Driving: The Full Story
March 31st, 2006 at 23:24

As you probably know by now, I’ve passed my driving test. Hooray! This brings to an end a story arc that has been dragging on for a staggering 21 months. On my test, I got five minors- a couple for speeding, one of hitting the kerb whilst parallel parking (a maneuver I don’t think I’ll ever do again), and another for hitting a child, or something (gears).

I’d like to thank my instructor Sue, my mother, and my original instructor, Bob. And my excellent limbs.
The test itself was largely unremarkable- so when I describe it, I’m going to add in one made up event to make it more exciting.

I apparently had the nice, friendly examiner. Unfortunately, the rain was very “on and off”- this meant that I was unsure whether or not to use the wipers. In the end, I just remarked on the strange weather and sped off, telling the examiner that I was hoping to “outrun the rain”.

My first maneuver was to parallel park. I did it terribly. I swung the back of the car in and didn’t even attempt to straighten the car up- on a second attempt, I did the same again, and essentially gave up on my test.

After a perfect three-point-turn, I did a wheely down a narrow alleyway and knocked over some boxes that happend to be stacked up in it. The examiner said this was so cool he erased some of the other minors I’d got for hitting pedestrians (deliberately).

I was quite worried when I got to a bus lane- unlike the rest of the traffic I drove right into them, because they only operate during certain hours. I’m sure this was more exciting at the time than reading it on my blog- especially as you know the outcome (I passed).
Back to the test centre and I’d passed. To celebrate this moment, I was given a souvenir magazine: Drive On (2006 Edition), which I read on the bus home (!). It’s just like an in-flight magazine, only slightly more focused. It had the same vaguely written articles aimed at having a broad appeal- although it was talking about drink-driving rather than wines of the Mediterranean.

One article in it I did like was the driving abroad one- it was essentially a collection of tips about what you need to do, like carry warning triangles and “Did you know in Belgium it is an offence to race ostriches on a public highway?” (true). My favourite quirky fact was this one: “In Germany drink-driving is less of a problem since Hitler introduced the death penalty for it“! Just thrown in, as if Hitler was a moderate German leader and these laws still existed today. (No, I didn’t think I could go one blog entry without mentioning Hitler either).
Upon getting home, I literally ran (walked) to my mum’s office, where I requisitioned her car keys and drove home on my own for the first time… and it felt normal. Three trips into town and back later and I’d got a tape-adapter to get my iPod going through the car speakers. Needless to say, I put some RATM on loudly, wound down the windows, rested my right elbow on the window frame, and stalled at some traffic lights.

36 hours on, and I’ve done lots and lots of driving. I’ve managed to get lost in the town I’ve lived in all of my life (and had to three-point-turn to get going again), I’ve been to Leicester Odeon, to see if I can navigate the complex system of ring roads, and I’ve been to Kettering Odeon to see if I can go on the A14 without being killed. You can guess how that turns out (I could be writing this from beyond the grave).

On the way back from Leicester, there was a Land Rover going along a dual carriage way at 20mph- I had to go into the right hand lane to overtake him and everything. Looking back at the driver to swear at him, I noticed that it was an old man, and this got me thinking. At what age do people think “Hmm… I’m old now so I’ll drive dangerously slowly”?

That’s right, less than 48 hours in and I’m criticising other motorist’s driving. Hooray!

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Trying to get free money
March 31st, 2006 at 15:24

I feel like Hitler. Hitler on the day he tried to unjustly claim money from the arts school he couldn’t get into because he was rubbish at art and not facing hardship. I feel like I’ve just unsuccessfully tried to mug some poor people. I’d essentially punched them in the face but not been able to steal their wallets and purses.
I got an e-mail to my University account:

If you are: A full time, undergraduate, continuing, home student.

And
Have NOT already received £3500 from the Access to Learning Fund
And
Are not eligible to receive means tested benefits
And
Are not on a DIP HE Nursing course

Then you may be eligible for some help with your Summer Vacation costs.

Bloody hell, that’s me! I thought I had some free money coming my way, so this morning I went to find out more about it.

“Hello, can I have some free money please?”, I said. “It’s only for people facing hardship”, the woman at the desk said to me. She then went on to explain about the sort of people who’d be eligible, making me feel more and more guilty. I’d have left the building empty handed had I not stole a box of stationary on my way out.

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Fuck the trees!
March 30th, 2006 at 14:57

I know this might sound like an obvious policy U-turn, but I really do hate the environment, and as far as I’m aware, I always have done. Every day The Independent has a “Global Warming: We’re all doomed!” story on its front page… you know what I think? Political correctness gone mad! The only important story at the moment is the inquest into Diana’s death, as she was killed in a car.
I think the real global threat here is not having access to enough oil. I fully support Mr Bush’s illegal war, as I’ve now got an opinion on the price of oil. I also think that the excessive tax on petrol is ridiculous! If I want to be able to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then I will do- taxing my right to do so is essentially a breach of my human rights.

And those whiny liberals who moan about using cars too much- fuck ‘em. I’m going to make a point of driving everywhere when I leave my house. I’m going to park nearer the front door so I don’t have to touch the ground between car and house. That David Cameron’s just as bad- claiming to care about the environment to win the work-shy non-driving slackers vote. I’m voting UKIP.
I passed my driving test.

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Another tedious “Who on earth are you?” post
March 29th, 2006 at 00:04

I’m quite obsessed with server logs. I religiously check my hit counter and logs as I crave recognition that much. I’ve discovered by tracing the IP address mainframe matrix, and reversing the polarity of the neutrino field interface, that someone from a place called Keele Science Park has been reading my blog semi-regularly.

I first assumed this to be my mate Bouff (aka “ginger dan”, as he’s known these days, apparently), who’s up in Keele doing a fancy accredited degree instead of Mickey Mouse studies at the Disney Institute like me. After questioning him, and using clever psychological interrogation methods, like repeating my initial question in capital letters, it turns out that it’s not actually him.

Now, if I didn’t have time on my hands, this probably wouldn’t bother me. If.

According to the Apache logs, this person is a semi-regular visitor- having visited multiple times so far this month… and I want to know who you are.

If you’re in the Keele area and reading, please post a comment explaining who you are. I know it’ll be something underwhelming and your name will mean nothing to me, but it’ll be exciting for me. Who knows… you might even know Bouff?

18:14 Update: This person is certainly annoying. They’ve read this entry and rated it (a “3″ like they rate everything else), but havn’t posted a comment explaining their actions. I hate you, readers.

31/03 Update: I can’t quite believe this. It turns out the mystery person is in fact my own mother. No, really. I’m guessing she reads at work, and her internet provider is based in Keele. The reason everything is rated a “3″ is presumably because she doesn’t know how to work the rating script. I am this: Shocked.

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Bus Tales
March 28th, 2006 at 21:24

Arriva buses have had posters up recently asking members of the public for their “bus tales”- essentially funny stories that have something to do with Arriva buses, that will be published in September.

Obviously, I’ve done the most grown-up and mature thing possible, and sent them a sarcastic contribution.

I’d just finished a hard day at University, and I was waiting at the bus stop with my fellow commuters. We didn’t speak to each other, of course… or at least until something unusual happend. It was 17:53 and a large object appeared on the horizon, moving at quite a speed towards us. As the object drew closer to us we took a step back further into the pavement, and when we saw what it was, some people literally rubbed their eyes in disbelief.

It was the bus… and it was on time! Slightly taken aback by this, we slowly stepped on to the bus- holding on the hand rail, just to prove to ourselves that the bus was actually here, and we wern’t simply hovering over an empty road.

When the bus driver finally grunted at me for my money, I was returned to reality. I stood uncomfortably due to lack of seating and completed my journey in silence, only speaking to thank the bus driver at the end.

And no, I don’t think anyone will have done this before me, either!

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Names and shame
March 27th, 2006 at 21:32

I had a horrible realisation today. I don’t know some of my friends names.

There’s someone on my course who commutes into University on the train like I do- I usually see him once or twice a week and talk to him on the journey to and from Uni. I’ve known him for probably around six months now. The trouble is I don’t know what his name is. I’ve got a good idea of what it is, but I’m not certain enough to be able to say “Hello $name!” or shout him at a distance.

The horrible thing is, I think he knows my name- or at least my first name, and that’s already one-upped me.

At the risk of sounding borderline racist (for once, that’s not my intention), this may well be because he’s got an asian name- as the town I’ve lived and been educated in is essentially Daily Mail Land, and thus my internal database of potential names is about as diverse as an album of bland James Blunt songs. For the sake of context, in GCSE RE (Religious Education), to teach us about asian culture, we were shown East is East. Maybe I’m just a horrible racist?

This said, I thought my friend Mickey’s name was Mark for a good 48 hours, and Michael for a couple more after that. I havn’t even factored in that I’m friends with people called Jeroen, Typhlosion, UKDMBFan and Iceduck. I’m sure those names aren’t on their respective birth certificates.
Thinking about RE though, we were shown the Kiefer Sutherland film Flatliners, about bringing people back from the dead who can remember what it’s like being dead, to demonstrate the afterlife. At Christmas, arguably the most important time for Religious Education we were shown Aardman’s Robbie the Reindeer animation.

Anyway, this name thing is annoying- after discussing this with others, it turns out that I am also the only person who worries about whether or not I should admit knowing someone’s name or not. Back at school, if I was tasked with handing out everyone’s exercise books, I’d sometimes play ignorant and pretend not to know some of the names- mainly because there’s no reasonable explaination of why I know a person’s name. I think this is because I assumed the chavs wouldn’t know the name of the quiet kid who did his work (ie: me), and as such, I shouldn’t dignify them by knowing their name.

Am I the only person who thinks like this?

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Pub Quiz
March 27th, 2006 at 15:11

I can’t believe I still havn’t blogged this. A week ago now, JD and myself ended up participating in the pub quiz at The Cherry Tree. Being recently out of school and considering ourselves to be somewhat intellectual people, we thought it’d be a walk over, playing against the middle aged drunkards for the top prize of £120.

This excellent plan- the plan being to win- fell apart slightly when we discovered that there was a identify the shit eighties pop-music round, and soap operas round. We’d already handed over our entrance fee by this point.

We tried our best though- getting obscure questions about Roy Castle correct. It’s just a shame that we only got 26/61- the lowest out of every team there, by around thirty points.

I think our lack of success was because of the following reasons:

• We didn’t know who played Boris or someone in Hollyoaks.
• There wern’t any questions about the BBC Network distribution chain or questioned phrased like “give us the gist of what happend in this period in history- you don’t have to name any people or dates”.
• We hadn’t actually lived through most of the events that the general knowledge questions were about.

One of the questions was “Who was Prime Minister when JFK was shot?”- if you’d been alive at the time you’d just know. Admittedly, doing a politics degree probably means that I should have had some clue- but this is ancient history to me. It’s just as relevant as the Romans, as it all happend at a point in time when I didn’t exist.

I suppose that’s reassuring in a way- I still have my youth, and years and years in which to revise and learn tedious general knowledge and soap trivia. The only way is up! Hopefully.

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Glowsticks
March 25th, 2006 at 22:42

Yesterday evening, I was selling glowsticks at a gig organised by my good friend Soph- it was all in aid of of leukemia research, so my morality-free profiteering nature took a break for the evening.

Business-wise it made excellent sense. Glowsticks are shit, and you wouldn’t buy them if you were out shopping one day. You wouldn’t think to yourself “Hmm… I’ll look really fashionable and normal if my wrists are partially illuminated”- however, go to a loud, shouty music gig and there’s nothing better than buying overpriced tubes that’ll last about three hours. It’s like selling consumer electronics to eskimos just because they want a night in, rather than have to go and saw a hole in the ice and fish with a stick and piece of string into it.

Unlike my other jaunts as a tillmonkey, I could be as abusive as I want to customers. To this end, I had some excellent sales pitches:

• “Glowsticks! 50p each! 2 for £1!”
• “You know what’s cooler than smoking? Glowsticks!”
• “Stop enjoying yourself and buy glowsticks!”
• “Why not buy a red glow stick? It’ll go with your face!”
• “Only one glowstick? You’re not symmetrical. Buy another!”
• “All the cool kids in there have glowsticks”
• “The band on your t-shirt invented glowsticks!”

And best of all, I saw a so-called emo kid, and managed to convince him that the new trendy emo thing was glowsticks. I explained that The Used and HIM’s new albums featured songs about glowsticks. And he bought them.

Needless to say, after a couple of hours people were buying them just to shut me up. I don’t think I was quite annoying enough, as of the 500 I bought, I only managed to sell about 150. If anyone wants 350 glowsticks for an illegal barn rave, drop me an e-mail.

I took about £60 in the end- shame it was for charity really.

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Invigilator Training
March 24th, 2006 at 18:25

On Wednesday I returned to my old school to spend two hours training to be an exams invigilator. I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I’d be welcomed there, having previous annoyed them with a data protection request, and having set off all of the fire alarms on my last day (slight exaggeration).
The training took place in what back in my day, was the caretaker’s house, and had now been converted into classrooms. As I took a seat and looked around me I noticed that that of the twenty people there, I was the youngest… by a quarter of a century.

It turns out that an invigilators job isn’t all fun and games- amidst the glamourous celebrity lifestyle and all night Coke binges, there are kids taking exams, and we’re on the frontline in oppressing their freedom of expression for two hours.

At one point, the man running the training was running through the various rules about what students could bring in and specifically mentioned students not being allowed to bring in Coke, like a student did last year. Guess who that student was?
Here are some of the tedious duties I will have to perform:

• Completing a lap of the hall every 15 minutes
• Noting down any suspicious behaviour
• Confiscating mobile phones
• Selling mobile phones on eBay
• Telling kids to shut their faces and/or traps and/or pie holes.
• Sitting
• Not doing anything mentally stimulating for the whole two hours rather than just the last half hour, like last year

I can’t wait!

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Films
March 22nd, 2006 at 22:40

I’ve been watching loads of films lately- and I know that my opinions are worth at least twice that of Jonathan Ross, his brother Paul Ross, and Barry Norman combined, so here’s my thoughts on them.

Thunderbirds

As you can see, I’m “down” with all of the latest films. My god, it was terrible. It was like the marketing men had written the script- and not the (vaguely) funny Orange mobile phone marketing men. I’d wager it was probably Hitler’s marketing men. The same German advertising agency that said to Hitler: “Maybe you should rebrand your genocide department as ‘the SS’ as you’re going for a different slice of the market. If the whole holocaust thing goes ‘tits up’ it won’t damage the core Nazi brand as a whole, as people won’t associate the two”. Perhaps they should have suggested to Universal Pictures that they call it “Shit”, so not to damage the core brand?

“Kids can’t identify with the young adult Thunderbird pilots… lets change them to kids!”

“Hmm… we need a romantic subplot or five to keep the women interested”

“Let’s have a rocky relationship between father and son where they can patch up their differences and learn a moral lesson at the end”

Terrible. Destroyed my childhood to the point where I now have a flat cap grafted to my head, constantly moan about the youth of today with a pipe in my hand, and have no memories of the first eighteen years of my life.

V for Vendetta

I went to see this with my dad. I think that increased my street cred. I enjoyed it- although I’m not sure whether or not it was good or bad. Long story short: the British government are fascists, boo! This mysterious masked man can stop them. Hooray!

There was some politics in it- blatant and obvious politics that was some of the most blatant references to real life draconian terror laws I’ve ever seen.

I might just be slightly more elitist now I’m doing a politics degree and have watched films that aren’t in English, but are in foreign, but I thought the politics in it was a bit simplistic.

I don’t know if it was intentional, but the ranting-man on BTN was just like watching Bill O’Reilly. In fact, it was obvious that the Wachowski’s had never even bothered to watch British TV before designing the BTN- the astons were very Americanised and Stephen Fry’s chatshow was essentially Leno.

The main problem was that there were a number of plot holes and errors. Now, if you’ll let me ruin the plot for you:

• “How did you not get caught?”, says V. “A fake ID gets you further than a mask”, replies Evey. This in a society that uses finger prints for everything, including opening of doors and signing for packages. This with Evey being the most wanted woman in the country.
• How did V get around and into important places? Yes, he had his knives and mysterious stuff, but a little more explanation would have been nice.
• How did he spend hundreds of hours setting up the bombs on the abandoned underground network without being detected? Surely the Underground closing would have fucked up the entire country as it’s such vital infrastructure anyway?
• The tube tunnels under Parliament, if there any tunnels would been deep underground- you can’t cut and cover Parliament. Any bomb going off there would have been something like a nuclear blast to destroy Parliament.
• Surely a fascist government coming to power in Britain would have some sort of international intervention? Yes, there were references to the “Former United States”, but there’s other countries that could have intervened.
• When V took over the BTN, the TV pictures showed the “snow” effect during the transition in signal. As it’s set in the future and the entire television infrastructure will be in digital, why the snow effect? It simply wouldn’t happen for tedious technical reasons. More to the point, V’s broadcast came from a mini-CD played using the news programme’s built in playout system - this wouldn’t cause flickering or technical problems of any sort as he wasn’t fiddling with the transmitter- merely using the playout system, so it should have been a straight cut.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this. I recommend it. And you know my recommendation is a good thing.

Black Hawk Down

Boom! Crash! Whoosh! Smash! Shoot! I was expecting a few action scenes, but the whole film seems to be one action scene- and there was very, very little plot. It’s just constant fighting. It’s all about US intervention in Somalia in 1993- which surprisingly, was UN sanctioned for once.

Despite my pacafist tendancies, I found myself thinking “Wow! If war is this exciting and fun, where can I sign up?”- it turns out this is because the director gave the Pentagon a veto over every aspect of the film’s production, so he could use the right sort of helicopter.

My verdict? “Alright”.

Goodbye Lenin

I watched this in my last History lecture of the academic year. That’s right- the module is already over. As it was the last one, we all bought in toys and watched films. A man tries to fool his mother into thinking that Communism hasn’t collapsed after she comes out of a coma, as the shock would kill her. It’s entirely in German, and called a “comedy”. I wouldn’t go that far- I think I’ve got more laughs out of The State Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (Earl Spencer’s set was hilarious).

This said, it was an enjoyable film. I wouldn’t have bothered with it had it not had the political context or been in forren, as it’d then essentially be a girly heartwarming film like Love Actually.

It’s worth seeing. Probably.

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