Walking back to my flat.

Most Tuesdays I end up at Joe's on the other side of town. Then I have work (next to my flat) at 8am on Wednesday morning. So I often find myself walking across town in the dark of a Tuesday evening. For the first time since I started my job in the summer I actually enjoyed my walk home. For a few simple reasons.

1. Snow. Though the snow causes chaos for drivers, as a pedestrian with no scrupples about wearing my wellies I'm sorted. Joe and Jerry are both tall... I am short, most of the time I have to run to keep up. But today this short girl had grippy shoes. Gotta love not having to run to keep up like a little child.
2. Snow. Walking back at about half 9 the roads were already deserted. No traffic, just empty roads to cross with ease.
3. Yet another snow-themed reason. The prettiness. Lincoln's not very exciting at night, until the cathedral comes into view, but even Portland street was pretty in the snow.
4. For once I had someone to walk with. Jerry also had to get home and so I had someone with me. Plus this meant I didn't get distracted on my own and go play in the snow.

Rarely do I arrive home cheery. I approve of this wintry lark.

Winter Wonderland

It's not even December yet but Lincoln is already a beautiful winter wonderland. Yes, it's freezing outside. Yes, I'm constantly in so many layers I'm beginning to forget what my own naked form looks like. Yes, I've now learnt how to type with gloves on, I'm wandering around in my snow covered wellies, I'm avoiding plentiful icy patches on the roads and paths and my nose is a fetching shade of bright pink. But oh gosh, I am loving this. Lincoln city is gorgeous enough the rest of the year but add a blanket of white and a gorgeous clear sky and it's hard to be in a bad mood.

Brayford Pool (29.11.10) Credit: Me

Even though the next few weeks is going to be mental (many-a hand in, two jobs, christmas celebrations and finally home for the holiday) I can't see myself breaking this smile too often.

(also: couple of my photos on The Linc's website, here)

The first snow of winter and Lincolnshire Christmas Food and Drink Fair

There is little in the world I love more than waking up to snow. It's one of few things that can happen that is so simple but makes me so happy. When I awoke this morning and saw this very out of my bedroom window, I instantly turned into a small child and squealed.

Not even snow can turn the Tanvic car park into a good view.

So, wellies on, woolly hat on and pompoms at the ready myself, the boyfriend, the flatmate, her boyfriend, the father and the sister headed up to the Lincolnshire Christmas Food and Drink Fair at the Showground.

The fair had a wide range of stalls with products varying from cheese, to sausages, to cider to little decorated egg cups. One of the meat stalls alone had 5 kinds of sausages, 3 kinds of bacon plus Haslet, a  kind of Lincolnshire meatloaf (which is delicious!). There was also several stalls with different ciders all off which we had to sample several times. Also, an adorable (and dastardly) girl sold me some cheese. Stupid cute children selling yummy blue cheese.

We had a right good afternoon and now i'm in a rather Christmassy mood, even though it's November. November is not Christmas, my friends. Do not listen to Christmas music. Do not put lights up. Do not decorate your house. It is not even advent yet!


So that was just a quick post. Well done Lincolnshire for your fantastic fairs... can't wait until next weekend for the Christmas Market.

Post-it note art

I just found a delightful think on this here interwebs. Another sign that we don't live in a terrible world.

This man.

by John Kenn

No, not the man pictured. (Don't be silly, he has wings!) But the artist behind a series of post-it note works of art. John Kenn describes his mini masterpieces as "a little window into a different world, made on office supplies". I think they're wonderful, so simple but they create a strange world like a dystopian children's book that rather intrigues me. It seems like Where The Wild Things Are... but with less hugging. Kenn is an animator for various childrens' television shows and I for one would love to see these monsters come alive on a post-it note.

John Kenn's website.

An interesting interview with him.

"So where did you hear about this place?" "Er... a hedge."

That is not advertising, young sir. That is blatant, deliberate littering. I may sound like an old woman on this topic but this is a step too far.

I watched as this guy placed a load of leaflets for Goshi (a club night at Sakura) on the walls outside my student accommodation. Are you actually kidding me? Do you think I didn't notice the multiple identical leaflets that I receive every week in my postbox? We know the club night exists. Stop this stupid. Pointless advertising? Do they really think people are going to pick up a leaflet from in a hedge?! Not only is this pointless but it bloody lazy. I really doubt that Sakura are paying this guy to leave leaflets on miscellaneous walls.

Just after they were put there

Some time later... hedgification

I just find this such a waste of time and paper. These leaflets aren't going to persuade anyone to go to Sakura. Even if someone did see them they'd think they'd been discarded.

I think the dirty look I gave was justified.

Jumping around and sweating a lot...

Yup, that just about sums up Kinect. Though I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. Within the first few minutes of using Kinect I was taken back to the  wonderment I experienced when I first plugged in my PlayStation EyeToy or when I first played with the Wii. Although without the painfully disappointing graphics.

I can't review the Kinect in any huge depth, I can't have played on it for more than an hour, not including watching my friends Jerry (the Kinect owner), James and the boyfriend, Joe on it. It's good, in fact, the hardware is amazing. It's incredibly responsive and even though you need a MAHOOSIVE room to use it in (we just about had enough space in Jerry's studio) I'm still impressed. However there's one big problem, and The Three Js agree. The software has potential but the games? Aren't that much better than we get on the Wii. They're arcade games, games you play with your family and friends. There's no games with any story, no adventures or campaigns. And anyway, how are you meant to shoot a gun or run around? Driving is strange and awkward even with the skilled hardware. There's no tangible controls so the range of ways to interact with the game is limited even if there is a dozen different ways to step to the side.

Gimme a game wear I can go on an adventure and cast spells with my hands, and fight people as if they were in front of me and then maybe we could talk. Bring the price out of the clouds and I'm getting more persuaded. But for the "next big thing" it's really just the same kind of device as the EyeToy and the Wii... but it works.

It's fun... but for £130 I want more than just arcade games.

On a side note...

Photos from the London Demo

Click to go to my Flickr

"And so the advertiser wins..."

This is officially my new favourite advert. This even beats the BT saga and "bisquits!". When I next go and buy bread it shall certainly be Warburtons. Yes, well done advertisers, you are awesome.

UPDATE: Yet another awesome advert I've discovered today! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aom2wOqZo-I

My Millbank Experience (UPDATED)

I've now been up for 13 hours. 13 hours of coaches, fast food and one hell of a protest.
A/N: By the time I got home to edit this it was 17 hours and counting. Disorientated doesn't even cover it. I'm not good at this not-getting-sleep malarky.

52,000 people attended the protest in Westminster but the rioting that was all over the news was a tiny minority of people. Don't get me started on how many of those were actually students. Probably about 1000 people were assaulting Millbank Tower. And how do I know? I was bloody well there. Right in the middle of it. Purely as a journalist of course.

When I heard about the riot at Millbank the journo in my heart only wanted to be in one place. I headed straight to the building.

The rioting itself was in the centre of the courtyard, the outer area of the courtyard and the road was populated with non-violent protesters.

With a lot of ducking and diving I managed to make my way near the front, around 2 metres from the entrance. Next to the entrance was a huge glass door/window thing that was completely destroyed by the rioters. They got into the lobby and caused huge amounts of damage. It didn't take long after the entrance was breached for a few renegades to make their way to the roof of the building. The chaos continued on the ground floor though. A bonfire burned away in the middle of the courtyard and police were swarming through the crowds to reach the violence.

It was so exhilarating to be right in the centre of such a massive news story as a journalist. I got brilliant footage an images and saw things I'd only ever seen on the news before.

Now I'm back home (finally) I've had chance to watch the news. Some of the pictures are incredible. I find it strange that the crowd was so chaotic that though I was in the middle of it all I didn't see any of it. I just heard it. The sound of that glass breaking really chilled me to the bone. But more importantly than any of that I want to know... did it make a difference? Or did a few bad apples ruin the whole barrel. I think the news coverage kinda tells that story.

Dang nabbit, imma gonna get ma protestin' boots on!

Do I like having to pay student fees? Of course I don't. Especially on a day where one tutor rambled is way into a corner prompting me to tell him that "the EDL aren't a rock band" and another demonstrated such a complete smorgasbord of incompetence that I wanted to cry and bang my head repeatedly against my desk. And don't get me started on the god-awful computers in the newsroom that froze every time I had the temerity to click on something.

I didn't feel like I was getting my value for money today. But at the same time, surely the logic goes that if I'm suddenly paying triple the price for my degree then maybe I'll get better tutors, better computers and better sandwiches in the Atrium. Maybe if I was paying £9,000 a year for my degree my only issue with the facilities would be if I accidently orgasmed at the sight of a whole newsroom full of fast, magnificate and most importantly competent(!) Macs?

So why am I getting up at 5am tomorrow morning to wave a placard at some Tories? To report on it? Partially, I am a journalist afterall. To have a free day down in London? No, I have more morals than that. In order to skive off work? 5am, my dears, 5am is no laughing matter.

No. I'm going because of the principle. I know this protest won't do anything for our cause. I know enough about politics and economics to know that it's stupid to think the country can afford to keep spending this. It's a necessary evil. Necessary, yes.... and CERTAINLY evil. All I really want to do is let the government know, "you're spoiling the gosh darn fun of it all!"

Bullet, The Linc, an MP and I do some journalism.

Click to go to the original article on the Linc website.

I'm not much into news journalism. I like tech blogging, I like features. Running after people with a dictaphone and a notepad is all too effortsome for me. But last night I was in a pub up the hill and guess who was sat on the table in front of me? That's right, MP of Lincoln, Karl McCartney. Only a hour or so before had I read this article on the Bullet website. I managed to grab Mr McCartney for an interview to find out what he thought of the Bullet article. You'd think I was a journalist, wouldn't you?

To be fair I actually sympathise with Karl McCartney (moi!? sympathising with a Tory... where have my liberal beliefs ran off to?!). He was told the interview he did wasn't to be online until next Wednesday but it was essentially "leaked" to Bullet.

Hmmmm.... I don't really like the rivalry between The Linc and Bullet (and the SU). It's petty. But hey, I can be an unbiased journalist... even when it comes to Tories!

I annoyed myself in the writing of this entry... but I'm fine with myself now.

I started writing this blog.

And then I deleted it and started again.

I don't want to ramble all self-rightously. Which I was doing... for a much longer word count than this. I wanted to slap myself. And tell myself to shut the hell up.

So I'm just gonna say; I've lost weight, I'm proud of it.

Self confidence for the win.

New feature on Bullet from yours truly

Love photography, Lego and Chipmunks...?

I love it when the internet coughs up something awesome. This is one of photograph Chris McVeigh's pictures and after perusing his photostream I utterly adore this guy. Not only is he a brilliant photographer but his subjects tend to be made of Lego... excluding the chipmunk (which isn't made of Lego). He has a brilliant talent for creating witty scenes and stories just by positioning the toys in a certain way. I highly reccomend that you have a look through his work, it's a treat.