 11 year old girl who died from easily treatable diabetes because it remained undetected due to her religious father's reluctance to call out for a doctor's help. The girl could not walk, talk or eat towards the end but her father claimed if he had gone to a doctor he would be putting the doctor above God and that wasn't something he was prepared to do... preferring to PRAY for her recovery instead.

It is a difficult subject to approach as I'm sure it is possible that the father actually did believe that God would heal his sick daughter... but does this not suggest that religion can become a little "brainwashy" or become an obsession when people let it take over their lives. This girl had her whole life ahead of her and passed away because her dad thought a man who may or may not exist would heal her. It's really scary.

Yesterday I suggested that people may base their lives on the teachings of the bible as a clean way of living, but by taking the book too literally Mr.Neumann has now been charged with murder.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/02/us-daughter-pray-death

Religion as explained by Gran!

I spent a day out with my grandmother recently and our topic of conversation swiftly changed to that of religion when I questioned how she perceives 'God'. Now my gran is a devout Christian.... goes to church every Sunday, helps and organises the church bazaars etc. I was interested to know how she could base her lifestyle on a religion that has so many flaws in the story.

First of all I challenged her to the question, if this God blokey made the whole world in seven days... around the same time he impregnated Mary to have the immaculate conception then how did he create the dinosaurs? This was before Jesus I'm sure? I also thought while I was at it I would point out that there are many different Gods from different countries thought to have created the earth... they couldn't all be right?

Then I asked if she actually viewed God as a person or a force because as a non-religious person it has always been unclear to me. There are plenty of illustrations of Jesus on the crucifix but rarely do you see a painting of God. My gran said a bit of both... now there is an answer from somebody who knows exactly what she believes in aye?!

I then made a suggestion that could have gotten me into deep water and pushed down a couple of steps on the favourite grandchild ladder... lol. I said that I thought maybe some people that follow Christianity and go to church every Sunday practising their 'beliefs' don't at all believe in all the unplausible bible stories but base their lives on the church as it is a clean and honest way of living. They do it to give themselves a guide of what is acceptable for them to do.

I was shocked that she admitted that in her case this is partly true. While she did go on about how many of the things in the bible that people used to brand as complete rubbish can now be proved, she also said that some of it probably was made up to give people that couldn't get their head around how we got here an answer. For people to believe that we are here from a force so powerful that we don't understand it... in a way made sense to them.

It seems silly that a thing that may have been partially made up to keep people in line is one of the main causes of war in this world. Could it be that countries are fighting and killing each other over something actually quite false?

Funniest thing I have read this week...

After reading a BBC news article about the Hertfordshire beer festival I couldn't help but laugh! The BEER festival ran out of beer!! It is thought that all the cider was gone by 9pm and the very last drop of beer was poured at closing time last night causing the last day of the festival to be called off. I think it's safe to say that we, Britain as a whole, are total and utter PISSHEADS!

More like this...

...http://journalism.winchester.ac.uk

A Legend Never Dies

The news of Michael Jackson's death, for me, was both shocking but unsurprising. Here was a man who abused his body in every way imaginable; anorexia, a former drug addiction and an unhealthy fondness of recreating his facial features time and time again but somehow still seemed invincible to every person who had followed him through-out his stardom.

The saddening realisation to the public was that, afterall... he was only human.

Michael Jackson's music influenced every modern artist of today in some way and I believe if Michael had not risen to fame as that cheeky faced, afro headed boy in the late 60's, that music today would just not be what it is. He brought music to life and many of his songs are still relevent in the music scene today.

But where did it all go wrong for the self proclaimed "King of Pop" to justify the tabloids to re-brand him as "Wacko Jacko"? I believe that Michael's issues were deep rooted and personal, going back to his childhood where he was forced to perform and beaten by his father but one thing is for certain... a little bit of privacy in Michael's more vunerable years would not have gone a miss. Michael was faced with new stories being published about him day after day which soon encouraged him to go along with it and give the press something to write about, even claiming he slept in an Oxygen tank to stop the ageing process! It is unclear whether this is true but I would not be surprised if Michael had made some stories up when where the character of Jacko stopped and the person Michael Jackson began became unclear to the public and indeed himself.

I believe he was a genuine soul who was just mislead in life and failed to relate to people in the adult world and so living his life as a child to make up for lost time. The name "Michael Jackson" will be a household name for years to come, the rumours and the allegations will be forgotten, but the music and the legend will live on forever.

R.I.P Michael, gone but not forgotten x

Barack Obama

I really do believe that in today's society where youths are totally out of control like never before (teenage knife and gun crime is soaring compared to as little as ten years ago) that America has adopted a shining light in Barack Obama. On his visit to Buckingham palace yesterday with wife Michelle, the couple took to the Queen so endearingly that her majesty reportly said "Now that we have met, won't you please stay in touch."

The president of America even presented the Queen with a gift... an IPod! What a way to bring the Monarch rocking into the 21st century! A brave present but received with charm and humour. This is why we need to fully support Barack Obama. He is so in touch with today's technological society that he may well be the perfect role model to bring our countries out of turmoil and brings MORALS back into lives of youngsters.

The President has definitely lived up to his "yes we can" attitude so far. Let's just hope that we see a quick turn around in the residents of 10 Downing Street!

Loving Uni!

I have had the best few days!!!!!

I spent yesterday on the beach in the sun taking pictures for Media Skills which I am looking forward to editing tomorrow :) Today we had a radio news day... and even though I am a retard who said "regulation" instead of "relegation" in the football news... I enjoyed it :) :)

Life is good right now...

Why I Write...

I have just finished reading the 1946 short book by George Orwell, 'Why I Write', and to be honest... the book has had me questioning myself and why I write... which I guess is the point.

George Orwell believes that there are four main reasons that people write. These are;

1. Sheer egoism - the desire to seem clever and wanting your work to be talked about.

2. Aesthetic enthusiasm - desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.

3. Historical impulse - desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

4. Political purpose - desire to push the world in a certain direction and to alter other people's idea of the society they should be striving towards.

So which of these, as young budding journo's do we categorically fit into? Well the answer is up for debate but I believe that all of the reasons can be applied to some of us and at least one to everybody else.

Reading everybody's blogs I would say some of us are very interested in our work being noticed and praised by the lecturers (and in the working world, a publicist). Others are passionate about getting a point across in which they think is too valuable to miss to their peers. (Lucy Pilgrims attitude to grieving in her blog is a good example of this). Some are written with historical impulse to gather facts and indeed others are written with political purpose. (Andrew Emmerson :D).

I did notice that there is one reason for writing that Orwell did not mention directly in his book. This is writing for money. Having little passion for writing as such... just wanting to make a quid or two from it. He did however argue that egoistic writers share the same charicteristics as scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, successful business people etc. I think he may have been trying to say that egoistic writers are the ones in general who make a living from writing.

I'm still not sure why I write... maybe because if I didn't I would have a hard time passing this degree?? Answers on a postcard!

Gordon Brown holds cabinet meeting in Southampton

It was by pure coincidence I realised that Gordon Brown was holding a meeting in Southampton today. I happened to walk past the Southampton civic centre to witness the british home secretary, Jacqui Smith leaving the building. For the fourth time since Brown has been in power there has been a cabinet meeting held outside of London. Today the meeting was held to discuss more apprenticeship places being opened in hospitals and schools... but it is thought Brown took a minute to praise the British success at last night's Oscars though... good to see he has his priorities right at a time of a major economic break-down.

A-priori and Empiricism

Last weeks People and Politics lecture moved away from what I would call "safe territory" and we moved onto full on economic theories and concepts from the 17th and 18th century. I, like I'm sure most of you in our group spent the lecture very very confused trying to grasp on to the few aspects I actually could comprehend.

I didn't get most of it first time round but upon some brief nerding this is what I have come to understand;

Empiricism - A view that you can not believe something until you have experienced it first hand. Empiricism is often contrasted to rationalisation. Refusing to believe before seeing Vs Using common sense to eliminate the latter. I would say that today's society has both empiricist and rationalised values alike but today we lean towards empiricism in my opinion. In 1920's newspaper journalism, a big story about UFO's being spotted and a mediocre photo showing a dark object in the sky which may or may not very well be a UFO... would probably be believed and cause a local uproar. Todays newspaper consumers are much more active whilst reading the news. We have an opinion, we have our own views. We also have grown up in a world where crop circles, bleeding statues and ghosts have been created by hoaxers. It is easy to see why today as a community people choose to believe something is real after they have seen it, touched it, smelt it, sensed it.

John Locke is thought to be the founder of British Empiricism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InO9xLuutuU this is quite useful to explain empiricism furthur... apologies for the cheesy music!

Ok and now the harder concept to grasp of the two. I am actually going to go into this in the most basic terms as it has been a bitch to get my head around.

A-priori - The view that something will be believed to be true without evidence until there is reason to believe otherwise. I would like to suggest that religious people all hold a-priori views. Religious folk all believe in a God being present without evidence. There is no solid reasoning that suggests there is a heaven/hell society after death but if you are Christian I presume you believe regardless of any social doubts... I guess that's why it's called a "faith". But also it seems to me to seem A-PRIORI.

That Politics Lecture...

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So yesterday we had our first People and Politics lecture. I must say I was rather dreading it as I have never really taken much of an interest in politics before. It wasn't quite what I expected. As the lecture began I was actually finding it interesting!

Chris Horrie was explaining how 'The State' is the "Monopoly of Legitimate Violence". To explain this in simple terms, what I think he meant is that The State (Hampshire County Council in our case) can use some violence, restraining citizens who do not adhere to the rules. Or to quote Chris's theory "At the end of the day if you don't pay your train ticket... you will be killed!" I'm thinking a little bit of a exaggeration but the general point was... there is always a next stage of punishment and if a citizen was to refuse to co-operate continuously they may finds themselves to be subject to treason eventually- in which case it is (though unlikely) possible to be executed.

Ok so that wasn't really explained in simple terms...

The main part of the lecture was based on the philosophical side of politics so were introduced to the likes of Aristotle, Plato and Machiavelli. But the part of the lecture which was of most interest to me was Darwin's 19th century theory of Evolution By Natural Selection.

Darwin argued that all species derive from a single organism. Some grew wings and bred this characteristic into their offspring enabling them to fly, hence making birds... while others grew fins and bred fish and eventually we had; cats, dogs, rats, monkeys, humans etc etc. Natural selection is the preservation of a functional advantage that enables a species to compete better in the wild.

Natural Selection is still being used today in dog and cat breeders. Favoured characteristics will be bred while the animals born with... say... 3 legs, different colour eyes, wrong colour, blind, deaf etc etc will not be used for breeding until those unfavoured genetics eventually die out.

I would like to end this blog on a thought by Machiavelli... So Darwin realised that we all evolved from breeding by natural selection and we were (apparently) derived from Apes...

How will humans evolve to the next stage of human evolution?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXzcPNsqGA&feature=related

Bad day!

Ok, I really am not a fan of people who rant about how bad their lives seem to be so I promise I won't make a habit of this but MY GOD I need to get all this off my chest, so here it is, my bad day.

So I went out last night to Let's Kill Disco at the SU bar to see all my lovely chums I have missed over Christmas. Had a few drinks, had a boogie, just had a general laugh. I got home and a little worse for wear managed to snap the lense of my digital camera... now I am not a massively materialistic person so if I had bought the camera myself I wouldn't have minded so much, unfortunately it was a Christmas present from my parents so I was not keen to have to tell them I had broken it ALREADY. There was only one thing for it... I was going to have to get it repaired somehow.

So this morning off I trudged with my broken camera and a brave face (I was trying to sell the "I'm not hung-over" bit to my housemates) to get into town and see what could be done. After a highly soul destroying encounter with a Jessops camera expert in which I was told a repair was more expensive than buying a new camera I decided I should probably just tell my parents... I got the "aww we're not angry, just disappointed" speech which everybody knows is 100% worse than angry. It's like a dagger through the heart when you hear those words. You have FAILED.

But hey-ho nothing I can do so off I go to run my next miscelleneous errand. Which was... go to Boots and recover last nights photo's to put up on Facebook for friends. (Does anybody else have 'Facebook friends'. People who dart round you when you have a camera so they can be tagged the next day?) Uploading my pics took an hour so I decided to multi-task and use that hour to have my fringe cut, it was sticking in my eyes and I was beginning to resemble a member of Hanson. Found a place quick enough to fit me in but I didn't quite explain what I was after clearly enough and the hairdresser cut slightly more than I wanted off. I know hair grows and everything but girls are all about their hair!

So after that disappointing experience my hour wasn't up so I thought I would sit in Starbucks with a hot chocolate until the pictures were ready, please note I am still running with the "I don't have a hang-over" attitude... I took one sip- went pale- gagged- ran to toilet. Managed to stifle being sick but I became very upset at this point that I was out alone and feeling poorly! So clearly a dairy based beverage wasn't the way to go...

Still feeling thirsty I went to a newsagents and bought a Sprite (I know the Coca-Cola company is evil but you gotta hand it to them... their drinks are gooood!) and sat on a random bench to compose myself, watching the people of Winchester pass by and feeling quite sorry for myself. I managed to waste enough time until my pictures were ready but standing up I dropped my open handbag on the floor, contents you don't even want to know about rolling around while I scrabbled around in a retarded panic trying to pick it all up before anybody saw (apart from the withdrawn emo girl sat across from me but I thought she probably had her own issues and is insignificantly affected my my tampons on the floor!).

So after all that I get my pictures and am feeling a little better and who approaches me? A flipping kid's charity person trying to get me to donate. My boyfriend once said I have a face that asks to be approached by those nut-cases and I'm starting to think he had a point! "No Thank-you" I said before he had a chance to open his mouth but he was going on and on about kids dying of AIDS in Africa but he could see I was itching to leave so I made a lame excuse about meeting a friend and left... then ruined my alibi by later walking past him again, alone :

So that was my bad day. I am glad to have gotten all that out of my system... even if I am the only person who ever reads it haha!

2.25am... should probably get some rest for that Law exam tomorrow...

Night! x

A new year, a new start?

Sooo we're all back to Uni from the Christmas holidays and do you wanna know what my New Year's resolution was? (aside from burn off the post-christmas fat of course!) Yep that's right... to start a blog to accompany my fantastic course which is the mighty Journalism. I have avoided such an activity until now because I am quite the procrastinator but after some gentle persuasion from one Thomas Hobbs and one Lucy Pilgrim (and also boredom from revising for our upcoming Law exam... sorry Chris!) I have decided to go for it!

So what is this post about? The new year! I love new year, I really do, I find it amusing. Each new year feels like a slate being cleaned where all goals seem achievable and you honestly believe 100% that you WILL; start losing weight, drink less, exercise etc etc despite repetitive failure to do so year upon year... but HEY this is 2009 so it's bound to work this time, right? Um, no. And I think I know why. Surely if you want to do something to improve yourself you wouldn't wait until 1st January to kick-start it into action. If a person wants to do something and is serious about it they will bite the bullet and do it when they realise they need to make a change. New Years resolutions are all about what people think they should do and not about what they want to do.

The problem is people take on a resolution that means little to them just for the sake of having a resolution. They have no substance to them, no deeper meaning and for that there is little motivation for them to achieve it. It's simply an empty vow for the sake of it being January. So I have something that might work...

This year I will be starting my healthy living plan in March... maybe.