Thank you for waiting

Apologies for the utter failure I've suffered in updating this blog in the last week! Tonight is the first night in over a week where I haven't had a union parliament meeting, Labour meeting, late lecture, work shift etc and I'm torn between my determination to be nothing and my absolute need to do work! I've compromised to the point where I'm just sitting and watching endless episodes of Friends :/

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I'm really enjoying work, even if it does mean I'm missing Jacqui Smith come to Leicester next week. Most of the people I'm working with are a good laugh and because the shifts are quite short I can fit them in pretty much every day. Plus with De Montfort Hall hosting so many different types of shows it's always a different type of crowd so it's not boring :) I've also got quite used to walking home through the park in the dark, not something by parents are overly pleased about but it's fun.

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Had my first Union Parliament this week which was interesting but had dull moments. Two of the proposals I disagree with quite a lot, one just in principle but the other in the wordings which is just unreasonable and leaves no wiggle room. I'm totally behind gay rights but I don't think it's necessary to have a specific LGBT officer when the Equalities Officer we have does a perfectly reasonable job. I also don't think putting a rainbow flag in the middle of the students union will do any good either, it sets a precedent for every cause, society and group to demand their flag/banner/poster should be displayed as well. Unfortunately I can't attend the forum where these policies will be debated as I'm at work and it's proving difficult to find someone to go in my stead. One housemate hates the guy who is proposing these motions and the others have plans for that night plus one of my mates off my course has had a monumental falling out with the proposer over a walk out during a lecture given by Ann Widdecombe. Some members of the LGBTQA and their friends attended this lecture with the express intent of walking out in protest against Ms Widdecombe's opinions on gay rights. I can't say I disagree with their opinion but I'm a Lib Dem, I'll fight til the end to guarantee someone their right to express their views even, indeed especially, if it in contrast to my own opinion. As it transpired Ms Widdecombe didn't mention gay rights at any point during her speech or the lengthy Q&A which followed it so the group had to choose a random point to walk out. During this they made no indication as to why they were walking out so no-one in the room knew why! It was so pointless!

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I went to a Movement for Change training event on the Living Wage campaign last night. It was a really good training thing - not that I've been to any other training events I could compare it to! - that helps us work out a great strategy for getting the Living Wage implemented across the uni. Afterwards we went to the pub, ending campaigning events in true politico style ;)

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Hopefully I'll be back to regular updates soon, just in case the lack of info about my boring life is troubling anyone!

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.

Baby it's cold outside

Apologies for the lack of blog for the last few days, the Internet went off mid-Downton Abbey on Sunday and I was at the Politics Society bar crawl last night so didn't have time to post! The polsoc bar crawl was brilliant and confirmed my belief that our department does the best t-shirt graffiti - best examples included ''Liam Fox is my best mate too'' - even if a friend did confess in drunkenness that the guy he lives with fancies me. He's lovely and everything but just not in that way! Made the rest of the night quite awkward to be fair, plus I'm campaigning with him for the Union Parliament elections :/

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Speaking of, the voting was today so I spent the entire morning - 10 til 1 anyway - freezing my hands off attempting to hand out leaflets to a disinterested student body. I know I'm guaranteed a win - 24 candidates for 30 seats will give you that kind of confidence - but I'd love to get a decent amount of votes and beat the guys I ran with. Especially the annoyingly attractive chair of Labour Students (unfortunately not the guy who apparently fancies me - damn you Fate!).

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I'm writing this post from my bedroom as my house has been invaded by a house party. Now I like house parties, much better than clubs in my opinion, but not when they're in my house! I worry too much about stuff being broken/stolen/vomited on. I was invited to two friends houses to escape but decided to stay in and protect my room, I'm the only one who lives on the ground floor and my door doesn't lock so there's not a snowflakes chance in Hell that I would return to an untouched room!


I'm going to take advantage of everyone forgetting I'm in the house and get an early night for the first time in a fortnight. Night people xx

Fuck it I'm sleepy

I'm utterly exhausted. All I want is a day where I can sit and do nothing but I'm not going to get one until at least Wednesday and even then I've got Russian in the evenings. Tomorrow I need to head into town and find something to wear for Monday's polsoc bar crawl, I need to make my screen page for the union elections and double check my manifesto is okay. I also need to copy up all my lecture notes and read for my UK politics module. I'm actually so fucking tired that I can't write anything...

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One thing I can remember through the haze of tiredness is that Liam Fox finally bit the dust. I'm not happy about his replacement at all but that's an entirely different story! Fox was clearly in the wrong and he should have stepped down quickly in order to work on clearing his name and retaining any respectability he could. It has become increasingly apparent that his name isn't likely to be cleared though; Werrity shouldn't have been given access to the people Fox could give him and it's probably that he was being funded by less then legitimate means. I'm too fucking tired for in depth political analysis atm, might write another post when I'm watching the F1 tomorrow morning.

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I will leave you with this brilliant column by Chris Bryant in today's Indy about the media and 'carry on' politics.

It's too early for a title :(

I've missed two whole days of blog writing! Oh no!
I've been busy, you (the non-existent reader) will get over it :p Wednesday was a panicky day, I've ended up running for Union Parliament under a Labour Students banner. I know the other guys running too, they're mates from my course and they know I'm a Lib Dem so it's not so bad. Their leaflets say 'running as Labour Students' and mine say 'running with....' so morally I can justify that better to myself. Plus they can give me shit loads of help and we're more likely to get elected running together. But it's still stressful basically!

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On top of that I had my first Russian lesson which was fun but also a bit overwhelming. People seemed to pick up the alphabet so quickly and could read words while I was still hunting for the second letter! I'm going to have a listen to some Russian CDs this weekend and hope that triggers memories lol, I can remember no, goodbye and hi atm. Not great but better than nothing.

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Yesterday I had the first globalisation lecture with the most bias lecturer I've ever met. I thought they were suppose to give two aides at least but this guy was wry clear that he thought globalisation was powerful counties (US, Russia, China) not playing by the rules of free trade whilst encouraging everyone else to do so and therefore reinforcing their hegemony. But whatever, i can have an opinion too lol.

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Went into town and got a new phone, iPhone 4 baby :) My number moves over today so I'm just having a play today, iOS 5 seems to have taken all the music off my iPod though for some strange reason and my mate has all his music but no pictures. Bit random and quite annoying (especially for him, he went to see Katy Perry the night before so those pics are gone!).

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Second shift at work was good, apart from one or two mistakes. I haven't quite worked out what goes in which glass yet and a woman asked for orange and lemonade and I gave her orange squash not fresh lol. I've never worked in a bar and for some reason that's what I thought she meant! Given it was Madama Butterfly last night I probably should have though she didn't want squash! One guy wanted a brandy and that took me five minutes to find, I don't know what bottles are brandy lol. I'll know for next time though! I also need to learn types of wine but there's only six so I should be okay. Being on Leicester Male Voice Choir Saturday night!!

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I probably did other things but I'm late for a lecture and I need to dry my hair so I'll let you know some other time!

We have no time to stand and stare

Well I've done so much today I've practically forgotten I even had a lecture! Got dragged to the Union Parliament by a friend who wanted to see what it was like and ended up getting nominated to stand for election to the bloody thing. I have no idea why I've done it but there we go, I'll send a message round the UoL groups on Facebook and hope lol. It would help if I know enough people to get elected! I also had to go to the Labour society meeting which led to the awkward moment when they tried to sign me up for the party. The Conservative society is open to people with an interest with politics, regardless of party, but the Labour one seems to require party membership. Might email a exec member tomorrow and see if this is definite or if I'd got the wrong end of the stick but trying to get out the room without filling the form in, signing away my soul and possibly breaking some law (I'm not sure if its legal to join more than one political party lol) was ridiculously difficult!

LUSH was a ridiculously chaotic meeting; I would much rather do some campaigns or scheduling work but Roisin persuaded me to join up and she really wants to do a radio show so I can't really say 'yeah erm go off and do it on your own...' can I?! The model UN meeting was actually brilliant, I persuaded Jason and Joe to come with me and they've both signed up too. There's a informal debate thing next week to get us into it, I never actually thought to ask if we pick our own country or pick them out of a hat or what. And do we keep the same country for every MUN or does it change? I really should email on of the exec guys and find out, probably the distractingly hot guy who happens to be on my course and friends with a girl I know :)

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Contrary to the impressing this blog post may have given so far I did actually attend some lectures today and yesterday. Mondays are now my least favourite day of the week as I have two lectures and a seminar with a lecturer who has a hideously dull and irritating voice :( The European Union lecture today though was really good, the lecturer seems nice and unlike 90% of students I know I don't find the European Union dull as hell or a pointless waste of time. It was amusing though to see that the most recognisable 'important EU figure' (as decided by our lecturer) was Cathy Ashdown even though there was one guy who for some reason recognised not only her and Van Rumpoy (as did I, before someone thinks I'm think) but also Jose Manuel Barroso and Jean-Claude Trichet. Clearly someone how either reads for seminars way way in advance or someone who actually gives more than a passing glance at EU news!

Anyways I have a killer headache and am panicking slightly about my new-found need to campaign for a week for the Union Parliament so I'm off! Night folks x

Busy Busy (not)

Managed to do a shit load of nothing today: I got out of bed, watched an entire Dara O'Brien gig on YouTube and cooked a sausage pie. I actually can't wait until I get back into lectures tomorrow so I have something more than 'watched tv' to say on this bloody blog! Double 'Governance and Politics in the UK' tomorrow, two hours apart in the lecture theatre next door which is utterly ridiculous but the makers of my timetable seem to be hell-bent on ruining my week so I suppose I shall have to deal with it :/

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Now the first week of Freshers is over I've started getting emails about the societies I signed up to about their first meetings. This does mean that on Tuesday I have a meeting at 5pm in Attenborough One about working for the uni radio station, 6pm in Attenborough Two for the Labour Party Society and 7pm in Attenborough One for Leicester Model UN. I may as well just sit in the corridor outside the Attenborough lecture theatres and get them to leave the doors open and speak loudly! I'm not going to the Politics bar crawl though, a mate from my course has suggested an alernative bar crawl at our own pace and 'round some better bars since the organised ones are fast as hell and downing two drinks quickly and moving on to the next club isn't her idea of fun, or mine!

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Lib Dems on Twitter have been floating the idea of Paddy Ashdown as new Defence Secretary given that Liam Fox appears to have got himself into a shit load of trouble. This would be absolutely fantastic as Paddy is brilliant and he is probably one of the best foreign policy minds the Coalition has, certainly better than William Hague! But he's a former leader on the junior coalition partner, a member of the Lords with a vast experience in politics and a man almost universally adored by all Liberal Democrats so I feel David Cameron is highly unlikely to want to be head of the Cabinet that contains a man so unlikely to tow the line.

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Another political story, Chris Huhne has apologised to Theresa May for briefing against her. Lets be honest if a conference address by an opposition party member turns out to be utter bullshit and a dramatic misrepresentation of the facts, attracting attention across the media spectrum, and then it turns out that this story was lifted directly from a far right party speech who wouldn't casually point it out to a newspaper! May has shown her incompetence through 'Catgate' and Huhne is not a member of her party and has not reason to back her over this idiotic mistake. Any reshuffle should leave him well alone!

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!

(see yesterday's imaginative title)

I was supposed to meet a mate off my course at half ten but somehow managed to sleep through three alarms and a text message and not actually wake up until quarter past. Had to shower as quickly as possible when the water's minus 10 and somehow got to uni just after eleven. The second mooch round freshers fair got me signed up to the Public Speaking society, the Leicester Model UN and grabbed a form to fill in for the Languages@Leicester program. Gonna fill the form and hand it in tomorrow hopefully!

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Afternoon was a bit of a write-off, bit like the last month really. Intended to unpack, thought about upacked, watched shit on the tele instead. I did meet the same friend again though and we went to a debate on student activism which was quite interest if a little irritating. General anti-Lib Dem feeling managed to pervade the event which is annoying but not unexpected when one of your panelists is Aaron Porter. I'm far too tired to explain what went on, plus someone is coming to (hopefully) fix the boiler at 830am so I'm going to have to be up early.

Night folks x

Cold, cold water surrounds me now

Plumber turned up just after noon to check the boiler, in his professional opinion it's fucked. Apparently he told the landlady last year that she needed to replace it but she clearly didn't listen! So we still have no hot water. Later in the afternoon someone rang Jenni and said they'd called round to look at the boiler but no-one was in, clearly the landlady arranged for more than one person to come but didn't bother to tell us so we went out after the first one. Someone else is coming on Wednesday morning - 8.30am!!! - so I'm going to have to get up and let them in because people are going out tomorrow night and there's no-one the others will be sober enough to get up. Wish me luck with that...

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Fresher's fair today. Well the bit of it that didn't have a massive queue. Joined university Labour and Conservative societies, the Feminists (they're going to hate me), Lush (uni radio) and the Politics Society having been dragged by a guy on my course who told me it was necessary. Also signed away my soul to the cinema, god knows what I signed but I got free popcorn so I don't care! Off back tomorrow with a mate who couldn't make it today and I'm signing up for Public Speaking, Leicester Model UN (I really want to be somewhere random and tiny but make a massive deal about it) and the Ripple (uni mag). Might join some other things I see but I'm determined to sign up to more exiting things this year as opposed to last. I'm also trying to build up some confidence to start a Lib Dem society next year, probably not this year as people are still pissed over tuition fees plus I'm a bit unorganised (and Liberal Youth are ridiculously annoying and, in my experience, incompetent).

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It's not really politics but it is news, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito have had their murder convctions overturned. I'm glad and not particularly surprised, as pathetic and circus-esque as the Italian legal system is it could hardly fail to overturn based on such compromised evidence as led to these convictions. Twitter exploded with rage against the Daily Mail after it accidently posted an article written in case the appeals were rejected. While anger against the Daily Mail is a fairly normal emotion for me and I can certainly understand it in others but I would be willing to bet money that most news sites had written two articles. The Daily Mail's crime, for a change, wasn't homophobia or racist it was computer illiteracy, nothing that requires an outpouring of anger from the Twitterarti!

Round and round and round

Did fuck all yesterday, watched the news and a dozen episodes of Friends while the housemates were at work/spending their student loans (unwisely in my opinion but I'm considered the sensible (ie. boring) one in our house so they tend to ignore me). I got weirdly moody when they got back so I thought the best thing to do would be to leave the house, I had my first late night library session of the year :) To be fair it wasn't really a library session, there was no revision or reading to speak of I just caught up on QI and panicked a bit while two tweeps tried to persuade me to go to the doctors over my twitching, fidgeting and random moods. I've been living with the twitching for ten years, I haven't cared enough to go to the doctor before I'm not worrying about it now.

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Came home from the library when the housemates called me to say they were watching a movie if I wanted to watch. So we sat and watched Sophie's Choice without subtitles, we have no real clue what happened as much of the important scenes are in German or Polish :/ Then Roisin rebelled against the film by making Sims of all of us our house and moving them into Uni so now we have a second virtual life. She also spent a good ten minutes singing songs from Cabaret.

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Roisin and I tried to avoid the lure of a takeaway breakfast this morning which I feel we can say we technically did but only because we put of ordering until 1230 therefore we really ordered lunch :P

Hopefully we're going to put my IKEA drawers up today, I'm determined to be unpacked by the end of Freshers!!!