This amused me to the extent that I felt I should double-post:

I’ve just been up to the Library, who have stuck a new slogan on the announcements board as you enter…

“The Library, the Library, it’s better than watching TV”

Originally posted on The LBSC

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

It’s a title that’ll only be relevant the first time you visit. But at least it’s a title, and at least it is relevant to you. If this is the first time you’ve read this. Otherwise, sorry about the title, but thanks for coming back for more. Here’s a little puzzle to screw with your mind (not literally) and start my post for today…

You are on a game show. The aim of the show is to win a car. You are stood in front of three doors, one of which has a car behind it, two of which have goats behind them (for no other reason that it’s traditional in this particular puzzle). You are asked to choose a door. The presenter then opens one of the unchosen doors to reveal a goat, and asks if you want to change your mind about which of the remaining two doors you have chosen. Here is the question…Should you switch doors?

Well, the answer is yes. This fries my brain, as I couldn’t grasp the fact. I could only see that there were two doors left, one with a goat and one with a car, therefore it’s 50:50 and makes no statistical difference whether you change or not. But it does make a difference. See here for a detailed explanation as to why it matters.

What did you do on Saturday? I got hot and sweaty serving the every whim of complete strangers. I was even asked to punish one person, but had to get someone to help me (It’s not something I’m too experienced in). When one lady invited me to her car, JRC came with me to help me get it in there. But he seemed strangely quiet when she invited me back to her house, and positively ran off when we got the rope out. The joys of working at Homebase .

Sadly (not really), those joys are to soon end. I handed in my notice on Saturday. Please don’t cry. My last contracted day is Saturday 13th September. The reason for this can be summed up thus: BAAAAA. Not the bleating of a maniac murderous sheep, nor the start of a familiar refrain ending in “humbug”, but actually my A-Level grades. Yes, I did six A-Levels which classes me officially as a geek. But I’m a geek and proud. This also means that the sporadic posts here will be coming live from Stockton as of 4th October, as the good people of the North-East attempt to make me more, well, doctorish. In just five short years I could be operating on you. A thought that should, at the very least, make you think “BAAAAA!”. Unless you’re a mental patient, who might be thinking that anyway.

Joy of joys, the DTI has published HASS figures again. These are published annually, and are records of accidents people have in the home which cause them to end up in hospital. I used to rely on them heavily in my high-school years for public speaking competitions. Now I see them more as a stimulant to the medical mind. I would personally like to meet the single person who landed in hospital last year following an accident with a cape. Clothing can be hazardous, as any male who’s done their fly up too fast whilst drunk will tell you (strangely, I know on a personal level three people who have done just that). I would have been willing to bet that a sponge would be around about the safest thing in anybody’s home. Oh how we all laughed at Mr Burns’s demands for a spherical sponge so that the corners were not so painful. And yet, last year, almost three times as many people ended up in hospital from a sponge-related incident (11) than accidents with high voltage cables (4). If you’re into home security, here are some cold, hard facts: Padlocks? Pah, they only landed 13 people in hospital last year, they must be crap. And newfangled burglar alarms don’t fare much better – only 16 people hurt themselves. Try installing – dum dum dum – a doorbell. 62 people were admitted last year in doorbell related incidents, but that still doesn’t top the home security chart. Want to keep intruders well out of your home? Want to cause some Tony Martin style damage? Then equip your burglar with – a key. 87 key related incidents last year.

As I’ve used enough stats now, I’ll leave the HASS figures there. Except to wonder how 11 people injured themselves with artificial limbs. Or how 3 caused an accident with talcum powder.

For all of you people who were worried about my toe – come on, I know you’ve had sleepless nights over it – I’m happy to report that it’s feeling much better, and can now answer your questions and is happy to read your get well messages emailed to toe@sjhoward.co.uk.

You see, I’ll have a lot of sympathy for broken toes when I’m a doctor. In fact, I’ll be sympathetic to almost anyone. As long as none of the twelve people who arrived in A&E with sex or marital aid related accidents aren’t referred to me. Because then I’ll just point and laugh. Really, I’m sure I’ll be very good. Trust me, I’m a doctor (well, on my way at least).

Originally posted on The LBSC