Shocking Urgent News

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Adam Randall
_ (EDIT: Should you be new to this blog, I’d like to point out that I have changed my point of view on the matter discussed here. For a up to date look at this subject from me, click here. This entry now has no real importance.)

Well, I say this is ‘urgent’ news, but I found out about it before Christmas. At the time I didn’t want to post anything quite as gross as this entry is going to be, as I was writing only festive themed entries, then after Christmas I was more eager to write some fresher blog posts, but now I’m finally getting this ‘urgent’ news to you.
    I was talking to my friend Dalfino over the internet and he, as he often does, moved the conversation over to the theme of sex (much to my disliking). Usually he just says things which I can just zone out or forget about later on, but on this particular occasion he told me something I really find rather disturbing. Something that has altered my worldview somewhat and something that has made me dislike nightclubs even more…
    It seems, that there is no such thing as an innocent trip to the nightclubs; people don’t go there just to meet their friends, or to see if they sell pink lemonade. The only reason people go to nightclubs, Dalfino told me, is so that they can find somebody to have sex with! He introduced me to a whole concept called ‘casual sex’ which I’d honestly never heard of before, but which is apparently known to everybody… In the past, I’d always assumed that people went to the nightclubs so that they could drink lots of alcohol, and because alcohol makes you act silly, I thought they (rarely) had sex sometimes as a result of drinking it.
Don’t you think that that’s just horribly dehumanising though? When you meet somebody there you don’t think “Hmm, they seem like a nice person, maybe we could be friends” (as I would expect you would) instead you think “Hmm, they seem like an attractive person, maybe we could have sex “? I mean, when this happens, both the people are using each other as a means to happiness and not as ends in themselves (moral philosopher Immanuel Kant would be just as shocked as me!).
    Ah, but I don’t like to think about it too much, it’s still a concept that I’m not used to. I did speak to Elliott Egan afterwards and asked whether he knew if any of this was true, and he told me it was, but not to the extent Dalfino had told me, that only the majority of nightclubbers are minded in such a way….
    Just a little request actually, could you please leave a comment if you go to a nightclub without looking for some casual sex there? I’d be most interested to see how many of you that’d be…

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Music Suggestions

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Adam Randall
About a month or so ago, my friend TülinKei (that’s their pen name) wrote a blog entry (on Rainbow Kokoro, I’ve not posted a link to this one before, but then again, she does have about fifty seven blogs or something like that) and I really quite liked it. Basically, there were about ten YouTube videos of songs and they’d all be chosen to display her taste in music, through it I actually found quite a few songs that I now quite like so I’m going to do the same thing! Here are a few very different songs, if you listen to all of them I’m sure you’ll find at least one which you’ll rather like, I sure hope that you do!

Did you like any of them? I’ve tried to link to these songs’ official uploads, but they don’t all have them so some of these are actually illegal uploads and will probably be deleted in the future so that’ll be the explanation if one or two videos don’t work for you.
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Late for a Lecture

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Adam Randall
_ I usually like to arrive at my university for lectures or seminars an hour or three early. Just yesterday I decided I’d risk this and left at 3 p.m. for a lecture at 5 p.m. (the journey there taking up to two hours). I tried to keep track of time, and, looking at my watch, I realised that I had time for lunch between my first bus ride and my second one (it taking two bus rides from my house to get to the university).
    Unfortunately, I wasn’t making as good time as I’d thought I was. It turns out that my wrist watch had become slow and was no longer able to keep time properly. I might set it, then ten minutes later it would be five minutes slow, then twenty minutes later it would be  ten minutes slow… and on. It was when I was waiting for my second bus that I realised my watches faults, and I looked at the screen of my mobile phone and saw it had a time on it which was ten minutes different from my watch… But I also knew that my phone’s time was somewhat fast, so it was hard to discern what the actual time was (I’m lost without my pocket watch).
    Anywho, when I arrived at the university I walked rather hurriedly to the lecture hall, I assumed that I was late, or at least, barely making it on time. I opened the door and it seemed that my assumptions had been correct; somebody was at the front of the hall talking and practically all of the seats were taken. I approached the seat nearest to the door and several people started laughing, surely I wasn’t that late? Or maybe my flies were just open or something?
    “Ah, you may as well just sit down,” the lecturer said to me, everyone now stopping to look at me.
    “Yes, sorry I’m late,” I said, sitting down and getting my laptop out of my bag to start making notes. Unfortunately though, as soon as I’d said that I got a glimpse of what was being projected on the board, it was something about the crime rates in the UK… Hardly the subject they’d be dealing with in a Creative Writing lecture.
    “Actually,” I said to the lecturer as I stood up again, “I think I’m in the wrong place, I’m going to leave.”
    “Are you sure?” she asked. “We’re doing crime! It’s really interesting!”
    “Yes I can see that,” I gestured towards the large projection about crime rates, “but crime’s not really my thing. I think I’m going to have to leave.”
    I started walking away, not expecting another reply.
    “Ah come on!” she said. “It is really interesting, if you just sit down and watch you’ll see! What could be more interesting than crime?”
    “Alright, when I get home, I’ll search ‘crime’ on Wikipedia and see what comes up. I’m looking forward to it if it’s really as interesting as you say! Anywho, I really have to go! Goodbye!” While I had said that, I had walked towards the door so that by the time I’d finished talking I was at the door and ready to leave without having to prolong my conversation with this lecturer.
    It turns out that, rather than being late, I was actually early. I had been in the right place but my lecture hadn’t even started yet and the previous lecture was still happening. This was just one of a few interesting things that happened to me yesterday, I also got to see a badger, had a musical bus ride and befriended a homeless person, but they’re all things for future blog entries! (or not, as the case may be).

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Splendorman

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Adam Randall
A while ago, I posted an entry advertising the Marble Hornets YouTube channel and their creepy series of videos about Slenderman. Well, if your hunger for horror wasn’t quite filled by those videos, perhaps you should watch this ‘Splendorman’ video, it’s even more terrifying than all of the Slenderman ones combined!

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Book Section

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Adam Randall
I’ve just updated this site to include a ‘book section’. Every time I write a book review, I’ll also post it there so that I can then list every book by the author and make the reviews easier to navigate for those of you who are looking for reading suggestions… Well, I hope there are some of you looking for reading suggestions, reading is cool after all!
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Best Entries

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Adam Randall
Just a quick extra post to say that I have created a ‘Best Entries’ category, if you click there you’ll find all of the entries that I think are best. It might be a good idea to look at them if you’re new to this blog 😀
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The Upside of Ugliness

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Adam Randall
I was riding on the bus today when I had a spontaneous burst of imagination and thought of today’s blog entry (I like the idea so much, that this entry jumps ahead of the thirteen other plans for posts in the ‘to be written queue’). Basically, I thought of a pretty good argument for people who are ugly (or unattractive, or having the quality of unattractivity) are more likely to be happy than those who are not ugly.
    Basically, my first point is that all people are going to develop ‘crushes’ on other people (unless of course they’re asexuals; though I don’t want to generalise the asexual community like that, there are many heteroromantic asexuals, homoromantic and biromantic asexuals who will develop crushes just like everybody else, what I mean here is aromantic asexuals), and no matter how attractive somebody may be, they’re still going to face rejection from people they quite like during their lifetime.
Now, when an ugly person is rejected, they’ll feel a little sad and most likely think something along the lines of  “Oh dear, I must have been rejected because of my fat stomach/bad skin/huge eyebrows/bulbous nose (or whatever feature about themselves they are particularly upset about)”. But then, how would somebody who considers themself rather attractive take a rejection? Probably by thing something like “Oh dear, I must have been rejected because I’m a bad annoying person” and people will be more unhappy thinking they have an ugly soul, than thinking they have an ugly body won’t they? (I was considering writing ‘ugly personality’ at first, but ‘soul’ sounds much better don’t you think?)
    Anywho, I would like to finish this entry by saying, rather cheesily, that nobody is really ugly. A face means nothing to people unless there’s a person behind it that they care about. Which means, if that’s a little too weirdly phrased for you, that it is wholly the way that a person acts which makes them likeable to people. I mean, imagine you were shown a picture of a random attractive person (who just happens to be of a gender you’re attracted to) and then being told you can have a relationship with them. Would you care? This unknown hunk is nothing to you but a stranger.

EDIT: A friend of mine has written a kind of response to this entry called The Downside of Ugliness.

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TülinKei’s Twisted World

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Adam Randall
_ For today’s blog entry, I’m just going to show you an extremely good poem written by my friend TülinKei (That’s her pen name, I’ve mentioned one of her blogs on here before). Basically, this poem contains the stark contrasts of pessimism and optimism, both of which are mixed with a lovely kind of childlike innocence. It’s so good, that I decided I should post it here (with approval) for all to see. This is it:

You were sick. And I tried all I could, but I couldn’t fix you.
Your broken pieces covered the ground,
And I couldn’t bare to look any more… So I…
Painted them. With as many colours as I could.
Feeling that it wasn’t enough,
I placed bows on your arms,
And glitter on your feet.
I drew very carefully on your hands,
Little pictures of birds and angels.
And before I knew it,
The pieces I loved so much were beautiful.
And then I realised, that you too,
covered me with stars.
I now look in the mirror, and you stand beside me.
Despite living in a twisted world,
We make the sky look beautiful.

Pretty good hey? You can find more of her poems on her blog TulinKei, here’s a link to it (this isn’t one I’ve pasted a link to before either, this is a poetry only blog.) While Twisted World may be, in my opinion, the best thing on there, there are lots of other very high quality poems, so I suggest you take a look, what harm can it do?

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My First Essay

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Adam Randall
In Year 8, the time came for me to write my first essay. The word count for this essay was 750 and this seemed, to me, to be incredibly high. Now, I’m sure I probably have blog entries that’re longer than that, and just yesterday I wrote a 2,000 word essay, but at the time, when all I wrote were stories of about 400 words (which seemed quite long to me), a 750 word essay was a daunting task. I was working with Milo Goodspeed when I wrote this essay, and I wrote that he helped write it, but I’m not sure that he did, I think we divided work so that he did all the other stuff and I did the essay, but I’m not sure… The subject of the essay was which place, out of two towns, was better for a daffodil farm, and which place was better for a holiday. It’s really all very silly. Anywho, here’s the essay, I hope you’ll find it interesting (near the start I snuck in an irrelevant article, so if it seems boring at first, that’s why!):

Title: The Very, Very, Very, Very Long Report of Maths Mixed With Geography about Daffodil Farms

In this report you will find out if Lynham is better for a daffodil farm then Avimoore and I will TRY to get 750 words but might not. So don’t give me a detention if I don’t.
This is info on daffodils and the stuff in them: A CHEMICAL found in daffodils may help treat people struck down by Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientists working in Wales – where the daffodil is the national flower – believe the chemical in a special species of the bloom can help the symptoms of memory loss.
And they want daffodil farms to be set up in the mountains of Wales to become a source of the drug galanthamine.
Researchers at Cardiff University are pushing for vast amounts of daffodils to be grown and harvested in the Black Mountains of mid-Wales.
University marketing director Frank Marsh said: “The potential for Welsh hill farms is huge “The benefits are extensive, not only to Welsh bioscience and the pharmaceutical industry, but also to the ageing population.”
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia; it hits one in 20 people over the age of 65 and one in five people over the age of 80.
The University’s Manufacturing Engineering Centre is now helping the company Alzeim Ltd to develop the daffodil as a medicinal plant.
The daffodil was brought to the UK by the Romans, who believed in its healing powers.
But doctors have warned the bulb of the yellow flower is poisonous when eaten.
People have died after mistaking daffodil bulbs for onions.
You see that was the Info on daffodils.
Now I think Lynham is best because it has plenty of rain and is sunny in the summer I know this because Chris Hunter of R8 lives there and he told me also I know because of the graphs.
A person who lives there who I know has a bunch a daffodils growing in his garden.
Lynham has one bad point and that is that it has more wind which will be bad at first because it will make it much harder for the little shrubs to grow. But after the daffodils have fully grown it will be better for them to have wind as that is a natural way of spreading seeds.
Avimoore is so much the worst place because it is in cold old Scotland. Also Avimore is a ski resort and that would make it colder but it would also mean people could go skiing on holiday and that’s Avimoore good point.
The thing we are doing in maths is trying to find out which place is better for a holiday and for that I would choose Avimoore as it is a ski resort and that would be a fun filled holiday for the whole family.
If I ever do this again what I would change would be that you would have more time on research, be told the hypothesis at the start, It would be SHORTER and graphs would count as words.
The hardiest parts for me and Milo would probably be the graphs this is long but not hard.
Evaluation: I worked with Milo Goodspeed and we did a bunch of graph stuff and then started this. In total we had six lessons on this and I’m still working.
In these lessons we were in L block, R12 and H27.
I’m sorry that my graphs were not included in this but that was saved in Milo’s file.
Also I am sorry that there were no maps in this seeing as the internet is not working.
I would like to thank the following people: Chris Hunter for living in Lynham, Myself of course, Milo Goodspeed for being my partner, The computers I worked on, The person who invented windows (computer not glass), Miss West, Mr Coal, Mrs Coal, The head teacher for opening the school, my mum for having me and the internet which is now broken.
So this bit now is the conclusion in which I tell my theories I think that Lynham is the best for a daffodil farm and Avimoore for a holiday.
The hypothesis is: Lynham better place for a daffodil farm then Avimoore and Lynham is a better place for a holiday then Avimoore.
This report was written mostly by me and partly by Milo and it is seven hundred and fifty words long count ‘em if you want.
THE END BY ADAM RANDALL R8

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Doctor Who Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury edited by Paul Cornell

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Adam Randall

Doctor Who A Christmas TreasuryToday, for the first non-Christmas entry I’ve decided to write another book review. Although, a little bit ironically, the book is a Christmas short story anthology which I’ve read over the last month, making this entry slightly Christmassy too. This book, Doctor Who Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury, has quite a nice mixture of stories, ranging from very serious ones to very silly ones, all of them, of course, using characters from Doctor Who (which just happens to be one of my favourite TV series!) I’ll write a brief little something about every story in this collection now:

Last Christmas by Simon Guerrier: 8/10
The Seventh Doctor visits an old friend of his every Christmas… It’s quite a gloomy story really, but still, quite an interesting one. A nice start to the anthology.

UNIT Christmas Parties: First Christmas by Nick Wallace:  8.2/10
The next story is a slightly better one. This one is definitely more Christmassy feeling than the first one too. In this one the Third Doctor spends his first Christmas day on Earth after being trapped there and, well, I think it’s quite nice, especially the ending.

In the TARDIS: Christmas Day by Val Douglas: 8.1/10
This is a fun little poem about how Christmas day is spent on the TARDIS with the Fifth Doctor and his companions. It’s quite amusing really, and a parody of the famous ‘In the Workhouse: Christmas Day’ poem.

Water’s Edge by Peter Adamson: 6.4/10
The Sixth Doctor is involved with the real life Tangiwai train crash of Christmas 1953. It’s not really Christmassy at all, and very grim really. It’s not bad, but it’s not overly fun either.

A Yuletide Tale: Part One by Dave Stone: 6/10
A story about a cat named Tom who appears to be trying to survive in Victorian London during an alien invasion. It’s not bad, but a little boring. The TARDIS appears at the very end and this story is continued in part two.

Spookasm by Peter Anghelides: 4/10
This is the only story in the whole anthology that I would call bad. The story is about a little girl visiting a theme park and The Seventh Doctor makes a few small appearances. Some alien or something is planning on using the girl or something and… Well, it just isn’t very good, and it doesn’t really need to be in a Christmas anthology either, the only link to the festive season is that the girl’s birthday is the 25th of December.

Christmas Special by Marc Platt: 8/10
This is a rather meta and bizarre story featuring the Sixth Doctor entering the world of television and learning that his show might be cancelled. There are lots of references to the real life factors in Doctor Who‘s cancellation, which are fun to spot if you know them, and the strangeness of the story makes it rather fun to read.

Never Seen Cairo by Darren Sellers: 8.5/10
This is another rather sad story: The Fifth Doctor visits the football playing truce of World War 1 and makes a new friend. This is a very good story though, and one of the best ‘serious’ stories in this anthology.

The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas by Mark Michalowski: 9.2/10
This story was my favourite one in the anthology! Favourite story that is, there’s a poem later on that’s better than it. The Second Doctor has a little adventure with Santa Claus and, well, it’s just a wonderfully written piece of festive fun!

Last Minute Shopping by Neil Perryman: 8.9/10
This one is another jolly yuletide story. The Fifth Doctor and his companions decide to do some Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, with some rather humorous results. The funniest parts of this story are the bits that show Turlough and the Doctor failing to fit into normal society due to their being so otherworldly.

Every Day by Stephen Fewell: 8.5/10
The First Doctor and his companions land in a house where it really is Christmas every day… It’s quite an interesting story really, and all the characters are presented perfectly. Plus, it gets a good mixture of comedy and drama.

The Eight Doctors of Christmas by Matthew Griffiths: 8/10
A parody of the poem The Twelve Days of Christmas (in case it wasn’t obvious from the title). It’s quite fun to read, though a couple of the lines seem to me as if they don’t quite fit.

The Little Things by Paul Beardsley: 8/10
Back when the TARDIS could transform to fit into its surroundings, a woman accidentally posted a Christmas card into it because it looked like a post box. Years later the Fourth Doctor and Romana find this letter and decide to deliver it. This story is quite funny, a jolly Christmas romp. Plus, this story is the first of several crazy Fourth Doctor and Romana adventures, so you have more of these to look forward to afterwards.

Beep the Meep’s Grundian Egg Nog, The Brig’s Brandy Butter, The Game of Rassilon, Animus, Zarbi and Menoptra, Camilla’s O-Negative Mulled Wine and Mrs Baddeley’s Mini Christmas Pudding Truffles 7/10
These are all separate things in the book, and none of them are stories. Each of them is a Doctor Who related recipe or game. Animus, Zarbi and Menoptra seems to be the most fun of all of them.

UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce by Terrance Dicks: 9/10
Another story set while the Third Doctor was trapped on Earth, this story also has The Master in it! I won’t spoil what happens, but it’s a very good, very sweet story! One of the best in the book.

The Clanging Chimes of Doom by Jonathan Morris: 8/10
This one seems to me like it’s a sequel to The Little Things. Another funny story about the Fourth Doctor and Romana. The Doctor decides to start collecting autographs, and so he visits the recording of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ it’s not a particularly Christmassy story, but a good one nonetheless.

On Being Five by Jo Fletcher: 7/10
A nice little nostalgic poem about the writer’s experience of watching Doctor Who as a young child. Not too bad.

Perfect Present by Andy Campbell: 8.5/10
Somewhat creepy story about the Seventh Doctor ridding an old house of ghosts in the early 1900s. The story has a rather nice twist to it as well… Plus, it’s a race against time too; he needs to get it all done before the next day: Christmas!

Present Tense by Ian Potter 9/10
This is the best Fourth Doctor and Romana story. The two of them exchange gifts on Christmas day, unfortunately, The Doctor’s outlandish gift causes some kind of damage by being pulled out of time. This one’s funny and nice at the same time.

Goodwill Toward Men by J. Shaun Lyon: 8.5/10
Another great story about the Second Doctor. He has his companions Jamie and Zoe with him this time too. It isn’t quite as good as the earlier Second Doctor story, but it’s still very enjoyable. Here he visits a homeless shelter on Christmas Eve to do some charitable work, and one of his companions learns a valuable lesson!

It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow by Martin Day:  8/10
The Fourth Doctor and Leela inadvertently interfere with The Homeguard’s training during Christmas time. Quite an enjoyable read, and a more serious story for the Fourth Doctor after the other three more jokey ones.

All Our Christmases by Steve Lyons: 9/10
This is a very good story dealing with how people would use time travel if they had access to it. The Doctor plays a fairly small part in this story, and I’m not entirely sure which one it’s supposed to be, but I think it’s The First Doctor. This story is also extremely meta as well, as a large part of the story has a character describing Doctor Who to The Doctor!

Lily by Jackie Marshall: 7.9/10
The Fifth Doctor visits Sarah Jane Smith, at a much later point in her life, around Christmas time. While there, he meets her granddaughter Lily. Nothing much really happens, but I like it for being very relatably Christmassy. Plus, I do quite like the character Lily, I wonder if she’s in anything else?

A Yuletide Tale: Part 2 by Dave Stone: 7/10
The conclusion to A Yuletide Tale. It’s better than the first part, and has the Seventh Doctor and Ace in it. Fairly funny too.

…Be Forgot by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright: 8.9/10
The Eighth Doctor visits Bernice Summerfield at Christmas time. Now, I don’t know very much about Bernice Summerfield, but this story makes me want to read some of the spin-off books about her; it’s a very good story.

The Feast of Seven, Eight (and Nine) by Vanessa Bishop: 10/10
A hilarious poem about all of the Doctors having a Christmas party together. I was laughing all the way through! It’s the best thing in the book, in my opinion, which is why I have given it a 10/10, but anybody unfamiliar with Doctor Who would get no joy from this poem at all.

UNIT Christmas Parties: Ships That Pass by Karen Dunn: 9/10
Another more serious Fourth Doctor story, and it’s mainly about his companions Sarah and Harry. The two of them are in an explosion and think they’re likely to die and, well, the little conversations they have to comfort each other are very well written. Overall a very good story.

Evergreen by Stephen Cole 5/10
I didn’t get this story. I gave it a 5/10 because I don’t know what was going on in it. There are so many Doctor Who books and characters and everything, it’s probably dealing with a section of the Whoniverse I’m unfamiliar with… So it must be very obscure. Not all that entertaining either.

Average: 7.3/10
The average score of this book seems quite low to me though, as I enjoyed it more than that! My only problem with the book is that each of the Doctors didn’t seem to be equally used… But it was a fun and enjoyable read nonetheless, especially around the Christmas season.

Buy it here.

Oh my goodness, this might be my longest entry! Short story anthologies take a while to review I guess.

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