The Summer in Numbers
September 30th, 2007 at 21:23

Today is the 30th September. The last day of summer, more or less. Tomorrow is the start of my first week back at university (er, not that I have any lectures until Wednesday). I had an incredible summer and managed to do an awful lot, so here is my summer in numbers (aka: some statistics generated between two moderately arbitrary dates: June 1st and September 30th):

Capital cities visited: 2

I took a trip to Paris with my friends JD and Fundar in August. We saw tonnes of sights, art galleries, museums, and, er, dodgy parking techniques.

Trips to London: 8

I also went to London many, many times. With Katy, I saw everything from BBC Television Centre and the Foreign Office, to the Houses of Parliament and National Gallery, to London Zoo, to the Natural History Museum (and Science Museum, but I didn’t blog that), to the Tower of London and the London Eye. I bloody love London.

Prime Ministers seen: 2

I was also down in London for the big Prime Ministerial changeover day. I saw Tony Blair leave Downing Street for the last time, and Gordon Brown leave the Treasury on the way to Buckingham Palace.

Internet friends met: 20 or so

My other website had a big meet-up, and it was one of the most amazing days ever. I met around twenty people I’d only ever known via the internet before and they were all wonderful, excellent people.

Money spent on non-Paris holiday rail travel: £226.35

I knew, er, logging my train tickets would come in useful someday. I’ve used the trains quite a bit this summer. This explains where all of those savings I used to have have gone. This massive amount of money is why I feel comfortable getting all self-righteous about rail travel.

Bands seen live: 35

According to another spreadsheet, I’ve seen 35 bands live since June 1st, at 11 different gigs. It’d be 38 bands if I counted the night of May 31st. I saw quite a wide variety of people: Tom Morello, Me First & the Gimme Gimmies, Citizen Fish, Leftover Crack, Send More Paramedics, Frank Turner, Lethal Bizzle and Gallows, RX Bandits, and Hadouken, to name a few. All of this live music has empowered me to try and tell bands how it should be done.

Musical instruments I’ve failed to master: 1

Earlier this summer I thought it’d be wise to try and learn the trumpet to take on a friend in a stupid bet. Unfortunately, I’ve since lost my enthusiasm for the instrument, after it turned out that its really hard.

Films seen at the cinema: 5

Fantastic 4 2, Ocean’s 13, Die Hard 4, The Simpsons Movie, and Transformers.

Miscellaneous events I’d like to link to but can’t think of context: 2

I met Ming Campbell, and went to Woburn Safari Park.

Number of Cokes consumed: 498

I haven’t written about this for a while, but I’m still tracking my Coke intake. Over the summer I had 498 Cokes - or on average, 4.08 a day. Which is, er, rather a lot. The average (calculated by records beginning in early 2005) has gone from 3.131 to 3.252 - and this summer’s coke intake accounts for about 15.8% of Coke consumed since records began.

271 one of them were Coca Cola, 3 Diet Cokes, 52 Coke Zeroes, 119 Pepsi, and 45 Pepsi Max.

There is still officially “little to no purpose” for this data existing.

Blog Entries: 121

That averages one post every 1.008 days. And every single one is pure gold. Cough.

If you include this one then its averaging exactly one a day.

Change in amount of currency in ISA: Down 29%

Bugger.

Not doing a Master Card parody gag: Priceless

Summer was excellent. Hooray!

Comments(0)

The Economist
September 30th, 2007 at 20:03

Yesterday, I bought a subscription to The Economist, realising what an excellent magazine it is. It’s just like reading a newspaper, but with all of the unimportant domestic and celebrity news removed. Its basically pure power politics: war, peace, men in suits discussing important issues, that sort of thing.

This means that about 80% of the articles in every issue is about the difficulties they’re having forming a coalition government in one fledgling democracy or another. For example, this week they highlight how ineffective coalition government is in Lebanon, the Ukraine and, er, Belgium.

The other 20% of the magazine are nearly always about the rise of China, explaining that pretty soon it is going to kick loads of arse - and there’s usually some graphs about the economy to illustrate this.

I really do like The Economist though, because you feel dead important reading it. If I’m reading it on a train platform, I’ll make a point of holding it in such a way that the masthead is clearly visible to the people around me, so that my fellow commuters will know that I am an important and powerful person, who knows lots about important issues. I’ll even try and muster a sneer of contempt if I see anyone around me reading, say, Closer magazine, whilst I’m clutching my Economist.

You can tell the Economist is aimed at important people by the adverts that appear within it. In this week’s edition, they’ve got Mikhail Gorbachev promoting Louis Vuitton, which is apparently some high-end fashion brand, and brand-building adverts from the sort of financial companies who you don’t really understand what they do, apart from that it involves a lot of money.

There’s also some adverts for high powered business things that will enhance productivity to a degree that regular peons can never hope to fully utilise. There’s Duncan Bannatyne from Dragons Den explaining why he likes his Blackberry in one advert. It appears that the people normal folk write off as bastards for shitting on the dreams of the inventor of the inflatable pen-knife are role models in the high-powered business community.

The job adverts too are a sign that the people who read the magazine are incredibly important. Every job listed is either CEO of some major company, or chief executive of the World Health Organisation or something. Every job advert explains that “international travel will be required”. There’s even a whole section of the magazine dedicated to “tenders” - countries looking for people interested in helping privatise the railways or building a hydro-electric dam or whatever.

I hope reading an important magazine makes me more important. Er, just like how visiting important places has.

Comments(0)

251 is the magic number. Sort of.
September 29th, 2007 at 23:48

Tory blogger Iain Dale is a clever man. In a clever and calculated move to promote his new book about political blogging, he’s compiled a list of the 500 best UK political blogs. His thinking is pretty transparent: “People who like political blogs read political blogs, so if I write a book about political blogs and get political blogs to link to it by massaging the egos of 500 political bloggers, people who buy books about political blogs will come to my political blog and buy my book about political blogs”.

I’m not complaining though, as incredibly, I’ve ended up at number 251. I’m pleased with that - especially since that’s only one place behind Jeffrey Archer, of all people.

What does this mean? It means that my political opinions are the 251st most valid in the entire country. If the government needs the 251st best expert to consult on, say, foreign policy, they know where to turn (ie: towards me).

When they decide what to do about Burma, if the first 250 plans don’t work, they could listen to me instead.

That Iain Dale is a clever man though. I’m really tempted to buy his book now, even if it would indirectly be funding a Tory candidate, just so I can carry it everywhere with me, and try and slip this fact into conversation as much as possible, before producing the book as proof.

“Hello ladies, I’m the 251st best political blogger in the UK” is a pretty good chat-up line, I reckon. Maybe I should try it some time? (And video the results for Youtube, voxpop style, obviously.)

Comments(0)

Expanding Markets
September 29th, 2007 at 23:10

Yesterday afternoon was great fun - I spent a bit of it hawking my university’s Globalisation Society.

In other words: I became everything I hate. I became one of the awful people who bother stop people they don’t know and bother them, trying to get them to join up to some crazy scheme. But it was fun - and we were doing this at the societies fair, so people should have expected it, really (that’s my flimsy moral justification).

I wasn’t sure whether I’d be up to harassing people I didn’t know - its not the sort of thing you do as a matter of course. It turns out though that I become surprisingly confident when holding a clipboard.

The difficulty was in the pitch. The Globalisation Society is a society about a fairly abstract concept. And annoyingly, globalisation is quite a difficult concept to explain, succinctly at least. Going up to people and saying “Excuse me, do you like GLOBALISATION?” was never going to work - even if they understood that globalisation is about the deregulation of global capital and the transfer of power from national governments to multinational non-state actors, the question implies that we’re pro-globalisation. Which we’re not really, we just like talking about it, and hopefully getting celebrities to come and talk about it too.

So knowing this, how did I approach people?

“Excuse me, do you like GLOBALISATION?”.

I like a challenge.

It turned out that it is quite easy to get people to sign up - all you have to do is wave a clipboard in their face and shout buzzwords. Which is exactly what I did: “Politics! International Relations! Tackling issues! Poor people!”, I cried as they wrote their e-mail addresses down.

I got a bit arrogant about the whole thing, getting Sean, Sarah and Miriam, the Gsoc co-conspirators to challenge me to “get” certain people. My downfall was when I tried to get the people on the Ballet Society (ballsoc?) stall to sign up. “Do you like globalisation?” and the explanation that followed was met with the blankest faces this side of Madame Tussauds’ 19th Century German Royal Family wing.

In the end I got about thirty names. In exchange for some of them, I offered to sign up for societies the other people were running. It turns out that I’m capable of feigning interest in joining the Catholic and Islamic societies. Atheists have no moral compass? Who said that?

I just need to put them all into the database now. Like a common data-monkey. Gah.

Comments(0)

Gigs!
September 29th, 2007 at 22:38

I’ve been to two gigs in the past two days. So here is me writing about them and that:

RX Bandits

On Thursday night, I went to Birmingham Barfly with Bouff to see RX Bandits - a band who I’d previously only heard one song by, but the one song is one of my favourite songs. Birmingham verified its place as worst city in the world, with the relatively new and shiny Bull Ring shopping centre merely confirming that you can’t polish a turd. It isn’t that I have an irrational dislike of Birmingham or anyone living in it, it is just the most unpleasant place you could ever have the misfortune to end up in. But these were desperate times - the band weren’t going to come and play somewhere more pleasant (Belsen?), so we had to brave it.

The support were pretty forgettable… by which I mean, I saw them on Thursday, yet can’t for the life of me remember who they were.

RX Bandits were really good - I’d perhaps liken them to Reel Big Fish if they were just really happy rather than funny too. The singer had a big beard and long hair. They did the predictable thing and played some songs whilst a large gathering of people looked on. I particularly enjoyed a slightly slowed down version of Overcome (The Recapitulation). In summary: “Pretty good!”

Hadouken!

I wasn’t expecting to go to this gig until yesterday afternoon when Sarah asked me if I wanted to go. Being hopelessly out of touch, I had no idea who Hadouken were, but I went anyway, because she’s endured a few punk gigs in the past for my benefit. They’re quite unusual - I think they play, er, sort of dance music off of a tape, but with live guitars and keyboards and so on. Its hard to describe.

The audience were subtly different to most of the gigs I go to. Or at least, they would have been subtle if they weren’t all loudly dressed and covered in glowsticks.

One of the support bands had a bloke wearing a silver vest and a red tinted visor over his eyes. His instrument? What looked like an array of buttons that triggered samples, which he tapped periodically between doing the robot.

They were alright though… I… I… don’t know what else to say apart from that as I’m not familiar with their music.

Gigs, everyone!

Comments(0)

Major Burma, Dude
September 28th, 2007 at 19:20

Don’t worry, people of Burma! The west will save you! We’ll put pressure on China!

What? Isn’t that the wrong country?

Apparently, the theory is that if we have a go at China and perhaps threaten them with boycotting the Olympics, they’ll tell their mates in the Burmese junta to stop being dicks, and stop shooting protesters and so on.

There’s several problems with this plan, as far as I can tell.

For a start, correct me if I’m wrong, but China and Burma aren’t exactly close friends - China is Burma, the international pariah’s closest friend, but that isn’t hard when you have only one or two friends. It doesn’t mean they actually like each other very much. As far as I can tell, its a friendship of convenience - Burma, facing sanctions from the west, are getting some of the lovely morality free Chinese investment cash that Sudan also enjoys, whilst China are (were?) getting a relatively stable neighbour and military access to some ports.

So I guess how much influence China has on Burma is questionable.

Secondly, the west’s hopes seem to be relying on getting China to tell Burma not to violently repress a peaceful democratic uprising. It’s a good job China doesn’t have a history of doing the same thing itself, eh?

Its like getting Pete Doherty to front an anti-drugs campaign.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, how much do the west really want to have a go at China? I can’t imagine them doing too much. Sure, not having anyone turn up to your big Olympic thing might be a bit embarrassing, and they’ll probably be some sneering behind your back, but it doesn’t matter because you’re still going to be getting billions of dollars for producing goods cheaply for the people who are trying to influence you. China and the west are too far into each other’s metaphorical pockets to really make anything happen.

Maybe the UN should park some soldiers outside Burma or something?

Comments(3)

Column - 28/09/07
September 28th, 2007 at 01:31

This week I sent to the papers the stupid thing I wrote the other week about looking for a nemesis (go on, click that one). You can read the original (less good) version here if you like.

Comments(0)

Lost? Confused?
September 27th, 2007 at 00:22

A couple of weeks ago I complained about how during last year’s freshers week, the Christians used free pizza to try and lure unsuspecting punters into their evil Christian trap. Walking around the campus the other day, surrounded by hundreds of other students - most of them distributing leaflets promoting nightclubs, a placard being held up on a proper wooden frame stood out.

“Lost? Confused? We’re here to help!”

It was hand made - and if it wasn’t for my sixth “brand synergy” sense (aka: Probable Mild Autism Power) spotting the non-corporate nature of the fonts used, I’d have thought it was an official students union or university thing.

What the sign, as well as the “I’m here to help” badges everyone near it was wearing, failed to point out was that it was actually a front for the evil Christian Union. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve got no problem with them promoting their evil organisation (well, actually I have, but its marginally less justifiable), but I don’t think they should be allowed to deceive people into talking to them.

Besides, if they were asked a banal query like “can you tell me where the library is please?”, “You’ll find out if you open your heart to God” or whatever, isn’t exactly the most concise possible answer.

What they’re doing is like putting up a sign saying “Partners” to reel in depressed single people only to try and flog them stationary instead of finding them a significant other. Or going to see Doctor Marten to ask him why your face is bleeding and falling apart, only to have him “prescribe” you some leather boots with an air-cushioned sole.

I think its particularly bad that its during freshers week that they’re doing this - loads of new people are going to lonely, depressed and vulnerable because they’re all alone in halls of residence and don’t know anyone… what better time is there to be sucked into a cult?

The Christian Union at my university are apparently affiliated with the UCCF, who as far as I can tell, are pretty hardcore evangelical Christians. I’m not going to imply that they’re creationists, as I can’t find anything to back that up, but I assume they are. And I think a baseless assumption is a good enough reason as any to go on.

If you look at the UCCF principles (I’d link to the version on my uni’s CU site, but I don’t want them to check the refers, find me slagging them off and then condemn me to hell), they sound a lot like those awful Biblical literalists, with things like this:

“The Bible, as originally given, is the inspired and infallible Word of God. It is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behaviour.”

“Since the fall, the whole of humankind is sinful and guilty, so that everyone is subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.”

“The Lord Jesus Christ will return in person, to judge everyone, to execute God’s just condemnation on those who have not repented and to receive the redeemed to eternal glory.”

I hope they’re not end-timers, or young earthers, or one of those other more evil branches of Christianity that are so off-the-beaten-track that they require a more detailed description than “Christian”.

If I had the inclination, or the delusion that I’d be able to persuade people to join, I’d set up a university secular society. We could have a sign saying “Lost? Confused? Tough.”

Comments(3)

Parking enforcement in “lucrative business” shocker
September 26th, 2007 at 14:44

A few weeks ago I was most annoyed to discover that I had a parking ticket. So annoyed in fact, that I sent in a freedom of information request to try and get some dirt on parking enforcement - I was hoping that it’d turn out that employing traffic wardens makes a massive loss, and so I’d be able to smugly wave my finger at them disapprovingly for wasting money.

Unfortunately, it turns out that employing traffic Nazis makes you loads of money.

If you like wildly extrapolated data based on unverifiable assumptions, you’ll love this.

On January 2nd this year, the council took control of parking enforcement (instead of the police) - they’ve sub-contracted this to a third party company who employ 33 parking attendants. (Autistic level of detail: They want it to rise to 37 pending approval by the council). From the year to date (September? Early September?), how much have the council made from parking enforcement? £1,251,000.

If we assume that to be until the start of September, call it nine months, that means that on average, each attendant has bought in £37,909 in that time- and this is presumably (key word there) after the expense of actually running the thing, as that’ll be handled by the third party company. This is a lot of money.

Lets look at it another way - the standard fine if you pay within 14 days is £30. If we assume that most people paid that, then approximately 41,700 parking fines were issued to make the one and a quarter million pound profit for the council. In the 242 days between the council taking control of parking and September, That works out at just over 172 parking violations a day. Which, er, is probably about reasonable for a big city.

So what’s the lesson in all this? Remember to check if you need to pay and display before leaving your car? You can’t be like Mark Thomas exposing governmental lies and hypocrisy if they’re actually running a reasonable operation? No, of course not. The lesson here is that if you want to make money, start your own council and start fining people for parking.

Comments(1)

Gallows / Lethal Bizzle (!) / Poison The Well / Blackhole
September 22nd, 2007 at 20:40

I went to another gig last night, that had a bit of an unusual line-up. Hardcore bands Gallows, Poison The Well and Blackhole, were touring with Lethal Bizzle.

The first band on were an unknown band from north London: Blackhole. It later turns out that they’re related to Gallows, which explains how they’ve managed to get on the tour. They were pretty good, although in between songs when the singer spoke to the audience it was hideous. He broke the first four rules of being the support band. Repeatedly telling the audience to move closer to the stage, and not shutting up when they most definitely didn’t. “C’mon! No one ever goes mad for the support band”, he said in desperation. “Exactly”, I said.

Lethal Bizzle was next up. The only reason I’ve heard of Bizzle, as his name was shortened to, is because a while ago David Cameron criticised his lyrics (for which he was a massive hypocrite) - so I thought that he must be pretty cool.

Lethal Bizzle thought he was pretty cool too - he wore sunglasses despite being in a very dimly lit venue, and had his… crew (?)… wearing t-shirts with name on - and there were a couple of people in his band who didn’t play instruments or rap - they simply stood there and looked ‘ard.

His songs were a bit repetitive. The central lyric in every song seemed to be his name. Most songs involved him shouting “Lethal” and the audience responding with “Bizzle”. And every other word during his inter-song banter was “motherfucking”. He was hilarious though. I never thought I’d go to a hip-hop gig where there were proper track-suited chavs mingling in the pit with, er, mostly emo kids.

Also, David Cameron take note, after the set, I didn’t feel compelled to commit gun-crime, or even anti-social behaviour. Unless you consider the bloke I popped a cap into on the way home, because he was looking funny at my crew. He deserved it though.

Next up was Poison The Well. They were good - not a lot to say about them really, as they did what I expected. By which I mean, they played some hardcore songs and people jumped about a bit. Apparently they played a black flag cover.

Gallows came on stage at 11. I haven’t heard any of their stuff before, but I agreed to go to this gig because they’re probably going to be the next big thing. Apparently the NME have a feature on them every week, punktastic.com seem to have a news item about them daily, and Brett Gurewitz, from Bad Religion, who also owns Epitaph keeps praising them up. So they might even achieve mainstream fame. They could be the next, er, My Chemical Romance (in terms of popularity, not genre).

They were good though - even though the singer cracked his head open at a gig the other day, they didn’t calm down at all, with plenty of jumping into the audience, and even at one point running to back and standing on the bar, which was a bit odd.

The best bit of the set was when Bizzle came back on stage to do a, er, duet, with Gallows - rapping over some hardcore guitar noises. Which was ace.

It was all good really. Yeah. And now I can’t say I haven’t seen Lethal Bizzle in concert.

Comments(1)