It’s a wooden tray with two sauces on the left, a dish to the right with chips, at the back some vegetables. Front and centre you find a slab of stone. It’s very hot. That’s because it’s Entrecote sur ardoise, similar to a steak. There’s a hot slab of stone and you use it to cook your meal on top. It’s delicious.
I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts rather than radio and one of the weekly podcasts I enjoy most is This Week in Media, where some people discuss what’s going on in the media landscape, from how they will only sit in five or six seats out of the cinema, how they’re early adopters and how they’d love to have cameras capable of 1080p
The reason I mention this podcast is that recently they mentioned a trilogy of books of which snow crash is the first. Two or three weeks earlier they had mentioned how people should go and watch Blood Diamond and as I enjoyed the film I decided to read the first of the three books.
So far I’m enjoying it and it’s keeping me entertained.
Some UCL students decided to put on a silent rave tonight but as I went through the list of people I saw that it was almost only students from that uni which was slightly disappointing. I went there and although the idea is amusing it seemed to lack the energy from the silent disco I had been too a few weeks ago.
Within four or five minutes security was already asking them to leave.
Thermal inversions are a great part of life in valleys. Whilst you’re living down in the glacial trough you’re waking up every morning to the knowledge that you won’t see the sun for the next few days… until the wind shifts.
If you’ve got the time during daylight hours though you have the option of going up to the mountains. It’s at this point that you can enjoy the sun. As you walk in the Jura at the moment you’ll find that there are long plaques of ice and they’re slippy whilst in direct sunlight. In the shade traction from normal shoes is possible and walking is not that complicated.
There are different types of ice, that which is transparent, where you see the leaves and other objects, that which is white, from too much oxygen and then the mixture where it’s a little of both.
Many families were walking today, some were struggling and others treated the landscape like a giant playground. Some people spoke French, others, German, Italian, Spannish and more. It was international.
Sometimes when I walk there are hardly any sounds and it’s good, a break from London and student life.
Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from some post grad students asking whether I could go and film the football game they were covering. It was between westminster uni city FC and another club whose name I don’t think I heard.
It’s the first football game I cover so it was an experience. It was in a smallish club an the crowd was quite small. I set up in the home and away section of the stands and filmed people running from one end to the other many times over.
It’s a shame I didn’t have one of the better cameras to use because the video footage would have been better. Still it was an experience. This summer had meant that I saw a lot of football matches. It meant I knew what shots to frame up. What actions to look for. The award ceremony was the more interesting bit to film because it saw me on the field with the teams making sure to get the shot of people receiving their awards.
Too bad our team was not the victorious one.
One girl lost my vote a year ago when not turning up to a live interview she was meant to attend, deciding an hour before to cancel
Another lost my vote for not having the strength of character to campaign for herself through a medium like facebook or Myspace.
One lost my vote for her slogan, which I do not appreciate.
Which people are we talking about? We’re all equal. Some have the luxury of misbehaving around uni before going home to their parents to recuperate. Others don’t.
I will vote for those individuals I know. I will those whom I have seen work as a team and those whose friends I know. I will vote for those whom have attempted to make themselves visible or known to me whether in person or online by their own steam.
In retrospect the campaign has been surprisingly dissapointing. Where’s the student newspaper with the candidate’s applications. Where were the flyers for the people running. Where’s the presence of the UWSU elections anywhere within smoke media.
You’ve got voting starting yet do we know any of the candidates outside our circle of influence and friends?
In continental Europe there are a lot of people who go out and enjoy a glass or two over dinner and have a long conversation about a great variety of topics which they enjoy. In other parts of the world, for example, England you’ll find that the volume of night clubs has deafened the night revelers to go home speaking far louder than would otherwise be socially acceptable.
England is an extremely generous country in terms of educational subsidisation. Whereas the English only pay £1200 pounds per year for their tuition fees in America it’s up to 30,000 dollars a year. What this means is that the English student is rich. If I work one month in Switzerland and save that money I could pay the tuition fee. If I work for three or four I could live for half a year in rented accommodation.
This would lead you to believe that going out for a meal and living in relative luxury would be an integral part of student life in England but this is not so. A lot of time and energy is spent on encouraging people to spend money and time on drinking. If you’re a student in England how many times have you been invited out to dinner. How many times have people suggested social activities other than drinking to you? Tomorrow you’ll find that a large portion of those living in halls will be hungover from the amount they spent at the bar. I’ve heard a rumour that in some uni bars they can make up several grand in one night. If that’s true then it’s really depressing.
It’s depressing because if that’s what they make in one night then what money is left for more enjoyable pursuits are left for the rest of the week? Will some people go to the cinema or go out to dinner? How many of these students spend a week a month broke with hardly anything left for food because of their single night of excessive drinking?
It’s a serious problem in the whole of England and it should be addressed. Doing it once every few weeks is fine, and for special occasions. Doing it every week is counterproductive. Are universities not pushing students enough and that’s why they’re so willing to drink to excess?
What if they had to wake at 6 am and be in lectures by 8 am and out by 6 pm to do some research till 10 pm and sleep 6hrs?
In summary, I don’t care what people do in their free time as long as they don’t keep me up in their inebriated state.