11 September

It is hard to believe that the 11 September attacks were ten years ago now, when I was only 15. I was at school, waiting for my German Writing lesson to begin. It was probably my least favourite subject. As such, I didn’t especially mind the delay in the lesson beginning, thought it was quite […]

Exploring the Domesday data

I was pretty excited to learn this week about Domesday Reloaded. The Domesday project aimed to take a snapshot of British life in 1986. 25 years on, the BBC are looking to update it to document the changes that have taken place since then. I have been interested in the Domesday project for a while. […]

Growing up with the internet

It is notoriously hard to get to grips with the youth. Advertisers hate it. The age group of 15–24 — of which, incidentally, I am still part — is notoriously fickle. They define themselves almost in terms of what they are not rather than what they are. That is the explanation being given to the […]

Spare part

I see that the BBC’s iPM blog is asking for the human stories behind the current unemployment figures. Well, I am a human face of two recent news stories. As readers are no doubt sick of reading by now, one of those stories was the loss of around 27,000 jobs at Woolworths. The other is […]

Why politics and sport shouldn’t mix

I have written before about how I struggle to understand how people feel ‘pride’ in their country at, say, sporting events. For me, being proud of your country is a bit like being proud of this week’s lottery numbers or something. I just don’t get it. For whatever reason though, patriotism undoubtedly exists and it […]

Meme: Where I was when…

Sorry to make my first post for a couple of weeks a meme. I was much busier than I expected last week, and with a grand prix this week my blogging activities were focussed on vee8. I’ll still be busy this week but Steven Hill has tagged me in a meme and these are quick […]

Sorting out my sleeping patterns

I had a new year’s resolution this year. As part of my current crisis (i.e. having to become responsible), I am trying to get my notoriously bad sleeping pattern in order. Amazingly, I have stuck to the first part of the resolution. For the past three months, I have been keeping a log of my […]

A bit of fun with US politics

I came across another of those political quizzes. This one matches you up with the US Presidential candidates. It’s quite smart. You can choose which topics you’re interested in by distributing 20 points among 14 categories. I gave one point to each category then bumped up a few areas where I feel strongest. It then […]

The other SNP pickle: universities

I reckon this could be the issue that brings down the curtain on the SNP’s honeymoon period. They seem to have messed up a bit when it comes to universities, on two different issues. Firstly, the universities say they are disappointed in the amount of funding they will get. The universities asked for £168 million […]