Sweet summer night and I’m stripped to my sheets

Forehead is leaking, my AC squeaks and

A voice from the clock says, “You’re not gonna get tired”

My bed is a pool and the walls are on fire

So begins the new single by Animal Collective, ‘Summertime Clothes’. Their solution to being unable to sleep in the oppressive heat is to go out and walk through the city (only to be confronted by the smell of trash).

I used to do that when I was younger. I’d slip out of the house and wander around as dawn broke. It’s quite a strange experience to walk around at 4am, when it’s broad daylight and there is no-one around. It’s good, but it doesn’t help you get to sleep. But if you stay in bed, by the time it cools down sufficiently (if it ever does) the sun is ready to rise again and you face the other problem of sleeping at summer — it’s too damn bright.

Longer days. I used to like that aspect of summer. This year I am not so sure. Several times I have woken up convinced that it must be morning, so intense is the sunlight. I raise my head only to look at the clock and see that it is something like 4:30am and I have had barely had two hours of sleep. Back to sleep I go, waking up every so often because of the brightness. I hide my head under my blanket, but that only makes the overbearing heat worse.

This isn’t the first time I have struggled with the summer climate. Three years ago I wrote a short and simple article entitled “I hate summer“. It got a bit of reaction at first. Later on it sporadically attracted further comments. There would perhaps be a small trickle during our winter, when wilting Antipodeans would vent. When it becomes summer in the northern hemisphere more people join in.

Now it seems to have turned into a bit of a self-organising support group — a collection of like-minded people who are united only by the fact that presumably they all one day turned to Google and said “I hate summer“. There are now a few regulars that leave comments on that post, which recently passed the 100 comments mark. It’s been one of those unexpected successes of this website.

It’s good to know that you’re not the only one who dislikes the summer. Many like the sun and the heat. In fact, it’s normally taken as a given that hot weather is a good thing. Not for me.

To my fragile Scottish complexion, the sun is just like a giant death ray in the sky. There is the small fact that it provides almost all of the energy on our planet. But I’d never guess it, given that it seems to sap all of the energy out of me.

Then again, I don’t mind sunlight so much. A bit of sun can’t be bad. It keeps those vitamin D levels in check. On a pleasant day I like to walk in the sun. A cool, sunny winter day can’t be beaten.

The real problem with summer is the intensity of the sun and the heat that comes with it. In fact, the sun could be away completely and it will be even worse. Is there anything worse than an overcast, cloudy, rainy, muggy, humid day? It is unbearably bad.

It’s not just the high temperatures, which might be bearable for a period. It’s the fact that once you get too hot, you reach some kind of tipping point, and it’s impossible to escape it for the rest of the day. A cool drink, for instance, provides only transient relief.

Some people say that winter is just as bad because it is too cold. That may be so in a way, but there is something evil about summer’s heat in that it is truly impossible to escape it. After all, if it’s too cold during winter, it’s not a problem — just throw another layer of clothes on. If it’s too warm during summer, there is not much you can do about it without getting arrested.

Moreover, my nose turns into a tap. It is not just the hay fever, which I am not sure if I have. But I certainly suffer a lot from Achoo Syndrome. I get that during winter too, if it’s sunny enough. But when it’s cooler, sneezing is something you can shake off fairly easily. During summer you cannot have a sneezing fit without having to reach for a towel as a result of the perspiration it causes.

More nose-related woe comes when you consider the summery stench. The smell of rubbish has already been alluded to by Animal Collective. But more than that, you cannot take a simple trip to the supermarket without your nostrils being assaulted by the BO of some middle-aged fat man who thinks it is the done thing to walk around with his top off. The sight is equally bad, especially when so many people walk around thinking nothing of the fact that they’ve turned the colour of the Forth Bridge.

And for the sake of taste and decency, I am not even going to go into the problems I encounter down there.

As if to prove that the world really has it in for me, I am convinced that my room is by far the hottest in the whole house. I can leave the window open all night and you’d never guess. But if I go for a walk around the house, it feels positively breezy, even in rooms where the window is clamped shut.

The really worrying thing is the fact that all of this summer malarkey adversely affects me so much despite the fact that I live quite far north in a relatively cool country. Indeed, I live on the coast of a peninsula of an island. Here I sit writing this a mere ten minute walk away from the North Sea, struggling to cope with a temperature that is apparently not higher than the teens. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I lived closer to the equator or far inland. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

I now know what they mean when some people say that environmentalism is the new religion.

Thankfully the storm surge predicted at dawn didn’t come to much. It seemed like a different story last night. I was listening to Radio 5 Live overnight, and they were simulcasting with BBC local radio stations. (Incidentally, you can listen to it here — the relevant bits are from about 2 hours in.)

It sounded pretty grim. The high tides hadn’t receded, and a further three feet of water was expected. Hundreds of people evacuated.

One woman was on holiday on a boat in the affected area. She had to wait until it was light until she could make a move and was worried that her boat was going to tip.

Then Radio 5 Live took a telephone call from Chris in Norwich. It is safe to assume that he was Chris Ballance because he said he used to be an MSP for the Scottish Greens. He said is deputy climate change spokesperson for the Green Party, so you can just imagine what he was saying about it all.

It is almost certainly global warming.

The thing that really annoyed me about this was that just about ten minutes earlier an actual meteorologist, Peter Gibbs, was explaining precisely what was going on. It was a one-off meteorological event. An unfortunate combination of low pressure sitting over the North Sea, gales blowing around the north of Scotland and spring tides in the English Channel, and the geographical nature of the area (the narrowness of the North Sea towards the Channel meaning that the water has nowhere else to go). There is a good diagram here.

Presenter Dotun Adebayo asked him just the right question: What about the great storm of 1953, was that global warming too? Bam!

With the listeners having had it explained to them precisely what was causing the rising waters in the south east of England by an actual meteorologist, politician Chris Ballance obviously felt the need to phone up and make sure that some spurious guff about climate change got broadcast. It seemed to me like a crass attempt at making party political gains, exploiting and capitalising on the genuine worry people felt about lives and property.

I am not a climate change sceptic by any means. Funnily enough, I am readier to accept the expertise of qualified physicists, meteorologists and climatologists over the deniers who approach the issue from a political, ideological perspective.

But I can’t help but notice that environmentalists have managed to get themselves into a position where the slightest freakish event is put down to climate change. There is no scope any more for one-off events, meteorological coincidences or freak conditions. It’s all climate change now.

In centuries gone by, before people had enough knowledge to realise otherwise, such events might have been put down to a higher power, a God or something. Having had a brief few centuries of enlightenment, we are almost reverting back to using a catch-all explanation for everything rather than actually analysing what is going on. Climate change is the new God.

I’ve been fiddling around with Gadgets again, and I have to say I stand corrected about the weather gadget! I hadn’t realised that dragging them away from the sidebar actually makes gadgets more functional. I now know that Sunday will be cloudy and Monday and Tuesday will be rainy.

There are some other cool gadgets that I’ve installed. Multimeter is a gadget that is just like the Microsoft gadget that tells you CPU and RAM usage, but it uses bar charts rather than antiquated dials.

iTunes Accessory is a very nifty gadget that displays what is currently playing in iTunes. It allows you to skip tracks, pause, mute and suchlike. So now I don’t need to keep fidgeting with windows just to pause a track. Nice.

I’ve not kept it on my sidebar because I don’t post packages very often. But if you do, I think Postage Calculator (UK) is very impressive. If you haven’t got your head around the Royal Mail’s new pricing system, just plug in the weight and size of your package and this will tell you how much it will cost to send. Simple but brilliant.

But this is the one that has really bowled me over. BBC Radio Player allows you to listen to any of the national BBC Radio stations (including digital stations, naturally) without the hassle of firing up your browser and trudging through the BBC website. Such a simple interface as well, and it works perfectly.

What I’d quite like to see is a Meebo gadget. I love the idea of Meebo, but I don’t like it taking up a tab in Firefox.

Tonight is Burns Night — a fact that my dangerously nationalist self keeps on forgetting. I had forgotten once again until James Higham left this in a comment:

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the Puddin-race! Aboon them a’ ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy of a grace As lang’s my arm.

Which I assume is some Burns. I recognise the second line, but none of the rest. Which probably proves something about how much of a philistine or traitor I am. But I don’t care.

Anyway, it just so happens that last night I went on one of my (very) occasional trips to the Scots Wikipedia.

Guid tae see ye at the Scots Wikipædia, the first encyclopædia in the Scots leid!

Noble though it may be, it does make me giggle a little bit whenever I read these attempts to take what is essentially slang very seriously. I must try and pick up some of those weighty documents that the Scottish Parliament apparently publishes in Scots. It would make some of those train journeys pass by quicker.

For the most part, English Wikipedia is written in a very formal manner. Scots Wikipedia is like reading Oor Wullie explain quadratic calculations. Here, for instance, is part of the article on naitural philosophy:

Pheesicists studies a braid reenge o pheesical phenomenae, frae the sub-nuclear pairticles that maks up aw ordinar maiter (pairticle pheesics) tae the maiteral Universe as a hail (cosmologie).

I also like this message that appears at the top of some pages (such as this one about Commissioners tae the Scots Pairlament):

The “Scots” that wis uised in this airticle wisna written by a native speaker. Gin ye can, please sort it.

I guess the slightly slap-dash, antiquated nature of the language part of the charm for some people. One of my maths teachers used to drop in loads of baffling slang words which were presumably meant to be Scots, but I’m certain she just made them up on the spot.

I also know that, for instance, Kirkcaldy has several different spellings in Scots. The Scots Wikipedia article spells it Kirkcaudy, which is redirected from Kirkcawddy — but, of course, you and I know it as Kirkcaldy!

The famous (in Kirkcaldy) poem, ‘The Boy in the Train‘ uses a yet another different spelling of Kirkcaldy (the collogue page at Wikipedia touches on this).

When the train station was rebuilt in the early 1990s the whole waiting area was decked out in linoleum — Kirkcaldy’s greatest export, and the cause of that famous “queer-like smell”. The smell can linger in the east of the town, particularly when it’s raining. It’s the kind of smell that, a bit like coffee, is really foul when you are a child but eventually you become fond of it as you grow older. I imagine if I ever move out of Kirkcaldy I’ll want to occasionally visit to catch the smell again.

In the linoleum-covered waiting area of the train station, the poem that makes reference to this smell takes pride of place above the stairs. Appropriately enough, the poem itself is cut in linoleum as well. I stand in the waiting area and try to decipher the poem when it is raining and I can’t stand outside on the platform. It seems as though when it’s raining in Kirkcaldy you just can’t escape linoleum!

From my memory, the version of the poem hanging on the wall in the station uses more than one different spelling of Kirkcaldy, but I could be wrong. I’ll have to take a look at it tomorrow. But it does seem as though Mary Campbell-Smith, judging by the rhymes she tried to pull off, thought that Kirkcaldy was pronounced “Kirkcaddy”. I suppose it’s an improvement on many non-natives’ attempts to pronounce the ‘l’ which is actually silent.

Best just to stick to ‘The Lang Toun’ really…

Other interesting Wikipedia projects

• Kernewek, currently standing at 1,233 articles.
• Anglo-Saxon, with 744 articles.
• The inevitable Klingon, with a surprisingly low 62 articles.
• Full list of Wikipedias

I love this map (via Chicken Yoghurt). Biological Hazards here, earthquakes there… and a bit of snow in Britian.

I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas you know. I really don’t mind it at all. I’m not a total Scrooge (who, incidentally, was a fellow Langtonian). There are very good reasons to try and enjoy yourself at this time of year. It’s cold, dark and miserable. What else can you do except make the most of it?

Except that people don’t enjoy themselves at Christmas time. They just get totally stressed out. That’s what I hate about Christmas. It’s not Christmas itself. It’s the whole fuss that surrounds it. It completely misses the point for me, which is to cheer yourself up during the winter. Ideally, the run-up to Christmas would last for a week, rather than three months. I haven’t even started any of my Christmas shopping yet — mostly because I haven’t had the time. Most Christmas traditions completely pass me by.

But now I am faced with a dilemma. Colleagues have been giving me Christmas cards. It must be at least four years since I personally received a Christmas card. For me, exchanging Christmas cards is one of the most insincere things that people do at this time of year, and that really is saying something.

I mean, I never receive Christmas cards from my friends, and I never give them cards either. Does that mean I wish them a rubbish Christmas? Of course it doesn’t. It just means I’m not wasting as much paper. I can just wish people a Merry Christmas anyway. Why give them a card? Often the process of gift-giving is completely avoided as well. Two of my friends ceremoniously exchange five pound notes every year.

The only time I’ve ever received Christmas cards was at school. Our primary school had a little mock post box set up next to the office. People would drop their cards in the post box in the morning before the bell rang and the cards would be delivered to our class later on in the day. That is a ridiculously inefficient system if you think about it. You could just, you know, give the cards to your classmates. After all, they are in the same room as you!

Still, it was a fun game to play. I suppose it was meant to be teaching us about the postal system. But our primitive postal system had no stamps and the cards were always delivered on time, so it wasn’t very realistic. Anyway, the whole ceremony of it all meant that it was very easy to see who had — and, more importantly, hadn’t — received a card from certain individuals. Of course, this just meant that everybody ended up having to send a Christmas card to everybody else.

One year I also sent a Christmas card to absolutely everybody in my class in primary 7. I fancied myself as somebody who was quite good at dealing with the organisation of this sort of thing, but I was prone to the odd administrative error. I ended up sending somebody a card twice. This person happened to be a girl, so you can imagine the jolly japes that came my way.

Anyway, the fact that everybody sent everybody else a Christmas card kind of underlines the insincerity of Christmas cards to me. They aren’t really a way to wish somebody a happy Christmas. They are just an evil social convention which we are all dragged kicking and screaming into. It’s not just me who says this. It is common to hear somebody describe their relationship with somebody else as “Christmas cards”. “Christmas cards” means, “I’m not in touch with him at all and I actually hate his guts.”

When I went into the staff room and saw a pile of Christmas cards sprawled across the table I was struck with fear. I knew I had a difficult decision ahead of me. I was hoping just to “not notice” that there were any cards for me so that I could avoid having to write any back. In fact, I didn’t even look to see if there were any for me.

But today a colleague actually told me to go and get the card that was waiting for me in the staff room! I now had no choice but to collect my card. Card? Hah! Turns out I actually have five. And goodness knows how many more are to come. Once the first person put a card there, a domino effect was set in motion. Soon enough I’ll have cards from people that I’ve never even met.

What is even more unsettling is the fact that these five cards come from such a wide range of people. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly be more diverse. It is certainly not the five people that I speak to most often. In fact, there is not a toot from most of the people that I actually often speak to. No surprises there then!

So here is my dilemma. Should I just write cards to the five people who wrote me cards? That would seem grudging, as though I was avoiding Christmas cards. That is true, but it’s probably seen as a bit rude. So I could write cards to the five people, then some more other people. But then the people who didn’t get a card might get offended. I could write cards to everybody, but that would seem insincere, and I would also have to write cards to people that I don’t really like.

The only other option is not to write any cards at all, but is that really a viable option? No matter what course of action I take, I will be committing some kind of horrendous faux pas that will undoubtedly be generating conversations whenever I’m not around. Apart from that, I can only phone in sick every day between now and Christmas, but that probably wouldn’t make me very popular with the boss.

Seriously. What’s wrong with just enjoying Christmas instead of having to deal with all of this insincere crap?

I am amused / concerned to see that, as with last year, some girls seem to just be taking the cold weather as a challenge to wear the shortest skirt possible.

Now, being of the male disposition, I have never had the pleasure of wearing a skirt because society would deem that to be slightly off. But I imagine that it must be a bit nippy to wear something the barely covers your bum at sub-zero temperatures in the mid-morning. At least wear some tights surely!

Still, at least it warms up the morning in one sense.

Wow, it’s all been even more hectic than I had expected. I’ve got lots that I could write about, but I don’t really have the energy, so I’m reduced to writing a banal post about the weather and my feet. You have been warned.

Firstly, the wind yesterday was fantastic! I was eating my lunch in the Meadows at the time. I love a good wind. It can be off-putting, but it’s good fun. Not very easy to eat your lunch in though. I couldn’t believe how strong the wind was. It blew my (rather heavy) bag around! Apparently the wind was just as good in Kirkcaldy, but my brother says that there was no wind in Dundee. Yet another reason to avoid Dundee.

Couldn’t believe how hot it was today. I thought summer was over and that it would be safe to wear a black t-shirt again. Unfortunately not. It was absolutely horrendous. I’ve had a headache all day and the excessive heat hasn’t helped it.

I think I maybe walk too quickly. Particularly with my right leg. I don’t understand why my right foot would be walking faster than my left foot, but all of the evidence points to it. Or at least I lean harder on my right leg or something. My right shoe usually gets worn down more quickly, and my right foot is beginning to hurt. There’ll be a blister soon enough. The same happened last year when I started university again. Now my right thigh is getting sore aswell.

Maybe I do walk too quickly. I definitely walk faster than most people because I find myself barging my way past everybody in the street. This is especially problematic because of the road works which have turned the High Street into a narrow maze. Lovely to see that Hibs fans still manage find the space to spit on the Heart of Midlothian though.

Anyway, I don’t really see the point in walking slowly. Even if I know it will save my leg, it feels like such a waste of time. I absolutely hate it when I’m stuck behind a slowcoach on the pavement. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t because if I barge past them then that would be rude, but if I slow right down it’ll seem like I’m listening in to their conversation. Not that I ever do such a thing, of course.

Besides, my doctor told me that walking quickly is one of the best things I can do exercise-wise. Might as well keep fit while I’m making laborious journeys, eh? While we’re on laborious journeys, walking quickly also means that I can catch a later train into Edinburgh and an earlier train back to Kirkcaldy — an important psychological goal. If you’re having a bad day, missing the train can be one of those moments that turns you from being mildly annoyed into obsessively listing everything that’s gone wrong with the day.

Today, despite the still-lingering cough, the tiredness, the headache and the horrible weather, I caught the 17:10 Dyce train — a real bonus, because you don’t really get a faster train than that.

It’s looking pretty unanimous on the ‘more personal posts’ front. The score is 8–0 at the moment. You nosy bastards! I’m currently facing up to the fact that the real reason I stopped posting ‘personal’ posts was because I’ve realised that I’m actually a bit rubbish, and writing about myself only reveals a bit more of my rubbishness each time. Which probably isn’t a very good idea.

The score on the other question is currently 6–2 in favour of keeping F1 posts here. I came up with a good name if I were to set up a separate F1 blog, although now that I’ve said it’s good I’ve only built up your expectations which would make it a disappoinment. I would call it vee8. Maybe a bit too obscure if you’re not a big F1 fan, and you just know that they would let teams use V10 engines again as soon as I started the blog.

Turnout is high, currently running at a massive eight votes. You’ve excelled yourselves. I’ll keep the polls up for a bit longer, but to be honest it looks as though the result is settled. So here’s one of those boring posts about my life that I promised.

I can’t believe that this is the last week of my summer. University holidays are meant to be long. They are really really long if you look at it on a calendar for instance. And last year’s felt really long, but that’s mostly because I spent all of my time either sitting on my bum or making a general nuisance of myself.

This year, though, I set myself a few goals. I know this is very target setterish, but it had to be done — partly to get myself in shape for life, and partly to keep me busy (staying busy makes me happier). I started taking driving lessons, which was quite good at first because it gave me a reason to get up in the morning. Then I got a job and I lost all interest in the driving lessons!

In a lot of ways I think this summer has been very successful — in terms of reaching some of my goals and so on. In other ways it wasn’t so successful. I mean, I never did all those summery things such as going out to the local scum-club. I think we are getting too sensible as we grow up.

I couldn’t reach all of my goals, mostly because I haven’t had the time! I know, it’s incredible — I’ve hardly been able to keep on top of time this summer. It was all so very different last year.

While we’re on time management, I was sad to see that the Political Teenager has gone on hiatus for the following reason:

Now I am starting University, I will not have time for long winded posts and rants.

This is a bit surprising to me. I’ve always wondered why you don’t find more students writing blogs (I’m not counting those of the LiveJournal type here). It’s not as if students don’t have shedloads of spare time. And in my experience students seem to divide their spare time approximately as follows:

• 40% boozing it up
• 30% “ironically” watching Neighbours
• 20% on MyFaceBeboJournal
• 10% forcing everybody within a 20 mile radius to use Fairtrade goods whenever possible
• 9% pretending to be in poverty
• ¾% being unable to add up to 100 and making ridiculous, mostly fictitious lists with little bearing on anything
• ¼% studying

Surely more of them can squeeze in a bit of blogging? After all, they are always banging on about how politically aware they are.

Sitting here, I think that going back to Uni might give me more time to blog. I really do dread going back to Uni, especially what with it being 3^rd year and all. It is going to be hard work. But at least I’ll be in some form of a routine. I’ll always have a few hours of spare time at the end of every day; ample time to get some blogging in.

I’ll also finally be able to listen to all those podcasts that I’ve been stashing away, never to be listened to. There’ll be plenty of time on the train for that. And reading all those economics books that I somehow never found the time to read.

The thing about this summer is that I’ve just been arranging lots of things without thinking about whether I really have the time to do it, simply because I’ve been so eager to keep myself busy. I’ve actually had to strike things off my list because I’ve got so much to do this week. For instance, my driving theory test is on Thursday. Thursday morning indeed. Why oh why did I book it for that time?!

I said I couldn’t believe that this was my last week of summer, but technically that was last week. This week is freshers week, and all the cool kids are out having fun. Here I am getting pale in front of a computer. Oh well.

Anyway, I’ve got to go through to Edinburgh to matriculate this week. Regular readers will know that commuting to Edinburgh involves roughly a three hour round trip for me. This week I’ve got to go through to Edinburgh to write a time when I can meet my Director of Studies on a piece of paper. Then I’ve got to go back and meet him at that time. Six hours of my life wasted on bureaucracy! Aargh!

And then once I’ve got work on Saturday out of the way I’ll just have a teeny weeny bit of time left to get rested and make sure I’m all set to start University. Do I have enough pens? I don’t know. Did I clear out my folder from last year? Can’t remember. Have I done any preparatory reading? Of course not. I need to get my hair cut, my shoes have chosen this week to wear out, and I really ought to buy myself a jacket that doesn’t make me far too hot whenever Edinburgh doesn’t happen to be an ice cube.

If any lecturer makes some smart-arse remark about how we should all be fully refreshed after the summer, it truly will be the end.

The first of September. So we’ve exited the summer, where people only celebrate blogging for no good reason, and which is far too hot anyway. It definitely felt like winter the other day when it was pitch black at 9pm. An uni starts again in a couple of weeks. Gah.

There is a post on the BBC’s Editors blog pointing out Evan Davies’ report on how the recent hot weather has been affecting the economy in so many different ways. Having been working inside a baking shop for the past few weeks in this extreme weather, I’ve seen that in action. Even a Saturday was pretty dead. The post ends by tackling the misconception that economics is just all about money issues, which I was recently trying to explain to a sceptical colleague.

I know summer is meant to be all about birds twittering, lots of sun and long days. But let’s face it: it’s actually about wasps, sunburn, and the sun rising before you even get to sleep.

This ranter is sounding off about Aberdonians complaining about the heat. Now there is lots that you can slag off Aberdonians about — their driving for a start! But I must sympathise in this instance. I cannot stand hot weather. There is nothing worse. And to top it all off we’ve had thunder and everything a couple of times, so you can throw heavy rain into the mix as well. Extremely hot, cloudy, raining like a drunkard on a tree — it’s bad, bad, bad.

You might say, “ah, but winter is very cold!” But the thing about that is that at least you can wrap up warm. Putting on four layers of clothes doesn’t require much effort but it can keep you comfortable all day. But if it is boiling hot then you are properly snookered. If you strip right off people will be all offended by your flesh, and you’ll still be too hot!

Summer. I’d rather gnaw off my nose.

I don’t recall thunderstorms being forecast. It has been dull all day, but it was nothing unusual. But when I went downstairs the air felt really heavy; almost oppressive. Then it started raining. Now it’s a full-on downpour complete with the occasional rumble of thunder. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the rain so heavy. Even so, a lot of the walls are still completely bone dry.

I don’t really like it. It’s very hot and very rainy. And we have to have the lights on at 3 in the afternoon in one of the longest days of the year. It looks like winter but feels like summer. Euch. There was a powercut earlier aswell, and the lights keep on flickering.

The BBC Weather website is now forecasting thunder for tomorrow aswell…

Update: My parents have just come home, and apparently while they were stuck in the middle of the bedlam the radio said that the weather was fine across the country apart from a few spits and spots which are nothing to worry about!

Apparently Edinburgh University is bucking the trend, and admissions for its maths courses are up. I was there for one lecture in first year, and it was certainly quite busy (although not nearly as busy as Politics).

Yup, last year I almost took Maths as my outside subject, but just one lecture was enough for me to realise that it was far too difficult for me. This is despite the fact that my original idea was to do Maths and Statistics or something along those lines at university. I had wanted to take Advanced Higher Maths in sixth year at high school, but not enough other people wanted to do it (they only needed seven!). So I had to take a year off without thinking about any maths. It was enough to practically knock it all out of my system entirely. Now I can’t imagine why I ever thought Maths and Stats would be a good idea?!

So guess what I took in sixth year instead of Maths? Economics. And I found it pretty interesting. In fact, my friend who also took Economics and I both found it incredibly refreshing, because it was a subject that seemed to actually mean something outside the classroom. It was something that we could go home and think about and say, ‘yes, I see that happening in real life.’ Goodness knows what crap I was learning in Maths or Physics and at the time, but I certainly didn’t seem important, and I can’t remember most of it now.

(I can remember that s = ut + ½at², but only because when I got some plants for my bedroom, for some reason that I still don’t understand today, my mother was eager for me to name them. So I called them all stupid names to take the piss. ’s = ut + ½at²’ died quite quickly.)

So after the success of Higher Economics I decided to take Economics (along with Politics) at University as well. Imagine my shock when I ended up having to know calculus inside out! Sometimes I think I almost might as well have pulled a subject out of a hat. Now I wish I took Meteorology instead. I think I’ve been interested in weather all my life, except for those couple of weeks when the Ucas form was in my possession. But the grass is always greener, huh? Who knows what I’d be saying if I actually did do Meteorology…

It’s not that I dislike Economics or anything. Infact I think it’s very interesting. But I find it difficult to be fully convinced by everything that we’re taught, and I do find it the subject difficult as well, which isn’t a help. Nevertheless, I’m quite determined to see Economics through because I feel deep down that it is somehow a better subject than Politics.

I’ve mentioned six or seven subjects so far, and I’ve been somewhat agnostic about all of them for at least part of my life. But sitting here today I feel that so much of what happens in life is down to pure luck, so I guess I should just take what I’m given and be happy with it.

In the past, though, it was a different matter. I think I should tread carefully here, because I got a bit of criticism when I gave up piano lessons. Some people thought that I should have appreciated that I had talent, and that it was a bit selfish of me to just reject it when so many people would give their right arm to be able to play the piano (they obviously haven’t thought about how they would actually play the piano once they had lost said arm). But then again I did get criticised by somebody else who said that I should have quit earlier because I wasn’t interested in it. You can’t win, can you?

Anyway, there are two subjects that everybody thought I was good at in school: English and Computing. But I just have to say no no no.

I have no idea why people thought I was good at English. I hated English with a passion, but for some reason double English was always the most fun subject in fifth year because it was also the one where we were allowed to skive. I can’t remember what we were supposed to be doing, but we weren’t doing it and it must have been something where having loud, jovial conversations and pissing ourselves laughing wouldn’t arouse the teacher’s suspicions.

The only good marks I got in English were for speaking. I don’t know what it was, but something always seemed to click when I had to make a speech about something in front of the whole class. Unfortunately, it was never so when I had to write something. Ironic, given that I now spend so much of my spare time writing for fun. Anyway, I hated writing — especially stories, because I have all the imagination of a sieve (I’m equally bad at similes).

And I know you’re not supposed to admit this if you want people to think you’re really smart or whatever, but I almost never read books for pleasure, and I certainly don’t read novels. In fact, all forms of fiction (films, dramas, plays, whatever) need to be bloody amazing to grab my attention. Don’t ask me why, but I just find it all boring.

Which brings me on to Computing. Zzzzz. Apparently if you do Computing you’re going to make loads of money, but who gives a stuff about that if you’ve got to spend your whole life doing boring shit like programming. Unlike with English, I actually was good at Computing, but I simply could not see myself spending my whole life doing that sort of thing.

Third year, when you start Standard Grades, is when the really boring shit starts. I was sitting at the computer during a lesson, and just as I was actually thinking how incredibly dull programming was, my Computing teacher came up to me wielding a piece of paper with a note scrawled on it: “fourth year and talented third year only”. I was one of those third years singled out. My teacher wanted me to enter this annual programming competition which I think a lot of people actually take quite seriously.

“Errrrrr, I don’t really like competitions,” was my lame excuse.
“But you like programming,” came my teacher’s reply.

AAARGH.

This is nice. I’ve been wanting to get some of those things off my chest for ages! I guess I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no point in finding a dream subject or career. They are all pretty shit, the grass is always greener, and so on. So there’s not much point in worrying about it by, for instance, writing an oversized blog post about it…

Blood & Treasure has a good post on George Best.

I’m glad it’s all over now because I was getting sick of the media constantly reporting his imminent death before it had even happened. Sky News must have been one step away from putting a COUNTDOWN UNTIL LIVER EXPLOSION clock on the corner of the screen.

Last night George Best was hours away from death ever since the early evening. His death was on most of the front pages. When I woke up he was still alive. The previous night’s coverage had begun to look pretty silly. It’s not news if somebody has “a bad night”. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a good night. It was news when he went into hospital. It was news when he died. The “news” in between those two events was just stupid.

What on earth will the news channels talk about now? George Best has been a brilliant source of news for the past month or so. Now we have to be subjected to stories about snow. And that could be summed up in one word: ‘brrr’.

Update: I’ve just seen that Recess Monkey has voiced a similar concern.

There’s a big article, via Plasticbag, in The Washington Post about how sleep deprivation is killing Americans. And presumably everybody else aswell.

Sleep is something that I am quite interested in, because I’m rubbish at sleeping. I don’t think I’m an insomniac really, because I have no trouble at all getting to sleep on most nights. But I have no regular pattern.

I have always been a bit of a nightowl, apparently ever since I was very young. As I grew up I also discovered that television and radio are much better late at night than they are during the day or even the evening. Going on a walk at 4am is a brilliant experience. And because everybody else is in bed there are fewer distractions, so I can do things at my own pace and without being interrupted.

At first staying up until the wee small hours was great fun. But it is problematic if you have to get into school before 9am every morning. After a while simply existing became a bit of a chore. I often skipped breakfast to give myself more time to sleep. I can remember sitting there at school, half-awake. And I think I was quite bad at communicating aswell. Infact, I can remember actively avoiding talking simply because I didn’t have the energy to have a decent conversation. There were probably times when I only ever spoke when I had some snide comment that I really needed to make. That probably didn’t endear me to many people.

So staying up until 3 or 4am on a routine basis is now a no-go area. As a result, I generally feel more alert and up to the task of getting through the day. But I’ve never been able to fully shake off the general late-night habit. I find it very difficult, for instance, to go to sleep at a time like 11pm because it simply doesn’t feel to me like the day is over until about midnight or 1am, even if I got up really early in the morning. Radio is also still better, although television has taken a nose-dive if you ask me (or maybe I just grew up!).

I also have to partly blame coffee. I am sure that people who don’t drink coffee simply don’t stay up as late. I have imposed upon myself a 6pm (or whenever I get in) coffee curfew for nights where I have to get up earlyish the next morning. As it’s self-imposed it isn’t very strictly adhered to, but it makes me feel better. It might be a placebo. I could have coffee an hour before going to bed and have no problems drifting off (although I would probably have a headache in the morning).

Still, sleeping is a problem. I think on average I probably get enough. But the key words there are on average. I don’t go to sleep or get up at a regular time every day. I tried to get up at the same time every day during the summer holidays, at the unambitious time of 11am, and even than the plan only lasted a couple of weeks. Besides, if I tried to get up at the same time every day at the moment that would involve getting out of bed before 8am on a Sunday, which is just pointless.

So what happens is that I get up at a different time every day. Last year university really took its toll, and virtually every weekend I slept for a total of twenty or more hours. And I still felt tired. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be happening this year, thanks to a more convenient timetable with none of the long days which really drained me last year.

That’s not to say that my general sleeping patterns are any better. This isn’t a typical week, but nevertheless it is not unusual for me to have erratic sleeping patterns. On Sunday morning I only got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep, thanks to ITV’s idiotic policy of scheduling the only broadcast of the Formula 1 qualifying session late at night, when the race programme started at 5:20am. Then on Monday I got up at 11am. Today I had to be up before 8am. I am knackered right now — I’m amazed I’ve even had the energy to write this post. At first the day was okay, but then I decided to take some books out of the library which made the journey back a proper chore. Tomorrow I probably won’t stumble out of bed until about 11.

As such, it concerns (but does not surprise) me that the article notes that it is not only lack of sleep but erratic sleep that could lead to potential health problems. The worst thing is that we still seem to know so little about sleep. That’s a bit crazy considering that every single person does it every day (usually) for at least a quarter of the day (usually).

One thing that I can’t really get my head around is the fact that humans are ‘hardwired’ to operate during the day. Even if you spend years and years doing the nightshift, it is still more natural and healthy to be working during the day instead. I don’t really know why that should be, unless sunlight is a real necessity. Even then, it surely doesn’t much matter if you’re stuck in working all day.

Incredible Hurricane Katrina photographs.

Recess Monkey has a post about the world’s greatest weather man — Daniel Corbett! Apparently when Daniel Corbett presented the weather in America he was very popular because of his accent. Recess reckons that Corbett might be an alien. I’m not sure whether or not that’s better than being a monkey.

He’s obviously not to everybody’s taste. My mother said to me once, “Don’t you think there’s something weird about him?” But I think that anybody who can make a career out of pointing at a blob of blue and saying, “Look at this chappie here,” has to be good in my book.

“That’s the weather — for now.”

A clothes peg that predicts the weather. (Via.)

Interview with Mayor of New Orleans. This is quite some interview. (Via.)

I have heard the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina being compared to last year’s Boxing Day tsunami more than once.

Here is another similarity. Following the tsunami I heard on the radio that one tribe on a remote island fired arrows at helicopters trying to leave food parcels; the islanders were suspicious of outsiders (I suppose if you saw a helicopter for the first time you’d be bricking it aswell).

Shots halt hurricane evacuation.

Shots fired at helicopters, New Orleans superdome evacuation halted.

Apparently, a National Guardsman was shot at, although is not reported to be seriously injured.

People, it seems are very angry, and frustrated, at what they see to be the federal government letting them down, according to various media reports.

Unfortunately, you could always see this coming: Bigots trying to capitalise on Katrina. Thankfully they failed.

Top Ten Hurricane Katrina songs. Special LOL for #2; I had never thought that that track title could be meant in that way.

Sigur-ros.co.uk has interviewed a person who is probably Sigur Rós’ youngest fan, because he is only six! And he first saw them when he was four (I’m 19 and I’ve still not seen them once). What a lucky boy to be growing up with such beautiful music!

Highlight:

if you had to use one word to describe sigur rós, what would it be?
rainstorms

I’m posting this in every single category to make sure everybody who might need this gets it.

I’ve decided that my categories are a mess, and tomorrow I’m going to attempt to clean them up a bit. I’ll be creating new categories, deleting rubbish old ones, and changing where they go. Some posts might end up in different places. Just a heads up, because it does mean that some feed URLs, and indeed website URLs, will change.