Guy from the Urals

I dread descending into prophetic poetry. The melodrama muscle stands ready. I need to fight back, reclaim the internal narrative of my mind. Why are words so ugly? They smash and flatten any hope of communicating emotion. They should be reserved for science journals or newspapers. I want to mindmeld, bring on the Vulcans. Did you know that Vulcan was the name astronomers gave to the planet they simply knew had to exist between Earth and Mars if all their calculations were to make sense. Turns it out there was supposed to be a planet, it just never fully formed and we got left with an asteroid belt. Or so I read once. I wish it had formed. It would make a useful stepping stone.

We are a generation of filmmakers, poets and authors. We will sit here on this historically gorgeous island and view the whirlpool of human destruction about to unfold with a critical eye. We shall make witty comments about the pointlessness of it all and congratulate ourselves for coming from the wine drinking and enlightened class.

Some might don backpacks and head out into the world, although that is coming more unlikely because in the global market place a year at Burger King© and the ‘customer relations’ skills it entails is actually worth more on your CV. Dangerous isn’t it? Yet even those longhaired, sandal wearing and obnoxious few that do leave the island have already got their opinions set in stone. They may have never been to China but they sure as hell already know what they will find when they get there. They will come back knowing exactly what they did when they left – only this time they will be more sure of it.

But of course, that is just the pessimist in me. I have many mental constructs with which I can view the world – this just happens to be today’s. Blah. I belong to the Myspace generation. Everyone’s a publisher and everyone’s been published.

Web 2.0. The social networking revolution. Astonishing stuff. But what are we actually going to do with it all? This is the beginning of a backlash. Fascism started this way – you do know that right? A reaction against the perverse luxury and weakness of the mind that paralyses us all and leaves us adrift on the tides of consumerism. But what do I know. I just used the word consumerism. How pretentious is that?

Have you ever listened to the Gladiator soundtrack? It is phenomenal – I mean it. If you do not have it, buy it now. You can download itunes and purchase it off there – or you can download it from your p2p network of choice. Either way there is no reason why you can’t end the day by listening to it. I love it. It warms the heart. Breaks the bonds of despair. I can feel a new mental construct forming and rising up to seize control of the neuro pathways that provide me with the illusion of consciousness and free will.

I have faith in me and you. I have faith in the cosmic dust that encircles our planet and from which we once came. Regardless of which cruel, corrupt and virtue depriving god you follow. We are first and foremost children of the stars. Everything we are and know was once forged in the fiery core of a sun. If that isn’t spiritually significant enough for you then I don’t what is.

Today we may be hopelessly lost and desperately spoilt. I’d even say we are all horribly self-centred. Yet there is no reason we have to be divided by our insecurities. As in some sort of Soviet poster advertising their great collective farming methods I have this image of all the emos, chavs and geeks with their ill fitting jeans. All the vodka drinking teenagers with cool hair, obscure records and Volvo driving parents. All those kids that you know deserved the chance to become just as chic as you. But instead spend each day of their bizarrely satisfying lives up to their eyeballs in grease, serving fries to miserable people. All of them. All of you.

This is the start of a backlash walked a thousands times before. In fact it is a phase in the personal development of the bourgeois essential to preserving our Volvo driving future. So I have faith, that with our red dungarees and bulging working class biceps we can prevail. But you’ve got to want it. You’ve got to think it’s worth fighting for.

We can’t stay on Myspace forever.

Avoidance as Art?

Contrary to what I may have previously said these last two weeks have been amazing. I have been out more than I ever have, I’ve made new friends and been under the influence more times than I care to, or even can, remember. My room has never been tidier. The quality of my diet has shot through the roof, instead of the standard pizza, or perhaps even a pasta dish if I’m feeling especially ambitious I have been crafting all sorts of culinary delights with countless fresh vegetables and flavoured with all sorts of spice combinations. I have eaten more fresh fruit than ever before. I have started to make myself deserts. My washing is all up to date. I have been jogging up to Arthur’s seat every single day before breakfast. I have written and posted letters to far away friends. I have bought more books than I can afford. I have demolished half of Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. I have almost finished the ‘how to’ book I bought to teach myself my new and aforementioned dark art of choice. I have generally been more at peace with myself these past ten or so days than I have been for a very long while.

And yet I haven’t written a single word for any of my essays. Go figure.

Rich, slightly eccentric and faultlessly classy multi-billionaires are something of a cliché in science fiction films and novels. They tend to be the ones with some sort of quest for immortality and who like to fund large ventures into space. Often they become bad guys in Bond films, but even so, it’s a shame characters like these are confined to the pages of sci-fi books…

www.virgingalactic.com

Check out the movie. It's hilarious.

A knight of the realm to the rescue.

The Fourth Reich

Earlier today I told CK that under no circumstances whatsoever was I going to blog today. I have more important things to be doing I told him. Of course, having said that meant that I simply HAD to blog. So here it is. And it’s about Poles.

As I was waiting an agonising fifteen minutes for a member of the local Islamic petit bourgeois to cook me my Pizza this evening I nipped next door to get a paper. The Independent had a headline report by Robert Fisk – who when not being a Middle East correspondent writes books, bizarrely, on Ireland (?) and as such he found his way onto my reading list. So I had to buy him. But it wasn’t his article that got me thinking.

You see I like the Independent (Janet Street Porter aside) because it’s the only paper I know to carry pro-EU stories and it was just such a story that grabbed my attention. Apparently there are now over 500,000 Eastern European workers in Britain – and in a country of 60 million that is a quite a sizeable minority – and they have only been here since the EU expansion of 2004. A rapid demographic change in any ones book. In fact I am surprised the right wing press hasn’t had more of a field day than it has. This might be a hopeful sign for British society and a credit to those immigrants who have integrated so seamlessly into our society. Although I get the impression the thugs and bigots of Great Britain have been so caught up shouting at Muslims of late that our new EU cousins may have slipped in unnoticed. Anyways.

The EU is getting bigger. Bulgaria and Romania join in January and if any one is interested I intend to be a part of the first wave of British yobs to smash up Sofia in search of cheap kicks – anyone interested?

People seem to be against these new arrivals and against expansion. Yet I think the opposite, I think the EU should get even bigger. First, sort out this constitutional mess. The French only voted against it because they were upset at Chirac so the project still has life. Get that sorted then we can go really crazy. Get in Turkey, get in the Balkans. Then let’s really upset Russia and grab Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova from under their nose. Get em all in. If the Daily Mail wants to protect ‘British’ values than it must recognise these values stem from a European heritage and the best way to protect them in the long run is to secure Europe. All of Europe.

But what of the hordes of unskilled and non-English speaking workers? What of their diseases/alien culture/competitive skill base? Pish. Nonsense. Britain needs immigrants more than ever. Us English infidels are simply refusing to breed, we all indulge in a multitude of sins - like contraception, sexual equality and divorce - which are impairing our ability to compete in the world population rankings. We need new blood.

I may rightfully be accused of nimby-ism on this one since I simply don’t live in an area which witnesses mass immigration nor do I compete in the same labour markets as these new arrivals . In fact I don’t compete in any labour market. So what do I know?

The only Polish guy I know is the guy I live with – and he has spent the last year ruining the British economy by working as a computer programmer - and is now doing his Phd in Computer Science. If they are all as bright as he - then we really are all done for. From my window I can also see a new Polish Deli complete with Christmas decorations. They sell all kinds of cool cheeses and meats and I don’t see Tesco offering me the same sort of choices. But I suspect both my flatmate and the shop owner would make terrible plumbers.

Perhaps I am not seeing the wider picture. On the flip side a friend of mine who works for Suffolk Constabulary recently told me that the Eastern Europeans are forming the new drug gangs in my humble hometown. But of course they will! - There is a hell a lot of money to be made in drugs – it is a traditional pastime for new immigrants looking to get their foot on the ladder. Stop blaming the most recent ethnic salesperson of choice and address the real problem – poor white kids that are desperate for their wares. Have you never seen Scarface?

Well, that’s that then. Just wanted to stand up for all of Eastern Europe. When I retire I plan to move to a Bulgarian city on the Black Sea where I shall invite over all my friends (whom, mostly being heathens, will undoubtedly all be spinsters, widows or divorcees by then) and together we shall create an ‘English’ quarter. I shall open that 60's themed restaurant I have bean meaning to and will live out my days happily with my beautiful Latvian wife (whom I shall will meet while working in Italy) . For lunch we shall dine on fish and chips, chicken tikka and steak and kidney pies. And together we shall spend our afternoons buttering scones in fancy tearooms by the beach. And as EU citizens - we will every right too.

land of a thousand words

Recently I found myself reading a terribly exciting article on the development of archiving when suddenly a title shot forwards from the page - Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. I found it online for only £3 and promptly ordered it. I hold the book in my hands right now but have only briefly flicked through it. It seems to be a sociological prediction of the future. A future in which humanity becomes so saturated with information on a daily basis that what is truly important to us becomes difficult to find, we lose perspective in a barrage of facts, figures, opinions and graphics. The book was written in the 70’s and touches on a lot more besides this premise, yet this is what it has been remembered for.

I think Toffler was spot on, and I think that time is now.

Take today for example: I awoke and over breakfast was reading the economist and listening to the radio. I then loaded up my homepage and was assaulted by my three pages of RSS feeds – all of them – twenty-one to be precise - screaming for my attention. I read about what was going on inside Second Life, I read that Holland was seeking to ban the burqa, I read that an infamous blogger from Utah has been to Calgary for a conference. I then watched a music video in which a Japanese Rap Artist performed inside a space elevator and then read an article on how this was a significant milestone in the acceptance of this revolutionary idea into the mainstream. I then checked my hotmail, my dialectic web account, my facebook profile, my myspace profile and my bookcrossing profile. I then checked msn to see if anyone worth chatting to was online before rechecking my dialectic account.

I then set off for the library listening to the Planetary Societies most recent podcast that I had downloaded the night before. On arrival I took out my six books and tried to read them whilst simultaneously breaking off to read more of the economist and writing up ideas for all manner of cool blog entries. I was then shooed out of the library and returned, while listening to the final part of that podcast, to my flat (stopping off to buy today’s paper) where I am now writing up this blog. Incidentally this is the second I have written today – my first has been ‘postponed’ after on a reread it seemed I was in favour of a new holocaust, this time aimed at all followers of Abraham. I have wasted a good hour so far and the radio is now back on to check the football results.

All in all I have done little but bob up and down on the tides of the media. Where in all this does the real world, my First Life – fit in?

I realise (unlike some at the Daily Mail) that this phenomenon says more about my lack of self-discipline than it does about any new evils of the technological age. Whenever I sit down to work my head is just buzzing with ideas – running in a thousands directions at once – all this information is having the same effect as binge eating E-numbers would. I just can’t settle on any one thing for too long. My attention span has been eroded to zero.

This is all leading up to tell you, my wondrous readership, how I have decided to deal with this problem which is so dangerously exacerbating the desperate work related straights I now find myself in.

Only I find the stigma attached to this harmless dark art so embarrassing that I shall refrain from telling you just yet. And as such I leave you with this anti-climax of a cliff hanger.

…

Innovation Jam

Ok, consider this a quickie since I have lots of other important things to do. But I was taking a break from my reading by catching up on some blogs. A new addition to my RSS symphony is ‘eightbar’ written by an IBM employee who heads its virtual worlds research department. He spends a lot of time attending conferences on the future of virtual worlds like Second Life and others that seem to be growing steadily across the web. My own Second Life is almost as successful as my First Life since my laptop has troubles running the software and I seem to spend my time within the world crawling around Islands at a painfully slow rate.

Anyways. One of his more recent blogs referred to IBM’s third ‘Innovation Jam’ which seems to be just a mass brainstorming session open to the public and interested persons. This year the event was run simultaneously in Second Life, greatly increasing participation. Over 46,000 ideas were submitted and a panel narrowed them down to just ten. These finalists will receive $10 million a piece to make them happen. The list can be found on the website but one super brilliant idea caught my attention and it links in with my passion for all things green.

‘Integrated Mass Transit Information System’.

Sounds sexy huh? Ok. Deep breathing now, calm yourself. Good – here is the brief:

“Establishing on demand systems for integrating, managing and disseminating real-time data for all of a municipality’s or region’s transit systems, optimising buses, rail, highways, waterways and airlines.”

Woooooooooooooooooooo. How stunning does that sound? My RSS page is crying out, no – screaming out at the top of its lungs for such a thing. It would be brilliant. We want people to leave the cars at home and adopt public transport right? Well lets make it as easy as possible for them to know how and when.

God bless IBM - with ideas like this - who is to know that in an older form IBM was actually a logistics firm that helped the NAZIs shuttle Jewish prisoners from concentration camp to concentration camp. But then Britain's industrail rise was built on slave trade profits. Swings and roundabouts my friend. Swings and roundabouts.

Breaking point?

I’m in a not so happy place right now. It seems the high levels of stress I was experiencing over the summer have unfortunately followed me up north. That wasn’t quite the plan.

Currently a lot of things are gnawing away at my self-esteem, vying for my attention and preventing me from making the most from this experience. If I was a Christian I would say God was testing me.

Yet in a very non-Christian way it would be fair to say my faith is currently very low. Faith in the future – and mine in particular – is hard to come by. So I turn to one of my most trusted forms of therapy – the blog. Take a glance back and it is no coincidence that these past months have seen some pretty hectic blogging activity on my behalf. When things are going well there is little need to justify yourself in writing.

I’m not sure how I will get out of this one to be honest. Melodrama aside the next four weeks are going to be ugly – at best.

The temptation to down tools and just pack it all in and is frighteningly strong. Yet the shame involved would be to much to bare.

If I sit down and think things through – then I know this feeling is just temporary. I oscillate between supreme confidence and paralysing fear with an unhealthy frequency – and even while this may be a particularly prolonged and nasty low I know that in the future there will come the counter balancing high. I just have to try and get that far.

I am perhaps squandering slightly as I find this new pond of mine infinitely larger than my last – but I am slowly adapting and growing – in the future it shall require even larger ponds to throw this little fish into such disarray. And that is precisely why I came here – so I should take heart.

‘Should’ being the operative word. Promises of far away rewards offer small comfort to me now.

I’ve tried getting out of town for the weekends – twice now – and each time was something of an anti-climax. I have dragged my classmates out for drinks – and this has only provided temporary relief. I still end up back at square one with my mind awash with anxiety and self-doubt – making any moves to do some desperately needed study almost pointless.

It is hard to focus when there is a war of attrition being fought inside your head. One by-product of all this is a great excess of anger. Most of this is directed at myself – yet I am only human and find it far more convenient to deflect some of it onto more abstract things – like religion for example. Anger can be a great motivating force but it is also a costly one – draining all mental and physical reserves in double quick time.

I just need to step back and find some clarity – then I need to press on and do the impossible – work my way out of this mess on bloody step at a time. In the meantime should anyone wave a bible under my nose and suggest it might help I shall not hesitate to tell them exactly where they can shove that filthy, homophobic, sexist, racist, degenerate, scruffy looking, truth denying and fascist text.

And for heavens sake will someone tell me that I really REALLY do not need to see X-Files series 3 before getting down to some ‘serious’ work. Honestly.

Česká Republika: Praha

Isn’t it great that this funny shaped continent at the fringe of the Eurasian landmass has started, after millennia of Christ inspired strife, to get its act together?

The European Union, if you didn’t already know – is one of the things that keeps me warm at night. Only two things bug me about it. Firstly its ludicrously high and market distorting subsidies to European farmers and secondly its equally high and environmentally criminal subsidies to airline operators. I have strong moral issues with both.

Yet I happily cast them aside last weekend and embraced cheap aviation fuel to take me and three fellow compatriots to a new member of the Brussels Club on the far side of Germany. The Czech Republic - thorn in the side of the Soviet Union and hotbed of revolution throughout the second half of the twentieth century and a young and dynamic nation eager to modernise and take its place as a rising star in central Europe. Or so the story goes. I’d read a lot about it and was keen see it first hand. Even the fact that my evening flight into the city made it appear like something closely resembling Mordor did not put me off.

Our first encounter with a genuine Czech was out hotel porter who kept giving us puzzled looks all the way up to our room before announcing with some sense of satisfaction and a giant grin of understanding “Ah! I see – Gay is OK”. Not a promising start. Perhaps central Europe is not quite ready for Britain’s peculiar strand of the metrosexual sub culture - yet I wasn’t willing to explain.

That night we took in several of the clubs and I was pleased to say I rediscovered my first year passion for the classical art form of techno. Central Europe is to techno what France must be too fine wine. These clubs did it and did it well. I hadn’t been touched like that for a long time. No matter what anyone says strobe lighting, lasers, dry ice and a repetitive drumbeat can induce some sort of semi-hypnotic state. Especially when combined with the ‘hazy’ underground air. The brilliant thing about European clubs I have found is that unlike British ones they are actually designed to be social. In Britain you all to often turn up to a large pit in the ground or warehouse and your supposed to just get on with it – with no possibility of making coherent chit chat without yelling directly into someone’s ear hole. Which, needless to say, is very difficult to pull off with any grace. Yet here clubs seemed to be designed with countless layers of small, moodily lit rooms connected to one another by twisty turny little avenues that lead on to yet more small bars and quiet social spaces in which to chill out and enjoy the company of those you bothered inviting out in the first place. This is what going out should be. The chance not only to humiliate yourself on the dance floor but also the ability to sit back and relax.

With just a two-hour turnaround period we were back out into the streets, trams and undergrounds of the city – which in true Soviet style are incredibly impressive. We found our way into Wenceslas Square, which has twice been witness to anti-communist rallies and once to the onslaught of Red Army tanks. A memorial to two Czech students who heroically burnt themselves to death in protest can be found here. I cannot help but think there may have been a better way to resist - but then who am I to judge. Yet it seems the Czech people have traded in their placards for postcards and the Square is now well and truly a tourist trap. It can also boast two McDonald’s restaurants and a KFC. Freedom really is finger lickin good (ha!).

My romantic notions of anti-soviet struggle aside I am sure if you asked your average Czech which system they prefer - grey tower blocks, grey food and grey pay checks – or flying around the capital in their very own taxi ripping off every gullible tourist they set eyes on – I doubt they would take long to decide.

And it is a rip off. If anyone says these new fancy EU nations are cheap. Don’t believe them. At least in the capital it’s not. And more than that – they really do hike the prices up the minute they hear your accent. On the second night we befriended a local who did the talking for us and got us into this great little club. After he had a brief chat with the bar staff we found ourselves paying only 90p per pint. Compared with the £3/4 we had been paying – this was surely some sort of magical injustice.

On our return to the hotel we discovered that the cities sex industry is thriving. One of our number suffered a particularly nasty incident with a small Chinese girl. Desperate for the sale she had clamped her arms around him in such a manner as to provoke fits of giggles from the rest of us. Until we realised she really did have no intention of ever letting go. Something of a tug of war match ensued over the possession of our shell-shocked comrade and we were able to retrieve him in more or less in one piece.

All in all I really need to return to this historic and complicated little capital city. We were there for too short a time to really come to any concrete judgements. To me it felt like a place I could happily spend a week or so just exploring and chilling out in while reading up on the history. They have so many monuments and buildings of importance but my knowledge of central and eastern European history is limited at best and I simply couldn’t appreciate the significance of what I was seeing.

On the plus side however many locals have found a superb market niche in selling off old Soviet crap that no Czech in their right mind would want at sky high prices to British tourists who have the mistaken notion that all things Soviet are cool. How quickly these people adapt.

I now own three Soviet stars and a genuine Soviet Navy hat. Yet it made me wonder what would happen if other nations started selling off memorabilia of their former oppressive occupiers. Swastika armband anyone? Iron Cross for the lady?

Defiantly a place that needs a second look.

Say, why all the glum faces?

I would just like to congratulate the Democrats on their mid-term election success and in regaining control of the Senate and House. Yet lets not get too carried away now. On the same night several states voted, in their Christian and bigoted wisdom, to ban same sex marriage thereby establishing an oppressive and immoral law at the heart of America – a little strange for what is supposed to be the home of the free, no?

Secondly America has just, shuck horror, gained its first female leader of the house. And I have taken endless joy in watching the American media go nuts over this one. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. America will never, ever vote for a woman. They refuse to let woman hold simple admin posts at their local churches, now imagine their horror to wake up yesterday morning to find that ‘she of original sin’ is now third in line for the Presidency. I would just like give a warm and hearty laugh in the face of every Arkansan. Don’t choke on your biscuits and gravy.

Thirdly, and more serious now – while the American people have, at long last, fallen out of love with Bush yesterdays result seems to have been simply an anti-bush vote rather than a pro-democrat vote. And, quite frankly, who can blame them? The Democrats are a joke. It is typical of America that while European politicians are standing on each other’s toes trying to claim the moderate ‘middle ground’ those in America take great joy in running full pelt in opposite directions.

On one hand you have Christian-fascist Republicans taking great joy in watching black folk drown, breaking international laws with a speed that Osama himself would be proud of and denying the existence of global warming. On the other hand you have a bunch of totally lefty liberals demanding the full-scale withdrawal from one of the worlds most critical areas, ramming homosexual couples down the throats of right wing bigots and proposing that America stop its long love affair with the private sector and become a full blown welfare state.

While I would prefer to see a well led and middle of the road Democrat (or Republican) party that can keep the lid on America’s tendency to charge bible first into war zones - I don’t see that in today’s Democratic party. While they may now have control of both houses – what on earth are they going to do with them? I don’t think even they know.

And to make matters worse, who are the Democrats lining up to lead them?

Another woman! Ha. Not a chance.

Arnie!, cha cha cha!, Arnie! cha cha cha!, Arnie! Cha cha cha!

Inconsequential musings

Six hours of listening to countless doctrinal candidates indulge themselves for ten excruciatingly long minutes apiece in their perverse, narrow and irrelevant subject to which they shall pledge three to five years of their young lives. Titles like ‘Linguistic transitions in Scotland 1100 – 1450’ and ‘Irish political and diplomatic commentary on Cyprus 1954 – 64’ caused my eyes to glaze over in seconds. The whole process predictably overran from its painfully scheduled three hours to an all too sickening six.

Needless to say I had a lot of time to think. The arguments bouncing around the room refer to places, people and theories I have never heard of. Admittedly all these people are studying classics and the six of us doing modern history are huddled into the corner trying to dodge the Aristotelian cross fire. Yet I bet you any one of these other people with their big words and theories would happily wade into our field of speciality and act like the pompous arrogant gits they appear to be. Who cares how many Charlotte Bronte novels you have read. Surely this is only a sign of your irreversible detachment from reality. I just wish they would wipe that smug look off their faces. I am a normal human being without an intricate knowledge of obscure Gaelic poets, and if I did – I certainly wouldn’t be proud of it. Why raise your eyes to the heavens and give that disapproving look to everything and everyone?

Let’s get things straight. I love history and I love learning. Yet I never, ever want to become so detached from the real world that my knowledge and experience becomes so exclusive I develop this obnoxious and flippant air of superiority that is so absurdly shallow it simply deserves a good kick.

There is a time and a place for specialisation and I suppose I must begrudgingly admit that without these people and their focussed studies the wider histories that capture the imagination with epic stories of human suffering and achievement wouldn’t be possible. Yet I personally find it very hard to stay so passionate about so narrow a topic. Bravo, I suppose, to those that can.

As proof of my inability to stay concentrated on the one goal I used these six hours to compile a list of other degrees I want to do when I have the time. They are, in no particular order: Ludology, Economics, History of Science, Classics and Astrophysics and perhaps another general History degree – I still don’t think I have scratched the surface. Is that so greedy of me?

Incidentally I also wouldn’t mind biting the bullet and doing one of these insanely obscure studies to become a professor at some point. But of course I need to squeeze these in along side my other ambitions of running a failed renewable energies firm, writing books on the history of space flight, being an officer in the RN and becoming an M.E.P. I also wouldn’t mind enjoying myself at some point.

I could probably go on … but I don’t want to get ahead of myself here now do I? Oh – I also want to own shares in Ipswich Town Football Club – and open a 60’s themed coffee house somewhere. So with these modest goals – oh and I want to live in a foreign speaking country for at least two years – and run in all the worlds major marathons - I think it’s time I actually started doing something.

What was that about linguistic transitions?

La France?

I'm tired of being dumb. I'm tired of belonging to a nation of half-wits who could barely find continential Europe on the map, let alone speak any of its languages.

I spent five years - five whole years - studying French. If I live to sixty that will hav been ... 6% of my life! and what did I learn? Nothing. Zit. Ziltch. Not a word or a phrase.

I want those five years back. I wasn't an overally keen high school student but I had the fortune to come from the correct side of town to ensure spectacularly average grades. Except in French. After three miserable and eventless years at the hands of a greasy and unsmiling French-Canadian the school authorities determined, in their infinite wisdom, to stick me in the 'Not a chance' group. This entitled me to a further two years at the hands of the same teacher. I think the purpose of this group wasn't so much to give us the extra support we required but more to contain us. It was a callous act of damage control. So long as they knew where we were they could safely divert resources and teachers to those that did stand a chance, safe in the knowledge out intelectual posion would not spred to the pretty young children of professionals.

Normally, as with most things, there is a 'right to good teaching' versus a 'responsibility to learn' argument that could be made. But I say normally, because this is an exception. At no point were we ever at fault. The system had it on for us from the start. Our language difficulties rest entirely with the failure of our teachers. I don't know if they were underpaid, overworked or just plain incompetent. But I'm inclined to opt for the latter.

No wonder British students are the worse in Europe. In my personal experience even (shock horro) the Americans are light years ahead of us when it comes to language skills. You could counter with some sort 'but we're the dominant culture' - 'English is an international language' arugment and would in part be right. We do have less of an incentive to learn a foreign language than other European nations, yet that doesn't excuse the dire state of our language departments.

If nothing else the Foreign Office should step in, considering it a matter of national importance that British citizens stop embarrasing themselves abroad. So I, in my own finitie wisdom, propose a mini manifesto to rectify things. These things occured to me at the time these crimes occured but it was my own failing that I refused to act.

Firstly, before you begin teaching us French - teach us English. You can't brandish uncomfortable notions like 'adverb' and 'reflexive pronoun' around if we couldn't even idenify these features in our own language.

Secondly don't just teach the French language. Teach French culture. Get us familiar with the countries geography and history. Get us eathing their food, watching their sports and celebrating their holidays. Hire cute French girls (and guys) to sit in on class. Do something to get our attention. Make us want to learn. Anything to give us an idea of what 'France' actually is and why we should bother with it.

Thirdly, and this might cause a few frowns, don't start by throwing us into the deep end with sentance structure and gender prefixes. Teach 'Tourist French' first. Give us the basic tool kit to survive first contact. Get us ordering beers and asking them to turn over to the Premiership. Once through the front door we will naturally want to know more.

This is what languages should be like, let's get back to basics. Give us a reason to learn. Does this not sound sensible? Or am I just still bitter at being lumped in with the 'learning difficulties' kids.

French students of the world unite!

Crash Bandicoot 7: A comparative analysis of gender roles in Georgian and Victorian households

So some guys ogle cars, others, with some justification find salvation in reruns of classic football games; perhaps others prefer the solitude of the lake, rod and line. However I tend to spend my days day dreaming of the day when the RPG genre of video games, or ‘interactive entertainment’ if we are being polite, finally converges with a team of historians to produce an ‘accurate’ portrayal of an historical event. Imagine being a roman citizen walking around a restored Rome as it was then – faithfully reconstructed based on ruins and paintings and witness accounts. Imagine being able to speak to ‘real’ soldiers, politicians and traders. You could spend an evening watching the sun set (with the contemporary star grid) as yet another slave caravan enters through the city gates or you could take your coinage and see what goods you can find from the Middle East at the local market. Fancy coming to see a gladiator show tonight, or does the theatre more take your fancy?

Perhaps you prefer being a pirate during the great age of piracy. Preying on Spanish gold ships and seeking patronage from Elizabeth, perhaps you could even dabble in a bit of slave trading yourself. Who knows?

Oh alright, I know. This is horribly flawed:

Games already exist that allow for such gallivanting, the series of ‘Civ’ games is practically a full blown historical tutorial and even the academic heavy weights like Crash Bandicoot allow you to bounce around approximations of Ancient Egypt and the like.More than that games like ‘Medal of Honour’ even pride themselves on how historically accurate they are in certain aspects. And yes, they do provide a pretty good job reproducing the equipment and missions, of among others, the Normandy campaign.

So what’s new in what I am saying? And secondly, even if you hired ten of the most drab history professors you could find and got them to design a digital representation of the Norwegian financial markets in and around 1784 - who would want to buy it? Even if someone did, you become unstuck the second you sat down to design it because how on earth can history be interactive? History is linear, it followed one set pattern. You can’t go back and start chatting to people who would otherwise not be chatting or shooting folk who would otherwise not be shot.

And of course how do you graft ‘game play’ onto something that is trying to portray historical evidence? Surely these two aims will come into conflict.

Of course these arguments would sit atop the whole little predicament of ‘is history possible at all?’ but that leads us down horrifying avenues of post modernist thought which I don’t have the stomach for.

So again, what is my point? I claim I want to see accurate history portrayed in interactive entertainment yet readily admit that it’s impossible. Besides the best one can hope for, namely ‘inaccurate history’ already exists in games just as it does in literature, art and film.

Let’s suppose then that what I want to see is ‘more’ accurate historicalbased games. The audio/visual immersion capable in video games far out paces anything more traditional forms of media can produce. So why not use it? We present historical research in books and in television documentaries, so why not interactive entertainment? History is already a large market with its own celebrities and brand names, why not extend the franchise?

I think it can be done. ‘Video games’ and ‘game play’ may be inappropriate notions for this new genre; perhaps ‘interactive history’ and ‘simulation’ might be better placed. Could we move from the role-playing game to the role-playing simulation? Have I just proposed a plan to drain the fun from interactive media? Possibly.

Yet if done in the right way a simulation can be just as enthralling than a more traditional game and the spectacle of the environment would be its own reward. The ability to stroll around London during the great plague, perhaps experience the Great fire – would be both fascinating and educational right?

Sure it wouldn’t appeal to everyone, most people would be hard pressed to find anything more boring – yet boring people exist in droves. I should know. I’m friends with most of them – we exist and we have disposable income. Market something at us.

‘Interactive entertainment’ is such a mind boggling large format it seems a shame to restrict its efforts into generating ever more alluring Korean girls in hot pants who scream an all to satisfying ‘hi-ya!’ whenever you hit ‘X’.

It’s capable of so much more.

‘Hi-ya!’

República Portuguesa: A narrative

This is a trifle late. In fact I have put it off for four whole months. And with yet another environmentally destructive foray into Europe coming up I think its time I pinned this one down:

The exams were over and Europe had entered yet another record-breaking summer. It was mid June. The hellish Little Chef stint had not yet begun and I was in a blissful limbo. It was at this time that I received an offer I simply could not refuse. Three days away from the sunshine of Ipswich in exchange for three days in the yet more idyllic Portuguese town of Lagos. Three days with four of the finer specimens of mankind. And a luxury villa. All at no cost? Needless to say - I went.

My childish fascination with defying all the sensible laws of physics was suitably satisfied by some even more suitably cliché easy girls. On arrival we walked out of the air conditioned airport and into that wall of heat that stifles your lungs for a split second before going off in pursuit of our new car. What happened next was a nightmarish ordeal as the man at the helm took great delight in doing more than 100mph down what he cheerfully reminded us was the most dangerous road in Europe… His excessively aggressive driving was explained away with a “its how your supposed to drive over here”. Everyone must have been a foreigner because I never saw anyone else do the things he did…but we lived. Just.

The villa. Now that was something else. I knew we were dealing with a company that dealt in ‘luxury’ accommodation but I had taken this with a pinch of salt. Yet this was luxury in every sense of the word, it looked like the Saudi version of Cribs. It was huge! God knows how many bedrooms, ‘maid’ lodgings for those that wished to bring along their slaves, a jumbo kitchen with a living room and diner that made you drool. I consider myself quite the fan of neat architecture and this, in my expert opinion, was the bomb. Its Moroccan interior was fully explained by the view from the top floor, which boasted a commanding view of the Pacific meeting the Med - five white provincial kids had landed well and truly on their feet.

The weekend that followed was ace. And I, in true textbook fashion, even saw a shooting star as we sat out amongst the noisy crickets and silent heat. The pool in the back yard was ace too, and we spent hours doing absolutely nothing except lying in the sun, and despite my objections – listening to McFly…

It’s amazing how after packing all your stuff, paying all that money and flying all that way – that you are so peacefully content to just lie there and drift in total harmony. Anyway. To celebrate the non-holiday related birthday of a certain long time sweet and sour heart we all got kitted out and headed into the town centre. On the way we stopped for dinner at this Italian restaurant where we got to see a most uplifting sight. We were just getting ready to use our finest Spanish to ask our Portuguese waiter for the bill when the whole room erupted in howling laughter. Convinced that five linguistically disable Brits wasn’t an unusual sight we investigated further. Turns out Germany, in the first seconds of extra time in their world cup match - had just scored, totally gutting Poland’s heroic defence. Finding humour in the soul-destroying defeat of the underdog. Felt like home.

I love (real) European towns, the nightlife is amazing. It’s like an international mega mash bringing together the best and brightest humanity has to offer (or so I choose to believe). After being chatted up by a very persuasive Australian promo guy we ended up in this cool surfer bar where we stumbled across a pack of wild Americans. On closer investigation it emerged these Americans were of the finer variety, having just spent a year in Spain they were finishing it off by tearing around Europe for the summer. Top folks.

Pretty young things that can boast two tongues, especially when it’s so utterly unexpected, have always captured my imagination. I of course do have a secret weapon when it comes to making Americans laugh. Using the word ‘Arkansas’ combined with the phrase ‘I went to…’ never fails in generating fits of giggles. There is something sexy in seeing the barriers of language and nationality fall before your eyes and that night we rounded up a good collection of rich westerners with stories to tell. These are the best sorts of nights. The night ended late and in a rainstorm but it felt good.

Alas, or should I say alack - our Iberian adventures had to be cut tragically short. We wound up our activities, said our sad goodbyes to the night sky and graced the bizarre rooftop dome with our last presence. Until next time.