Do I assume that the "Life" category appeared recently to cover these warblings about future plans?

Anyway, I'll probably end up doing some kind of Masters thing, if they'll have me back, which let's face it is by no means certain. If they don't have me back, I'll probably go and do Meteorology at Reading, and I'm not joking. So basically, if I convince Oxford to let me back in, we're going down the journalism, broadcasting, writing, maybe possibly teaching route (doubtful, there's more legal issues involved in teaching than there are in any of Amy's career routes). If Oxford tell me that I must be joking, then we're going down the broadcasting route still, but the one where I'm in front of a green screen telling you all that the woman who rang in earlier today is silly, there won't be a hurricane, etc etc. Or alternatively I'll be in the National Severe Storm Laboratory.

My ideal job would be working for the radio, either presenting or producing. I got six more albums, a single and a DVD off BBC 6 Music by way of prizes today on my return from Portugal, and I could certainly handle being the distributor rather than the winner for a living. Especially on that station, because it plays fantastic music and has fantastic presenters (even Janice Long, presenting something far more interesting than her Radio 2 show, a show called Dream Ticket). One such presenter is Andrew Collins, whose autobiography I happened to spot in WH Smith on the way out to Portugal, and which I enjoyed probably far more than I would anything by Bill Clinton about Bill Clinton. I suspect Clinton's memoirs did not contain the same wonderful insights into holidays in Wales and Jersey and travel sickness.

I’m going to continue the theme of OJ’s post and I think the anonymous poem below, summing up his closing remarks, is a good place to start.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental,
To reach out for another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self,
To place your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd is to
risk their loss,
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in
life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing and is nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn,
feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves; they have
forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.

I have always been someone who knows what they want to achieve, works out a way of achieving it and then damn well goes and achieves it. No failure there. However, I am in the midst of job applications at the moment, as well as almost half-way along my therapy course and all of a sudden I am not sure what I want to do with my life. The future unachievable, risky and damn right scary. I have had several nights lying in bed and considering my options, wondering what to do after my degree, fretting as to whether I shall ever ‘be better’ and thinking about what values really are important to me. The problem with me is two fold – I either think too much or I think too little. The former means that I get tied up in different options and then can never decide what path to take or I analyse what I do or say too much and end up pretty screwed and the latter means I just accept whatever choice I make, usually a foolish one, and then end up regretting it. To this end, today I thought I’d join the Wooding family tradition of self-help books and purchased A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey, a true account of a struggle with drug and alcohol addiction and also Paul McKenna’s Change Your Life in Seven Days. I am not expecting either to change my life, but I just want to know that someone has been in the same place as I have, experienced the same emotions and come through the other end.

I have decided a few things though. First, I want to do my LPC (because it seems like a good idea, I have no other plans and at least it gives me some more options) and live in London for a while. My other career plans to date are the same as those I wrote in the box of ‘what will you do if you don’t get you’re A levels’ at school and consequently meant that the careers teacher called me into her office and reprimanded me for not taking the system seriously just because there was no way I would not get to Oxford. I simply said, ‘No Miss, I am actually being serious’ – and right to this day I am. Option a) after an LPC would be to join the armed forces – as a legal officer in the RAF. Still a tempting option but I want more in the way of relationships/family/security and thus it has begun to appeal less and less. And option b) is to become a long distance lorry driver. Ok, so maybe the second is a slight joke, but seriously, it appeals. I could die my hair blonde, get a perm and wear stilettos, tight jeans and vest tops with a wonder-bra. The second thing I have decided is that I want to be with OJ. Third, I do want to join a law firm… and now here comes the crunch. Different types of firm have different demands, pay salaries, work, work hours, future prospects, job security etc etc – what do I want? I am not going to answer that yet, because quite frankly I have no idea as yet – it is between a large UK, small UK office of a large American or a regional UK firm. I’ll wait to see how many offer me a job first before I tie myself in knots again, but I do have some ideas. What I am certain is that I need to get ‘better’ first too – and if I continued in the way I have been for the past few months then a) I would risk losing OJ big time and b) I would be unlikely to complete my finals. Now that is failure indeed, so I guess I’d best do something about it. So I don’t know, but in much the same as OJ wrote things have changed for me and I’ve realised that ‘happiness’, in whatever shape or form, is more important than that large house in London with the new Jag. I still want a Jaguar XK8, but I’ll settle for a second-hand one. Maybe I need to recognise that what I think of myself is more important than what others think of me. I haven’t lost any ambition, I just think it has changed direction somewhat. As Nelson Mandela said – who I would take to be another great person to admire alongside Clinton - "I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended." Well, right now those bloody hills just seem too high and to me it is as though it isn’t one hill I have to chose but a whole mountain range but I guess the only way to go is to put one foot in front of the other and start climbing.

Come on Ollie, your turn next.

Given the veritable spate of postings, I think it is only fair to ramble on about a number of things that have entered my mind in the last week since getting back from Oxford. Seeing how infrequently I’ve been posting, it seems only fair that I make this one a long one. And, hell, it might even make a few things that I’m thinking about clearer if I write them down.

The first is that we’re going to have to stump up for another year’s worth of fees for the domain and hosting. Last year, Ollie and I split the cost, and I only recouped the money over a memorable meal at Pizza Hut in January. Now that Amy is posting, not only can I split the cost three ways, but maybe I could get two meals out of it. Of course, paying up for another year, and facing a long summer, means that minds wander to the question of a redesign of the colour scheme, or a switch back to New Blogger.

The second is that it shouldn’t be raining like this at the end of June. I hate to think what it means, but dammit, I haven’t even stocked up on my snow shoes and books to burn yet.

The third is that we have a new dishwasher and boy, has technology moved on in that department over the last few years. Still, despite it being all singing and all dancing - and so quiet I’m surprised it didn’t come from stealth laboratory in Groom Lake - the thing comes with a cutlery holder that has a protective grid over it, ostensibly to allow individual pieces to be separated and better cleaned, but which is in fact so small that the forks won’t fit downwards. Indeed, I doubt any fork would fit. I’m flabbergasted.

Point three dot i, a direct result of point three, is that I need to get Ollie’s book about the anti-gravity widget that he said I could read a couple of years ago.

Fourth, David Millar, you’ve broken my heart if the allegations are true.

The fifth thing is that I have just finished Bill Clinton’s memoirs, My Life. It’s a very long book, 950 or so pages, but it reads surprisingly well, especially if you have an interest in American politics. Indeed, if you do not, I would suggest that most of the latter half of the book would be unrelenting in its dullness. Still, I would recommend it, if only because it’s an important history of the 1990s if nothing else. My conclusions are more positive than most of the current reviews. It is too narrative, and at times is certainly little more than a diary, but then the nature of the subject (the Israeli-Palestine peace process) means that this structure is probably the most effective way of presenting the material. I enjoyed the more rambling section on his childhood in Arkansas, and then his times at Georgetown and Oxford, although I have to say I was disappointed that he did not spend more time on the latter, simply because I’m there now, and would have enjoyed reading more about what he actually did day to day. I thought the best part of the book was the section which focussed on his early political career in Arkansas, as Attorney-General and then Governor. For most people in America, let alone foreigners, this period of Clinton’s life is completely unknown, but in his book it is the time about which he writes about most eloquently, and is also clearly important in the development of his own political philosophy. It certainly filled in a large gap in my Clinton knowledge.

Naturally, the majority of those who will buy the book will be interested in his various personal revelations. And naturally, what the manuscript omits is as interesting as how he writes about the events he is willing to talk about. For instance, by the time of the New Hampshire primary in 1991, Clinton is talking to the press about how his marriage has suffered strains, but has survived. He says that he is not a perfect man, but he doesn’t say what it was that made him imperfect. It’s clear he’s had an affair somewhere along the lines – I believe this was the one with Gennifer Flowers (my Clinton knowledge isn’t all that great) – but you would be hard pushed to know this from the book. The treatment of Lewinsky is vague. Clinton argues that it all came down to power and an interpretation of the meaning of “sexual relations”. I’m inclined to accept the former proposition, and the evidence of the behind the scenes activities within the Republicans in Congress is both fascinating and convincing, but how the man did not accept that a blow job with a money shot did not constitute an improper relationship remains beyond belief. Again, I’m inclined to agree with him that it was not an impeachable offence (something that is strengthened with the Constitutional History I studied in Hilary [note to self: cute]), I just don’t see how he could have lived with himself for those months between his initial denial and his revelation to Hillary. I remember reading elsewhere about a man who cheated on his wife and used to wake up during the night with an empty hollow feeling in his chest. How Clinton managed it, even with is parallel lives approach, says a lot.

Clinton’s main fury is unleashed, unsurprisingly, at Kenneth Starr and his inquiry. I’d be interested to read his side of the story, but Clinton builds a strong case that Starr had a more insufferable ego than even himself. The one thing that struck me most whilst reading the book was just how intelligent Clinton was – and naturally how this contrasted with the current President. Clinton is by all accounts an avid reader, from his childhood onwards, and the nature of his analysis of multiple events – political, social, economic – is astounding. Near the conclusion of the book, he reflects on his legacy, and recalls a number of historians who concluded that he had made substantial progress, but could have done so much more. Everything that Clinton presents in his book suggests he knows it, and is disappointed about the fact. But then as he also points out, using Grant as his example, history is always being revised. I noted a number of other random things from the book. I never realised quite how much The West Wing was based on the Clinton presidency. It is amazing how the ‘Friends of Bill’ evolved, especially seeing the careers of his friends that he made at college and Oxford. It’s also scary because I could be in that position right now – indeed, it’s a topic that is often discussed in the JCR and over Hall. Who’s going where? Finally, it’s hard to believe that he became President only 11 years ago. As he writes, when he came into office, there were 50 websites, when he left there 100,000 new ones being created a day. If nothing else, it makes you think. Clinton got something like a $10m advance for the book. Knopf published 1.5m copies on the first print. At $35 a pop, even allowing for costs and distribution, they must be laughing.

And sixth (remember, this was all about random points at the beginning), I’ve been thinking. Scary thoughts, about the life and the universe, or as Amy put is so succinctly in the “Fuck” post, what the hell are we going to do after finals? Now, I always thought at school that this would be an easy decision. I would go into the City, make my millions and then go on to do good in the world. So confident was I that I put down that I wanted to be an Investment Banker on my UCAS personal statement. How my tutors let me in with that on is beyond me. I remember my Headmaster taking it up pretty strongly in my mock interview, and me leaving with my tail firmly between my legs. And with hindsight, it probably helps to explain why the LSE rejected me. Of course, it seemed so easy back then – I remember saying to Mr Beale, my geography teacher, how willing I would be to sacrifice most of my twenties if it meant that I could make lots of money. Two years at Oxford, and some time at Princeton, has changed me in many ways. I’ve become a better student and a better historian than I ever imagined I could be. I’ve seen what it takes to get into Banking, or Consulting, and concluded whilst I could do the job if I really wanted to, it’s not for me. So that left me with the safe option of various Government jobs. I’ve been mulling this over for the last three months, and up to a few days ago, was all ready to give myself to mandarin-ism.

What changed? A whole bunch of stuff. Friends, some more important than others, saying that they weren’t sure if they wanted the London life or not. Coming home, and realising how much I missed greenery and the sound of silence. Sleeping in late in the morning and thinking how little fun it would be to have to get up in the morning at 6 every day to do a job that you weren’t fully in love with. A book, handily entitled What Should I Do With My Life? It’s written by an author called Po Bronson, and I thoroughly recommend it. Even The Guardian described it as “a superior self-help book”. It’s nothing more than a collection of stories of people who were trying to answer that question, and it certainly made me think. Of course, some stories were more appropriate than others – I’m not going to be catfish farmer anytime soon – but Bronson got at the same basic questions I was asking myself. A couple of collection reports which stopped me doubting my skills as a student and historian. A realisation that perhaps I would be OK if I didn’t have it all by thirty. A recognition that what I thought of myself was more important than what others thought of me, no matter what offices or positions I held. The suggestion that you couldn’t decide on your career at twenty one based on what you thought would happen when you were thirty or forty, no matter how many epiphanies you had. And finally, reading Bill Clinton’s memoirs. Now, Bill Clinton is by far from the best role model to have for your life in many, many areas, but in his description of his immediate post Yale life, I’d be happy to follow his lead. Page 199: “One day after my class in Corporate Tax, Professor Chirelstein asked me what I was going to do when I graduated. I told him I was going home to Arkansas and supposed I would just hang up a shingle on my own since I had no job offers”. It turns out there is a job available, but I like to think Clinton would have done it anyway.

I’m sure that everyone has gone through this stage at one point or another – I mean, that was the point of the book. But it still scared the hell out of me. Ultimately, I decided that I should just do what I enjoyed most. I’ve said to a number of people the following: if I had an ideal job, it would be to read the papers (all of them) in the morning, browse the internet for a while, read some books, maybe write some stuff, go travelling and talk to people. But doing that means sacrificing other things – like a really good salary, nice suits, a big house, pension schemes (yeah, I even compared pension schemes of prospective employers, and somewhere I have a spreadsheet working out various tax liabilities of different jobs. I should be at Chicago.), business cards I could give to friends and rivals. And, that, at the end of the day, is scary as hell. I’ve never been in a situation where things aren’t planned out for me, where there is no clear structure. In fact, in every place where there is a formal organisation with positions and responsibility, I’ve excelled. Why should I leave this comfortable existence? I mean, I might even fail, something that I can’t stand, despite what I keep reminding myself what I think Michael Jordan said about failure.

This is all really melodramatic, but it’s also incredibly cathartic. Because ultimately all I decided to do is to do a PhD in American Studies or American History, hopefully being able to stay in Oxford for a Masters. And after that…who knows? Maybe journalism, broadcasting, academia, politics, travel. Maybe all of them, maybe none of them. I quite fancy writing a book. I wouldn’t mind being the next Terry Wogan. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens. This is certainly the most important decision I’ve had to make in my life so far. And it’s risky, despite the fact that I know my parents and Amy will still love me and support me whatever. Prospects for newly minted PhDs in the UK and US aren’t great. And I guess “American Studies” hardly impresses the SCRs in Oxford. But then the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing at all. So what I’m going to do is write a list of everything I want to do with my life, like drive round America, try and do it, and go from there. Onwards!

Greetings from a wet and rainy Kent, England – where else does it rain in late June? Now please excuse me whilst I wipe the rain drops from my cleavage, nose and hair. It is true, I am wet. Not in the sense OJ normally likes me wet, but wet I am all the same. So wet in fact that some rather ungracious English gentleman has just described me as a duck, and walked past me quacking, leaving a trail of feathers behind him. I swear, the quacking will haunt me in my sleep. Most disconcerting. I am wet, from the rain – but does that mean I immediately qualify as a duck?

Anyway, I am getting rather spectacularly off the point. I don’t often mention my work for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, but I thought that today it was appropriate. It is a true privilege and experience to be part of the development of young people and to spend my weekends in the countryside of Kent – the original Garden of England, although referred to sum as a dump. When you think, that only 6 years ago I too was completing my Bronze, and now I have completed my Gold (two years since) and I am a supervisor and expedition trainer, the sheer satisfaction that it gives can only be imagined. Both participants and leaders alike learn so much from watching people participate in the Award. I spend my days training them, my weekends supervising them, and at the end there is a culmination of everyone’s hard work, time, teamwork, perseverance and laughter. The respect, the memories and the letters of thanks at the end of a season are fantastic. Groups have such a spectacular experience, they share things that will never be repeated (like the girl who actually did wet herself crying) and they have such fun – one such way is by indulging in volleying songs back and forth group members throughout the weekend – so often at a leader’s expense. Even if incidents are contentious, it never descends into fully fledged violence… I’ve been close to it, but not managed it yet…

So why do I do it then? Both participants and leaders of the Award are to be commended. Each individual expedition means much more of the participant, but the general sense of enabling someone to experience a DofE expedition, seeing a team develop, watching both their success… and their failures, leads to a very humbling, but also gratifying weekend. I do it for the kids – if people didn’t volunteer, then the youth of today wouldn’t be able to get out in the countryside and instead would probably be taking drugs in some seedy internet café in Portugal, full of sweating men. Both sets of supporters are therefore to be commended (and Back home, sometimes people can never understand why I want to spend my weekends in fields, in the rain, waiting endlessly in lay-bys looking for groups of girls, telling people how to pack rucksacks and instructing future generations… but I do it, and I enjoy it. People take great pains to thank us for our efforts and whilst it is not necessary, it is good to be appreciated. Even in today’s society, the spirit of humility, working together and appreciation of the countryside still continues. The Award is a truly unmissable experience and the organisation and enjoyability of it is thanks to so many people.

I’ll be back in my soggy wet field tomorrow. Hopefully seeing about fifty kids get through their practice Bronze expedition, and again next weekend supervising a practice Silver. My last comment before I head off (in need of a glass of wine and shower) is this… why does it always rain on me, is it because…

Greetings from sunny Lisbon, and indeed it is very, very sunny. Now please excuse me whilst I wipe the sweat from my hand, keyboard and screen. Not my own sweat, you must understand. Some rather portly Portuguese fellow has just ambled past me to the next seat, and left a moist trail behind him, in the path of which I had the misfortune to be. I swear I´m still being rained on by him. It is most disconcerting.

The result on Thursday night was, of course, disappointing, but it was a true privilege and an experience to have been inside the stadium. Benfica´s Stad de Luz - the original Stadium of Light, none of that Sunderland rubbish - is a vast place, with a capacity of some 85,000. When you think that only ten years ago, their old stadium held over 100,000, the atmosphere inside that complex can only be imagined. The Portuguese and English supporters mixed freely both inside and outside the stadium, with only one small section of the stadium reserved for English fans only, with mixed allegiances throughout the rest of the ground. We were sat in the very highest echelons of the main stand, with fans of both sides around us, and the camaderie and mutual respect in evidence was fantastic. Both sides sung their national anthems with not a hint of booing, and spent most of the game indulging in volleying songs back and forth. "Come On England", "Portugal Ole", "Pooooor-tu-gal", "En-ger-land" etc. Even during the contentious incidents during which both sides thought they had scored, there was never even a hint of aggression, let alone a descent into fully fledged violence.

Both sets of supporters are therefore to be commended (and as Ricardo wheeled away in celebration at his decisive spot-kick, there was indeed much congratulating of the Portuguese with commiserations from them, and these were only ordinary folk on both sides, none of that corporate stuff). However, this means much, much more for the English. Whilst back at home television pictures were showing English yobs in Jersey, surrounding a house of (admittedly provocative) Portuguese like baying hounds around a cat up a tree, in Portugal no one had a single bad word to say about the behaviour of the fans. Our taxi driver on arrival in Lisbon, George, took great pains to say how well behaved they had been, and how despite all the talk surrounding their arrival, everyone had considered it a pleasure to have had them in the city. At the spot in Lisbon where a young England fan was murdered, thousands of messages from all nationalities are posted around a makeshift memorial. Meanwhile, the spirit of the Championship continued on all around, with English and French bands playing all day long. It truly was an unmissable experience being here and the organisation and enjoyability of it all is thanks to impeccable Portuguese hospitality.

I´ll be in attendance at Denmark versus the Czech Republic on Sunday night in Porto, and then will be returning on Monday evening. My last comment before I head off (my voucher is expiring!) regards time zones. Portugal, as Barry Davies, Clive Tyldesley and co must have told everyone by now, is of course in the same time zone as Britain. Several people I have phoned at home during my stay have expressed surprise at this. Go and look at a map - Portugal is actually, if anything, below and to the left of most of Britain, so it makes complete sense that they are in the same time zone. What I don´t understand is why Spain is an hour ahead. It seems to me that Spain is effectively directly underneath Britain, and certainly not far enough to the right to justify being in the same time zone as Germany and France. Can anyone explain this?

See you all soon and enjoy the god-awful British weather. I´m off to get burnt to a crisp. Again.

Ok, Ok. I am bored of you two not posting. And I have a things to do list as long as my arm, which isn?t that long, but in proportion to me, that is very long. In addition, it is a things to do list full of horrid (my word of the week) things such as job applications, arranging meetings, work ?missing areas? to sort, revision planners to do la la la. Thus, I thought I would waste time and congratulate Ollie on giving me MSN instructions about adding another account to an existing Outlook platform at home so I can now access my emails through it, rather than using Webmail ? just like I do at Oxford. The acrostic below confirms this. It has been a revelation, not half for the fact that it has a spellchecker (shame it has no grammar check, that previous sentence was far too long). Joy.

Webmail is horrid
Extremely difficult to use
Boring interface
Minging colour
Awful font
Inability to manipulate emails easily
Lack of spellchecker? a very bad thing for me

Outlook is fantastic
Unduly beautiful colour scheme
Totally amazing
Lovely font
Overly easy to use
Obviously has a spellchecker
King of all email platforms

Well, I’m home safe and sound. I’ve been readjusting to the wonderful surrounds of the countryside and fallen in love with green all over again. And then, whilst reading a paper this afternoon, I learnt about making acquaintances in the countryside in America. I love America and all, but please, “maregasms”?

It's official - my all-time music idol Tina Turner really is simply the best. Described here as 'on the way up', Tina will be appearing in a movie next year titled The Goddess. Roll on 2005.

OJ told me he was meeting an American friend in London today... the truth however is apparently different... "I don't bear-lieve it..."

Here we are. All three of us. Second year at Oxford completed. Fuuuuuuuuccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkk. And Dayorama has lasted, especially this term. Bloody amazing. On the upside? less than 365 days and it will all be over!

So, what have we all done this year?

Well, OJ? that?s pretty simple ? Princeton, Princeton, Princeton, rugby, half blue, rad camming, putting up with a demanding girlfriend, Uncle Bulgaria, Mr Tiddles and the cake factory (ok, so that was years ago, but who would have guessed?)

Ollie? well, he's continued with Man City supporting, got a cricket ball blindingly in the eye, discovered shopping with me, had ideas of meteorology, fallen more in love with Anglo Saxon coins, spent too much time and money pimping himself using his wireless internet connection and learnt far far too much about OJ and I?s personal lives.

And me? I?ve had a year of ups and downs? on both a micro and a macro scale, put up with OJ in orange and yellow, discovered fag-hagging and long distant phone calls to the States, gone some way to being a corporate whore, and decided that maltesars are the way to go.

I am leaving it up to you both to add more stuff?

It was a long time coming, but is finally done. Faithless have produced an anthem for the twenty-first century against hatred. Mass Destruction is the kind of positive propaganda that a thousand politicians could not hope to buy between them. Aside from being an extremely good track, containing a chorus with a clear hook that is easy to remember, the lyrics are exceptionally powerful and straightforward in their message. Witness the following:

Whether long-range weapon or suicide bomb
A wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you're Soaraway Sun or BBC One
Disinformation is a weapon of mass destruc-
You could'a Caucasian or a poor Asian
Racism is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalisation
Fear is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether Halliburton or Enron or anyone
Greed is a weapon of mass destruction
We need to find courage, overcome
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction

And that's just the chorus. The lyrics are very clever and encompass every theme associated with war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think this track is the closest anyone will get, for a long time, to producing a lesson against hatred and conflict for our generation.

My other purchase today was the new Razorlight single, Golden Touch. I'm not sure how I feel about Razorlight. I'm kind of predisposed towards dislking them (I nearly typed 'hating them', which would have been a faux pas given the above), because lead singer Johnny Borrell is something of an enigma. He spends half his time proclaiming Razorlight to be the Beatles Mk. II, and the other half being inordinately modest. And somewhere in this hectic schedule, he somehow finds time to slag off the poor, much-maligned Swedish contingent of the band. So he is the kind of person that journals like NME love to pieces, i.e. an arsehole. Yet this doesn't stop Golden Touch being a top quality track. It builds itself up piece by piece, layer on layer until the final chorus thunders along like waves crashing over an oil frigate in the mid-Atlantic (I'm listening to it now and the cymbal in the last chorus does actually evoke that image in my mind). Sadly, the other two tracks on the single are mediocre at very best, but we can hope that the calibre of the title track will be reproduced on their forthcoming album.

You can catch Golden Touch being used by the BBC from time to time during their Euro 2004 coverage. By way of a tenuous link, I'll be hoping that ITV airs a few more golden touches tonight. "Get The Switz Out For The Lads" proclaim the tabloids...

The BBC has produced a fine article giving advice from five outgoing MEPs to those new to life as a Brussels parliamentarian.

The article is here, but I reproduce below a few choice snippets:

Elmar Brok (Germany): "The very first thing you should do when you arrive in the European Parliament is sign the attendance register ;-)." [Note: this is necessary in order to receive the allowance for attending sessions.]

Anna Terron i Cusi (Spain): "When you go to a committee, only focus on one issue and after that listen to the Greek translation because it sounds like music."

William Abitol (France, as if you wouldn't guess from the following): "Use a matchstick when voting in parliament. I usually vote against most texts, so I find it handy to stick a matchstick into the No button so I don't have to keep pressing it."

In other news, it is possible to get a passport for travel in a week's time in the height of summer, which is good news for me because that's precisely what I need. I'm off to Euro 2004 on 24th June, but discovered earlier this week that my passport expired in April. Luckily for me, the UK Passport Service offers a same-day passport renewal option (at a cost, of course), and after a pleasant phone call to their Advice Line, I've got an appointment this coming Tuesday in London to get a new passport produced. Given the flak that the Passport Service used to come in for, I think it should be handed a little praise for the efficiency (and pleasing phone manner) with which it dealt with my enquiry.

Today, I have nursed OJ. This has meant sitting in a hot, sunshine-filled room, trying to work, whilst he has been asleep. All right for some. However, seeing as I probably gave him the sickness in the first place, plus didn’t really feel great myself, I can’t complain. Btw, for those who were wondering, even 36hrs later, regurgitated courgette soup is still green. Serves him right for eating it in the first place. Anyway, this mammoth occupation of my room has meant that I have spent hours surfing randomly on the net.

First, the BBC site never fails to delight. It has confirmed what we all knew – at least, woman to man – that indeed love is blind. Second, it has summed us up very well on an article about weblogs – “Weblogs are sometimes criticised for being the self-obsessed ramblings of people who have little to say and too much time on their hands”. I don’t disagree. The article in question discusses sites created by children – a forum to discuss the latest geography project. W-hoo. I can think of nothing more fun. Sorry, it does look like a really great idea, honest. Lastly, my only other useless piece of information is that apparently playing computer games enhances intelligence (see Men’s Health magazine this month… no, I am not male, I bought it [ironically] for OJ). Thus, in years to come when OJ and Ollie are famous, when interviewed and asked what enabled them to get into Oxford, they can say late night games of “Road Rash”. Hmm. There’s always a first.

In addition, I have discovered e-baying. Ok, I have used it on and off for the past eighteen months, but only for things I wanted/knew I could get. I have searched for loads of things I would usually buy full price and many of them are there. It is also an absolute mine for great presents!! And cheaply!! So long as a) you win the bid and b) they have what you want and c) it arrives as per description etc etc. In general though, great scope for buying and * hopefully * not spending too much money…

A few days ago, Ronald Reagan passed away. Today, the music world has been mourning Ray Charles (and the Labour party suffered potentially fatal wounds but enough of that for now). The media age, to my mind, is going to have one rather unexpected consequence - too many famous people will end up dying.

Give it some thought. In the information age, media age, whatever you want to call it, a lot of people are famous for one reason or another. In no other period of human history has such a large percentage of the population been able to claim some form of celebrity. This is a world where Jade Goody is a household name for doing very little; Maureen Reece earned a lifetime of recognition purely for being unable to drive; the partners of celebrities become G-list names themselves purely by association; and you can even become famous not just by playing football for Manchester United or cricket for England, but pretending to - stand up Karl Power.

When all these people die, the odds are that they will warrant a mention, and these are just the dregs at the very bottom of the celebrity barrel. We have a chart which changes on a wholesale level each week, a plethora of new films ever Friday usually with new faces, TV series shooting ordinary people to fame and, of course, the likes of sporting, political and literary figures. In the past, only those latter three groups would have been likely to command any attention, and not even the sporting category until well into the twentieth century. Now, all of the above are likely to warrant column inches in the majority of news and specialist publications.

This is going to lead to problems - a bottleneck of celebrity rigor mortis, if you will. In, say, forty or fifty years' time, with half a century of other celebrities installed (and let's face it, there's no end in sight to the exponential rise of the cult of celebrity), what is the betting that there is a fresh famous fatality every day, if not more? The Six O'Clock News will have to have five minutes every day to rattle through the characters who once graced our screens and magazines who have joined the great guest list in the sky within the past twenty-four hours. Whereas we now have the Biography Channel, by 2050 it will probably have renamed itself to the Obituary Channel and will carry only biographies of those figures of note who have passed away in the last week.

I don't think this is a far-fetched scenario at all. As more and more people become famous, the news will become clogged with celebrity deaths. Even Ray Charles has had to take second spot in the obit billing behind Ronald Reagan.

Getting away from dead people - usually the best thing to do with them - and on to political parties which are dead in the water. This party has promised great things, spewed forth a good deal of political propaganda during its time in the limelight, and has been subject to an even larger amount of criticism whilst defiantly insisting that it will exceed expectations.

Yes, it's the British National Party, and it gives me an unlimited degree of pleasure to announce that today, 'Super Thursday' as its website called the vote, it has done precisely cock all. The sum total of its gains were four seats in Bradford and three in Epping Forest, whilst losses elsewhere meant an overall gain of just four councillors. All this despite, according to the BNP's Nick Griffin, a 'groundswell of popular support which I believe is going to shock the smug commentators of the Establishment to the very depths of their miserable lie-filled beings'. A charming individual. The bare facts with only two councils left to declare is that the BNP, while polling 16 per cent of the vote on average in wards it contested (still worryingly high), has lost on average 5 per cent on the results it posted last year.

I don't want to seem unduly hostile to a democratically established political party, but the BNP do themselves no favours. Obviously their policies are the initial cause of my dislike for them, but a rejection of someone's views is no reason to reject their right to express them (as I believe Voltaire once said, no doubt more eloquently). However, their website sums up most of what is wrong with the BNP as a party. They act as though everyone is out to get them. For a party which feeds on white English paranoia in order to sustain itself, they do an admirable job of letting this paranoia show through in their site material. Take the following quotes:

'Leftist mobs have been allowed to intimidate and attack our members, and yet all the media are interested in is one case where BNP activists were arrested for the ‘crime' of defending themselves. Dozens of instances of suspected electoral fraud by ethnic minorities working for the LibDems or Labour have been ignored by the police and press alike.'
-- Was there any need for the phrase 'ethnic minorities' in that paragraph?

'... over the last week or so, we have watched with amazement at the sheer mendacity of the media attempts to use bogus opinion polls to sell the divided, single-issue UKIP as a credible receptacle for the anti-Establishment protest vote that is welling up among British voters.'

'... we have just fought our way through the most perverted and undemocratic British election campaign in living memory...'

And, finally, this particularly harrowing statement, which seems almost comparable with a certain German political party seventy years ago:
'To us has been given the honour of being the ones who make the big breakthrough, who strike the greatest ever blow for our national freedom and identity which will live in history as the moment when the tide was seen to have turned. In the better days that lie on the other side of the great struggles yet to come, we and our heirs will speak with pride of what we achieved together, against all the odds, in June 2004.'

Sadly for the BNP, and happily for everyone else, the 'political earthquake' forecast in the same document has not emerged. Or at least, if it has, it has taken the BNP with it for the most part and done only the Tories, Lib Dems and Greens any real favours. Labour are extremely shaken and rightly so, though I think this result will have only a small bearing - in itself - on the outcome of the next election. If the Tories win in 2005, it will not be as a result of these local elections but of further Labour self-destruction and the far greater impact (visible here) of the war in Iraq. The Conservative performance in local elections was solid if unspectacular, and at least they have the grounding to go on and mount a believable general election campaign, which is what they have said they wanted all along.

The Lib Dems, much as I dislike them, have also had a very good day, and Charles Kennedy's talk of a three-party system is slowly becoming a reality under some astute (if underhand) leadership. Promising all things to all people is striking a note, or perhaps this was purely an anti-Iraq vote. We shall see next year.

Sometimes in life, I just wish a big black hole would open in the ground and swallow me up. OJ probably experienced this when he was shockingly awful in cricket today, in front of both Ollie and myself. My embarrassing moment of the week: sitting in a restaurant, moaning about OJ speaking with a “f***ing shit American accent” and the waitress comes over and says, in an annoying American accent “oh, just like me then”. Oh shit, oh shit oh shit. Where is that hole when you need it heh?

On the upside, my tutor (the wrong on micro and macro levels one) has said in my end of term report that “I have worked with vigour and confidence this term… with a perceptible rise in her standard…. And her regression into writing unintelligible sentences is a thing of the past… etc etc… very pleasing progress”. A bit harsh to say my sentences were ever unintelligible, but clearly a promising report!

As we are all aware, the original purpose of Dayorama, as purported by Ollie and OJ was to rate the day in a historical perspective on a scale of 0 to 12. Now, it is submitted that if we were to rate today on such a scale, then it would probably be quite high. Perhaps not so much in a historical perspective, but certainly today is one of the most significant days of 2004 so far. From the outset, the news is rather dull and uninteresting – nothing much going on. However, one should not be so deceived. First, a draft resolution for Iraq seems to have been decided upon – even the French are backing it. Will things finally start to look up from now on, or will they just get worse? Second, Venus is passing across the sun for only the 7th time since the invention of the telescope – its last passage was in 1882 – that will be recorded in history if only for the purpose of astronomers. And lastly, it is predicted as being the hottest day of the year so far. I’d say those three reasons are enough to place today quite high in the ranks of this year. In addition of course, it was meant to be the infamous cricket match - surely we can include it in theory?! Of course, the next important day will be Thursday – it remains to be seen whether this will seal the fate of the beginning of the end for Blair.

Clearly it does happen to the best of us – yesterday both Ollie and I ended up in the wars. Not against each other for a change, but instead my knee had a row with the ground and Ollie’s eye lost the fight against a cricket ball. I am sure he shall tell us of the escapade in his own time.

My injury was the result of a gentle run through University Parks yesterday afternoon. I was running past some people out for a walk and the next thing I knew I was face down and bleeding rapidly from the knee. I then rolled over onto my back, Beckham style, got up, wiped the blood off with my t-shirt and then carried on running – pride comes after a fall in my case. Only one elderly couple spoke to me, asking whether I was the ‘one’ who just fell over. Naturally, I replied in the affirmative and the lady quite simply said ‘oh, that must really hurt’. A classic remark – and for the record, yes it bloody well did hurt and it still does! What amazes me is how can a pathetic little graze (well, about 2”sq) cause so much pain and give me what looks like a second knee-cap. No more short skirts for me this week (my apologies to OJ).

The consequences of this silly venture mean that I can’t run for a bit. Which annoys me. The consequences of Ollie’s incident means that the cricket match between OJ and Ollie seems doomed to never take place. However, I kindly/stupidly/without thinking agreed to do teas for the match. Thus, despite being able to watch you both ‘bat’tle it out, I still have to provide sandwiches and cakes (enough to feed an army if OJ is going to eat stuff). Oh bother. It is also ridiculously hot today and OJ has a cold. Wonders will never cease. Now, back to that reading list…

Clearly someone thinks that my views are worthy - yay! a letter in the Observer!

It's the end of an era. Reagan dead and what with Thatcher nearly withdrawn from public life and Gorbachev seemingly missing in action, surely now, if ever, the cold war has gone from living history.

It is intresting to note that the BBC have broken the news, but as of now, the main blogs seem to have missed it, other than Drudge... and of course us. Maybe blogging isn't as rapid as many people have made out.

1. a. Of persons or animals: Pertinacious or dogged in refusing obedience or compliance; unyielding, inflexible, obstinate: chiefly in bad sense, unreasonably obstinate. In early use app. sometimes with stronger notion: Untameable, implacable, ruthless, fierce.

Just for the record, OJ is NOT more stubborn than I am. I am more stubborn, and that is a good thing. He may have won the battle, but he hasn't won the war...

(You may have guessed, OJ and I have just had a debate about which one of us is more stubborn)

Ok, well I must admit that the third Harry Potter film is remarkably good and extremely enjoyable to watch. I didn’t check to see what the time was at any stage through the film, and would have been quite happy had it been longer. It boasts such a host of well-acclaimed actors, that it is great fun to spot them in their various disguises.

There were just two negative aspects for me; it could be said brought on entirely by my actions of the last week. First, when Harry and Hermione go back in time, I had vivid flashbacks of Back to the Future I and II, both films I saw for the first time earlier this week. Second, in scenes where the earth began to freeze and ice spread across the immediate landscape I had powerful thoughts of The Day After Tomorrow – will that film always come back to haunt us?

Thus, it was a really good film to chill-out with and be absorbed in its wizardry. The special effects are certainly impressive and aid this captivation. However, what actually made the evening for me was not the film, it wasn’t Ollie ripping it out of Mr Tiddles (metaphorically speaking) and it wasn’t being the sweet girlfriend and telling OJ he could open his eyes after the snake had disappeared from the film. No, it was the trailer for a movie of the Polar Express. This children’s story book is quite possibly one of the most magical books about Christmas and childhood. If done well, this will quite possibly turn into a film classic. If done badly, at least we still have the book.

No, I don’t mean that immortal line uttered by Michael Fish prior to the 1987 Hurricane. (on that point actually, was it a hurricane or was it a tropical depression storm thing or was it a tornado?). What I am referring to is the discussion over dinner last night between OJ, Ollie and myself about the affects of weather on the course of history. I can’t recall the events they were mentioning, I am sure Hannibal and his elephants came up somewhere along the line. However, I thought it was worth noting that in the Times newspaper today, there is an article titled, ‘The day the weathermen made the news’. Apparently, ‘never in history has so much turned on the weather forecast’ as it did in the days running up to the D-day landings. RAF bombers and fighter aircraft each needed different cloud conditions, as did the gliders and the Army favoured dry ground. The Navy wanted winds no stronger than 12 mph and of course good visibility. Certainly British [and allied] success depended significantly on the right weather conditions. It really does make the D-day landings all the more remarkable. Maybe there is hope for that thesis after all, Ollie.

Oh, and if you just cut and past an accented 'e' from Word, then you can correctually punctuate a cliché.

It takes a lot for me to despise a film. I've seen a lot of films, and I can probably count on one hand the ones from which I have emerged thinking, 'that was awful'. I'm not generally particularly critical of films at all, and as long as they're fairly believable in their own little way (even the Hollywood blockbusters, if they chuck enough long words at me to make me place my trust in their science), and they make me laugh a little, and they're not seven hours long, then they normally get my vote.

At this point I should announce that The Day After Tomorrow is complete and utter tripe, and is the worst film I have seen in my life. Now, I wish to qualify this remark by pointing out that I have probably steered clear of far worse films based on the fact that a) their subject matter did not interest me and b) they had reputations for being poor films. Now, TDAT had a little of the latter, having been panned fairly universally, but given the sheer amount of publicity it got - billboards up over a month in advance of opening, features in almost every newspaper given the sensitive topic it was handling - it still had a certain level of expectation to hit.

It failed miserably.

I don't really know where to start. The special effects, perhaps, because they can be excused, they were stunning and extremely credible. When the tidal wave hit New York (come on, that's hardly a spoiler for anyone, is it), it spread out very realistically and had clearly been modelled using sophisticated techniques, with buses and cars being piled up against each other as the water pushed them along. That all looked great. The satellite imagery was fantastic. the snow-covered scenes - well, I don't know what America covered in snow looks like but it probably looks a bit like it looked in TDAT. No problem so far.

Now we come to the plot. Well, it has a fair few pretty gaping holes, which I would list if only they'd lived long enough in the memory - I know that I spent much of the movie sat there wanting to scream abuse at the screen. Jake Gyllenhaal happening to venture outside into the freezing New York climate at the very same time that a pack of starving wolves are on the loose seems just a little strained, and I'm unconvinced by the ability of the US infrastructure to continue to supply communications throughout much of the catastrophe. If I was up in the International Space Station, I'd be a LOT more scared than the astronauts we saw seemed to be that the entire planet was covered in storms - for a start, isn't it fairly likely that those storms have wiped out most things (shuttles, equipment etc) NASA-related? They're not to know what's going on down there. The substance of the plot (aside from global meteorological disaster) revolves around the dad/scientist trying to get hold of the boy/heart-throb who is stuck in New York. That premise is also fairly good and gives us the human element to the story.

Sadly, we must now discuss the dialogue. I've tried to keep this little review fairly high-brow so far, but I must descend into the vulgar momentarily, because the dialogue was pure shite. It was terrible. The script was jam packed with cliches (no, I can't be bothered to find out how to do an E with an accent), god-awful one-liners and pompous, overblown statements from presidents, climatologists and parents. The vice-president is nothing but a caricature of a man obsessed with money, the scientist is the man for whom the disaster hits home on a personal note ("I have to learn from my mistakes" he tells a colleague, whilst in a tent on the brink of oblivion, with reference to his crappy attempt at fatherhood), the president is neatly kept out of things so that they get to be all sensational and kill him off without anyone caring, and the British would rather drink their alcohol than use it to keep some heat going during the onset of a new ice age. They also have "plenty of tea and biscuits" to keep them going. A man clings on to the Gutenberg Bible to stop anyone burning it, on the basis that "if Western civilisation disappears, I want something to remain of it". I bet the continent of Asia will appreciate that sentiment, having invented printing around eight centuries before anyone in the west. The vice-president-turned-president delivers his first address in his new office and thanks "places we used to call third world countries" for their hospitality. How patronising! Still... I guess that's fairly accurate.

All in all, if this had been a silent movie it would have been awesome. It is a great shame that any of the characters opened their mouths and ruined the pretty pictures.

On a related note, people who know me will know that I love my hurricanes and meteorology in general. I get the National Hurricane Center's email updates and used to read books on the subject in their droves when I was younger. Oxford University, sadly, does not seem to cater for this kind of research at all - I did OLIS (Oxford library system) searches for some recommended technical books on hurricanes and tropical weather systems, and only one or two even made an appearance in the Radcliffe Science Library stack. The sole easily accessible source for information seems to be the Monthly Weather Review, a journal published by the American Meteorological Society, which is available on open shelves in the RSL - shelfmark Met.Per.2a. I'm going to spend my Friday reading back issues.

As a final note, I did a little research into courses involving meteorology, climatology and atmospherics in the UK, and was surprised (and not a little disappointed) that the Open University have nothing particularly specific - only a degree in Environmental Studies. If there'd been one specific to Meteorology, I'd probably have enrolled in it by now. Reading University, surprisingly, has a five-star rated Meteorology Department with top equipment and a selection of BSc and MSc courses. One of the MSc courses can be taken part-time over two years with two days' study per week during MT and HT (well, their equivalents), though you need a one-year introductory part-time physics course if you're not already studying a science. In other words, if I spent the next three years at Oxford doing more history, I could nip down to Reading two days per week (20 minutes on the train) during autumn and spring, and earn a degree in meteorology by the time I'd finished at Oxford. It's oh so tempting.

Last week, the headlines read ‘3yr old dies of obesity’. Three months ago the headlines read ‘girl dies from anorexia’.

I think we are all well aware of the so-called ‘Obesity Epidemic’, on the rise in the West. I could discuss at length my opinions on this subject. However, what I really want to discuss is how the effects of continual diet pop-ups, articles about how food is our enemy, criticisms of people being overweight etc., have on those who may have the opposite of obesity. Imagine recovering from an eating disorder, such as anorexia. On one hand the person will be trying to regulate their eating pattern and will be receiving education about the nutritional benefits of food - at the same time they will be battling with a perpetual fear of eating and a desire to be thin, probably connected with a multitude of other issues, including low self-esteem. On the other hand this person is battling with a continual pressure from society to be thin, to diet and a belief that if we are not careful, eating will make us put on weight. Granted, these are two extremes – there is a happy medium in the middle. However, for those on the lower end of the scale, whose perceptions about shape and weight are distorted, scare-mongering articles about obesity must surely be detrimental and may hamper treatment. All I wish is that when journalists printed articles about weight, they did so with sensitivity. Do shops, magazines and internet sites really have to advertise to excess the latest diet or slimming fad? I know this is hard as dieting is part of our culture, and rising obesity levels are a very real problem. But, at the same time the continual pressure to be concerned about food and weight must be ripping apart the minds of others with any form of eating disorder and hampering recovery.