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Something is rotten in the state of….public transport?

I was laid in bed last night thinking of something to blog about today. I haven’t seen any movies in the cinema for at least three weeks and so I couldn’t try and attempt another movie ‘review’, I don’t have anything in particular to talk about and I’m not too sure what people enjoy reading these days and what will hold people’s attention. So I came to this conclusion; I’ll write a random post which has no structure, no point, no meaning and should people want to read it perhaps you can forgive my lack of interesting topics.

People annoy me. I don’t mean ‘people’ in general obviously because there are some brilliant ones out there, what I mean is that sometimes I just want to head-butt people in the face and severely alter their bone structure. Yesterday whilst I was doing a ridiculous amount of travel back-and-forth from my house and Jen’s I…..encountered (yeah, that’s the word I’ll use) one of the most annoying types of people on this small island which I call my country, this person was a ‘pusher’. Trains get busy, I think we all know this, but regardless of how busy a train is people will generally respect the etiquette of public transport. Should you not use public transport very often, it works like this; leave a gap between the doors and the platform/road so that people can get off easily, if theres someone in a wheelchair or pushing a pram they obviously get priority (the same goes for elderly people), you wait until everyone has got off the bus/train before you start to board yourself and finally you give your seat up for certain groups of people (again the elderly, pregnant etc). So, let me explain this little ‘encounter’ of mine yesterday evening. The platform was busy, it was obvious there weren’t going to be enough seats for everyone on the train but as usual most people were queueing politely in the order they got to the platform, I was about fourth in the queue at the bottom of the platform where we assumed the train would pull-in. The train did pull in, ten minutes late but that’s not my problem at present, and before anyone got off the train, before anyone in the queue had time to get on a guy ran out of the waiting room and ran straight past the queue and hopped on the train in the midst of an old lady trying to step down onto the platform from the carriage. He then pushed his way through the carriage of people getting off to find a seat.

I’m not the only one that thinks people like this are just wankers am I? I understand the need for a seat, I hate it when I have to stand but I’m not going to be rude to get one and neither are most other people. But, like what I assume is 90% of the UK population I said nothing, I didn’t complain, I didn’t pull him up for it and neither did anyone else. We all just scoffed in disgust and carried on with life and then I came and blogged about it instead 😐 Grrrr.

“Aye, there’s the rub.” About three or four months ago we booked tickets to go and see Hamlet at The Crucible in Sheffield, admittedly being influenced by the lead role being played by The Master (aka John Simm). I’m not exactly well-read when it comes to Shakespeare, the only two plays I’ve ever really enjoyed reading are Hamlet and Twelfth Night and now I’ve managed to see productions of both. My local town’s theatre group put on a production of Twelfth Night at the beginning of the year which me and my Sister bought tickets for. We laughed our heads off, the actors were amazing and we had a brilliant time. I figured that if I could enjoy Shakespeare in the theatre then perhaps I should seek out some other productions in the future. Hamlet was, to say the least, a little bit more intense than the Rotherham Civic production of Twelfth Night. With a running time of almost four hours (including only a 15 minute interval to stretch your legs) it was brilliantly enjoyable, amazing to watch and I’m left wanting to see more Shakespeare performed live. The reviews weren’t exactly shining and having been to see it for myself I can understand some of the points the reviewers seemed to be making, John Simm played a very odd Hamlet, he seemed to take the whole ‘Hamlet is slightly mental’ thing to a whole other level and as such it was left feeling a little bit comical. There are subtle jokes in Hamlet, as I’m sure anyone who has read it will agree, but John Simm seemed to make a tragedy into a comedy at some moments and it was a bit unsettling to see happen. Still, saying this, he was absolutely amazing to watch and whilst one cannot help compare his version of the Danish prince to that of David Tennant, they are as separate as cat and dog although sometimes not in a purely positive manner.

Throughout the play both me and Jen kept wondering to each other if the guy playing Hamlet’s Uncle was the guy from Midsummer Murders because it both looked and sounded like him but from a distance, we couldn’t be sure. It turned out it was indeed John Nettles who I can now say is a brilliant actor and don’t take Midsummer as the epitome of his acting talent. Hamlet is still running at The Crucible until the 23rd of October so if there are any tickets left and you have some spare cash and time, I highly recommend you go and see it. Here’s the info (new window).

Welcome Back

I haven’t blogged any substantial content for a very long time and whilst I was sat reading some favourite blogs of mine this afternoon, I thought to myself that I should probably fix that and write at least something.

I toyed with the idea of creating a new blog and starting afresh using a completely different platform but then decided against that considering the number of posts currently on this blog and I don’t really want to lose those.

This is only a free, WordPress.com blog and whilst I don’t particularly like using their blogging platform, it seems to be the best option out of the bunch of other less-than-efficient services available. So, tomorrow I’m going to write something. I don’t know what yet but I’ll try to make it something relatively interesting to read 😀

What I’m Watching

I love TV. I watch way too much of it. I think I’m one of the few people in Britain that doesn’t really mind paying for his TV license. 2009 has brought some awesome shows to the small screen and here is a quick update as to what I’m watching at the minute.

Probably my favourite is 24. Currently in Season 7 – we see CTU disbanded, Tony alive and well and Chloe as gorgeous as ever 😀 I don’t think 24 can ever get old – I was skeptical about whether it would work without a central theme like CTU but it has, brilliantly.

Skins is back!!! I watched seasons 1&2 but never really got into them fully. Season 3 started last month and I adore the new characters (my favourite being Naomi :D). Sure it’s unrealistic and over-the-top,  but it’s excellently written, acted and it makes great TV.

All Rights Reserved - Original Owner/Creator (I do not own this image)

BBC3 aren’t known for top-quality programming, but I reckon they’ve done well with Being Human. With a tagline like, “A Vampire, a Werewolf and a Ghost Share a Flat in Bristol”, BBC3 couldn’t really get it wrong 😀 Again, the series is excellently acted – especially by Russell Tovey who I think we’ll be seeing more of in the future. 

Whitechapel started last week. Airing on ITV1, I wasn’t expecting much but I was pleasantly suprised (as much as one an be when describing a murder series). A crime-drama about a modern-day Jack The Ripper, the series is very dark and gruesome. I’ll be watching to the end – ‘to see what happens’.

Hustle came back this year for a fifth season, which saw the return of Mickey Bricks and some new characters following the departure of Danny & Stacie. The new guys blended effortlessly and the series shows once again the brilliant mind of Tony Jordan. I believe it’s the last in the series next week – I’ll be sad to see it go.

One of the less-than-impressive shows of the year so far has been Demons. The series finished last weekend, and no matter how much I tried to love it – I couldn’t get my mind off how bad Philip Glenister’s accent was. Shame really, because both Holly Grainger (Ruby) and Christian Cooke (Luke) seem to be great actors. I’m not sure what let the series down, perhaps the bad story-lines or perhaps it was just a bad idea for a series. 

There is some top-quality programming on at the minute, with some more to come in the near future (Torchwood S3 anyone?).

Skins

You gotta love it…

Say what? No…seriously, what did you say?

I’ve never been a fan of public speaking/presentations, even if I’m only presenting to a small group of people. I generally don’t get nervous in the usual sense, it’s just that I have no concept of spontaneity. You see, a presentation is supposed to use a slideshow (be it computer based or OHP) as a basis for talking points only. If you’ve ever sat through a presentation where the speaker just reads off the slides then you’ll know why this is. Here is where I have a problem, I just don’t have the ability to talk about something without either learning a ‘script’ off by heart or reading from other notes. So, to today’s story.

This morning I was part of an assessed ‘workshop’ (nothing good has ever come of that word), in which I had to find a group (of people I don’t know, which always makes working as a team harder) of people to work with, research a topic and draw up a presentation all within the space of two hours. To make it worse we had to use OHP transparencies instead of Powerpoint. Because we only had two hours, I only managed to write a page or two of notes for the presentation – needless to say I froze in the middle of it. I was trying to read from my notes and from the ‘slides’ at the same time and just totally confused myself. If the lecturer assessing us had an knowledge of what I was actually trying to say, I’d be very surprised. Like I said, it was an assessed piece of work, but luckily only counting 20% towards the final module mark, so hopefully I’ll do better in the exam come January.

Of Doodles, HHGTTG and the Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster

A couple of months ago, I bought two new Moleskine notebooks. They’re quite expensive compared to most notebooks, and I always feel a bit stupid buying them, but they just feel better to write in. I can’t explain it. I generally take one with me wherever I go, I’m no artist or poet or anything fancy like that, just for the mundane stuff like writing down dates, places etc. Whilst sat in a Research Methods lecture yesterday, I found a new use for my Moleskine, filling it with my random doodles. 

 

On an entirely different note, I’ve always been a fan of the movie – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy (the one with Zooey Deschanel and Martin Freeman). Recently, I downloaded the original radio series’ of the same name, from the 1970s I think, and been listening to an episode each night before I go to bed. I love them, they’re so ridiculous and quirky and weird. This is just a small example of genius from the mind of Douglas Adams;

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It’s a nice day, or You’re very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behavior. If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months’ consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don’t keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn’t know about.

Andrew

What’s a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster?

The best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster The effect of drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick

“Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator is the mother of a chicken.”

 

Chicken update!!! We have a couple of chickens in the garden that we keep as pets, just chuck them some food every day and out pops an egg – fantastic isn’t it!?

A few weeks ago, we made a visit to Penistone market and ended up coming home with 10 fertilised eggs. Anywhoo, to cut a long story short, they hatched today! Three this morning and another a couple of hours ago plus another chicken trying to make its way through the shell. 

It’s really fun to watch them stumble around for a couple of hours after hatching, trying to get their feet and then just randomly dropping to sleep whilst walking around. Anywhoo, above is a shot of the first chick hatched, quickly brought in front of the iSight to take a quick snap before being put back to sleep with the rest. Bless him, his first Mac experience!!

Bye for now.

The Big Read

Howdy y’all!

I was reading the blog of one of my twitter contacts the other day (his twitter page, his blog). He has a mission to do 40 things before he turns 40.

I loved the idea, and wanted to do something like this myself. I didn’t want to draw up a list of things to do because knowing me and my laziness I’d never do them, so I thought I’d play to my hobbies/strengths. I love reading. But since I started uni I have been reading less and less. The last book I read was 1984 by George Orwell (great book by the way, highly recommend it), and that was almost a month ago. And so, I’m setting myself a reading challenge.

I remembered watching a series of programs a few years ago on the BBC called The Big Read. Basically, it was a competition to find the most popular books in the UK. So, for my challenge I’ve set myself the task of reading these 100 books, that topped the chart in the BBC’s Big Read.

I have no idea how long its going to take me to do this, but I’m determined to do it. Looking down the list I see some titles that send me to sleep just thinking about them, and others that I would never dream of buying (Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson for example, number 98. How did that even get into the top 100?!?) 

Counting the novels I’ve already read takes me to 86 books. I don’t think I’m going to read them in order, we’ll see. I’ll post again tomorrow when I decide how long it’s going to take me to read them all and in what order. 

Bye for now,

Andrew.

P.S. Does anyone want to join me? We could have our own little online book club!