This is a post that I should have written at the end of last season, but didn’t get round to before deciding to go on hiatus. Many of these points will have been made before, and it may be a bit past its sell-by date — but here it is anyway.

I am in awe of what Red Bull Racing achieved last season. In one sense, it should all be so easy. They have the best designer in Adrian Newey. And they have one of the best drivers in Sebastian Vettel — and Mark Webber is pretty handy too.

But those elements were in place in previous years too. Plus, it is easy to forget that Adrian Newey has not been involved in a championship victory since 1999.

Vettel, too, was by no means a shoo-in for the championship. It took a fairly bizarre set of circumstances for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to go his way. And it was a tall order for him to become the youngest ever world champion.

The truth is that the achievements of Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel are massive. Red Bull is a soft drink company. Yet they have shown world-class car manufacturers and experienced grand prix teams how to do it.

When I grew up watching Formula 1 in the 1990s, the talk was of F1′s “big four”. These were the dominant teams: Benetton, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams. Between 1979 and 2008, no-one outside of the big four won the Constructors’ Championship (if you account for the fact that Benetton became Renault).

In the past two years, there has been a breakthrough. The stranglehold was broken, first by the Brawn team in its first — and only — year in F1; an unprecedented achievement. But, impressive though its achievements were, the Brawn team could trace its history in F1 back to Tyrrell’s first grand prix in 1968.

In a way, therefore, Red Bull’s achievements are even more extraordinary. Although Red Bull (much like the Brackley-based Tyrrell-BAR-Honda-Brawn-Mercedes squad), bought an existing team, this team in much younger. Originally set up as Stewart Grand Prix in 1997, it took 14 years for this team to win a Championship having been set up from scratch.

Red Bull truly is part of a new generation of championship winners. The next-youngest championship-winning team is Benetton / Renault, originally set up as Toleman in 1981.

A hat must go off to Paul and Jackie Stewart for their roles in this. I have heard it mentioned in passing once or twice, but I am surprised that more has not been made of it.

The Stewarts expended great efforts to set up their grand prix team, and against all the odds they achieved great things in the short three year lifespan of the team. Despite the best efforts of Ford to run the team into the ground with its misguided Jaguar Racing venture, the team has since gone on to achieve even greater things as Red Bull.

So hats off to Paul and Jackie Stewart. And hats off to Dietrich Mateschitz, Adrian Newey, Christian Horner, Sebastian Vettel and everyone else inolved in Red Bull Racing’s amazing achievement.

I will discuss the events of the Hungarian Grand Prix soon. But today I decided to take a photograph of the way I watch F1. It has been a while since I have photographed it. The last time was probably early last year, soon after coverage switched to the BBC.

With recent changes to the coverage, the desk has become even more congested. Click through to the Flickr page for annotations of what everything is.

As you can see, I have two video screens. One is the BBC One television coverage, which usually carries the FOM world feed. On my netbook I have the onboard channel. I highly recommend having the onboard channel on a second screen. It is interesting to watch during any dull phases of the race. Often it’s useful to watch it in the corner of your eye — the onboard feed often catches incidents before the world feed does, and often covers parts of the race that are never seen on the world feed.

I also have Twitter open. That has become increasingly hectic as I have followed more and more people. It is just impossible to keep on top of the comments, and I sometimes find that it distracts me from the race itself. Having said that, feel free to follow me — @vee8!

At the bottom middle of the main monitor is the live timing from Formula1.com — a hugely useful companion to the race that I have used for many years now. I would feel absolutely lost watching a race without it.

At the bottom right is the new driver tracker, which the BBC have begun to offer to viewers as a separate video feed. This is great for seeing where drivers are on the circuit, for visualising the gaps, seeing when traffic is coming up, and working out where drivers will feed back into the field after a pitstop.

Then there is my iPhone. I used to use this for the Softpauer driver tracker app, although it is a bit redundant since the BBC have started offering FOM’s own version during the races! The app cost £20 at the beginning of the season. £20 down the pan perhaps. I might find another use for the iPhone — the Softpauer app has other views you can use, then there is Bernie’s own one, although this largely replicates the functionality of the live timing you get from Formula1.com.

As you can see, I also stock up on food and drink to consume during the race. Due to the timings, I’m afraid to say I skip lunch altogether. So I eat lots of snacks during the race instead. Then there is stuff to drink. Usually I have coffee, but today I had tea. There is apple juice there too, and a backup stock of water should I need it.

This is way beyond what I did when ITV covered the races. Back then you got 50 or so minutes of pre-race nonsense which was, let us be fair, nothing like as good as what the BBC bring us (despite the BBC apparently having a much lower budget). Post-race coverage was usually banal and brief. And I haven’t even mentioned all those advert breaks!

I think the widely held view is that the BBC provide the best terrestrial television coverage for Formula 1 in the world, and I certainly agree that they do a largely excellent job. Certainly in the amount of airtime they give F1, they truly spoil us.

There is typically 50 minutes of pre-race buildup. Then the race lasts around 90-100 minutes, or perhaps up to two hours. Then with the BBC One post-race show and the F1 Forum, the BBC typically bring us a staggering two hours of post-race reaction — that is longer than the race itself!

As you can see from my desk, though, this brings its own dilemmas. When can I find time to eat my lunch? And when can I go for a personal pitstop? With about five hours of almost non-stop coverage, multiple video feeds, timing screens and internet commentary from all directions, watching grands prix today truly is a marathon event every other Sunday.

The podcast is the idea of James O’Malley, a fine chap with a jolly good blog. His thinking is to have a number of contributors chipping in to a weekly podcast which will be around 15–20 minutes long. The podcast will be along the lefty / liberal / atheist / skeptical / rationalist lines. Read James O’Malley’s explanation for more.

What was missing was a name for the podcast. A bit difficult to come up with a name for something that only exists in your brain. But with the vague template in mind, I set to work, along with the other contributors, to think of a suitable name.

Suddenly, it came to me. After I had been lying in bed literally unable to sleep for hours, it suddenly came to me: The Pod Delusion. Yes, I know. I’m a genius. Not quite a living legend like James O’Malley though. Nonetheless, the fact that I came up with the excellent name means that The Pod Delusion is definitely my podcast. The fact that I put no effort whatsoever into creating it, producing it or commissioning pieces for it is frankly neither here nor there.

Anyway, I am quite excited about The Pod Delusion. With the stellar line-up of contributors, it seems like it’s going to be ace. If everything goes to plan and this week’s pilot goes down well, you can expect a new episode every Friday. My plan is to publish all transcripts of my contributions, or an accompanying article, on this website as and when each podcast is published.

Here is the first episode of The Pod Delusion. I have just listened to it myself. Since it’s the first ever attempt, it is a tad ramshackular, but that will get better over time. All-in-all, I think it’s a fine listen.

Hopefully sometime soon it will be available over iTunes too. You can follow @poddelusion on Twitter.

My first little piece for The Pod Delusion is about product placement. When I first set about doing it, my intention was to try and make it serious. I had actually been planning to write here about the product placement hoo-ha, but then decided I could kill two birds with one stone by making it my Pod Delusion contribution too.

Unfortunately, I got a little bit carried away with the fact that I was working in an exciting new audio medium. I inserted a few audio jokes which won’t work in writing. From then on, the whole thing became just a collection of bad jokes about product placement, strung together by the flimsiest of wafer-thin serious points.

So, bearing that in mind, here is my contribution to this week’s Pod Delusion.

It was announced last week by Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw that product placement will soon be allowed on commercial channels. I suppose there was an inevitability in this. After all, commercial broadcasters finding it harder to sustain themselves through traditional advertising in a multichannel world. Plus, we are living in an era where so many people use PVRs to fast-forward through the adverts anyway.

There has to be some way to fund commercial television. After all, what would we do without ITV? Okay, that’s a bad example. But what would we do without Channel Five? Well okay, but you get my point.

Many worry about the effects that product placement will have on the viewing experience. With product placement, there will be a question mark over the purity of the programmes we watch. Will our programmes be peppered with subliminal advertising that attempt to brainwash us into changing the brand of soap powder that we use?

I’m not so sure that will be such an issue. After all, we are well used to product placements in major films. Television programmes from other countries are filled with product placements already. I am sure that most people are savvy enough to tell what’s going on.

For instance, it can be disconcerting to watch an episode on Neighbours when one of the characters decides to open the fridge. Inexplicably, the fridge is filled from wall to wall with nothing but cans of Sprite! That is obviously a nonsensical scenario. It would have been far more realistic if the fridge was filled from wall to wall with cans of tasty Dr Pepper — “what’s the worst that can happen?”

The odd thing about imported programmes is that due to the stricter laws in the UK, our broadcasters have to blur such product placements out. But this only brings attention to the fact that there is an alien blob floating around on the screen.

Focusing on the blobs on American Idol, for instance, you can clearly see that the judges have large cups on their desk. These cups are predominantly red but with a distinctive white swirl that can only be associated with Coke. Mmm… fresh, ice cold Coke.

The new product placement rules do not affect the BBC. But it would be interesting to consider what it might be like if one day the rules were relaxed for the BBC too. After all, is there anything more ridiculous than the slightly awkward attempts to avoid using brand names during makes on Blue Peter? Referring to “sticky back plastic” may be quaint and traditional, but it is also distracting and sets off a klaxon in your brain that sounds something like: “SELLOTAPE! SELLOTAPE!”

I once saw a Blue Peter make where you had to use a “crisp tube”. What on earth is a crisp tube? Crisps come in packets don’t they? What they were talking about was a pack of Pringles. Given that Pringles are the only make of crisps to be sold in that style of tub, you can more or less guarantee that sales of Pringles went through the roof anyway — all because of the BBC’s massive abuse of power.

Well I think I have said all there is to say about product placement. I think what I will do now is take off my Specsavers glasses and shut down my Asus Eee PC. Then I think I will listen to my Apple iPod, while eating a fresh sandwich from Subway.

Or perhaps I will just go for a piss in my Armitage Shanks toilet.

Anyway, the present I got was from my brother. He got the hints I dropped (before Christmas, mind you) and bought me an AeroPress coffee and espresso maker. (Apparently he almost bought me a Stylophone, which would have been even cooler.)

I first heard of it on Boing Boing TV.

As much as anything else, I thought the mechanism was just ingenious. It would be great enough as a toy. The amazing thing, though, is that the reviews are right — it makes a great cup of coffee. It has a very smooth taste — probably the best coffee I’ve been able to make at home.

I normally use one of these mugs that act as their own little cafetière. This is an improvement over instant, but sometimes coffee granules escape through, leading to a mouthful of grit. It can also sometimes taste quite bitter.

The other method I use is an automatic drip-brew coffee maker. The cool thing about this is that it has an alarm timer on it, so if I have an early start I can be really lazy and lie in for five more minutes while the coffee is made for me. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t taste all that great, although it’s difficult to put my finger on what is wrong with it. Also, these things are not labour saving in the slightest in the long run. Preparing them beforehand and cleaning them afterwards is a faff I could really do without.

I am not a coffee geek. I think if I started to research coffee too much I would become like one of those audiophiles who get fleeced into buying expensive snake oil in the fruitless search for perfect audio. Nevertheless, I take note of anything that promises a better coffee, especially if it is gimmicky.

It did take me a couple of goes to get the hang of the AeroPress, but in the end it has turned out to be quite a fuss-free method. The best part is that the clean-up process is so quick and easy it just feels wrong. You just push the plunger all the way out, and out plops the coffee in one clean ‘puck’. You just need to give the bottom of the plunger a little rinse and that’s it, all set for the next time you want to make coffee.

There are a couple of downsides. One is that it needs a filter. The AeroPress comes with 350 filters, but you can re-use them several times. Some have even reported re-using them up to 20 times, which would make the package good enough for 7000 uses. Not bad.

Another thing is that it seems, from my perspective, to use up an awful lot of coffee. The scoop that comes with it is rather large compared to other scoops I have used, yet the coffee that is produced still tastes about the right strength (once the espresso produced is diluted to make an Americano).

I imagine if I used the AeroPress more than my other methods of making coffee, I would soon find myself spending a lot more money on coffee. On the other hand, the taste is worth it. Maybe it would be best for me to use it as a kind of luxury, like having an occasional glass of wine or something. Sundays, special occasions, tough days and so on. It also looks like it would be excellent if you are travelling.

If you like coffee, I’d definitely give the AeroPress a shot. It only costs around £25.

Ever since I started at university I have noticed a pattern. The first Christmas after starting university felt amazing. I couldn’t work out why, but I just went along with it. After all, you oughtn’t worry about feeling good. Then, between Christmas and New Year it hit me again: I realised that I would have to go back to university in a couple of weeks.

Since then, every university holiday has felt the same. It’s not just having time off. Like I said, I am just as busy when I am away from university, just doing different stuff. But just not having to be there is such a weight off my mind. I must really hate university.

At this time of year a lot of people ask me if I’m looking forward to going back to university. The answer, “Actually, I’m dreading it,” is mostly met with confusion. It’s a bit like the “how are you” conversations. You’re not actually allowed to say what you actually feel about university. Student life is meant to be amazing — the best years of your life. I have spent them depressively gazing at my feet.

Student life is way overrated if you ask me. Maybe part of it is down to the fact that I still live at home, so I don’t get to sample much in the way of student life. I don’t get the fun bits. I just get the work. Plus three hours of commuting hell every single day. I don’t get to do all the cool things students do, whatever they are.

But even if I lived in Edinburgh I doubt I would be into it much. Student culture is probably one of the biggest stains on humanity. When it doesn’t involve getting horrendously drunk for the most tenuous of reasons, it seems to be about “ironically” watching Neighbours, “ironically” saying “retrooo” at anything that is vaguely more old-fashioned than an iPod Touch and “ironically” being a total and utter twat.

Plus, for a section of society that is meant to be well-educated and open minded, students are an incredibly reactionary bunch. You meet extremists of all sorts — right- as well as left-wing. I find myself wandering around going, “Where are all the reasonable people?” I can’t remember the last time I heard a student say, “On the one hand… On the other hand.” [Insert obligatory dig at excessive bansturbators People & Planet here.]

All-in-all, it is enough to make me want to “ironically” reach for the nearest gun and “ironically” shoot myself so that I could go to “ironic” hell, because that might be a little bit more pleasant than a university campus.

This year, the dread came a bit earlier than previous years. It came over me like a massive black cloud on a visit to Edinburgh a month or so back. I used to quite like Edinburgh, but now it just reminds me of university dread. On top of all of the usual stuff, I have to contend with a couple of factors that are making me more scared of this year than usual.

First there is the dissertation. Because of my unexpectedly busy summer, I have not done as much preparation over the summer as I would have liked. The deadline is March, but still. I have not come much further forward since April. And next week I have to meet my Director of Studies who is the same person as my Dissertation Supervisor. Meep.

Then there is the fact that I have still not worked out what the hell I am going to do once I have finished university. Given that this is my final year, I had better think of something quickly.

The thing about careers is, you really need to have a good idea of what you want to do from a young age. If you haven’t worked it out by the time you’re about 15, I reckon you are screwed (like me). I used to say to people, “It’s a bit worrying, I don’t know what I’m going to do once I leave education.” Invariably people said, “It doesn’t matter. Nobody really knows what they want to do. You still have plenty of time to think of something.”

This is bullcrap. I found this out the hard way by actually believing it. The thing is, the advice stays like that until you reach the age of about 20. At which point the general advice becomes, “Well you should have decided before then, shouldn’t you!” True, but unhelpful. And then you are stuck with it, all set for a life spent wandering around like a headless chicken.

So given that I have to think up a profession quick-smart, I am going to have to attend every Careers Service event under the sun this year. To have this on top of the dissertation, I have a feeling it’s going to be a pretty tough year.

But it is really weird. Sometimes you see stories in there that are literally four or five years old. And it is not as if they are particularly interesting stories either. Okay, so that story about the bloke who was forced to marry a goat (and the goat’s subsequent suffocation on a plastic bag) was quite funny.

But the other day a rather unenlightening (and distinctly not very newsy) article about how to write a CV was right up there in the top five “most emailed”. Why would you email that to someone? To “gently hint” that you think they might be bad at writing CVs?

Today, for seemingly no good reason, this three-year-old story about a link between milk and ovarian cancer is the second most emailed story at the moment.

I realise that it is quite banal to point out the often contradictory nature of scientific studies on the various health effects of food. Red wine makes your heart happy but your liver sad. We all know it, and we are bombarded with so much contradictory information that we really might as well not bother.

You remember that advert that showed a girl guzzling down five litres of cooking oil because that is just what eating crisps is like (if you eat your annual consumption of crisps all in one go)? Almost put me off eating crisps. The next day I visited the dentist. He told me to eat more crisps and less chocolate. Not that I eat much chocolate anyway. I eat about three packets of crisps per day, so it’s a wonder I don’t constantly pee cooking oil.

Anyway, to veer back from that self-indulgent tangent, the point I am trying to make is this. It is slightly funny that the story about milk maybe possibly perhaps causing ovarian cancer was gazumped by a story saying that milk could cut the risk of getting diabetes and heart disease.

Helpfully, the related stories are: Milk in tea ‘blocks health gains’, Drinking milk ‘no risk to heart’ and Milk linked to Parkinson’s risk. So now you know.

Evan Davies had a really interesting post on his blog about the possibility of converting from imperial to metric measurements. He notes the benefits of the metric system that we are surely all aware of — mostly that multiples of 10 and 100 are damn convenient.

Imperial, on the other hand, is a right mess. I put the word “system” in scare quotes in the first paragraph because there is no system to it. I had always assumed that a mile had to be a certain number of yards. That would only be sensible, right? Apparently not. It’s just an arbitrary distance.

The benefits of the imperial system? Evan Davies says that it’s partly down to the British being stubborn because metric wasn’t invented here. There are also the obvious costs to converting. An obvious example is the fact that if we were to change from miles to kilometres, every single road sign in the country would have to be changed at tremendous cost. There are other costs like having to get used to the new measurements.

I am a fan of the metric system, just because of its simplicity. And it was also what I was taught at school. But here is the problem. While I spent my whole time at school learning all about centimetres, hectares, litres and the like, as soon as I walked out of the school grounds everyone was talking to me about inches, pints and miles.

The end result is that I have a bit of a mish-mash of knowledge on vital measurements. I’ve never really taken inches on board, and I find that this is a particular problem. Because it seems as though everybody uses inches rather than centimetres — even people who went to school at the same time as me.

Moreover, whenever I mention centimetres or metres at work, I feel as though I might be judged for that. Under their breath, people might be saying I’m a cheese eating surrender monkey or similar, or they might think to themselves, “bloody youth of today”. The whole situation is like having a conversation where one person is speaking English and the other is speaking French (I guess that would be me, which is amusing because my foreign language skills are non-existent).

And for all of the merits of the metric system, what of the humble old British pint? As if pubs weren’t bad enough for social awkwardness, no doubt having a half litre would be too girly, while ordering a litre of Stella would make you an über wife beater or binge drinker. (Mind you, how often do you go to the pub and have only one pint?)

Evan Davies suggests that there should be a major study investigating the costs and benefits of moving to metric. But I suspect we all know what the answer is. Stick with what you know, because that’s what everyone uses. Economics textbooks look at the QWERTY keyboard layout as an example of these network effects, but people are probably more aware of VHS versus Betamax.

At the end of the day, this is about social conventions. Conventions don’t change overnight, and certainly not at the whim of governments. They have taken the whole of history to evolve to where they are today, and it is probably easiest to stick with the way things are — even if we suspect that moving to metric would be better. If only something would happen to make everyone wake up tomorrow morning and start using metric, we would all be better off.

It’s probably quite well known that QWERTY (man that’s an awkward word to type) keyboards, despite being the standard, are bloody terrible. Designed back in the days of typewriters, the QWERTY layout is said to have been designed to slow down typing to avoid the little arms clashing with each other. But look in front of you. No little arms; just a bunch of buttons in a silly order.

Part of me is tempted to just bite the bullet and switch to the Dvorak layout, which some say is more efficient. But of course I couldn’t do that. I would have to re-learn the keyboard layout when I’ve been using QWERTY all my life. I would keep all of the habits that I have developed while learning QWERTY. And perhaps most worryingly of all, if I had to use a public (or anyone else’s) computer I would have to use QWERTY anyway — which means using two systems in tandem.

Everyone is in the same quandary, but we all stick with QWERTY because we wouldn’t be able to shake off all the issues that would arise from switching. Likewise, imagine if some time in the 1980s the government said, “right, enough of these inferior VHS machines — you’re all using Betamax from now on.”

The same goes with metric. Even though most suspect a metric world would make more sense, we would all still measure short distances in inches and order drinks in pints.

Update: The Hard Sell…: Penny for your martyrs.

I also feel like pointing out right now that I have no idea what an ounce is, nor can I imagine what any value of Fahrenheit feels like.

Because no matter what, only you can make the perfect cup of tea. Invariably, if somebody else makes me a cup of tea it tastes absolutely disgusting — and many people seem to say this. There is only one way to make decent tea, and that is my way.

People must assume that when I say that I take no milk and no sugar that I must want my tea to taste like compost. One person actually said this. She thought that because I took no milk or sugar that I must have wanted it really strong, so the tea bag was left in the mug for absolutely ages.

Yuk. No way. I keep the bag in my mug for a very short length of time — maybe five seconds. I just pour the water, swish the bag around a bit and take the bag straight out. A minimum of fuss and effort: this makes the perfect cup of tea for me.

I don’t mind milk in my tea, but it does seem a little bit pointless to me. It just ‘waters (milks) it down’ and makes it taste more like milk than tea. And it apparently takes away the lauded health benefits of drinking tea.

Some people have suggested that I put sugar in my tea. This is because I probably need to put on weight because I no longer fit any of my trousers, and I even bought smaller trousers and I don’t even properly fit them! A couple of years ago I was 10½ stone; nowadays I hover between 9 and 9½. I don’t know why really. I shovel food down my gullet like nobody’s business.

Nevertheless, some people have even made comments about how thin I look now. There is also the astonishing fact that I actually lost weight over Christmas. I explained this as being down to the fact that “junk food travels through faster”.

Sugar in my tea could fatten me up and allow me to reduce my clothing budget, so the theory goes. But I can hardly think of anything that tastes more disgusting than sugary tea. (Sugary coffee is not so bad, but I still much prefer my coffee completely untainted.) If I were to regularly put sugar in my tea, I would probably die of disgust before experiencing any fatty benefits.

Those ISO busybodies are not the only people suggesting a standard way to make tea. For instance, Scaryduck reckons:

Tea should be stewed for at least half an hour before serving, preferably in a mug last washed up in 1973 with full-fat milk and six sugars. Tea which breaks several international conventions against chemical weapons but we do not care. Anything else is a betrayal of British values.

And who could forget a few years back when the Royal Society of Chemistry suggested their own “perfect” cup of tea? (Link to PDF file.) Leader of the Tea Party, Tony Benn, approved:

He sniffed. He sipped. He pondered. “It’s very tasty, I must say,” he said. He sipped again. “Oh, it’s delicious.”

Update: Entirely coincidentally, this from Gordon McLean.

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 only thing that I can think of is the fact that I had to run (quite a long way) to catch the train on Wednesday, even though I was kicking around at a friend’s until about 8pm. So I could have left at any time and caught the train in a leisurely manner. But I badly underestimated the amount of time it took to walk to the station. It’s just as well I started running when I did, because the I literally could not have been any later. And if I had missed that train I’d have had to have waited a full hour for the next one, which would not have made me very happy.

I went in again today and did nothing too strenuous. I guess I feel so tired because for the past three weeks the most active thing I have done is scratch my arse. I have been sleeping for about nine to ten hours per night, and when I wake up I feel really heavy and stiff, almost as though I’ve been sleeping with a pile of books pushing down on top of me. Weird.

All of this is a round-about way of telling you that in the coming weeks there could well be light blogging for the next few weeks due to the upcoming exams. Although now that I’ve said that I will probably be blogging more than ever… Procrastination and all that.

Okay, that was a really boring post, so to make up for that, I want to ask about fizzy drinks. It’s usually a bad idea for me to have any, because they often make me feel ill. But I was intrigued by the new Coca-Cola with Lime, so I had some earlier on. Can anybody actually taste any lime? It just tastes like normal coke to me. The only difference is the garish bottle.