The Hairy Bikers

It was a nice start to the morning, waking up and habitually switching on the radio to be soothed into a state of consciousness by none other then 'the Baywatch theme tune' formally known as I'm Always Here by Jim Jamison. It was a bank holiday and Radio 1 had been taken over by the public who didn't disappoint and provided a wonderful eclectic mix of tunes throughout the day with the odd exception where some idiots phoned up requesting current singles. I always think it is a bit of a waste when given this sort of rare privilege; requesting a song that will almost certainly be played at least once the following day sort of ruins it really. In my opinion they should ban songs from the last six months but then I guess that would kind of defeat the idea of 'you decide what we play'.

My greatest accomplishment of the day was convincing my friend to join Twitter; which doesn't say much for my day really. I will admit that at first, I really didn't see the point of it all but the more I use it, the more I see how useful it actually is and the more people and service use it, the better and more useful it will be. One thing I have found is that the learning curve is quite steep but you get the hang of it quite quickly; perhaps there should be a tutorial covering some of the basics, @replies, hashtags and conventions for example as these are new concepts migrating from something like Facebook.

My evenings entertainment has been provided by the Hairy Bikers. I have been downloading the latest series from the iPlayer but have not got round to watching them until today. I find that this seems to happen quite a lot with iPlayer programmes, I tend to hoard them and decide that I can't be bothered to watch them until finally getting round to doing so and regretting not doing it sooner. This was the case today and I wish I had started watching this series sooner. Dave and Si are one of a kind as TV chefs and their unique approach to food is unlike anyone else I have seen. They always seem to be having so much fun with whatever they do and it is so nice to watch them just get on with it and not always get it quite right. Their approach to cooking is how I think it should be approached, a bit of this and a bit of that without trying to conform to any particular element except great food. In this series particularly it is nice to see the professionals not always get it right which can be very reassuring for the viewer if they decide to attempt some of the recipes. The chemistry between the duo is also brilliant and the way that they bounce things off each other is highly entertaining and often very amusing and they present it in a way that is not in the east bit intimidating.

I finally received the email this morning to tell me that my university email account was ready to be migrated to GMail. One of the main things that I had noticed when joining the university is that the email service was particularly poor and it was nice to know that I was not the only one who felt this way. The migration was announced earlier on in the year for completion before the start of the new term however, shortly after the arrival of the email I received another email informing me that the migration had been postponed. Ah well hopefully it will be sorted soon and I will be a bit more organised this year.

It did give me a chance to look through my timetable for the coming year and I was gutted to find that my optional module clashed with my chosen departmental modules. Back to the drawing board I think, which is a shame because it took me a long time to come up with the current list.

We have planned another bike ride for tomorrow, but looking at the weather forecast, I can see it being a wet one, the summer has been particularly cruel to us this year but who knows what will happen.

Leeds Festival

This was my first festival experience and to be honest, I was a little bit disappointed. I'm not yet ready to let this put me off festivals for life but I don't think I'll be going back to Leeds any time soon. I'm attributing part of this disappointment to not experiencing the whole weekend festival experience by just going for the day but was still expecting a good days worth of entertainment.

I think that the main reason for the day falling short of my expectations was due to the lack of atmosphere. The day got off to a very slow start and the crowd was almost non-existent for the first few performances. This was understandable as the bands were not huge names and people would be recovering from the previous night but I had expected a bit more than what I saw. The first decent audience heavy performance was from Vampire Weekend who managed to get the audience involved in a couple of the more popular songs, namely A-Punk. Beforehand, I had been to see Passion Pit who I am a big fan of however, the songs simply aren't designed to sing along with. For a start, they are sung several octaves higher than most people can comfortably sing at buy secondly, the lyrics aren't particularly catchy and memorable with the occasional chorus being chanted.

After Vampire weekend, I went to see The Gaslight Anthem. This was a much better performance and the audience participation was pretty good as well. I had heard loads of people mentioning that they wanted to go and see this band so I left Vampire weekend early in order to get a good spot and I was right to do so because the tent was packed. There was quite a lot of sing along as well which surprised me somewhat as I had obviously vastly underestimated how much of a following the band had achieved especially with the relatively low amount of radio play. I managed to catch Bloc Party's set from a distance as by now, the main stage was full to the brim not only for Bloc Party but people who had joined the crowd to see Radiohead, some of whom I suspect had been there all day to make sure they were right at the front for the headline act. I think I would have enjoyed the Bloc Party set far more if I'd have found my way into the crowd, not least because I wouldn't have been freezing, sitting on the grass watching the screens, straining to hear the sound through the bitter wind.

After that, I grabbed a bite to eat and tried to kill the hour and a half gap before La Roux. I'm not a bit fan of Radiohead and I really like La Roux so I had decided that I'd see her instead, despite the ridicule from my peers. I watched the Gallows set and some of AFI, not really taking much of it in but just passing the time with the occasional clapping along in time before I headed to the Festival Republic stage just after 9pm to get a good spot. I worked out that Lightspeed Champion was playing, partially recognising the him from an appearance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks rather than from the music, which I hadn't heard any of before. As he finished his set, The crowd surged for the front of the stage, barely leaving room for anyone to leave, there was a lot of kerfuffle and commotion until the time came when they were due on stage. Chants and clapping adorned any slight movement on stage that might have been a hint of their arrival but not until several rounds of this did they finally appear, 10 minutes late. Perhaps Elly had had quiff trouble, the one she sported was extra big for the occassion. Whatever the reason, all is forgiven; they quickly launched into Tigerlily followed by several other album tracks, and the crowd were loving it. Everyone was singing along to the choruses and lots more were singing along with the verses as well; it seems that they have amassed a very loyal following in the short period that they have been around. It was time for the killer track of the evening and as soon as Elly mentioned In For The Kill, there was no going back. The crowd erupted in to applause and everyone was singing along throughout. For the first time during the day I was having immense fun, this is what I had expected it all to be like but the fact that it hadn't made this bit so much more special. She played Quicksand which also went down a storm before finishing on Bulletproof, another huge hit with an equally huge audience response. It had made my day and I was now warm and on a euphoric high whilst I waited for my friends who had been to see Radiohead.

Off to Leeds!!

Today had been full of highs and lows. I had been looking forward to our bike ride but it almost didn't go ahead. I was up early to be dragged around Homebase and made it back in time to meet my friend. Then I spent fifteen minutes running round like a headless chicken trying to find various bits and bobs - coat, bottles etc - and finally we were to be on our way. My tyres needed pumping up a bit from when I fixed my bike but then disaster struck. I burst the patch for the puncture. So I went through the palava of removing the old patch and putting on a new one nly to have the same thing happen again. Deciding that the puncture was probably too big to repair, I found my spare inner-tube and proceeded to change it. Guess what happened? I pinched the inner-tube re-attaching the wheel - as I always do - and had to repair that puncture as well. Finally I got it back in the wheel and it pumped up with no problems. We were about an hour behind schedule now and I was in a pretty foul mood; but the sun was out and that cheered me up slightly. It took a further 20 - 30 minutes to get to the canal entrance after having to cross several busy roads (neither of us had helmets so we thought it would be better to stick to the pavements). We then had difficulty finding the canal entrance but managed to find it behind a pub. We were off - or so we thought, 30 seconds later my tyre burst again. Thanks to my friend and a helpful fisherman, we found a bike repair shop just over the road from where we were, the man in the shop was very helpful and told us it would take him about an hour to fix, and that he would replace the inner-tube with a new one rather than repairing the puncture. We decided to have lunch whilst we had the hour to kill and spent most of that time fending wasps away from the coke. The hour passed pretty quickly but just as we were about to leave, it started spitting and within a few minutes, the heavens had opened. By now however, nothing was going to spoil our day and we persevered (by this I mean we hid in the tunnel until the rain died down a bit). It didn't take long, and after a short stop to watch a barge going through the locks, and giving my friends a quick lesson in how they work, we were off again and soon arrived at our planned destination - another pub. We had a quick drink and a bit of a rest, conscious of the huge grey cloud that loomed above. Just as we decided to make a move again, it began to rain. Again. The trip back was less pleasant, and we just kept battling on through the rain which decided to stop just as we got to the end of the canal path. Typical. From there it brightened up bit but by the time we got home we were all very muddy and very wet.

Leeds!

The time is here at last! Tomorrow I will be waking up at a frankly ridiculous time in the morning to make my way up to the festival. This is quite special for me as it is my first taste of a music festival, I know it's not quite the same as going for the whole weekend and seeing the line up, I would loved to have got weekend tickets and seen all of the bands on offer but sadly I will have to make do with just going for a day. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly and I will get to see everyone I want to see and nothing will go wring but short of some sort of miracle, the likelihood of that actually happening is very very slim. I'm pretty sure I'll forget something, hopefully not my ticket but something, and then I've also convinced myself that I'm going to get lost on the way up as well. Thankfully I have 2 other passengers in the car to direct me otherwise I would be really panicking.

List of the bands I'm hoping to see:
The Joy Formidable
Passion Pit
Vampire Weekend
The Gaslight Anthem
Bloc Party
Radiohead
La Roux

Then I will be heading down to Sheffield for the night, saves me driving all the way home because I think I will be fairly exhausted by then.

Tidy up and salad rant

I now have a tidy(ish) room! By this I mean that I can see the floor and cross walk around without stubbing my toe. It was about time I had a good clear out as I have a really bad habit of being a 'hoarder' a trait I must have inherited from my grandfather, although not to the same extremes as keeping plugs and broken toasters. Mostly it was clothes that have been confined to the charity shop, now that they've been replaced and I have even replaced my holey oily and paint covered DIY clothes with some newer but now falling apart ones.

This evening has consisted of a quick conversation to decide the itinerary for tomorrow, a bike ride along the canal, which took a slight detour into a mini debate over the topic of salad and I now have the opportunity to voice my opinions on the evil hellish foodstuff. You are probably now aware of where I stand on this issue and I know that I am likely to be in the minority here but hear me out. First of all I should clarify that by 'salad' I am referring to green salads as they are more formally known, and I have nothing against fruit salads, potato salads or even pasta salads. It's mainly the leaves that get on my nerves, tomatoes and cucumber also annoy me but to a much lesser extent. The main culprit here is lettuce, the food-stuff of rabbits and it seems that this is the only ingredient needed to make a salad sometimes, I think the word is rocket. The main reason that it annoys me, apart from not liking the taste or texture of the stuff, is that it is found everywhere. Its really quite difficult to find a nice sandwich or burger that doesn't have leaves in it. Is it too much to have a no-salad option, or at least have it so that salad is an extra and not a standard option which has to be removed. I feel like such a nuisance when I order things and have to say "without the salad" all the time. I know it's supposedly 'good' for you but how good can three or four leaves actually be?

Tomatoes I understand, I get on quite well with the tinned variety and will happily eat them on their own (heated up of course) or in a sauce etc but any sort of fresh tomato makes me pull a most peculiar face and want to spit them out almost instinctively, like some form of ancient reflex defence. Cucumbers I understand less so, they just taste like crunchy water and how people eat them in a sandwich on their own is a mystery to me.

The thought has just occurred to me that I might have a problem with uncooked things, more specifically, vegetables. Fruit is fine but salad stuffs are the only other things that you normally eat in their raw form I think; carrots could be included in that I guess, but I don't much care for those in their raw form either!

I do sometimes worry that when I'm older and (hopefully) get invited to dinner parties and the like and they serve salad, I will be someone forced to eat it. It's not so bad in restaurants but when you know the chef, you don't want to offend them or be awkward and salads seem to be becoming more and more popular as the shift back to healthy eating continues. TV encourages it quite a lot as well with almost all of the cookery programmes reeling out the benefits of healthy eating and salad seems to go hand in hand with it. Perhaps I will try to come up with a recipe for a salad beater and if I can't then I guess I'll have to admit defeat.

Another Miserable Day

Without wanting to sound too depressing, today has been miserable. This is mainly down to the particularly foul weather, grey skies all day with almost constant drizzle. I totally understand how people get SAD and even I - a normally chirpy and optimistic sort of person - was feeling down in the dumps today. All I wanted to do was curl up in my nice soft duvet and lie in bed all day, but that wouldn't have got anything done. Not that I did all that much anyway but at least if I'm out of bed I can at least feel like I'm doing something.

The day consisted of finishing off all of those half started tasks, crossing them off one-by-one from the 'to-do' list. I finally managed to apply for a new tax disc, something that I have been trying to do since receiving my reminder notice at the beginning of the month. Because I was getting rid of my previous daylight insurance and moving to a new company where I would be without restrictions, the DVLA decided that I simply didn't have any insurance for when the new tax disc starts. I had already bought the new insurance, but for some reason they hadn't added it to their magic 'database' which is an all knowing and all powerful entity similar to the one used by TV licensing, both are to be feared and worshipped if you believe the adverts. Anyway, that's now out of the way and I got round to renewing my contents insurance as well sadly no discount this year despite having the car cover with the same company.

On a related topic I also had the tracker removed from the car, so now I know I'm defiantly free of constraints! The guy who came to remove it was in a right muddle, for a start he was early - something practically unheard of these days - more worryingly however, he thought he was coming to fit a new one! For some reason he had convinced himself of this and I quickly corrected him prompting him to recheck his papers and confirm that I was right. He then proceeded to tell me about the complete bosh job that the installer had made when fitting it. I was pretty convinced that it had been him as I thought I recognised his face when I first saw him. I accepted that I might have been wrong whilst he continued to moan about the mass of cables amassing behind my glove box, thanks in part to a previous tracking device from my previous insurers - who withdrew their pay as you drive insurance - and the alarm. When he did finally get the device out, I had to stop myself laughing when he pointed out it had his name on it! He then tried to convince me that it must have been one that he had fitted somewhere else and had been relocated to my car but I was having none of it.

The rest of the day was spent in front of the telly, some good stuff on tonight, Economy Gastronomy is a particular favourite of mine and next week they are visiting a student house so I'll be making notes for that episode.

I've added a few bits and bobs to the layout of the blog as well, I've now got a Twitter link at the top and a link to my archive. I'd completely forgotten about that until I was reading someone else's earlier and realised I'd deleted it when I got rid of my sidebar.

Shopping Trip

Finally the big day had come around, It was the day I had been half dreading and half looking forward to in a weird kind of way. On one hand, it meant spending quite a lot of money and on the other hand it meant combating what I suppose you could call a phobia (Google says that this would be chrometophobia - a fear of spending money). I suppose it's not really a phobia as such, more an unwillingness to spend money on items which I deem to have no real value - in this case, clothes.

I can quite happily spend my money on gadgets and other pointless accessories, stationary used to be a particular favourite, and at one time I wasn't able to walk into WHSmith's without buying something - whether it was a chocolate bar or a ruler - as long as I bought something, I was happy. I've grown out of that now but for some reason I still find it difficult to spend money on clothes. Perhaps there is some deep psychological reason for this? I have had many bad shopping trips in my life and they are usually because I buy something cheap and cheerful from Primark, get it home and decide I don't like it or buy 6 of the same top because they are two quid each and then realise that they are that price for a reason.

Well today that all changed, and with a great deal of assistance from a good (and stylish) friend of mine, we set of to the Bullring. I managed to distract us from the task in hand for about an hour whilst we had lunch. Originally we were set for the Pizza Hut lunch buffet after my friend told me that she had never eaten there until last week and had since become addicted to the place. On arrival however, doubts quickly swept across our minds after seeing the queue. It was then that we decided to go next door to Nando's, somewhere neither of us had been before. Seeing as this was a day about trying something new, this seemed rather fitting. I managed to steal another 20 minutes after the meal by suggesting that we get dessert from the ice cream stall outside the restaurant and then we would be banned from the shops until we had devoured them. This didn't take long as the cherry flavour ice cream I had chosen was particularly tasty and even contained real cherries!

Three hours later and we were done (owing mainly to me being 'awkward' apparently) Actually I would probably concur with that observation but nonetheless I had spent some money and got some nice clothes with only one pair of jeans that were not available in my size which have since been ordered online on instruction from my friend.

Random Madness

Today has been a bit of a weird day as far as bizarre random ideas go and for some reason, maybe I ate something peculiar yesterday? Either way today has been interrupted by an influx of abnormal and random thoughts courtesy of my brain, which is probably revolting after several months of under use.

The first idea came - as so many of the best ideas - in the shower this morning. I have decided that using our eyes to watch TV is a complete waste of time and that it would be better delivered straight to the visual processing centre of the brain by some sort of in head interface. On reflection, I'm not entirely sure I'd be comfortable plugging a device into the side of my head - or any part of my body for that matter.

The second idea came after my late afternoon jelly feast. Yesterdays culinary creation had set perfectly overnight and I was looking forward to sampling the pineappley delights for the first time. I was rather confused yesterday when making it as the instructions say that if you put fresh pineapple - amongst other fruits - into the jelly before it has set, well... it won't. There must be some chemical reason behind why jelly doesn't set when exposed to pineapple. Perhaps a task for the rest of the evening can be to do some research into this phenomenon. Anyway, back to the idea. Whilst devouring the jelly, I was curious to find out what would happen if you ate the jelly cubes raw, and then drank a mug of hot water. Would the jelly set in your stomach? After a lengthy discussion with my mum, we decided that the best approach would be to drink about half a cup of very hot water, jump around for several minutes to help it dissolve, and then drink another mug of ice cold water (enough to make it up to a pint :p) and jump around some more. For added effect, you could then sit in a fridge / freezer, but I'm not sure that that would help.

The other surprise of the day came last night when I was watching Mr and Mrs Smith. I must have either been totally immersed in the film or concentrating on anything but the plot because about a quarter of the way through, in one of the kitchen scenes, I noticed that the toaster in the kitchen was the same as the one in my kitchen! How coincidental, although I do actually hate my toaster and decided a long time ago that along with the kettle (they were a set) are some of the best examples of how not to design kitchen appliances. Okay so they are reasonably stylish, and from what I remember were quite expensive. I think that they were wedding presents so they probably were, and that's probably why they were in the movie, trying to depict the wealth of these people in their posh kitchen. These devices are however, some of the worst, correction, the worst toaster and kettle I have ever had the misfortune to use.

The toaster takes forever to cook the toast and because of this, end up cooking it all the way through. I think I share my idea of the perfect piece of toast with the majority of the population when I say that it should be toasted and crispy and brown on the outside, and soft and fluffy on the inside. I think I have found the reason for it's failure to deliver this and it's because it is one of these toasters designed to cook anything from bread to bagels. Because of this, the holes need to be spaced far enough apart to fit any of these into it and therefore, the heating element is far away from the bread when using a standard medium sliced loaf. It does perform slightly better when using thick sliced bread and this was the basis of the above hypothesis. If we move along to Granary (seeded) bread, the problem gets so much worse. Trying to toast a medium sliced piece of this sort of bread results in something resembling a cross between cardboard and charcoal. Because it is cooked all the way through, and does not have the same structural integrity of white bread (due to the weakness caused by the seeds and grain).

Toaster rant over lets move over to the kettle. You can't have the same complexities of use with the kettle as you can with the toaster because the result is always the same... boiling water. However, this kettle seems to do it in the most roundabout way possible. Firstly, it takes an absolute age, several minutes for one cups worth at least. This is probably due to the hidden element design, which probably makes it much less susceptible to lime scale and therefore much easier to clean, but I'd rather clean and de-scale it every six months that waste what would add up to be hours of waiting if I used it regularly. Thankfully, I can't stand tea or coffee and only rarely use kettles in the winter for hot Ribena so this isn't a problem unless I'm making a hot drink for someone else, usually my Mum who consumes and inhuman amount of tea everyday. The second problem, and the one which is more annoying than the first, is the sheer volume of the thing. It is so loud that it easily drowns out the sound of the TV or radio and is probably on par with something like the extractor fan on full whack.

Wow, it certainly does feel good to get these things off your chest once in a while. The burden of carrying around such rage cannot be good for your health, maybe if I'd have let it build up I'd have shouted at someone or something. Well, I won't find out now will I?

Jelly

I have been craving jelly for some reason lately, and after finally persuading my brother to buy some from the supermarket, it was time to go on holiday. Thankfully, my Gran is some sort of mind reader and I had a fix of the strawberry variety in Wales. Today however, the craving returned and it was time to bring out the jelly.

Sadly the rest of the day was not quite so exciting. In fact I spent pretty much the whole day watching catch-up TV and early series of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, something that I failed to understand several years ago, but now - along with his new series You Have Been Watching - am totally addicted to.

Watching Sunshine last night really confused me at the beginning and only now am I actually starting to understand. The second half was the weirdest bit with a sort of subliminal messaging typed sequence whereby super quick flashes of pictures of what I assumed to be the crew of the deserted Icarus I appeared on the screen. This didn't make me feel scared as such, but more confused and that coupled with the eerie distorted screen effect whenever the undead captain appeared just made it feel weird. The fact that the film was directed by Danny Boyle also puts me off watching Slumdog Millionaire, something which I have been putting of watching for months now. Lets just hope that one is a bit better, and seeing as that won pretty much every award going, I am hoping for something great (if I ever get round to watching it that is).

Bike Repair

I started this project several weeks ago, after my chain snapped whilst out cycling in the park. I went out and bought a brand new chain, only to find that all I needed was a new link bit because conveniently it was the special attachy-linky bit that broke. Apologies for the lack of technical terms but I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to bikes - something that will become very apparent later on. I decided to replace the chain anyway, seeing as I had got the new one anyway but after about 45 minutes of getting my hand caked in oil and grease, I realised that the new chain was about six links too long. A quick check on the internet informed me that I'd need a special chain tool in order to remove the excess links and so I gave up. One day I might get round to going to Halfords and begging them to do it for me (for free hopefully). It then took me a further two hours to fit the special attachy-linky thing onto the old chain and finally it was working again.

It was at this point that the horrible part of my brain popped its little head out and suggested that whilst I'm playing with bikes, I should clean it. See where I'm headed? Well out came the tools and I started to disassemble and clean the pieces. It all looked very shiny and I sprayed the chain and gears with oil again before giving it a quick test and prepared to put it away. But no, it's never that simple is it? The back wheel wasn't spinning properly and was making a horrible grating sound. I decided that I must have got some grit in the bearings whilst cleaning it but it was starting to rain so I packed up.

So, today was the conclusion of the project and (I thought) I knew where the problem was. I wanted to take the sprocket cassette off and clean behind it, that's where the noise was coming from so it seemed like a logical choice. I unscrewed everything again and managed to spill the bearings from the freewheel everywhere in the process, something I later found out should be kept as a sealed unit. Oops. So I then convinced myself that if I could remove the spokes on the wheel, perhaps there was a release mechanism on the rear. I could have seen this part coming, and regretting starting it as soon as I had gone too far. I have an inability to replace the inner-tube without pinching it when re attaching the wheel. This lead to two punctures on this occasion before I managed to get it back on. A quick look on the net revealed that I needed yet another 'special tool' to remove the cassette. Damn. So I attacked it with a hose.

Guess what? That solved the problem, no more grating noise. But by this time, it was too late and I had already taken it to bits and got the chain twisted (I hadn't bothered to detach it before taking bits apart) so I spent the next 35 minutes prizing the magic clip off to get the chain in a state that would let me put it back correctly. At this stage I am well and truly fed up. Everything has gone disastrously and I haven't mentioned the gaffa tape and super glue bits yet! To cut a long story short, the next two hours were spent trying to realign the gears and I'm still not sure I've got it right.

The first gaffa tape usage was fairly successful (surprisingly) and worked a treat. The second usage was a bit less conventional and with the super glue makes me fairly sure I should never be allowed near a bike again.

Off to watch Sunshine now, I spotted it yesterday in HMV and thought I should see it so I will.

Only Smarties have the answer...

Finally, a day comes by when I have something scheduled, hooray! Despite this, I find myself more bored than usual - which is odd. One of my housemates from university has been staying with his sister in Birmingham so we finally got round to meeting up. It was nice to go into town again as I don't get down there as much as I'd like to really. It always seems somewhat alien to me and I often find myself lost or very disoriented and end up walking round in circles to find my way around. I was all prepared for the big journey, had my correct change ready for the bus and had checked the timetables online. The exact fare system is something that visitors to the area find most peculiar. Although it is often funny to see people handing over a five pound note to pay the fare and receiving a completely vacant look from the driver, almost as if to say 'what's that?', like they have never seen paper money before. So I arrived at the bus stop five minutes early, so as not to miss it, only to find that the online timetable is wrong and that the bus isn't due for another 15 minutes. 20 minutes later, I was on my way.

I had planned to arrive slightly early so that I had time to grab some food before meeting up but when I sent my friend a text, he was already waiting for me 10 minutes across town. This turned out to be less of a problem that I had imagined and the afternoon turned into a pleasant dining experience in the food court of the Pallasades. The time passed quickly and we then decided to go for a mooch around the enormous HMV, probably one of the biggest record shops I have ever been in, spanning 4 levels!

Hoping to get a bike ride in sometime in the next couple of days, whilst the weather is still nice, I need to have another look at my bike though as the back wheel is making a scratchy kind of noise and I think I might have got some grit in with the bearings when I took it apart to clean it. A bit ironic really, making it more dirty when trying to clean it, oh well - such is life.

Back in Brum

Tenby Beach

Hooray! I'm back in Brum and back to the civilised world once more. It is nice to see my Gran but being without the internet for four days isn't easy. You have to revert back to the old ways of getting information, like getting the news from the television or something called a newspaper - whatever one of those is. The weather stayed pretty good for the most part and was dry at least even if the sun wasn't shining all the time. Didn't get to go in the sea but then I was never a huge fan of it anyway, we managed a couple of trips into Tenby and saw all the usual sights and sounds as well as some new ones that have come as a result of the recession. New shops have arrived and taken over and lots are on their way out with final stock clearance sales all to common. We were a bit disrupted by the workmen on the lane digging up the road to mend some gas pipes and I was rudely awakened at about 08:00 each morning by the sound of diggers and pneumatic drills. We had to ask them to move about ten times in all so that we could get the car out.

View from the window

My Gran's house had changed too, and is finally being modernised after hardly being touched in forty-something years. The flat next door now looks like it could have been built yesterday although this digital switch over is causing her no end of trouble. The supposed 'expert' from the electrical shop in town came to have a look at the aerial to see why she couldn't get a signal only to find that - after about an hour and a half of "I've got no idea"s and tutting - the only thing behind the aerial socket was a piece of nylon string! I just hope he wasn't charging by the hour.

It seems to be a recurring theme this holiday as when we stopped off in Cardiff on the way back home - to see the other Gran - she had a similar problem. She'd had to buy a new TV after the old one had gone kaput, after just five years, and had now got built in Freeview. Well that should have been the end of it but then she wanted to record onto VHS. After about half an hour of fiddling around I managed to solve stage one of that problem and record the digital channel to video. Then we found out that the TV had to be on in order for this to work and therefore the whole point of setting something to record whilst you are out or in bed, kind of fell to pieces. In the end we settled for then programming the TV to turn itself off after 180 minutes in time with the 180 minute VHS and that's how it has been left at the moment. Although knowing my Gran she'll be wanting an HDD recorder soon enough and then struggle to work that. She couldn't seem to understand how if she bought the latest TV, why she couldn't do something as simple as VideoPlus+ or recording one programme and watching another. It took me at least two hours of her asking this same question under several different guises for me to finally get her to understand that VCRs are technology from ten years ago and simply aren't meant for the modern world.

Well that's quite enough techno-babble for one day. Anyway, today I went to collect my Leeds festival tickets, which had arrived whilst I was away so a trip to the sorting office was in order. Had to stop in at the Co-op on the way back too to collect some basics bread and milk etc. The rest of the day has been spent catching up on missed TV and emails really. One of these days I'll be earning enough to convince myself that I can afford a smartphone that will keep me in touch with these things wherever I am but mobile phones confuse me enough as it is so for the moment I'll stick with the one I've got. It was nice being able to keep slightly informed by way of Twitter. I had only just discovered I could access it for free and so that must have helped to keep me sane throughout the holiday.

Well that's your lot for today, more tomorrow.

Off to Wales

Nearly finished packing now, although as usual I'm sure I have forgotten something - and probably have - but nothing springs to mind at the moment. A terrifying four hour journey lies ahead with my brother driving half of it which means I will spend most of that trying to drown out the little voice at the back of my head telling me that I am about to be involved in an horrific accident.

Apart from my impending doom, the short break should be rather good. My Gran is looking forward to seeing us all and we will get a chance to sample some of her prize winning vegetables. The weather is looking reasonably good as well, not especially warm but at least it should be dry.

Untitled...

Couldn't think of a title so that will have to do for the moment. Day started off slightly disappointingly but ended on a nice high, which is always nice. Finally got round to going to the library, was held up for about an hour and a half beforehand mind. Parents wanting to send letters meant having to wait for one of them to be printed and bundled only to find that the second "Oh can you post this one as well" actually meant 'Can you wait ten minutes whilst I write another letter, and then you can post it.' That ten minutes actually became half an hour and therefore the last post was missed and they wont be collected until Monday morning now. Oh well, that's their problem not mine.

So anyway, I got into the village and posted the letters, poked my head into the library only to find that it had been taken over by some dance group. I had checked the Birmingham City Council several times whilst pondering the visit and it definitely said (and still does) that the library is open on a Saturday. What a wasted journey. Although, I did actually quite enjoy the stroll down and to compensate for the disappointment, stopped in the newsagents on the way back and bought some chocolate that I hadn't had in a while. A Drifter, a Toblerone, and a Fry's Orange and Peppermint Creme, my all time favourite chocolate bars - even if they are very expensive. In my opinion they are like Stella Artois - reassuringly expensive.

After that I managed to procrastinate away the afternoon pottering around doing nothing much before the arduous task of deciding what to eat for dinner came around. My family are for some unfathomable reason, cursed with the inablilty to make a decision about food and the prospect of having to make the effort to cook it as well quickly brought about the idea of eating out. This turned into another debate as to where the best place to eat out would be and it would almost have been easier to stick to the original decision. We eventually decided that Frankie and Benny's would be the restaurant of choice and off we went. A small wait for a table resulting in being massively overcharged for the pre-dinner drinks with three totalling £16! The rest of the meal was more successful and we didn't have to wait long at all for the meal once we had sat down. Followed off with the customary Godfather dessert which I shared with Mum. I almost think it is somewhat illegal to visit F & B's without the dessert and that it is some kind of unwritten rule in my culture. I do remember being bitterly disappointed when they had run out of cookies on one occasion and I nearly vowed never to go back, a decision which I am most grateful for having never made.

Well, that about sums up today, I'll try and find the time to post a quick update before I leave tomorrow.

Lazy Day

Today has been a very lazy day without much being accomplished at all. After yesterday's high energy activities, I have been shattered all day and there isn't really much worth mentioning. Finished the book I was reading, so now am without literary distractions and will probably have to go down to the library tomorrow before I'm off for 4 days to Wales to see dear old Gran.

I'm not sure how but I will have to go without the godsend that is the World Wide Web for that period, short of the very limited services I can get for free on my mobile which means no blog for Monday or Tuesday either. I can promise an extra long one on Wednesday to compensate though and hopefully it will be full of photos and exciting stories about my escapades in the lovely Pembrokeshire village that is Penally.

I may even have to resort to doing some preparatory work for next year's dissertation which means using MATLAB on this poor old laptop. I've used it a couple of times before with reasonable success, but seeing as the dissertation is based on teaching techniques to help students learn how to use MATLAB, it may be beneficial for me to re-familiarise myself with how it works first.

Knackered

Phew, I think that is the most exercise that I have done in a very long time. Spent most of the day outside for once, enjoying the rare sunny day. This mornings project was to fix the water butts so after a quick trip to Homebase, a bit of tinkering and lots of spilt water, the job was done.

Then someone had the bright idea to get rid of the fence panels that had been lying around in the back garden for a while. Bonfire! Four hours later, just about finished breaking them apart into fire friendly chunks and now covered in various insects and muck and heading for a nice long soak.

Last nights cake baking went reasonably well and seem to have had the seal of approval from the parents (i.e. they ate it and liked it). Hopefully these will last a bit longer than the other sweet treats from last week.

Insert imaginative title here...

Spent most of the morning with my Grandfather trying to put his computer back into some logical working order. Three hours later and I returned without my jumper but with an empty plastic bag. Somehow that doesn't seem like a fair trade. Rest of the day is free to spend being so very bored that I might try and sort out my Flickr photos into some logical order.

I keep meaning to go and visit the library and find a book to read but at the moment I cannot be bothered and I'm not even sure my library card (which has gone unused in 6 years) will still work. I might be able to get another day or two out of the one I'm currently mid way through (Henry Porter's Empire State). I may have finally found a genre that I can read more than a chapter of without being bored and this one is endorsed by none other than Jeremy Paxman.

Last night I vowed to never again eat a water biscuit after cutting the roof of my mouth on one during a rather hasty evening munch, but I didn't learn and made the same mistake again this afternoon. They have now been hidden and replaced by some cream crackers in the hope that these will be more orally friendly.

Is it just me or has TV got worse suddenly? I have struggled to find anything semi-decent to watch the past couple of nights and have turned to radio 4 to fill some of the gaps, I genuinely thought that would never happen to me and certainly not for at least another 20 - 30 years. However, I have become rather obsessed with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue which has provided great hilarity for half an hour each week and may well be keeping me sane throughout this holiday period along with Just a Minute. ISIHAC sadly only ran for about 6 weeks and has now come to an end and I wish I had discovered it sooner. Just a Minute however is still running and I recommend it to anyone who likes a proper intellectual and sometimes silly laugh out loud moment. It normally takes a lot to make me actually laugh out loud but both of these programs have had me chuckling away throughout the entire half hour.

Well I think I've wittered on quite enough for one day. Same time tomorrow?

Day 1

Well here goes nothing. I have got far so much time on my hands during these long university summer holidays that I have decided to start blogging. I can't promise to be interesting, creative or even funny but I will try to make it at least readable and help you kill a couple of minutes as well. I presume that's why you would be reading this anyway, unless for some bizarre reason you are actually interested in the rather mundane life of an average student.

As this is my first post, I shall introduce myself. My name is David, I am 20 years old and live near Birmingham in England. I am studying Computer Science in Sheffield and my interests are in all things techy.

Well that's about it for now, hope you enjoyed that short introduction and there will be more actual event blogging to follow - hopefully - if anything interesting happens anyway.