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I’ve started going through my old CDs now that I have them out of boxes and in a huge cupboard in the living room. While I’m pretty much mp3-only these days, I’ve a pretty huge collection and I can see me digging through and ripping some of the older ones. Amongst them are some classics I’d pretty much forgotten about so now and again I thought it would be nice to pop them up here. Some have memories that go with them, so do excuse me if I waffle.

As Hans would say, it’s my blog so I can write what I want!

First entry is the first release from a Hollywood band called Love/Hate entitled Blackout In The Red Room. To the best of my knowledge (without going to Wikipedia, in other words), they only released one other album – Wasted in America. [update: they had another five including a "best of"]

If memory serves, I got my first copy of this album – on vinyl – as part of a competition prize, probably at the Gateshead Garden Festival way back in the late 1980′s. I absolutely loved it. High tempo, sleazy, varied, shouty choruses… perfect.

I was also lucky enough to see the band at the Newcastle Riverside back in the days when it was a tiny venue, not the dance club or offices that it later became. This dinky place held around 500 (probably far less, really) and the gigs were rarely more than a tenner. This one was packed to the rafters and the band played pretty much the entire album plus a couple from the second album which hadn’t been released at the time. I recall the title track and a lovely ballad called “Don’t Fuck With Me”.

I believe the band are still going, with their last tour in 2009 including a UK leg that I didn’t know about (dammit). If the album’s still on sale, it’s definitely worth checking out. In the meantime, if you go to what I think is their official page (lovehate.com) there are links to all their songs in mp3 formats. Many of the links don’t work, but those for the first album certainly do.

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Oldies but Goldie: Love/Hate – Blackout in the Red Room

I know. I’m evil.

Still, what’s up?

I’m a fair bit of the way through a long-term teaching contract, my first as a full time certified teacher. I’ve landed on my feet with an excellent school, great support and (generally) good pupils. It’s great being able to get a good run at a job which is my own responsibility, but still a little worrying that I don’t have a permanent position. Obviously, I can’t complain – I have a job and there are plenty of other people who don’t. It’s just that lack of security as to what happens in a few months time?

Well, if there’s one thing that I really learned while travelling it was how to take one day at a time and roll with things.

For the three of you who didn’t know, Gillian and I are now engaged and will be getting married – in Jamaica – on October 22nd this year. I’ve set up another blog which will be filled with details about the wedding. As it stands, it has some background information, mainly about the engagement, but as the Big Day approaches I’ll try to put more things up.

Shortly before the wedding, though, we have another event… sometime in July (date to be determined shortly) we will be welcoming a new addition to the family! Gillian’s on week 11 at the moment and everything seems to be progressing well. We should know the sex of our little bundle of joy in the next couple of weeks. If it’s a boy, we’re sorted for room sharing as our youngest is also male. If it’s a girl I’m pre-empting puberty and applying for a shotgun license.

Work starts again tomorrow after the lengthy Xmas break and I have to be up and running as soon as I get in. This full time lark is a definite jump up from my probationary year – more responsibility, more hours, more classes – but it’s flying by. I’m covering pretty much every level that the school has to offer. I honestly don’t think there’s another job that offers this level of variety.

So that’s it at present. Engaged, father-to-be and teacher. A bit of a change from when I started this blog so many years ago!

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Life update

In addition, I got a new toy – a Panasonic Lumix TZ20. It has a cracking zoom and the photos from the gig tonight are definitely a step above what I’ve been getting in the past. Not professional level by any shot, but definitely more “keepers” than “chuckers” out of the 200+ I took. This means more upload time to Flickr, but what the heck. It’s all fun!

I also promise that I’ll try my best to get back to some general posts on here rather than the constant film and gig reviews.

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Big gig update

Little Mister's current favourite

I still hear a lot of people whinging about how children play too many computer games, and how they’re bad for them. I have a lot of experience of video entertainment (this doesn’t mean I’m any good – I’ve just played them a lot), and some limited experience in the child-rearing side of things but here are some things I’ve noticed.

Our littlest is around 3½. Despite his age, he’s still not a talker and has some communication issues which are mainly due to problems with his hearing. We got an Xbox at Christmas and he, of course, wanted to play all the time. But he was rubbish. Worse than me rubbish. Which is very rubbish indeed. He’s very active – too active, frankly. Runs circles round us and will chase the dog or cat for hours, bounce on the trampoline, run around outside until he falls over and comes home screaming… you know, a proper kid. As such I’ve no issues with him spending some time glued to the telly if it keeps him quiet and out of our hair for a bit.

There aren’t that many toddler-friendly games for the Xbox, but what we have so far are: De Blob 2, Megamind (scratched to hell and unplayable), Toy Story 3, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars. Over time, he watched us playing and we often let him have a spare controller in co-op mode. This usually involved him twiddling the two joysticks randomly and giggling when a Lego character dropped off a cliff in an explosion of coins, releasing a Wilhelm scream. Or Wilhelm Wookie roar. Or whatever.

Hey, he was happy.

Over the last few weeks, though, he’s taken to it big style. He can’t read yet, which means we often have to explain things to him, but if the game has good use of imagery then this can help. Toy Story 3, for example, has “help” bubbles that show you a ghosted image of a character performing an action while the keys you need to press are displayed next to them. The Lego games are similar, although both games suffer from the player often having to be in just the right position for those buttons to work.

What’s amazed me, and prompted me to post this, is how quickly he’s come on since we sat him down with a controller and let him loose by himself. I just sat with him this morning as the played through the train stage at the start of TS3. Aside from one section which I did for him, he completed the whole thing himself. Picking aliens up and throwing them off the train, throwing bouncy balls at moving targets, smashing boxes open, jumping and double-jumping gaps and obstacles. Wow.

Lego Star Wars has captured his imagination more than the Indy game and its simple problems in the early levels are just right for him. After some demonstration from myself, he’s able to work out some of them with no assistance. Swapping to use the correct characters to perform a task is an example. If he sees a C3PO head, he knows he needs the right kind of droid. Sparkly things? Jedi force. Bounty Hunters only? Wander off, find a helmet machine, get a helmet, go back and get through the door.

And so on.

He can now control the characters and camera independently using the two joysticks. His timing for jumps is good. Not brilliant, especially double-jumps where he often can’t hit the jump key quickly enough in succession, but still pretty damn good.

Now, he’s a good kid with his other toys. He loves tool kits and his Toy Story figures – and his sister’s Lego much to her annoyance. But I don’t think we have much else that has improved his logic skills or hand-eye coordination as these computer games.

I actually think his communication has improved slightly as well, as he tries to explain where and how he’s stuck, or tells us what he’s managed to achieve.

Over and above that, he’s learned how to check whose profile is active when he comes to the console and change it to his own. It’s simple image recognition (as I said, he can’t read but he can identify the icons and avatars), but it also shows he’s aware of what “belongs” to him and to others.

So to those who say that kids shouldn’t be let anywhere near computer games? Think again. There’s a time, a place, and a use for them.

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Kids and computer games

Smashy Smashy

It’s been a while (again) since I had a non-review post on this blog, mainly as I post everything on Google+ and Facebook these days. In a bid to redress that balance, here’s a quick post about something that happened last night.

I’d popped out for the evening to see an old uni mate. Gillian asked me to pick her up a bottle of wine while I was out, which I duly did. The thing is, you can’t buy alcohol from the supermarket after 10pm up here so I had to buy it as I left the house, ferry it around and bring it home later on. Me being me, I also couldn’t just buy a bottle of wine. Not when Morrisons were doing cider on three for £5.

So I loaded the car up with my plastic bag containing one bottle of rosé, two Koparberg’s and a Bulmer’s for later.

I drove to Tom’s, stashed the booze in the boot for safe keeping, enjoyed my evening and headed home around 11pm. I even remembered, on the way back, to get the booze back out of the boot so it wasn’t slamming around when I went round corners.

Just as you get into our estate, there’s a single-lane humpbacked bridge. I waited for the lights to go green and drove over. Just as I went down the other side, a beautiful full-grown fox darted out in front of the car.

I jammed on the brakes.

The fox stopped, stared at me, pooped a bit of fox poop into its fox underwear and scarpered back off from whence it came.

The bag of bottles slid off the passenger seat into the footwell.

You know that “pop” sound that large bottles make when they are no longer bottle-shaped? Yeah, I heard that. As I pulled into the driveway I could smell the alcohol.

Thankfully, as everything was in a bag, there was no broken glass to dig around for. The three cider bottles had survived, but the wine was now only drinkable by a very desperate alcoholic who didn’t mind the mingled taste of carpet fibre.

So I now have a car that stinks of booze instead of stinking like “new car”. I am dreading being pulled over for something innocuous and then being forced to have a blood test because my car has been drinking and not me.

Thanks to those on facebook who’ve recommended something to get the smell away. Off to Morrison’s shortly to see if I can find any of the scary chemicals mentioned…

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My car smells of booze

Blue Dragon Children's Foundation

I’ve just been going through the “in progress” work that the wonderful Kristian (of Loondesign) is doing for Blue Dragon‘s website. The new “Kid’s stories” page details three tales of children who have found themselves fortunate enough to receive help from the crew at BDCF. Courtesy of a discussion I was having with someone on facebook recently, the third one made me wonder – why are people in different countries, yet in similar situations, so different.

I can’t link to the story directly as the site won’t be uploaded in its new form for a week or so, so I’ve pinched the relevant section:

Hanh’s story

Hanh grew up in Bac Ninh province with her mother, Khanh. Hanh’s father walked out on her even before she was born, so that mother and daughter were homeless and had to live in abandoned houses.

When Blue Dragon met Hanh, she was 12 years old and living in a decrepit old house with no electricity or water supply. The roof had caved in and snakes infested the toilet area.

Hanh was still going to school, but her mother could not afford to pay the fees much longer. This was a family in crisis.

Blue Dragon immediately offered Hanh support to go to school, and then we set about securing land for the family and building a house that they could be proud of.

Today, Hanh is in the final years of High School and looking forward to university. Their new house is kept immaculately clean, and Hanh displays her certificates of achievement from school on the wall for all to see.

Let’s get this down to the simple facts. A family of two living in horrid conditions as a result of being left with no money manage their best for 12 years. Someone offers them help. They get a new house, the child goes to school and does well. The house is cleaned and maintained – by them – and kept as good as new.

Compare this to the UK where we have a benefits system to help people who find themselves in such a situation. Before I begin, I know that not everyone is the kind of person who will do what I’m about to rant about, but a ridiculously large number of people are.

First of all, there wouldn’t be a the 12 year wait before someone “found” them. Shortly after financial problems started, they would be able to apply for assistance. A house would be forthcoming, or at the least a flat. Their rent would be covered and assistance given to find work. Schooling is, of course, free in the UK. As a nation, we are incredibly fortunate.

Given where I lived for 13 years (Bradford) and specifically the area within it, I saw far too many examples of people who took the free house and turned it into a complete dilapidated  pit. Lawns turned to jungles, rubbish left lying, windows broken. Absolutely filthy. The simple thought being that it cost them nothing and if it got bad enough they’d just be moved somewhere else – again, for free.

Children would refuse to attend school, assuming their parents bothered to try to get them to go. Instead, they’d spend their time loitering, committing crimes and ending up as the type of people who would be demanding another house of their own as soon as they were legally able.

The only major difference is that the Vietnamese family realised exactly how lucky they were to be given a fresh start. The appreciated it and showed their gratitude in taking this gift and showing how proud they were of the house and fresh start they had been given. A home to be proud of, academic achievements to boast about and a future they could never have dreamed of beforehand.

Here in the UK, we’re so used to getting something for nothing that we take our good fortune at being born in a comparatively wealthy country for granted. We’re like spoiled children – we want everything with no explanation as to why we’re getting it. To some extent it’s human nature to take the easiest route to solving a problem but some people, unfortunately, take this to extremes. Why put effort in when you can get something for nothing?

I think this is one of the reasons I enjoyed working in Vietnam so much, and especially with the children at the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. Everyone there appreciated what was being done for them. The vast majority took this piece of good fortune and turned it very much to their own advantage through hard work and with a great spirit. They knew they wouldn’t have another chance, and that they would have led a significantly worse life if they hadn’t.

If only we could make our own citizens realise how fortunate they are in comparison.

Related articles

• Thanks from Blue Dragon! (moshblog.me.uk)
• Re-sold into slavery (lookatvietnam.com)

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Why are people so different?

• MoneySavingExpert.com (has own legal team, and a set of balls)
• Shelli’s Blog (hosted in the US, has freedom of speech)
• Facebook’s “You don’t have to pay parking tickets – spread the word!” group
• PePiPoo’s consumer rights forum, where the posts were originally posted (ignored a similar take-down order)

OK, the whys and wherefores.

The issue I had was with [company name removed so I don't risk allegedly defaming them]. Their lawyers are M Law. I am hosted on a One&One server.

According to M Law I defamed [company name removed so I don't risk allegedly defaming them] in the post. They complained to One&One who, due to the fact that “as an ISP Provider, we have legal obligations in accordance with the Godfrey v Demon Internet Limited 1999 case law to ensure that all the defamatory posts have been removed, or litigation will be pursued against us not yourself.”

Do note that the major point here is “defamatory posts”. The post was not defamatory. At most it was allegedly defamatory. No judge had looked at the case, someone had simply complained that I had not put [company name removed so I don't risk allegedly defaming them] in a good light.

I will not make further comment about [company name removed so I don't risk allegedly defaming them]. I will not make any statement about them. What I will say is that whatever I do say would be in the public interest as they are a company who many members of the public deal with regularly. The public is allowed to complain about poor service, or quality of goods. If they didn’t then every single reviewing website or publication would be impossible to publish. BBC‘s Watchdog and Which? magazine could not function.

This is what I believe would be the result had the alleged defamation claim been taken to court. Instead, both organisations seem to have jumped the gun and proclaimed me guilty without a trial.

However, it seems that One&One don’t grasp this and neither do M Law.

Further, I don’t want to lose my entire blog which was the threat laid against me if I didn’t remove the post by midday on 25th October 2010.

All of the above is stated fact, at least as far as I have been able to ascertain from the limited information supplied to me by both the solicitors involved and my web host, despite several requests for more detailed information.

I have not defamed anyone with any of the above text. I leave it to the reader to make their own judgement, research as they require and – for instance – do a Google for the relevant companies. I’m sure the evidence will be enough for you to make your own judgements.

It has been suggested by more than one quarter that, in fact, by making a claim that I was (without due process) guilty of defamation, I myself have been libelled. This is something I am investigating. After all, if a newspaper reports someone as a thief, for instance, before the case has gone to trial and a verdict found then the alleged offender can sue.

Incidentally, prior to the takedown order my blog post had been read approximately 40 times.

As of the post being replaced with this explanation, it had 427 hits. Plus the MSE mirror was over 280. And Shelli’s blog hits had trebled.

Several statements spring to mind, but the two choicest are:

OWN GOAL

and

SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT.

So that’s why I can’t mention Parking Eye on here any more.

Whoops.

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Don’t pay “Parking Charges”

1) I have an awesome immune system

2) I can manage on 2-4 hours’ sleep a night

3) I never get a hangover

4) I know what it is like to be completely, deeply and amazingly in love with someone. OK, it didn’t work out but I know what it felt like – so I know what I need to find again.

5) I have no problem coping with extremes of temperature and humidity

6) I very, very rarely get stressed about anything

7) I’m really good with kids of all ages

I’ve done so many things I never thought I would, so I have some excellent memories and stories

9) I have a very analytical/logical mind which goes well with most of the jobs I’ve ever had

10) My weight seems to be fairly stable so I can get away with eating loads of crap

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Reasons to be cheerful

Me at Dunnet Head

I don’t post much beyond film reviews and the occasional complaint letter so I thought I’d pop a quick catchup on the page.

Right now, I’m approximately halfway through my PGDE (Secondary) and very close to my second School Experience. I have a one-day visit tomorrow followed by 6 weeks beginning on the 8th of Feb. This one’s going to be a lot of work as, in addition to lesson planning, I’ll have assignments to do for my additional module (“Teaching in the Outdoors”), Contexts and ICT – plus the handful of short tasks and portfolio updates.

Just to be clear, though – I am still very much enjoying the course and the teaching.

In other news, I was recently up in Thurso to see Laurie. She’s a friend who ticked the “I will go anywhere” box for her qualifying year as a primary teacher. And ended up on the north coast of Scotland! This may well happen to me as I’ve ticked the same box for next year. On the Friday I walked up to Dunnet Head – the northernmost point in mainland Britain. Details of my visit are over on the travel blog. Thanks you to my kind hostess – I had a lovely, chilled (and chilly!) weekend.

On the downside I’m currently carless. On Friday I was due to head over to Mugdock Park for some orienteering, part of my Outdoors course. It snowed briefly in the morning and the roads around my aunt’s aren’t gritted. Despite driving really slowly, when I turned the wheel right about 50m from the house, the car decided to keep going the same direction.

The left front wheel hit the kerb while turned and there was quite a bit of a bang as I bounced onto the kerb. Partly the outside contact and partly the airbag erupting from my seat. It did no good at all, actually causing me some injury (nothing bad – just skinned my head and ear) and adding a few hundred, I expect, to the repair bill.

I changed the wheel as the rim had been damaged and I didn’t trust it, then tried driving on but something wasn’t making a nice noise so I returned to the house. An exceedingly kind uncle drove me to Mugdock and picked up the three classmates I’d agreed to give a lift to… and picked us all up again in the afternoon. Thank you, James!

As it stands, the damage to the car is:

• one sheered bolt behind the wheel (fixed for pennies)
• steering assembly jiggered (£161 cost price for the parts, plus markup, plus tax, plus fitting)
• driver’s seat needing replaced, or at least the airbag canister “recharged” and the seat restitched

Methinks it will be going via the insurance. And I was only doing about 5mph when it happened. Still, it’s nowhere near write-off and I’m fine apart from some scabbing behind my ear courtesy of that flipping bag.

And now back to ploughing through a Higher grade computing paper to see how bad the marking scheme is…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Dunnet Head (moshtour.me.uk)
• Saturday in Thurso (moshtour.me.uk)
• A quick trip north (moshtour.me.uk)

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A quick life catchup

Thanks to the two of you who noticed that I’d gone to the trouble of adding it.

I go to all this trouble for you lot… *mutter mutter*

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Snow go