Charity

The existence of a very important charitable organisation has come to my attention, please visit the site immediately.
Link
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Sing a Song for You- Dalfino Madrigal Keyte

My good friend Dalfino has posted a song on Youtube (Sing a Song for You by Tim Buckley). This is the best musical work I’ve heard from Dalfino and I heavily suggest you give it a listen. I’d give this cover a 8/10 and I hope that he decides to post more songs online soon,
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Spencer’s Mountain by Earl Hamner Jr.

Spencer's MountainThe book Spencer’s Mountain is the best book that I have ever read, I won’t say that it’s the best book ever written because I haven’t read every book in existence, but it’s definitely a possibility. Written by Earl Hamner Jr. the story is made up of several events that actually happened in his life but which have been fictionalised.

As you read, you find out about the adventures of young aspiring writer Clay-Boy, a member of the very large Spencer family. The overreaching arc of the novel is the story of Clay-Boy working hard so that he can go to college, and, throughout the story there are events that’re really funny and events that’re really sad, all them featuring highly likeable and relatable characters. It’s a real testimony to how well Earl Hamner can write. I guess I should also write a little warning that there is one scene in the book that is somewhat sexually explicit, but it’s done very well and isn’t at all untasteful, but I just thought I should mention it as it was rather unexpected.

Spencer’s Mountain has been adapted twice, once as the film Spencer’s Mountain and then again a little later as the TV series The Waltons. Unfortunately, at the time of writing I have not seen the original film adaptation, but I have seen the TV series and anyone who has seen the series will enjoy reading the book even more because you’ll notice all the links to episodes in it. But I’m adding unnecessary adaptation information, so this last paragraph may be irrelevant, I only added it because otherwise I’d just be saying “This book is great” over and over again.

Basically, I love this book, so I’ll give it a nice 10/10

Buy it here.

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BabelColour

For today’s entry I’m making a shout out to the ‘BabelColour’ YouTube page. Basically, if you’re a Doctor Who fan, you should definitely visit this page. The videos are made by a man named Stuart Humphryes and there are roughly three kinds of videos he makes: tributes (where he picks a character from the show or a theme and then shows clips of it to music), colourisations (where he colourises scenes from the black and white videos) and also his Ten Doctors videos (which are his attempt at making ‘The Ten Doctors’ into an episode, done by cleverly splicing together existing footage in new ways).

Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/BabelColour?blend=1&ob=4

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Biblical Proof That The Bible is Not 100% Reliable

As I’m sure you know, there are some people who takes the Bible 100% literally, which, while not a bad thing on its own, can lead homophobic hate crime and other disagreeable things. So, for today’s entry. So to criticise this point of view, I am going to use The Bible (and no other sources) to create an argument that the word of God, should you believe it exists, cannot be found through the Bible.
    Let me quickly explain the start of Genesis for those of you not wholly familiar with it: God makes the world, then he’s kind enough to take one of Adam’s ribs and turn it into a woman (Eve). Adam and Eve have fun in the Garden of Eden, but then an evil serpent (some say it was supposed to be the devil… I think that that is a bit unlikely) persuades Eve to eat from the one tree God told her not to eat from and then she persuades Adam to do the same. God feels sad about this so he banishes them from the garden and puts them out into an imperfect world. God also makes Adam and Eve imperfect, they don’t like being naked and will one day die. One crucial thing, though, is that Adam and Eve still speak the perfect Original Language.
    A couple of years down the line some humans decide to build a tower so tall that it goes all the way to the heavens. God gets upset about this, so he decides to curse humanity so that different groups people have different languages. With the creation of the different languages the Original Language was lost forever, and that would have been the only perfect language, and therefore the only way that facts and information can be truly and properly conveyed.
    Now, if the only way to properly convey things infallibly is with the Original Language and the Bible is NOT written in that perfect language then surely The Bible is fallible? So maybe the Ancient Hebrews, when the time came to write The Bible, found that they had no way to explain what actually happened in their own language and so, instead of writing divine truth, filled it with all kinds of violence and injustices that were common in that historical context? I hope this argument hasn’t offended anybody, I have tried to argue using only The Bible as a source in the hope that I will not stray in my argument.
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Boring Day

Unfortunately, I don’t have an exciting creepy entry for you, which is a shame seeing as it’s Halloween, so instead I’ll type up my day, which has been more boring than any other day. I was riding into university this morning on the bus, it was an incredibly misty day and it was hard to see more than three metres ahead. I was quite tired, but soon the bus began to swerve. I looked through the windshield window and saw a rather tall and thin man standing in the middle of the road in a business suit.
    I’m not entirely sure what happened with that bus thing, but the next I knew I was laying in the middle of the road. I was a little confused and felt about myself to check that I was okay. Luckily, my Trusty Water Bottle appeared to be undamaged (as did my Game Boy) so I stood up and brushed myself off. At this point I realised that I could see, through the mist, that the sky was some bright shade of red and that the sun was nowhere to be seen. It’s probably the most interesting thing I’ve noticed all day; I guess it must be some weird natural phenomenon that occurs during the winter months.
    Anywho, I wandered over to the place of my first lecture. Annoyingly, when I arrived there wasn’t a soul in sight; it appeared as if everybody had gone home due to the mist. Really, leaving due to a weather condition as mundane as fog seems rather lazy (not to sound rude at all).
    I left the building that my lecture was supposed to be in and then strolled on over back to the bus-stop, I’d catch my bus from there and head back to Corsham. The buses are supposed to arrive every twenty minutes, but I waited for two hours and none came. I was going to leave after thirty minutes but decided I was too cynical in deciding it wouldn’t arrive and so waited a little longer.
    After the two hours of waiting I realised that the buses had obviously been cancelled due to the mist. This wasn’t too bad though, there’s some nice wilderness surrounding the university so I decided it was strolling time. I walked towards the wilderness area but unfortunately, and embarrassingly, I bumped into a large statue that I hadn’t spotted in the mist. Funnily enough, the statue was of a tall and thin business suited man, this statue must’ve been what the bus crashed into earlier! Silly bus driver.
    I wandered down into the woods and, while there, I realised that everywhere I went there was a distinctive humming/pulsating noise coming from somewhere. It must have been the noise of machines working against the fog. While in the woods, I accidentally bumped into that statue again, which was slightly odd, as I had been sure it wasn’t in the woods earlier. I got a little bored of my wandering after a while and so turned out of the misty woods and back towards the main campus.
    It was while I walked back over to the campus that I got the idea of using the computers they had in the library to while away the hours. Once I got near to the library I noticed that the university had already put up their Halloween decorations, and they sure were good ones! Lying randomly around on the ground were several skeletons, all of them wearing the same clothes as people I knew, the university really must put the effort into their decorations, dressing them in the same clothes as the students sure was a suitably creepy touch. I pulled out my phone to text my friends that they had skeletons there that wore the same clothes as them, but when I got my phone out it just crumbled to dust… Technology these days! None of it will outlast a simple Game Boy Pocket.
    Then, after that I just used their computers for a few hours. Well more than that I guess as it’s almost 9 p.m. now, I wonder when the buses will run again? But as you can see, this has been a very boring day for me, absolutely nothing has happened. Oh, it turns out that business man wasn’t a statue! He just entered the computer room, I’ll just finish up this entry and then go and say hello to him. Perhaps he runs the buses.
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Failed Joke 4: Rodents

(First, I would like to apologise to any regular readers (if there are any) who were expecting a new entry on Monday (as I usually post). The fact is, I plainly forgot about my blog on Monday and it didn’t even cross my mind to update it until Tuesday evening when I decided just to skip updating for that day (rather than do it so late).)

Anywho, today’s entry will be another entry in my ‘Failed Joke’ series, all of which are anecdotes involving my poor execution of jokes I’ve thought up and the inevitable awkwardness which always follows.

Friend: So I heard you have a fetish for rodents.
Me: (thinking) Hmm, they’re the one that started the joke this time, whatever I say will be a funny continuation of what they said and there’s no chance of failing with this one!
Me: (speaking) Yes, you heard correctly, I do have a fetish for rodents. It’s the fact that they’re so small and everything.
Friend: I can imagine, you being so tall and everything, you must like that they’re the opposite. I guess a caged hamster drives you crazy.
Me: (thinking) Yes, this interaction is going perfectly! We’re now BFFs for sure!
Me: (speaking) Yeah, I’m actually such a fan of rodents (does internet search while talking) that I’m a member of RAG, The Rodent Appreciation Group it’s my favourite website. I’ll email a link to you right now.
Planned reaction:
Friend: Hahahahahahaha that’s so funny, I couldn’t respect you more.
Me: 😀
Actual reaction:
Friend: Oh, why did you send me that? You took it too far, you’re so weird.
Me: 🙁
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Why the Trust Water Bottle is this winter’s ‘must have’ accessory

I’m sure you’ve noticed how winter is beginning to kick in. One layer is no longer enough to keep you warm outside, your breath floats up as steam and the main thing keeping you warm is the heating… Luckily for you, today’s blog entry is about this season’s ‘hottest’ accessory which will definitely keep you in the summery feeling all winter long.
    Imagine, for a second, that you already have your own Trust Water Bottle; it seems very obvious to me that you won’t be able to resist its temptations. Before long you’ll be guzzling down litre after litre of that delicious water (or ecstasy juice, as it’s more commonly referred to). Anywho, I’m sure you know what happens to you when you drink a lot of water… That’s right! You use a lot of toilets. Of course, when you’re drinking all these exceedingly large amounts of water, you won’t always have instant access to a toilet and, as such, will simply have to hold it in. Now, I’m sure you know, when you really badly need to use the toilet you’ll be completely oblivious to all other feelings, thus meaning you will not feel the cold!
    But that’s not the only way that a Trusty Water Bottle will keep you warm this winter! On those icy cold days you’ll be drinking a lot of icy cold water. When it’s a cold day you’ll be cold on the outside but warm on the inside, the icy cold water will make you also cold on the inside, then, once you’re able to recover you will be warm… in comparison to the cold you were a second before!
    But aside from the fact that a Trusty Water Bottle will keep you feeling like you’re in a sauna when you’re in sub-zero temperatures, it also acts as the most effective safety devise you can get during the winter months. Let me explain. Imagine you’re strolling through the busy streets of a city one chilly afternoon, you wander in a back alley to make a shortcut on the way to the nearest Waterstone’s and, unfortunately for you, there’s an armed mugger waiting for you. The mugger grabs you from behind and points a knife to your neck, demanding you give him your wallet. You fake some kind of panic attack and say you need some water, the mugger lets go of you and allows you to take a sip from your Trusty Water Bottle, you pour its contents on the floor shout “try and catch me you silly man!” and run away. The mugger will try and chase after you, but unfortunately for him, the water you poured on the floor is now slippery ice and he violently slips up shattering his skull and spine when he hits the floor.
    So I hope I’ve demonstrated to you why exactly the Trusty Water Bottle is this season’s ‘must have’ item. I suggest you get down to the shops and buy one now before they’re all bought up!
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The Time I Met Satan

Yep, that’s right, one time I met Satan (or at least that’s what he told me his name was.) Where do you think it was? Prowling in the darkness of the wilderness? Maliciously wandering around the ruins of some ancient Pagan temple? Well, if either of those options did spring instantly into your mind, you’d have been wrong. Satan was actually strolling through the streets of Bath on one sunny afternoon when I was visiting there with my friends one day a few years ago.

Now, Bath is well known for its rather diverse range of street performers; you’ll find people playing music, human statues and even grown men wrestling in their underwear. Satan was one of these street performers, or rather, disguised as one of them as part of his diabolical plans. But before I describe how exactly he and I met, let me describe a little how he looked. Satan was surprisingly tall, he was much taller than me and I am already roughly six foot five, his skin was red and he had horns and a goatee, and he wore long robes and a cape.

I don’t mean to use my blog as a celebrity gossip page, but Satan sure was a rather audacious street performer. I spotted him walking around the streets, and at about the same time he seemed to spot me. He then proceeded to approach me, we looked each other in the face and he said, in a rather rasping voice, “I am Satan” and then he proceeded to hug me (by hug, I mean engulf me in his cape so that I was completely hidden from the sun. I don’t know why, but it was probably so that he could eat my soul or something).

Once he had finished, I thanked him for his performance, and gave him a pound for his troubles. Then, off he went, to continue his evil eternal wanderings across the surface of the Earth…

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Romantenment

As part of my university studies, I’ve been reading lately about the conflict between the Romantic poets and those in favour of the Enlightenment (this taking place between roughly 1650 and 1800). Each group of them held worldviews which they considered to be mutually exclusive.

The Romantics view the world in what can only be called a “romantic” kind of way. But, to give you a description that is actually useful: the Romantics viewed the world as a place full of beauty, wonder and mystery. It was a world where nature was to be highly valued, and human beings considered just a small part of something much bigger in the universe. Religion played a significant role in this worldview too.

Meanwhile, those in favour of the Enlightenment viewed the world in a different light. Everything happened for a reason, the world was governed by the laws of science. There was an answer behind everything, and everything could fit to the rules that humans created (for example, standardising the language, introducing the metric system etc). Religion didn’t fit in so well.

Basically, those for the Enlightenment were for order and reason, and those for Romanticism were for emotion, disorder and mystery.

But I don’t see why these things have to be mutually exclusive. Sure, science gives answers to things, but it also raises questions and creates more mystery. Language may be standardised, but amazing pieces of literature can still be produced. In my opinion, both of these views are extremes. The Romantics don’t take things quite seriously enough and the Enlightenmentalists are far too stoic and unable to appreciate the beauty in the world. So I believe that there is a golden mean between the two, Romantenment as I call it for a little joke, and which I believe to be superior to the other worldviews.

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