Tickle Sticks Abound

Well, well, well, with the Manchester Comedy knees up happening soon I thought it'd be good to take a moment and think about the great comedians. Ken Doddy performed at the Palace last night, and I stood through all 5 and a half hours of it, but the point is that he is the consummate performer, the likes of which we don't often see today. His experience has given him an endless list of stock jokes and stories he can reel off whenever he needs to, and his ability to sing as well as be damn funny marks him out as traditionally old school. The closest performer I can think of to match this ability is Bill Bailey, with his crazy keyboard playing and flailing hair. Point is that the likes of Dylan Moran and Peter Kay, as funny as they are, are not of the old school. It kind of fills me with a sense of reverance towards Dodd and his ilk. I mean, do we imagine Peter Kay will still be doing his thing 50 years down the line, getting 1,500 people to fill a theatre and keeping bums in seats through most of a marathon of a show?! I don't think so.

It all just makes me feel very lucky to have had the chance to see this (just about) living British institution live on stage, even more the lucky since it was technically work. Another thing I can say about Dodd, is that he has the charisma to tell a very crude joke, to a mostly OAP audience, and get them to laugh rather than throw scorn upon him. Again, this is part of what makes Dodd such an old school comedic legend.

If you get the chance to see this fella live, no matter your age, do so. You'll definately get your monies worth and it will make you feel very distinctly British.

Back to start the end

Freshers love to get in your way. It's an unfortunate fact that everyone who is not a fresher in a University knows only too well. I came up against the hordes today, when I ventured back to University for the beginning of my final year.

It is an odd feeling to go to Fresher's Fair for anyone, even the freshers. You're constantly molested, things shoved in front of you, people asking you to sign up for various societies, groups, and events. It's ridiculous. It's a little like how I imagine the feeling one gets when they have a surprise birthday party thrown for them filled with people they haven't seen in years, only worse. The whole aim, however, is to get loads of free shit. The best piece of tat I got today was a spatula, and a badge saying ' Putting the 'CON' back into Conservative' from the lovely people at the Labour Society stall. I think I'll endeavour to wear the badge out a few times, see if it gets any attention.

One of the most irritating sect of these societies are the religious ones, especially the Christians! From Catholics bribing people of all denominations a free lunch, to beat-boxing and break dancing denominations, singing the praises of 'Your lord Jesus who can be everything you want'. I really felt like starting a conversation with one, just to argue and maybe get the cogs to begin to turn in the minds of the 'faithful' so that they can realise what they are saying.

Another quote of the day comes from a guy from a computer store of some description offering the chance to win a free laptop. He says 'Come on, just sign up and have a chance of winning one of these 6 laptops', I reply 'No thanks, Why would I want one of them when I have a mac?!', he replies 'Why do you have one of those for? Actually, I have one myself so . . .' Made me giggle some.

University for me begins proper on Monday, and i'll have around 7 hours a week of 'contact time' but i'll also need many many hours for writing up notes, revision, researching my literature review, and also reading about the stuff from class since 'further reading' is required to get above 60% in all final year units.

They don't make these science degrees easy do they?!

God is not great

Reading the first four chapters of 'God is not great' by Christopher Hitchens this morning in Starbucks had a very strong effect on me. It made me cry. Not through offence or any other obvious feeling, but through shock and sadness that people who believe in the existence of god have carried out such horrid, vile, and putrid things for ridiculous reasons throughout history, even modern history, and still want some form of special respect towards their religion. What a pile of bull!

Religion is no more deserving of respect than another matter of opinion, and in some cases it deserves less respect owing to the stupidity and arrogance of the follower. I hate that a organisation/community/sect in these modern times thinks that blind and unquestioning 'faith' is a virtue. Is there anything scarier?! Surely this is the same 'virtue' that hijackers of 9/11 had, they believed strongly that they were doing gods will and that they would be rewarded for giving up their lives in his name.

Anywho, I don't want to digress any more than that. I was reading Hitchens' book in Starbucks this morning after being reunited with my Starbucks buddy, Rhiannon. I think part of my strong reaction to reading about this scary side to faith was due to the amount of coffee i had. I swear, Starbucks is the devil with its 'Free Refill of Filter Coffee' promotion. I had 3 cups this morning, over a 5 hour period, and i was bouncing off the walls! I'll try not to do that again . . .

Now to get on with revising some cell biology before making my unit decisions for my final year, i need to make sure i'll enjoy all of the topics i have chose. Bye :P

The Hallé

One Mr Chris Russell asked me yesterday evening whether I would like to go with him to see The Hallé at The Bridgewater Hall that night. It made me feel a bit silly since I had text him asking if he wanted to go see Mamma Mia at the cinema. Anywho, I happened to be free, and around town so it seemed awefully serendipitous, it becomes more scary when the piece of music that Mr R had recently discovered (whether for the first time or not i can't be sure) and fallen in love with is being played that night. Crazy!

To quote the official website The Hallé is "Britain's longest-established symphony orchestra, founded in Manchester by Sir Charles Hallé in 1858. The Hallé's present Music Director is Sir Mark Elder CBE."

The music was one the whole really really good. My favorite piece was the second piece of the night, an impromptu replacement for Babers Violin Concerto, Liszt's Piano Concerto No.1. It was stunningly well played by the pianist Polina Leschenko, who recieved one hellova applause from the audience which must have lasted a good few minutes. They also decided to make the most of Miss L by playing another piece just for fun! The main focus of the peformance was on Elgar's Enigma Variations, which lasted a bum aching 33 minutes!

All in all it was a brilliant night and I very much recommend Liszt's Piano Concerto No.1, as well as Vaughn Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. I had lots of fun considering it was my first orchestral concert, and I thank Mr R again for suggesting it.

Top 5 iPhone Apps

Owing to a lot of my friends recently acquiring shiny new iPhones I thought I'd share my opinion on some must have apps based on my time with the app store.



Top 5

1. Twinkle - Simple and attractive Twitter client, which not only allows you to tweet your location and photos but also to see tweets from people nearby who you may not be following! Really fun for killing time on bus journeys.

2. Pennies - Another simple app but this one keeps track of your spending habits, allowing you to clearly see what you're spending your cash on and how much of your monthly budget you have remaining. Surprisingly fun if you get into the habit of using it.

3. Remote - This app from Apple allows you to fully control any associated iTunes on the same wifi network as your iPhone. Really nice UI, simple to use, and surprisingly useful for the lazy people of the world who lost their tiny Apple remotes years ago.

4. Tap Tap Revenge - Fun little game in the same vain as Guitar Hero or more aptly, Frequency on the PS2. The coolest features of this app, other than it's price point (free), is it's two player mode and the range of free music tracks you can download and play along to.

5. CroMag Rally - This racing game makes this list as it's stupidly cheap on the App store atm, and it has really nice controls and a clear presentation. It's a fun little time killer and worth the price.

Notable mentions: If you want to load up your new phone with even more awesomeness try Simplify Media (for those whose music collection is far larger than their iPhones storage capacity, Wikipanion, Facebook App, Stanza, Sudoku, Shakespeare and aSleep.

Enjoy ^_^

Little Big Planet

What an awesome game!! Played 40 mins of it today in Manchester City Centre and it's one beat of a game. Visual it's loverly, the character animation is really emotive though the movement controls are a little clunky, but nothing you can't get used to.

The level creation stuff is perfect! It's all really easy to use and pretty intuitive but it can take easily take hours to make a level, and it can even take an hour or two to get one item, or one set of switches working and looking exactly how you want to. It's one of those games where you start editing and before you know it it's 3am and you need to be up in 4 hours.

The 'normal' play mode is quite fun, but it's made a lot more fun by throwing in 3 other players, though the screen can get cluttered at times with people editing things and such. The game also seems to have everything you'd want. Send items and levels to other people via PSN, a clipboard to store your own carefully made items, and full ability to tweak pretty much anything from the colour of an item to how electic a bungie is!

In short it's a must have game when it launches and one that you can easily still be playing in a year or twos time thanks to the wealth of user generated content that'll be pumped out by it's community. Do Want!! It's coming out in late October, and if you preorder it on Play.com you get an exclusive Nariko Sackboy I believe! Cant wait!

Monday Morning

My lord, it's good to be back home, where I don't need to pay €3 for a filter coffee or worry about a maid barging in through the door, ignoring the do not disturb sign, screaming 'MINIBAR! MINIBAR!!'. Now it's time to get down to business, hardcore stylee!

Starting with trying to finish Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (22 hours in ATM) so I can move on to casually playing Disgaea 3 for the PS3, which came while I was away in Gran Canaria. Coffee is helping me with this goal :) God love how cheap Nescafe is and how good it tastes with 3 sugars and milk!! Not quite Starbucks, but then it's about one twentieth the price of a filter coffee per cup!

In bad news, I think my camera is screwed! I took it with me to take pictures of Las Dunas de Maspalomas and i think it got sand in the lens mechanism. It makes funny noises when turning on, but if you try to zoom in it just turns off. Ah well, it only cost me £125 two years ago, not bad value tbh but now i'm debating whether I should replace it with a decent compact or upgrade to a DSLR for twice the price. Hmmm . . .

While on holiday I read a butt load too! Here's the completed list with ratings:

Haruki Murakami 'Wild Sheep Chase' 6/10
Haruki Murakami 'South of the border, West of the sun' 8/10
Alan Moore 'Watchmen' 9/10
Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion' 11/10!!
Neil Gaimen 'American Gods' 8/10
Gregory Maguire 'Son of a Witch' 7/10

Time for me to run off and get ready to brave the outside world on this cold Manchester afternoon!

Look! A dragon over your shoulder!

*runs away*