Please forgive my excessive salivation. After a week of waiting, I have finally been patched in to the university network in my room. All these years I have thought that broadband was ‘fast’ internet access. Pah. Bah, humbug. Broadband isn’t fast. I have a 10Mbps connection. Yes, 10Mbps. That’s 10 times faster than the current fastest ADSL connection available. Finally, webpages actually appear instantly. That tiny delay on broadband is eliminated. I am your God.

In other news, I have now been at university for a week. In my flat, there are (including me) three guys and four gals. This is interesting, particularly as I never see the guys. I don’t know why, but they never seem to be here. And when they are, they demonstrate the world’s WORST taste in music. Matt, the person in the room next door, was playing Sting at high volumes yesterday. I thought ‘interesting’, and ‘different’. It was only when he moved on to Craig David and Daniel Beddingfield that I started to wonder if he was, actually, a woman. The other guy, Tony, plays dance music. But we can forgive him, because he’s from Essex and doesn’t understand that it is not normal to wear shorts in October.

As for the girls…they’re all pretty much OK, friendly enough. They’ve done the usual girly thing of forming a little clique which involves them all going into one room to watch Hollyoaks and Eastenders. What fun that must be.

I’m in a special block. It’s special because it is one of only two blocks in the university to have shower doors instead of curtains. This wouldn’t normally strike me as the most interesting fact in the world, but so far I’ve had at least five people of the female persuasion asking if they can come over and use my shower some time. Of course, I didn’t try to dissuade them.

This week has obviously been Freshers Week . Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not one to get hammered, but I have been, shall we say, uncharacteristically tipsy on a few occasions. As someone who is crap with names anyway, being pissed doesn’t help.

So far, I’ve been told that I look like the following (in order of the number of times I’ve been told it):

1. Richard Griffiths

2. A Vicar

3. A GP

It worries me that I’m studying for five years to become something that’s only number three on my look-a-likes list. Maybe I should be doing acting instead.

As far as the course itself goes, it’s freakishly interesting. Did you know that the Bozo tribe (I WANT that tribe name) in Mali celebrate the urine of their young men turning red, as a sign of reaching adulthood? It’s actually blood in their pee, caused by an infection that all the men of the tribe tend to catch when they reach sexual maturity. So there you go.

As of 00.34 this morning I am an uncle. My new nephew is called Jensen (definitely not my choice), and weighed 7lb 2oz. Just thought I would share that with you.

It’s Sunday and that means that JRC is working today. That makes me laugh. And another thing that makes me laugh: The way people round here say newCASTLE, as opposed to NEWcastle. I also have a Scandinavian lecturer for biochemistry who can’t pronounce the word “protein”. He says something along the lines of “protyne”.

The whole IDS thing is starting to bug me now. I think his conference speech was enough, so do the polls. And yet the party still can’t unite behind their leader. Poor IDS tries to sort it by demanding that the ‘rebels’ explain themselves, and, in the process, makes the story run for longer. I still have a huge problem with proportional representation – in my opinion, the party that gets the most votes should come into power. I don’t care how you choose to rectify this, just do it.

The whole England / Rio Ferdinand thing is a bit much, as Jack said earlier in the week. But Beckham’s speech, you know the one, has become my news highlight of the week. It was pure comedy.

The Derren Brown thing was fantastic. The actual trick may have been fairly simple, but that’s not the bigger illusion: He’s managed to go from getting millions of people and the media interested and watching because he was supposedly risking his life, and his critics saying ‘it doesn’t matter if it was faked, it was great TV’. If you can show me one other magician who can pull that off, I’ll be impressed.

It’s my first session with the dead people tomorrow , so I’ll let you know how it goes. But that’s all for now.

Originally posted on The LBSC

This is a political rant, and is therefore inherently boring. Feel free not to read it.

Patient Contracts with NHS

This is IMHO, the most stupid idea of all time. I’m talking seriously stupid. Refusing to treat fat people unless they agree to lose weight? Refusing to treat smokers unless they stop? Come on, what’s next – refusing to treat car crash victims unless they stop driving?

I for one am very anti-smoking, and, yes, it costs the NHS billions a year to treat smokers. It just so happens that smokers more than cover our expenses by being the most highly taxed people in the country. So why refuse them treatment? I may be anti-smoking, but I am not naive enough to think that heavy smokers can easily give up, and it’s not right to refuse them treatment because of it.

Virtually every case seen by a doctor is affected by lifestyle. If we go down this path, they’ll be nothing that ever gets treated for free. But at least we’ll have more cash for unjust wars.

Stupid Students

Regular readers of my rants will know my feelings on the Daily Mail. But please tell me how they can, in the space of a month, refer to students using the term ‘The best and the brightest’ in one article, and then use the headline ‘Students are Stupidest Ever’ in another? Maybe I’m just too stupid to understand…

Church of England getting power to fire gays

This is wrong. It shouldn’t happen. People’s lifestyle choices shouldn’t affect their jobs. And anyone who claims that it is wrong for gays to work in the Church because the Bible forbids sodomy should also be stoning prostitutes to death. It isn’t going to happen. If it could only accept the over-arching message of doing good to humankind the Church could once again become relevant and popular. Until it does, it is doomed.

UN team tours Iraq nuclear site

Can’t help feeling that if they’d been given the time to do this six months ago the world would be a better place.

Iraq Dossier Crap

We shouldn’t have gone to war, most people were against it, Bliar lies to try and convince us. Surprising? No.

But continuing to lie to cover up what happened, or if not lie then at least bend the truth, it’s stupid. Has he not learned from the fact that no-one knew whether he could be trusted before we went to war. How does he expect to win an election in two years’ time? Pixie magic? Or will he just ‘spin’ the results, saying that no-one voted for him but the 75% of the apathetic public who don’t get off their asses to vote clearly support him, so he should stay in power?! I wouldn’t be surprised.

You’re still reading this?

I’m surprised. I didn’t expect anyone to stay with me this far in. I’ve just got in a rant mood and I’m pretty much sure that most people will be bored by now. But you’re not, clearly. So I’ll finish with something positive…

Most Men Happy with Prosthetic Penis

70% of surveyed men who have had prosthetic penises (or “spongy body implants”) are happy with them, and over 50% successfully had sex within eight weeks of having the operation. That, I think, is really good news. We don’t often hear much about the prosthetic penis, maybe I should start a campaign to get the work more recognised. That’s a fantastic success rate, though I can’t help wondering about the other 30%…

Rant over for now…

Originally posted on The LBSC