So the Hansard society agrees with me? That’s got to be good news.

For those unfamiliar with blogging (what I do on this site) as a concept, then check out this marvellous Cheat Sheet from silicon.com, which will fill you in a bit, and even explain how to enter the ‘blogosphere’ yourself.

A good relaxing day today, and I managed to finish my Community Placement – finally – which has ended up (including apendicies) at 46 pages, and nearly 16,000 words. So that’s good… I think. I also had a long phone conversation with someone this evening, but I don’t want to say too much about that right now – it might become significant later in the week, though, so keep an eye out. Headlines: Eleven-and-a-half hours sleeping, five hours working, four-and-a-half hours of TV, and one hour surfing. The details for Wednesday:

0.00 Sleeping
1.00 Sleeping
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 Filing, printing, and revising notes
12.00 Watching The Daily Politics while eating Breakfast
13.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~45 mins), walking to town (~15 mins)
14.00 Walking to/round/back from town
15.00 Web Surfing (~15 mins), Writing Community Placement Report (~45 mins)
16.00 Priting Community Placement Report (~30 mins), Washing up (~15 mins), Sorting Washing (~5 mins), Web Surfing (~10 mins)
17.00 Watching Richard and Judy
18.00 Watching The Simpsons (~30 mins), Anatomy of the Back (~30 mins)
19.00 On the phone (~30 mins), Anatomy of the Back (~30 mins)
20.00 Anatomy of the Back
21.00 Watching Wife Swap
22.00 Watching Deperate Housewives
23.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~30 mins)

I’ve received an email today, a precis of which is below:

Dear Students,

A new wine-bar/ Restaurant is being opened in Yarm that will bring incomparable quality and class to the North-East of England. However, we are fully aware that to achieve our goal of creating a bar with the rare
culmination of ambience and style we need to employ the best staff.

We require a batch of young, stylish, loyal individuals who want to work hard and be rewarded accordingly. We are spending a great deal of money to make the venue aesthetically pleasing; thus, we require those who work for us to also be pleasing to the eye. …

This role will only appeal to a certain kind of person (you know who you are); if you are that sort of person then please print and fill out the attached application form and send it to…

At first it made me laugh, but on reflection I cannot believe that this place is stating that it wants only good looking staff! Is this not against some kind of discrimination law?

It was an exhausting day today, probably because I got up earlier than usual and didn’t get a break all day. Headlines: Eight hours sleeping, Seven-and-a-quarter hours working, four hours of TV (including the bits I missed when I dropped off!), and one hour surfing. I’m not in university tomorrow, so I should get a decent lie-in! The details for Tuesday:

0.00 Sleeping
1.00 Sleeping
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Showering and Dressing (~20 mins), Breakfast (~15 mins), Making Lunch (~5 mins), Putting Rubbish Out (~5 mins), Driving to Hartlepool Hospital (~15 mins)
8.00 Driving to Hartlepool Hospital (~45 mins), Finding Postgrad Centre (~15 mins)
9.00 Personal and Professional Development Session
10.00 Personal and Professional Development Session
11.00 Personal and Professional Development Session
12.00 Personal and Professional Development Session (~15 mins), Driving to College (~35 mins), Lunch (~ 10 mins)
13.00 Muscles Lecture
14.00 Arterial Supply of Lower Limb Lecture
15.00 Arterial Supply of Lower Limb Lecture
16.00 Arterial Supply of Lower Limb Lecture
17.00 Driving Home (~15 mins), Web Surfing (~45 mins)
18.00 Watching The Simpsons (~30 mins), Eating Tea (~30 mins)
19.00 Watching Channel 4 News
20.00 Watching Dragons’ Den (and briefly falling asleep…)
21.00 Watching Brat Camp
22.00 Watching CSI (~40 mins), Web Surfing (~20 mins)
23.00 Sleeping

As usual, you read it here first. Though the news from the lastest Times poll seems to be worse that I had expected, with both the Lib Dems and the Conservatives making losses. I can’t really even begin to understand what it is that Labour have done in the past few weeks to make potential voters switch allegiance to them – I can only suggest that, perhaps, three percent of the population have gone quite mad. I can’t think of any reason why anybody, traditional Labour supporter or not, would want Labour in power again with a huge majority. Governments with big majorities cannot be as effectively challenged, and so the result is bad policies.

Anyway, this is only a poll, and only of 1,518 people. So it might not be as bad as it seems. Hopefully.

It feels like it’s been a fairly hectic day today, and I’m confident that tomorrow will be even more tiring since I have to get up extra early to visit a patient in Hartlepool. Recording all of this is also becoming remarkably tedious, but I’m determined to carry on until Thursday so that I’ll have covered the full week, and can make my points on Friday. The headlines: Eight-and-three-quarter hours sleeping, nine-and-a-half hours working, two hours of TV, forty-five minutes web surfing. The good news is that I’ve almost finished my Community Placement Report now – it’s just a case of reading through it, making some final changes, and then printing out the final copies. Then it’s on to the Patient Study and Special Study Module. The details for Monday:

0.00 Sleeping
1.00 Sleeping
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping (~15 mins), Showering and Dressing (~30 mins), Breakfast (~15 mins)
8.00 Web Surfing (~15 mins), Gathering notes (~15 mins), Walking to college (~20 mins), Chatting (~10 mins)
9.00 Case Round-up Lecture
10.00 Human Electromyography Practical
11.00 Human Electromyography Practical
12.00 Walking home (~20 mins), Eating Lunch (~10 mins), Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins)
13.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins), Walking to college (~20 mins), Chatting (~20 mins)
14.00 Dementia Lecture
15.00 Dementia Lecture
16.00 Break (~10 mins), Dementia Lecture (~50 mins)
17.00 Walking home including visit to Iceland (~35 mins), Watching Richard and Judy (~25 mins)
18.00 Eating Tea and Watching The Simpsons (~30 mins), Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins)
19.00 Writing Community Placement Report
20.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~45 mins), Printing Lecture Notes (~15 mins)
21.00 Watching Bodyshock
22.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~30 mins)
23.00 Sleeping

As much as it pains me to admit this, Tony Blair’s plans for immigration are far better and more considered than Michael Howard’s, on which I have previously commented.

Far more distressing, however, is that a Times/Populus poll to be published tomorrow will, according to my sources, show that Labour has a nine point lead over the Conservatives. This is terrible news. If Labour maintain their huge majority, then it will doubtless be bad for the country. But perhaps the poll will reveal some more heartening news about the relative positions of the parties, with the Lib Dems perhaps taking up some of the slack. It’s probably best not to comment until the results are published. But when they are, I will.

So over half of drivers admit speeding? Why, then, is there such a backlash against the spread of speed cameras? If there was any other kind of crime wave on this scale, we’d be pleading for the police to get a grip and tackle it. As I’ve said before, if people would like fewer speed cameras around, then simply stop speeding so that they stop being economically viable.

I’ve started using this instead of Desktop Sidebar. It’s rather good, clearly takes up less screen space than Desktop Sidebar, and has one of the smoothest scrolling actions I’ve seen on any RSS program. And it’s free. If it had an option to shown only the last x stories on a particular feed, it’d be perfect.