Random Questions

My good friend Joseph Eastwood (whose blog is here: http://www.josepheastwood.com/ ) tagged me in his blog post asking me to answer the following questions, so here are my answers:


1. Tell me something about you that most people don't know. 

Most people reading this probably won't know that I write poetry

2. Did you dream last night? 

Not that I remember

3. Type of music you dislike most? 

Spanish guitar based music

4. Is the glass half empty or half full? 

This is entirely dependent on what's in it, you can never have too much apple juice

5. Do you touch-type? 

Yes, badly

6. Do you sing in the shower?

All the time

7. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

Either Dubai or Hythe Marina, Hampshire, UK

8. Do you believe in love at first sight?

I'd like to but as yet I have no proof

9. What inspires you?

The sea, it's so wide and varied and always seems to make me come up with ideas

10. What book are you reading at the moment?


The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon




If you have any questions for me then please feel free to post them as comments 

Time Management

I'd like to apologise for the recent lack of blog posts, shamefully this is due to my horrific ability to procrastinate. my favourite things to do whilst procrastinating are listening to music, singing along loudly to music to annoy my housemates and fighting an endless battle with the ridiculously slow university Internet system. anyway, in lieu of any further procrastination, including in this blog, I would like to get on to talking about the subject for today's blog, effective time management. to manage your time wisely first write a list, don't just put massive tasks on this list because if you don't accomplish them after a while you risk becoming dissatisfied with your progress and giving up, so break down your tasks into smaller tasks and put some less taxing things on your list such as taking the time to sing to your favourite song or bake that cake you've been meaning to make. further tips on time management will be coming your way when I figure them out for myself! this blog comes to you today with the encouragement of my friend Joe (whose Twitter is @Joe_Eastwood ) he is a fellow writer and you can find a link to his blog in the blogs that I'm following I urge you to go and read his blogs, they're much better than mine and far longer established. In the meantime I leave you with the picture attached to this blog.

Google I Owe it All to You...

Like most people I tend to use the Internet for predominantly funny but essentially pointless things, Facebook, twitter, really funny cat photos, that kind of thing but today I realised that the Internet can also be a really useful tool, within 10 minutes of deciding to research the Pendle Witch Trials I not only knew all the names of the defendants and their fates but had the original court notes available to read on pc, kindle and phone. It really is extraordinary when you really stop to consider the impact that the Internet has had on our lives and how little we really use it to its full potential. I leave you with this week's image, I think it says a lot about my state of Internet enlightenment

Why I will always love Blondie

"one way or another, i'm gonna win you ... i'm gonna meet you" at first this is a promise, which as the song progresses becomes slightly stalkerish "and if the lights are all out, i'll follow your boys downtown" but what it is is a fantastic piece of music, it's exciting, it's a piece of pop music that does exactly what it says on the record sleeve she's going to have this man "one way or another" and regardless of whether she's going to go on to be "X Offensive" to him or not becomes irrelevant because Debbie Harry's voice has an amazing captivating power to it, it got me from the moment I heard "Heart of Glass" age 12, I was hooked, smitten and most importantly enthralled. Not only is her voice outstanding but her lyrics, in "Atomic", in what was going to have to be an instrumental section Debbie Harry made the rap as she went along, live on stage. When I first heard Blondie I'd truly never heard anything like it, yeah there was manufactured pop on the radio but nothing with that power to make you go along and enjoy the ride, it's not about the story or the way the album fits together, it's about the glory of the syncopated beats and the richness of that voice. I leave you with this to consider, Blondie performing Maria:

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog. I'm an English student who occasionally writes poetry and I'm just about opinionated enough to have a blog. All readers are welcome here and I'll be writing about whatever takes my fancy: books, tv, films, house hunting and student life. Speaking of films, I watched my first ever black and white silent movie last week, ok, so it wasn't as retro as it sounds because I went to see The Artist, a new film based on the introduction of talking motion pictures and I cannot recommend it highly enough, the film was superb, the music sublime and my desire to applaud at the end of a film has never been so strong. Without wanting to give too much away, the film has an amazing dog in it who you may have seen on BBC Breakfast News this week, or you can see here: (the official trailer for The Artist)

I'll leave you with this, the tagline of Gilmore Girls (one of my favourite shows), "life's short, talk fast"