thoughts – Page 9 – University & Unicorns

6 November 2007

I’m a Lark trapped in a night Owl’s body.

I don’t know just how long through my life I have craved to be able to arise in the morning with the birds. I’ve been a night owl for many years. Mum tells me it started from the moment I was born really. I’ve had brief dalliances into the world of the lark. Mostly when it involved being awake for SSSOOO long that I was already awake the next morning! A few times it’s happened due to jet-lag. And a few times it’s been down to pure luck and I’ve “fluked” a few weeks of larkish behaviour.

At this point in time I’m further away from being a lark than I ever have been. I was in Australia for several months at the beginning of this year. It started out well. Jet-lag allowed me to be a lark for about oh…two weeks! Then the old owl crept back in, and eventually took over. This was helped greatly by some inexplicable, freakish event that overtook my nerves and made it almost impossible for me to sleep for the rest of my stay in Oz. I was like it for weeks. Most nights I wouldn’t get to sleep until around 5-6am. If you can still regard that as night? No, it isn’t, is it?!

And that’s my point. I’ve always loved the idea of waking around 6am, watching the sun come up, hearing the birds wake up. But instead that’s when I’m fast asleep from only nodding off just a couple of hours before. At the moment I’m getting to sleep around 4am. Then I’m DRAGGING myself back out again around 10.30-11.00am. If I was getting my recommended 8 hours sleep, I wouldn’t get up til midday (and on the odd occasion I do, because I’m just SSOO dog-tired)!

I’m a creature of habit really. And this behaviour is habitual. It’s fueled by two things. Firstly, I can never drag myself away from TV at night. I’m always finding something to watch around 10.30-11.00pm which gets me hooked for an hour or so. Also by this time (well, use to be, not so much now), Em is asleep, so then I spend some time on the Internet. Which means I go to “bed” at any time between midnight and 1.30am. Then I don’t turn in straight away, I’ll play my Nintendo DS, or play games on my mobile phone, or listen to music. So, probably by around 3am, I’m ready to turn in.

I don’t know. Sometimes I get REALLY guilty for being like this (night owl) and other times I think “why do I care”? It’s not like I’m some super-fit person or something. It’s not like if I got up early, I’d be outside with the birds or anything.

I just think I’d feel better being a lark.

Photo supplied by: Spirit635 under creative commons (some rights reserved)

2 November 2007

It’s Only Hair!

“But I liked it!”, replies the attention-seeking, recalcitrant no-mark. Another “victim” of Celebrity Scissorhands. If you have no experience of this programme, it’s about training a group of “celebrities” (I put them in commas because unless you live in the UK and have no life “HELLO” – waves hands in the air – you will probably not have heard of ANY of these so-called celebrities) to become hairdressers/beauty therapists with around 13 years experience in just 3 weeks.

It’s all for charity. The BBC’s annual fund-raising event which is broadcast each November, called Children In Need. Last year on the night, the celebrities that remained in training styled the hair of the people taking part in Children In Need that night. This year they will be taking part in a hairdressing “show-down” where they will be performing styles in front of a panel of hairdressing and celebrity judges. The best is crowned “Celebrity Scissorhands Hairdresser of the Year 2007”.

Nine “celebrities” are taking part with the assistant to head hairdresser (and trainer) Lee Stafford, being last year’s favourite, Steve Strange (of 80’s pop icons Visage). All the celebs are to train in all aspects of hairdressing and beauty therapy. So they’ll be doing anything from cutting and styling hair, to waxing, to massage, body wraps, facials, manicures and pedicures…everything.

Members of the general public apply online to go into the salon to be “clients” of the celebrities. You can state your preference between having your hair cut, to having a beauty treatment, or an entire makeover.

Obviously the hair cuts are the best entertainment. The celebs start cutting on day one, with absolutely NO pre-training, just a very basic “this is how you hold the scissors and this is how you make a cut” approach, and off they go!

Baring this in mind, can anyone explain to me WHY someone would apply to this programme IF they are SO precious about their hair? It must be to get on TV, as there would be no other reason if you are that uptight about it. On day one, Ben Nicholas (Stingray off Neighbours) cut a ladies hair and she was getting really pee-d off. She said he’d made her “look like a boy” and so STEVE STRANGE (if you happened to watch last year, you’ll know why I put this in capitals) was sent to rectify what “butchering” Ben had caused. Trust me, the last person you want to touch your hair if it has already been butchered is Steve Strange! Suffice to say, Steve tried to “salvage” the job and for a change didn’t do too badly. But anyway, it’s FOR BLOODY CHARITY!

So, you’re a big-headed love-me-do, but, you know you just happen to have a charitable side (that shines through most while you have your mug to TV it just so happens). You’re happy to apply to CS for a hair cut, because you know it’s for charity and you’ll raise some money for Children In Need. Until you’re at the salon, when Steve Strange approaches you and you rather hypocritically start to panic. You then start to forget about the little 2 year-old girl sleeping on the streets of Malawi you’re meant to be there to help because Steve has just left a big V-shaped gap in your hair. GET OVER IT! How pathetic do you look, obsessing about your hair when some child you are meant to be there for is being abused by their father while you’re there crying into your own hands because your hair looks funny. GET A GRIP!!

I love the show, but why oh why do the people that end up on there get SSOO worked up about their hair? One lady, obviously wonderfully charitable, raised £5,000 to have her hair cut on the show, but was visibly unhappy with her cut. I mean, take it on the chin! You raised 5K’s! Shouldn’t you be happy?

I’d be wrapped to be “Stranged” (as Steve’s cuts have come to be known). It would be a unique cut for one!

Just friggin’ live with it! It’s only hair after all.

27 October 2007

If this face greeted YOUR marriage proposal, what would YOU think?

This was the face that greeted the character Pepper on neighbours when she asked Adam to marry her. NICE! What would you think if you were greeted with this face?

Anyway, it transpires that although Pepper is quite “into” Adam, she proposed purely for “marriage of convenience” purposes, to help him able to stay in Australia. NAUGHTY!

25 October 2007

Happy Pussy?

Mrs Slocombe anyone?

I received a birthday card in the post yesterday from Cheryl. It’s of a picture of a kitten surrounded by CGI frangipani flowers. Anyway, there was a caption on the back which described the picture on the front (printed down the right side):

24 October 2007

When IS the right time?

I’ve just been reading an article on the BBC News web site about the argument for lowering the legal limit at which you can have an abortion from 24 weeks to 20 weeks. The Health Minister Dawn Primarolo argues that there is insufficient scientific evidence for lowering the limit on the basis that extremely premature babies have not increased their survival rates in recent years.

Surely that is not the point. Isn’t the point that at 24 weeks most medical professionals will do all they can to help a premature baby live? And if that’s the case, surely then at 24 weeks the medical profession believe that child to be at a more established human development?

Ms Primarolo also provided statistics which reveal that the vitality of babies born at 21 weeks is 0%, whilst the vitality of babies born at 23 weeks is 11%. Well what about the babies born at 24 weeks? It must be a higher figure? She also says that 89% of abortions take place before 13 weeks. So based on those figures why would you not feel compelled to lower the legal limit to 20 weeks, or even 21 weeks?

This seems ridiculous to me. In this day and age, women can know that they have conceived just DAYS after conception. Medical complications in pregnancies are detected earlier and earlier. I for one see no valid justification in keeping the legal limit at 24 weeks. That is almost 6 months into a pregnancy. It’s far too late.

I think somewhere like Western Australia have the right approach to abortion. The legal limit is set at 20 weeks. Abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy may only be performed if the foetus is likely to be born with severe medical problems – which must be confirmed by two independently appointed doctors.

Read the full article here.
Photo supplied by Leo Reynolds under creative commons (some rights reserved).

22 October 2007

Death By Monkey?

Just looking around the BBC News web site when I see this story, headlined “Monkeys kill Delhi deputy mayor”. Unbelievable. What a bizarre way to die, the poor man.

Read the full story here.

21 October 2007

Who The Hell Are “Family First”?

Looking around on the ‘net, I decided to go to some Australian news web sites to see what’s going on “Down Under”. Of course one issue that is taking up a lot of media coverage at the moment is the upcoming federal election on November 24th. As I was looking around the news.com.au web site, I saw the “vote-a-matic“…great name! This little questionnaire is meant to help the “swinging” or “marginal” undecided voter who to choose on election day. I decided to do it for a bit of fun, mostly in the hope that it wouldn’t show me up to be a right-leaning Neo-Nazi.

As you can see by the image, gladly the outcome was such. But it left me with the question, “Who the hell are Family First?” So here they are…Family First. Yes, I have a lot of time to kill, but it was a bit of fun, and I enjoyed seeing the result.

21 October 2007

A Guilty Pleasure?

Yes! I admit, I watch X Factor. Do you think I’d get away with calling it a guilty pleasure? I like to think so, because it will let me off the hook for liking it. This week saw the start of the show “for real” with the final 12 acts chosen to sing live to the public. This year there are 4 categories: Males (aged 14-25), Females (aged 14-25), Groups and Over 25’s mentored by four judges: Simon Cowell (groups), Louis Walsh (+ 25’s), Dannii Minogue (males), and Sharon Osbourne (females).

This is what I thought of the final 12’s performances tonight (and what I have thought of them up til this point).

Females:
Kimberley – totally robbed tonight. Thought she gave a good performance. Not the strongest, granted, but it was high energy and she definitely has a strong voice.
Alisha – probably will end up stronger vocally than Kim so deserved to stay, but both ladies should NOT have been in the bottom two. Her performance wasn’t strong, especially the second time round (but hard as she knew she was in the bottom two at that stage) and the song choice didn’t let her show of her vocal capabilities.
Emily – tough stuff for someone who’s only 15, but she did well. It wasn’t the strongest performance, but hey, she’s 15 and she’s singing to an audience of about 7 million people so, you know…in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure she’ll get better.

Males:
Leon – he sounded fantastic, if a bit TOO much like Michael Buble`! He was totally slagged off by the judges. Yeah, it was a bit messy musically, but the bloke can sure sing.
Andy – a bit cheesy for my liking. There are strong parts to his voice. It’s unique, but a little weak to me. We’ll see what happens with him. Maybe it was just song choice letting him down.
Rhydian – OMFG! What can I say? Well, the guy is a knob as far as I am concerned. I totally agree with Sharon there. He’s WAY too OTT for me. He’s got a great theatrical voice. Great for the West End, not for X Factor.

Groups:
Hope – bleah! Pussy Cat Dolls wannabe’s. They did Rihanna’s Umbrella. It seems the only freakin’ song they can do, seeing it’s the only bloody one I’ve seen the perform! I mean, YAWN!
Futureproof – like the name, but that’s about it. Just another turgid boyband. Even more so considering they didn’t actually exist as a group at the beginning of X Factor, but were the “reject” boys that were the rejected 6 from bootcamp. And that’s also how Hope were formed.
Same Difference – OMG! Get me a gun, now! Like a brother and sister Steps – and predictably end up doing Tragedy (a Steps cover of the Bee Gee’s song). And it was as the song title suggested. I was sure they were going to be in the bottom two with Rhydian…but what do I know?

Over 25’s:
The best lot…
Beverley – Fantastic, and more so ‘cos she’s a Luton girl!!! Great voice, good performance. Simon slagged her off for not being able to dance…erm, it’s a SINGING contest isn’t it?
Niki – best performance of the night. Great voice. She’ll do well.
Daniel – not the best performance, but heart-felt. He’ll do better. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on him as time goes on.

19 October 2007

Only Seven Years Too Late.

Well I say seven years too late, but it’s never too late to enjoy a good television series is it? I have over the last few nights been watching a re-run of Queer As Folk on More 4 and really enjoyed it. I have been watching the current run of Doctor Who and don’t usually like the Russell T Davies written episodes of “The Doctor”, but he wrote an absolute gem with QAF. I really, really liked it, and whilst looking for info on Craig Kelly (pictured left), I found out a piece of info that for me was quite a wow factor (as it usually seems so rare). We share a birthday, and not normally what I get on the odd occasion which is someone sharing the day and month with me, but Mr Kelly shares year as well! Yes, we are both old!

Anyway, just wanted to say before crawling into bed.

19 September 2007

Bloggin’ Ain’t Easy Gov…

I live with a partner who is a voracious blogger, which is slightly intimidating as I also like to do my blogging, but more often than not, as you can see by the content, I am by no means voracious myself. I would dearly love to be though, but I have several problems hindering me.

I don’t really leave the house much.
I don’t have a big social network of friends.
Due mostly to points 1 & 2 I don’t really have many “events” going on in my life, and of those that ARE going on I tend not to want to speak of them on this blog for fear it may offend or upset a member of my family.

So, what is there left to talk about? I could do as my partner does I suppose and pick topical things going on in the world, but more often than not I don’t really have an opinion on things and if I did, why would I think my opinion is so important that I should write about it in my blog? It may be narcissistic, but I think blogs are about yourself, right? Then again, if that were true, there would be MANY boring blogs out there…and let’s face it guys, there ARE plenty of boring blogs around, you’re reading one now (if you lasted this long).

One last factor is that I’ve got to blog when the mood takes me, but I need a quiet place, void of distractions in which I can think of what I want to write. My partner can write blog posts while there is a TV and radio on, while I’m talking and that cat’s meowing. I just can’t do it in all that distraction. I’m only being able to successfully complete this post because my partner’s out, and the cat’s asleep on the lounge and I have NO electronic equipment on to distract me. It’s the same when I read.

So, given the distractions and lack of topics, I’m surprised I blog at all. I dearly wish I could blog more though – even if it WAS just about birds!