Masha Gessen is almost over-qualified to write this biography.

In fact, as a journalist, she must’ve been upset to know that the book was nearly off to the printers during the December protests, which have been hurriedly tacked on as an epilogue. It’s an incisive epilogue – which brings the story up-to-date – but it’s hardly what the highly-capable reporter would’ve wanted, having chronicled every detail of post-Soviet Russia for such big names as the New York Times and Vanity Fair.

But the biggest name in Gessen’s roster is the St. Petersburgian hard-man Vladimir Putin.  Once an anonymous bureaucrat, he was plucked from a series of desk jobs by Boris Yeltsin’s dwindling circle of kingmakers known as ‘The Family’.  Putin was reinvented as a credible president, with backstory and personality cult all sewn up – largely thanks to Boris Berezovsky’s ownership of Channel One taking care of all the media coverage needed.

However, the ex-KGB spy had huge influence in Russia’s second city (‘a state within a state’) and it wasn’t long before Putin’s decisive traits consolidated all the power that could be gained following an ousting of Yeltsin.

Gessen’s novelistic approach – although gripping – probably reveals she’s been a little bit too close to the action to pass equal judgement.  Exiled oligarchs get a reprieve for daring to be different, while Vladimir himself can never set a foot right. Speculations on poisonings and childhood parallels aside, this is a thrilling account of what sadly was, with the door left open at the last minute for what might be.

Through News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch is the world’s leading newspaper proprietor. His company is also the largest pay TV owner and stood to grow larger still if its bid for BSkyB had been approved. That was aborted following the phone hacking scandal at his newspaper, the News of the World.

Should the newspaper scandal and the TV bid have been connected?

The issue with Rupert Murdoch’s attempted takeover of BSkyB is clearly one of media conglomeration, as well as the notional idea of a ‘fit and proper’ media owner.  The proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corporation was undoubtedly advantageous for both companies, but the threats to media plurality and the increasing evidence that Murdoch would be seen as ‘exercising power without responsibility’ due to his involvement in the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World meant that the deal’s collapse was seen by many legal commentators (as well as journalists) as inevitable.

The Broadcasting Act 1990 is the first to assert that Ofcom license-holders must be ‘fit and proper’ – but it does not define what is meant by this term.  Indeed, section 253(3) of the Communications Act 2003 also states that applicants must be ‘fit and proper’ and this is once more reiterated in Ofcom’s Change of Control Notification Form in Section 1.  It is only in this document that some guidance is given regarding actual specifications for a ‘fit and proper’ media owner: absence of criminal convictions and civil penalties make up the entirety of the advice given.

However, Jason Chess of media law firm Wiggin examines a loophole in the guidelines, stating that ‘someone with a criminal record “…will not necessarily be prevented from holding a licence”’.  In his experience, he argues that Ofcom’s priority appears to be to find an owner capable of complying with UK broadcasting codes, rather than any previous ethical misdemeanours.

To study the (un)ethical activities of license-holders we must first analyse the make-up of BSkyB’s current shareholders.  At present, only 39% of BSkyB is owned by News Corporation; the remaining 61% is held across a wide range of shareholders nowhere near the scale of News Corporation.  News Corporation is therefore a minority owner of BSkyB, but the single largest block shareholder.  Nevertheless, News Corporation is not the license-holder of BSkyB, nor is technically the absolute controlling interest.

Eleanor Steyn points out that ‘basic principles of corporate liability mean that it is difficult to pin what is done by executives of a company on the company itself, let alone pinning it on another group company’. Indeed, one would have to look at the crossover in board membership between BSkyB and News Corporation, not to mention that of its UK arm, News International, if we were to ascertain whether those suspected of being culpable of grave ethical malpractice would be in the same position of power at BSkyB.

It can be said, then, that the public backlash was against a company thought to have unethical practices across all facets of its operation, yet it can be seen as preposterous to link one aspect of a business with another entirely different enterprise.  Yet David Cameron’s comments that ‘they should stop thinking about mergers when they’ve got to sort out the mess they’ve created’ implies that a multi-national business (and indeed its CEO) is unable to manage other aspects of that business while an internal review is being conducted.

Ed Miliband asked for ‘the purchase of BSkyB [not to] proceed until after the criminal inquiries are complete’, yet Ofcom’s own stringent regulation would have taken care of any broadcasting malpractice, the general journalistic category of which has not yet been proven at the director-level of News Corporation.

Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Jeremy Hunt, told the House of Lords via Lady Rawlings that there were ‘sufficient safeguards’ in place for Rupert Murdoch’s bid, and advised that it need not be delayed in the wake of the phone-hacking revelations.  Lady Rawlings added that ‘the decision would be made purely on the issue of media plurality’.

The tactical move of reversing the decision to spin-off Sky News, therefore triggering a referral to the Competition Commission, was a shrewd way of placing the takeover bid’s agenda (and all associated media focus) firmly within the sphere of ‘Monopolies and Mergers’, rather than the ethical activity of Rupert Murdoch’s corporation at large.

Rival media organisations, including BT, the Guardian Media Group, Associated Newspapers, Trinity Mirror, the Telegraph Media Group and Northcliffe Media, formed a loose alliance to condemn Murdoch’s takeover even when Sky News was assuredly going to become an independent entity.  A spokesman for ‘The Media Alliance’ stated that the takeover gave News Corporation ‘greater power to restrict or distort competition through cross-promotion, bundling…and distorting the advertising market’.

There can be no doubt that News Corporation’s ultimate desire is to compete with the BBC and other media organisations in buying up programmes and securing sports rights across its infrastructure of broadband and high definition services.  The key to the BSkyB takeover is likely to be financial, with the profit margins of the Sky digital service far outweighing the UK newspaper assets controlled (and owned) by the Murdochs.  However, it is also important to note that The Times, thought to be a print stalwart, makes a huge financial loss and requires ample subsidy from other News International services.  In the same way, Sky News was widely reported as having approximately £20 million of its own losses to deal with annually.  With these examples, Murdoch can be seen as dedicated to news services far more than their bottom lines.

The influence that Rupert Murdoch employs in the political sphere through these news services is well-documented, yet the allegations by Chris Bryant that BSkyB was operated as a ‘fear and favour’ process appears weak in comparison to Murdoch’s proprietorship of three intensely dominant newspapers.  There is no sign that potential ownership of BSkyB can be compared to the power exercised by these titles (not even with the inclusion of Fox News as a broadcast example), owing to Ofcom’s regulations on impartiality.

If the phone-hacking investigation is to highlight missing or inadequate regulation of newspapers, there is no equivalent investigation or admittance into such an issue for broadcasters. The closest investigation was an internal review commissioned by BSkyB’s board into the editorial practices of (and spending of the editorial budget by) Sky News, which concluded ‘no suggestion of impropriety’.

With James Murdoch being current chairman of BSkyB and executive chairman of News International, it is no surprise that 156,000 people and organisations made last-minute submissions to the Government’s public consultation on the proposed bid, yet the link between phone-hacking and the takeover bid for BSkyB is one fabricated by commentators convinced that the Murdoch family run a vast-reaching criminal outfit in which they are able to precisely micromanage every corner of their consortium for maximum nefarious gain.  Although it cannot be argued that the Murdochs are free of responsibility for the illegal undertakings by their employees, they certainly do not fall foul of all the legal tests set for both their print and broadcasting ventures.

UPDATE (4/2/2012): Roy‘s feedback – Well, Nick, this is a well argued polemic, clearly well researched. I don’t agree with you, but that’s beside the point in terms of the marking. I’d just like you to consider the implications of media being concentrated in too few hands, regardless of whether it involves Murdoch. Should there be a cut-off point in terms of size. Anyway, it’s a good read.

Rob Brydon visited Guildford in December for a book signing.

That’s right, the comic impresario came to a sleepy Home County to promote his life story.  But why am I telling you this?  Well, where he’s been and who he’s met is a crucial part of Small Man In A Book.  Because everyone who has had some sort of prolonged contact with Rob Brydon has gone on to become a star (see: Catherine Tate, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Corden). I wish I’d gone, now.

I wasn’t expecting much from his autobiography – I thought it’d be like an older, Welsh version of [insert modern moderately-successful young comedian].   But actually, it’s a shining insight into the well-rounded development of a comic actor.

Even the picture pages tell a story – and more importantly, they contribute to it.  All too often in biographies, the pictures section feels like the publisher broke in to the author’s aunt’s house, stole some mantelpiece pictures and then topped those up with a Google Images search.  Not Mr. Brydon – his photo pages are a bit like being squeezed between his mum and his nan on the sofa, forced to look at the best and worst of their baby.  Complete with hilarious captions.
What’s interesting, though, is comedy’s Mr. Nice Guy can’t actually be brutally honest.  This is a shame.  We’re warned in the foreword that we’re not getting the grisly bits of his divorce, and we’re only taken up to the year 2000, so no amorous dedications to his new wife, either. The downside of the time-period is that there’s no Gavin & Stacey stuff.  The upside is we get the trials and tribulations at drama school, and some great anecdotes about his voiceover work. Oh, and no mention of his appearances on every single comedy panel show since.

If you’ve read Martin Amis’ novels, then the density of this critical biography won’t be lost on you.

Amis’ life is structured like most of his works, crammed with excess and disinterest (à la Money), before giving way to post-modern despair and far-reaching instability (see London Fields).

To pose the question of whether Amis is a great writer, as Richard Bradford builds up to (in a chapter entitled unimaginatively ‘Significance: Is He a Great Writer?’), is unfair: Amis’ greatness is neither inherited nor a formula to be tested against winners of the Man Booker Prize.

Investigating pornography under the alias Bruno Holbrook before taking a salaried correspondent post at the New Statesman in the 1970s, Amis was allied with Francis Wheen to document the turbulence of the late 20th century.  It is no wonder that this Gatsby-esque figure is so outspoken and well-informed in his writings on global politics.

His father’s close relationship with Philip Larkin is leant on heavily – perhaps owing to the fact that Bradford has also written acclaimed biographies on both Kingsley Amis and Larkin. Yet Amis’ five lengthy interviews with Bradford form ‘a cabinet of contrasts’ that reflect the polarised opinions of him by the public and the press.

Loved by women and a dedicated family man, aloof and modest all at once, these seemingly incongruous qualities build a fascinating portrait of a man as well as an author, forming a biography cementing itself as a key manual to Martin Amis’ literary canon.

Ordinarily, I’d jump to the defense of those who have been wronged by sloppy reporting, but the idea of ‘defamation’ really winds me up.  Okay, Sheryl, so The People, The Mirror and whatever other toilet-roll rag had your face on the front page instead of some actual global issue, but they were only quoting from two regrettably limited perspectives.  Just because they didn’t flash their cash in your face for you to ‘tell your side of the story’ doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t ‘true’.  The report truthfully quoted what Gazza/Gazza’s mum said in an interview.  If they were ill-informed, why don’t you just write to the PCC or get your rightful response.  Hell, pocket some of the red-top’s blood money and do one of their ‘tell-alls’.  But to sue them for defamation, when throughout the programme no-one ever mentions any explicit effects apart from her daughter being caught up in some ‘nasty words at school’ seems a little bit extreme.  She tearfully puts her house on the market to contribute to her ‘fighting fund’, while her lawyer eggs her on!  Am I the only one that thought every single person in this programme stank of self-interest and hypocrisy?

Lembit Opik blames The Sunday Times for him losing the election, his legal adviser/best mate blames the UK legal system for allowing The Sunday Times to have an opinion section, and a completely random ‘local politician’ (who’s clearly not Lembit, because he’s out of a job) starts getting all meta-philosophical about smoke, fires and smokescreens.  The barrister they find to take the case (because his lawyer is apparently all out of ideas) pretty much tells Lembit that you can’t get paid for a spread in Hello! and then expect to remain out of the public eye. Lembit claims he only did the piece in Hello! because The Mirror kept following him (presumably in case he did some impromptu stand-up and we all missed it) and Hello! hasn’t printed anything libellous about him.  Except he’s probably never been featured in Hello! before.  And he probably didn’t see the article before it went to print, so they actually got lucky and managed to escape Lembit’s Super Libel Locator™.  (No-one mentions Sheryl Gascoigne’s appearance on I’m A Celebrity. last year.)

I agree with Sam Wollaston’s review in The Guardian, here: ‘the libel lawyers are given a very easy ride’, but by contrast UK libel law is apparently too soft on the press, especially on hard working UK citizens, of which Lembit is only one of 65 million.  I’ll scoot over the bit where he rides to a consultation meeting on a Segway, continues his battle against unemployment by auditioning to be an after-dinner speaker and constructs two skilfully dull anagrams of his name, making a big deal out of the fact he’s Estonian. (Remember that, it’ll be important in a minute).

The reason libel law is so infuriating is because the burden of proof lies on the defendant to prove that their claims are true.  In a sense, you’re guilty until you can prove yourself innocent.  If this fact had been made clear at the top of the programme, we’d all be thinking Sheryl and Lembit are on their merry way to victory.  The reason I suspect Disembodied VoiceOver didn’t make this point was because in Sheryl’s case, the claims might not have been true but they were true to what was said in the interview.  As for Lembit, well it was an opinion piece by Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times’ answer to Littlejohn.   Although you can argue he shouldn’t be given a platform in the first place, the views are his own and clearly identified as such, and therefore his views only conform to the warped sense of truth that resides in his head alongside all his favourite ‘miserable, seaweed munching‘ Welsh people who presumably live in the Lost City of Atlantis, just underneath Barry Island.

A parade of various legal-eagles flicks through so many printouts of publications I forget which case is which, who is actually a lawyer, who’s getting paid and who’s fault it might be.  Each defendant seems to want the press shut down, and I nearly started a game where every time I heard the word ‘true’, I’d burn one of the books on reliability and narrative I’ve been glued to for the past few months.  So, The Sunday Times is at fault because they imply Lembit has an active love life, and infers that he spends more time on his love life than on his career. Apparently, identifiying Lembit as Estonian is as bad as calling him a Jew – oh, hold on, aren’t you implying that ‘Jew’ is a derogatory term, and therefore we can infer that this legal advisor is anti-Semitic?  No, sorry, it’s more deplorable that all the publications are playing for time with their evidence submission deadlines and a few even ask for extensions to really piss off The Little Guy.  The irony here, pointed out by our Sheryl, is that these are people whose publications are totally reliant on working to deadline, yet the judge accepts their difficult time restraints in multi-tasking.  Scathing.

The programme switches from a deep and fascinating debate on press ethics (‘I don’t know why they do it’) to some sort of vindictive retaliation where the only suitable retribution and vindication is cold hard cash.  Sheryl brings home the bacon because The Other Side’s witnesses never turn up, to which her sly double-barrelled barrister mentions that one witness was probably Gazza, and he’s not the most reliable sort – of course he manages to say this without any implication or possible inferral, using some sort of legal witchcraft.

Sheryl gets £30k and an apology mumbled in open court, while being promised a tiny printed retraction on the same page that Gazza’s face once beamed out from.  But it’s okay, because it probably cost the other side £50k, which apparently ‘isn’t much, but it must’ve hurt their pocket somewhere’.  I’ll take your word on that, Sheryl.  You’re the expert.  She cracks open the champagne, her house is taken off the market and it’s another victory for the ordinary ex-wife of one of the nation’s most famous former footballers.  But surely the BBC could’ve contracted Lembit for another few episodes of Have I Got News For You and taken far more pot-shots at News International without trying to make us feel sorry for him losing his seat in Parliament and claiming it was all Rupert Murdoch’s fault.  I half-expected Lembit to say that his phone was bugged, too.  Oh well, there’s always the next episode in the series – we’ve got Uri Geller, Danielle Lloyd and George Galloway to get through, yet.

Panorama: Smoking and the Bandits
Date: March 7, 2011
Length: 29:00
First broadcast on BBC One, then made available online through BBC iPlayer.

This investigation focusses on the financial aspect of illegal smoking imports, identifying tax evasion and highlighting the national deficit directly affecting ‘you’ (the viewer).  Sam Poling emphatically notes what ‘we’ will pay in rising NHS costs and to HMRC in order to keep both smokers and non-smokers interested.  The variety of cinematic techniques serves to make the broadcast dramatic – jump-cuts, split-screen and atmospheric music are all intermittently employed.

To convey honesty in an interview with an independent expert there are shots which show lighting and camera equipment – breaking down the fourth wall (of the fourth estate!).  The top of the programme accompanies a raid on a tenement flat, however we are never told the consequences or sentencing of those arrested.

The episode tracks counterfeit imported cigarettes, with a subsequent investigation into the toxicity of the goods, using ‘exclusive secret footage’.  The stock footage is of variable quality and therefore of indeterminable age – the reliability of the report becomes less important than the action of the narrative. Poling admits ‘I did not know the importance of these papers then’ – giving rise to a notion of selective revelation by the narrator for a heightened sense of drama.

From Our Own Correspondent (FOOC)
Date: March 10, 2011
Length: 28:18
First broadcast on Radio 4, then made available as a podcast.

One of Radio 4’s oldest flagship broadcasts, the entire premise of the programme feels like a relic from the World Service’s war-time stereotype.  The received pronunciation and slow, scripted speech does little to endorse its mission to ‘bring a personal perspective to world news’.  Instead, these professional journalists and correspondents present an anecdotal view of ‘my friend Bernard’ in the Ivory Coast and the café preferences of the driver of the press vehicle in Libya.

Yet without these snapshots, we would be unable to understand the instantaneous fact-driven news which chooses only headline developments.  The benefit is of an explorative journalist who is able to not just chase expert sources to back up his lead but also provide a context into sometimes the seemingly insignificant, the unexpected and the mundane.

These tales are treated with equal weight – Kate Adie at the top of the programme does not discriminate between life in a civil warzone and a band ‘playing their way out of Poverty’ in the Congo, resisting temptations to state ‘and finally…’ in that derogatory offbeat newsreader cliché.  FOOC points to its wider relevance as a microcosmic tale of the area which that correspondent is charged with covering.

SURHUL’s Commercial Services Department has declared a deficit of £11,000 in just six weeks of trading. Details of the dramatic loss, which were sent in an email marked as confidential to all student staff members, have been released less than a week after two permanent staff members were controversially made redundant.

An e-mail from the Commercial Development Manager, Sarah Stuckey, was sent on Friday afternoon. The email outlines the deficit to be “equivalent to a loss of approximately £300 per day” following a stock take on 14th February 2011. A further alarming comparison is made by Ms Stuckey when she says that “it is equivalent to giving away free of charge every drink, ticket and piece of food served last Friday, day and night, at all [three] venues.”

Including wastage of £1750 and a staff drinks allocation of £2269, the £11,000 in unaccounted stock totals a gross loss of over £15,019. Ms Stuckey resolves to tighten supervision and suspend complimentary end-of-shift drinks for staff. Managers will be performing random line checks on the bar, and till checks on all venues whilst reviewing CCTV footage.

Ms Stuckey assures staff that management “have spent time investigating reports to ensure this is not a data entry error in accounting, re-counting stock to ensure accuracy, and reviewing CCTV to identify…any large scale thefts from stock areas” but admits that there were “no significant findings”.

This follows the forced redundancy of two of the longest serving and most senior members of SURHUL’s management team last week, in a ‘restructuring’ exercise. Matt Breed, Bars & Venues Manager, and Mark Austin, Entertainments Manager, lost their jobs after an investigation into the staff management structure resulted in ‘no alternative’.

Sean O’Donnell, SURHUL’s General Manager wrote an email to staff proposing the new structure on 11th January 2011, stating that “the student sector within licensed trade has witnessed further changes in the market as a result of changing student demographics” and that the restructure leaves SURHUL “positioned to react to these changes in a timely fashion to best provide for our membership”.

However, in a later email, it was announced that the SURHUL is advertising to hire four new members of managing staff, with a cumulative salary of over £90,000, along with plans to hire a fifth manager once the initial four are in place.

EDIT (31 March 2011): In this article, it could be inferred that the dismissal of Mark Austen and Matt Breed were either consequences of, or that Mr. Austen and Mr. Breed were identified as responsible for, the £11,000 missing stock.  This is incorrect.  The restructuring of SURHUL’s Commercial Services is also unconnected to the loss of stock, and should not be taken as a result of SURHUL’s recent findings.

As I sit in my dressing-gown at my laptop at midday, with umpteen tabs open in Firefox, I often find myself the brunt of my housemates’ ridicule. Who am I? Am I some sort of 21st-Century Oscar Wilde, with the complete works of John Milton available to peruse on my iPhone 4? Am I a hardcore blogger, born at the dawn of the nineties and looking for my next conspiracy theory? No, I’m a journalist, and I’ve learned that you’ve got to stay in almost as much as you’ve got to go out.

Without making the case that the new era of Multimedia Journalists™ are the poor man’s polymaths (Andy Halls has perhaps already alluded to this), I’m simply saying that to be a successful journalist, one must absorb a vast amount of information.

And now, a lot of that can be done with a solid internet connection. As a current affairs journalist, you’re supposed to know more than the average person does about the last time there was a large oil spill, what percentage of cuts were laid on in 1979, and what happens when your travel company isn’t ABTA-certified. Sometimes you’ve got to do a bit of research (cross-referenced and checked, naturally) before you hit the road with some knee-jerk questions.

It is a careful compromise between scholarly research and the most heinous of journalistic crimes: recycling from other sources. I suppose, as an English Literature undergraduate, my perspective of being an aspiring journalist is balanced with my current academic discipline. To be an effective journalist, one must have the ability to reflect a readership, so it helps to know what’s going on out there. Yes, I understand that a lot of what goes on can be learned from your sources on the street, but if you’re out there all the time, then you’ll forget that Question Time’s been on.

Some student journos I know (admittedly, not very good ones), have little knowledge of current affairs. They’re too busy perfecting the standfirst on their magnum opus exposé to have a flick through the Guardian, and their homepage is their perpetually-refreshing e-mail account and the Oxford English Thesaurus rather than BBC News and Twitter’s trending topics.

I’m not a seasoned Foreign Correspondent for the BBC, and I don’t have a newswire on my desktop, so I rely on other media to feed me some semblance of what’s going on. If I see some half-baked semi-scoop in the Staines Informer, chances are I’ll go out and follow it up, and probably come up with something more informative. Speaking of which, It’s just arrived on the doorstep, so I’m going to put the kettle on and go and pick it up.

Sure, the first half of my day has been spent indoors, but I won’t be spending the rest of it playing catch-up. I now know exactly where to go, who to contact, and about what.

After arriving back in the Guildford area, I thought I’d get my car cleaned.  Which was great, except I’d forgotten to buy a ticket for the car park.  Luckily, the lovely car wash man bought a ticket for me, leaving it on my windscreen when I returned.  Isn’t that lovely?  In Godalming, however, I’d been out of the car less than two minutes before I had to charm my way out of a parking ticket from a nearby official.

And then began the inevitable cycle of travel vaccinations, downloaded TV shows & movies and late-night cereal.

I’d have plenty of time to prepare for my trip, right? Wrong.  I like to busy myself.

I went to see Hamlet, featuring Jude Law.  Law was funnier than I’d been led to believe, but it seemed like he was channelling a Mr. Tennant a bit much. My favourite part, though? Ophelia. Her under-acting was phenomenal as her subtle insanity shone through as clearly plaguing her. The speech-song-speech patter matched her lovely voice and she never seemed the gimmicky nutter…

The only thing I found myself wondering by the end, aside from how well Tennant’s performance was (and his supporting cast), by comparison, was a criticism of Shakespeare. Just how old is Hamlet supposed to be? Off the top of my head I’d guess 23, but his oft-talked about “adolescence” would peak far before that!

Thanks to my mother owning a Peugeot, we managed to get VIP corporate hospitality tickets to the London Taste Festival for free, which was a pleasant (and pallet-pleasing) day in Regent’s Park.

Among the hostel bookings, bus tickets and rail-timetable perusing, I also had the small matter of a pesky Russian visa to get hold off.  A trip to London, a wad of money lighter, 36 hours later and I was granted a visa.  We’ll gloss over the fact I mistook a ‘free massage parlour’ for an internet café that day, though.

Just in case I’d been missing university a bit too much, I ended up attending the RHUL Black Tie Summer Feast, sitting on the Principal’s table and having a jolly good (free!) evening meal.

And finally, I’d managed to wangle myself a job in telephone fundraising for the RGS.  Run in MacGregorJones’ offices in Southwark, I was officially a ‘friendraiser’ for the RGS Foundation this past week.

Drumming up support (i.e. money) for the 500th Anniversary of the school, I was subjected to a man who lied about his age, minor verbal abuse from a Venerable Archdeacon, an NYC OG whoo thought he was the police and even spoke to a nice lady en France qu’elle n’avait jamais entendu parler de la RGS.  All for £8 an hour, I raised about £1000 for The Foundation.  I was quite pleased with myself, althoough my career as a telephone fundraiser is definitely on hold (pun intended?).

Oh, and I got a 2:1 for this year, which I’m moderately pleased with.  Who knows what I can get if I attend more than sixteen lectures?

Anyway, I’d better go and think about the most important question plaguing my three-and-a-half weeks of travelling around Eastern Europe: cards or TravelScrabble?

You might have noticed I’ve itched for this moment since I got to university, but I reluctantly reset the keycard to my room at Royal Holloway.  If anyone’s living in Tuke F-3A-05 in future, and you happen to stumble across this post, look underneath the desk next to the bed, and you should see a small sticker.  Nick Stylianou 2008-2009.  I like leaving my mark.  I’ll miss that room!

But before I crammed everything into my car and drove home far too hungover and with far little petrol to justifiably make it home, I can’t believe how much I’d achieved in the short months I’d been at university, but still, there were a a few little things to finish off my final term of being a first year.

First of all: the Summer Ball!  I made it right through to 6am, with the help of far too many shots right up until breakfast.  I’m a survivor, me.

Then came my final bit of publicity for The Orbital before the term was out – covering our first ever Shakespeare Festival!  Both InsanityRadio and The Orbital put on a ‘media hub’, culminating in a slideshow of our photos and live reviews, collated and displayed throughout the day, to a soundtrack of interviews from local students who attended the day’s workshops.  (Perks included the generous ‘Media Budget’, which helped subsidise some much needed equipment and I got free tickets to the rather chilly annual Quad Production…)

The Students’ Union Annual General Meeting ticked off another evening, and I found out I got onto the Intensive Shakespeare course and passed the year!  Full breakdown to follow in July, but that’s all the information I needed.

Somehow, while preparing for End Of Term Blowout, I managed to lose my CollegeCard.  I’d already managed to snap it earlier in the week, but it was replaced easily enough.  No big deal, or so I thought.  As it turned out, this was my third lock-out, which meant I had to pay the princely sum of £10 for a temporary card to last 24 hours!  It didn’t stop there, because I also managed to pack the temporary card and couldn’t find that, either.

Off I trotted to celebrate the end of term, with absolutely no way of getting home.  I managed to find someone at The Hub reception, at about twenty to six in the morning, without finishing packing, without sobering up, and without a sweater from sitting in the post-SU after-party in Founder’s Quad.  Whatever would my mother say?

Six hours later and I was back home, and if I’d learned anything it would have to be this: don’t fall asleep on the sofa with Saturday afternoon TV on.  I ended up having a wierdly erotic BBC renovation-themed dream involving RHUL.

Waking up in what I hope was a cold sweat, I found reruns of Dog The Bounty Hunter and all was well again.

26/5 [1334] I’ve filled up the car, I’ve been food shopping and I’ve had my hair butchered. Time to drive back to RHUL.

26/5 [1546] I went straight to the office. I’m currently begging the printers to not charge me. This is simple, seeing as I haven’t finished (or started) the issue.

27/5 [2006] I’ve been in the office for hours. I’m now watching the Champions League final there on my projector, eating a Pot Noodle and proofing.

28/5 [0045] I’m still in the office, going slowly mad. I bought cake for my Editorial Team, but they still hate me. I can hear them curse me…

28/5 [0458] I would rather be anywhere in the world than the Queen’s Annexe right now.  I haven’t left the desk since 11am on Wednesday. Am I finished? Am I f-

28/5 [1748] I’ve left the office for only the second time since 11am Wednesday to get ready for the Laurel Awards Ceremony. Never mind that deadline…

29/5 [0907] went straight from the Laurels to the Office to slave away again. He’s racking up his 46th hour in here. Cabin fever? Please note:  I’m still in full dinner suit attire.

29/5 [2359] I feel like everything since Tuesday has been one continuous day. The Jack Bauer of journalism?

30/5 [1619] I’ve called in the cavalry and broken out the chocolate fingers.  Any more calls from the printers about bleed areas and I’ll go insane.  At least I’ve changed my clothes.

30/5 [2240] I’m now designing an issue on what feels like the office on the surface of the sun. I’m sweltering. I’ve locked the door and taken off my top. Topless editing:  I mean business.

31/5 [0004]  I’m screaming “Hey! Editor, I’m undeniable! Hey, Doctor, I’m certifiable, oh…”

31/5 [1335] I’m remarkably annoyed that Nick Grimshaw had no idea who Butthole Surfers were.  Radio1 is the only thing telling me what time it is.

31/5 [1418] I have no idea what sort of meat was in my bowl of ravioli and, quite frankly, I don’t care. It’s my first meal for 24hrs.

31/5 [1832] I hope no-one tells me that he’s wasting his life editing an article on bra size surcharges.  Now, where to put that picture of breasts…

31/5 [2353] I’m cutting this, I’m cutting that, I’m still carving out an issue.

1/6 [0121] I’ve just realised I haven’t had dinner. Bit late for that now, I guess. On to exporting EPS! Boot up Adobe Distiller and we’re out of here…

1/6 [0151] I’ve finished the issue, pending a check from my lovely Executive Editor. And they say flattery gets you nowhere. Now for Volunteering Week…

1/6 [0932] I’m up, showered, shaved (he desperately needs new foils) and ready for Volunteering Week.

1/6 [1136] I just saved over The Orbital with the Volunteering Week templates, half an hour before the print deadline. I want to die.

1/6 [1214] I met the deadline. Just. I hope Morton understands his ‘creative time-management’.

On deadline day, I was involved in a joint The Orbital/Insanity session for local school children as part of Volunteering Week, teaching them how we put stuff together in print and on air. I made some funky templates and then saved over the (thank christ, already exported) front page of the publication. Smooth, Mr. Editor, smooth.

On deadline day, due to Volunteering Week/eating, I missed a call from the printers, who rang my Executive Editor, who rang me, a call which I missed, who texted me, which I started to read before the President of the Students’ Union rang me.  Repeat this three times and the system developed that you’d just get the President to ring me to tell me to ring the printers/Executive Editor.  Anyone would think I was ignoring my Executive Editor.  Not true, honest!

Mortons Print, my lovely pre-press/press people, couldn’t get enough of telling me what I’d done wrong.  This image would be cropped, this was the wrong size, did you put the images in CMYK not RGB? (yes!) Did you want the edges to bleed through here, where the spread is just – look, just print the damn thing.  Please.  Efficiency and thoroughness definitely got on my nerves.

I’ve slept for approximately five hours in a week, to almost single-handedly pull off the biggest change The Orbital has seen in almost twenty years.  There’s a lot of almosts in there,  and there’s also a long way to go.  I couldn’t have survived without my equally-insane Editorial Team, who had to endure me barking orders at them, and most notably shouting ‘I wanted to be a journalist, not mayor of crazy town!’, at various intervals.

Although I’d looked at Adobe InDesign CS4 and various PDFs countless times, I can’t tell you the physical and emotional relief when I actually saw the palette, with 3000 copies of my creation sitting outside the SU building on schedule, on time, on Thursday 4th June.

For the curious among you, I’d better mention that the quote on the inside front page of the newspaper is from the first edition of the Yale Daily News…where Rory Gilmore served as editor.

The innovation which we begin by this morning’s issue is justified by the dullness of the time and the demand for news among us.

I now produce a fortnightly newspaper with a monthly magazine supplement.  My life expectancy has drastically shortened.  Roll on, September.  Let’s do it all again.

My first year of university.  Nearly.

My first set of university exams.  Tick.

Now, I have no idea whether or not I’ve passed or failed, or even attained enough to make it onto my beloved Shakespeare course next year – these things make me feel very ill whenever I think about them.

Of course I got stopped by police again, this time on campus, this time by some arrogant plain clothes student lookalike from the Hampshire Constabulary.  Sure, we’re in Surrey, and sure, you sound like you learned how to police (and drive your Volkswagen Golf) from Bad Boys, but even I know when to just be quiet and say ‘yes, sir/no sir’.   But I’m still complaining.  Let’s ring up Surrey Police:  please ring Hampshire Police.  Hampshire Police: please ring Surrey Police.  Don’t you just love this country?  A man might be impersonating a police officer!  My claim was lost in the mire of bureaucracy.

Although the majority of achievements for a typical Fresher have been checked and completed already, I’ve still got an entire publication to create, the NewsShow to stumble through, a set of birthday parties to turn up to, a Summer Ball to go to and a Shakespeare Festival to plan a ‘media hub’ for.  Term ending?  Responsibilities over?  Not for me.

I’d better stop complaining, start pleading for advertising/submissions and continue taking photos.

The sooner I tick those off, the better.

I came back the Tuesday following Greek Easter, which was the week after ‘normal’ Easter, simply because us Orthodox types like to be different.  It never fails to amuse me how the dates grow a week apart for about four years until, after reaching nearly a month away from each other, the following year snaps the calendar back to having them on the same day. Rinse and repeat.  So I was unable to return to campus to continue revising until I’d eaten my own body weight in family cuisine and Greek delicacies (and also beaten my extended family at Mario Kart, too.).

What did my glorious alma mater have for me upon my return?  Well, a nice bit of sunshine and lots of frantically stressful meetings about The Orbital.  Good news about the weather, though, right? No, once term had officially started a week later, I was well on my way to having one of the worst weeks ever.

My fantastically little, yet expensive, bus-powered FW400 LaCie Rugged 500GB HDD failed.  Yep, failed. Inexplicably.  And, of course, seeing as it was filled to the brim with 19 years of accumulated music, torrented movies, TV shows and a little bit of precious data from The Orbital, I hadn’t backed it up. Of course.  Cue frantic Googling for ‘forensic data recovery’ and subsequent posting of my drive to Rapid Data Recovery.  £97-£170, they quoted me.  95% success rate, they told me. I thought I’d stave off my breakdown for a bit, in the vain hope/faith that everything would be alright.  After some frantic phonecalls every day for three days, well after my drive was Specially Delivered by Royal Mail, I couldn’t get through to this company.  What?  I’d spoken to a nice Welsh man only a few days previously! Well, on Tuesday I received a phone call in which my dear old account manager informed me that

“….your drive was a bit like a record player with a broken needle.  Every time we tried to recover the data, the needle effectively scored a new layer on the disk – resulting in 98% corrupted data.”

Why did he sound so jolly?

“Our affiliate, however, assures us that they can recover 100% of the data, and mail it to you on a new drive by Friday.  However, it’s a little more expensive.  £454, to be precise.  Now, if I could get your card details…”

In some sort of giddy stupor, drunk on the promise that my precious, precious data would be recovered, I gave this man my card details over the phone.  I have received no invoice to date, and my phone calls to the company have resulted in me learning their hold music off by heart and various staffers telling me that it’s in the post, that they’ll re-email me the invoices….If it’s not delivered by 6th May (seeing as it’s a Bank Holiday Weekend), and I don’t have sufficient communciation/a courier tracking number, I will be strapping explosives to a handgun and marching on their headquarters.  I’m now also over-budget by £150 for the entire month of May.  Already. Drinks are on you.

I thought my terrible week would end there, except my Slingbox also gave up the ghost, putting my procrastination at peril – no live TV, no downloaded content!  I had to live on iPlayer and 4OD.  Disaster.  That is of course, assuming I could actually get into my room – I lost my keycard on Monday and with nobody to let me into the flat and our buzzer-system not working for some of the other members of the block, I was stranded outside Tuke Block F looking quite folorn.  Luckily, someonehad located and handed in my precious CollegeCard and I retrieved it first thing Tuesday morning.  I only had my phone to then misplace later to fully complete Possession-Loss Bingo.

On the upside, my bad-news meetings regarding The Orbital are still in full swing, and I had my first official InsanityRadio Board Meeting as Head of Training for 2009-2010. If my Students’ Union were a lady….erm, I have no idea where I was going with that, but I’m going to leave it in – feel free to finish the sentence.

Oh, and there was the small matter of my EN1107 Inventing The Novel exam.  For three hours.  On Wednesday.  Given my inadequate preparation, I was living on borrowed time for that one, definitely repeating the 40% pass-mark mantra.  Considering I got nearly full marks in my A2 Gothic Synoptic paper, the most difficult question by far was the one I decided to answer on Frankenstein. Silly.  Lesson learnt?  Don’t assume Summer 2008 knowledge stays with you longer than it absolutely has to.  I did manage to work in the phrases ‘bastardisation’ and ‘not to trivialise murder, but…”. Little else, though.

What to do after that?  Drive home and have a roast dinner, of course.

Just when my week couldn’t get any worse, I left my house, full of chicken and potatoes to return to the Egham residence I call home.  I was making brilliant time!  I got to Guildford in eight minutes!  Passing some parked cars on the way to Woking, I noticed that the last in the line was almost multi-coloured…oh, hold on, they’re following me.  Blue lights?  Right.  Pull over. Where?  There’s traffic lights!  Fine, just pull over!

Shit.

I might’ve been going a tad fast, but the dialogue between the good officers of Surrey Police and myself was completely ridiculous.  I’ve seen enough Street Wars programmes to know that you stay in the car until you’re told otherwise.  Apparently not, in Surrey.  Once in the freezing cold, I handed over my license and registration, responsibly responding that “no, this car is not ‘nicked.’”

Playing some sort of tag-team game, the officers kept swapping over and asking me the same questions until I asked whether I could get a jacket during their prolonged conversation with each other in their nice warm squad car.  Have I had a drink tonight, officer?  No, sir?  Oh, you’re going to breathalyse me?  Good.  Well, of course it’s negative.  Sigh.  After dismantling the breathalyser for the kind officers, I’ll just wait here in the cold for a bit longer, shall I?

Police officer number two comes out and the dénouement of my encounter with the police finally begins.

“Your insurance expired last year.  And you’ve told my colleague that you haven’t renewed it yet, which means that we’re going to have to impound your car.”

“Um…no (points to certificate of insurance) that’s 28th May 2008 to 27th May 2009.”

“Oh, right, but see here it says 27th May 2009 and it’s the 29th today.”

“Um…nope, it’s the 29th April today.”

“Right, let me just make some enquiries….”

What, that April comes before May?  I freeze my arse off opposite the Magnet kitchen place and get an expected mini-lecture on speeding.

Another lesson learned – Mario Kart may not have police, but real life does.  Although I’m sure that even Yoshi knows the correct date.

I’m actually typing this on my iPhone, because I had to send in my beloved MacBook Pro to have its fan replaced.   I first discovered something was up when my usual torrenting of whichever Gilmore Girls season I didn’t yet have was accompanied by the sound of a tractor driving into the blades of a jet engine.  I know enough about Rory Gilmore to know that’s not normal.  Never fear, AppleCare was there to pick up the repair tab.

The Ambassador’s Theatre Group coupled with lastminute.com meant I went to see New Boy with Nicholas Hoult (Trafalgar Studios), I went to see La Cage Aux Folles starring Graham Norton (Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue) and I finally went to see On The Waterfront starring Stephen Berkoff (Theatre Royal, Haymarket).  I also hung around the Stage Door at each theatre like a groupie, collecting autographs like a seasoned fan. After studying Berkoff’s work during my A2 Drama & Theatre Studies syllabus, it was quite an experience to meet somewhat of a textbook idol.

Mr. Hoult, also known as thatguyfromskinsyouknowtheonewhat’shisnameohmygodTonythat’sit, was annoyingly charming. I’m just jealous.  I was a little disappointed with the production, though, which was in a tiny, tiny studio, showcasing none of the classical theatre-acting traits I wanted to see the actors cope with.

Mr. Norton was a bit smaller than I anticipated (although not as short as when I met Dawn French), yet my mum still managed to compliment the lead actor on his ‘lovely legs’, of which we saw a lot during the performance, seeing as there was a lot of drag-queen activity involved.

Mr. Berkoff casually dresses in oddly ghetto-subculture attire.  Think slack trousers and a large gold gangster hoodie. He also drives a Volkswagen Beetle.  I found this all so surprising that I missed out on an obvious Metamorphosis-jibe about his choice of vehicle.

No, actually, my night-time London pursuits didn’t stop there. I also went clubbing at 54London‘s Commercial Street venue, on one of their monthly Light nights.  That just sounds like another set  of buzzwords, doesn’t it?  To be honest, you’re probably right.  Along with two friends (Sahar & Morgan), I was there from 11pm until about 7:15am.  We’d had dinner and been to the pub beforehand, so by the time it came to leaving the venue, we were pretty worse for wear.  Not to mention Morgan and I were a little sick of the last-gasp attempts for the sexuality-questionable 95% male population of the venue to locate a breakfast mate.

The shock to the system upon seeing the bright light of day and hearing the sudden absence of a DJ in London’s East End meant it was probably time to go home.  Walking with Sahar to Aldgate East tube station, Morgan and I decided we were hungry.  Not realising that it was now 7.30 in the morning, we walked down the entire length of Mile End Road.  To find nothing open but ‘Billy’s 24hr…’ roadside shack.  Morgan chanced a ‘survivor bap’ from this one-man-stand while I decided I wasn’t that peckish after all.  The good news is that Morgan hasn’t got E.Coli. Yet.

Oh, and in a fit of SURHUL-inspired despair, we sort of broke into Queen Mary, University of London’s campus and tried to get into their spankingly-pretty Students’ Union building.  It was locked.  Now time to go our separate ways, I found that there were even fewer services operating on Sunday morning from Mile End than there were from Aldgate East almost an hour previously.  With my hatred in Transport for London renewed, sitting on the red-eyed Tube with various other shameful ‘shouldn’t-be-up-this-early-in-the-morning-normally-don’t-ask-me-where-I’ve-been’ citizens, that was the end of another chapter.

With some thrilling sights posted to Flickr entitled In which I discover the early-morning East End, (all ofwhich seemed far more fascinating at the time) and the everlasting quest to reach a photo-a-day in How I Spent April 2009,  I can safely say I don’t really want to post something this long from the iPhone WordPress client ever again.  Proofreading was…problematic.  Twitter‘s certainly on to something with a 140 character limit.

Sitting alone in the flat seems to be a habit of mine, and I’m still no sure whether I’m an agoraphobic sociopath or just plain lazy.  Let’s hope it’s the latter, eh?  Yeah, that’ll be it.  Probably.  Oo-err.

SURHUL have had another elections season, this time for the Executive Committee.  Politics, at even the base student level, simply exposes the fallacies of a finite term in any office.  Student volunteers in a part-time position for less than one solid year?  There’s going to be little ‘change we can believe in‘ at Royal Holloway.  Prove me wrong! (Please?)

Oh, our Principal has resigned.  Did you hear that?  No surprise, most of my student brethren are apathetic, or didn’t even know who the Principal was in the first place.  Either Egham is a black hole of activism or I’m just plugged in to everything to avoid my degree – oh, that’ll be it.  Nick Stylianou, the information sponge?

The end of term – this mean’s I’ve submitted all of my essays and now look forward to three exams in April/May.  Wonderful.  Seeing as my timed essays were slightly better than mediocre (i.e. suitable enough to pass the year), glorious complacency will no doubt set in.  I’m looking forward to the last-minute stress overload.  “Fuck it, 40%” seems to be the 2009 mantra.

So now I’m officially Editor of the SURHUL Publication for a year.  Let’s see what this new chapter has in store for me, shall we?  It’ll give me a bit more to do than sporadic theatre trips, wishing I was abroad while constantly refreshing lastminute.com flights and trundling around the Guildford/Godalming area in Fifi listening to Fall Out Boy.  I’ll be ringing up print companies for quotes, firing up Adobe InDesign, replying to bizarre press releases and begging for interviews and free tickets.

You probably skipped over the bizarre press releases bit.  Oh, Nick, he’s always exaggerating. No, really, among all the NUS statements, new music circulars, occasional DVD screeners, I received a press release about ‘condoms for dogs’.  Mmhmm.

Condoms.  For dogs.

Needless to say, I deleted it, but not immediately.  It required further investigation.  Sadly, it didn’t garner any adequate responses.  Do you have to apply it to the dog when it becomes aroused?  Do you have to play ‘wingman’ to your dog when he’s out on the pull, diving in when he’s just about to get his little doggy-groove on to suppress that unwanted puppy pregnancy?  Or do you staple this contraption permanently on your canine friend, producing horrifically explosive and unimaginable retrograde results?

These aren’t questions that keep me up at night, thank God.

I can always rely on my hobbies to nicely tick over and aid my time-wasting:  I’m still taking a photo a day, which surprises even myself sometimes.  I’m occasionally getting up in the morning and even the weather’s brightening up.  I’m definitely having some sort of identity crisis….

This is what I’m doing at any one time.  But for now,  I’ve got to pack my car up to go home.  Three weeks of MarioKart Wii-playing a-hoy!  I will beat you.  Waluigi is a master of karting disaster.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

But what about now?  Sure, I’m not old, and I don’t hate going out.  That’d be absurd!  Don’t jump to conclusions, now.

I think I’ve realised that I’m now glad of the time to relax at the weekend.  I’ve just woken up.  In the afternoon.  And it feels great.  I’m not worried: when time is stretched out, when you’ve got control of your own [more often than not: expansively free, 21st century student] timetable it all seems so much more manageable.  But you know what?  I’ve got some of those same commitments.

Yes, I take on responsibilities and obligations that I don’t have to.  Sure, people might think I spread myself a bit too thin.  Yes,  I hardly live the party-hard student lifestyle and yes, I don’t have a real job (yet).  But my course, my SURHUL stuff…it all adds up, and my calendar tends to get pretty busy pretty quick.

I don’t think I’m explaining it very well.  Pop psychology?  Go on, then.  Nicholas enjoys the weekend because it allows him to regain a small amount of control (feeding his egomania) that he hypocritically enjoys losing during the week (so as to allow excuses for his underperformance).  His adaptation to university lifestyle results in him noticing and musing on changes in his behaviour and reflections on the world, especially when he feels that his head might explode due to exponentially-increasing stress.  Honey, life ain’t easy: that’s lesson one.

When things get on top of you, it’s nice to know there are still those two days in a week that you can do what you want with.

I think I need to reboot, restart and

This Saturday, I’m going to have to write my assessed essays, prepare for my seminars, freak out about my exams, plan for editing the SU publication next year (including revamps to administration, marketing and publishing the thing), plan the radio show, take my photo for the day and maybe get some more sleep not going to change out of my pyjamas.  I’m going to catch up on TV programmes from my Slingbox.  I’m going to eat ready meals and chocolate.  Not necessarily in that order.  And I won’t be in a bad mood come Sunday.  I promise.

I told you I’ve been horrendously busy, so a quick recap?  I got a few poorly-written essays back, with poor marks.  I went to Societies’ Ball.  I didn’t win either of the two awards I was nominated for.  I didn’t have a very good evening.  I resigned from The Founder.

Why?  Because I decided to climb that greasy pole. Sure, it sounds like I haven’t had a good few weeks.  Whinge whinge, moan moan.

It’s been SURHUL elections season.

I ran for SU Publication Editor, commonly referred to as Editor of The Orbital.  I won.

Through stress and strain, with the help of a faithfully lovely set of campaign aides, canvassing in the freezing cold and snow, I won.

After Candidates’ Question Time, being grilled more than flaming beef, I won.

I was uncontested, but I didn’t want to seem arrogant, so I campaigned hard.  I didn’t enter the elections to gain power or accolade.  I wanted to change the SU publication into something better.  And restore faith to something I felt had massive potential.  I put my heart and soul into my speech for Candidates’ Question Time.  Maybe I didn’t smile enough.  Maybe I was too stern.  I was worried about portraying myself badly.  I think, unnaturally, I was tense.  Not nervous, just tense.  I didn’t repeat my manifesto verbatim – copies were available at the ballot boxes, online and on request.  I worked hard on something which was mine and which was much more importantly honest.

Being Orbital Editor is more than just being any society president.  It also encompasses being the editor of the Student’s Union Publication. That’s not only a role encompassing commitment and professionalism, but it also requires a much larger responsibility to all the students of Royal Holloway: (and that’s) trust.

The editor of the Guardian on its 100th birthday, CP Scott, famously wrote ‘comment is free, but facts are sacred’.
It’s that trust which needs to be upheld by whoever is chosen as editor, and for our facts to be relevant to an audience of over 8 000 students.  We need to understand and respond to the basic premise of campus media in the first place. Without a relevant publication, the publication ceases to exist.

Informing students in the best way possible may encompass a variety of formats and opinions, but it is imperative that we get a fundamentally coherent message across campus.

We’ve got a moral duty to deliver necessary information (and viewpoints) on which you can make a range of decisions about your union; as well as maintain a material existence.  The editor must operate both sides of the publication’s activity: it costs money to print, so I’ve got to make sure I can manage that. The trick is to find unity between the business and the message.  I feel I have the required skills to handle such a task, with valuable experience in enterprise and journalism.

The publication is, as Mr. Scott states: ‘an institution’.  It reflects and influences the life of a whole community – our community.
I want an informative Orbital:  the overwhelming majority of students I spoke to today look elsewhere to find out what’s happening on campus – that’s not just news, but reviews and opinion, too.

I want to improve how it’s running at the moment: online and in print.

But above all, I want to inspire students to read, write for and be proud of your publication. It is your publication. But I can’t start without gaining your trust.

But the lesson I’ve learned from this election season?  That I don’t like pigeon-holing.  I don’t like being categorised, or second-guessed.  I’m not just ‘that guy who doesn’t write for The Orbital’ or ‘that guy who’s clearly a new version of x’ or even ‘that arrogant wanker’.  My public persona takes a lot out of me.

Maybe it’s too much of Freud’s The Uncanny.  Or maybe I’m having an identity crisis?  I suppose if I knew certainly who I am, it would make it easier for me to know who I’m not.  How quintessentially adolescent.

This place is a little community.  And the problem with a cyclical little community is that there’s only enough change you can believe in before it all starts to sound the same.  Never mind about equality diversity, I’m talking about politics and sociology.  You’ve only got one chance to allow people to like you or dislike you.  And quite obviously it’s a pity there’s no answer booklet.  Now that’s pressure.  Especially since there’s only a finite amount of people here!

Forever incomplete.  And tomorrow I turn nineteen.  Maybe this time next year I’ll have more answers.  I’ll hopefully have a few successful tries under my belt by then.  And some issues of The Orbital.

Mr. Ahmed G.Wuma
03:23
Dear stylianou

I have been in search of someone with this name “stylianou “, so when I saw your name I was pushed to contact you and see how best we can assist each other. I am mr Ahmed Wuma,i am regional manager of UNITED BANK OF AFRICA GHANA(UBA). I believe it is the wish of God for me to come across you on skype now. I am having an important business discussion I wish to share with you which I believe will interest you because, it is in connection with your last name and you are going to benefit from it.

One Late Shafi stylianou,a citizen of your country had a fixed deposit with my bank in 2004 for 36 calendar months, valued at US$18,400,000.00 (Eighteen Million, Four Hundred Thousand US Dollars) the due date for this deposit contract was this 16 of January 2007. Sadly Shafi was among the death victims in the May 26 2006 Earthquake disaster in Jawa, Indonesia that killed over 5,000 people. Shafi was in Indonesia on a business trip and that was how he met his end.

My bank management is yet to know about his death, I knew about it because he was my friend and I am his account officer. He did not mention any Next of Kin/ Heir when the account was opened, and he Shafi was not married and no children. Last week my Bank Management requested that should give instructions on what to do about his funds, if to renew the contract.

I know this will happen and that is why I have been looking for a means to handle the situation, because if my Bank Directors happens to know that he is dead and do not have any Heir, they will take the funds for their personal use, so I don’t want such to happen. That was why when I saw your last name I was happy and I am now seeking your co-operation to present you as Next of Kin/ Heir to the account, since you have the same last name with him and my bank head quarters will release the account to you. There is no risk involved; the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law.

It is better that we claim the money, than allowing the Bank Directors to take it, they are rich already. I am not a greedy person, so I am suggesting we share the funds equal, 50/50% to both parties, my share will assist me to start my own company which has been my dream. Let me know your mind on this and please do treat this information as TOP SECRET. We shall go over the details once I receive your urgent response strictly through my personal email address, sulekawumareply@gmail.com

We can as well discuss this on phone; Mobile:+233-245-777-228. Have a nice day and God bless.

Anticipating your communication.
Ahmed Wuma

Gotta love Skype.

While we’re on the subject of wasting time: does writing non-descript unorthodox post-emo, post-modern poetry as procrastination from pending pieces of work count as an activity?

(Available on request.  A 500-word mini-thesis on “Why I should receive your poetry” should be sent to the usual address)

This term is spiralling out of control – I’m so horrifically busy I haven’t been able to make half the trips to see friends I’ve wanted to.  And that’s even taking into account the time I gain during the week-end, aptly coined The Holloway Exodus.

Am I in love with university, yet?  Give me a couple of weeks:  I’ll let you know by my birthday.  I’m undecided on the small-community spirit being a good thing or a bad thing.  Getting involved is great, getting misheard through the grapevine is less so.  Everyone’s nice, but you can’t avoid getting a preconceived opinion based on pure hearsay.  For a man who wants to work in the media, it’s occasionally frustrating to see not enough genuine communication taking place.

My to-do list is also multiplying exponentially. At some point I’ve also got to find a house and some housemates in this small town. But for now, I’m cutting through the mess by posting to Twitter; providing the world with bite-sized nuggets of self-absorbed content influenced by what I’m listening to, what I’m avoiding, or simply what I’m just trying to fill my head with.  Cor, I’m just a laugh riot.

I swear, I have a life.  A relatively normal one.  Outside of the internet, honest.  I just don’t know when to stop.

Mr. Wuma, I put this to you:  Can a man such as yourself prove to me that this is not of some sort of egoistical manufacture? If you are indeed employing the values of ethical altruism then surely a 50/50 split would be in both of our self-interests? Idealistically speaking, the reasons you are contacting me are false, and therefore your irrelevant claim of philanthropy would actually indicate a more communist theme – but how do you know I am not already rich?  Furthermore, to reinvest our newly-found funds in free-market capitalism would prove contradictory, leaving us in some odd pseudo-socialist limbo, wouldn’t you agree? It is for these reasons I cannot accept your offer without further ethical, moral and political counsel.  Apologies for the discourse, but I feel it is necessary to furthering our ‘important business discussion’.

Mr. Ahmed G.Wuma
04:17
you sound great my dear
well can i have your email address so i can furnish you more details about me and the fund

As soon as you can ‘furnish’ my questions, you can have my e-mail address.  Then again, maybe not.

“I’ve had better”.  That’s a phrase I’ve uttered numerous times since I’ve been back at university.  In case anyone thinks I was being my usual coy (read: cryptically, annoyingly-closed) self, it’s because my dad spent most of the winter break in hospital.  I think I was entitled to be a small misery guts, mmkay?  Christmas Day, however, was one of the few days which passed without a hitch. Congratulations to Team Stylianou!

So, to further elaborate on going home properly for the first time in many weeks: no washing up, no macaroni cheese ready meals….the ability to drive into Guildford town centre whenever I wanted…it was student bliss.

I’ve got a packed 2009, though.  After spending a New Year’s Eve with a select three friends and my mother (and my Wii), I decided I’d take at least one photo for every day of the new year.  A daunting, perhaps clichéd task?  Well, my reasoning was that it would force me to not only become horrifically familiar with my dSLR, but also seize control of my days and actually…do something. Eating and sleeping is now permanently fixed in my timetable, not an optional module for my time.  Not forgetting that I plan to merge the term ‘get involved’ and ‘Student’s Union’ to a new extreme.  From my QMUL visit to a Taboo party in Egham, my plan has worked so far.

Having said that my year was to be busy, campus is as dull as ever.  This greatly disappoints me.  Although I’m busy Monday-Friday with my course and various SU commitments, the amount of people who have left by 7pm on a Friday is tragic.  I’ve had an all-time high of three people (including myself) who have stayed the weekend in a flat of eight.  To take that average and place it in context, that’s roughly 37% of people who stay on campus and in Egham at the weekends. Ridiculous!  A new term would surely bring a change to this – we’re settled in, we’ve made friends.  Why, essentially, do people feel the need to commute to university if they have a place on campus!  I’m sorry, but this gets me riled up.  So much so, that I’m sitting in my flat, watching my home Sky+ streaming from my Slingbox.  Actually, that’s not too bad…

Check in to my flickr account, have a look at my eclectic(ly embarrassing) last.fm charts and hopefully I’ll be back more often with some personal gonzo journalism. I also accept unannounced campus visits, invitations to other universities and [love] letters.  This term?  I’m going to have a better one.

Time to leave the comfortable campus bubble and return to the wider world.  New friends, new responsibilities, new courses.  As for the world I left behind about three months ago?  It’s in a different part of Surrey, and they need Christmas presents.

September 20th – December 13th 2008.

Does my Fresher status expire when we go back in January?

University certainly lives up to the stereotype: it’s a new chapter, but I think I’m done with the settling-in process, now.  I’ll see Royal Holloway, University of London again on January 12th (or thereabouts).  And hopefully I’ll be as hyper-organised and as raring to go as I was in the Autumn.

I’ll certainly be well-fed.  I hope I don’t forget how to wash-up, now…

]]> http://nmsonline.co.uk/archives/41/feed 0 http://nmsonline.co.uk/archives/35 http://nmsonline.co.uk/archives/35#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:45:57 +0000 Nick http://nmsonline.co.uk/?p=35 Well, that was certainly one of the most odd evenings I’ve had.  And a rollercoaster of emotion.

Before I begin, what’s happened recently? I received my NUJ press pass in the post (yay!) but ended up not being allocated tickets for the Guardian Student Media Conference (boo!).

Last night, I went to see Wintersleep support Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip in London, with a friend.  He shall hereby only be known as “BB”.  An simple evening out, one might think.  A train from Egham, up to our desired location via Waterloo and London Underground.  Back in time to catch last order’s at InsanityRadio‘s House Party at the SU.

On the tube. 1930 (doors open at 2000)

NS:  So, where are we going?
BB:  Club Koko?
NS:  Ah, cool.
BB:  Do you know how to get there?  I’ve got no idea.
NS:  (slightly perturbed) er…yeah, it’s in Camden, but it’s closer if we get off at Mornington Crescent.
BB:  Cool.

A true 2008 student-to-student dialogue.  It was also revealed that BB was off too see Wintersleep the following night at Koko, too.  With a different main act.  Slightly odd, seeing as there was only that gig mentioned on the website…

We arrive at Koko in Camden.  There’s a large man dressed as Uncle Sam and people dressed as cowboys filing in to the venue.  Well, our acts for tonight have certainly taken a change in musical direction…

Camden.  2000

BB:  (walking up to the door, pulling out tickets from inside jacket pocket)
Bouncer:  Er…nope.
NS:  ….what’s going on?
Bouncer:  Not ‘ere, mate.
(pause)
BB:  Ah, mate – it says Club FANDANGO on here!  (chuckles)
NS: (exasperated) Well, where the bloody hell is that?

iPhone 3G to the rescue!  A quick Google reveals Club Fandango is located at 24 Highbury Grove, N1.  To the tube, to take us deeper into North London!  And we’re running late – doors are already open!

Tube takes us from Mornington Crescent to Highbury & Islington.

iPhone with Google Maps navigates us to Higbury Grove.  We start walking down the street, briskly.

2030, after walking for approximately 10 minutes.

BB:  (counting) 56…58…60
NS:  Oh, wait!
BB:  What?
NS:  Bugger.  Turn around, it’s at the other end.
(more time passes)
NS:  28…26…24.
BB:  Is this it?

We’ve arrived at a house.  Just a house in Islington. iPhone 3G now reveals that we’ve travelled to the record label’s registered address, not one of their many gig venues.  Cue tears of blood and frostbite setting in to my numbing hands.  Capacitive touchscreen sapping my soul.

2050

BB:  Aw, mate!  It’s on the ticket!
NS: (apoplectic exasperation)
BB:  229 Great Portland Street!  How do we get there?

Nervous twitching aside,  I navigate back to the tube, and get us to change onto the Hammersmith and City line at King’s Cross for Great Portland Street.  As we’re waiting for our train, we relax.  BB sneezes.  At the precise moment a shorter Oriental lady walks in front of him, resulting in BB sneezing right onto her face.  The most hilarious event of the journey thus far.

BB, shellshocked, and I board our tube train, arrive at Great Portland Street, ask for directions to the gig venue, get heckled by the bouncer and enjoy a gig. Wonderful.  The last train to Egham leaves at 11.30, so we’ve got to elave in enough time, which we do.  We board a train at Great Portland Street Station.  Scroobius Pip is on the platform opposite, a good time was had by all.  We’ll change at Baker Street and hop to Waterloo.

Until BB and I got chatting about university.  Our course, literature, etc.

2315

Announcer:  The next station is Finchley Road.
BB/NS:          Bugger.

We’ve missed our stop.  Fantastic.  A lengthy wait at Finchley Road to catch a train to Waterloo ensures we completely miss the last train to Egham.  Just our luck, really.  Our revised plan: a train to Staines and a cab.  We’re not talking by this point.

We arrive at Staines, befriending an Inebriated BusinessMan (IBM) at the taxi rank.  We agree to share a taxi.  When it pulls up, we are treated to:

0045

IBM:  Where’re’you headed?
Us:   Egham (for the second time)
IBM:  (to the Taxi Driver) Awright, c’n you go to Bracknell via Egham?
TD:   Sure, sir.

Now just repeat this dialogue for the next fifteen minutes:

IBM:  So, where do you guys live?
Us:   Egham.
IBM:  So, where do you guys….

Yep.  Until we revealed we were off to a student radio station party.

IBM:  Aw, mate, what is it?
Us:   Er…it’s a student radio station.
IBM: Yeah, yeah, but what is it?
Us:   Er…it’s a student radio station.
IBM: YEAH I KNOW THAT BUT WHAT IS IT?
Us:   Oh, er 1287AM…

IBM then wrestles with Taxi Driver to tune radio, with car swerving in road.  Not the safest of journeys, but we finally make it to Royal Holloway, unscathed.  InsanityRadio gains two more listeners.

0115

We arrive at the SU just in time to see the party wrapping up.

I’d like to say that I’d seen the last of the unexpected events of the evening…

Well, I’m sitting in an empty flat.  In my dressing gown. All seven other residents have gone home for the weekend, and I’m trying to work out whether I should be going home or finding something more exciting to do.  It’s tempting to go for a bit of a Risky Business-esque montage right now.

This is university, after all.  I didn’t expect it to be a place where people watch lots of TV and go home once a week.  Then again, cooking a ready meal and watching EastEnders on BBC iPlayer appears to be the highlight of my Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Oh, for all my complaining, I did go home last week, as I was quite ill with a horrible fever/flu combination akin to meningitis minus the rashes.  Cue delirium, co-codamol and lots of TLC for a week. I’m much better now, my faithful readership should be pleased to know.

Someone please tell me what I should be writing?

Except, of course: my essays [earlier than 12 hours before the deadlines]; The Founder articles; the plan for the InsanityRadio News Show [nice: discretely embedded hyperlink plugging.].

Hooray for Obama; Goodness me, what were Brand and Ross thinking?; Credit crunch/Recession.  I’ve suitably sated my Google rankings for another month.

The easiest way by far to keep up with my life is apparently following me on Twitter – my updates are numerous, self-involved and ego-centric.  Narcissistically, precisely like this blog.

As the Freshers’ hysteria period has worn off, it’s now only permitted for a small minority of well-connected people who are publicising something or have a form of mild amnesia to wander up to other students and ask who they are while giving a brief synopsis of their own life.  As for seminars: it appears you keep your mouth shut if you’ve got a good idea, ’cause otherwise it’ll be poached by that one in the corner who doesn’t speak.  Do I abide by this rule?  Of course not.  Conversely: if you love the sound of your own voice or want to piss people off to make the hour go faster, you blag your heart out aloud.  You wouldn’t want it to get dull, would you?  If I’ve learnt anything so far, it’s that any BBC adaptations are suitable alternatives to reading any texts.  Except they’re a bit difficult to cite in essays.

Two more (assessed – panic!) essays left and that’s the Autumn Term done.  Does anyone else miss “Michaelmas”, “Trinity” and “Lent”?  Nope, just me. Just me, in this flat.  And EastEnders isn’t on.  Back to the Facebook Live Feed, with this blaring at full volume.  Productivity, eh?

I went to Cyprus, which was fine.  Relaxing, reading my pre-University reading list, sun, sea, sand…

I went to see underOATH at The Astoria, but really went for the support band, Envy on the Coast, who I met after the gig.

You know what? I can’t be bothered to do this chronologically.  We’re going for a stream-of-consciousness thing, now.

I’m at university.  Royal Holloway, University of London.  It’s in Egham, really.  Freshers’ Week?  That was dull, considering I expected a debaucherous seven-day festival.  Plus, everyone goes home at the weekend.

Now that was a depressing start to the term, as I learned a few home truths: it’s quicker for me to get to London (and more direct) from Godalming than Egham; everyone goes home at the weekend; our “Special Guest” at the Freshers’ Ball was Razorlike.

No, not Razorlight, but their tribute band.  And that was the most interesting event our Union had to offer.

My flat is great, though.  Only a year old, the block is great – eight flats to a kitchen, spacious, modern, each with en suite.  Granted, it’s not Founder‘s, but unlike their catered, Grade I-listed 19th Century castle (Serbian hostel-esque accommodation), we have internet and our own shower.  You can weigh that one up yourself.  Anyway, everyone here is lovely, and my eight flatmates (six ladies, two men) are equally fun.  Of note, we managed to get almost the whole block in our kitchen for a warming par-tay on the first night.  That’s about thirty-five people.  The second night we went out on a mediocre pub crawl, so we came home early and stole a To Let sign.

If you want to write to me: Tuke Hall, F-3A-05.  That’s block F, on the third floor, on the right next to our kitchen. Just buzz and I’ll let you in, and you can see my room.  It looks a bit like this:

Anyway, after the ‘hysteria’ of Freshers’ Week, this ‘teaching and learning’ part of university began.  I’ve got Wednesdays and Thursdays off, and 5 lectures and 5 seminars around that.  It’s not particularly intensive, either – most notably there was a “student” in my Introduction To Sonnets lecture who learned for the first time that Shakespeare wrote sonnets.  Who knew?

At some point over the first three weeks, I’ve come down with a terrible, incurable case of Freshers’ Fever. As well as the flu, it involves signing up to…everything.  It’s also identified as ‘being a bit of a whore’ and may include ‘spreading oneself too thin’.

So, my first port of call, was reputable and successful independent (i.e. no money from the SU, and therefore allowed to slag off the SU if we want) student newspaper, The Founder.  Inexplicably, surprisingly, ecstatically, I’m News Editor.  And the only Fresher on the Editorial Board.  Wrote my first article and it made it onto (the left hand side of) the front page.  Hear that ma?  I’m a real (student) journalist.  My NUJ press pass is in the post and everything.

Next stop, Insanity Radio, an official Student’s Union media outlet.  After a cock-up with ringing me, I didn’t manage to get a presenter slot (bah!), but hopefully I’ll be on the News Show.  See a developing theme? Mm.  I’m on the music team for Insanity, too, which gets me lots of free CDs I have to review and I’m interviewing Pause.Break.Riot on 23rd October. Exciting.

Okay, so I’m disillusioned with the Union.  What do I do about it? Become Halls Representative for Tuke, Butler and Williamson, Student Representative for the Media/Communications sub-committee and Commercial Services sub-committee, obviously (?!!).  But I did make sure I didn’t nominate myself for First Year Rep.  That’s a bit too much.

I overslept and missed all team trials in my first week (not that I was ever in any team at RGS), but my heart’s really in this journalism lark, which you already knew about me, anyway.  So I dropped out of the Drama Society’s chorus role they gave me, and inexplicably got embroiled in the Media Society, becoming Communications Officer.  I only went to their AGM because my seminar was next door.  I swear, apart from The Founder and Insanity Radio (maybe the SU sub-par publication The Orbital ‘magazine’), I didn’t really want to do anything else.

My sleeping patterns now revolve around going to bed at close to five every morning, which means my Critical Practice essay on Homer for Friday is being done….now.  Pope vs. Fagles, anyone?

Oh, food.  I always forget about that. Having your own kitchen is great, and I do love cooking, but I’ve learned to love the simplicity and efficiency of ready meals.

Remove sleeve. Pierce film.

Fantastic.

I spent a week-end fixing that laptop with the “broken soundcard”.  As it turns out, a small cable on the motherboard had fallen out of its correct socket, and I spent £50 for Disking Godalming to tell me nothing could be done and I bought an external soundcard, after taking it inter-railing with me.  However, the minute I have some spare time when I get back, I can fix it.  I want my money back.  Computer specialists my arse.

No fewer than 96 hours had I been in the UK, I ended up being invited to tea at The Ritz by my family, which was posh.  Nothin’ like some scones and cucumber sandwiches for three hours.  It certainly makes up for budget-pizzas in Belgrade.

Ah, and I went up to London on my own to get a 16Gb white iPhone, something Carphone Warehouse and O2 Guildford have never even heard of.  I then proceeded to screw up putting on the ill-fitting invisibleSHIELD, while my number was transferred a few days later.  Apart from my dirtily rough edges, it’s a great phone do-it-all device.  Apart from the dodgy 3G coverage, the lack of MMS, a built in tasks app and the learning curve on the keyboard.  Actually, the keyboard exceeded my expectations, so I’ll hush my mouth.

My friend Nick Manners’ surprise birthday party went without a hitch, too.  Unless you count him getting paralytically drunk and vomiting on people a hitch.  A good time was had by all, even the comatose.  Racing around the streets of Guildford in my newly-repaired Fifi rounded off another week.  Fifi being my car, and no, I didn’t break it, there was a manufacturer’s fault with the doors.

Seeing as I’m having a bit of a rant (I started this blog on the 14th and it was to be an eloquent, mildy-philosophical piece of web poetry, but now I’m tired and ratty…), I’d like to have a little bit of a go at the NHS.  I had an eye check-up appointment with my lovely doctor at the Royal Surrey County Hospital.  Except, I didn’t see my doctor, because due to some administrative cock-up, she wasn’t allowed to work.  I don’t know.  Anyway, I get told that I need to have my pupils dilated (something that I haven’t had since I was a short-sighted fidgety five year-old.), which is a non-negotiable procedure (good job I didn’t drive to the hospital, wasn’t it?) and I see a stand-offish doctor and another, unintroduced man in my examination room.  What is he doing there?  Why wasn’t he introduced?  I hardly had time to bring this to the attention of my “doctor” (well, I didn’t see any qualifications on the walls…) before my pupils were the size of dinner plates and the fluorescent lights felt as though they were burning into the very centre of my retinae.  Even quicker was my examination, a few more painful lights shining into my eyes and I was told that my prescription had worsened.  By almost two dioptre.  Psh.  He didn’t even do the “Number one…or number two…” bit.  No “red or green?”, no “which line can you read?”.  And my pupils didn’t go down for nearly three days.  First thing Monday morning I went to a reputable Guildford optician, and had my examination re-taken.  This time, only a difference of -0.5.  Well there we bloomin’ go, that’s better.

What else happened?  Er, I went to a “Monster Mash”, I enjoyed the Olympics, my Sky+ box got fixed..?

Oh, wait, yes.  Results day.  That was it. Refreshing the UCAS system ’til 3 in the morning while watching BBC Three late-night crap/comedy gold/crap (delete as applicable).  Well, that didn’t prove very fruitful, as no-one from UCAS seems to actually operate in the small hours of the morning (they haven’t outsourced to a non-GMT place….yet.), so I groggily drove myself to school at about 11 am.  I got an A in English, an A in Drama & Theatre Studies, a B in French and a B in Spanish.  If you’re an Edexcel Drama A2 practical invigilator, I now detest you with a passion, given that my favourite performance piece, for which I had the largest part, garnered a module-crippling C.  Cheers, love.

Anyway, these results mean I comfortably got into RHUL.  Cue lots of enrolment letters and an online ‘campus-connect’ registration. Funky. I’ll meet my fellow captains of industry on 21st September.

In between all the exciting university correspondence, I went to Reading Festival 2008!  My third year at Reading, I saw lots and lots of bands, as to be expected from a music festival….but I also met Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, The Teenagers (exercising my A-level French) and We Are Scientists.  And made some new [Facebook] friends in the queue.  I’ve already booked for ’09.  I love student credit cards.  Credit crunch? Is that a cereal?  Turns the milk into….debt?  Repossesses your bowl?  Okay, okay, I’ll stop.

You’ll be pleased to hear that I’m off to Cyprus from 3rd-10th September, but hopefully I’ll start blogging more regularly than once a month, or in this case, once every two moths.  These late-night/early-morning sessions don’t seem to be good for much, sitting at home watching TV and rambling on the internet.

Bugger.  I’ve just taken a break from watching the US Open (it starts at 4pm and ends at 4am, coinciding with my new sleeping pattern…) to see Manchester Utd (yay!) get beaten by Zenit St. Petersburg (boo!) in the UEFA Super Cup.  Hear that?  That’s the sound of no-one, apart from me, caring.

I’m preparing for uni at the moment; buying exorbitant amounts of books but not reading them, looking at bed linen and crockery but not buying anything…actually, I’d better get on with some of this.  Time to get the next chapter of my life kick-started.

The first time is the next time
This time is the last time
And this time is the last time
’cause this time I’ll fight.

Ah. I didn’t factor in Freshers’ Week, did I?

Okay.

I’ve had my last A-level exam, I’ve returned (most) of my books, we’ve had the leavers’ ceremony, we’ve been to the pub with our teachers afterwards. I’m a little numb from it all, really.  Apart from the yearbook and the OG tie..we’ve only got our own memories and anecdotes.  Seven years. It’s a long time.  For our leavers’ statement (which wasn’t even included in my pack), I mashed up my personal yearbook entry and my UCAS statement, cobbling together an irony-tinged last-minute bit of prose, written at some ungodly hour the night before two and a half weeks after the deadline:

A seven-year relationship is difficult to summarise, let-alone forget, and as with all experiences there have been ups and downs.  At times my patience has most definitely been strained due to my insistence on seeking out extra-curricular activities to occupy my time:  with Amnesty, hosting the Charity Gigs, Young Enterprise, Schools Without Walls, the House Reading competition (unbeaten 5 years in a row…), countless school plays and the Junior Drama Society among others, I’ve certainly been kept busy – and away from the sports field!  Although I may lack a legacy, I certainly know my liason with the RGS will stay with me forever.  I may have occasionally let the pressure overwhelm my emotions, but if you don’t crack the shell, you can’t eat the nut.

I hope the RGS will miss me as much as I will miss it – take from that what you want!  Nevertheless, I’ve made some friends I hope I shall never lose contact with, certainly my time on Facebook to the detriment of my work has seen to that!  Whether or not the school has made me who I am is left open to debate, and I’m sure I will have to fend off the stigma of being a ‘posh Surrey private school ****’ all my life, but I certainly wouldn’t have been content to go anywhere else.

With my A2 grades, my leaver’s hoody and my yearbook, my year is finally at an end, and I shall walk out of the RGS gates for the final time, free from the daily grind that, dare I say it, brought an enjoyable, community-feel to the centre of Guildford. What do I do now? Well, I hope to study English at RHUL, with aspirations of becoming a broadcast journalist   As Tom Stoppard said in a 1988 Guardian interview – “I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon”.

To try and stem the tide of sentimental emotions and the inevitable “what am I doing with my life?”/”I’ve-made-all-the-wrong-university-decisions-and-achieved-nothing” breakdowns, I’ve been to A Midsummer Night’s Dream post-exams party, a Superheroes-themed party…

I got invited to Centre Court at Wimbledon (debenture seats – thanks Tim & Mr. Scott!) to test out my new camera, eat strawberries and cream, watch Djokovic get knocked out and Federer beat Soderling… and now I’m packing to go inter-railing with these people for three weeks.   Oh, and I fixed my iPod by uploading 13368 songs individually to target the problem. Yay!  In case you didn’t catch the embedded link, you go here for updates now.

It’s a hard life, eh?

Actually, I’m knackered.  And so is my bank balance.

Well, school’s over for me, in the sense that I have no more timetabled lessons. I haven’t been able to celebrate the descent into freedom, as I’ve had rather more urgent matters in my Drama practical exam and French & Spanish orals, but they’re over now, too.

I compèred and performed at my final RGS Charity Gig, oddly enough I wasn’t sentimental enough at the time, but I didn’t realise how fun that all was. I organised it with George Badham again this year and we managed to raise over £1500 in net profit, all for charity. Cor, think about what I could make privately…

The band’s ticking over – I think we’re all resigned to university tearing our plans down. The odd gig here and there, the odd bit of post-production by me. [Got Facebook? Become a fan.]

I went to Fabric for the first time, got messy and had fun. The place even has a vibrating floor in one of the rooms. I’m definitely catching the train from RHUL up to there quite a lot. However, I’ve actually got to meet my ABB offer from them, first. Better get revising, then. Hmm.

Oh, I passed my driving test and now have a used black Fiat Grande Punto (1.2 Active, for those interested), called Fifi (I like this bad boy.).

I’m not going to have my laptop (it’s only just been repaired – it’s not going anywhere.), therefore I’m not going to have the internet. Okay, get all the “teenager-can’t-live-without-internet-what-has-become-of-the-youth-of-today” complaints out of the way, I get it. But I’m not going to have my camera (my Sony DSC-T1 packed up on me), although Dad’s found some old (read: rubbish) cameras from work. I’m also not going to have my iPod, because THAT decided to give Spain a miss, too, what with it not being able to load music without resetting itself until the battery runs out – this is greatly distressing. True story.

I’m at that stage where all my once cutting-edge technology has decided to fail on me. Nick the consumer says: I’m not impressed. I think it influences my purchases, too. I want to buy a dSLR – the Sony Alpha series looks good, but after my camera’s screen went all purple and blurry after only four years (only? Can I say that?) and the service was sub-par, do I take the plunge with them? Back to the epic Canon/Nikon debate for me, then. As far as I can tell, the Canon kit lenses aren’t great. I personally like the Pentax K10D, but I can’t really find a decent stockist ’round these parts. More on that soon.

So I’m sitting here packing some books (*gasp*) and a Canon PowerShot A460. I’m also dabbling in charging my phone, which is convinced it’s November 2003 and I have an unread voice message. Sometimes I think technology’s not worth it. Then I play with my Mac some more.

(I’m going away Saturday 29th – Tuesday April 1st)

I’ve inherited a pro account as a result of having a BT[internet/Yahoo!/openworld/broadband] account, which is fairly nifty.  It gives me ‘unlimited’ storage, but I’m not entirely sure how to use it.  Do I upload ALL of my photos? Even as a backup?  Sure, why not.  I can’t be bothered to sift through them all and pick the best composed shot out of five from three years ago.  Yep, teenage laziness strikes again.  There are some good ones in there, real gems (even if I do say so myself) but you’ll probably be seeing mostly trash via the widget on your right.  Shame.  Feel free to have a look and comment, and suggest for deletion, if you can be bothered with judging blurriness.  Outsourcing – that’s the future.

Now, I may have spoken ill of WordPress in the past, but it’s really pulled its socks up – I’m certainly a stickler for anything with a ‘Dashboard’. Let the Easter Holidays commence full of tweaking, polishing and adding content.

Oh, and…er…revision. Yes, Mum. Of course.