all the world's a stage...
I'm a Computer Science undergraduate in my final year studying at Reading University. I like music, movies, photography, reading and if I can ever get around to it, writing. Also a fan of horror, sci-fi and fantasy so there's plenty of re/blogging on those areas.
I write gig/event reviews at From The Pit
Elsewhere on the web:
Many tweaks to this and web presence in general in the pipeline... when I get around to it.
Weekly Top Artists (via Last.fm):
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Avengers cocktails! :D
Makes me want to try them out!
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Facebook’s initial public offering has many people asking:...
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Happy birthday Georgia!
Maybe we can get to 10000 views before the day is out?
NEW BITTER RUIN VIDEO - PLEEEEEASE help us spread it!
It’s exam season… so I have rather more important things on my mind. After exams, other things need seeing to. Going to make a note of the various things I’m going to miss which I’ll look up at some point in the future when things are calmer.
Definitely can’t:
21st April: Bitter Ruin at St. Pancras Station (for The Station Sessions: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheStationSessions)
14th May: Levellers at O2 Academy Brixton
21st May: The Last Republic at O2 Academy Islington
Probably won’t:
29th/30th/31st May: Belle and Sebastian at The Roundhouse
2nd June: Moby at The Roundhouse
19th June: 3 Doors Down at The Roundhouse
15th July: They Might Be Giants at KOKO
Currently not… but maybe, just maybe:
11th June: Jonathan Coulton at Union Chapel, Islington *CONFIRMED*
25th/26th June: Ludovico Einaudi at Barbican Centre *CONFIRMED*
22nd July: Voltaire at The Purple Turtle (London)
23rd Sep: Bitter Ruin at Spice of Life
11th Oct: Josh Groban at HMV Hammersmith Apollo
1st Nov: Ryuichi Sakamoto at South Bank Centre
For the upcoming release of their new album Hung, Drawn & Quartered, Bitter Ruin decided to play a headlining show at The Spice of Life. They arranged it to be for 22nd May but that sold out within two hours so they decided to hold another one the day before.
Anyway… I went to the one on the 21st…
They are amazing. I’m listening to Hung, Drawn & Quartered. Again. I’m glad we went :)
Just a quick post about my day, teachers and a brief reflection on my experience of compulsory education - specifically high school.
“Fortunately, unfortunately” does rather sum up the memories I have of my experiences in compulsory education but more specifically, high school. That is to say that while it might not have been all good, I suppose that on balance it certainly wasn’t all bad either.
It’s also the name of a word game that I learnt in English class at some point during the first few of years of high school -or lower-school, as opposed to upper-school (Year 10 & 11 ~ ages 15 and 16).
It was when Mr. Gent was my English teacher (spelling might be different but that’s definitely his name). He was one of my favourite teachers back in high school.
Favourite teachers…
It later occurred to me that the trend had been that Arts beat the Sciences. Nevertheless, I have enormous respect for all teachers- not only because it’s something that I feel that I neither want nor would be capable of doing but more importantly because I think teaching is a noble profession which really should be well paid and held in higher regard than say “celebrities”.
A quick count then… bearing in mind that any omissions are not indications that they were bad in any way (also, I may have got a few names wrong anyway, so this list is hardly definitive) because the majority of my teachers were fantastic:
- Mr. Gent - taught English
- Ms. Spagnoli - also taught English. I think that was her name. Italian and really friendly. Also had a thing for Orlando Bloom.
- Mr. Allman - mainly a politics teacher but taught me Geography and I think, A-Level General Studies
- Mr. Miles - Drama teacher. Was also my form (i.e. class) tutor later in school.
- Mr. Gillman (sp) - Music teacher, a little eccentric. Worked closely with Mr. Miles to put on plays, shows and the like.
- Ms. James - History teacher.
- Ms. Shaw - One of my science teachers in lower school.
- A Biology teacher whose name I cannot recall. I think he was the head or deputy head of my year in one of last few years in the place. Also taught A-Level General Studies.
There you have it, the Arts win.
Fortunately, Unfortunately
- Last night I had a wonderful time with my girlfriend seeing Bitter Ruin (or MySpace).
- Unfortunately, I was very tired afterwards and slept until just after 5pm.
- Fortunately, it was Saturday so it was OK to have a lie-in
- Unfortunately, it meant that I was late for Doctor Who night with friends
- Fortunately, I didn’t miss much (I’ve filled in the gap with iPlayer anyway) and we had a great night involving Guitar Hero: World Tour, Pokemon Battle Revolution and poker.
- Unfortunately, I was the runner up in poker because I got careless.
- Fortunately, we only ever play for fun and not for money.
- Unfortunately, I realised that I couldn’t find the spare memory card for my camera.
- Fortunately, it turned out that it had just fallen down the back of the drawers.
I started this post because I couldn’t sleep but I think I’m feeling sleepy now… No doubt, the eagle-eyed amongst you will find a number of errors in this post - which would be ironic given that I’ve been praising English teachers in it.
As it happens, Mr. Gent taught me about irony too.
