I’m still heavily influenced by what I watch on film and TV, by what I read in books.
It all sort of goes back to that childish imnagination which is triggered by what you see. If you watch and episode of Power Rangers you want to be one; you spend hours wanting to use dinosaur powers to turn yourself into an intergalactic ninja. Then you get a bit older and after seeing a James Bond film you want to drink martinis in sharp suits and pick up continental women. Finally you just start being influenced by lifestyle ideas from films, books and TV.
A while ago I considered starting a diary after seeing Cruel Intentions again, which indirectly led me to blogging – but that’s another story for another time! However, after watching High Fidelity the other day I picked up on a different idea; Top Fives.
As a self-professed indecisive, Top Five lists actually work quite well for me. It’s pretty easy, and makes for a good time killer. Time is one thing I’m very long on at the moment.
So every now and again, I’ll be sharing my Top Five lists with all you lovely people.
So starting simple;
TOP FIVE FILMS OF ALL TIME
1. Fight Club
2. Star Wars (the original trilogy)
3. The Dark Knight
4. Pulp Fiction
5. Silence of the Lambs
TOP FIVE TV SHOWS
1. How I met your mother
2. Doctor Who
3. Scrubs
4. Top Gear
5. House
TOP FIVE SONGS (AT THE MOMENT)
1. American Pie – Don McLean
2. House of the Rising Song – The Animals
3. Hotel California – The Eagles
4. Viva La Vida - Coldplay
5. Hurt – Johnny Cash
So there we go, for the moment. I’m now back after a slightly mad month or so, but more about that at another time. If you ever find yourself with too much time give Top Five’s a shot yourself.
Showing posts with label Thoughts of a Former Student. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thoughts of a Former Student. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
We are the angry mob
Public outcry seems to have been something of a theme for this year. Following the highly publicised events of ‘Sachsgate’ and the debate over the Jan Moir article on Stephen Gately, it appears that the public enjoy voicing their displeasure with things. Often with consequences for those being complained about. The possible problem with this is that the victims of public outrage become vilified by the one sided vitriolic outpourings, and often become symbolically lynched by the mob.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that those who have suffered at the hands of public outrage don’t deserve it; my question is are theses complaints being made for the right reason?
While working the other day I was ‘fortunate’ enough to experience a form of this public outcry first hand.
It was the middle of a relatively quiet Tuesday for those of you who care. I was the only member of staff on the bar, and busy serving the three tables of customers who were patronising it. While I was taking an order from a couple the peace of the place was interrupted by a man bursting through the door and declaring “Oi mate, some old boy’s just tripped over your sign!” before sweeping out of the place again. A glance out of the window showed a rapidly expanding crowd forming outside the front of the bar. Figuring that this should be dealt with, I excused myself to the customers in the bar and walked outside. That was an experience! I was met in the doorway by a woman who was about to stride into the bar to tell me what had happened, just in case I hadn’t heard her predecessor. Apparently pleased to have someone to turn on each member of the crowd kindly informed me that my personal sign had assaulted an old man, and this was frankly a disgrace. I did happen to notice however that all these concerned individuals were ignoring the injured old man! Once I got to talk to the gentleman concerned he seemed fairly relaxed about it all, saying he just wanted to get his paper and go home. “But you fell over the sign, you must be hurt” one of our band of well-wishers ventured, “probably very shaken up” another kindly observed – no the gentleman was fine, he’d had worse and just wanted to go and get his paper please. Apparently this was the end of the incident, the gentleman was allowed to relax for a moment, and the crowd – seeing there was no trouble to be made - disappeared faster than they appeared.
The point here is this; were these people complaining because they were concerned for the old man and others walking the streets? Or was it simply an excuse to get outraged at something and make a noise about it? Free speech is all well and good, but do some people have to be so free about it? I would go so far as to suggest that in many of these cases, most of the complaints are made because people want something to complain about, not because they care about the issue at hand. If I remember rightly the number of complaints made about the phone calls to Andrew Sachs went up significantly after the Daily Mail reported the article, declaring how disgusting it all was. It turns out that a significant number of the complaining mob had never even heard the phone calls.
Apparently then, lots of these complaints are in fact regurgitated bile passed down from one source through a herd of bleating sheep, who have no personal opinion on the matter, but like making noise about something. Well do us all a favour, and stop it. A mass lynching by a noisy, but ill-informed, mob is not exercising your freedom of speech, nor is it standing up for what’s right. By all means if you have an opinion which needs defending, go ahead. If you are genuinely concerned for the well-being of the injured party, then make yourself heard. But if you just want to make noise because you can, then sing in the shower. Or if you really need to jump on a bandwagon and have your say then go into politics!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that those who have suffered at the hands of public outrage don’t deserve it; my question is are theses complaints being made for the right reason?
While working the other day I was ‘fortunate’ enough to experience a form of this public outcry first hand.
It was the middle of a relatively quiet Tuesday for those of you who care. I was the only member of staff on the bar, and busy serving the three tables of customers who were patronising it. While I was taking an order from a couple the peace of the place was interrupted by a man bursting through the door and declaring “Oi mate, some old boy’s just tripped over your sign!” before sweeping out of the place again. A glance out of the window showed a rapidly expanding crowd forming outside the front of the bar. Figuring that this should be dealt with, I excused myself to the customers in the bar and walked outside. That was an experience! I was met in the doorway by a woman who was about to stride into the bar to tell me what had happened, just in case I hadn’t heard her predecessor. Apparently pleased to have someone to turn on each member of the crowd kindly informed me that my personal sign had assaulted an old man, and this was frankly a disgrace. I did happen to notice however that all these concerned individuals were ignoring the injured old man! Once I got to talk to the gentleman concerned he seemed fairly relaxed about it all, saying he just wanted to get his paper and go home. “But you fell over the sign, you must be hurt” one of our band of well-wishers ventured, “probably very shaken up” another kindly observed – no the gentleman was fine, he’d had worse and just wanted to go and get his paper please. Apparently this was the end of the incident, the gentleman was allowed to relax for a moment, and the crowd – seeing there was no trouble to be made - disappeared faster than they appeared.
The point here is this; were these people complaining because they were concerned for the old man and others walking the streets? Or was it simply an excuse to get outraged at something and make a noise about it? Free speech is all well and good, but do some people have to be so free about it? I would go so far as to suggest that in many of these cases, most of the complaints are made because people want something to complain about, not because they care about the issue at hand. If I remember rightly the number of complaints made about the phone calls to Andrew Sachs went up significantly after the Daily Mail reported the article, declaring how disgusting it all was. It turns out that a significant number of the complaining mob had never even heard the phone calls.
Apparently then, lots of these complaints are in fact regurgitated bile passed down from one source through a herd of bleating sheep, who have no personal opinion on the matter, but like making noise about something. Well do us all a favour, and stop it. A mass lynching by a noisy, but ill-informed, mob is not exercising your freedom of speech, nor is it standing up for what’s right. By all means if you have an opinion which needs defending, go ahead. If you are genuinely concerned for the well-being of the injured party, then make yourself heard. But if you just want to make noise because you can, then sing in the shower. Or if you really need to jump on a bandwagon and have your say then go into politics!
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
New Look
Ok, so after no posts for ages suddenly theres three in a day, wierd huh? It's not quite as odd as it seems, and no I haven't suddenly got the urge and spent all night writing either. For a while now I've had three or four blogs floating around the internet, on various subjects, so to keep life simpler I'm moving them all to one place. So from now on this here is where i will post all my blogs under their various different headings. So there will be Positive News Blogs, there will be the standard Thoughts of a Former Student blogs, there will be the Theatre Blogs which I've got floating around, and I have plans for a couple of others too. So keep checking back; if I've written it you'll find it here!
Friday, 18 September 2009
Trying to avoid adulthood.
How often do we reach a proverbial crossroads in our lives?
My name is Chris Madden, I have just finished university and find myself striding out into the real world. I’ll be honest, this is not my first foray into the world, I took a gap year before university, and spent half of it travelling round the USA. But this point in my life is the first time I’ve been living ‘without a net’ as it were.
I’m sure any of you reading this who are around your late teens/early twenties, or those of you who have passed through this period, can sympathise with the sensations I’m about to describe. It’s the nagging sensation that education is over and adulthood should probably be beginning. Money is short, and the parents are beginning to get tetchy over when you’re going to get a job. To be honest though, a job is not often at the forefront of the mind at the moment. I’ve discovered that the side effect of doing a degree which is not profession specific (English and Greek Civilisation) is that I don’t have a job to stumble into. A part of me envies the medics who know exactly where they’re heading after their degree finishes. While I do have a long term plan, it seems that this is more a time when I should be travelling, and experiencing the world before getting tied down to the finalities of jobs.
So with that in mind we arrive here. This is the crossroads, and I have done a pretty good job of making it far more dramatic and clichéd than I intended to. Nevermind, join me here for a small insight into the life of someone moving on from education, but trying desperately to avoid adulthood!
My name is Chris Madden, I have just finished university and find myself striding out into the real world. I’ll be honest, this is not my first foray into the world, I took a gap year before university, and spent half of it travelling round the USA. But this point in my life is the first time I’ve been living ‘without a net’ as it were.
I’m sure any of you reading this who are around your late teens/early twenties, or those of you who have passed through this period, can sympathise with the sensations I’m about to describe. It’s the nagging sensation that education is over and adulthood should probably be beginning. Money is short, and the parents are beginning to get tetchy over when you’re going to get a job. To be honest though, a job is not often at the forefront of the mind at the moment. I’ve discovered that the side effect of doing a degree which is not profession specific (English and Greek Civilisation) is that I don’t have a job to stumble into. A part of me envies the medics who know exactly where they’re heading after their degree finishes. While I do have a long term plan, it seems that this is more a time when I should be travelling, and experiencing the world before getting tied down to the finalities of jobs.
So with that in mind we arrive here. This is the crossroads, and I have done a pretty good job of making it far more dramatic and clichéd than I intended to. Nevermind, join me here for a small insight into the life of someone moving on from education, but trying desperately to avoid adulthood!
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