Kayleigh James

Udder madness!

2012-01-19T14:23:00.000Z

"Breast milk, to be specific human milk, is the milk produced by the breasts (or mammary glands) of a human female for her infant offspring. Milk is the primary source of nutrition for newborns before they are able to eat and digest other foods; older infants and toddlers may continue to be breastfed, either exclusively or in combination with other foods." Unknown. (2012). Human Breast Milk. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_breast_milk. Last accessed 19th January 2012

Perhaps one of the most natural events in the world is that of a mother feeding her newborn baby with the milk that her body has produced for that child. But what about a mother feeding another young mother's child? Is this socially acceptable? What about a mother expressing milk for her pals to taste?

A friend of mine at work who has just given birth to a lovely baby boy, recently celebrated her birthday. While around friends under the influence of alcoholic beverages, she did exactly that. One by one the friends around her tasted her milk. When I heard of this I was quite disgusted to be frank but when I asked myself why I was disgusted, I couldn't really back up my opinion with a valid reason.

Most of us drink cow milk everyday; on our cereal, in our tea. It really is one of the most versatile ingredients in the kitchen. What most of us try to block out is the fact this milk had to be squeezed out of a cow's wobbly bits!

Why is it okay for us to drink another species milk which nature intended for its calves but the idea of drinking another human's milk past the age of two is absolutely 'disgusting' and actually quite a taboo topic.

I realise I've asked a lot of questions in this blog post and I don't have any answers for them but I would love to hear any opinions on the topic so please leave a comment!

"What do you do with a BA in Journalism...?"

2011-04-15T00:38:00.001+01:00

...Write a review on Avenue Q of course!

If you've ever sat and watched Sesame Street with a younger family member and wished life were as simple now as it were when you were young enough to appreciate it - enduring hours of puppets mindlessly singing about letters in the alphabet and eating cookies - then Avenue Q is for you.

The story surrounds a young college graduate (puppet), Princeton, who has left college full of the ideologies one collects through early life. He wants to know what his purpose in life is and why he is alive. He comes to Avenue Q -a suburb full of sell-outs and nobodies - to begin a new job, however he's laid off before the first day!

In comes Kate Monster... the girl next door (puppet). The first character to say the word 'fuck' which set the tone pretty accurately for the rest of the show. Kate has a dream to open a school just for monster children as she feels they're discriminated against... Princeton and Kate have a heated debate about racism which leads nicely into a cheeky little number, "Everyone's a little bit racist" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM&feature=related Avenue Q manages to tackle everyday 'grown up' problems in a elementary - oddly sensible way!

Well to cut a long story short, Kate falls in love with Princeton who in turn falls in love with her but finishes things as he thinks being with her will stop him from finding his 'purpose'. Princeton has a one night stand with a slutty puppet, aptly named - Lucy the slut (so genius!). But when he realises there are many types of dream and you can find happiness in helping others they get back together at the end of the story.

The set is very cleverly done with only five or six cast members and countless puppets. The cast are very skilled are precise with their switching of characters and choreography. It can be hard to ignore the cast members at first as they are actually 'invisible' - grown ups like to use their imagination too! However, it becomes normal and the cast members also portray how the puppet is feeling through their facial expressions.

A nice little personal touch came in the form of a Pompey jibe which had the Southampton fans cheering and hooting.

An absolutely brilliant show. Luckily for me I went with a friend who works at the Mayflower and acquired a front row seat for £12.25 but I would pay full price to see it again tomorrow. I feel Avenue Q tackle just about every sensitive issue about growing up and leaving college and manage to put a optimistic spin on life's pissers!

Must see.

Everything in life is only for now...

My first published article!

2011-03-18T11:58:00.000Z

So yesterday I was let loose on a program called inews which is the 'newscity' of the real world! I was asked to write an article on the latest happenings on Japan using the news wires coming in. My final draft was tweaked as there were a few stylistic preferences of ITN but here it is...

Radiation from the stricken Japanese nuclear plant will reach North America in days, a Swedish official has claimed.
The particles are expected to travel across the Atlantic to Europe but they are not thought to be harmful to health.
Meanwhile, rescue efforts have been hampered by a cold-snap which has brought heavy snow to some of the areas worst hit by last week's tsunami and earthquake.
Some evacuation centres are also experiencing water and heating shortages, and many parts of the country, including Tokyo, are bracing themselves for rolling blackouts.

Experiencing ITN...

2011-03-16T10:31:00.001Z

This week I have left the safety of humble Winchester for the hustle and bustle of London to take part in a two week work attachment at ITN. Now obviously as I expected, upon entering the building on my first day there was one word on everybodies lips. Japan. Words cannot describe the devastation that has been caused and pictures say more than a thousand words.

One upcoming event I had let slip to the back of my mind until Monday was the Royal Wedding. Well that all came crashing back to the forefront of my mind as I was given the task of sorting through the ITN Royal Wedding Channel and changing the format of the public videos for SMS. Exciting stuff, until 5 hours later when I was still muddling through them and getting sick of any word even slightly associated with royalty. I guess the reality of it all though is that you do have to spend hours and days staring at the same thing in the journalism industry. The trick is to find ways to look at the material with fresh eyes every time you come back to it. I myself decided to imagine Prince William in his birthday suit and with a full head of hair...

Day two arrived, nerves were starting to subside and I felt a bit more at ease around the newsroom. While I was at a loss for something to do I took a walk over to the entertainments department and started talking to a guy called Johnny about his job. He is a games news reporter. Him and his side-kick make daily bulletins rounding up the must-have games and offering their professional opinion on them. We got chatting about how the games world is taking over the movie world in that the public excitement for upcoming games is absolutely phenomenal. At this point I was asked to let Johnny get back to his busy work. Oops!

I spent the rest of yesterday arranging showbiz tapes with the promise of being sent on a uber cool shoot on Monday... this has got me quite excited!

I'm not sure what today has instore for me but so far it has involved administrative tasks of ordering couriers and writing labels. After that I hope to have a bash at Avid which is the editing software they use here. I've been looking over peoples shoulders and in theory it looks very similar to Final Cut Pro, just with different buttons. How hard can it be?

Flawless UK Tour Review

2011-03-03T13:47:00.002Z

Flawless UK Tour

When I was asked my friend Mike to go to Portsmouth and watch Britains Got Talent's dance reject act Flawless, I thought "Oh god, this is going to be TERRIBLE". However Mike promised we'd take a cheeky detour to my favourite restaurant first and I needed a good distraction from my dissertation anyway so I went.

When we took our seats there were a pair of white gloves on each seat - a sure sign that this show was going to involve the audience is some highly cringy way. I sat down and set the gloves a side and decided to open my mind like a parachute to the figures who were flip-flopping and sliding on to the stage.

What I was expecting was a group of young lads, slightly full of themselves, simply breakdancing for 2 hours. What I got was a production of emotions. Each dance telling a different narrative. Each dancer took on their own personal character – if you will – and in the audience I felt like I had gotten to know them on a personal level. Ok, they had all the components of a manufactured phenomenon, the cheesy catchphrase, “Chase the dream not the competition”, the flock of screaming girls and the general swagger of jesus at the second coming. Despite all this you could not deny they had such raw talent – and very desirable torsos but that is neither here nor there!

The team of dancers prove in their tour that they are not one trick ponies, with hints of disco, ballet and contemporary styles blended in with their own street dance genre came a fantastic hybrid of genius that got even the most huffy of grandparents squirming and boogying in their seats.

A big egg shaped face emerged on the screen in some sort of intergalactic theme and it became clear that the dreaded glove moment had come. Instructions boomed out throughout the theatre for a simple but effective hand routine to occupy us while the dancers changed for the next big projection they were about to give us. It was actually very amusing, and the screen threw back images of the audiences attempts which provided eruptions of laughter.

Despite my initial apprehension I would definitely recommend this show to people of all ages for a feel good evening – and if you're a student like me then it will only cost your Jaegermeister piggybank £5. Bargain!

Magazine Journalism Lecture 4

2011-03-03T13:03:00.000Z

Reviews and Critics

'Theatrical Viagra' - Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room

Basics -

Simple format; What is it? Is it any good? Does it do what it says on the tin?

Subjects; Music, theatre, comedy, dance, food, books

Gonzo reviews -
A piece where the reporter is so outspoken that it become mores about the reporter than the actual subject. Michael Winner - Sunday Times. AA Gill -The Sunday Times. Matthew Norman - The Independent.

Reader service -
ie. Sight and sound magazine

Judgement - marks out of 10?

Literary Criticism -

The Quarterly
The Fortnightly
The Westminster
Edinburgh Review
Punch (Thackeray)
Household Words (Dickens)
Times Literary Supplement (Virginia Woolf)
Daily Telegraph (John Betjemen)

Book Reviews -

Badly paid
Have to read whole book
Freelance
Experts in fields
Authors themselves
Perks - Gastons - send 3 copies
Staff - Booker judges

History

Crusading "consumer rights" movement pioneered in the US by journalist Ralph Nadar.
Consumers' Association 1957

What not to do

Avoid personal preference, ie. "I like this because..." No good in serious consumer journalism.

2010... You've been wonderful!

2011-01-03T02:28:00.003Z

It's a new year, a fresh start, a clean slate but I was just not ready to say goodbye to 2010 before a quick look back at the highlights...

January

This is New Years eve 2010 with my good friends Lorna and Mike. I don't know the other girl. 2010 was an important year for me from the start. I had closed doors in 2009 and was ready to move on. This night started at Mikes house and several bottles of Vodka and Archers and ended with us trying to 'interview' some Polish girl on her night - which she believed would appear on ITV news the next day. Amazing stuff.

February

This right here is my pre-drinks on my 21st birthday. Notice the disapproving looks from my peers. Their concerns were justified later that night....

March

Lucy's 20th Birthday... and what a fun night we all had! Each of us donning a different colour to transform into our favourite Mr.Men character... although I kept being asked if I was a sick smurf. I don't think I had the Little Miss Naughty look down :(

April

After what felt like the longest. winter. EVER... the sun made a cheeky appearance in April. And BOY were we pleased to see him!

May

Well, the results of the night may have left our country in a dire position but for us at WINOL as budding journalists we were given a golden opportunity by our lecturers to do an overnight 8 hour continuous broadcast covering the election. It was tiring but exhilerating and I'm so proud of everybody involved for pulling it off. We did good. BRIIIIIIIIIIINE! :)

June

June was a particularly good month for me so I have chosen two pictures! The first is of the stage at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on my trip to see Snow Patrol. I have family in Glasgow and had seen they had a date there so on a complete impulse I bought two tickets and phoned my auntie to let her know I'd be paying a visit. I took my crazy uncle with me and we had a great day making friends from across the country and drinking Gamers cider! The fact that Editors were one of the support acts was the icing on the cake and spending the rest of the week with my little cousins was the cherry :)

The second picture needs a little more background info. This is a picture of me and my friend Gabi on Bournemouth beach one night. After a lunch date where we both spent the afternoon moaning about life and how we needed to do something spontaneous... Don't Stop Believing by Journey came to mind and we both decided we wanted to get the midnight train going anywhere! She had to get back to work but we arranged to meet outside her work at 11pm and jump on the last train - which happened to be heading to Bournemouth! Our friend Marina met us at the station, a few cans of cider, couple of towels and a few hoodies in tow and we left to spend the night on the beach telling life stories and discussing the future and what-not. The next morning we were £30 worse off (we were mugged... don't ask!) and we got caught coming back without tickets so got fines too. Financially the worst spontaneous adventure ever but it was so much fun I don't regret it!

July
According to photographic evidence, July doesn't exist...
I do happen to remember this being an iconic month for me and one of my, at the time, very close friends. July was very fun!

August

In August I quickly went blonde... and then quickly went back again. The decision was made over a bottle of pear vodka with Gabi where she told me she had always wanted to see me blonde. It, of course, went orange on account of the redness before hand. There was some minor swearing and teary eyes. I stuck it out for a week or two though before going brunette again. August brought with it a very wise lesson for me. Don't make hair style choices when drunk...

September

September brought with it a new face for the Milner Place family. Katey Marshall joined us and the house was instantly a more homely place. Before Katey I lived with the two boys and another girl but she didn't socialise or even acknowledge any of us and so there was generally a bad atmosphere. Katey changed things and we've all become very good friends!

October

Anybody who knows me well will know I'm a bit of a fitness dodger... at secondary school I famously avoided football in P.E. for a whole term with notes written by my 'mum' telling of a 'bad back'. I hated it so much! In October my housemate Dom got all of us in the house to sign up for Hockey try outs. At first I was adament he would never find me on a hockey pitch, but I joined and I love it!! The above picture is me with the hockey girls on the high street during a stop, drop and roll on a social.

November

November... the month of Chesney Hawkes! November saw me ousted from my News Editor role at WINOL and plonked into a new one of Entertainments Editor and within 24 hours I had an interview with the one and only set up for the very next day. Probably my proudest moment of the year, academically.

December

December... my little sisters turned 18. I chose this picture because my sister Sammy's hair is absolutely outrageous where we are giving her birthday bumps. It always makes me laugh :) Unfortunately my other sister Danielled saw what was happening and ran out the room before we could catch her too! The disadvantages of twins... We got her in the end though... we got her good!

So this was my year! I've bid a sad farewell to 2010. It really was a pretty amazing year. Here's to 2011... and my New Year Resolution which I've just decided is to never stop making memories. Thanks for reading. Kisses <3 xx

Privacy/Confidentiality

2010-12-15T15:40:00.001Z

Privacy

The UK has no written constitutions but the nearest thing to one is the Human Rights Act passed in 1998. Section 8 of the Human Rights act states that everyone has a right to privacy and the right to enjoy a private family life. This means that when a journalist reports on an individual, there are certain hurdles they face.

A person needs to give consent to have their photograph taken unless they are engaging in a public duty. The two types of consent are; explicet consent which is all very official with a signed contract or such and implied consent when the individual is posing in the photo or it is clear they had no objections to being photographed.

Other main areas a journalist should beware of is; revealing state secrets or ‘official’ secrets, revealing commercial secrets or revealing facts about a person they would have expected to remain private.
Confidentiality

McNae's states that traditionally there are three elements that work towards a breach of confidence. Namely;

Information obtained must have a 'necessary quality of confidence'. Information CAN be freely used if it is within the public domain BUT if it is obtained in a way that breaches confidence of a person or organisation then it cannot be used
If there is an obligation to keep the information private then you cannot use it freely
There must be an unauthorised use of the information to the detriment of the part communicating it. The person who the confidence is being breached must not suffer in any form of detriment as a direct result.

For a claimant to successfully prove a breach of confidentiality has been made they must prove every one of these points.

One big case which reflects privacy and confidentiality is the Max Mosely case from 2008. Max Mosely was the head of Formula 1 racing and was caught to have hired five prostitutes for a Nazi based orgy in London by the News Of The World but the High Court ruled that this was not within the public interest and that Mosely had a right of provacy and so damanges had to be awarded.

WINOL happenings

2010-12-01T12:04:00.000Z

A Ramble -

I haven't been blogging about WINOL of late, for many reasons. Mostly because after I leave TAB9 and go home I can't bring myself to write about the week as I'm usually low in spirits. However, I will be writing a critical reflection very soon so I thought I should write about the last few weeks.

The last time I blogged on WINOL was the really bad news week so to continue from that, the next day I was ushered into a meeting with the editor, Chris and Brian and stripped of my news editor role as 'didn't seem happy' doing it. This translates roughly to; 'You are shit and we're replacing you'. Fair enough. It was a very bad week but I think sometimes people lose sight that WINOL is a University course and everyone is on a learning curve. Never mind... I was given a new role as Entertainments Editor and as upset and embarrassed as I initially was I decided to get stuck in and try my best to come back from it.

Enter Chesney Hawkes...

I noticed that Chesney was due to play at The Railway Inn on Wednesday night, the day of the bulletin so I thought if I could only get hold of him I could ask him to come in before the show to promote it and talk to us about what he's upto at the moment. I emailed The Railway begging for contact details to no avail, and emailed a media officer in connection with him but still nothing. Then as a last resort I tracked him down to his Twitter account and found a personal email address. I sent a quick email asking if he would be interested and 'tweeted' him to check his emails. I didn't expect a reply but thought there was no harm in trying and of course there wasn't... in fact he replied within half an hour agreeing to come down to the studio before his sound-check. After ALOT of running around and organising here is the final outcome...

...needless to say it didn't go exactly smoothly in the live run and I'm sure I will have "Can I start again, oh are we live?" haunting me through-out my career. I definitely let nerves get the better of me but managed to hold it together for the interview.

I haven't managed to bag any other big names since then, as of yet. But as the saying goes - watch this space. My role as Entertainments Editor seems to differ each week depending on what I can get hold of. One week I was presenting 'What's On' which we ran into a package - by my entertainments reporter at the time - about the fireworks procession which worked quite well.

The Training Week -

As I have touched upon, WINOL morale was at an all time low recently and this started to show in the output that was being produced. Chris intervened and called for a training week so everybody could spend the week training up on roles they've been wanting to turn their hand to but haven't had the chance and there wouldn't be too much pressure to perform.

Initially I wasn't keen on the idea and thought it was pointless producing lots of bulletins of perfected old packages as I felt this was time we could be spending producing a fresh bulletin but the outcome was good. All the 2nd years got involved with different roles throughout the three days and some 3rd years dedicated the time to making a show-reel for their portfolio.

During training week it was decided that my 'What's On' section and 'Win With Winol' should collaborate with two presenters bringing an element of relaxed studio chat to the table. With Lucy as the 'Win With Winol' presenter we went out about ways to do this. In the end we decided on standing and addressing each other informally. It worked ok but I felt we rehearsed it too much and the end result looked a bit wooden. During this week I had a local band as a guest to interview who gave us a performance. Here is how it went...

Up To Now -

This week the dynamics of Win With Winol and What's On changed once more when I went out to film on location. I went down to the Winchester Christmas market ice rink to film it as I thought it would be relevant to what I was talking about and would look visually more attractive than yet another studio produced piece. I think the extra effort and time paid off and I'm quite happy with the out-come.

I am fast becoming the cheese queen of WINOL but to be honest... I'm quite happy with that title :) Bridget Jones eat your heart out!

Ciao x

Law lecture notes Week 8

2010-11-18T16:56:00.001Z

Freedom Of Information Act

130,000 bodies covered by the act
100,000 requests a year - cost £34m
Journalists requests only accounts for 12%

Politicians claim the FOI has a "chilling effect" on government as they don't feel safe or free to discuss issues that could become damaging to them if they found their way into a document.

Tony Blair, who brought in the act - "FOI was not a good idea... makes it hard for government to have confidential conversations."

Basic principle of the FOI act;

"Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled to have that information communicated to him."

An FOI request must be in writing, email included and it is free.

If it costs more than £600 (£450 for smaller authorities) or if the information is EXEMPT. But you do not have to accept this decision.

Exemptions:
Absolute (eg security services, court records)
Qualified (eg ministerial communications, commercial confidentiality)
Where the information is covered by a qualified exemption, you should still be given it if the balance of the 'pubic interest' favours disclosure.

Public interest - within the publics interest, not just interesting to the public.

The public authority has to respond to an FOI request within 20 days unless there is a public interest consideration then they can take a further 40 days.

What if they say no?
Internal review
Information Commisioner
Information Tribunal
High Court

Law - Privilege

2010-10-21T17:13:00.002+01:00

Privilege allows us as journalists to write or broadcast material which may be defamatory or untrue or even both at the same time. It gives us protection from being sued.

Absolute Privilege -
Anything said in court. Judges, lawyers and MP’s have it

It is from the monarch, so as it is to do with the trial they can't be prosecuted for it.

Qualified Privilege -
As long as reports are fair, accurate, without malice and on a matter of public concern
Journalists have Qualified Privilege in Parliament/Court/public meetings Reporting

Statements that qualify for qualified privilege without explanation are as follows;

Fair and accurate reports of public proceedings of legislatures, courts, government appointed public inquiries, international organisations/conferences anywhere in the world.
A fair and accurate copy of or extract from any register or other document required by law to be open to public inspection.
A notice or advertisement published by or on the authority of a court, or of a judge or officer of a court, anywhere in the world.
A fair and accurate copy of or extract from matter published by or on the authority of a government or legislature or by an international organisation or an international conference anywhere in the world.

- Lee Clegg case, significant

Privilege Part 1

Public proceedings in a legislature anywhere in world (ie Russia)
Public proceedings in a court anywhere in world
Public proceedings of a public inquiry anywhere in world
Public proceedings of an international organisation or conference

Privilege part 2

Subject to explanation and contradiction
Public meetings
Local councils and committees
Associations have different status
Findings or decisions are covered - official
Proceedings are not

Pressers

Pressers are public meetings
Written hand outs also covered
Consider risks of live broadcasting

Privilege summed up

Report must be;
Fair
Accurate
Without malice
On a matter of public interest
No privilege outside main proceedings

Page 340

Defamation and Libel

2010-10-19T14:47:00.002+01:00

After a year of HCJ learning all about exciting philosophers and their work I was more than underwhelmed to say goodbye to the likes of Emile Zola, Fredrich Nietzche and Freud and welcome Law for Journalists back into my life. It would be fair to say that law is definitely a weak point of mine BUT after two lectures I found it all coming back. Here are some notes so far.

Defamation and Libel

To break it down in simple terms, defamation is taking away a reputation to which a person is entitled. There are two types of defamation. These are; slander (defamation in the temporary form) and libel (defamation in the permanent form)

Reputation is precious to those who have a public life, money or both. To say something about someone in the public eye that you know to be untrue would be said with malice. If it threatens that persons reputation then you have defamed them and therefore committed a libel.

However, most mere abuse has a certain degree of legal safety. "You smell" for example. Most defamatory is about a persons qualifications. A doctors professional reputation is absolutely vital for them to carry on in their profession. You wouldn't seek out a doctor to help your ailments if they've been accused of raping, poisoning or misdiagnosing patients... would you?

One famous case where this happened was, Rahamin vs. Channel 4/ITN
In July 1998 channel 4 broadcast a major news report on the 7o’clock news that made allegations against locum consultant Joseph Rahamin that he claimed were not only untrue but also defamatory as they damaged his personal AND professional reputations. The accusations made were that:

Mr. Rahamim was probably responsible for the death or serious injury of many of his patients including two who had died during their operations
Mr Rahamim was not competent to practice as a consultant thoracic surgeon and was seriously under qualified and inadequately trained.
That he had fraudulently obtained his post as a Consultant by misrepresenting his qualifications and employment history.
That he had dishonestly sent out letters to local GP’s in which he had falsely described himself as an FRCS
That he had dishonestly concealed from his employers the fact that as a result of injuries sustained in a road accident he was unable to operate safely and
That by reason of these matters the GMC ought to have Mr. Rahamim struck off.

Publication + defamation + identification = Libel

The only libel defences are as follows;

Justification - If it is true and you can prove it in court
Fair comment - An honest held opinion which is based upon facts or privileged material within the public interest.
Absolute Privilege - Court reporting
Qualified Privilege - Anything said by the police or pressers
Bane + Antidote - when the defamation is removed or cancelled out by the rest of the context

Cartoons are totally exempt from libel, this is why you can often find cartoons in the first few pages of The Sun newspaper that poke fun at celebrities or politicians who have been in the public eye during the week.

If a libel is present without any of these defences then steps should be taken to apologise in a later edition of the publication.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3065451/Marlon-King-An-apology.html

Here is a recent example of arguably the biggest tabloid newspaper in Britain apologising for defaming imprisoned footballer, Marlon King.

Reynolds defence

Named after a defence raised in the late 1990s by Times Newspapers after the Sunday Times published an article about the former Irish prime minister, Albert Reynolds. Mr Reynolds sued, arguing the allegations in the article were not true and were defamatory. The newspaper argued that the allegations it published were serious and that it had a duty to publish them. They were, it argued, made in the public interest and after they'd exercised all reasonable care in checking. Even if the allegations were not true, they argued they should have been able to report them and be legally protected by 'qualified privilege'. - Kevin Marsh BBC News

Material must be in the public interest... a product of responsible journalism.

WINOL week two!

2010-10-19T11:48:00.000+01:00

Apologies for this late blog entry... I've been dying of chest and throat infections. Phlegm and snot flying everywhere! Not pretty.

Anywho... week two. The news meeting on the monday showed a bit more promise than the first week with our top story affecting international students, a high profile court case and even a story about the Queen. Unfortunately things didn't go quite to plan as the week progressed. Andy fell ill on Tuesday forcing us to postpone the court case story, we had new information emerge changing the context of Jacks international students story and Aimee struggled getting interviews on her trip to Southampton to film the Queens naming of the Queen Elizabeth ship so we had to make it into a NIB (News In Brief).

Further to this. In production the tricaster blew up meaning WINOL went backwards in technical progression and we had to upload the bulletin to Youtube instead. This takes longer so we aimed to film the bulletin at 2pm by bringing all the VT deadlines forward but the Macs in TAB9 have become so slow since we came back after summer that they crash every two minutes so of course these new early deadlines were impossible to be met! We ended up filming just before 3pm and somehow managed to get the bulletin out at 5pm as planned.

Scripting was much better, largely the story links submitted. This was helped by the presence of guest editor Graham Bell.

WINOL IS BACK! Week one....

2010-10-06T14:20:00.000+01:00

It's Wednesday, it's 2pm and it's a WINOL week which could only mean one thing. Absolute mayhem in the news room. As news editor I have taken on a role which has enforced me to drop my niceties and become less passive in my mannerisms.

The Monday morning news meeting was okay, but I've a long way to go before I will feel like I can say I've managed to bring the group together as a successful unit. The second years who have produced a package have done a great job for a first attempt. Certainly miles ahead of what I could have achieved this time last year. There is a slight disrespect of deadlines though and that is something I will be pushing on next week.

As far as the bulletin goes I am very excited as our political editor, Joey managed to become Winchester Mp, Steve Brine's plus one for the Conservative conference in Birmingham. This is leading the bulletin today and we have a story about a Lib Dem by election to follow by Stu. As Joey and Stu are third year reporters I knew I wouldn't have many technical issues with their VT's and so left them at their own devices.

The other stories being reported today are; a student finance story by Julie Cordier, a story investigating a winchester area dubbed 'stabby alley' by Andrew Giddings and... some teams played sports.

I am very anxious to see how the bulletin is going to go, considering for many of the reporters this is their first shot but from what I've seen they're doing ok and if worst comes to worst this is only scheduled as a dummy week so we can draw a line under it and move on.

Tune into www.winol.co.uk after 4pm to see how we did.

Kisses x

2010-08-28T22:01:00.000+01:00

Earlier I was walking home from the railway station and just crossing the busy road by the roundabout just near the airport, but I was distracted on the phone and whilst crossing came within inches of being run over. I saw that flash of headbeam from the car and for a second as I sprinted across the road my mind was clear. As I continued to walk down the road an ambulance came screeching up the opposite way and I got this odd feeling that WHAT IF... I actually HAD of been hit and that ambulance was for me? But I was unaware of it in some other parallel world and so carried on with my journey home?

What if I'm dead?

Somebody please help me confirm my existence.

The Forgotten Generation

2010-07-07T23:55:00.000+01:00

I apoloise in advance but the following is a tail end thought following the recent general elections...

Cast your mind back to when you were 18. Where did YOUR priorities lie? Were they in choosing the right political party to vote for to better your country? Did they lie in; global warming, NHS matters or even international affairs? Or were you one of the hundreds of thousands of 18 year olds (like me) who was absolutely clueless on politics, worried more about where your next lambrini and kebab was coming from or whether you could afford that pair of shoes this month... BUT admitted if desired to go into the polling station and select a party with a a blind eye or whichever name tickled your pickle.

I met a 17 year old girl recently who didn't know who the Prime Minister was. She actually did not know who ran the country. At first I was shocked but given a few moments to think I thought, actually, politicians don't really communicate very well with the younger generation or explain their policies and what they're about in any sort of colloquial language that could be understood by every walk of life. If you watch the news, David Cameron as well as the other party leaders are all guilty of using jargon terms that only middle class, well educated people generally understand. This means a majority of young people are choosing to throw their vote away or choose at random. Perhaps if they spent a little time reaching out to these youths then they might adopt some sort of interest in the economic state of the country.

Perhaps the candidates should consider this in the next general election...

2010-06-21T01:43:00.004+01:00

2010-06-17T19:47:00.000+01:00

I write this from Heathrow Airport as I wait for my next coach to take me home to Southampton. I've been in Glasgow all week visiting family, although my initial reason for coming up this time was to see Snow Patrol at Bellehouston park. I've had the most interesting week travelling around Glasgow alone and talking to complete strangers, my mum says I could talk the back legs off a donkey but I argue that being a Journalist means this is a good quality! The show on Saturday was breath taking and the rest of the week, although slightly more down-to-earth did not disappoint. When I visit I always like to spread my time evenly. I stay at my grandads, and although he's a lovely man, he doesn't keep very well anymore so through the day I took the chance to go and visit every aunty, uncle and cousin.

I spent one of my days with my two cousins and they're seven children and rekindled my childhood just for a day. I raced the kids to the ice cream van, played football in the local field, took the dog for a walk and returned back to my cousins house to watch Scooby Doo. There is something really satisfying about breaking away from everyday 'adult' life and getting in touch with your inner infant. My cousins childrens have wonderful characters and lifted my spirits so much. I return home with many pictures and scribbles they've conjured up for me that will take pride of place on my wall of fame in my bedroom!

I spent another one of the days entirely with two of my aunties learning all about the background of my family and feeling quite proud to belong to the Reid family tree... although the night ended with one of my aunties a little worse for wear on Tennants lager telling me how beautiful I was!

Now on my journey home I was lucky enough to meet the most interesting 77 year old lady named Carmen. Spanish native but married to a middle class english man when she was 25... (because she wanted to learn better english!) I spent the home hour and a half coach journey from Stansted to Heathrow chatting away as if she was a lady I'd known all my life. I now know alot about her personal and family life and she knows quite intimate details of mine. We laughed as she taught me how to roll my R's and laughed even more when I couldn't quite do it, although she told me to keep at it as she could never say the word "wasp" when she moved to England! I found myself opening up about things I don't talk to anyone about and she had a very modern outlook on life, "I can't stand these old people who critisise the young for being young, they forget that was them once." She explained that she understands how things are very different in todays society to when she grew up and prefers to offer guidance to people who have lost track rather than judge them.

Carmen is one of those people in life that you cross, they touch your life and then they're gone...

John Maynard Keynes and The Capitalist System

2010-05-29T15:30:00.000+01:00

John Maynard Keynes the economist, can be described as both the destroyer and the hero of capitalism for different reasons. The Marxists hailed him as the destroyer of capitalism because of his theory to reject the laissez-faire economic structure that had dominated the western world up until this point. Keynes said that in order to get the economy moving we needed to employ people to do meaningless, pointless, domenial jobs such as digging holes and filling them up again. By doing this, we'd be putting money in peoples pockets which they in turn would spend and put back into the economy. There was of course great criticism of this theory. The main problem being that while giving people work would indeed provide funds for people, to maintain a profit the workers would need to work for less money that the cost of what they were making otherwise there was a risk of a market crash. The theory was seen as unsustainable.

Keynes however had another solution... the Government could print more money to provide benefits for the people who needed them. However, this caused a massive inflation and caused the value of money to go down. Keynes believed that money was only as valuable as it's interest rate. To put it simply, if there is more money to go around then the price of living goes up. That 50p loaf of bread will become 60p. This solution can be applied to modern day where Gordon Brown printed more money at the height of the recession. David Cameron is sort of anti-Keynes in the way he doesn't believe that printing more money will boost the economy and so he is now trying to take money out of the economy by cutting government spending.

Keynes can be seen as the hero of capitalism as his plan to get the economy working is still being used today.

Lets Just Have One Pint... (The Drunken Ramblings Of Two Girls On A Mission For Greatness)

2010-05-28T01:48:00.000+01:00

Well!! As you lovely creatures of the earth know (or should if you did your HCJ reading and indeed you should have as we had an exam today...) alot of the NEW JOURNALISM material was written under the influence of drugs, i.e. LSD and as me and my lover Gabs Louvel have just stumbled home from some post work pints into a bottle of Vodka I thought now would be as good a time as ever to get my thoughts out into the open.

I would like to start with...

Yesterday my dear friend Paul Carrett said something to me that blew my mind. "My perfect way to die would be from a meteor that crashed into the earth and wiped out EVERYBODY because then I wouldn't be missing out on anything." I myself think about dying all the time... because death is the ultimate goal of life. It's what each and every one of us is heading towards like a black abyss and nobody can avoid it. NOBODY (make the most of every minute and endevour to give your life meaning!) And although I've often thought about the people I will leave behind when I die... I've never really thought about WHAT IF... everybody died? Brian Thornton always tells us to step away from the work 'tragedy' because if one person dying is a tragedy then what is 10,000 people dying? Well if the whole world died out, that would not be a tragedy and do you know why? Because there would be nobody left over to grieve or to label it a tragedy. Grieving was not invented for the deceased. Being sad about somebodies death doesn't benefit the dead person in any way. Grieving is a purely selfish act. We all die. It's a fact of life so... whatever! Don't beat yourself up over an act of nature that has been happening since the first living cell.

Gabi wants a word...

"Okay, so my names Gabs, I'm not a student, and I basically never have been, but here we go, I'll give it a go anyway...
So me and Kayleigh were chatting today about this thing she has been learning about called existentialism, and then about death and such things, and pain, and meanings of life. All of that charming walakazam stuff.
Thing is way I see it, if I'ma gonna post an opionion out there...is that the meaning of life... well that's never going to be known, guess everyones minds works in too many different ways.

This is one of my biggest flaws, as people who don't know me, I'll fill you in, I like to look at every view point, and the worst bit... I can see everyone's understanding to how they got to that point of view and how they see things in that way, so how can I have an actual opinion myself you may ask?! Well, it doesn't matter.

That is it. You can have an opinion. You can argue it. You can let it go. You can learn from it. You can strengthen it. You can act like you agree with someone elses.

But at the end of the day, what ever your saying for those 5, 10 minute verbal struggles... they'll be forgotten by tomorrow, and whatever is happening in your life.

So what do you do?! You wake up in the morning and you live your life. No regrets, no thinking, just do it, you'll never be more alive than you are right now. You'll never be younger, more beautiful and more opinionated. So even if you don't know what to do, then thats brilliance in itself because how many people get to wake up and CHOOSE if they're going to "mong out" or "make a difference"

Remember the biggest difference you'll ever make in life is making someone that little be happier, that little more self assured, that little more confident that their life means something. Even though the happiest thing they'll ever learn, and perhaps are unable to ever understand is that happiness will never be theres."

Kayleigh returns...

Just one more thing. "Love." a feeling, or just a word? At the age of 21 I certainly don't feel like I have told somebody I'm in love with them and meant it. I care about some people more than others but that is all. Do feelings even exist? You can't hold a feeling, you can't touch a feeling so how can we determine whether it is there? I tell people I love them on a daily basis because I appreciate certain characteristics about them but society has built up the word 'love' to hold some sort of fairy tail meaning and I just havent experienced that!

Sometimes I wonder if I'm even here. How can you guarantee that everything you know isn't the result of a bigger forces imagination?

<3

Immanuel Kant

2010-05-26T15:00:00.002+01:00

General Election Coverage – Gonzo Journalism

2010-05-23T16:41:00.002+01:00

I arrived at the newsroom at 10am. The atmosphere was tense. People were already getting stuck into their individual roles that would keep them busy for the next 20 hours. It felt like a normal day apart from the BBC News Channel on the projector screen being watched vigilantly for any updates on the big election race. Opinion and exit poll results were coming in all day filling the news team with excitement, dread, nerves and fear all in one. It was going to be a long day.

By 1pm the smell of Red Bull was rife. What a mistake. Don't these people know that drinking caffeine too early gives you a massive come down when you need to be most alert? I, myself decided on an early night with a hot chocolate to mentally prepare for the reporting marathon but I suspected others had refused to let a simple all nighter at University stop them from partying the night before.

As with any big project, things didn't run perfectly in the run up to broadcast. Everyone was pretty excited at the prospect of having outside broadcasts from across the country but it wasn't until very late in the afternoon that the Skype connection was even confirmed with many of the contacts. Several of these posed problems but nothing too major! The initiative within the outside broadcasts (OB's) was to be able to send reporters to the different constituencies so we wouldn't have to rely on other news channel sources. This made the whole experience feel even more real. We were all there and we were making the news happen. An experience each and every one of us would take away with us and utilize in our future careers in Journalism.

Towards late afternoon, time began to evaporate. The regular newsroom routine had been abolished and so it was necessary to avoid the clock at all costs if I was to keep my head about me. Otherwise I risked losing motivation. I was becoming swamped with pressure from the election editor, Chris Horrie, to keep in contact with the world and his mother, so I was forced to find a way to juggle all this correspondance and also find time to revise every leader of every party in every constituency - I wanted to be properly prepared for my on camera role that would come later on.

With 10pm fast approaching like a cross country train, the pressure on everybody was immense. Rehearsals had been scheduled to start at 7.30pm but with some bodies missing and some slight technical issues there wasn't a huge amount of time to devote to run throughs.

I was introduced to Graham Bell, the anchor for the first 2 hour stint who would be throwing over to me and my screen for news from the different counts. He was a charming, confident guy who showed no sign of nerves. He had graduated from this very course 2 years previous and moved on to the likes of Sky... he had bigger fish to fry now and it was clear this was just something to do for him.

The gallery was not an inviting place during the 8 hour broadcast. I avoided it like the plague... I was not about to subject myself to any frustrated outbursts from overworked directors and stressed out vision mixers. That was not my game for the day. I put on a smile and made my way down to my post in the corner of the studio. While I wasn't on air I was making calls to the OB reporters to find out what was going on so I could decide which person to line up for when Graham was ready to throw over to me. This allowed me to establish an idea of what questions I could ask them.

The first 2 hours went by like a dream. The night was still a massive novelty for everybody involved and the reality that we wouldn't be walking out until 6am had not sunk in yet. Graham took to it like a duck to water, even improvising when the script didn't seem relevant at the time. I assume sources such as Google and Twitter were his Bibles as he seemed to churn out news about the three running candidates as it happened like a reporting machine. I had a few pre-broadcast nerves but unlike a WINOL bulletin, this was not going to be all over in 10 minutes so I decided to try and address the OB reporters as I would normally. I didn't want to look all stiff and formal.

Between midnight and 2am Lucy took over my role in a sort of tagteam effort. Five minutes was all we had to get the microphone and earpiece off off me and onto Lucy and for me to get acquainted with the autocue... which would be my new companion for the following 2 hours. And while the studio was filled with a guilt trip attempting 'adopt an Orangutan' advert I soon found a scripting issue. The autocue contained material that we couldn't use in this part of the night. A few strops later and Rob was enticed to come and help me out.

Autocue issues aside, things continued to run smoothly. Claire was given the difficult job of following on from Grahams more than impressive performance, but she stepped up to the mark and delivered a faultless performance. The studio erupted in giggles when Claire recovered from a vision mistake with a Orangutan gag. Everyone was still in very high spirits.

The final 2 hours were not the final 2 at all. We had expected results for Winchester in shortly after 4am but as luck would not have it, they came in at 5.30am. Everything that happened after 4am was a daze. I had been given a sudden burst of energy one hour earlier and was on a bit of a come down by this point. Adrenaline was running low and the finish mark was on my mind. I spent the last 2 hours making calls to my reporters to make sure they were safe and I found myself returning to the studio for a final stint in OB presenting. I don't remember if it went well.

Coffee.

The end was nigh and everybody had put in a sterling effort to keep this ball rolling. Everybody gathered in the studio on tenterhooks waiting for news from Stu. He was about to reveal the new leader for Winchester. A few moments silence and the words "It's Brine!" became audible. Stu was the man of the hour, he'd taken the results before anybody. Winchester was now a Conservative city. A few moments as we faded to black and then a round of applause. Tiredness always makes me emotional and the clapping brought it all home. We'd done it.

LIVE ELECTION COVERAGE!

2010-05-07T02:56:00.000+01:00

It's approaching 3am and the Winchester News Online team are still working very hard bringing live election coverage to the public, as we will be until the very last results come out... whenever that may be. If you happen to stumble across this blog in the next couple of hours then you should check it out.

www.winol.co.uk

<3

The First Election Debate - A Review

2010-04-16T23:51:00.001+01:00

So last night, political history was made. For the first time all three of the main party leaders were brought together for an election debate. The audience put questions to Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Gordon Brown as they fought it out to win the votes of the public. Here is a rundown of the three opening statements.

LABOUR

Gordon Brown promises to protect our police, NHS and schools. He also claimed that this is the defining year in reaching a strong economy. "Get the decisions right now and we can have secure jobs, we can have standards of living rising and we can have everybody better off. Get the decisions WRONG now and we could have a double dip recession."

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

"I believe the way things are is not the way things have to be..." Clegg explained that we don't have to vote on 'old politics' and that our only choices are not between two old parties who have been running the country for years. "I think we have a fantastic oppertunity to do things differently for once, and if we do things differently we can create the fair society, the fair country we all want". Clegg went on to explain he believed in a fair tax system, better schools and an economy "no longer held hostage by greedy bankers." Clegg stated that the changes he would propose were all ones he believed were possible

CONSERVATIVES

David Cameron began his opening speech with an apology to the public over the expenses saga. He recognised that we have been let down by parliament and explained that he hoped the debate would restore some of the trust we as a society have lost in the government. He claimed that Britain can do much better. "We can deal with our debts, we can get our economy growing and avoid this jobs tax and we can build a bigger society but we can ONLY do this if we recognise we need to join together, we need to come together, we need to recognise we're all in this together." Cameron went on to recognise that Labour has done alot of good things for this country over the last 13 years but added that we need change.

ISSUES RAISED -

Immigration

Brown declared he would introduce a points system in which no unskilled worker from outside the EU can come to Britian now. Cameron acknowledged that the rate of immigration is too high and said he would like to bring it down to the tens of thousands instead of the hundreds of thousands that we have had over the last decade. He said that he would like to put in a limit on immigration and make changes so people couldn't all come over to the UK at once. But he gave no real plan of how he intended to do this. Clegg explained he wanted to restore exit controls and also wanted to only send immigrants to places where they were needed to work.

I myself like the ideas that Cameron put forward and appreciate that he recognises immigration has become out of control but as he gave no explanation of how he would make the changes I find myself siding with Clegg on this question. There is a huge pressure on housing in this country and I believe he has the right ideas to change that. I also like the idea Brown put forward about introducing a points system and recognise this to be somewhat like the ways of the Australian government but as Cameron pointed out, after 13 years of a Labour government he has only begun to get serious on this topic so whether his ideas are plausible or not is another question. The other thing I liked is while Cameron proposed we have a 'cap' on imigration Clegg pointed out that there is good immigration and Bad immigration and having a cap may prevent vitally needed doctors and people of other important occupations joining us. Cameron also did point out that we need to reform welfare as there are many of people in this country who could work but don't work drawing even more people into the country to fill the voids which I think is a very fair point.

Law and Order

Clegg and Cameron both agreed that we need more Police on our streets and Cameron claimed he thought that jail sentences are just too short to reform the characters of offenders, with many coming out of prison and reoffending. Cameron also said that he felt alot of crime was commited by drug addicts and that the government needs to act faster in getting addicts off the streets and into treatment. Clegg proposed that we need to to stop the young offenders of today becoming the hardened criminals of tomorrow and Brown suggested we need to do three things to bring crime down. Those being; effective policing on the streets, parents needing to accept responsibilty for their children and the right to take out an injunction against the police if you feel they have not done you justice. Brown also suggested we need to get young people doing useful activities such as sports and dancing and suggested we need more youth clubs to keep the kids out of trouble.

Clegg made a very good point to Cameron and Brown and this is, while his own Manifesto gave figures of what needs to be spent and how he would do it to boost the policing system, neither the Labour nor Conservative manifestos could offer this which gives the impression that they are not as serious on crime fighting as Clegg. However, Brown has been Prime Minister for a couple of years now and crime has reduced while he has been in power. I believe actions speak louder than words and so with this in mind I think Brown holds the key to a safer Britain.

Education

Brown said he wants teachers with better qualifications and education to continue until the age of 18. He also suggested that if a school is underachieving it should be taken over by a local federation or academy to bring it to standard. Gordon Brown believes our education system should be of the highest standards and thinks we can achieve this if we vote Labour as he promises to continue to put alot of money into it.

Cameron said he wants to cut waste and put more money into the teaching rather than the furnishings. He said our education system has become bureaucratic and needs to be about opening the minds of young people and not just grades and exams. He is interested in getting as much money into the schools as possible rather than wasting it at Whitehall. He said we need to reintroduce good discipline in our schools.

Nick Clegg said he would like to introduce an education freedom act to ban the government from controlling what goes on in the classroom. He said he wants to provide schools with additional resources so they can cut class sizes to concentrate on the pupils and encourage creativity. Also after school classes for pupils struggling to keep up so that classes can move on together.

During this topic it became quite a heated argument between Brown and Cameron discussing figures and pounds. Of course our education system needs to be of higher standards but with little explanation of how he planned to achieve this, I feel Brown came out worst on this topic. I liked that Cameron brought up the fact that schools spend alot of money on furnishings and useless novelties that could be saved to boost the education but I as he wasn't dragged into any form of arguing and came out with some (I think) brilliant ideas that are definitely possible I think Nick Clegg put the other two candidates to shame. Cutting class sizes is such a simple idea but it is simply brilliant! I'm not sure the idea of an education freedom act would happen but it is something that we could use.

To conclude -

The debate did go on to discuss the armed forces and the health care system but I won't go on in this way as you all saw it and I'm sure you've all made your own opinion on who you are going to vote for by now! What I will say is that Nick Clegg brought up a great point and that is that, billions of pounds are being spent on nuclear war weapons created to wipe out full countries when there isn't enough money going into the front line. Clegg suggested that we have moved on from the days of the Cold War and spending so much money on weapons of mass destruction is unjustified in this day and age. I agree with this to a certain extent. However I can appreciate the reasoning behind this funding is to protect and defend our country.

Cameron personally thanked a lady in the audience for her service to the NHS as he himself had spent alot of time in NHS hospitals and had alot of admiration for doctors and nurses. I thought this was a nice touch and displayed his genuine side... however earlier in the debate he said he met a 40 year old man who had served in the navy for 30 years. This is either a figure mistake on his part or he was just making stuff up as he went along. I hope it's not the latter! If it is then I couldn't take anything this man says seriously.

Brown pointed out that back in 1997 there was a 2 year waiting list for an operation whereas now patients wait a maximum of 18 weeks. This is the sort of visible change Labour has made that I think needs to continue. He promises to continue to support the NHS so that these short waiting lists can be kept short and cancer patients can be diagnosed within 2 weeks.

In his closing statement Clegg stressed that we don't need to choose between two parties who "have been playing pass the parcel with our government for 65 years now". He said he believed they had gone on and on making and breaking the same promises and that now is a time for change.

Gordon Brown took a slightly more 'hip' approach to his closing statement comparing the election to Britains Got Talent and X Factor which actually made me laugh out loud. I realise he is just trying to reach out to a younger generation of voters but I think he went about it in a slightly cheap way. However he closed to say we need to secure the recovery of the economy this year and he has done alot to help get us out of the recession so I truly believe he could achieve this.

Cameron said we must choose hope over fear and that the idea we need to continue to waste money to boost the economy was wrong. He also said that for real change to happen we need a government with values and an understanding that we need to come together as a society for this change to take place. In my opinion Camerons closing statement was rather 'wishy washy' and a bit too idealistic rather than realistic. He has the ideas but no real plan of how he wants to put them into action!

So who do I vote for?

Well incase it hasn't become clear during this essay of a review I have now found myself leaning towards Liberal Democrats. The thing that has stopped me considering voting this way before is that as Clegg himself said, we are lead to believe that it is a choice between two old parties but if you keep that attitude then you are not helping to make change. Labour have been leading the country for 13 years now and yes, they have done us proud in alot of ways but they've also made many mistakes. Voting Conservative is just not an option for me. I was rather anti-conservative before the debate as I myself am from a working class background and know their manifesto doesn't do people from poor backgrounds much justice. The debate just confirmed my choice. Cameron did not serve his party well last night. He had all these wonderful ideas and was waiting to knock down Brown at every hurdle but his ideas and policies had little or no substance to them. I'm hoping for a change that will benefit every walk of life.

Time will tell...

Another Day Another Misused Substance...

2010-04-02T17:02:00.004+01:00

Rather late I know but I am talking about Methedrone or "Meow Meow" as I've also heard it referred to...

I first came into contact with Mephedrone back in October when I saw a friend of a friend sniffing it off a counter before a night out. When I questioned what it was, they simply replied "oh... it's mephedrone, don't worry it's not illegal." I was pretty clueless so left him to it! It's only in recent months that I've discovered the true impact that this new drug is having.

It has become increasingly popular with the young working class as it's such a cheap high and with no legal restrictions outlined yet users know they can't be prosecuted for possesion. Sounds like a great idea right? Well actually no! Here are the facts...

Mephedrone is actually a form of plant fertiliser, easily purchasable over the internet until recently.

The drug falls into the "stimulant" category and the effects are said to be similar to that of ecstasy.

It has been around for a couple of years but the media only kicked up a storm recently once two teenagers were reported to have died in Scunthorpe after taking the substance

It is thought that the emergence of mephedrone is related to the decreasing purity of ecstasy and cocaine on sale in the UK

Side effects include; headaches, poor concentration, bad short term memory, increase in heart rate/heart palpitations, depression and nausea.

Very little is known of the long term effects as it has come about in the last year or two.

On March 29, Home Secretary Alan Johnson announced that mephedrone and other synthetic "legal highs" would be illegal "within weeks".

So with so little known about 'Meow Meow', why are young clubbers so keen to risk their health and maybe even lives on consuming this plant fertiliser! And on that note why does anybody do anything? For the high... yeah I get that but when did life become so dire that a significant majority of people can't get through a night out without taking something to give them a boost? What is wrong with doing the good old fashioned thing of getting wankered on booze at the weekend? At least you know where you stand. Hangover + cup of tea and toast = Standard Sunday morning!

Maybe it's the state of our economy causing depression making these people reach out to drugs for a form of escapism? Or maybe it's just curiousity? But as the old saying goes... curiosity killed the cat.

Well, I am digressing...

I wonder what the next 'legal high' will be once MCAP has been illegalised... maybe drain cleaner?

New Journalism

2010-03-25T21:40:00.003Z

It's the last day of term and while everybodies minds were focussed on anything but uni today, we still had some unfinished HCJ business to attend to. Today we covered New Journalism. Now the main point to be made about the rise of New Journalism is that it was a new way to tell the story. There was a shift in the 1960's/70's from Digetic (telling the story) to Mimetic (showing the story). Mimetic is a way of illustrating a story - "painting with words" or "colour writing" Two of the main influences of New Journalism were Hunter S Thompson (self confessed user of LSD) and Tom Wolfe (accidental user of LSD... 'something in the water'). It's generally thought that the usage of this mind altering substance was key in the shift to New Journalism! Everybody was rebelling against power and it was an anti consumerism and anti Vietnam war era. The Beatles were at large and they too, were off their heads on drugs (Lucy In The Sky Of Diamonds and I believe Strawberry Fields were written about the effects of a trip on LSD). A new left wing emerged and it became 'cool' to be different - alternative society.

Officially interesting things are boring and officially boring things are interesting. Reality is just another type of fiction which is why new journalism was written in a story like manner, often describing minor details within a setting rather than the vital, relevant aspects.

"Everything is strange" idea adopted from existentialism.

Date With Fate With JOEY DANGLE!

2010-03-24T15:32:00.004Z

Wilheim Reich And The Orgasm

2010-03-12T16:32:00.003Z

I've lost my notes from the lecture and can't locate them on the portal at the moment so I will write a few bulletpoints to comment on later!

Wilheim Reich

Avid follower of Freud and his ideas on sexual repression

Sexual radical fixing upon the orgasm in particular

Orgone energy

Repression is visible in the body

Reich wrote that the ability to lose ourselves in the sexual act was to find the ultimate measure of wellbeing.

Three layers of the human mind

Existentialism

2010-03-12T04:39:00.004Z

Sometimes in life, you run out of excuses. It's 5am and I'm wide awake with nothing else to do other than catch up on my HCJ blogging so I shall start with Existentialism.

What is the meaning of life?

Well... if you are an existentialist then the answer will lie in your own hands as they believe that nobody could give your life meaning apart from you. God is dead and you must find meaning in a world without him. It's completely down to the individual to give their own life some sort of meaning and make it stand for something. Existentialists believe that there are people who live their life actively and make stuff happen and those who live it passively... doing nothing and waiting for good things to happen TO them. Personal responsibility and discipline is a must, existentialism is the journey searching for true self.

I recently read 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus in which the main character is an existentialist. The book begins along the lines of, "Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday. I don't remember." Which just shows he doesn't care. Everybody dies so why be upset about it? Later in the book he kills a black man for no reason at all. Just something to do. Existentialists do not think about their actions... they just do. Nobody wants to prosecute him and he is told if he just says he wasn't in his right mind after his mothers death and shows remorse then he will get off but he really doesn't care and it is the lack of emotions that he is done for! The language used in this book is very simple. Very short sentences and no complexities which reflects the mood of Meursault. Can't be bothered. Lazy actions contrasting to his active mind.

Among the philosophers who were existentialists included our friend, Fredrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche particularly impacted existentialism as he was considered the father of 'Nihilism' which is the idea that there is no ultimate meaning to human existence. If you believe this then you really have no other choice than to give life meaning yourself. Nietzsche was also anti-religious and therefore did not believe in reincarnation. He was convinced that you only live once and so you must be aggressive in living your short life and not sit back and watch it go by.

Existentialism ideas are still around today - you can see it used in Nike's advertising, "Just Do It".

The main philosopher who wrote of existentialism was Jean-Paul Satre (and here is a random fact about him. In 1964 he was awarded the nobel prize in literature... but refused the prize). He said that conformity is death. He said you should not conform to society and for this reason they admire people who are different and live their life with passion - you should live your life your way without being influenced by any person, group or in particular religion.

I've run out of tea so I shall end here and leave you with this useful link on existential jazz;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQi0tgB8GtA

A Date With Fate

2010-03-11T12:26:00.000Z

MORE WINOL!

2010-03-02T23:59:00.002Z

Things are looking up! We seem to be getting better each week, yes there's the minor hiccup here and there but nothing majorly soul distressing has happened so everybody is happy. My role as output editor was a struggle for the first week as I wasn't used to the software or had anybody available to devote an hour or two to me to train me. I did improve (some may say marginally) but I feel I got there in the end. Chanin has mixed us all up again for this week which I am pleased about as I don't think there was anything more for me to gain from copying links people had written for me and putting them in an order Tomek had asked!

This week, well tomorrow, I will be operating camera 2 for the bulletin which is a pretty easy role, the only aspect that is said to be tricky is the handover from news to sport but we managed to spend hours in the studio and gallery doing run-throughs today until everybody was happy which will pay off tomorrow. I even faced my demons and had a cheeky go at presenting while Josh and Rob were in the gallery. I hope to present soon as the presenters to me are like the ambassadors for WINOL, and also I have a few confidence issues to work on. I think a week presenting would see me right!

Another thing I have noticed is that VT's are being handed in before deadline now... well done everybody! It's Tuesday evening and I'm not filled with a feeling of dread about going into the newsroom tomorrow. Hopefully there should be less pressure as everybody is much more prepared. Also the presenters are staying the same as last week so there won't be an element of presenter virgin nerves!

Good Luck everybody!

....if the bulletin goes tits up tomorrow I will be deleting this blogpost of misguided hope!

The Moment...

2010-02-25T13:32:00.004Z

I'm aware that I am not a grounded person, I float about in my own little bubble with my thoughts and dreams swirling around me and nothing is more important than the moment I am in. I can't forward plan because that's not the person I am. But every so often I am brought back down to earth with a massive crash when I am reminded that life is ultimately about death and every individual life is so insignificant to the universe.

Today I was walking down the road (in my little bubble) when a hearse drove past me. Not very unusual, but as it passed I noticed that in the back next to the coffin sat an elderly man looking very solemn. I assume the deceased was his late wife. The moment really touched me. This man had accompanied his dearest to the very end of her journey. To me, that is true love.

People often obsess about what love really is. I believe that love is the essence of life and death and the only thing that survives when everything else is gone. True love follows you through life and goes with you to the grave.

Time is our biggest enemy, it ticks by so impatiently and with every passing hour our ability to change the past becomes more difficult. What I am trying to say is, make the most of the moment because life IS short and nobody wants to wake up 85 years old and wonder what might have been if...

Friedrich Nietzsche

2010-02-20T20:30:00.006Z

A wise man once said, "After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands."

That man was Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th century German philosopher. Nietzsche had many idea's floating around in his oversized moustache head but unfortunately his work was widely unread until his death from mental health issues in 1900. It's thought that after his death his written word suffered some distortion by his sister and literary estate, Elisabeth and became a set of ideas which supported Hitler and Nazism... whether this is derived from his obvious hate of religion I don't know. There was always an argument surrounding whether he was a Nazi or not. Nietzsche was NOT a nazi, the nazi movement happened after he died but he was into anti-semitism but he didn't hate Jews in particular. He hated all religions equally. "God is dead." was a famous quote of his

Through out his 1885 philisophical novel, 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra', Nietzsche talks about the overman which is essentially the superman theory. He believed that humanity was something that must be overcome and that the world consisted of Übermensch people such as Leonardo Davinci, Beethoven and Shakespeare. He said that 'normal' people could become superpeople by breaking away from conventions. It could be argued that Nietzsche was a role model for gay rights as he believed you don't need to worry that being gay is wrong because that is a collectivist idea, just as all religions are too.

WINOL 10/02/10

2010-02-10T17:04:00.002Z

Today's broadcast... what an absolute shambles. Nobody is to blame, which is why I am so flared up by overhearing people take the first opportunity to shirk the blame onto the next mug. It's our FIRST live broadcast with this reduced group so nobody was expecting any miracles. The problem was that nobody really knew what was expected of them. Roles were not explained in full to the people who really needed to know.

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise for my role in the downfall of WINOL! I was told I was the script writer and so I was shown a sort of template of how to do it and just did as I was told... bad idea. I should have shunned the help and taken full responsibility for the role. A little research would have gone a long way today. Next week will be very different as I plan to take a more active role, and less bullshit. My role was not explained to me properly and so I was running around running errands totally irrelevant to my role. I think there was an "at the moment" attitude through-out the newsroom when everyone should have been looking at the bigger picture.

I'm not making excuses but my production group had held a meeting without me and so I received the 'left over' job that nobody wanted, that happened to be a vital one! If I had been there I would not have opted for this role but now I have it I will endeavor to improve and excel. To be fair I didn't want to be a news reporter last semester but once I got my head around it I was alright so I am trying to see the positives in that this is all relevant experience.

I noticed that in the news room, as predicted, nobody was willing to take a role of authority which made for a more laid back approach which really, REALLY did not do the bulletin any justice. I hope that people will stop worrying about what others think and do/say what needs to be to get the job done.

Rant over... now I'm off to slit my wrists!

Back To The Grindstone, That Is Winol...

2010-02-09T10:08:00.004Z

Yesterday saw the beginning of the second semester for me and my Journo chums and as we all try and tackle our brand new roles it's the early mornings that seem to be the killer. I, myself entered the newsroom yesterday morning bright eyed and bushy tailed... probably something to do with the 9pm bedtime the night before!! Best sleep, EVER! Second morning back, I'm not going to lie... getting out of bed was a struggle! The smell of tea and coffee is wafting through the air as people try and shock themselves awake with copious amounts of caffeine.

SO! This semester I have moved from the newsteam onto the production team and it's a good place to be. Chanin, the production editor has assigned me to write the scripts for the Wednesday bulletin. This means I am trying to get my head around a new programme, ENPS. I am a bit worried that if I word something the wrong way, the VJ's who worked on the story might be disappointed with me but I am going to do my best to do everyone justice... although the temptation to fill the autocue with absolute gobble-de-gook to see the presenter, my friend, Glenn Hutt panic is SO great! I wouldn't though!

Tom Otrebski has taken over from James Kenyon as News Editor and is doing a mighty fine job so far! He has a harder job than James had in my opinion as James did not know us. He was a year above, he had not made friendships and bonds with us but Tom is a friend to many of us so I think he will struggle in being authoritive initially. I know I would! But Tom has made a vow to make the news outweigh the sports section of the bulletin and I believe we can achive this goal this semester.

Being the first live bulletin of the semester tomorrow I think emotions will be running high as everybody tries to get the show on the road. It seems that there is a bit of a lack of news this week as some people were unclear whether we would run a bulletin but hopefully it will be a success.

Tune in at 5pm tomorrow to find out how we did...

www.winol.co.uk

Something HAS to change...

2010-02-06T00:35:00.004Z

Today I travelled to London for an audition to be a contestant on a gameshow. Now entering for this was so out of character as it was. I am not what I would call an 'extrovert' and I'm definitely not one to 'put myself out there' but I had come across this website called beonscreen.com and they were scouting for contestants with "brain and brawn" and although I possess neither of these traits I suddenly decided to go for it. I sent my application off and a few days later had a call inviting me to come and audition... so today at 3pm there I was.

The audition was a collection of activities to bring out our personalities and test our fitness... yes there was a bleep test and no I do NOT want to talk about it :/

So we got round to doing some screen tests and that was when it hit me. I. am. BORING. Among my fellow auditionees were; a stand up comedian, a scuba diver, a man who had recently lost 6 stone in weight, a girl who could raise her leg above her head... and then me. It got to my screen test which went a bit like this....

"Hi, I'm Kayleigh, I'm nearly 21 and I study Journalism in Winchester." (voice of God: What's going on in Winchester Kayleigh?) "Nothing... absolutely nothing happens in Winchester". (What do you do in your spare time) "My degree takes up alot of my time but apart from that I like going out drinking."

I have absolutely NOTHING interesting to say about me! At what point in my life did I decide I wasn't going to do anything for myself... I was just going to become engulfed in stuff going on around me? I can't live like this anymore! What an actual granny I am! I'm making changes starting today. I've bought a brand new diary and I have told myself that there has to be something in it that's new and exciting on a minimum of a monthly basis, so if you're a member/organiser of a tap dancing class, opera rehearsal, base jumping team, or ANYTHING else, keep an eye out because I might just be joining you soon!

Love and hugs :)

2010-02-01T16:10:00.000Z

Coming Soon...

2010-01-28T16:30:00.001Z

I have shot my first video blog, on Orwellianism today. It is just being edited at the moment but I hope to have it up here by Monday afternoon/evening. Thanks for waiting :)

A Little Bit More Freud...

2010-01-27T22:06:00.002Z

I touched on Freud in an earlier blogpost but I would like to talk about a different topic, okay it's still about sex but find me something Freudian that wasn't loosely related to sex :P

Freud once declared that, "Dreams are a royal highway to the unconcious mind". But what does this mean? Does this mean that, the time I dreamt I had a baby, that on some level in my unconcious mind I do actually want to have a child? Or that time I had a dream that my friend died that I actually want her dead? I really hope not.

The thing is, Freud believed that in every person there was a mental battle going on between their concious and unconcious mind, or their Ego and Id. There is a animal sematic drive in every one of us which Freud said was being supressed by civilisation. For example, if a very attractive woman walked past a young man, in his unconcious mind he may have desires to behave inappropraitely- i.e. rape her! But his concious mind knows that this is unacceptable in society so his Ego would not allow it. Between the two extremes comes a compromise called the super-ego. A person's super-ego will think rationally about a situation before acting. I understand this is alot to take on so I found a video which explains these ideas in a very simple way which you can view here.

Steinbeck, Grapes Of Wrath

2010-01-09T13:20:00.002Z

Grapes Of Wrath was published in 1939 by John Steinbeck following his experience living with migrants during the great depression. Written as a piece of Journalism, it was soon greatly criticised for the "unreal" picture Steinbeck was apparently painting. The book was banned and burned as people saw it as a book of lies, it was thought to be communist proganda. It is still quite a controversial book and even today there are arguments as to whether the book is indeed acceptable as a form of Journalism.

Although the characters and the events are ficticious, the book was written for effect to give a voice to the voiceless. The characters were architypes and the events were written to reflect reality. Steinbeck had been touched by the plight of the migrants and had therefore wanted to do something about it in the form of a novel. Grapes Of Wrath has been desbribed as a type of campaign Journalism due to it's nature. The soul purpose of the novel was to open the eyes of the ignorant as to the conditions the poor had to endure during these hard times. However, research done showed that conditions were not quite as bad as Steinbeck illustrated but the sheer fact that this research was carried out shows the impact the book made on society.

Orwell's Message

2009-12-25T13:30:00.000Z

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...

2009-12-22T21:50:00.000Z

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

2009-12-16T10:21:00.000Z

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!

2009-12-16T09:41:00.000Z

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

2009-12-09T23:30:00.001Z

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

2009-11-20T16:34:00.000Z

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...

2009-11-17T21:33:00.001Z

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...

2009-11-09T18:12:00.000Z

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

2009-10-22T17:51:00.000+01:00

...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

2009-10-21T20:36:00.000+01:00

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...

2009-10-05T18:26:00.000+01:00

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!

2009-09-28T23:03:00.000+01:00

...Brown still thinks Labour has a chance!

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

2009-09-25T23:21:00.000+01:00

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!!

2009-09-17T22:39:00.000+01:00

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

2009-09-09T01:05:00.000+01:00

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...

2009-08-24T14:52:00.000+01:00

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!!

2009-08-20T20:53:00.000+01:00

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)

2009-08-08T01:06:00.000+01:00

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...

2009-08-02T22:16:00.000+01:00

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!

2009-08-01T19:52:00.001+01:00

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...

2009-07-05T23:13:00.000+01:00

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...

2009-06-27T19:52:00.000+01:00

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

A Legend Never Dies

2009-06-27T15:26:00.000+01:00

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

2009-04-03T00:27:00.000+01:00

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!

2009-03-19T19:15:00.000Z

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...

2009-03-09T14:03:00.000Z

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

2009-02-23T20:16:00.000Z

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

2009-02-23T19:21:00.000Z

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...

2009-02-11T14:41:00.000Z

The inspiration for this blog was brought to you today by; NME The Essential Bands

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!

2009-01-21T01:49:00.001Z

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?

2009-01-18T23:13:00.000Z

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.