Libraries, Librarians, Building Hatred and Snow

If there is one thing I have an ever increasing and intense hatred of it is Libraries. At the same time if there is one profession that I despise above all else it is Librarians. You have to be a really strange type of person to get any job satisfaction out of working in a Library, but some of these people manage it. Whether they get their kicks from a new delivery of books, the pain they can inflict on poor Library users or the rush of excitement that comes from collecting overdue fines, they somehow manage it. The main thing that I dislike about Portsmouth University Library is the complicated system that involves renewals and fines. I had 3 books due in for 1.30 yesterday; I was able to renew one but not the other 2, no apparent reason, £2.70 fine this morning. B*****ds! Having had a 5 minute conversation with a woman behind the desk, who possessed all the charisma of a carrot-stick I gave up trying to find out why I hadn't been able to renew them and sloped off with a pile of books that I hadn't asked her to renew, how on earth does that work? Another observation of Libraries/ Librarians is the rather unhealthy relationship the staff seems to have with books. Now I appreciate a good or useful book as much as the next guy, but it wouldn't surprise me to see this lot campaigning for equal marriage rights for books and humans so that they can confirm their love by taking the relationship to a new level!

I have come to the conclusion that I will never be able to fully understand Librarians, will never like Libraries, but must get on with using them rather than paying about £400 a week for books which appears to be the alternative...

Snow. One word with the power to excite the nations kids and ground the entire country to a shameful and shambolic halt. Snow has come earlier than normal this year and so far Scotland, the North and a growing section of The South-East has come to a shocking-standstill as people fail to make work or school because of a bit of frozen water. What this proves isn't that "THE BIG FREEZE" has started like the BBC would have us believe, but that we are a nation of lazy skivers who jump at any excuse to do naff-all instead of going to work or school, but what can you do? I'll probably still be staring hopefully at the BBC Portsmouth website when our snow-fall gets heavier in hope the University is shut because I can mix it with the best where laziness is concerned!

A mad/normal week...

Started 17/11/2010: My last proper post on here was last Wednesday and since my feedback request was about as well responded to as Tony Blair at a Veterans reunion I had the choice about carrying on or accepting there was probably no point... well as I'm bored now and have approximately 12 minutes until my dinner is ready i thought I'd continue regardless!


Well what has happened since last Wednesday? As the deadline of my first real assessment, A 1200-1500 word Document Commentary, fast approached the time that I have been able to spend on anything has seriously decreased, but the good news is that was handed in with 90 minutes of the deadline to spare on Tuesday morning and is out of the way now. However... my next deadline is this approaching Tuesday and I think Gordon Brown was better prepared for the Credit Crunch than I am for this, and we all know what has happened to poor Gordon now. *Cameron waves from No. 10*


This weekend I went home again with the view of getting more work done than I would in Portsmouth due to less distractions etc, and I really hope that theory proves even more successful this week as I estimate that I have double the amount of research to fit into half of the amount of time, give or take... this could be interesting! I did take one break over the weekend though (minus sleeping) and this was to watch David Haye smash Audley Harisson's face in. Frankly I'm still not entirely sure it was worth the 14.95 my dad paid for it due to the fact the only action was scrunched up into about 90 seconds and consisted of big ol' Fraudley standing there while Haye went all Joey Barton on him. A fun 90 seconds, and an expected result, but a let-down all the same. Sunday also saw Smithy's first day at work... 9-5 he managed and I'm still not sure how but fair play to him and good luck with the job in general. That shift was not the most interesting part of his working week however and it took a dramatic turn towards weirdness on Tuesday when the NIGHT-TEAM ASSEMBLED!

Continued 23/11/2010: Apologies, it really has been too long since I updated this now and if anyone is actually reading this blog you deserve my most sincere apologies. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes... NIGHT-TEAM ASSEMBLE! Well once the night-team had assembled it turned out to be a disappointing truth behind the lime green veil of excitement, AKA Smith's uniform. The effect on his sleeping pattern has been interesting to say the least and he has had the privilege of working with some of Portsmouth's more colourful characters. On his first night he teamed up with the toothless-wonder, a rather unfortunate middle-aged woman called Gill who had about as many teeth as brain cells, was about as easy to understand as a Geordie after a few pints and found the name Andrew highly amusing. Night two didn't really improve either as this time he found himself working with a pleasent young chap called Clive. Now Clive was a bit of character too and at the start of the shift Smith thought he might be working with a bit of head case who thought himself as a bit handy, and by the end of the night Clive was twirling and jumping as he stocked the shelf and was happily telling Smithy all about his partner and the life he'd made himself locally. Clive was as bent as a nine bob note, and damn proud of it.

Wednesday in Portsmouth is rubbish collection, and that fits as a description as well as a name! Walking out of my house that morning I must have got a similar shock to Sam Tyler waking up in 1973, and the parallels are uncanny. Talk about returning to the dark ages, after time to consider and stew on it (as I tend to do), I came up with the comparison to the winter of discontent that marked the beginning of the end of the Prime Minister-ship of James Callaghan in 1978-79. Rubbish literally lined the streets and it looked a bit like everyone had gone on strike.

Thursday I was faced with yet more blog worthy material. As myself and Daly walked back from the gym in the evening (Yes I've joined a gym!) we saw a crowd building in the City-Centre for what turned out to be the turning on of the christmas lights. Even if you overlook the fact they chose to do it on a Thursday evening for reasons unbeknown to most people there was still plenty to question. Their choice of entertainment was a strange one, and seemed to consist of Portsmouth's rather un-kept looking answer to Cheryl Cole singing 'Promise This' on a pokey little stage whilst crowds of people that were beginning to question why they'd bothered to venture out of their homes pretended to listen. All in all a pretty impressive failure. Either Portsmouth City Council are on a budget of about £35 for the next 2 years or they just didn't make the effort in the same way many Towns and Villages across the country do. Little over 2 minutes up the road and we encountered proof of why my faith in man-kind and the people enforcing our laws has faded somewhat since cynicism has replaced youthful optimism. (Well ok I've never been particularly optimistic but it's getting worse believe me!) Now this really did take the proverbial cake and can be described as community policing at its very best. Two policemen were stood well back from the crowd looking very official and policey, but as we approached we heard this; "I said to him, I know you're going to be getting up to all sorts tonight but if I don't catch you then there's no problem." Brilliant. Just the kind of guy that I want policing the streets I walk on every day and i DEFINITELY feel safer knowing he's around. Frankly Smithy and the Night-Team could do a better job! Unfortunately that wasn't the end of the nights drama though, and as we attempted to cross the road nearer home my famously short temper with motorists was tested. Well as is generally the case I lost it and eye-balled a woman who had kindly stopped her car on the crossing and said into her open window, "Just chillin' on the crossing? cool", now I'm not sure if she heard what I said but she knew it was aimed at her even though the momentary eye-contact had been lost before I spoke and this can only be because she knew she was in the wrong. However this doesn't mean that she'd be willing to admit being wrong however great her understanding of that fact was, and she attempted to manoeuvre her cigarette into he other hand so she could open her passenger side window to argue. She took so long to do this however I didn't even catch her reply but i'll assume it wasn't a witty or intelligent retort.

The continuous list of things that annoy me continued on Friday as I waited for my train at Portsmouth station. My point that nothing seems to work in this city was compounded by the fact this is the case right up to the point of leaving it, whether this be on the confusing one-way system that leads to the M275 from Gunwharf Quays or on the train. As I waited at the station the automated announcer made a point of repeating several times that we should all step back from the platform edge because the next train would not be stopping. Guess What... It stopped. Well At Least your announcements are correct. Better still though 3 people promptly tried to get on the train, where they thought they were going I don't even want to begin to think about.

Over the weekend I did my bit for The Wagnerlution! Granted he murders songs every week and this week one of my favourites got attacked by Wagner's metaphorical axe, but I was in hysterics for most of the performance and if that doesn't count as entertainment then I don't know what does, and I'm definitely looking forward to his next murder/performance!

If you've made it this far without getting bored then your patience deserves rewarding, I will do my best to round-up quickly... I finish on a positive this time believe it or not, and here it is. Christmas has come to Manchester Road! Today Smithy came in with Advent calendars for Daly and I and this didn't fail to cheer me up out of my continual negative slumber and start the Christmas mood. We've had Boney M, Taylor Swift, Cliff Richard amongst other more traditional Christmas songs this evening and I look forward to getting even more wrapped up in Christmas spirit as we move towards the end of our first term as University Students!
Over and Out :)

The Experiment..

It has only just occurred to me that the reason I set up this blog was to find out if what I would be able to contribute to the Internet anything worth reading. So now it has reached the time to ask this question of you the reader... Is this worth reading? Any other additional comments are of course welcome and for my own intrigue I'd like to know who you are reading this.

So my request is if you have been reading the blog, have read this or any part of the blog can you let me know? If you have me on Facebook that would be ideal, Tweet me if that's convenient (@RichardJude17) or comment on this post if you are a blogger. Otherwise brainwave thought communication is welcome but not full proof. Muchas Gracias :)

Marching on Westminster..? But it was cold today!

Now I'm all for a bit of optimism in life, frankly you don't get very far without a bit every so often, and that's coming from me, the biggest cynic and moaner on the planet. Generally speaking I even take delight in my own misery, let alone others.

But as I say, a bit of optimism can go a long way if you're optimistic at the right time. Today’s protest regarding tuition fees was not the right time. When a government has made up its mind, protests of any nature aren't going to sway them, let alone the type of protest that resulted today. It had all the organisation of a NO VT protest at Brentwood County High School, and a similar amount of the protestors were band-wagon jumpers who just wanted to cause anarchy too. I understand the frustration and why some people feel strongly about the fees, but the decision has been made, the system will change very little in comparison to the one in place today and frankly I think I made the right decision to keep my painfully Tory stance on the matter... If it doesn't affect me then I don't really care enough to worry myself, and most importantly and the deciding factor regarding my stance on the protests, it was cold today so my centrally heated bedroom was the best place to be.

The other issue with these protests that I couldn't help noticing right from the start was the lack of any attention being paid to them. David Cameron and some of the leading government figures, including Chancellor George Osbourne, he of the extreme budget cuts, were on the other side of the World this morning leaving Deputy PM Nick Clegg as the most senior man around. Even he wasn't interested though as he was a bit busy receiving a similar grilling in the House of Commons from Harriet Harman and the Labour MPs about his failure to live up to re-election promises.

The reality I've come to accept is costs do go up, the Country is in a terrible economic state and the way the government is going about trying to sort out the mess is through massive cuts that result in everyone shouldering the deficit in some way and most importantly, Student Finance is still going to be offering out the loans to cover these fees and the system for paying back the money allows for the graduates to wait longer to start repaying as well. All in all it isn't going to be as dire for those that are prepared to work at University as some are making out and this is a point that may have made some people rethink their day and given less opportunity for the Fruit-loops who spoilt it for those who were just there to stand up for what they believed in.

As I said... A bit of idealism isn't a bad thing, and who knows maybe Cameron may have paid some attention to the goings on from his position of relative comfort over in China, but I fear they'll plug on regardless with the cuts and today will have been a waste of time.

All I know is I have An NUS card for one reason, and that's not to join in socialist rallies against the rise in the cost of higher education. It's so I can go home for a bit cheaper than I would without it.

Fish are Friends not Food... Oops!

An interesting couple of days, there is no doubt about that. Carnage came to Portsmouth and the 3 of us sharing a house and Mike, Tom and Stanbrook our guests for the weekend were ready for it! Arriving back on Sunday afternoon after a weekend at home I was greeted by a fridge full of alcohol and an oven full of food... what more can you ask for? Well ok if I'm picky I prefer chicken or beef to pork and Stanbrook will do well to remember this for next time but I'll let him off on this occasion.

The proper drinking started shortly after dinner and we got into a card game in which each card is represented by a rule... items had their name changed, people had their name changed and if anything was called by their real name this resulted in a forfeit drink and the whole thing was designed to get everyone very drunk very quickly... Abdul, King, The Daly twins, Tom and myself picked a lot of Tom's (cards), made a chicken noise (yep, a real chicken noise) before taking a chicken (drink) and if you picked the wrong Tom you had to take a drink out of the Smithy's a C**t (The bowl in the middle that was a rather putrid mix of various ciders, Jaeger, Lager and WKD, that tasted something like I imagine drinking out of a toilet might although I hesitate to add that is only an estimate and not fact). This lasted until everyone was struggling to cope with the rule of needing a 3 or 4 to use the toilet and Stanbrook was sick after a fairly large drink from the middle bowl. This game was particularly useful for Smithy who has only just left his overdraft since his Dad's little top up and now has £10 to his name, though at the time really couldn't afford to be buying drinks from the pubs and clubs!

The downside of this was undeniably the fact it led to Smith being a wee bit drunk and possessing a fair amount of fire in his belly as we went out. It took him less than 5 minutes of our walk, after out impromptu stop for Naan bread, to decide he knew best and stroll off in completely the wrong direction. It took 3 people chasing him and Tom becoming the voice of reason to make him finally accept that he should walk the same way as the rest of us. And for those of you that know Tom you will understand that him being the voice of reason is about as likely as Steven Gerrard going an entire season in football without making a hypercritical comment about cheating, Frank Lampard winning mastermind or Michael Bublé winning a Mobo award. (Music of Black Origin)

The next unexpected event of the evening was a quick taxi trip home after our voice of calm and reason realised he'd left his ID behind... this was more the Tom we've grown to know and lo... accept ;)

The night out itself was fairly pleasant, visiting a few bars, sampling a few modern classic songs that can be 'Stanbrooked' to including Riverside, We No Speak Americano and Barbra Streisand.
NB. 'The Stanbrook' - Any dance that is danced by Ryan Stanbrook or in the style of Ryan Stanbrook based around excessive movement of the hips, a slightly perverted grin and most importantly a non-robotic robot.

The night ended slightly earlier than expected when Tom was politely told to leave the nightclub because he was too drunk, within the next hour the 6 of us made our way back to the house and were all in by half 2 in the morning, Tom was violently sick into our now broken and difficult to flush toilet and people gradually filed off to bed. Considering the time we all finally got to sleep it will come as no surprise that not everyone made all of their lectures the following day, as i left for my 10 o'clock seminar, Daly was still 'corpsed' out in bed next to the snoring fog-horn that was Tom, having supposed to have been in for 9 o'clock himself, and there was no sign of any movement from Smithy.

Carnage finally matched its definition when we met again the following lunchtime, as I made my way back from Uni the other 5 were tucking into a fried breakfast which we followed up with a quick stop in Ladbrokes that involved Tom taking great pleasure in his horse sneaking up from nowhere to beat Stanbrook's on the line, a funny moment all round that resulted in Ryan sinking onto the desktop in the bookies in a pose that might have suggested he'd gambled away his entire life, the reality being he'd put £3 on an outsider, but a loss is a loss so his pain is no less... After Ladbrokes though was when the weekend took a strange, perverse and yet hugely entertaining twist. I'm still unsure how the conversation came about but all i know is it resulted in us clubbing together £15 for the privilege of being able to watch and film Ryan eat a live goldfish... he swallowed it whole, happy in the knowledge he'd just created video evidence of the fact he should be sectioned immediately and resigned to the fact it would be appearing on the Internet within the day.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=10150311359320580

So what did I learn from this weekend?
- Lock your door or password protect your computer when there are people staying in your house
- Carnage really can be carnage if you want it to be
- Fish can be swallowed whole in a pretty similar fashion to paracetamol
- The Stanbrook really is a dance for all occasions
and that if you leave 5 bored people alone long enough they will cause destruction or some other creative mess with the help of a printer, some tape and a roll of tin foil!

Procrastination, Smithy's betting and Skype Tom-Foolery!

Simple minds require only simple pleasures, never has a statement been as true as when describing what has kept me entertained this evening. Frankly I ought to be getting on with some work, but football, this blog and just about everything else has been more appealing so far. Between now and the 1st week of December I have 4 essays and 2 presentations to complete and all of the reading, research and work that comes with them, but instead of getting started I am writing this so whoever you are reading this, you better enjoy it!

Allow me to introduce you to the inner workings of Andy Smith's mind... This is a young man who is already in his overdraft, knows he has very little chance of winning big in Ladbrokes and often doesn't even try, and yet, he continues to pump upwards of a fiver a week into some of the most weird and wonderful accumulators ever to grace the earth, in the last week or so he has discovered the 'safety-net bet' where you are allowed to get 1 of your bets wrong and you still win a small amount of money. The result of this? A betting slip that cost him £4 won him 3.70odd and yet he still calls it a win. Bless him, he really is a tryer, but in the name of all that is holy he should GIVE UP!

Alex, known to most of you as Daly can sometimes be found talking to his girlfriend on Skype. This is obviously a bad move when Andy 'Safety-Net' Smith is around and he soon regretted leaving the laptop unattended. Even when myself and Alex were sat there with him Smithy continued to hold a picture of Alex to the web-cam in a rather pathetic attempt to convince the poor girl that was who she was talking to. God knows what she thought of it, all I know is it kept us 3 entertained for a good quarter of an hour and if it wasn't for his famously short attention span Smith would probably still be sat there now...

Must dash, more football to watch, more of Smithy's antics to laugh at and more procrastinating to do!

The Sims - A life Comparison

Life at the moment is an awful lot like a particularly tiresome game of The Sims. If you don't really get the analogy bare with me a moment whilst I try to elaborate a bit. When playing The Sims you have to make sure you look after all of the members of whichever family you are controlling concurrently. This often leads to the most dysfunctional goings on possible with some of the characters living nocturnal lives, and this is often even before you consider getting them a job. If you have ever controlled a family that consisted of 2 or 3 kids at school and 2 parents with jobs you will know the feeling of struggle that is trying to keep them all healthy/happy and capable of going about their jobs/classes and this is what life feels like at the moment. Having to manage my eating, sleeping and day-to-day goings on alongside going to university, preparing for seminars and researching and writing essays is beginning to feel like a 5 person family on The Sims, meal times are strange, sleeping patterns are stranger and my performance academically may well struggle because my mood meter is in the red! The biggest failing of this analogy though is the fact I can't press Shift+CTRL+C Enter the word Motherlode and avoid the need to go to school or work for the rest of forever... It's a nice thought though right? I better buy a lottery ticket!

Richard and Smithy Destroy Fifa!

Nobody does Fifa quite like me and my house mate Andy Smith, and as all of you reading this known me you will also know who Andy is and that we are living together at Uni, but I will continue the charade anyway! Now Smithy lives on a different planet to most of us and you haven’t lived until you’ve played any type of game with him… He is determined that every Par 5 hole on Tiger Woods golf is greenable from the tee-shot… they’re not, He believes Carlos Tevez is cute and huggable and has nicknamed ‘Teddy’ and has developed an annoying habit of screaming WRITTEN IN THE STAAAAARRSSS and BARBRA STREISAAAANNDDDD at random moments throughout the day and night. So when he said he’d love to have a team on Fifa that allowed him to partner ‘Teddy’ with his other favourite players and I said this was possible, we set about ruining the game. The best two teams on the game are now Wolves and LA Galaxy, and anyone who knows anything about football or Fifa will know that this shouldn’t be the case and something is truly wrong… The result of this destruction of all of the good teams and theft of their players is that now we can only play with our two dream teams and every good team has been raped of it’s talent. I just fear the moment when an unsuspecting visitor goes to play with Chelsea and finds their 7 best players have gone missing and LA Galaxy have turned into a world super power overnight…