Revolutionary Rants

The French nation is voting today in a referendum on the new European constitution.

OK, so like the rest of the country - apart from a very few people - I find anything to do with European Union politics very, very dry; not because I have any particular feelings on it (other than it is yet another capitalist government invention! Arf arf), but just because it is one of the few areas of politics that I find just simply has no appeal. For one thing, it has never really been a Europe-wide thing, has it? We have all half-heartedly involved ourselves - usually, or at least in Britain and Ireland’s case because of the lovely handouts - but really we all want to retain our sovereignty and use the EU as a big stamping ground for us all to fight in.
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Last night the latest, and sixth, series of the British version of ‘Big Brother’ began here on Channel Four.

Before yesterday it was (almost) difficult to imagine 13 such hideous, self-obsessed eejits as the BB team have managed to find (I say almost, I met several at university, which may have over the three years added up to more than 13!)!

I know, I know: your thinking so says the woman who thinks people might actually want to read a blog about her?! But hey, these creatures are in a different league altogether!!!!!!!!!
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Who’d have thunk? Having been 110 to 1 to lose at half time in the Champion’s League final last night, Liverpool came back from 3-0 down to win the title (once again, via a penalty shoot out! Seems to be a theme this week…)!

The whole of Britain seems to be going bonkers about it, but I have always hated Liverpool from when they always won everything in the 1980s (I also had a very unfortunate habit of going out with blooming ‘Pool fans until I met the lovely neutral one!), but in a way I am pleased for them. It was an incredible game, and Dudek’s Grobbo-esque leg bending was very amusing! They are acting like they have never won it before (well, i suppose a lot of young fans won’t remember the last victory, 21 years ago) - but they have, five times!
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I was just watching Channel 4 News, as I usually do whilst eating my lunch. They had a light hearted article on the new ‘Lonely Planet’ guide, which apparently praises Leeds as being like ‘London’s Knights bridge area’, as well as complementing Sheffield and, wait for it, Blackpool…

Yet, this same guide rubbishes the ‘English Rivera’ and refers to the Devon seaside town of Ilfracombe as like the end of the Earth on a wet day’!!!!!!!!
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Well, yes, I am supposed to be on my weeks placement with the local paper today, but yesterday has put me off placements for life!!!

I sat around for 6 hours out of an 8 hours day (having got up at 06:45 to get there nice and early as instructed) doing nothing - luckily i had brought my book, as the computer was locked! I went for half an hour to the Magistrate’s Court (which was really interesting, actually, but only from the point of view of watching, not in a journalistic way), and the other hour i was doing something was typing out letters / planning permission notices. Plus, they all thought I was still at school (flattering in one way I suppose…)!!!
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Well, OK, we didn’t really deserve the win, but we held on and United didn’t make the most of the—seemingly—hundreds of chances they had! So, all in all, I don’t care if we deserved it — WE WON!!!

Yay!

Things are good but quiet here, I am facing up to the news today that I might be unemployed until I am 70 rather than the expected 65… But, hey, at least we might stand a cat-in-hell’s -chance of actually being able to buy a house before we die! Later on — after a cycle trip to find the ‘Reading Evening Post’ offices — Chicken and I, along with Chaz, are going to join the throngs going to see ‘Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith’.

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Just a quick post to say I am busy today - with the F A Cup final!

It is the first time I have watched the final alone (well, Chris is on his computer, so he doesn’t count!!!), and usually Sandra, Neil and I would be getting settled in Milton complete with several pints and whatever food we could scrounge off the cafe. I wish I was there now! However, I was talking to my brother last night, and we agreed that the old magic seems to have died somewhat - at risk of sounding like the fat cap brigade - football = money now… I suppose it always did, but in the day when our most expensive player as around £7.5 million (still stupid money, but you know what I mean) things seemed slightly more realistic!

Oh well, either way GOOD LUCK Arsenal, hope you, once again, beat the Scum!!!!!!!!!

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After a recommendation from my Mum yesterday I discovered that you can listen to programmes - via Real Player - from the past week on Radio Four.

The ‘Afternoon Reading’ this week, to mark the 100 anniversary of its first publication, is of Oscar Wilde’s ‘De Profundis’; the love/hate letter which he wrote whilst incarcerated in - our own town’s - Reading gaol. I love the plays of Oscar Wilde, and his novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ was my favourite book until I read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, but I have never actually read ‘De Profundis’, so I am really enjoying hearing it. (I can also recommend ‘Baggy Trousers’ from this week, which is funny)

I spent a lot of my teenage years listening - usually in the background! - to Radio 4 long wave in Ireland, but I never seem to put it on on the radio here - partly because I usually listen to my music or because if I do I always seem to hit on the hated ‘Gardener’s Question Time’!!! Anyway, just to say, take a look and listen because it is very good stuff!

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A couple of weeks ago, in the ‘Sunday Times’ News Review section, the columnist (and occasional ‘Grumpy Old Woman’) India Knight wrote a very interesting article—Porn By Any Other Name, 08/05/2005—on modern men’s magazines and ’sex’ as represented by them.

The article was about Tesco’s decision to put ‘lad’s mags’ (the 1990s phenomenon of mags for men about sex, booze, fashion, cars, sport and breasts in general, which seemed to come out in force as a ‘reaction’ to women becoming more confident and entering ‘male’ spheres — and because of the awful ‘ladette’ culture of the time) on the top shelf. This would place them with the magazines and videos we would usually call more blatant pornography — the hardcore stuff. She made the interesting point that magazines such as ‘FHM’, ‘Nuts’ and ‘Zoo’ (Why ‘Zoo’?! Is it so called because it normally houses animals?!) are allowed to sport front cover pictures, and, indeed, articles inside, that would normally be relegated to the ‘top shelf’.
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Yesterday we returned bright and early from a lovely weekend in Warsaw.

On Friday, we headed off to Luton (via Paddington and St. Pancras - we nearly didn’t make it because there was delays on the Circle and Hammersmith and City lines, but with a bit of running we made it just on time!) and met Yolanta there. After a few red wines we boarded and flew out to Warsaw (with a rugby team who were dressed as ‘pimps and whores’ and were having a right old time of it!!!). Chicken’s Aunt Mariola picked us up and we stayed at her house in Western Warsaw.
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