I think I must have been tired… But then, it’s a day of rest, so I feel entitled. Eleven hours sleeping, six-and-a-half hours working, two hours watching telly, two hours surfing. The details…

0.00 Web Surfing
1.00 Web Surfing (~15 mins), Sleeping (~45 mins)
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping
8.00 Sleeping
9.00 Sleeping
10.00 Sleeping
11.00 Sleeping
12.00 Eating Breakfast (~25 mins), Watching The Politics Show (~15 mins), Sorting Washing (~5 mins), Web Surfing (~15 mins)
13.00 Replying to Emails (~15 mins), Showering and Dressing (~15 mins), Filling Car Screenwash (~15 mins), Washing Up (~15 mins)
14.00 Writing Community Placement Report
15.00 Writing Community Placement Report
16.00 Writing Community Placement Report
17.00 Writing Community Placement Report
18.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~40 mins), Eating Tea and Watching CSI (~20 mins)
19.00 Writing Community Placement Report
20.00 Writing Community Placement Report
21.00 Watching The Bachelor
22.00 Watching Two Pints…. (~30 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins)
23.00 Sleeping

Compare for a moment the homepages of the country’s two biggest political parties, just weeks before an anticipated General Election.

The Conservative homepage tells me that they think immigration limits are the way forward, that homeowners, rather than burglars, should be protected by the law, and that they have clearly set out policies for action on tax, schools, hospitals, crime, asylum, and immigration. It carries only two (small) mentions of the Labour Party.

The Labour Party homepage tells me that the Tories are bad. It tells me nothing at all about Labour policies. In fact, the Tory party takes up the second-biggest headline on the page. And the only pictured party leader is Michael Howard! There’s isn’t a Labour member in sight!

And yet, despite hiding their policies away beneath a thick layer of Tory-bashing, Labour is ahead in the opinion polls, and roundly predicted to win the next general election.

Who said that intelligent discussion is the way forward for politics?

I was disappointed by this film, not because it was bad, but because it was nowhere near as good as it could have been. This was far too much a straight story of a man with schizophrenia, when it could have been a much greater and deeper exploration of the nature of reality. Essentially, I was disappointed because I was expecting something of the calibre of Closer, and got something more like Wimbledon. And I didn’t think Russell Crowe played his part particularly well, though Jennifer Connelly was amazing.

The schizophrenia was played very well, and from my medical knowledge of the condition, it seemed fairly accurate for a particularly severe case (generally, people just ‘hear voices’ – they tend not to see hallucinations. Though, as a point of interest, people deaf from birth tend to see patches of colour instead of hearing voices), and in the sense that it is accurately portraying a taboo medical condition, then it’s an excellent film.

Overall, it’s a worthwhile, thought-provoking, and enjoyable movie, but it could have been so much better. You really wouldn’t want to see this more than once, and it’s not really worth all the fuss that’s been made about it.

The headline totals for this Saturday are: I spent eight-and-a-half hours sleeping, seven hours working, four hours watching TV, and four hours surfing. Eek, I wouldn’t have said I’d spent that long on the computer today – surprised I haven’t got a headache or something! Tomorrow, I hope, will be a more relaxing day, I just wanted to blast the Community Placement today. Or yesterday technically, I suppose, since we’ve passed midnight. Oh, the confusion. Anyway, here’s the details:

0.00 Web Surfing
1.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~30 mins)
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping
8.00 Sleeping
9.00 Sleeping
10.00 Sleeping
11.00 Finding research papers for Community Placement Report (~50 mins), Breakfast (~10 mins)
12.00 Writing Community Placement Report
13.00 Writing Community Placement Report
14.00 Writing Community Placement Report
14.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins)
15.00 Writing Community Placement Report
16.00 Web Surfing
17.00 Anatomy of the Back Workbook (~30 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins)
18.00 Writing Community Placement Report
19.00 Eating tea (~15 mins), Sorting Washing (~10 mins), Web Surfing (~35 mins)
20.00 Watching Kilroy: Behind the Tan
21.00 Watching CSI: NY
22.00 Watching A Beautiful Mind
23.00 Watching A Beautiful Mind

Over 50,000 fans of 24 in the US have called a phone number which appeared on the show.

In the most recent episode to air in the US, a shot of a phone number was displayed on a character’s mobile phone. Thousands of die-hard fans have dialled the number, and have found themselves speaking to members of the 24 cast.

And so it is confirmed. There really are people out there who are unimaginably sad. Why would anyone in the right mind phone a number they saw on a mobile phone in a TV series?

Well that’s one heck of an original headline from Reuters.

The story is even more intriguing:

Television adverts of the motorcycle-riding Crazy Frog, who is drawn with a broad smile and a tiny penis, run frequently on British television, amusing, baffling and annoying viewers.

I’ve not seen that advert much, but I have caught it a couple of times and I’ve never noticed a penis. So, in an effort to discover whether or not this was a hoax, I sought out a still image. And from this, it appears that the frog really does have his bits out.

Apparently,

Twenty-two people complained they were worried children might see the advertising, which also promotes screen savers and mobile videos. Five parents said they were embarrassed by questions their children had asked.

I have to say I’m surprised that so many people were moved to complain. But luckily, it would appear that there’s no problem with frogs genitalia being shown:

“While unusual for an animated model of this type to be shown with genitalia, no sexual or inappropriate references were made about its anatomy,” the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority said.

So there we go. And I bet there aren’t many websites out there where a frog’s bits and the Pope feature on the same page.

The Round-Up seems to be having a major rant this week, seeing red over ‘irony’:

Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell is apparently the nation’s ideal employer, according to a survey out this week…Abe Elkinson, a director at Trust Medical who commissioned the landmark piece of research, said: “To say we were surprised by the public’s choice is an understatement.”

Then don’t.

But Abe continued: “Simon Cowell isn’t known for his sweet and gentle personality – in fact he’s made a career out of being sarcastic, rude and ridiculing people.

“So for him to come out top as the nation’s favourite boss is rather ironic.”

No it isn’t. What is it about irony that people don’t understand? There is nothing ironic in that statement at all.

Abe Elkinson is clearly blighted by the same condition that plagued the song-writing of long-faced Canadian chanteuse Alanis Morrisette.

For example: ‘It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife/ It’s meeting the man of my dreams…/ And then meeting his beautiful wife.’

Not ironic in the slightest. Annoying, granted. A sign that you have too many spoons, definitely, and possibly also evidence that the man of her dreams wasn’t really married but rather asked a female friend to pose as his wife because some crazy spoon-collecting Canadian was trying to crack onto him.

So Labour’s new slogan isn’t actually a million miles away from my suggestion after all, then. It does seem strange that a party in power for eight years should be telling us to forget the past – the logical way to interpret it is that they’re ashamed of their record.

Though I believe that Alan Milburn (of whom I’m not a particular fan) has already been out defending this badly written Campbell-ine soundbite, saying that

the “back” of the slogan referred to Tory failures, and not to the past eight years of Labour government.

Surely they must have realised that this would just make them look like comic fools before they unleashed it?

Friday is generally quite an easy day, because I get the morning off and so have time to sleep in. Anyway, the headline totals (details below): I spent nine hours sleeping, seven hours working, three hours watching TV, and two hours surfing (though much of this was spent reading emails from uni anyway). Now you can see why I like Fridays! Lots of time to lie-in! Tomorrow should be similarly enjoyable, but I’m going to try to get some serious work done on my Community Placement, so I might end up doing a lot of work.

Here are the details for Friday (and I know it’s not midnight yet, so that 23.00 figures are predicted):

00.00 Watching ‘This week’ (~20 mins), Tidying bedroom (~20 mins), Filing notes (~20 mins)
01.00 Marking down timetable changes (~10 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~20 mins)
02.00 Sleeping
03.00 Sleeping
04.00 Sleeping
05.00 Sleeping
06.00 Sleeping
07.00 Sleeping
08.00 Sleeping
09.00 Sleeping
10.00 Sleeping (~40 mins), Web Surfing (~20 mins)
11.00 Showering and Dressing (~20 mins), Eating Breakfast whilst reading anatomy of the foot (~10 mins), Studying anatomy of the knee (~30 mins)
12.00 Studying anatomy of the knee (~40 mins), Driving to college (~10 mins), Talking with friends (~10 mins)
13.00 Muscle Fibre Lecture (~55 mins), Walking to different building, and changing (~5 mins)
14.00 Anatomy Practical: Leg, Knee, Ankle, Foot
15.00 Anatomy Practical: Leg, Knee, Ankle, Foot
16.00 Anatomy Practical: Leg, Knee, Ankle, Foot
17.00 Changing, meeting up with housemate (~5 mins), Driving to Tesco (~15 mins), Shopping (~30 mins), Driving home (~10 mins)
18.00 Unpacking shopping (~10 mins), Noting further timetable changes (~15 mins), Filing notes (~15 mins), Surfing (~15 mins), Web Surfing (~5 mins)
19.00 Watching Channel 4 News whilst eating Tea (~40 mins), Web Surfing (~20 mins)
20.00 Forming plan for Community Placement report (~30 mins), Watching Friends (~30 mins)
21.00 Watching The Simpsons
22.00 Watching The Apprentice
23.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Bedtime Reading – Executive Summary of a DoH white paper on choosing health (~30 mins)

I only had a single MMR vaccine as a child, but was advised by my university to go and seek a second about a fortnight ago. I duly went the same day, having heard of many colleagues recently suffering from mumps. And with this mumps epidemic beginning to look quite scary, I’m glad I did!