Just sayin'

I suppose this is technically my first blog post as an elected official. I got elected to Union Parliament which is obviously marvellous but I did find out today the turnout was just under 1200 from a student body of around 20,000 and I managed to get elected with only 24 first choice votes! That's made it clear the increasing awareness of the parliament's activities and encouraging more general student involvement are things I absolutely have to do. The chair of the uni's Labour Society got elected too but the two mates who were running with us didn't, hopefully we can get them in through the re-open nominations next week. I have the training session tomorrow afternoon so hopefully it's not as dull as it sounds though I fear it may be lol.

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The reason I'm writing this post now and not last night is that after Russian my housemates and I decided we wanted to go watch The Lion King 3D at the cinema. Somehow I'd managed to convince myself that watching the film as an adult and knowing the traumas that were about to come would mean I wouldn't cry at them, this was an utter falsehood! I didn't cry quite as much as some I could mention but there were definitely tears in my eyes! For some reason we decided to walk home in the minus twenty weather but we had a laugh by getting tangled up - quite literally - in the rock climbing society's social which seems to involve groups of ten people tied together, wandering drunkenly round town and trying to avoid getting tied around lamp-posts.

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I wrote all that ^ over an hour ago but then got distracted by Question Time. It's not bad this week, I've seen better but it's not a passionate as usual, I've only shouted madly at the TV twice which for an hour long political programme is unusual.

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Having seen tomorrows front pages for The Sun and the Daily Mail I am disgusted. I was always disgusted by those two particular newspapers anyway given their tendencies towards homophobia, bigotry, racism, sexism and so on but the way they have glorified Col. Gaddafi's death is horrendous. No man, no matter what war crimes he may have committed, deserves to die. He should have been put on trial by the International Criminal Court and sentenced for what he could be held accountable for not killed. A trial would have allowed Libyans to put the past behind them whilst showing the world that they were prepared to embrace the norms of modern liberal democracies and yet all they have done is reinforced my belief that Western governments will live to regret the recognition of the NTC.

Think Different

Went into uni yesterday for the introductory lecture, basically a work hard, don't plagiarise kind of talk, then tried to register for Russian which turned out to be harder than expected. They've cancelled the Monday night lesson because no-one was signing up for it but the only other session was on a Wednesday when I'm supposed to be at Rainbows. Luckily I emailed the Rainbow leader apologising profusely but asking if I could change units which luckily she let me do so I went back to pay for the course today and I start my second Rainbow unit inside a month on Tuesday.

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Wednesday nights in Leicester mean Red Leicester at the O2. Since its freshers week they actually got someone in rather than the usual DJ so off our house trotted to mingle with the Freshers and relive our youth with a bit of 5ive :D Turns out it was just a 'bit' of 5ive, two to be precise, and they only did like half an hour but they must be getting on a bit now and it was a good night anyway so we'll forgive them! I had to go even if it was cheesy 90s pop, 5ive were the first band I ever saw live - not something I readily admit I assure you - even if it was against my will. Rest assured I made up for the faultering start to my gigging life, the next two live concerts I went to were Elton John and The Who so I feel I regained some must needed credibility there!

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Our return from the O2 was complicated slightly by the fact we had a housemates girlfriend who, when drunk, insists on kicking everything in sight. Including to her chargin and my amusement a metal bin and an oak tree. When we finally got her home there was another strange half hour where we had to pursuade her going to bed was a good idea and she shouldn't try and snog the all her girlfriend's housemates. As I was going to bed Beth asked me who Steve Jobs was as someone on Facebook said he was dead. So at 3am this morning I learnt probably the greatest technical mind of the 20th and 21st centuries had passed away. When he stepped down as CEO fully my first thought was that his illness must have gotten worse and I didn't think I've even been less glad of being right in my life. I've read a bucket load of obits online - fittingly on my iPod - and flicked through all the pictures of the post-its on Apple shops and the word 'bye' carved into an apple left outside the LA store (which made me ridiculously emotional but I'm blaming hormones (they have to be good for something!)) and I've come to the conclusion that Tim Cook has a massive job on his hands but that he will be able to accomplish it without fail because Apple the company it is today because Steve Jobs never gave up on it.

On the off chance anyone cared what my favourite picture from today was it's this one >

And you've probably all seen the videos for his Stanford commencement speech or the 'think different' adds, if you haven't stick them on on YouTube they're well worth a watch!