I am the zeitgeist
October 6th, 2006 at 14:16
Its been a funny couple of days for this blog- I’ve been linked to from two interesting places.
Remember a couple of a months ago when Junior Defence Minister Tom Watson resigned? He dominated the news for a couple of days, because he was leading calls for Tony Blair to resign. If you’ve been wondering what he’s been doing since resigning I can tell you this: he’s been sitting on his computer reading blogs.
In his latest blog entry (politicians love blogging now), he’s linked to that MP Coke survey I did ages ago, as well as my thoughts on the Brown Vs Blair conflict. I’m particularly pleased that he “couldn’t withold a chuckle”- as this presumably means that I’m in with the ruling elite. Does a former minister reading my blog mean that I might have some sort of influence of government policy, however subconcious? Will the government be announcing a crackdown on nutters, and a tax-exempt scheme for cherrypickers? Time will tell.
The other website where I’ve recieved a link from was unexpected. It appears to be the website of French TV channel France 5. They appear to have an article looking at bloggers reactions to the ‘Webcameron’ thing. Bizarrely, I’ve had most of a paragraph dedicated to my post a few days ago about Webcameron.
“But if journalists and blogueurs recognize readily qualities with the site, this video, in which David Cameron speaks about a ‘great political cleaning’ while disencumbering the table, caused a series of sarcastic comments.” says the article (in French- this is a shonky translation), before translating my remarks about Cameron not owning a dishwasher into French. It also appears that the french word for “bloggers” is just “bloggers” said in a French accent.
I’ve no idea why the French are interested in British party politics, nor why I’m best placed to comment on it. However, I’m still going to use my new powers of journalistic influence for both good and evil.
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Categories: Blog, Politics |
International Relations Society
October 5th, 2006 at 23:18
I joined the International Relations society at Uni today- and it is looking pretty good. On 25th October I’ll hopefully be taking a trip down to London to watch Prime Ministers Questions live. Unfortunately, this does mean I’ll have to forget about getting to a (hed)PE gig back in Leicester that day (I’ve had tickets booked for four months), but I’m assuming seeing PMQs is more ‘twice in a lifetime’ than a relatively obscure metal band.
In today’s meeting, after an introduction, we had a debate about the ban of smoking in public places. As luck would have it, I ended up on the team that were against the ban. As no one in the room smoked (we’re clearly rubbish students) and were in favour of the ban, you’d think that the outcome would be obvious. But I had an ace up my sleeve. Or to put it more literally: a good argument in my mouth.
“Anecdotal evidence has scientifically proven that smoking makes you want to drink less, thus by supporting a ban on smoking in public places, you’re supporting via proxy anti-social behaviour such as stealing cars and traffic cone theft“, I spuriously claimed.
The other team collapsed into laughter as soon as I’d said “Anecdocatal evidence has scientifically proven”, which I think undermined their credibility, as well as it demonstrated that I was obviously talking bollocks. The “fact” itself, is based on what I’ve been told my mate who smokes. After doing some research on the internet, I’ve discovered this article, which having only read the heading, appears to “prove” my point.
The best bit was that because the debate was taking place in “RL”, as opposed to on MSN Messenger or an internet forum, they couldn’t check what I was saying for authenticity- and being offline meant that an analogy involving the Nazis wasn’t used.
Unfortunately, the debate ended before I could talk about the economic impact on small country pubs, “ruining English traditions”, and use the phrase “Political correctness gone mad!“, but I still think we won in the end.
I also won a book in the raffle. It was a good day.
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Categories: Politics, University |
Back at Uni
October 4th, 2006 at 02:05
So, I’m back at Uni at long last. I knew I was back into the old routine when I got on board my late train yesterday morning to the unmistakable smell of urine. The dischevelled old man who takes his small dog with him on the train everyday is still travelling on the railways.
I’m not entirely sure what he does, or what his purpose is, as I’ve only ever seen him on the train. He can’t be travelling to work, as he looks like a tramp, carries a dog in his arms and stinks of piss. Its almost unbearable- even if you’re at the other end of the carriage. He’d be an excellent candidate for Nutter of the Week, if only he’d speak to me.
Yet the strange thing is, he must be earning money somehow, because he can afford to ride the train day in, day out.
Anyway, so far I’ve had a grand total of three lectures- all of my seminars have been cancelled this week, and the lecture that was scheduled to last two hours lasted: 30 minutes. Having to get up early has made work a pain… I can see myself quitting in the near future.
This year I’ll be studying the EU, American domestic & foreign policy, the history of capitalism (or ‘making of the global world’, as they call it), and international relations theory. Its essentially going to be another year of armchair politicans talking as if they have some sort of influence and feeling self important. Excellent.
I’ll be able to tell you more about these once I have actually attended any seminars on the subjects.
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Categories: Nutter of the week, Transport and Travel, University |
End of Summer
October 2nd, 2006 at 00:40
Tomorrow morning, I will be attending University for the first time since May. It’ll mark the end of a summer, that against all odds, turned out to be pretty excellent. Much like I did last year, here is a list of the exciting adventures I’ve had:
Its been a good few months- I’ve seen an incredible 36 bands live, if you include support acts. Have you had a favourite James O’Malley moment of the last few months? Why not post it in the comments below so we can relive it? I bet its the one where I went horse riding.
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Categories: Memories |
Webcameron
October 1st, 2006 at 15:08
If there’s one thing worse than those videos on Youtube of people miming along on their webcam to James Blunt, its politicians trying to use new mediums of distribution to appear normal.
I’ve just stumbled upon Webcameron – excellent pun, but is it going to make me vote Conservative? No.
In the first video, we see the leader of the opposition doing the washing up. He’s just a normal guy, with his kids screaming in the background. Its just like every other young family- only in this case the dad is a smug former PR man who leads a political party hellbent on raping the poor, albeit in a slightly more cuddly way than they used to.
The first thing that struck me about this was why is the Leader of the Opposition, a man who earns £127,000 a year, doing the washing up by hand? Surely he owns a dishwasher? Even the proletariat can afford a dishwasher these days! Surely this little piece to camera wasn’t all stage managed?
The other thing that annoyed me about the video was that there was no pay-off. Having watched a lot of videos on the internet, I was expecting it to all build up to something. I thought towards the end he was going to shout “SHUT THE FUCK UP, KIDS!” Disappointing.
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Categories: Politics |
