The A.S.Downloads

I arrived back at the flat around mid afternoon and spent between then and Doctor Who, editing all three of my podcasts. I've completed them and uploaded them to download so if in the mood you can give me constructive or dismissive comments where appropriate.
They're produced as if they were commisioned by the National Autistic Society and are divided into three episodes:

1: The Parents Perspective

2: Teaching Autism and ASD

3: A Personal Viewpoint

Now I've just got to design the website which shouldn't be too much trouble as I may adapt the template I used for the Tarot website but this time make sure the all the links are working!
I may wait until Monday when the first years are doing there websites and get Stoobie to give me a hand!

Doctor Who kicked off in style tonight with Martha making her debut as the Doctor's companion and becoming all confused by the TARDIS interior as always which they dealt with brilliantly knowing that the Doctor's heard the exclamation several times. However I unintentionally ended up becoming half asleep midway through the episode but didn't doze off completely which is not normally the case when watching an episode of the series. As I've said before I can never plan to fall asleep in front of the television, it has to be a programme that I enjoy watching. Then again I'm not too sure about next weeks episode when the Doctor and Martha go back to meet William Shakespeare. Contrary to the header on my blog I've never been a fan of the episodes set in historical periods such as Charles Dickens in the first series.

Overall, I'm happy that I've got my podcasts completed and the visit back to Canterbury really did help.

Time Waits For One Man

My morning was a nightmare recording links for my podcast, mainly because I hate the way I deliver sentences at times and can only get them how I want to sound if I'm really lucky.
However with all that done I just need to mix the links and the interviews together and that will be my podcasts more or less complete. I just need to find some appropriate rights-free music to use within them and then I just need to worry about completing the website.

One or two people are in RP1 sorting editing their own podcasts but it's pretty quiet and relaxed overall with everything leading up to the new series of Doctor Who which starts tonight. I'm still not too much of a fan of David Tennant in the lead role as he's a bit too eccentric whilst Christopher Eccleston could be flippant at and react sarcastically if enemies got to him. Overall though I'm looking forward to seeing how the new companion fares and from what everyone else is saying she's more independent the Rose was. And I'm sure they'll be a few closely guarded twists towards the end of the series.

I'm really tempted to buy the DVD of Russell T Davies' drama "The Second Coming" starring Christopher Eccleston before he took the role of the Doctor, partly because one of the extra features is a scene involving a stand-up act from Bernard Manning which was cut from the final broadcast.
I hope he plans to make a visit to London before my time here finishes!

"Stay Tuned, Don't Go Away Now"

Not a very good start to the morning (and an early one at that) as I've found out that ITV have snatched the rights to broadcast the FA Cup final from 2009 for four years. It's mainly because of a lifelong association that the FA Cup final always means BBC 1 to me and when it transferred to ITV first time round 10 years ago it didn't really feel the same. However I should really be making more of an effort to visit Wembley Stadium at least once whilst I'm here, especially as it's only two Underground stops from Harrow Halls and whatever I would be seeing there it would be a treat.

Associating big events or programmes with a particular channel has been something that has stuck with me for a long time.
I can remember when a television website wrote an article about SM:TV Live being ITV's most successful Saturday morning show since Tiswas, and there was a quote saying that whilst it was a very popular and entertaining programme, Saturday mornings always meant BBC for people of an older generation and were worried that current viewers would break this heritage. However after Ant & Dec moved on to Saturday evenings the ratings declined and the BBC got the audience back with the help of Fearne Cotton and Dick and Dom although currently neither channels are making any effort to produce top quality entertainment, in favour of cookery programmes and back to back animation imports.

Whenever I see excerpts from either "Going Live!", "Live And Kicking" and SMTV in their prime I get more of a buzz than today's offerings and it's programmes like that that give me ideas and inspire me for things I do in radio. It's just the ability to move quickly from one item to another without it looking contrived or staged, and with the latter it's what most entertainment on television seems to have ended up as nowadays.

However this deviates slightly from the original point of the post as I found this excerpt on Youtube of Channel 4 sharing ITV's coverage of the World Snooker Championships with ITV branding! It's impossible to think in this day and age that both channels were closely associated even for a few years after Channel 4 started it's own advertising in 1993. Then again the same things happened when Channel 4 started broadcasting schools programmes as seen in this junction with one of the catchiest tunes ever heard on television. Definitely catchy enough for Chris Moyles to give it an airing 15 years later!

Podcast Progress

I'm warming up an experimental spag bol (well, with conchiglie pasta) with the powder normally used for making chicken stew after a very long day in radio.
To be honest all I've really been doing has been ripping and tagging CDs onto my hard drive but it was nice to have company from a small selection of radio students continuing with their own podcasts. We even had a visit from Tudor who came to borrow a microphone from me for his visit to a Prog Rock festival in Cheltenham tomorrow, the results of which will end up in his show this coming Tuesday.

However I've got a bit further with sorting what audio I'm going to use in my podcast and quicker than I thought as well with some very good interviews from Jan at Boys Langton and Sue from the Abbey unit who give very good insights into how their programmes help children with learning difficulties.
The main reason overall why I'm feeling more confident towards completing the task is that I've been spoilt stupid once again with another end of year special from The Chart Show added to Youtube, this time from 1988. From what I understand the number 1 song of the year was Yazz and the Plastic Population with "The Only Way Is Up" and that song was very relevant for the show then as this particular edition was the final one to be broadcast on Channel 4 on the 2nd of January 1989, moving to ITV just five days later becoming a fixture for many Saturday mornings.

I'm going to have a goldmine of musical and televisual nostalgia to endure in at by the end of this semester!

Unseasonal Temperatures

It's abosolutley freezing here in RP1 despite it getting close to April and I'm considering heading back over to the flat and getting a sweatshirt, which if I'm being honest I haven't worn any since Christmas. Apart from that, the podcasts are in their early stages but are in progress and I aim to get them completed by Monday so I can get the website sorted out. To be honest I feel more comfortable editing on my laptop at home but it's nice to have company here in the radio rooms even though a lot of people are out recording interviews.

Ricky's around though working on getting his podcast completed before heading up to the SRA conference in York on Monday along with the other station editors. His set of podcasts are on climbing which is something I'd love to get back into so I may have a few words with him as to where the best places are to get involved although he's only just starting to learn about the activity himself!
However I've heard that fellow station editor Ross Tilley is planning his podcast to be about the SRA conference itself! Definitley a mammoth task as the deadline for the assignment is one day after the conference finishes but I'm looking forward to hearing the finished result.

For now though I'll stick around burning CDs and sorting out audio to be included in my finished product.

Rewarding Audio

It's been a busy old day, I left Uni just before 8am to get my two interviews for my podcasts. On arriving at Victoria station there were crowds of people waiting opposite the ticket barriers and outside the station as the entrance was closed due to a signal faliure Northbound but that was the least of my worries as just as I got onto the train heading for Faversham I realised I hadn't brought my earpieces with me.

Luckily when I arrived at the autism unit they were able to lend me a pair so I could do my interview with Sue who runs the centre and gave a passionate look into how things have been running in the last few years and how many of the students attending have gained confidence into going to lessons without support and progressing towards jobs and going to university. It was also nice to see a few staff members who were there when I was still attending as well as some new members of staff quite a lot of them were really happy with my mum for helping them out sort their child's learning.

I had another interview lined up in Swalecliffe so with three hours between the one I'd just done I decided to try and walk up their via the creek near Faversham. However I got to a small village called Graveny about an hour later where I'd got about 1 and a quarter miles away from Faversham and it was 6 and a quarter miles to Whiststable! I decided to head back to Faversham and get the train to Swalecliffe which seemed the most sensible idea in time for my second interview with a mother called Lucy and her son Mark who has Asperger's Syndrome.
I interviewed them both seperatley and later just had a normal conversation with the both of them where I found out a few interesting points including questions such as why not a lot of research is gone into adults who have Autism or Asperger's syndrome and why they aren't diagnosed until a later age. I had the MD recorder running throughout and on listening back it sounds pretty good despite not having earpieces with me. I guess it's just a case of altering audio levels during the editing but I'll make a start on that tomorrow.

On arriving back at Uni I headed straight up to radio where quite a few people were working on editing their podcasts including Paul and Khalia. Adam and Zo arrived soon after to do their final Shuffle show of this semester with the theme of all the tracks being "Number 29" on the albums they were released on. Included were tracks by Tom Waits and some reggae from the Trojan label prompting Paul to come into the studio and show his enthusiasm about the music in his usual manner.

It's not the final show of the year however as Adam was telling me that he'd sent an e-mail asking if it would be possible to do another two hour show as part of the Broadcast Bonanza in May, which would be most welcome although they haven't yet decided on a theme! I hope to be doing another two hour show as well with my show being a Summer soul special made up of mellow tracks such as Natalie Cole and Astrud Gilberto alongside beach house by the likes of Masters at Work and Rasmus Faber.
It's all looking positive for when we come back after Easter with assignments done and dusted. Well except for those doing the Media Law module who have got an exam in the middle of May!

It may well be an early start again tomorrow as I'm cracking on with editing my interviews as well as carrying out many favours for a few people in my radio class. I may even see if I can start designing the web page as well!

Filling The Empty Holes

A very exhuastive second half of day is almost nearing an end and I need to get some shut eye before embarking on my interviews tomorrow. At around 5 this afternoon I got a call from Atilla mentioning that himself and the rest of the International team were caught up in all sorts of other business meaning that they wouldn't be able to do their show tonight so I headed back from radio to my room in halls to prepare a playlist for an extra hour for my own show tonight.
It didn't go too badly although I rushed my links at times which at one point resulted in me mentioning Belinda Carlisle when I least expected it!
However things should return to form next week when the Smoke International team are doing their final show for Smoke Radio as Fabian's heading back to Germany next month and the dissertation deadline is getting closer.

I've also heard that Chris from the first year is looking after the running of the Undercroft night next week with all the station managers up in York for the SRA conference and I'll be spinning the discs as usual. Actually I need to buy a few more CD-Rs as I've used up all the ones on my spindle. Tudor's also going to be there making his debut on the decks and hopefully we'll be able to get a few more involved towards the night itself.
It looks as though I'll miss the Foam Party on the final Thursday however, partly because it's a bit steep but also because I may be asked back to ASDA the next day as I put that date on my letter I sent a couple of days ago. However I need to be back in London by the 28th as the rent's due in by then as are all the essays a few days after.

If the interviews are completed succesfully tomorrow then I'll make a start on putting the podcast together by recording a few links. It may be useful to add some additional content rather than just use interviews but as long as it fits within the given lengths of time I'll be happy.

The Third Year Looms...

I've just signed up for the theory modules that I want to take in the third year which are Contemporary Issues in Media Policy in semester 1 and Advertising and Promotional Culture in semester 2. According to SRS web it says you only need to take 2 theory modules to add up to 30 credits totalling the amount you will get in the third year but I'm not so sure if that's accurate after last year's problems with registering for modules. Although in all fairness the main reason we had to re-register was because one of the lecturers decided rather selfishly at the last minute to move their module from the first to the second semester.

However it's going to be a tough old year next year as Dan was up in the radio rooms last night going on about how difficult the dissertation is and handling it with his other commitments. I've agreed to be part of his focus group on podcasting next week to help give him a hand and I'd be more than happy to transcribe the discussion for the appendix, just to save him a bit of time. That's if I can handle the two essays I have for Media Technology, Media Events, the Critical Report for the Podcasting module and managing the madhouse that is ASDA back in Canterbury! If they give me a callback to confirm my return.

If I'm brave enough I'll make a start on the Critical Report today and find some radio websites to analyse although I don't think many of them are as poorly designed as the Tarot Website that I submitted for the first half of the module. And there's also the penultimate show of the semester to sort out which includes a very groovy track from Eternal! It didn't take the fancy of all however as it was featured on Trev and Simon's "Video Galleon" on Live and Kicking 11 years ago where the guests voted the song to be swallowed by the shark! "Stuff it Sailor Simon!"

Lack Of Credit

This morning I had an interview with a woman called Jan who runs the Autism learning programme at the Boys Langton Grammar School. Having been open for just two years I thought it was a very impressive bulding with workstations each with a computer for every pupil and a quiet room to relieve anxieties. We managed to get the interview recorded onto my dad's laptop once again although the audio quality shouldn't be too bad save for a few pops.

I got back to London just after midday and immediately swapped my faulty MD recorder for one that works perfectly and will save me a lot of hassle for my interviews on Thursday.
On getting back up to the radio rooms I found out that the dancefloor at the Undercroft took two hours to fill up without my presence last night according to Chris who along with Phil was DJing last night at the ever decreasing water hold. If they didn't stay open until 2am and moved back closing time to midnight then I'm sure they'd get more people in there.

The plan for tonight was to go to the Arts Theatre in Central to see Richard Herring in "Menage A Un" but I've had a few problems with my credit card as I need to present it with my booking confirmation number as I was stupid enough to opt for the box office method of collecting tickets. None of the cash machines will accept my credit card pin number so I'm reluctantly going to give the perfomance a miss. I need to save a bit of money for the tube journey on Thursday which will be a very early start.

Overall it's nice to be back in London although that's partly because I'm feeling more relaxed as a few people in my group are finding it difficult getting material sorted for their podcasts. In all fairness however we weren't really given enough time to think the whole thing through having only been set the assignment just over a week ago and the deadline's next week.
It's going to be crowded in the studios by then.

A Cunning Plan

One of the many people helping Jo Brand get to grips with the organ last night was composer Howard Goodall showing her the ropes at Oxford University.
His rather overbearing drones can be heard throughout the final episode of the first series of "The Black Adder" complete with the early 80s BBC 1 globe to add to the authenticity of 1983.

This series isn't as fondly remembered as the subsequent series for many reasons including the rather dominant organ chords that are heard at any given time. Another one was that big locations and dramatic filming techinques didn't really mix with the humour it was trying to produce which was why Michael Grade, the then controller of BBC 1 was very reluctant to comission a second series. However with a cheaper budget and Ben Elton in place of Rowan Atkinson at the writing duties with Richard Curtis, the series went onto became a more fondly remembered sitcom with a more snider main character compared to the rather weedy and idiotic protrayal in this episode.

The episode ends with a rather sombre version of the theme tune after the main characters death, in an attempt to tug at the heart but this was no match for the ending of the final series in 1989 where all the men went "over the top" and got killed, fading into an image of poppies with just the BBC logo superimposed over it. An image which sticks in the mind of many television viewers.

It's really odd being here on a Monday night and missing the antics at the Undercroft for the first time since Christmas. I'm quite gutted to be honest as a lot of people from the first and second years will be in York for the Student Radio Conference where the many stations of the Student Radio Association get together and involved in workshops, talks from industry professionals, and lots of drinking. I'm gutted that I'm missing out on this, especially as nobody from Westminster went last year and by the time I reach the third year I'm supposed to be more focused to what I want to do when finishing the course. Although by the way things are going at the moment I may end up failing a few modules especially the podcasting one by the way things are currently going. I pray to God that there are some spare MD recorders that work in M-Block.

Balancing Act

Common sense is definitely one of the key requirements of the radio course that I'm doing and I'm only starting to realise that now after finding that the MD recorder I borrowed won't bother to record any audio. I only found this out an hour before I was supposed to be doing my interview with a really nice woman called Margaret and ended up recording it onto my Dad's laptop via a spare microphone I found in my room as the one I was given from the stores on Harrow campus happened to be faulty as well.
The interview itself went reasonably well and although the audio quality isn't perfect it's certainly audible and a bit of tinkering on Adobe Audition will hopefully add a bit of sparkle to the finished product.

Tomorrow I've got another interview with a tutor at the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys who deals with autistic children and I'm really not sure about how I'm going to go about getting the audio recorded for that. I've been told that there's a shortcut to the school via a footpath which is difficult to find on a map but I'm going to kill a bit of time by trying to find the route myself in preparation for tomorrow. However the main priority on getting back to London is to get a replacement MD recorded if there are any left god forbid but I know that there is lesser demand for them than the popular Marrantz recorders.

To make things even more muddled I recieved a letter from ASDA asking if I still wanted to continue working with them as I haven't been there since last August. I reluctantly responded saying that I would but added a note asking if I could be moved to another department as I can't bear to work in that mudbath of a customer restaurant which always seems to be low on cutlery. However it will make me a bit more financially stable and will give me a reason for wanting to return to London in May! With all these deadlines it's going to be a struggle to balance it all together.

Prehistoric Purility

Not so long ago I heard Steve, a fellow Welsh radio student refer to a series that shown in Wales on S4C called Gogs, a claymation about a stone age family with rather vile habits.
This was broadcast to the rest of the UK as part of BBC 2's Christmas schedule in the mid to late 90s and now I've found it on Youtube of all places.
Some of the scenes are rather revolting but at the same time side splitting in what could be a more genuine perspective of how people survived in the Stone Age with the attention to detail being very accurate for obvious reasons.
The best part of it had to be the closing theme which is included in a short little montage made up of the baby's scream set to what is actually a rather groovy tune!

I'm not sure if it's just me but the baby's voice (especially its wail) sounds very similar to Daisy Dare, one of the character in the ITV series Zzzap! which involved a comic coming to life made specifically for death and hard of hearing children.
Certainly one of the finest creations to come from the unsung hero that is Neil Buchanan.

Quiet But Relaxed

Still pretty uneventful in Canterbury but the weather's an improvement from yesterday. I spent most of the morning going across the footpaths outside the town and got a few wares from Sainsbury's where their wholemeal bread is a lot nicer than that of the Kenton store.
I'm not sure when mum and dad are getting back from Yorkshire but hopefully they'll be able to go through a few of my questions for that I'm doing for my first interview tomorrow with a parent of a child with Asperger's Syndrome.

Asides that, nothing else really is planned apart from making a stew later this evening and watching Jo Brand learning to play the organ in a new BBC 1 series where they get celebrities to learn how to play musical instruments. Others include Bill Oddie learning to play the electric guitar and Frank Skinner learning to play the banjo. And according to the Observer the new series of Doctor Who starts this coming Saturday which I'm really looking forward too although I'm not sure whether I'll be in London or Canterbury as I'm always more likely to be watching it when there are less things to distract me.

Spring Time Means Prime Time

One of the disadvantages of coming back here means that I don't have my Freeview box allowing me to enjoy the delights on offer from Ftn. Well between 6 and 8pm at least.
I've found out that from April they are beginning to add episodes of Catchphrase to the schedule although from what I've heard they will be showing the editions from 2000 onwards with Nick Weir at the helm and not the legend that is Roy Walker.
This brings to mind a very amusing clip extracting the whizz out of Nick's infamous fall resulting in him doing half the series in crutches. The third edit with the Road Runner esque whistling noise is definitely the funniest.
Things got a lot worse two years later however when the show moved to daytime, ditched the studio audience and got ex Blue Peter host Mark Curry to take charge of proceedings which ended up being the final nail in the coffin of a show that lasted longer than it should have done.

However the terrestrial schedules on Saturday look set to get better from Easter onwards with the return of Doctor Who on BBC 1 with a new assistant, whilst ITV1 as far as I'm aware is bringing back the Gameshow Marathon, not with Ant & Dec but with Vernon Kay hosting old favourites such as "The Price Is Right" "Name That Tune" and so on.
That should keep things stable into the Summer at least.
On the subject of Doctor Who I've uploaded a video diary from a Whovian based in Norwich from the mid 90s CBBC series "As Seen On TV". Olly my younger brother used to watch this short film quite a lot to get a cheap laugh but it gave me more of an understanding at the time of people who had similar disabilities to mine and how the series is such a brilliant thing to have an interest in.

To be honest I'm glad I managed to see it broadcast in the late 80s with Sylvester McCoy in the lead role otherwise I would have completely dismissed the series as a load of rubbish if I'd discovered it at a later age with the cheap sets and poorly executed monsters from the 1960s/70s.
Thankfully the producers nowadays realise that audiences these days aren't that patient and don't insist stringing out stories that take six episodes to develop.

The Oral Jazz

After 3 months of broadcasting non-stop incomprehensible jamming, the Jazz on DAB is finally getting a fully fledged presenter line-up. It's quite an interesting line-up as the daytime schedule seems to be filled with people who seem to languishing within the Leicester Square building such as Kid Jensen, Mark Forrest (Classic FM) and rather bizarrely Margharita Taylor. However they've also brought over Helen Mayhew (Jazz FM/BBC Radio 2) and Mike Chadwick to present his Cutting Edge show after being dropped from Smooth FM as part of the re-branding and re-formating that takes place on Monday. This could be a regular listen and a possible reminder of the original Jazz FM 102.2 before the men in suits from the Guardian took over.
The schedule can be viewed here and I will certainly give it a listen over the Easter holidays.

As for Smooth FM, at the moment they're broadcasting continuous music in the run up to the relaunch on Monday as "Smooth Radio" where they are aiming for an audience of over 50s. This consists of a line up with Graham (Obscene) Dene on breakfast and chart-master Mark Goodier in a long awaited regular daytime slot. Peter Young is the only survivor who will continue to present his original Soul Cellar show on Saturdays although they also plan to include a country programme as presented by Radio 2's Nick Barraclough. It's an interesting strategy as London's never had a radio station aimed solely at the over 50s market although if they don't reformat again after at least 18 months I will endure a large pint of whisky mixed with vodka.

Whenever I return to Canterbury in the Spring or Summer I find the need to listen to some of the jazz tracks I was listening to shortly before moving to London whilst looking forward to moving there thinking that it would be cool and relaxed down full of people with similar musical tastes. Then I realised that things have changed an awful lot since 1990 in terms of popular culture. Whenver I listen to either the Rippingtons, Swing Out Sister or Spyro Gyra I find myself wanting to return to Canterbury and lying down in the Dane John Gardens with the fountain and the bandstand.
Then again there I'm sure there's a lovely playing area, lake around London in the Queensway area that I may visit when it gets a bit brighter than it is at present, away from all the pettiness and angst that I seem to be looking for rather than trying to avoid.
And maybe if I get a bit more money I will try and round off the semester with a visit to the Jazz Cafe especially as top Brazillian musician Marcos Valle is playing there in May.

One thing I've finally managed to work out since coming back to Canterbury is that I can't stand banter. Or to be more specific I find it difficult to contribute to conversations that have no clear meaning and are about fake homesexual relationships and vibrators. This is why I tend to go up to radio a lot in the evenings because most of the time there are people there presenting their shows, who have keen musical interests and I can actually have something to talk to them about properly with people such as the Shuffle boys and Ross and Paul who do their live music show on a Monday. However there are other nights when things can really get depressing up there and I don't see why I should have to be responsible for making sure everyone else's show gets recorded.

But it's probably best not to worry about those angsts now, I'm back on home turf where things assignment wise remain stable and don't have to worry about treading on other peoples toes.

The Perfect Illness Cure

It's pretty quiet here in Canterbury as Mum and Dad set off very early to go up to Yorkshire to see how Grandma's getting on which they've been doing at least once every month recently.
With no interviews until Monday I may as well live it up and endure in the DVD set of The Simpsons series 4 which I decided to bring with me for no reason whatsoever including such classics as when Bart gets a big brother to get his own back on Homer, and Homer going into the snow plow business as Mr. Plow.

Moving on this isn't breaking my vow as they're just the opening titles but I was very interested to discover the 1993 titles to The ITV Chart Show which were the first to include Twix sponsors. This seems to be the first thing that everyone that I've spoken to remembers about the Chart Show and they made good use of the Twix logo within the titles. This immediatley takes my back to my 8th birthday which fell on a Saturday coincidentally enough but I was unlucky enough to be very poorly after my party from the night before so this was ideal recovery wrapped up on the living room sofa.

I've had to respond by uploading the 1996 titles introduced almost exactly 3 years later to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the show. I can remember being surprised when seeing these for the first time as they were nothing like anything that had been on the show before and also because of the accompanying tune which ends just as it is about to start! Also listen out for the deep voice bellowing "THE CHART SHOW" just before the second Twix logo appears. The same show also saw the retirement of the HUD display with the computer icons which in all fairness was looking very out of date having been used since the late 80s.

On the morning the titles made their debut (18.05.96), I'd just come home from hospital after swallowing a small round object which I will more than happily tell you about if you ask me nicely. 11 years on, (bloody hell, I had just turned 11 when this happened and time has shot by) I still haven't learnt to establish second thoughts before making my move.

The Blam Channel

Today's certainly seen a few improvements and progression. I've managed to arrange quite a lot of interviews with teachers, parents and a teenager with Asperger's Syndrome for my podcast assignment which will be taking place throughout next week meaning that I'll be staying in Canterbury until Tuesday and heading back up here on Thursday to get the rest of my interviews done. Finally things are starting to progress!

I've also been rather productive with other things as well and after just about a year of waxing lyrical about other people's uploads on Youtube, I have a few of my own to offer.
The first one is a very poorly done remake of a scene from Rain Man which I did as part of a module on my AVCE Media course at Canterbury College in 2002. I play the part of the main character whilst Lee one of the other students on the course plays his brother Charlie. As the case normally is, I end up being the straight man alongside Lee who at the end of the course ended up winning an award with me for the best double act. I really don't know why that came about but if it entertained everyone else then I can't complain.

I've also put a short montage of Venice which I did as part of an editing exercise two years later on my HND course consisting of various shots taken by me on my visits to the Venice Film Festival. It's a bit tounge in cheek in places but overall I just saw the exercise as an excuse to put the images I recorded with the music I was listening to whilst in the beautiful city.
Expect further nostalgia from my VHS mountain pretty soon including an excerpt from a Doctor Who fan visiting the location of what was supposed to be "Shada" but ended up in "The Five Doctors". Cambridge to be more precise.

Idea Overhaul?

I'm not sure how long I'll stay now, Mum and Dad are going up to Yorkshire this weekend and things could start to pick up. However being back in Canterbury means I don't have to worry about the stress of the Harrow campus and living in halls means that I can't seem to get away from my aggrovations. With the help of mum I came up with with the idea of a series of podcasts based around autism which could have one episode interviewing a teacher specialising in teaching autistic people, another with a parent of a child with the disorder and possibly an interview with someone who has the condition.
It will take a bit of research and planning out questions but it's an idea that's bound to work if there's a lot of time taken into the preparation.

I've brought quite a lot of things back with me including my external DVD drive which I may leave behind as there's hardly any room to put it in my room in halls. I was rather pleased to find a blank DVD-R inside it which is bound to come in handy when emptying a few things off my external hard drive. I'll probably have to buy a new one sooner or later, ideally one that you don't have to plug into the mains to use.
I never thought until today that I'd actually crave to return from London to Canterbury.

Running Away

There's just too much going on, the fuss over studio 4, the podcasting assignment and I've realised that I'm worrying too much about other people's problems. To alleviate this I've come back to Canterbury where I am staying until Monday to try and get a bit of rest and also because it will probably be easier to get hold of people who can help me with my idea for Spanish podcast idea. I'm still getting phone calls however, asking me about all sorts of technical issues back on campus and to make things more complicated Mum and Dad aren't home so I've probably come back a bit too soon.

It was after speaking to Matthew earlier today that I immediatley decided to get back here as it's no good just worrying about things that I'm not responsible for. However I may end up staying longer than planned especially with the studio situation because the desk is a bastard to operate especially with instructions which are incorrect. I may resort to pre-recording my show until this is sorted out and give others a chance to help out on the station without me being around all the time. However it gets very boring up in the halls of residence and I need to keep myself occupied in one way or another, which is probably something I need to discuss when I go to CANDA on Monday. I've lied my way through University for far too long.

Sober Circumstances

A booze free visit to the Undercroft was part of last nights exploits where it was less packed than is normal on a Wednesday night. Most of it involved Phil, Sam and Nana asking every 2 minutes "are we going to Area?" which got on my nerves although most of us were pretty skint anyway and didn't bother going at all. Chris and Aoife (ee-fa) arrived later where Aoife managed to slam everyone down in an arm wrestling game including Stoobie who by the end of the night was in stitches for some reason that escapes me.
We stayed at least 10 minutes after closing time when as we were walking back, Pete and Chris starting hollering Limp Bizkit lyrics after I brought up their cover of George Michael's "Faith" earlier on and Stoobie proceeded to chase Pete around the halls car park. I'm really not one for false homo-eroticism but if it makes others laugh then I have to live with it.

Hopefully with a bit of help from the senior radio lecturer I'll have some better ideas on how to go about the podcast assignment but apart from that it's probably going to be mundane as always. I've had a look at a few podcasts such from Rough Guides and the Podictionary which explains detailed meanings of certain words.

Podcast Procrastination

I haven't really been feeling it today. I spent about two hours of this afternoon in bed trying to relieve the anxiety of the podcasting assignment and my lack of ideas. I got to radio at around 4pm where Sarah was in a similar situation to me but Ina and Aussie Dave were around and gave a few ideas for what could possibly make a good podcast, from a guide to exhibitions in London to foreign journeys. I'm still pretty stumped although tomorrow I may try speaking to those who could make some of my ideas possible.
The fact that I have opted for borrowing a Mini Disc recorder instead of a Marrantz sums up my feelings about the assignment perfectly.

Fabian and Natasha were around to do their show which ran over by five minutes due to the rather large amount of features but I followed suit with some rather lengthy tracks from the Kyoto Jazz Massive and George Duke. Also featured were some mellow tracks courtesy of Teddy Pendergrass and Ruby Baker which gave me the idea to do a whole show at the end of semester in a couple of weeks devoted to quiet storm slow jams of a similar style.

So what's in store for the next few days?.. More procrastinating I guess.

Stop Spoiling Me!

I headed over to Central just before 1pm for the planned meeting but as I could barely see any Harrownians present I decided to head back rather promptly. I decided to head over to todays Media Events lecture only to find out that it had been cancelled because of this meeting on the Marylebone Campus much to the irritation of those who had travelled quite a way to be there.
The next stop was RP1 where the first years were finishing off their short features and even got to listen to a few including Stoobie's one on the RSPCA and Phil Harris's attempt to stay awake for 24 hours as part of an investigation into insomnia.

There's a rather controversial issue with most of the evening presenters at Smoke as we've all been asked to use Studio 4 in order for students from other courses to use 5 and 6, and this particular studio requires more than just basic training. Tudor definitely had something to rant about on his show tonight as the CD players are poorly organised with CD 1 being positioned below CD player 2 and the fader for the jingles is the same as one of the CD players so it can get very fiddly switching outputs because both can't be used at the same time.
Josie who was on before had enough trouble burning her CD with the tracks for her show so she refused point blank and opted for Studio 5 through the magic of the matrix fader.

On a lighter side the title of this blog post relates to a certain JamesTV2001 who on Youtube has uploaded the 1991 Special of The ITV Chart Show and an edition from the 22nd of June from the same year. However I'm still keeping my vow not to watch them in full until I've finished the podcasting module.
The latter edition is interesting however as they accidentally used the opening titles from early 1989 when it was just "The Chart Show" instead of "ITV Chart Show".
Which brings to mind a question that has been bugging me for a while, why do The Vault have to remove the ITV logo from the repeats on their channel whilst channels such as Ftn and Challenge leave them intact from the endcaps of their programmes repeated on the channels like the one below?

When I get back to Canterbury I really am going to have to upload some of my own gems from my mountain of VHSs.

The Second Bout

An early visit into Uni this morning to get out a Mini Disc recorder. Ideally it would be better to have a Marrantz but they are heavilly in demand especially as theres twice as second year radio students as there are Marrantzs. I've had a look on iTunes for a few more ideas for podcasts and there are quite a few which allow people to learn foreign languages. Having a Spanish friend back in Canterbury may be a helpful idea in what could become my series of podcasts, although I'd want to try and be experimental and do more than just explain how to go about certain scenarios such as buying drinks in a pub etc. Then again it's probably best not to be too ambitious knowing the limitations of radio.

However all that's being put on hold today as there's an annual budget meeting at the Marylebone campus this afternoon where from what I've heard quite a few people will be trying to get Salima out of her role as president in favour of Martin. I've only heard about this since getting back last night but hopefully the man himself will be there along with others who feel the need to complain about how Salima can get a second term after her poor relationship with students especially on the Harrow campus. Overall though, something really needs to be done about the UWSU if the majority of people are unaware that it even exists.

Wall Of Youth

The drama society's performance of Howard Katz was a fitting farewell for leader Joe Haddow in what I thought had to be his most prominent role in any of the productions I've seen. Joey was the lead role in Howard Katz, a play about an entertainment promoter with elements of gangster esque scenarios, comedy and a few emotional moments as well. Some of the highlights included Penny playing the part of Howard's daughter managing to act really well as a 6 year old girl, Ina making a surprise apearance as a waitress/blackjack dealer and Chris Jones in many multiple roles. I particuarly liked his utterance of "Ooii!" during the second act as the main character tried to see his wife again.
A few problems with props being knocked over or falling down didn't stop it from being a superb performance although I expect the audience tomorrow to be a bit more packed than tonight although a few of those in attendance included ex Drama Society chief Rob Watson, Tudor and Jo Cave who is also coming tomorrow to see her boyfriend make his final bow.

After that most of us headed down to the Undercroft for the usual frolics and wide selection of music to dance to joined by a few of the first years. As usual it took ages to get back to the flat but this was partly because myself and Phil decided to take a fake wall on a large wooden board back to flat 68 and almost going round the whole perimeter of Harrow Halls before deciding to take it back which caused a lot of bother with Phil running too fast almost resulting in me tripping over the speed humps. Then again I doubt it would have fitted through the doorway.

Now Playing: Atar and The Funkadrome "Too Crazy"

Detailed Check Up

I've almost had it with the annoying viruses on my laptop and have saw fit to buying WinAntivirus Pro to do a proper scan on my computer. It managed to discover that the Kapersky Scanner was out of date and couldn't be bothered to update itself automatically and is still scanning at the time of writing. My forward thinking however is still not up to scratch after heading up to radio where Tim one of the technicians told me that I could have borrowed his copy of Norton to deal with the situation. Overall though although what I've brought is around £40, I'd rather spend that than four times the price getting the computer repaired.

The morning was once again wasted by going to a lecture on how the internet is making changes to political campaigns, followed by a visit to CANDA which was a tiny bit more helpful. Sue gave me a possible idea for my podcast by basing it around Modernising Medical Careers, where her daughter is involved in a two year course making it easier to become a doctor. I'll give it a bit of thought but I reckon the answer lies in listening to a few podcasts myself which will hopefully give me a few ideas.

Tonight will allow me to put the problems to one side starting off with Howard Katz at Area 51 by the Drama Society and then the usual goings on at the Undercroft straight after. This will probably be the last time I see Joey, and Chris Jones take to the stage so I'm really looking forward to what promises to be a dark humorous performance.

Podcast Procrastinating

Rather unusually for a Sunday the radio rooms are full of students. Most of them being first years who are recording and editing audio for their features that are due in by tomorrow. As well as answering quite a few vox pops questions for them I've been going through the shows from Friday and finding audio to be put in the Red Nose Day podcast which should be online by tonight. Phil Harris is rather keen for me to put in his link after playing Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around Comes Around" to which he responds "a boomerang?".

As for the podcast I've got to submit in a couple of weeks, I am stumped. I really hope Sue at CANDA is available tomorrow to help me find a way to go about this task although it's ridiculous as I could base the podcast on anything at all but it's making the content interesting for three 5 minute episodes that I'm nervous about. When Dan P came in on Friday to talk about his podcast which he produced for Jamie Oliver he showed some of the video that was recorded to supplement some of the audio and Matthew joked about adding something to the brief requiring us to make video podcasts as well! That I wouldn't mind too much but on a similar note it's not really fair that TV students only have to write 1000 words for their critical reports and we have to have 3000-4000 words in ours. And they're only worth 10% as well.

Anyway it's best to balance anxieties with fetishes at times like this as tonight they're showing the 1989 grand final and 1990 series premier of the Krypton Factor on Ftn. As I've said before no time like the past.

"I'm Bring Pastry Back"

Just after I got in I slept for about four hours this afternoon and nothing else has really been happening today. Tomorrow will involve an early visit to Sainsbury's to just to get a few wares, then heading up to radio to make a start on putting together a podcast from our 24 hour broadcast.
I'm a tiny bit worried though because our final Undercroft night is on the 2nd of April but station events organiser Ross G and all the other editors will be in York so I'm unsure as whether the night will be called off completely or not. Then again bar manager Chris keeps on asking the first years to DJ for him at Area every week so I'm sure something will unravel before the night itself.

I'm not normally a fan of song parodies but this cute little offering called "Pastry Back" manages to take it to a different level. Rather than just make gibberish out of the lyrics it has a few unexpected twists and resulted in me being unable to stop laughing about it for 20 minutes, after I was shown this by Chris Chilvers whilst killing time during last nights proceedings.
And I'm slightly biased towards liking it as it's a song about one of my favourite cooking ingredients.

24 Hour Party People

We've done it. We've managed to succesfully pull of 24 hours of broadcasting with a lot of effort put in by all who contributed. This was shown in a very emotional highlights package put together by Ross T and played near the end of the broadcast which resulted in me nearly breaking down.
There were some funny bits included as well including Seb And Jon's show once again being disrupted by someone accidentally switching the power switch off, in this case Tilley himself. However I think he can be forgiven as the track playing before it was switched off happened to be one by Razorlight. Also included were Ben and Jason actually reading some of the spam e-mails recieved day to day on Smoke asking us to buy either watches or Viagra.

Goodlass and Marshall rounded off proceedings with a three hour show made up of a selection of prank calls made to their mates with the duo shouting "good moooorning!" to them a la Gladys Pugh of Hi-De-Hi! Before them Steve Jones did a show live from a kitchen in halls which nearly didn't go to plan due to a security guard lurking about. Well that's how it sounded on air.
I'm rather proud of being the only one here to have not fallen asleep throughout the whole broadcast having been on campus from 8:15 yesterday morning. But overall everyone has done a fanatastic effort from the first years handling the election coverage really well to the live music performances. It's made me feel more positive about how things will be going with the station in the next few months.

Burnt Oil

The last few hours have been interesting, I did my Bubblegum Soul show with no major problems until towards the end when I had to fill in a bit longer for Ross T who hadn't arrived to do the news as he was letting people out of the studios with the key we've been given by security! This was followed by Tudor in control where I ended up being one of the contestants in his Death Metal Karaoke feature straining my throat in the process.

It's pretty quiet at the moment as two of our presenters are asleep in studio 4 ahead of there 3 hour show tomorrow morning which is precceeded a show coming live from a halls kitchen presided by Steve Jones where a few residents maybe subject to a few rude awakenings. Not the first one however as according to one of our team members, the fire alarm went off at 4am.
Any reason to be proud to be involved in the full whole hog of this broadcasting marathon!

RND Update

It's official, we are now trapped up in the radio studios. We've been told by Ricky that due to security rules we aren't allowed to leave the studios unless we don't want to leave the building for the rest of the night. It's going to be pretty tricky but I'm loving what we're doing as far as the broadcast's concerned.

I'm slightly tipsy as I've had a few VKs at the Undercroft trying to wash away the woes of today's election outcomes but I've got all the records sorted out for the show tonight which is less than 6 hours away but we've got digital TVs built into the computers in the radio rooms so we can see what the guys on television are up to. I've just managed to witness Peter Kay and Matt Lucas's rather amusing interpretation of the Proclaimers "500 Miles" performed before an audience of cult figures including the Krankies, Johnny Ball, Rod, Jane And Freddy and Frank Sidebottom who will be making a few appearances on my show tonight!

I've brought my duvet up to RP1 and it appears I'm not the only one as Tudor's brought his sleeping bag! Chris and Pete have also ordered a few pizzas which I'm hoping they will share as I haven't had a proper meal since last night.
Expect another update in the few hours which may consist of more of the same.

Less Daunting Than Expected

The afternoon had a visit from Dan P who gave us an insight into the making of a series of podcasts with Jamie Oliver which he produced last summer. This was very well explained and we heard a few out takes from the recording where someone had rang up the listener helpline asking if there was any way of "cooking cock". Of course they took the joke in both ways and it goes to show that podcasts shouldn't be taken too seriously.
We were also set the second assignment which isn't as hard as I thought it would be, we've got to produce a web page with links to three individually produced podcasts. These can be based on the themes on politics, food, sport or oral history. Not sure which one I'll choose but after a visit to CANDA I should be stable.

By 4pm we were all dying to get out but were held up by people asking questions and arguing on what podcasts should be constructed. However it will be the last time this year that we are in practical radio lectures as a group formally as we're working on the assignment until the end of semester and after that we're essentially on holiday.
However Lamby suggested us getting together for a picnic which may become a Facebook event by the way things are going.

At the moment things are pretty gloomy in the radio rooms as Salima has won the position as UWSU President for a second year running. We're not allowed to give our opinions on air but we're not impressed by the outcome and will try our best to cope through the year ahead. For tonight though it's all go!

Podcasting Potential?

Everythings in full flow here on the Harrow campus, the 24 broadcast has kicked off and everythings sounding really lively with live link ups to the Marylebone campus with the election results. However it's been rather tricky setting everything up with a computer that refused to load Selector in the studio and Scoopy being a pain as always. I even had to go out of this mornings podcasting lecture at regular intervals just to solve a few of the errors but at the time of writing we're running smoothly.

The podcasting lecture itself has involved listening to a selection of well produced and not so well produced podcasts with examples by both the Labour and Conservative party falling into the latter catergory. It's interesting however as more and more businesses are approaching people within the radio industry to produce their podcasts and this could branch off into companies specialising solely in podcasting which could lead to future career moves for people doing this course. Some of us got the chance to name and shame a few podcasting websites of our own choosing with Ricky's group nominating Tudor's "Confessions Of A Student" which there is a link to in the right hand part of the site. I won't repeat what we said about it just in case he happens to be reading this which is terribly likely.

Exhaustive Preparation

The finishing touches were made to the group website after a few minor tweaks with the layers and pictures. You can see the finished result here and have a gander through my attempt at making a web page where myself and Paul both agreed that the links page was the most visually interesting out of all of them. However on viewing the site myself I've discovered a few broken links which has made me feel a bit deflated but it's only my first attempt at this sort of a website. Tomorrow we'll be set the brief for the next assignment which I'm guessing is going to be even worse than this one.

The rest of the day has been spent preparing everything for tomorrow's "Big Red One" and everyone has been busy in preparation. The demand for studios was insane until early evening so the Live Variety duo wrangled their way into Studio 4 to pre-rec their show for tomorrow where we had a bit of a problem with the Mini Disc player. As Ross had recorded most of the shows music onto MD and the MD player was only programmed to record audio I had to rush into the room next door to dub it into Cool Edit and get it loaded in the studio for it to be played. I also felt rather embarrassed after I provided the boys with audio of the Abbott and Costello sketch "Who's on First" and having never heard it before Paul introduced them as if they were the same sort of act as Flanders and Swann!
Despite that it all blended in well together with quite a lot of Tom Lehrer towards the end and it should be a more than welcome addition to our line up.

I've still got to sort my show out between the hours of 3 and 4am, which appears to be lacking on features of any sort. IHowever I've only just come up with a little game involving the music of the papier mache manc Frank Sidebottom. If you're lucky enough to remember him then you'll have an idea of how ridiculous it will sound. However most of the jingles and beds have been sorted thanks to Ricky giving me a CD with liners recorded by the legend that is Brian Blessed!
I'll try and upload a few examples of them soon or even better listen in any time from midday tomorrow to hear what looks set to be our most prestigous event yet.

"I Predict A Riot"

Today's going to be chaotic as far as studio availability goes. The websites need to be finished and uploaded by 4pm this afternoon and those who are pre-reccing their shows for tomorrow night will taking full priority of 5 and 6. I really hope that this doesn't go on until 8pm as I don't want Adam to suffer in Studio 4 like last week, although Studio 5 is the only room that has two CD players due to one in Studio 6 being removed because of a faulty button.

The important thing today however is actually completing the website and as long as it gets a pass I'm happy. Tomorrow there's more sitting down stuff with lectures on podcasting although by 5pm I'll be able put that to one side and try to stay awake for the whole night. Because of that I'm giving the bands night at Area a miss although we'll be broadcasting some of the material tomorrow night provided that Ross G has managed to succesfully get hold of one of the elusive Marrantz recorders.

Calm Before The Storm

That's how I'm viewing the current state of this Web Radio module as we're near to completing the paired website task before starting a rather daunting individual assignment involving the making of our own podcasts. I've heard a few rumours that this may involve building a website with five 10 minute podcasts which is a bit over the top but hopefully it won't be as daunting as that.

Myself and Paul spent quite a lot of time on our website after he arrived which resulted in me getting rather tetchy with some of little problems within the design but by the time everyone else had gone home at 7pm I felt more relaxed and we managed to design what we thought was a very polished Links page. This is partly because I helped come up with a clever technique of making images look transparent through the use of the Alt and Prt Scrn buttons!

The show went fairly well tonight where due to the influence of Paul I ended up playing a cover of Van Halen's "Jump" by Paul Anka from his "Rock Swings" album from a couple of years ago. It's good to bend the rules now and again by playing rather crazy but not to the point of excrutiating novelty records within the usual proceedings.
There was also a meeting about the 24 hour broadcast which is just two days away and it looks as if quite a lot of people will be around the radio studios in the wee small hours of Saturday morning. I'm especially looking forward to Tudor's "Rocking Around The Clock" and Ben and Jason with their "Really Late/Early Breakfast Show".

I'd best get a good deal of shut eye today and tomorrrow if I'm to survive the whole thing!

Web For One

The intention for today was to continue with the web design task until the USB lead for my hard drive decided to pack it in. This meant getting a bus to the PC World near the North Circular to get a replacement lead, where there was also a special deal on an external DVD writer so I decided to bag that while I could.
The only problem is that while the price may be small the product itself is a bloody great big thing and needs to be plugged into the mains to operate. Because of this I'm forbidding myself to use it until I've tidied up my desk so there's enough room.

I'm now up in the radio rooms continuing with my web design where Paul still hasn't shown up to play his part in getting the job done leaving me to get everything completed. The design itself is pretty weak but I've finally learnt with the help of one of the more knowledgable students how to add layers so that all the links and text boxes are consistent.
There's also the show to sort out for tonight where I plan to include stuff from Adriana Evans' new LP and a stunning cover of "What's Goin' On" by Tom Browne.
That will probably be followed by a booze free Bar Footsie and the Undercroft where there may be a few late arrivals as a result of the Uni Hockey Team's district line pub crawl.

Leaving In Capable Hands

The Drama Society had the Undercroft bar in their hands with their performance of "The Vagina Monologues". Everyone did a brilliant job with the acting, particuarly Lizzie who gave a very fiesty rant about female protection. Whilst waiting for them to start I noticed that they were playing some groovy tunes such as "Evil Vibrations" by the Mighty Ryeders and "Sun Goddess" by Ramsey Lewis and Earth, Wind And Fire. I then realised that they happened to be using one of the CDs used in my soul set for the Smoke Radio night a few weeks ago that I left lying around!
Although the play itself was only half an hour long, the Drama Society are doing two nights at Area next week performing "Howard Katz" written by Patrick Marber who used to write for BBC Radio 4's "On The Hour".

Before heading up to the Undies I had to give Ben and Jason a hand recording their show for tonight and explaining them on how to schedule as I wouldn't be there to do it for them. Even if the show's not going out as planned tonight it shouldn't be a problem as they're lined up for the 24 hour broadcast in the early hours of Saturday Morning. I've also been given a slot between 3 and 4 playing continuous "Bubblegum Soul" as the schedule for the event itself has been sent out to all involved.
I may even bring the duvet with me!

Bust-A-Bhangra

Just before leaving Uni last night Ross T pointed me in the direction of a video of his appearance on MTV's Bust A Move from January last year.
This is funny for all the wrong reasons as it's typical of a teen transformation show that are dominant on the station. The set up involves Ross attempting to become a Bhangra Dancer to relenquish all assumptions from other students that he is "boring". Never mind boring, it's more a case of embarrassing with a heavilly set up routine to surprise everyone at the Refreshers Ball leading to some rather amusing reactions particuarly from flatmate Tom Levinge who presents Ross with a bottle of champagne towards the end.
However it now seems that most of the other students in my year doing radio have now caught the bug that Ross was suffering from as hardly any of them were out at the Undercroft last night. Then again the place was pretty rammed as it was by midnight and I was feeling a bit queasy at times but recovered quickly.

I'm a tiny bit worried about tonight as I need to give a few people a hand pre-reccing a show that needs to go out at 11pm tonight but want to get over to the Undercroft to see the Drama Society's rendition of "The Vagina Monologues" which starts at around 8 or 9pm. I'm praying to God that the both studios won't be needed as I very much doubt that Josie and Tudor will be able to cope using the joke of a radio studio that is Studio 4.

Flat 68 And Beyond

Everything was in full flow by the time I arrived at Flat 68 for Phil and Nana's 19th birthday party with balloons flying about and me getting a bit too keen on the Raspberry Breezers. When things started to get a bit too chaotic we all headed down to the Undercroft for the usual Monday night antics. Decio was once again spinning a weird but wide selection of tunes as diverse as a few boyband anthems from N'Sync and The Backstreet Boys to a rather rowdy selection of reggae/hip hop tracks.

As always the journey back was the most interesting part as Stoobie left us earlier than the rest after getting in a huff following a disagreement with Pete, and Sam had failed to pull in her quest to find an ideal woman so she was swearing her head off as we went back to Phil's flat.
The flat itself was in an absolute tip which prompted a visit from the Chinese security guard stumbling on us with quite a lot of people eating the birthday cake cut with a toy saw by Nana. Luckily Stoobie arrived back to give a hand with the clearing up whilst I finished off the final raspberry Breezer having had no drinks at the Undercroft.

Tomorrow it's another visit to Curry's Digital first thing as I need a replacement USB cable for my hard drive as my current one is being very wayward and has to be in a certain postion in order for it to work. Luckily on the money side of things I should be stable as I have quite a lot of mince left from last night and a curry brought back from Canterbury and languishing in the freezer to get me through this week.

Multiple Celebrations

Ooh today's been really lovely with Spring finally settled on the Harrow Campus. I was up pretty early this morning to go to Specsavers and get my new glasses which are barely different to the pair that disapeared mysteriously last weekend.

The afternoon was spent up in radio where myself and Paul continued with work on the website although there were plenty of other goings on. One of which being the recording of an interview with ex-Fame Academy contestant Ainslie Henderson which was good fun and should be going out as part of the 24 hour broadcast on Friday. The debate on whether he can be classed as a "celebrity" was one that has been unresolved between Ross T and a few of the first years. The man himself was really lovely however and I felt tempted to nick one of his guitars left in the studio while him and Ricky went to the Undercroft for some Ginsters pastries! Luckily I resisted the temptation.

I've just got back from buying a crate of raspberry Breezers for Phil and Charlie's birthday do tonight which looks set to be a good laugh.
I've also realised that it's exactly one year since I started this blog where it had it's infancy on Myspace before moving to the clutter free Blogger. For those unsure about the disturbing picture to the right, I will eventually change the profile photo when I can find a decent image of me in sober circumstances!

"Exactly Right On Tyyeeem"

About an hour after getting back to Flat 14, Mum gave me a ring just to see if I'd got back OK and mentioned that she spotted ex Broom Cupboard occupant Simon Parkin doing the weather on ITV1 Meridian.
Conincidentally I discovered the first episode of "Around The World With Willy Fog" a popular Spanish animated import shown on CBBC in the late 80s/early 90s which shared quite a few things in common with "The Mysterious Cities of Gold". I.E. it had an endless number of episodes and had a theme tune that was dangerously catchy resulting in viewers writing in to either Phillip Schofield or Andy Crane for lyric sheets. One thing I've noticed is that the novelty of having animals playing historical characters doesn't really work for too long after becoming attached to the series although I got a bit of mild amusement with the characters humming their national anthems at random points.

As the series is available on DVD it may become essential viewing whilst being back in Canterbury over the summer. I also seem to remember a follow up a few years later which adapted from two of Verne's other stories "Journey to The Centre of The Earth" and "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". Despite their longevity at least both series had proper endings unlike something along the lines of "Dungeons and Dragons" where the characters never did return to the fairground that transported them!

Expert Advice

This morning I got dad to have a look at the website for the Web Radio module and he gave me a few ideas and guidance on how to improve it. It took quite a while to get it how I wanted but we managed to make it look a lot neater than it did beforehand.
I found dad's input more useful than what we are getting at Uni as we only get given a set of basic instructions of using Front Page and Photo Shop and as the case is most of the time, the staff barely know how to use the applications. Just before I left I installed Dreamweaver onto my machine which I may use for the individual website but overall I doubt it will be the last time I'm coming back to Canterbury before the end of the semester.

Getting back wasn't too stressfull although Blackfriars Underground station was closed meaning that I took a stroll on the right hand side of the river to get to Enbankment station. Tomorrow will probably involve getting a new pair of glasses, continuing with the website and Phil and Charlie's birthday party in Flat 68 later on.

Other things to look forward to in the week ahead include a weeks worth of programmes on BBC4 devoted bizzarely enough to 1997 with the highlight for me predictably being the
Top Of The Pops Christmas Special for that year which features artists such as Hanson, Eternal and Chumbawamba.
I'd forgotten how good a year for music that was until listening to a few tracks from Supergrass's "In It For The Money" album on the train back with belters such as "Richard III", "Sun Hits The Sky" and "Late In The Day" for which I can remember the video with Gaz and the lads bouncing around on space hoppers.

The Spaghetti Cellar

A.S.K. went pretty quickly as arrived there at 7 and got back from there at 8:30 but it worth the visit and as always was the case I went for a delicious Penne Polo De La Casa. In fact Olly pointed out that everyone ordered exactly what they had last time despite himself making constant promises of ordering a pasta dish every time we go there. We were sat in the cellar of the restuarant which was not as relaxed as the other parts but it made it a bit more interesting and reminded me slightly of Cafe Maruesque another restuarant in Canterbury which is underground.

Elsewhere it's not been too different to an average night in halls except that the bed's more comfortable of course. And in my continuing lapses of escapism I stumbled across an episode of Superted which seems to have even more charm than it did when watching it at an early age with the very witty characters. I'm certain that Skeleton was inspired by Larry Grayson with Melvin Hayes providing the voice along with the late Jon Pertwee adding the clumsy charm of Spottyman. The best part overall is the closing theme tune which has to be one of the best children's animation themes that springs to mind and reeks of the late 80s, having had it on an audio tape released by the BBC which also had Doctor Who and Jim'll Fix It amongst other gems.
And I've finally managed to work out what S4C actually means from the caption at the end!

More Softer Settings

Well the quilt covers of my bed anyway, I'm back in Canterbury still without my glasses so it looks as if on Monday I'll need to buy a new pair. Looks like it will be a case of going to Iceland to buy most of my wares until the end of semester to keep money stable.
I've brought quite a few things back to Canterbury, some of that dreadful tasting easy cook rice from the ASDA in Wembley just to see if it tastes as vile back here as it does at the flat as I'm very suspicious about the difference between cooking equipment in both places.

I've also taken back the majority of DVDs of The Chart Show sent to me a couple of weeks ago as I see them as a reward for getting past this gruelling semester in a months time.
Speaking of which they showed the 1997 special on The Vault this morning which I didn't actually see but years ago I used to have on VHS, where the Worst Video of that year was Vanilla with "No Way No Way" (mahna mahna!). Funnily enough after that edition was broadcast the record shot up into the top 20 and became commonplace in my sister's then newly brought CD player.

We'll be heading into A.S.K. in an hour or so but for now I'm rather happily listening to Mike Howard's Superior Rhythms Show on Starpoint Radio. One quite a few DJs to jump ship from Solar to Starpoint since the studio relocation, nothing's really changed overall and it looks as if I'll still have somewhere to give me ideas for what to play on my own show. After all I'll always be an amateur learning from the pros.

An Uncomprehnsible Visit Back

The journey back to Canterbury has been delayed as I was stupid enough to leave my glasses on a wooden shelf at the Hat Party last night and after checking back at their house this morning they've disapeared. I really hope no one has messed about or even broken them but I'll wait until around 2pm this afternoon for them to clear everything up and see if they are found.

I really should have bought my glasses case with me but was reluctant to do so as the case is too big for my pocket but if worse comes to the worst I'll probably have to buy a new pair. I've only just realised now that I could just put the glasses case in the pocket horizontally so it doesn't fall out and just want this whole debacle to be over with. I'm now not sure whether I want to stay in Canterbury until Sunday afternoon or early on Monday as this is causing a lot of anxiety.

Drunken Manifestos

There's no better way in such tense situations than to put anxieties to one side and let you hair down. Well it was quite tricky in doing the latter as it was the Hat Party at Northwick Avenue where housemates, Jess, Linzi, Ashlea and Hannah had all donned coned shaped party hats although at least two of them were wearing baseball caps by the end of the night.
Also there were Pigeon from the Uni Hockey team, Natasha who had a lovely pink hat and we even had a few first years turning up later on including Mike who was dressed up in that infamous Bo Selecta Craig David mask although he ended up taking it off as a result of being unable to drink with it on! Nana was also there who had just turned 19 and it appears that herself and Phil Harris will be having a do at Flat 68 this coming Monday.

Quite a few pink flyers were being passed around urging people not to vote for Salima in next weeks elections which resulted in the majority of the flatmates begging everyone to vote for Martin who happened to be present at the party itself. He wasn't the only one around running for a postion as Phil Medway was also present giving out flyers to vote for him to get the role of VP activities although both candidates are going to have to do a hell of a lot to get the people in Central to vote for them.

However all this will be put to one side for a couple of days as I head back to Canterbury this weekend although it looks as if we'll be one down for our visit to the ASK restuarant tomorrow as Kate's double booked herself. For now though I'd best sober up after drinking the Blueberry Breezers I downed tonight as nobody else will supply them at any do I go to!

Stranded In Central

Most of us are starting to realise that this web radio module is a lot tougher than we assumed it to be. I definitely suffered the worst however as I headed over to Covent Garden tube station at 1pm to meet up with Paul although he didn't actually arrive for two hours as he had only started charging up the camera that morning. To make things even more complicated he arrived at Leciester Square station instead of Covent Garden and I didn't find out until 20 minutes after he had arrived but we went over immediately to Mysteries where they were very kind to let us take photos inside the shop.

There's certainly been a few interesting things going on there since my last visit as the shop was used to shoot a a scene for a forthcoming film starring Danny DeVito, Simon Pegg and Martin Freeman. Danny's daughter played the woman at the counter of Mysteries and apparently she's even shorter than her father! However they had to redecorate Monmouth Street as the film was meant to be set in America causing a lot of bother for the passing residents.

We then decided to head back to Uni to get the photos transferred but Paul made the journey slightly longer after wanting to stop off in the nearby Fopp record store and then proceeded to drag me through Soho to try and find the Ronnie Scotts club in order to book tickets which I found very disruptive as we ended up going quite a way through Central London.
We got back to Uni at around 5 where we were unable to transfer the photos without administative permission on the Uni computers so we went back to my flat to do so.

This should have taken less than a minute but it ended up taking 30 thanks to choosing the wrong setting on the camera to set up a USB driver on the computer instead of just detecting the camera instantly which caused a lot of bother both sides.
To make things even worse a digital date has been burnt into all of the pictures so it's going to be quite a task on Photshop to remove it from the images on the site.

All in all I just want a break from this web nonsense until Monday where we should get all the pictures inserted into the site but Matthew's asked me to make sure that Paul is doing his fair share of the work so I'll give him my interview with the Tarot lady to edit.
However I also need to get the IDs sorted out for next weeks 24 hour broadcast so I'd best get some scripts written and sent over to be voiced. Then it's over to Northwick Avenue for Jess, Linzi etc's Hat Party!

Unfair Assignments

If there's one thing we should have been told right at the beginning of this year it would be a suggestion to preserve the audio we record for either our features or live shows for the Internet Radio module. The brief for the web page assignment we're currently doing asks us to include four clips of audio each lasting between 5 to 10 minutes which I think is overkill. A length of two to four minutes would be a lot fairer especially as I have struggled to find any decent material from my raw interviews for my Tarot feature. However I've managed to put three pieces of audio together so far with just one remaining, and as the web pages are going to be uploaded to the public is anyone really going lend their ears for that long?

I particuarly feel sorry for those who have to go through the raw audio on the SADiE machines where we did our features as they are very tricky to use and we don't have the staff available at all times to give us a hand if were unsure how to find the audio leaving me to tie the loose ends.
I may take advantage of the visit up to Canterbury this weekend as Dad is quite an expert on Dreamweaver and I'm sure he'll be able to explain the basics of professional web design so I can understand them.

Even More Tangled

The studio situation tonight was an absolute nightmare, Steve asked me to help two people record their first show in Studio 5 this evening but Nina had taken the studio two minutes beforehand to record hers. This meant we had to move the live shows into Studio 4 so we could use 6 to pre-rec. Everything ran pretty smoothly until 8pm when Adam arrived to do the Shuffle show where we had a bloody nightmare operating the CD players and the badly arranged studio desk. Poor Adam was struggling to keep up with things especially as one of the CD players doesn't have an LCD display interface preventing us from seeing the track numbers and time remaining.

Luckily I kept an eye to see when Studios 5 and 6 would become free so about 20 minutes into the show we moved back to home turf where things ran a hell of a lot more coherently. I really felt sorry for Adam as he was on his own tonight due to Zo being on holiday although he had brought a friend from Norway to watch him go through the proceedings. However this just goes to show that Studio 4 needs a hell of a lot of improvement and really doesn't work practically for a show that relies heavilly on using CDs with large track numbers. Whether people need more training to use the equipment is irrelevant as it's a bugger to keep up when multi-tasking when everything is poorly laid out.

On a lighter note I found out when leaving the studios that Adam had managed to spot me in a short film made by a few of his CMP students which they produced for an editing exercise. Basically this involved me getting out of a bed in the room of one of my flatmates and going into their shower without a t-shirt on. Luckily I had only just woken up when they shot the scene which helped add to the presence of the film although we had to do quite a lot of re-takes due to the wrong lens constantly being put on to the camera!

Tangled Web Design

It was really lovely outside which made it an ideal time for the fire alarm to go off halfway into our web design lecture this morning. Nothing was really progressing however as Paul didn't show up until halfway through the afternoon leaving me to attempt to get to grips with Front Page and Photoshop for the design of our webpage. My heart's really not in it at all and I'm worried that Paul is rather nervous about getting to grips with the software for the assingment. However we're both going into Covent Garden tomorrow to see if we can get photos of relevant fortelling objects in Mysteries where I did one of my interviews for the Tarot feature.

We also had a brief meeting to discuss the issues that should be raised at next weeks course comittee meeting such as the BAMS journalism students sharing the facilities with us at the same time as our Music Radio module and their lack of training to use equipment resulting in them hassling us to give them a hand. There's also the grey area of RCS which will be raised but I've already had my two cents on that matter.
One potential problem however was adhered to pretty quickly by Matthew who seemed rather concerned after I failed to get borrow a digital stills camera from the store in M-Block because I was a radio student.
However Paul's bringing his own one tomorrow so I guess the big issue is whether we'll be allowed to take photos inside the shop itself.

If all else fails I'm sure the Phrenology head back at home will be a short term substitute for a photo.

Sober Wednesday

Last night's show went OK in the studio until I realised that the majority of it didn't go out thanks to someone messing around with the desk in Studio 4 including the fader which allows studio 6 to be heard. I'll stick with the stack from now on although punching from one studio to another isn't the slickest way of keeping a smooth flow on the station.
Chris Chilvers had turned up in the studio opposite me during the show to sort the music out after coming back from an introductory meeting at Radio Northwick Park along with fellow first year Pete. They weren't sure about continuing due to the long induction process although they seem keen to still be involved with radio in some shape or form whilst living in Harrow during the long summer months.

Later on I headed to the Undercroft where it was pretty sparse compared to last week due to Bar Footsie still being absent although the hockey team were having a pyjama party which included a shot relay involving a selection of them racing to the bar and back collecting shots in teams of two. This resulted in a few pillow fights although luckily no drinks ended being spilt.
Martin was one of those dressed up in the nightgowns where we got to find out a bit more about his plans for his presidency campaign. We also bumped into Phil a CMP student from the third year who is running for the VP of activities where big plans are afoot this summer for a refurbishment of the Undercroft bar.

It started to get rather quiet before closing time although Emma P, Sarah and Bracey were still pretty rowdy after leaving the bar, Emma in particular had to check her car door quite a few times just to make sure it was locked properly.
Having just got back in I've managed to find an e-mail with our marks for the Music Radio module which are around 68-69% for both the group and individual efforts. I think the comments written down are valid and constructive but overall I'm just happy to have been given a presenting role in an assessed radio module.
It makes me feel slightly better in the run up to the web design lecture tomorrow as part of a module I just want to get out of the way.

Danes And Desperation

The first Media Events essay is now sorted along with the proposal for the next assignment so I can be more relaxed about that until the end of April when it needs to be handed in.
I was up in the library pretty early this morning sorting out what books I would use to help write the essay although when the time comes I'll probably end up using what I can find easier to get hold of.
A refresher on how to use the Infolinx system might be helpful so I can find it easier to access journals bearing in mind I haven't used that search engine since writing my PR case study last year when I practically lived in the Harrow library as a result of my laptop messing up.

After handing in the essay I popped up to studio 4 where Goodlass and Marshall were doing their show for this week and had the television in there tuned a Danish phone in channel in a style similar to the Mint and Quizmania where the presenter looked as if he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown waiting for people to ring in. How we are able to recieve channels of that type I've no idea, but it provided guilty amusement for us viewing his dilemma.

I also found out a bit more about the elections that are due to take place next week and oh no, it appears that Salima is running for a second year as the UWSU president. She's running against Martin from the third year who would probably make an effort to focus on the fun side of uni life judging by his familiar presence at the Undercroft bar and flamboyant acting in last years Drama society panto.
However whilst Martin's popular on the Harrow campus Salima has most of her supporters in Central and if anything needs sorting then it's the divide between both of those campuses. Then again it can be a bit steep travelling there continuously which explains why I haven't been to places like Intermission on the Marylebone campus since Freshers.
Rayhan on the other hand is stepping down allowing someone else to take his position as the Coms officer so I will be interested to find out who will want the responsibility of overseeing the extracurricular media on campus.

All UWSU staff at the shop and Undercroft bar have to be impartial as do all the presenters on Smoke Radio when they're on air. However as the results are announced on the same day as the 24 broadcast it would be the ideal opportunity to bring Scoopy (provided there's a mains supply) to the annoucement itself so we can broadcast it live. There's obviously needs to be an improvement as far as promotion goes as I've barely seen any campaign flyers or posters at this stage.

"Nice Video, Shame About The Song"

This afternoon I was one of few attendees to this weeks Media Events lecture in which we were shown a broadcast made in 1956 where Richard Dimbleby visited the then Archbishop of Canterbury at his home on London's South Bank where it illustrated the many differences between interviewing back then compared to the present day. Not in the least sense when he adopted a casual manner to interview the Archbishop's wife by sitting down in their front room with the housekeeper in attendance.

After the seminar which had an even sparse attendance I went up to radio where quite a few people were being trained including Dani and Sirin from the first year. There was also a few bits of discussion regarding the Red Nose Day broadcast which I really hope will go well but at the moment only Ricky seems to know about what's definitley going on which worries me slightly. He wants me apparently to do a late night "Wind Down Zone" style love songs show which I wouldn't mind having a go at, especially after all those sleepless nights hearing John Osbourne back on home turf "call me, on the Wiiind Doown Zone, only on Invicta FM".
At least he was more bearable than the sly Graham Torrington who's inescapable these days on commercial radio.
I decided to head back earlier than normal at around 7 as I was pretty starving and left Tudor to soldier on with another two hour rock show covering for poor Josie who's still got an unhappy throat.

The rest of the day has been spent playing Blockbusters Broadband at wedigtv.com, and I stumbled across The Top Pop Videos of 1984 a review of the year's musical offerings made by Thames Television for ITV's Christmas line up that year. Featured are highlights from acts such as Nik Kershaw, Culture Club and the Thompson Twins alongside some questionable choices courtesy of Shakin' Stevens and Paul McCartney with the Frogs Chorus.
All held together with some rather forced festive greetings from the artists themselves.

Early start tomorrow as I'll want to be in the library to sort out my Media Events proposal for the second essay by finding relevant reading materials to use. Luckily I shouldn't have too much trouble getting access to the event I plan to analyse with the VHS recordings of Live 8 still residing back in Canterbury.

"I Won't Wish You Luck As It's A Waste Of Time..."

Ugh, I thought I'd over slept this morning until realising that I'd accidentally set the time on my clock an hour later whilst asleep. Luckily everything's back on course and I've managed to get my Media Events essay completed and ready to be handed in tomorrow. Now all I've got to write is my proposal for the second essay which is my analysis of an event of my choice and I'm going to be rather unoriginal and propose an analysis of the television coverage of Live 8 as I've still got it on VHS back in Canterbury with "memorable" moments such as Robbie Williams trying to chat up presenter Fearne Cotton.

After sorting the essay out I decided to indulge myself with last night's episode of the Crystal Maze shown on Ftn where the team ended up with only 5 seconds in the Crystal Dome. They weren't horrendously useless but they ended up buying out three contestants who got locked in including a very poorly explained challenge involving the handling of a perspex box and keeping it level in order to avoid switching the red lights on, resulting in an automatic lock-in which wasn't mentioned beforehand.
The show also contained an appearance from "Mumsy" in the Medieval Zone who was a rather saucy character appearing throughout Richard's time on the show, and on Ed Tudor Pole's first programme was seen on a motorbike departing with the outgoing host. Not forgetting the equally desirable "Auntie Sabrina" from series 3.

I love how televison game shows each have their own quirks and with the Crystal Maze it's Richard O'Brien's tendancy to get out his mouth organ at regular intervals whilst the contestants are in a tense situations. I'm surprised no one's ever been irritated to lash out at him with his rather steely persona.

Oustaying Our Welcome?

Last night at the Undercroft wasn't really as big a turn out as the previous ones. I managed to do my 90 minute set with no major problems although the rest of the night was pretty sub-standard. I was followed by Joe and Lawrence, who in turn were taken over by Chris and Phil between 11 pm and 1am. I thought they played a bit too much hip hop for my liking, which resulted in me heckling them whenever they played a track from the genre I didn't know.
By this time Seb and Jon arrived despite failing to turn up for their set earlier in the night and along with the rest of their flatmates were woop wooping at regular intervals much the irritation of a few of the others present.

However the night was brought to a strong finish by Goodlass and Marshall with their regular dosage of cheese and student anthems finishing off with "Rocking All Over The World" by Status Quo and "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen much to the delight of Tudor who was present throughout the majority of the night.
We then made our way back to Flat 68 for a short while with myself Phil, Sam and Stoobie and I was lucky enough to grab myself that lovely armchair. I'm starting to get quite accustomed to that flat with it's luxuries and am very much looking forward to Phil and Charlotte's birthday do there, this time next week. Just a shame that not many people were enthusiastic to celebrate or mention Pete's 26th birthday earlier on throughout the night.

Extended Set

I'm just about to head over to M-Block to burn the CDs for tonight for which my set may be a bit longer as Seb and Jon are unable to turn up tonight. Apart from that it's been a rather lazy afternoon interrupted a couple of hours ago when Chris and Pete from the first year asked me to give them a hand with a promo for Pete's request show. I noticed a few posters advertising shows on Smoke as I made my way down and apparently I've got one although I haven't seen it just yet. Well done to Ricky's flatmate Alex for making the really nifty designs that should be present at the Undercroft tonight provided that Pete's got all of the posters sorted out and organised.

I'm hoping for a good turnout tonight despite the fact that there are essays due in this week but I think my method on working them after waking up in the morning seems to be one I'll be sticking too for the rest of my time at Uni so I can keep up my social life during the third year. Although essentially I'll always be a first year student whilst I'm still here.

Monday Lie In

Well I suppose you can call it a lie in as I'm not actually in my Media Technology lecture as I've spent the morning adding another 600 words to my Media Events essay. Not too far to go now, I just need to add an analysis on "Ghostwatch" which shouldn't be too much of a task.

The playlist for tonight at the Undercroft is more or less sorted, only took me 10 minutes to compile and contains some late 70s disco funk along the lines of David Bendeth and Herbie Hancock alongside some mellow latin jazz from David Benoit and Marcos Valle. I really hope the CD decks I'll be using have pitch control as I'm not sure about the current situation regarding mixing equipment at the Undercroft after it was nicked two weeks ago.
I guess I can spend the rest of the day deciding what I want to take back to Canterbury this coming weekend and there's a few books I used for my Propaganda essay that could take refuge on my DIY wooden shelf that's lurking at the top floor of my house.

Finally Upgraded

I had a bit of a lie in this morning after being woken by the fire alarm at around 5am. Having no motivation to continue with my Media Events essay I went into Harrow and ended up buying a new mobile phone, a Nokia 1600 which set me back £30. Luckily my SIM card for my old phone fitted into the phone so my number hasn't changed and I'll try my best not to get it battered and bruised like my old phone.

I'm now up in M-Block where James is doing his Crossway show live and I plan to clear my hard drive by burning stuff onto CD-R. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be in a better mood to get the essay done although that's more likely to happen tomorrow morning even if it does eat into my Media Technology lecture. I've had a text from Goodlass confirming the line up for Monday and it looks as if I have to sort out 90 minutes of music to play tomorrow night. I really hope they've got decks sorted out after the break in a couple of weeks ago but if the entrance has to resort to the "one in one out" policy by the end of the night then I'll be happy.

Trashed At Tilley's

The disco lights were in full flow in the front room overlooking Nando's as I arrived at 307A for Ross T's 20th birthday do. There were quite a few familiar and unfamiliar faces mainly made up of television students. Also present were Ross Powell, Tudor and Amy who travelled from Leicester to see her sister and fellow flat occupant Lucie who always seems to be wearing purple whenever I see her.

Poulterguiest was in the kitchen making pancakes with the help of Sarah which proved popular and was enough to tempt Josie downstairs to share some with the rest of the attendees. Just before midnight Eleri turned up where at this point we'd put together a special pint for Ross made up of vodka, Kroneburg, and a few other liquids including some orange juice at Ross's request. However I'm not sure as to whether he drank the whole pint and whatever the consequences were he headed upstairs to recover quite a while before I headed off.

The majority of us had crammed into the living room to play Twister followed by Truth or Dare in which the majority of the questions were based around sexual fantasies which lead to a few dodgy responses from Tudor and flatmate Gemma. However in the case of Gemma she was forced into answering her Truth question after being prompted by a suggestive comment from Poultergeist.
I headed back at around 2am as I there things that need completing tomorrow including my Media Events essay and later on I plan to head to the Vodafone store in Harrow to buy a new battery for my phone which I hope restores it to it's previous setting before falling from a long distance.