Hannah Likes Sheep Baa

Snow?!

2012-02-08T22:33:00.001Z

For a while, the idea of snow has been batted about. Will it snow? Won't it snow? Will it reach London? Did you see it sleet for two minutes? Well, at the weekend, it finally snowed in London.

It was the first time I'd seen snow in London and to be honest, snow at home is much more exciting. Sure, London looks clean for once directly after the snowfall but before long, the smog makes the ice black and the snow just melts away. Bit anticlimatic if you ask me.

I was on Skype to my parents earlier and they still have quite a lot of snow left in the garden. Here in London, the snow was practically gone before I had a chance to turn around and say snowball fight! Then again, it being London, I wasn't so inclined to have a snowball fight as the snow just doesn't seem as clean as at home. No offence London.

Anyway, I took a few pictures from the hill near my university so I thought I'd share them here. I was also in Soho when it snowed however I didn't have my camera with me then so I don't have any pictures of a dark, snowy Soho or Picadilly Circus.

Live long and keep blogging =]

Helping the Homeless

2012-02-03T22:51:00.000Z

Yesterday evening, I went to church to give a hand with the night shelter that the church takes a turn with each week during the winter months. At East London Tabernacle, the home groups each take a turn to take charge of cooking the meal and this Thursday, the home group that I'm part of took charge.

As well as giving a hand with the cooking (we'll ignore the incident of the burnt chick peas) we sat in amongst those welcomed into the church for a warm meal and a bed for the night, talking to them or, in the case of the guy I ended up sitting next to, being talked at.

While the guy we were talking to didn't have much education, hadn't been to uni, been expelled from college and had been out on the streets for around 12 years, listening to him gives you a wider perspective on life. I may know more than he'd care to know about differential equations or ecosystems but he knows how to survive on the streets, he knows more than I do about political situations (but then, seen as I know next to nothing that's not hard) and I really think the goverment should take a leaf out of Sherlock's book and use the homeless network to solve the UK's drugs problems and simultaniously getting more people off the street!! Possibly... I never claimed to be the next prime minister...

On a totally unrelated note, I'm going to head off to make a den with Josh, Rosanna and Bradley.

Live long and keep blogging =]

Happy Birthday [Insert name here]

2012-01-26T18:04:00.001Z

On Saturday, it was the 21st January and yours truly reached the age of 19. The last year of being a teenager is upon me and I feel absolutely no different. Not surprising really but seen as at 19 nothing particularly exciting happens such as driving or anything becoming legal or anything like that, I shall tell you about my Saturday.

For my birthday, I went pottery painting and for a meal with a few of my friends who were around. I say a few but I was pleasantly surprised how many were able to come what with half my friends now being at university. I had a great day and it most certainly went by WAY too quickly.

Our pottery painting included a lot of fantasy, sci-fi and just general nerdiness as you can tell:

This is the inside of Jennie's mug that she painted. I'm still not quite sure how she managed it considering it was one of those tall thing mugs rather than a chunky one.

I kept on with the TARDIS theme, breaking away from the heavy sheep theme of my previous pottery painting trips....

However, not completely... Still some sheep and still some plagiarism... sort of ;) I'd say it falls under "fair usage". I also got everyone to sign the back of my plate just to make it that little bit more special :)

And of course I can't end this blog without introducing you to my parents. Here you have my mum and dad. Note how my mum has part of my sister's pudding in her left hand and is attacking my dad's with a spoon in her right hand. Maybe someday my mum will get her own pudding rather than nicking everyone else's!!

Live long and keep blogging =]

Whale watching

2012-01-17T15:30:00.000Z

I'm currently sitting in the gallery above the mammal room in the natural history museum that famously contains the blue whale. There are five massive whale skeletons hanging in front of me and it really makes you realise just how small we are. A single jaw bone is longer than I am tall and its backbone is easily thicker than my leg. It's amazing to think that these creatures are swimming about in the oceans.

Even after a morning of filling in a worksheet for my evolution module, I can't help but see God's amazing creation in the creatures all around me. I can't help but ask how could any of this come about by chance? The creatures are too beautiful and too precisely designed for birds to have come from dinosaurs or mammals to have come from lizards. As I look at the bones of the whales in front of me, how could this gigantic creature come from a microscopic, boneless organism? The world I see just doesn't fit with the history I'm taught in lectures.

I know many don't agree; many will say I'm the crazy one for saying evolution didn't happen but I've tried seeing it from their view and it doesn't fit, so maybe they should try see it from mine?

Live long and keep posting =]

Fort Paradox Returns!!

2012-01-11T17:11:00.003Z

Yesterday, Fort Paradox, a cross continuity web comic run by Matt, Tim and Sarah, for which I am occasionally allowed to draw, started up again in all its confusingly wonderful glory.

The first post back is actually one of the "Behind the Scenes" posts that have been going up on Tuesdays and this particular one returns with a plan of part of the Fort.

This caught my eye as there is one bit of concept art missing from the post. Yup, and the reason is that it was drawn by Matt on the back of the script for an episode I was in the process of drawing back at Roothill 2011. I actually have the simple (and slightly scruffy...) pen drawing stuck up on my wall at uni and I thought I'd share it with you in the light of the most recent post on Fort Paradox. Admittedly, it looks like a hand-drawn version of on of the diagrams, nevertheless, here it is:

I hope, if you don't already read Fort Paradox, this will wet your appetite and encourage you to head over to www.fortparadox.blogspot.com and catch up on the back story before the webcomic begins reposting actual episodes.

Live long and keep posting =]

Cello Wars!!

2012-01-06T21:39:00.001Z

I don't want to finish First 12 for '12 and then just disappear again so I'm going to try keep up the blogging. Whether It's something fairly brief or a whole long rant, I don't want to disappear for three months again. Yeah, sorry about that...

So I thought I'd post the video I mentioned in a comment on one of Sam's blogs. It's basically an epic mix between a Cello duet and Star Wars. Oh, and who doesn't want to see Darth Vader playing an accordion??

Live long and keep posting =]

Back to the Past

2012-01-06T04:37:00.002Z

So, for the last however long it's been since I posted, I've be reminiscing on YouTube. I'm not quite sure which video I started with but I've been watching a load of programs I used to watch as a child. I'm sure these old educational programs that got me hooked are half the reason I love science and learning so much.

Oh, there are so many programs I used to love as a kid and every single one of them was educational in some way. What is sort of odd is the fact that as a preschooler, I vividly remember thinking the Teletubbies was boring however all these schools programs kept me captivated.

According to my Mum, I used to love watching Sesame Street. However, unlike some of the other programs I watched, I can't really remember much about it despite Sesame Street being one of the most iconic programs of the 90s. However, there was this one episode where I remember one of the characters (I wish I could remember which) was dividing up a shoelace sweet between him and another character however every cut made the half a little too short and this kept going until he had eaten all the cut off bits and there was so little left he finished up the whole thing! For a while I really wanted this to be the way to share up food! I also used to love Big Bird. I mentioned Big Bird in a joke the other day and my sister totally didn't get it. It seems she didn't watch as much Sesame Street as I did. Oh the difference 5 years can make.

There was another show which I love for three reasons: the cats, the theme song, and the dopey male character who was after the cats half the time. I found an episode on YouTube as well!! I used to love watching Cats Eyes. It followed a fairly similar format to Come Outside (which more people seem to have heard of and I think there are still early morning reruns) if I remember correctly and re-watching half an episode now, I'd forgotten how much I loved the cats' accents! Particularly the ginger one... yup, even when I was still in single figures, I still loved accents.

However, I think the program that sparked my love of maths was Megamaths. I almost thought I had imagined this program or it was part of a different program however I came across this rather shakey video and I think I even remember this exact episode.I used to love how the "Royal" cards were so bad at maths but the number cards were so good and I always wanted to be one of the kids playing those maths-y games. Oh the days before everything had to be animated. I also used to love the guy at the very beginning and in the games. The joker I believe? I'd love to know who he was played by because I'm sure I recognise him from something else... Then again, I may be wrong... Oh! and the funny hand puppet gargoyle things! Ah, I really enjoyed this show.

Oh, and Hotch Potch House. The cutest program from my childhood. Woolie had a fantastic hat and Nana had wonderful hair and I wouldn't be surprised if the wonderful collage house at the beginning had a hand in my obsession with keeping and sticking together lots of loo rolls and bits of cardboard. I also distinctly remember learning "The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hooray, the sun has got his hat on and I'm coming out to play" from Hotch Potch House. Ah, and the "I'm a Clown" songs from this episode. I'm sure I remember that! There seems to be a lot more Hotch Potch House videos up on YouTube than a lot of my other favourites so I could easily trawl through them for a lot longer.... Oh! I'd forgotten about the singing vegetables!! The lone onion in sunglasses... and all the different numbers of vegetables for each of the numbers.

The Magic Roundabout I remember as a child didn't have Doogle. My magic roundabout was one of the stops on the Playbus. I so badly wanted to be on Playdays when I was younger I even remember having a dream about being in the big blue bus and being on the show but alas, that dream never came true. However, the song from the roundabout stop has stuck in my head even until today. Although I had forgotten how much longer the song was beyond this "chorus" bit.

"Roll up and Ride on Rosie,

the magical, musical, merry go round"

Ah, Space Ark. I have to admit, not one of my favourites but I still used to love watching it. Luka is so sweet and always gets send down to earth to investigate! "On my way". Also, at the beginning in the title bit, I'm sure it looks like a toclafane. Russel T. Davies, I'm onto you!

Another program I'd practically forgotten about is Fourways Farm. In my head, the book Animal Farm is very much like this and I think that's part of the reason I don't want to read the book. I don't want to ruin my little, rather naive picture of the book in my head. Although those rats were really creepy.

So in conclusion... I miss childhood TV... I guess, in part, that's why I like the new My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic. Yup, I'm part of 'that group'. A lot of the new things on TV for kids these days, as far as I'm aware, just aren't quite the same. Ruining Postman Pat, making too many things animated, oh how I miss the simplicity of my childhood TV....

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS

"First 12 for '12" Status: 12 down.... I may have scraped an early morning victory....

Latest film/TV watched: Fourways Farm... ahh, the memories...

Latest music listened to: Fourways Farm theme tune :)

Latest edible item eaten/drunk: A glass of milk

Predominant colour of current clothing: Grey mainly with bits of blue. Yup, I have exciting pyjamas...

Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger, YouTube - Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes

Competitive Streak

2012-01-06T03:15:00.000Z

I'm competitive. Really competitive. I won't go down without a fight and I have to admit I'm not always the best of losers. I mean, I'm a lot better than I was at 7 but then I have learnt that it's not considered polite to start crying and screaming if someone beats you in a game. Sorry about that Mum and Dad :/

I remember in year 2 when my competitiveness stretched to the world of work. We used to have these maths work books that we would go through and as you got further through, the ticks on the back indicating which questions you had done would fill up and once all the boxes were filled, we could go on to the next workbook. I think these workbooks started earlier than year 2 but it was year two when the competitiveness really kicked in. Me and at least one other girl were noticeably further through the workbook series than the rest of our class and, at least from my perspective, it became a battle to see who could finish the workbooks first. As the year drew to a close, I came closer and closer to the very last available workbook and by no means was I going to let her overtake. I can't remember who finished first but I do remember that ridiculously strong desire to be first.

I think sports is the one exception to my competitiveness. Probably because 1. I find it so dull and 2. I suck at sport. With sport I quite often went to the opposite extreme and still do occasionally. I know I'm rubbish so I would barely try at all, do the bare minimum, and scrape through. I wouldn't want to try really hard and only come second so why try at all?

I'd like to think that I've grown out of this; or at least grown out of it enough. I no longer avoid doing something because I think I'll be rubbish, I generally at least have a go and I'm much more prepared to put in effort without the knowledge that there is a chance of being first. Sure, if there's a chance of being first, I'm going to strive for it but what harm has that ever done anyone? It encourages people to keep going. However, I think, in some cases, knowing where you rank isn't at all helpful. It puts off those who know they have no chance and can lead to those with a chance fighting for first. Sure, it can help some strive to be their best but their best doesn't always correlate with someone else's best.

I think what I'm trying to say is, I feel a bit bad blogging loads while my competitors are all sleeping. I want to just leave the last post and see what happens but the competitive part of me wants me to keep going, keep blogging and not let anyone else win. Maybe I'll blog once more before I sleep, maybe I won't. I mean, I'll quite happily stay awake for another hour knowing me and I haven't got anything in particular to get up for in the morning. I suppose, if I am going to do a last blog, I'll have to make it count, make it worth it, and make it long. Heck, I'm not going to cheat with some short waffle of a couple of lines that anyone could cobble together. If I win I want to win in style.

So now to see if inspiration or sleep comes first...

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS

"First 12 for '12" Status: 11 down, 1 to go

Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance

Latest film/TV watched: How I Met Your Mother

Latest music listened to: Hey Beautiful by The Solids which is apparently the How I Met Your Mother's full theme song

Latest edible item eaten/drunk: A glass of milk

Predominant colour of current clothing: Grey mainly with bits of blue. Yup, I have exciting pyjamas...

Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger, YouTube - Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes

The downside of education

2012-01-06T02:24:00.003Z

I'm all for education. It's great to learn more, to discover more about the world, to ask questions and keep on searching rather than just sitting there and not being bothered. There's so much out there to learn and the more you know the more you know you don't know and so you keep heading forwards, searching for more information but there are some downsides to education. Namely the spoiling of songs.

Song 1: The Fireman Sam theme tune

When I was younger, I used to think the line went "driving down the sleazy street". Being preschool age and unaware of what sleazy meant I was totally happy with this for a while. It was just a 'happy' word in my mind and it wasn't until well after I started school that I learnt the true meaning of sleazy and that the line was actually "driving down the snoozy street". In my opinion, this has spoilt the whole theme. Learning that I was wrong, that what I sung every time I sang the theme tune was in fact horribly inaccurate made the magic of fireman same dissipate a little more than I'd like. Education spoilt it.

Song 2: The Tots TV theme tune

I used to love Tots TV. I think a lot of people my age did when they were younger and I was always fascinated by Tilly. I didn't realise she was French and just thought she was talking some sort of wonderful made up language so of course I totally didn't get what she meant by "Je suis un Tot" in the theme tune. However, with secondary school, that changed. I started French lessons and I learnt that "Je suis un" means "I am a". This has shattered the magic of Tots TV. The theme tune now goes "I'm a Tot, I'm a Tot, Tilly, Tom and Tiny" in my head and that's before I even get onto the whole magical bag bit. However, Tots TV wasn't the only thing learning French ruined.

Song 3: Les Poissons from The Little Mermaid

The whole song was so much more magical when I didn't know what the French bit meant. The whole song sounds so much nicer (if a little more crazy) when it's totally in a French accent with actual French thrown in but now I can't help but here "The fish, the fish, how I love the fish" in a rather posh English accent followed by an evil laugh even though that isn't even the next line of the song. Ah, French. If only I knew enough to be useful and not just enough to destroy songs...

Song 4: Vertigo, U2

Again, a song ruined from the outset by learning a language. I can't even get through the first line without Spanish lessons spoiling the lyrics and giving the impression that U2 can't count. Spanish lessons taught me that "Uno, dos, tres, catorse" is in fact "one, two, three, fourteen" instead of the logical "one, two, three, four". I don't think "because it sounds better" is any logical reason to take advantage of the majority not being able to understand and throw away all mathematical laws of counting. 4 comes after 3: it always has done and always will.

Song 5: Livin' La vida Loca

Once again, Spanish lessons changed a song from "cool Latin-y song you can do on dance mat" to another one of those songs that I can now only hear as the translation in a posh English life; and believe it or not, "Living the crazy life" just doesn't quite have the same ring to it. By the same argument you could say "Viva la Vida" has been spoiled however as that translates roughly as "Live the Life" it sounds grand enough in English that it hasn't really spoilt it and it's not like the actual song has them singing Spanish in it anyway. It is only the title after all.

Song 6: The Big Bang Theory Theme

So, I already knew that I disagree with the whole principle of the theme song. Life didn't start with "a big bang" unless there happened to be a loud noise like a bang when God proclaimed "Let there be light" and anyway, that isn't the sort of bang they're on about. However, the bit that made it worse was the learning of the meaning of the word "autotroph". An autotroph is an organism that is able to produce it's own food from inorganic substances with photoautotrophs such as plants and algae being the most well known ones. However, "autotrophs began to drool" just sounds even more rediculous knowing that. Surely from an evolution perspective, the idea of drooling plants or algae is just a little bit crazy....

I'm sure there are a couple of songs that I've forgotten however I'll leave the list for now.

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS

"First 12 for '12" Status: 10 down, 2 to go

Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance

Latest film/TV watched: The Big Bang Theory

Latest music listened to: Mitch Benn - Les Poissons from the Little Mermaid

Latest edible item eaten/drunk: A glass of milk

Predominant colour of current clothing: Grey mainly with bits of blue. Yup, I have exciting pyjamas...

Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger, 4oD - Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes

Try before you buy

2012-01-06T01:20:00.000Z

I was just fiddling about on Spotify (Josh's account is logged in or I wouldn't have it at all) and I was thinking about something someone mentioned in a vlog a while back. Most things in life you get to try before you buy. Cars you get to take for a test run, houses you get to look around and imagine your stuff in, clothes you get to try on, with YouTube and Spotify you get to listen to music before you decide on properly buying it, even if it hasn't been played on the radio, TV shows you watch before you decide to get the box set (Primeval series 5 is the exception but that's a different story) and laptops, phones, tablets, there is a whole array of test devices out in shops for you to play with before you even consider whether you need one.

However, with films, that's not the case. Sure, you get the trailer and reviews but you buy the theatre ticket before you've even seen the adverts at the beginning or collected your choice of confectionery. You could argue you're paying for the experience but if I'm honest, sitting in a darkened room at home even just in front of my laptop is just as good. I don't have to leave the house (well, except to obtain the film unless it's on iPlayer or something) and I don't have kids whispering, popcorn under my feet where the cleaners have failed, the occasional late comer or that awkwardly tall guy in front of me. The film is what you see on the screen and unlike music or TV, you don't get to try before you buy.

I guess that's partly why I rarely go to the cinema. I either have to be watching an adaptation of a book, have many many positive reviews, or have my ticket being paid for me. It also explains why I don't tend to buy a DVD unless it costs less than a cinema ticket or I've already seen it in the cinema so I know it's good and that I will want to see it again (Narnia being an example here although as my sister also likes them I've been unable to take them to university.)

Saying this, there are actually a few films I'm looking forward to seeing. Then again, any number above 1 is quite a few when it comes to films I actively want to see with me. Firstly, The Hunger Games. I'm actually quite excited about this because the trailer looks awesome and I loved the books. Admittedly, it being an adaptation means it's open for me to shout at the screen going "THAT WASN'T IN THE BOOK!" or "[insert character here] DOESN'T LOOK LIKE THAT!" or even "THAT'S NOT HOW THE QUOTE GOES!" but I actually find I rather perversely enjoy doing that...

The other film I'm looking forward to is a new Star Trek film. I loved the most recent film adaptation and actually bought it on DVD and have watched it multiples times and I enjoyed watching one of the older films too (although I can remember less than I'd like to about it: Josh, we need to re-watch it). I have no idea when it's meant to be out but I do know three things about the new film. 1 - Benedict Cumberbatch is in it as a bad guy; 2 - The guy who played Mickey in Doctor Who is in it; 3 - The same actors are coming back to play the roles of Spock and Kirk. Those two things plus the fact that it's Star Trek means it's probably going to be great although I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch....

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS

"First 12 for '12" Status: 9 down, 3 to go

Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance

Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot

Latest music listened to: Mitch Benn - Chambers of the Heart

Latest edible item eaten/drunk: A glass of milk

Predominant colour of current clothing: Grey mainly with bits of blue. Yup, I have exciting pyjamas...

Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger - Spotify, Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes

Video Editing

2012-01-06T00:29:00.000Z

One thing that I got for Christmas that I've been wanting for a while is video editing software. When "Lessthanthreenerds" was a thing, I was using a trial version of Sony Vegas and loved it and then my trial period ran out and I decided that I hated Windows Live Movie Maker. With a passion. So for a while I've been wanting a replacement and lo and behold, for Christmas Josh got me Sony Vegas. :)

So, since Christmas, I've been wanting something to edit, something to test it out on and then today, when I was going through my pictures, I remembered I'd filmed a little bit of the question and answer session at Westfields with the Doctor Who cast. So there was me, footage and software, so I thought, why not? Why shouldn't I test out the new software with this footage?

Now I remember why.... The footage is VERY shakey, has rubbish colour, doesn't cover much of the Q&A (I somehow managed to film all the bits where they were talking about River Song and NOTHING ELSE) and I don't really have much of a clue how to use Vegas. I mean, it was ages ago I used it for the lessthanthreenerds stuff.

So, in short it was a flop. A rather big flop; and my conclusion is:

1) I need lessons
2) I need a better camera
3) I need to shake less when filming stuff...
4) I need to appreciate that when they say it's going on youtube, it's going on youtube...
5) I need more lessthanthreenerds stuff to practice on or something similar

However, I'll put my poorly edited video here. You can criticize it, give me tips, tell me to leave the editing to Matt all you want.

STATS

"First 12 for '12" Status: 8 down, 4 to go

Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance

Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot

Latest music listened to: The Doctor Who Theme

Latest edible item eaten/drunk: dinner - concluded with a chocolate biscuit...

Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual

Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger, YouTube x2 - Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes,

Fedne

2012-01-05T23:16:00.000Z

One thing I've noticed with all this excessive blogging and consequently excessive comment writing, is that those little "I am human" verification words are ridiculous. I mean utterly bonkers. I understand why they're there (however annoying they are) and I get that making them real words might mean word recognising software can understand it or something but blogger seems to have this weird half-way place between "random mix of consonants and numbers" and "real words" where all the letter combinations have enough vowels to be pronounceable but not at all logical.

For example: 'fedne' Most definitely not a word. (Wait, I feel like I should officially check.. *types it into google* well... results but officially not a real word.) Most verifications would give you F3dN7gY or something equally unpleasant on the eyes but blogger, well, every now and then, their choice of verification word amuses me...

It's like a geek but less intelligent and more gawking. Well, an ex gawking geek...

It's how a northerner might say 'Gracie'

First word this reminds me of? Intron. Yup, say hi to the science geek.

This should be the new rofl. Or something...

A kind inteliegent fib?

I feel like this is actually a real foreign word....

Maybe this is what I'd call my version of Facebook if I ever made one... Or say the new version of Facebook was called Sparkle or something then this is what you call it when your friend uses and abuses your loggin

This one is just fun to say...

I feel like this should become a word. Not quite sure what for but either something cuddle related or to do with handles....

Oh, and yes I did just spend an age refreshing a comment.... But seriously, the number of times I've been amused by one of these and laughed and then looked around going "no one is around and not even the internet will understand..." So I've decided to just throw it at you anyway...

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS

"First 12 for '12" Status: 7 down, 5 to go

Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance

Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot

Latest music listened to: The Sound of Drums - Chameleon Circuit

Latest edible item eaten/drunk: dinner - concluded with a chocolate biscuit...

Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual

Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger - Windows Media Player, Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes, Steam, Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.0, Skype

The Doctor, The Witch and the... wait...

2012-01-05T20:18:00.001Z

So, for the life of me I can't remember the proper title of the Doctor Who Christmas special without looking it up but regardless, I thought it was great. Full of Christmassyness, aliens, snow and the right sad/happy balance for Christmas. It was nice. Which is good for Christmas.

I think what I liked most about the episode was the lack of "I AM FAMOUS" when it came to choosing the guest actors. Even if it did contain Bill Bailey, Alexander Armstrong and 'the mother from outnumbered' who I keep forgetting the name of. It felt more like they were chosen for their acting abilities rather than the novelty of having them on there *cough Kylie Minogue* and it was refreshing. I don't think we've properly had that since the first Christmas Special. (The End of Time part 1 doesn't count in my opinion because that doesn't really feel much like a Christmas episode, it is very much a 'goodbye 10' episode... or the first part of a the finale of a very short but stretched out series... anyway...)

I think this Christmas special was possibly one of my favourite. The Christmas Invasion still remains my favourite, and last year had a fantastic plot but this year felt more homely, more Christmas-y. Then again, I'm still not sure where it stands compared to my previous choice of second favourite Christmas special: The Runaway Bride.

I don't want to be all spoiler-y and I think I'd have to re-watch the episode for a better review however I do have a few questions for next year:

1- Are we going to continue with the theme of using book titles as episode titles?
2- Is the lack of emphasis on famous actors going to be kept up?
3- Will any kids in next year's special be more easily scared?!

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS
"First 12 for '12" Status: 6 down, 6 to go
Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance
Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot
Latest music listened to: Peeking through the window - Skyway Flyer
Latest edible item eaten/drunk: dinner - concluded with a chocolate biscuit...
Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual
Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger - Windows Media Player, Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes, Steam

Reverting back to Childhood

2012-01-05T18:43:00.000Z

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to the Doctor Who Experience for the 2nd time just before Christmas. After utilizing Rosanna's large uni room for a nerdy sleepover (complete with Doctor Who monopoly until goodness knows what time in the morning), we went to the Doctor Who Experience.

If I'm honest, I wouldn't have cared if they hadn't changed a thing. It was just so great to be able to look at everything again, look at the walk through experience bit of it from a slightly different angle and actually notice where The Face of Boe was this time... However, the fact that they had updated it a bit too was fantastic. However I don't remember there being any Silence...

I think half of the fun was being able to share this experience with one of my friends who hadn't been round before. Getting to tell her to "wait for it" during the moment before stepping through the crack in the screen into the experience and just getting all excited all over again by the fact that she was seeing it all with fresh eyes.

Furthermore, those odd bits which I'm sure were there before but I just didn't notice... like in the Dalek bit of the experience, when we were "being scanned" they actually had a live image of us come up on the screen amongst the other things that were obviously there every time. Oh and I got scared by the 3D section all over again... There was a little boy who came out absolutely petrified afterwards (he can't have been much more than 5 or 6) and I felt like telling him "don't worry, I was scared and I've seen it all before!"

You know, I should really have a look at all the photos I took... Well, I guess that's what I'll be doing after this blog/dinner!

Edit: photo time!

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS
"First 12 for '12" Status: 5 down,7 to go
Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance
Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot
Latest music listened to: You're All that I Have - Snow Patrol
Latest edible item eaten/drunk: still that ice-cream...
Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual
Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger - Windows Media Player, Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes, Steam

I still live in London. London is still cool.

2012-01-05T18:29:00.002Z

So, living in London, I've been trying to make the most of it. Get to as many things as possible, experience the fantastic opportunities London provides (excluding every single club and drunken night out) and just generally having a good time. I may have been slacking in keeping my blog up to date with all the cool things I've been doing but I have been keeping my scrapbook up to date. Keeping tickets, train tickets, sticking in photos, obtaining as many signatures as possible, you know, the normal things...

As you know, one of the first things I did when I arrived in London was visit the Globe Theatre and meet Arthur Darvil however I've done much more since then and here are a few that I have in picture form...

Early on in the term, I went to a book signing with Josh and met the wonderful but utterly mad Maureen Johnson and listened to her talk about her book "The Name of the Star". It was great to actually meet this prolific twitterer and I highly recommend her book. It may have been because of her book that I decided to take my Dad on a Jack the Ripper tour for his birthday in November without getting bored at all. Maybe a little grossed out and reminded of just how close to Jack the Ripper's hunting grounds my uni accommodation is but we had a fantastic guide.

I've also been going to a number of radio recordings. The Now Show and Mark Watson's Live Address to the Nation to be specific but I would have been to more if I'd had the time or the tickets. I also went to a comedy club thing near Oxford Circus where the Now Show's Mitch Benn was taking part in the musical comedy shenanigans and hopefully the lack of evening lectures next term (I think... I hope..) Will mean there will be fewer clashes and I can go to more with Rosanna, starting with January!

Talking of Rosanna, when she came to my end of London, we had a rather Who-filled day. This included visiting the Who Shop (the same place where the Chameleon Circuit signing was held in the summer) and spending way too much time and money there and still wanting to buy more, eating fish fingers and custard (see, I'm totally doing a good job of feeding myself at university...) and playing an epic game of Doctor Who monopoly. Somehow Josh got both the TARDIS and Galifrey and started building on them to bankrupt us all, well, at least Rosanna who landed on both in quick succession.

Talking of Doctor Who, a mere few days after the day of Whovianness with Rosanna, I went to Westfields for something a hundredfold more awesome than shopping: a Doctor Who signing and Q&A session. I've been wanted to mention this for a while actually but the fact that I got Josh a signed series 6 for Christmas due to this event, I've been keeping it a bit hush.
However... look who I met! Even if ever so briefly and the silly body guards made it impossible for me to actually have a photo with them... Also, I met a fellow Nerdfighter and Chameleon Circuit fan there. Then again, I couldn't miss him considering he was wearing his Chameleon Circuit t-shirt. Oh how I love Nerdfighteria.

So, I'm loving London, as you can tell, and, as I think there is enough Who-ness to last you a while, I think I'll save my return to the Doctor Who Experience and the Doctor Who Christmas special for another post.

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS

"First 12 for '12" Status: 4 down, 8 to go
Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance
Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot
Latest music listened to: Forever Yours (Live Piano Version) Alex Day
Latest edible item eaten/drunk: still that ice-cream...
Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual
Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger - Windows Media Player, Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes, Steam

Birthday Bounce

2012-01-05T17:32:00.000Z

It has got to the time of year where I start getting excited about my birthday. Christmas and New Year have been and gone and it is officially less that three weeks until my birthday. That day dedicated just to me (and however many other people dare to have their birthday on the same day) and I get to demand to be given things.

However, this year I can't really think of anything in particular I want. It's either way too expensive to legitimately ask one person to buy it for me (unless someone really does want to buy me a nice android tablet?), too big physically for me to get it back to university on the train (anyone want to help me get a minifridge on the tube along with all my usual luggage for a weekend home?) or someone has already "bagsied" getting that for me for my birthday (The Fault in Our Stars by John Green). Nevertheless, I think the one thing I do want for my birthday that is potentially achievable you cannot put a price on - seeing my friends.

Ok, so considering how this year people are even more scattered and it's a bit too close to my birthday to be organising anything large scale, I doubt last year will be topped however seeing my friends is probably one of the best birthday presents I could have considering so many of them are so far away when I'm at university. I don't care if we're sitting in a field shivering from the cold (OK, maybe I do) but it is always the simplest pleasures that please me the most.

So, I better get organising hadn't I?

Live long and keep posting =]

STATS
"First 12 for '12" Status: 3 down, 9 to go
Latest book read: Bible/Inheritance
Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot
Latest music listened to: Hang on to You - Delerious
Latest edible item eaten/drunk: still that ice-cream...
Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual
Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, blogger - Windows Media Player, Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes, Steam

Essaytastic

2012-01-05T17:14:00.001Z

So, while I've been busy regretting leaving an essay to the last minute, my fellow "First 12 for '12" competitors have been streaming ahead, making me panic (and adding to the process by distracting me) however, no fear, my essay is completed and sent off and I am back in the running! (Well, I will be soon I'd like to think...)

So why did I leave my essay until the last minute? Because it had the dullest title in history. After "Write a 30000 word essay on the process of watching paint dry" I think "Using a range of different examples explain the importance of structure in relation to function in biology" is in the running for second most boring essay title. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised with some of the things I discovered in my trawling of Creation Ministries and online databases for inspiration and credible references.

One of the most interesting articles I actually came across was on the Creation website. (I have to admit I didn't go much further than reading the abstracts on most of the journal articles I looked at. Seriously thank goodness for abstracts.) This article was on the chemical composition of tears. Wait! Wait! I know I can hear some of your brains audibly clicking off with the mouse hovered over the back button but this article is really interesting. It's basically saying that there is truth about the whole "crying makes it all better" theory.

It turns out that crying when your stressed actually gets rid of the lot of the toxins that build up in your body when you're stress along with molecules involved in pain. Yup, crying really does make you feel better. In fact, it was discovered that holding in tears actually makes us more stressed!

Furthermore, there is a real, scientific reason why girls cry more than guys. Yup, girls have higher levels of those toxin-y things in their body in the first place so of course girls will have to excrete these chemicals more frequently.

Yup, who said science was boring? *glares at person trying to raise their hand at the back*

"Fun science, fun science, fun science is the science of fun!"

Live long and post often =]

STATS
"First 12 for '12" Status: 2 down, 1 to go
Latest book read: The Bible/Inheritance
Latest film/TV watched: Young James Herriot
Latest music listened to: Please Just Takie These Photos From My Hand - Snow Patrol
Latest edible item eaten/drunk: Cadbury Button Ice Cream. Yup.
Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual
Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, Blogger, the article mentioned above - Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes, Steam Chat, Windows media player

Challenge Accepted (and a grovelling apology)

2012-01-04T00:43:00.000Z

*cough* erm, hi? Do you remember me? I won't be offended if you don't, three months is a long time in the world of the Internet. I'm Hannah. I used to frequent this blog on a regular basis and I though I'd pop back in. Well, when I say that I really mean I've been pushed back in, poked back into blogging by a challenge from the one and only Colclough.

I'm sorry. Really sorry. I kept meaning to blog. Genuinely and honestly. I kept saying to myself "you should blog, Hannah" and I even made wallpapers for my laptop to remind me but, uh, it didn't really work... evidently... I mean, I've been busy! With university, reading week, Doctor Who experience (again), Christmas, New Year, TV... YouTube... games.... Ok, ok, so I would have plenty of time but... *trails off*

So, new year, new start. Remember First 11 of '11? Well, Matt has challenged me (and anyone else who wants to join in) to 'First 12 of '12'. An extra year, an extra post requirement, and I've been forced to pull myself together and put myself in gear for a revived set of posting.

So, I should have a lot to talk about. I mean, I haven't posted anything on here for a while...

....

I'm going to have to think of something quick for tomorrow....

Live long and post often =]

STATS
"First 12 for '12" Status: 1 down, 11 to go
Latest book read: It must have been Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. I haven't read in a while :/
Latest film/TV watched: Some Armstrong and Miller thing on 4oD yesterday I think...
Latest music listened to: The Best Day by Taylor Swift as part of a video my aunt posted that my cousin made for her for Christmas. So sweet! :)
Latest edible item eaten/drunk: A chocolate... I think we may see a theme reappearing here...
Predominant colour of current clothing: Blue. As usual
Programs and web pages currently open: Chrome - HanNav v1.0, Facebook and the Whovians of Highworth Origins page, A White Horizon, Numb3r5's Blog, Tim's blog of Interesting Stuff (Yes, I know it's not got any posts atm...) 3xYoutube pages, YourPants (I think I'm not going to explain why I'm currently looking at YourPants and just revel in the childish joy it gives), 5xCreation Ministry pages, Web of Knowledge (a journal searching database), a journal article about the irreducible complexity of structure related to functions in biology, google, and a blog accessed from google that I was hoping would give me some help for this essay that I'm obviously procrastinating from writing - PowerPoint, Word, Windows Live Mail, Sticky Notes, and I think that is actually it! Phew!

I live in London Now, London is Cool

2011-09-23T14:49:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday, I ventured into Central London for the first time since I've moved. After lunch, I hopped onto the tube to meet my friends near Tower Bridge for an afternoon of excitement.

First, there were some awesome gorillas, and then we went on to the clockmaker's museum. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much. I was expecting to get bored pretty quickly but actually it was really interesting. There were so many different types of clock with weird and wonderful mechanisms and clocks of different shapes, sizes, styles, purposes (you know, besides telling the time) and it wasn't just a room full of clocks. Well, it was, but it was better than that! Although, I did manage to freak myself out a little when I realised the loud ticking could easily be hiding numerous clockwork monsters from Doctor Who....

Next, we went on to the London Museum. The first half was pretty boring in my opinion, "stone age" history and other pre-Medieval history hasn't really ever interested me much however, once we got further round, it was much more exciting and we had a great time there.

Somewhere between the two, we came across a blue Police Telephone and anyone who knows me can guess why we got just a little excited about it. Rosanna suggested that the Chameleon Circuit was actually working and the phone not working was to discourage accidental discovery.

After the others had a McDonalds and I ate my rather squashed packed lunch (Note to self: leave a bit longer when making a packed lunch, Mum's not around to do it any more, plus a lunch box would be helpful...) we rushed off to catch Tower Bridge being lifted up. We stood on London Bridge, looking down the Thames towards Tower Bridge and managed to see most of it.

However, the last thing we did was obviously the most exciting. It was what the whole day had been building up to and what Rosanna and I were particularly excited about. We went to the Globe Theatre to see Arthur Darvil in Doctor Faustus.

The experience was amazing. Even ignoring the fact that Arthur Darvil was mere metres (even centimetres at times) away from us on stage, the whole experience of being a groundling in the Globe is one that I'm so glad I've had. Having the action happen all around you, the excitement so close and how you have to turn to keep your eye on the action letting actors sneak up behind you enhancing the experience, the cool breeze of being out in the open air and even when it started to drizzle, it merely added to the atmosphere. I almost forgot I was standing most of the time and the way it was all played out helped me properly understand the Elizabethan language properly for probably the first time. Unlike studying Shakespeare in class where the words are dull and unfamiliar, where the script seems monotone and the meaning glides overhead, Christopher Marlow's words came to life and I actually understood the jokes most of the time and it was just so much more exiting. Rosanna and I spent the interval just wanting the second half to start straight away and of course we waited for Arthur Darvil at the end....

We weren't sure where to wait at first but we noticed a few others were waiting and some of the other actors were leaving through this door so we waited patiently and eagerly.

Arthur Darvil was lovely. He came back to talk to us after saying goodbye to his friends (and having a cigarette :( ) despite the fact that he was in a rush. He was so happy to sign our programs, answer our questions and he was happy to shake my hand. (A good firm handshake but not as good as Josh's. If Josh's is 10/10, Arthur was about an 8.7)

So, after leaving the others at London Bridge, I returned back home on the tube, back to my flat mates, full of excitement as very much hoping to do it all again.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

A Very Different View

2011-09-19T16:47:00.000+01:00

As some of you may know, on Saturday I moved up to London to go to university. I moved into student accommodation, met the flat mates I'll be sharing a bathroom and kitchen with for the next year, started cooking for myself (sort of) and I'm now fairly permanently the furthest I've ever been away from those I love for an extended period of time. I now live in London: how scary is that?

This morning I had an introductory lecture and it's starting to sink in that this isn't just a holiday. This isn't just me going away for a week or popping up to London for the day. This is my life for the next three years. Going to lectures, living in east London, studying and just generally being a student.

Pre-university, you're told so much about university life. Told what to expect, told what to avoid, and constantly being told "you'll be fine, you'll have a great time" or words to that effect. However, I don't think anyone can properly prepare you for the day when you arrive at university, knowing next to no one and the day when you finally move out from home properly. Even if you're still going home during the holidays.

This is only my third day in London and sure, I've met new people, I ventured out to Church by myself, I've bought a two pint bottle of milk, I've cooked myself some pasta and a jacket potato, realised that if I want bread from the freezer, I have to get it out to defrost myself, but I haven't really taken full advantage of being in London. I'm not too keen on going out clubbing and partying so I haven't ventured very far and my parents did a fine job of making sure I don't need to buy much yet. However, give me time, I'll settle in and before you know it I'll know London like the back of my hand. (Wow, I never noticed that there before....)

Jokes aside, I'm sure I'll be fine. I'm searching out for all the nerdy things and if there is a Doctor Who society here, you can count on me to find it!!

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Can't read my, can't read my, can't read my poker face

2011-08-18T15:57:00.001+01:00

Last question... Matt has just posted a comment on one of my blogs so I'm guessing it's a race to the finish post...

Who is your anti-role model?

Or, as Josh rephrased, "Who stands for everything you don't stand for?" Of all the people in the world (well, current people, I hadn't considered Hitler and Stalin...) Lady Gaga is probably one of the people who best fits the bill. I would never wear anything that she wears... or maybe I should say doesn't wear... I really don't like/understand/appreciate her choice of clothes and I bet it doesn't fit my "don't wear it if it isn't comfy" philosophy. Also, Josh mentioned something about her posing as a motorbike in a calender or something. I'm not going to find the picture because I don't think I'd like it however who poses as a motorbike?! On a motorbike is one thing, I can handle that but as a motorbike?!

I think the list of things where me and Lady Gaga don't meet eye to eye as it were goes on. Her single "Judus", her music videos, how I've seen her act on some talk shows..... I think if you lined up everyone in a big line with the people who I admire most standing nearest me and those who are nearest my "anti-role model" at the other end, she would be very near the end, if not actually at the end. I wonder if that line was real whether she'd wonder what she was queuing for? I digress...

I know a few people who really like Lady Gaga and when you hear her songs played on the piano with no lyrics, I have to admit some of them aren't bad but generally..... she fits the "anti-role model" bill almost perfectly.

DFTBA

(Quick! Type the stats to see if I've won!!)

Twenty Questions status: 20 down! None left!

programs open: Sticky notes, windows live mail, windows media player, chrome (blogger in draft new post)

Latest music listened to: Tom Milsom's song which I can never remember what it's called because I never changed it from "bonus track" when I took it off the CD

Last film/tv watched: Still My Family

Latest book read: Alice in Time

Latest edible item consumed: Still the raspberry Sorbet

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: blue

Days until Roothill: 2

Following the theme of what came before

2011-08-18T15:40:00.000+01:00

Has Steven Moffat dropped the ball?

In my opinion, no. Well, unless he's been playing catch with his sons in which case, maybe, but I don't tend to pry into his private life.

So why no? Because his writing is still awesome. Frustrating and confusing maybe but still awesome. It's the sort of writing that is probably appreciated more on a re-watching of his work when you know all the little intricacies and can appreciate all the little pointers that you missed first time but it is still fantastic. (Imagine that fantastic being said in the voice of the 9th Doctor, that's how fantastic it is in my opinion.)

Do I need to expand on that? I've filled the 100 word criteria and I'm adamant the answer is 'no' soooo....

Adios!

Twenty Questions status: 19 down, 1 to go! (goes to check if Matt has sneekily done another blog and won...)

programs open: Sticky notes, windows live mail, windows media player, chrome (blogger in draft new post)

Latest music listened to: That Will Be The Day - Mike Lombardo

Last film/tv watched: Still a short bit of My Family

Latest book read: Alice in Time

Latest edible item consumed: Still the Sorbet. I'm very full!

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Still blue..

Days until Roothill: 2

And the obsession continues....

2011-08-18T15:31:00.000+01:00

I'm going to be rather predictable in answering the next question. It will involve a certain time travelling TV show....

If you ruled the universe, what’s the first law you would pass?

Well, while I could be all world loving and say something that would increase world peace or I could pass some law that gives me all the chocolate I desire I think this law would be much more beneficial for all people: At least one episode of Doctor Who (Classic or Current) should be shown each day of the week. Preferably in order. Obviously my perfect ideal would be that Doctor Who was the same as friends in that you turn on the TV and you're almost certainly going to find an episode playing somewhere however if we go through the episodes too fast, firstly, we'll run out too quickly and will have to start from the beginning all too soon and secondly, the rapid viewing may lead to the BBC wishing to make new episodes way too quickly and therefore spoiling the quality. I don't really want the quality of Who episodes to drop just because I desire to watch Who more often....

How is this beneficial? Well, kids these days (and the adults too probably) need to be educated on what good TV is. No more rubbishy soaps that seem to be on for the sake of something to watch. Hmm, maybe that should be my second law... No more TV soaps... or Big Brother...

anyway.... Alons-y!

Twenty Questions status: 18 down, 2 to go!

programs open: Sticky Notes, Windows Live Mail, Chrome (Blogger in draft homepage and new post)

Latest music listened to: Remix of EddPlant's song Debut

Last film/tv watched: I started watching an episode of my family and then realised I REALLY should get to bed as it was late.

Latest book read: Alice in Time

Latest edible item consumed: Raspberry Sorbet at a nice restaurant because my parents took me out for an A level results congratulatory meal :)

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Blue. Couldn't be blue-er

Days until Roothill: 2

Preparing for the hate mail...

2011-08-17T23:52:00.000+01:00

I know so many will hate my answer for this one. However, in the words of Charlie McDonnell: "The people that mind don't matter and the people that matter don't mind."

What’s the most overrated book out there?

Harry Potter. Yes, there, I said it: Harry Potter. Now, just to clarify, I'm not saying Harry Potter is the worst book out there, that's not the question. I'm sure it must have some good points that I'm missing and not appreciating but I do think that Harry Potter is overrated.

Even as an 11 year old, I never got into Harry Potter, the world never captured me and that was odd considering I was the biggest bookaholic you could have found. (Well, maybe I exaggerate... but my point stands.) For all the fuss made of Harry Potter, what I've read isn't as well written as I'd expect, the plot isn't as compelling and, well, I just don't see what the fuss is about. Sure, it's not a really bad book, I'd even go as far as saying it's a good book but does it warrant all the fuss and hype that it has? In my opinion: no.

So I shall leave you with my favourite four words of the first book: “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!” (and you know what, even these annoy me a bit...)

Twenty Questions status: 17 down, 3 to go! Neck and neck!
programs open: Skype, Steam Chat, Sticky notes, Windows Live Mail, Windows Movie Maker, Chrome (YouTube, blogger in draft: new post, facebook, a tangent relating to google homepage...)
Latest music listened to: I Love Brains - ALL CAPS (Although I have You're Not There by EddPlant running round my head trying to persuade me that it instead was the last thing I listened to)
Last film/tv watched: The Doctor's Wife
Latest book read: Alice in Time
Latest edible item consumed: Crunch Cake
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Black/blue
Days until Roothill: 3

If Matt had a TARDIS....

2011-08-17T23:24:00.000+01:00

If you wrote a comic strip, what would it be about?

I'd really love to write a comic strip. I really enjoy drawing the episodes to Fort Paradox and I'm always doodling little characters that have the potential to be stars of comic strips or maybe even a whole web series but it's always the plots that I fail at. I can never think of a decent story arc, not even for a comic strip of a few pictures long and so every effort usually falls flat on its face. I'm not going to embarrass myself by sharing the cheesedoodles comic strip I did in year 9 and the Sockpup Chronicles never came off the ground (I blame Terrie, she was meant to be doing the scripting and I can't draw something if I don't have a script!). However, Matt's response to my question "You now have a type 40 TARDIS. Where and when would your top destinations be?" gave me an idea.....

(Matt, I apologise in advance for my drawing. Please do not get offended!)

DFTBA

Twenty Questions status: 16 down, 4 to go

programs open: Steam chat, Skype, Windows Live Mail, Windows Media Player, Sticky Notes, Chrome (Youtube, Blogger in Draft: new post, The Who Shop's website, A White Horizon, Page for Picture Unrelated)

Latest music listened to: I Love Brains

Last film/tv watched: The Doctor's Wife

Latest book read: Alice in Time

Latest edible item consumed: Crunch Cake... I think....

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: black/blue (Yours Forever, lessthanthree!)

Days until Roothill: 3

Unlikely endings

2011-08-17T01:04:00.002+01:00

Now to dive into the world of hypothetical questions.... Would you prefer an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse?

At this point I'm tempted to point out how both are basically impossible... How the probabilities make it unlikely for there to be any intelligent aliens and then times that by the practical impossibility of interstellar travel... And as for a zombie apocalypse, the police force, army, national health service, all those sort of things mean that any sort of zombie-like infection is unlikely to spread. Have you not noticed how all zombie films start after the police, army and all that sort of thing has disappeared? Anyway... we were talking hypothetically...

I think I would probably prefer an alien invasion because, seen as this is hypothetical, that means, hypothetically, the likelihood of the Doctor turning up is much more likely. So with an alien invasion, it would be so much more exciting, so much more like an episode of Doctor Who... plus the ending would be so much more satisfying. Have you noticed how zombie films just, sort of... end... There's no satisfying conclusion so much, it just... ends. There suddenly become a cure or something and it just ends... or everyone dies.... Plus I'm not sure how good I'd be with a shotgun.

"Oh man I hate, hate, hate frigging zombies..." - ALL CAPS

Twenty Questions status: 15 down, 5 to go

programs open: steam chat, sticky notes, windows live mail, chrome (blogger in draft: new post, bbc iplayer "The Doctor's Wife")

Latest music listened to: EddPlant - You're Not There

Last film/tv watched: Almost finished The Doctor's Wife

Latest book read: Alice in Time

Latest edible item consumed: An Apple

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Still blue. Haven't changed yet.

Days until Roothill: 3

How is something that looks like mud so tasty?

2011-08-17T00:46:00.000+01:00

Which is the best chocolate bar, and why?

I like chocolate. I mean I really like chocolate. So much so that making me chose the best chocolate bar is like making me chose a favourite sibling. (Then again, I only have one sister so that decision is pretty easy) however there are soooo many different types of chocolate bar that making me decide is just... well, I can't settle on just one. Plus, anyway, my mood does have a slight affect on which I think is the best.

Firstly, I think Galaxy is just that bit better than Cadbury's. Galaxy is that little bit creamier, just a little sweeter and I really like the shape of the squares now.

However, Cadbury's flake is probably my favourite Cadbury's chocolate bar. There's something wonderful about the flaky texture that makes a flake wonderful. I would have about 5 with every 99 cone I had if that weren't considered so ridiculous.

Nevertheless, I usually maintain that Aero bars are my favourite kind. There is something wonderful about 'feeling the bubbles melt'. Soft, sweet, light, scrummy...

Then again, Mars bars, Bounty bars, Galaxy Cookie Crumble, anything with caramel...... To be honest, I could argue that any chocolate bar that isn't Snickers was the best so if you had asked me which chocolate bar was the worst I could just answer with something simple: Snickers because peanuts are DISGUSTING!

DFTBA

Twenty Questions status: 14 down, 6 to go

programs open: steam chat, sticky notes, windows live mail, chrome (blogger in draft: new post, bbc iplayer "The Doctor's Wife")

Latest music listened to: EddPlant - You're Not There (Reliving Saturday evening!)

Last film/tv watched: Half way through The Doctor's Wife

Latest book read: Alice in Time

Latest edible item consumed: An Apple

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Still blue. Haven't changed yet.

Days until Roothill: 3

Home is where the heart is

2011-08-16T23:53:00.000+01:00

I've got to the point in twenty questions where I've realised that I've got to the point where the questions I've left are gradually getting harder and requiring more thought to answer.... So seen as I've only got four days left I better get thinking!!

What would your dream house be like?

When I was younger, I used to tell my parents that when I grew up that I would live in the family house and I'd build them a 'granny annex' at the bottom of the garden. I told them I never wanted to move out. So, I guess, my dream house wouldn't be much different to that which I live in now.

Now, where I live now isn't a grand mansion or anything like that before you jump to any conclusions. However, I think a dream house is more than having a gigantic garden, lots of big bedrooms, beautiful architecture and a fashionable interior. My dream house is much more to do with a house that feels like a home. Sure, enough rooms for everyone to have their own area to escape to and a big enough garden for me to attempt to grow a few plants (at least tomatoes!) and for kids to play in (must be room for swings!) and a large enough kitchen for cooking to not be a squeeze but too big of a kitchen and you feel lost, too big of a garden and it will end up looking messy and too many rooms will lead to empty rooms, losing that cosy, homely feel.

However, one thing my house is missing is a studio. If I had my way and if this house ever truly became mine, the one thing I would do to it would be to add an art studio come music studio. Somewhere where I can splash paint around at one end to my heart's content without having to worry about clearing up because it makes the place look 'arty' and the other end (possibly divided by sliding doors) made into a music studio with recording capabilities, a piano (even though I can't play) and a collection of musical instruments because I'd hope that any kids I had would at least try to learn an instrument.

As you can tell, a dream house isn't just a house, it's a home. Full of family making it cosy and full of - however cheesy this may sound - love.

DFTBA

Twenty Questions status: 13 down, 7 to go

programs open: steam chat, sticky notes, windows live mail, chrome (blogger in draft: new post, bbc iplayer [I have an episode of Miranda tabbed to watch, similarly "The Doctor's Wife" and I've just finished watching Bang goes the Theory so that tab is still open too], YouTube

Latest music listened to: EddPlant - You're Not There (Reliving Saturday evening!)

Last film/tv watched: Bang Goes the Theory (first episode of new series!)

Latest book read: Alice in Time

Latest edible item consumed: An Apple (I really like Discovery apples and could eat them for England. I'm making the most of there being lots of them in our house atm!)

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Still blue.

Days until Roothill: 4 (3 in less than 10 minutes...)

Beth, Doritos only has one 'i'

2011-08-16T22:14:00.002+01:00

The week of Beach Mission, I discovered a few things about my friend Beth that some people may consider worrying. I certainly found some of them shocking. I mean, what 17 year old British girl has neither listened to Bohemian Rhapsody or played Scrabble? However, most relevant to the next question, Beth calls Doritos, Doritios.... Yes, note that extra 'i'....

What’s wrong with Doritos, anyway?

When I first read this question I didn't really think there was anything wrong with Doritos. I mean, I like them, they're a good party snack and they're good for sharing but I hadn't really thought much more about them besides 'sure, I like them.' However, now that I come to think of it, there are a number of issues with Doritos....

You always get the flavourings all over your fingers. What is with that? Can they not flavour them in a way where you finish eating and you don't go 'ah, I should probably go wash my hands. Although I'd lick it off, but then I should still go wash my hands cause I'll have spit-covered hands...'
The flavouring dust also means it's eat or do something else, for a snack-y type food, it makes it really hard to eat them whilst doing something else. Like playing cards...
Why have I never seen small bags of Doritos? It's as if they only want you to eat them when you're with friends and never as a small snack by yourself.
The dip jars are always too big compared to one bag of Doritos. One bag of Doritos should have a one bag size of branded dip to go with it.
According to Wikipedia, the Sour Cream and Onion flavour was discontinued in the 80s. I like sour cream and onion flavour....
'Dorito' means 'little golden' in Spanish but most Doritos are more orange than golden..
.... I think I'm clutching at straws now...

DFTBA

Twenty Questions status: 12 down, 8 to go

programs open: Steam Chat, sticky notes, windows live mail, Chrome (Blogger in draft: new post, Doritos wikipedia page)

Latest music listened to: Safety Dance...

Last film/tv watched: Heroes, season 3, episode *checks disk* 22

Latest book read: Alice in Time by Penelope Bush (This is actually a book my sister has been borrowing from the library... Quite good for a book aimed at young teenagers)

Latest edible item consumed: Crunch Cake I think.

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Blue. Very blue

Days until Roothill: 4

Summer in the City!

2011-08-16T01:45:00.000+01:00

When I first read this question, I wasn't really sure what to answer with. It's one of those questions that when asked, my mind goes blank and I'm all "but I can't think of anything now!" However, after this weekend, I guess you could claim that in some people's opinion, it answers this question: What’s the strangest activity/project/group you’ve been involved with?

On Saturday, I headed over to London for the main day of Summer in the City. So far, if you don't know what I'm on about you probably think this is fairly normal. However, most people (especially those who don't 'get' the YouTube community) may think that my spending an afternoon in Regents Park with a bunch of people who I've never really met before, some of whom I watch on YouTube and the main thing we all have in common being YouTube, is a bit odd. Plus the crowd around one certain Charlie McDonnell would definitely confuse those who don't realise his 'internet fame' as it were.

Only at Summer in the City would you get hundreds of nerds emerging from behind their computer screens, filling Regent's Park with cries of 'DFTBA' and chants of 'Maureen Johnson, where are you?!', or so many people in the same obscure T-Shirt such as that of Sons of Admirals or a Pizza John shirt or so many people dressed up; Only at Summer in the City will you get two Eleventh Doctors, one Amy Pond, one Tenth Doctor, a monkey, and an Aperture Science test victim complete with portal gun. I think those who weren't either dressed up or wearing an obscure and/or nerdy shirt were severely outnumbered.

Oh, and then there were the cameras. Everywhere you looked on Saturday there were cameras, video cameras, people talking to cameras as they vlogged, people pointing cameras at other people as they were challenged to do silly things or asked to say something, cameras taking pictures of fangirls with their YouTube obsessions and cameras taking pictures of groups of friends who know each other over the internet but so rarely get to meet up. CDs and notebooks and my giant, almost filled scrapbook were handed over to YouTubers with a pen asking for signatures, drawings, a message, a random fact, anything to remind them of the time they actually met the person rather than just seeing their face pop up in their subscription boxes once again.

Saturday was a great day. Getting to know YouTubers, having others randomly come up to you and say hi, going through my whole scrapbook with Tom Ska (Hello parking meter... Hello!) while Charlie McDonnell is mere meters away getting fangirled, being able to sing along to EddPlant's music live, being able to tell YouTubers in person how much you appreciate their videos and realising that they are all just normal people. Normal people in this sub-community where they are 'internet celebrities' as some call them but ultimately so normal. Thank you everyone who was there for a great day and DFTBA!!

Twenty Questions status: 11 down, 9 to go
programs open: windows live mail, sticky notes, chrome (Blogger in draft: new post, My blog,)
Latest music listened to: Mike Lombardo: If I Say (Let go)
Last film/tv watched: How to Train Your Dragon I think because I wasn't really watching whatever was on Terrie's TV earlier and I don't think I've watched anything since...
Latest book read: If you could see me now
Latest edible item consumed:A pint of Coke
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Pink and Grey PJs! I'm ready to go to bed as soon as this is posted!
Days until Roothill: 4..... 9 posts left to do in 4 days... eek!!

Painting by Numbers

2011-08-13T01:10:00.000+01:00

I've just finished painting an episode of Fort Paradox for Matt so I think it's rather appropriate that I answer this question next: Ink or Acrylics?

I don't actually have a straight out answer for this. When I'm doing art, it usually depends what mood I'm in as to which medium I use. If I'm in a messier mood then I'll probably pull out my acrylics but if I'm in a more monochrome mood I'd go for inks (Biros usually being my preferred type of inky pen). I'd also say that it depends what I'm planning on drawing. Something with more detail and less focus on colour will usually be done in ink while a less detailed, more colour dependant piece would be done in acrylics. Also, the larger the artwork, the more likely I will do it in acrylics. However cool it would be to do an A1 piece entirely in Biro, I don't think I'd have the patience. Maybe someday I'll do a massive Biro piece....

I have to say, I do love acrylics. Despite being fond of doing ink drawings, there is something satisfying about acrylics which blends colours in a certain way and fills in big blocks so quickly in as equally as satisfying way. Choosing between the two is hard but however easy it is to just pick up a pen and draw, usually I will choose acrylics if I have the time, space and desire to be a little more messy. :)

An interior without an exterior can hardly constitute itself as an interior - Salvador Dali

Twenty Questions status: 10 down, 10 to go
programs open: windows live mail, steam chat, sticky notes, chrome (Blogger in draft: new post, My blog,)
Latest music listened to: Journey's End by Chameleon Circuit
Last film/tv watched: How to Train Your Dragon
Latest book read: If you could see me now
Latest edible item consumed:Classic Magnum
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Black/blue/grey sort of equal amounts
Days until Roothill: 7

I'm not obsessed or anything...

2011-08-12T17:53:00.000+01:00

When I first read the next question, I have to admit I wasn't totally sure what to answer with. I couldn't really remember what I should answer with but then last week... well, you'll see.

What’s your most recently formed life ambition?

As of about last week, to have a Doctor Who themed wedding. So most of you will think I'm crazy, others will think that's pretty cool, others will just dismiss it as me being "one of those girls who likes to plan early". However, since I found out that a couple I met on Beach Mission last week had their wedding with a slight Doctor Who theme, I've embraced the idea myself...

I've probably put way too much thought into this. Waay too much thought...

Using Doctor Who character's names when doing the practice run through...
Somehow materialising in a TARDIS rather than a car?
Having the theme tune or some other part of the soundtrack play on the way out
Bridesmaids in TARDIS blue
TARDIS blue balloons rather than just the usual white ones
Somehow incorporate trock? Maybe get Chameleon Circuit to play if they're still a thing...
Tables with names after Who related characters rather than boring old numbers
Encourage people to dress up as Who characters?
Have a TARDIS cake like Terrie did for her birthday except BIGGER!
Marry the Doctor... wait... stick to reality Hannah...

I think you get the idea.....

DFTBA

Twenty Questions status: 9 down, 11 to go
programs open: Windows media player, windows live mail, steam chat, sticky notes, chrome (Blogger in draft: new post, My blog, Facebook, Fort Paradox
Latest music listened to: Everything is Ending by Chameleon Circuit
Last film/tv watched: How to Train Your Dragon
Latest book read: If you could see me now
Latest edible item consumed:Classic Magnum
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Black/blue/grey sort of equal amounts
Days until Roothill: 8

Sssh! Don't wake me!

2011-08-12T08:30:00.000+01:00

Do you like mornings?

No. Well, no is usually my immediate answer to this question but seen as I need more than one word I've been thinking about this a little more. My hatred of mornings isn't really just as simple as 'no'. At least, not if you think about the different ways you could interpret this question.

The most obvious interpretation and the cause of the flat out 'no' response is the "do you like getting up in the mornings?" way of looking at it. I suck at getting out of bed. Anyone who's ever shared a room with me, or a tent, or ever seen me in the morning for any reason knows that I just don't get up. I'm too fond of staying tucked up in my duvet, snuggled down in the warmth of my bed and even when I'm in a sleeping bad on an air bed, I rarely want to get up. I'm just too fond of sleep and that warm snuggly feeling that you pretty much only get in bed.

You could also take it as "do you like the period of time pre-lunch but post dawn?" and for that, I'd have to say I do. There is something satisfying about getting stuff done in the morning and knowing, when you've finished that you've still got the whole afternoon left to do things. The weather in the morning of a hot day is winding up to the sunny climax of noon rather that winding down to the balmy evening (although I do love that, who doesn't love the smell of a cool summer evening?) and mornings give you the feeling of a fresh new day that you miss when you don't get up until 11 or 12...

Although I say that I like the time period of morning, I'm afraid to say that my hatred of getting out of bed generally overrules. Rarely do I get up earlier than I need to and more often than not I try to squeeze an extra five... ten... fifteen... thirty minutes of sleep before I actually get up. No wonder I so often set my alarm so long before I actually need to be out the door...

"Tweet tweet, time to sleep... or are you waking up?"

Twenty Questions status: 8 down, 12 to go
programs open: I'm going to try setting a schedule for this to post in the morning....
Latest music listened to: One of the songs off Chameleon Circuit's "Still got legs". 'Although I can't remember which track
Last film/tv watched: BBC 10 O'clock News. Although I have to admit not the whole thing
Latest book read: If you could see me now
Latest edible item consumed: I had a glass of milk before I went up to bed.
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Grey/White
Days until Roothill: 8

So… what to do when life gives you lemons?

2011-08-12T01:34:00.000+01:00

With the title being the next question, all I can say is, "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade!" This being a quote from the highly regarded computer game, Portal 2. (Funnily enough, it's the sequel to Portal!)

Now, I would launch into how awesome this game is, how it tests your logic rather than just getting you to point and shoot, tests your reactions and captures you in a great story arc however seen as I still haven't completely finished the game, I don't quite feel qualified.

Right, before any of you who have played Portal and/or Portal 2 start telling me off for taking so long:

1. I didn't order the game until after exams had ended
2. I haven't been playing it non-stop
3. I haven't played it since I got to a point where I was having a bit of difficulty, stopped to think about it and never really got back to it because I got distracted by rereading of The Hunger Games, playing of other games, visiting friends, and being away last week.

I really want to finish it and maybe I'll find out more about Cave Johnson and most likely realise I was really close to the end when I stopped playing but for now I will leave you with this: Valve make awesome games.

DFTBA

Sorry, the stats haven't really changed since last blog, I haven't done anything much in the past 10 minutes or so!

Twenty Questions status: 7 down, 13 to go
programs open: Steam chat, sticky notes, chrome (blogger in draft: new post)
Latest music listened to: One of the songs off Chameleon Circuit's "Still got legs". 'Although I can't remember which track
Last film/tv watched: BBC 10 O'clock News. Although I have to admit not the whole thing
Latest book read: If you could see me now
Latest edible item consumed: I had a glass of milk before I came up to bed.
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Grey/White
Days until Roothill: 8

No, not the man with the ark

2011-08-12T01:15:00.002+01:00

Rolling straight on to the next question: Why is your car called that?

So, for those of you who don't know, my car is called Noah. Yes, you're right to jump to conclusion that this is from the Bible but no, the name is not from the guy who built an ark when God told him to but actually, it's after a lady in the Bible.

"What? There's a female Noah in the Bible?" is probably what you're saying if you haven't heard this story before. The answer is most certainly yes. In fact, she's mentioned in two separate places. I can't remember who said this or when it got said but it came about that I relayed this fact (I believe the original claim was that there are more female Noahs than male in the Bible but it comes to pass that this actually isn't strictly speaking true) to a friend which led to a long time on Easter Camp trawling through the Bible to back up our facts. Eventually, and a long time later, two accounts came up separately in my bible readings (Numbers 26v33/36v11 being in effect one account and Joshua 17v3 being the other). If you read it, you find that Noah is one of the daughters of Zelophehad and her and her sisters had no brothers so asked for their father's land to be passed on through them in the Numbers account and in Joshua we see it being given to them.

Now what has this got to do with the name of my car? Well, when we got the car, we (well mainly me) decided it should be named. My mum suggested Alfie due to my Grandma giving me a chocolate car called Alfie rather than a chocolate egg for Easter and I suggested Noah just because it would be a good reason to tell the story of the above. Plus only a car can get away with being female and called Noah. So for a while Noah Alfie Newcombe was the car's name (NAN for short) however only the Noah bit seems to have stuck until this day to leave you with this rather bizarre anecdote...

DFTBA

Twenty Questions status: 6 down, 14 to go
programs open: Steam chat, sticky notes, chrome (blogger in draft: new post)
Latest music listened to: One of the songs off Chameleon Circuit's "Still got legs". 'Although I can't remember which track
Last film/tv watched: BBC 10 O'clock News. Although I have to admit not the whole thing
Latest book read: If you could see me now
Latest edible item consumed: I had a glass of milk before I came up to bed.
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Grey/White
Days until Roothill: 8

Did you have to ask?

2011-08-10T22:59:00.001+01:00

The next question, I really don't know why Matt had to ask this, surely the answer is obvious? Beethoven or Bieber?

Beethoven hands down. Even if you're talking about the dog! I have to admit, that I'm not generally the sort of person who listens to Beethoven in the car or chooses classic FM. Generally the playing of Beethoven's music is reserved for when I get my flute out but any day I'd choose Beethoven over Bieber.

Now, my music theory knowledge is a bit sparse (I only just got the pass mark in grade 5 music theory!) but Beethoven has so many positives making his music sound so much better. Plus, there is something magical about listening to a complete orchestra playing together in harmony, something beautiful. When you think about Bieber in comparison, the pop-y music with limited chords just doesn't really match up.

Bieber also has the disadvantage of lyrics. I don't like the lyrics of most pop songs, but when they're sung by someone younger than me, they loose any sort of meaning they had. Also, I can't take seriously any artist who uses "like" in the wrong way so many times in one chorus:

And I was like...

Baby, baby, baby oooh
Like baby, baby, baby nooo
Like baby, baby, baby oooh
I thought you'd always be mine (mine)

Baby, baby, baby oooh
Like baby, baby, baby nooo
Like baby, baby, baby oooh
I thought you'd always be mine (mine)

Do I need to explain my answer of "Beethoven" any more?

Twenty Questions status: 5 down 15 to go!

programs open: Steam, Sticky Notes, Windows Live mail, Chrome (Blogger in draft: new post, Justin Bieber Lyrics.... iPlayer)

Latest music listened to: Something on my DFTBA playlist on the way to the allotment...

Last film/tv watched: A documentary about a girl with a sleeping disorder which means she ends up sleeping for up to two weeks.

Latest book read: If you could see me now

Latest edible item consumed: Oooh, I finished off with crunch cake again!

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Grey/white, once again in my pjs :)

Days until Roothill: 10

"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground."

2011-08-09T22:24:00.000+01:00

How big are your feet?

You know, this is not actually as straight forward as you would thing. You probably thought I'd give you an integer and then fill up the rest of the blog with rambling but actually, it's just not that easy. I mean, I know I'm roughly around a size 7 but I can never guarantee that a size 7 will fit. Sometimes they're too big and I have to get a size 6, sometimes they're even too small and I have to get a size 8. Sizes seem to vary from make to make and a size 6 in one style of shoe will be just the same size as a size 8 in another!

I could just measure my feet I guess.. Hang on... *grabs ruler from nearby desk* my right foot is.... *measures foot* roughly 26 cm long or about 10.2 inches (ironically less that a foot long) and my left foot is.... *measures foot* 25 cm long about 9.8 inches give or take. Well, that centimetre differences certainly explains why I tend to find shoes never fit both feet equally well.... Then again, I may have measured my feet wrong.. I was trying to use a plastic ruler I got for art in year seven. As you do...

DFTBA

Twenty Questions status: 4 down, 16 to go!

programs open: Steam, Sticky notes, windows live mail, windows media player, chrome (blogger in draft: new post)

Latest music listened to: Eddplant's "Less Than Three"

Last film/tv watched: Still Top Gear!

Latest book read: Still "If you could see me now"

Latest edible item consumed: Still crunch cake!

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Still haven't changed...

Days until Roothill: 11 (I still have more blogs left than days left....)

Baaalmy obsessions

2011-08-09T21:54:00.003+01:00

So now I'm going to answer the big question. The one that so many of you must have been asking as you raise your eyebrows at my blog's name or (if you know me IRL) as you see me sitting next to you complete with sheep t-shirt, socks and shoes with sheep drawn on: Where did the sheep obsession come from?

You know, I think the obsession is something that has sort of crept up on me. I've always loved animals but when I was younger, it was always dolphins I obsessed over. I have a ton of little dolphin ornaments, my lampshade has dolphins stencilled over it, part of my room has a dolphin border round it (where it's not covered by posters) and you can also see the occasional stencilled dolphin peek out from under the things covering the wall around my noticeboard. Everything had to be dolphin related. Once, through school, I met the author of the Roman Mysteries series and my obsession meant I bought the dolphin related book for her to sign rather than starting at the beginning like any normal person. However, this doesn't explain the sheep obsession really does it? But in some ways it's important. Somewhere along the line, my dolphin obsession started to fade and a sheep obsession started to kick it. Maybe something to do with the sheep in the field at the end of our garden, possibly something somewhere harking back to the nightmares I used to have as a very little girl of sheep jumping over the fence and swarming our garden. (Which apparently actually used to happen in a less drastic way before we put in a new fence but it's funny how I remember the dream but not the actual sheep. Then again, I would have been only about 18 months old.)

This may have all been building up but I think the turning point came on Easter Camp one year. We were doing some high ropes and in the field next to where we were, there were some sheep. I said, as illogical me would, something along the lines of: "Those sheep must be feeling left out, seeing so many people do high ropes right next to them. I wonder if we could make a sheep harness so they could join in? Ooh! How about a sheep zipwire!" and then for a lot of the rest of the week, I was talking about sheep, saying 'sheep' as the answer to any questions that I didn't know the answer to and sheep seemed to take over....

So really, the sheep obsession partly snook up on me and partly was the result of a rather obscure and random comment...

Alons-y...

Twenty Questions status: 3 down, 17 to go...

programs open: Steam chat, sticky notes, windows live mail, windows media player, chrome (blogger in draft: new post)

Latest music listened to: Driftless Pony Club's American Princes is currently playing

Last film/tv watched: Still Top Gear

Latest book read: Cecelia Ahern's If you could see me now.

Latest edible item consumed: Still the awesomeness that is crunch cake. Unless you count toothpaste but I didn't really eat that...

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: still grey/white, I'm not going to change out of my pyjamas now am I?!

Days until Roothill: 11

Returning to those all important questions...

2011-08-09T21:27:00.003+01:00

I’m back!

So, after an extended week away, I am ready to return with vengeance in order to scrape back the lead that Matt has so kindly given himself. I had an amazing week at beach mission with full days on the beach sharing God’s word, playing games, singing songs, sharing memory verses, playing Zonko and all manner of other things whilst gently browning myself, finished off with an extra day or so with Beth and Josh mainly. However, I’m not quite sure how to use one of Matt’s questions to tell you about Beach Mission in great detail so I’m just going to jump straight back into answering questions!

12. If you had to choose between your eyes and your ears…?

This is a hard question. I mean, genuinely hard. It’s like being told to choose between children. I guess the best way to decide is to see which I can least live without…

· Ears give you music. I very rarely go a day without listening to or singing some kind of music whether it’s my mp3 or singing at church or singing on the beach on beach mission. I'm always humming tunes. I can’t imagine life without music pulsating around me. It would just be so quiet.
· Ears mean you can hear what people are saying to you. You can talk over Skype and on the phone, it makes communicating so much easier and quicker and it means everyone else don’t have to learn sign language!
· Ears mean I can listen to audio books, particularly Doctor Who audio books read by David Tennant…. (Although I have to admit I prefer reading books. Which requires eyes…)
· Ears mean I can appreciate wonderful regional accents…
· Eyes mean I can see the beauty of creation, appreciate beautiful butterflies, pretty flowers, awesome animals and stunning scenery.
· Eyes mean I can do art. Sure, you can technically make art without eyesight but I wouldn't be able to paint and draw like I love to.
· Eyes mean I can read and watch TV programs. Audio books and audio description only compensates so much.
· A person with no eyes is more obviously different than a person with no ears. Well, girls at least with their hair down.
· My eyes are already slightly malfunctioning… I need glasses but not hearing aids…
· I could get glass eyes so I don’t look so silly…. Then again I could also get prosthetic ears.

In conclusion… am I ready to come to a conclusion? In conclusion, I think I’d rather keep my ears over my eyes. I love music just that bit too much. I’m just going to have to teach myself to play music by ear if I can’t read the music for playing my flute…

Twenty Questions status: 2 down, 18 to go...

programs open: Steam, Windows Live mail, windows media player, postit notes, word, Chrome (blogger in draft and Alex Day's Blog)

Latest music listened to: Again playing through my DFTBA playlist with the demo version of "Exterminate, Regenerate" by Chameleon Circuit currently playing.

Last film/tv watched: Top Gear. I've been catching up but I think I may have missed an episode... not sure...

Latest book read: Cecelia Ahern's "If you could see me now"

Latest edible item consumed: Crunch cake!! A chocolaty, biscuity, very sweet piece of yummyness made by my sister.

Predominant colour of clothes wearing: grey/white. I'm actually already in my pyjamas...

Days until Roothill: 11

Is this the last question?

2011-07-30T01:50:00.001+01:00

No! Of course this isn't the last question! In fact, this is the beginning of "Twenty Questions". Do you remember back at the beginning of the year when Matt Colclough challenged me to "First 11 for '11"? Well this is the sequel. And I'm heading off to Beach Mission tomorrow so he has some what of an advantage...

Matt and I have set each other twenty questions which we each have to answer before we head off to Roothill camp on the 20th August. That would be pretty much one a day if I weren't going on Beach Mission but just because I'll be busy next week doesn't mean I'm going to let Matt win! Even if it requires five blogs in one day or working out a way to blog from my phone, I will not give up and rest assured, this will not be the last question.

Obviously, this challenge has a few rules. The main one being that each blog should be at least 100 words long however I'm now thinking that this may be a little short. I've already completed this quota and yet this blog seems a little short and pathetic. Then again, it may make it easier to catch up...

I've begun at the end, making the last question the first question and now I just have 19 more questions to complete. I think most of these I could come up with a post fairly easily and if anything, I'm going to have trouble deciding which order to do the posts in! I could have been all OCD about it and just done them in order but what's the fun in that? The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Oh, I've just realised, I could fulfil my need for order by just doing them backwards... Oh well, we'll see.

And of course, no challenge blog is complete without some stats:

Twenty Questions status: 1/20
programs open: Steam chat, too many postit notes, windows live mail and Chrome: facebook, blogger draft, A White Horizon, and instructions to make the black lotus from Sherlock that I've pinned and keep meaning to print.
Latest music listened to: Whatever was last on from my playlist of DFTBA artists
Last film/tv watched: an episode of Miranda on iPlayer that I was only half watching
Latest book read: A UBM book called "Holidays of a Lifetime!"
Latest edible item consumed: A chocolate biscuit I believe
Predominant colour of clothes wearing: Grey. Surprisingly not blue for once
Days until Roothill: 21

-----------------------------------

On Two Truths, One Lie, I'll put the whole thing on hold for a bit seen as a blog challenge has commenced however I will give you the answer to last time:

3 is the lie. This may disappoint people seen as it's the two highly esteemed films that I haven't seen and the other, rather standard film that I have... Well, if anyone wishes to lend me the DVDs....

"We Love John Green"

2011-07-27T21:03:00.002+01:00

My local Waterstones is awesome. Or maybe I should say it has become awesome. My local Waterstones has discovered Nerdfighteria. OK, maybe they're unaware that by stocking all of John Green's books and one of Maureen Johnson's books they've discovered Nerdfighteria but they sure have made me and my Nerdfighting friends happy.

Of course, this branch haven't always remembered to be awesome and they still have a way to go. When my friend Terrie first went in to try order Looking for Alaska for my birthday she got a reply along the lines of "Who on earth is John Green?" and it literally wasn't until about a week or so ago that they recognised the existence of Maureen Johnson. Furthermore, they only stock "Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes" so are unable to fulfil my Johnson cravings to the extent I would like.

Nevertheless, Waterstones has gone John Green mad. For quite a while, his books have been dominating the "teen" section with little hand written reviews for some of his books, praising them like nobody's business. Being the bookaholic I am, I can't go past Waterstones without popping in and every time I go to the back of the store to check the teen section. I've seen the abundance of awesome grow and grow from a few lone copies of "Looking for Alaska" all the way to all four of John Green's books. It's so great to see John Green's books flourish outside the world of Nerdfighteria and it also gives my friends and I an excuse to leave Nerdfighter notes...

However, I think the most awesome thing I've seen when I've popped in for one of my "check ups" on the section is this:

We'll ignore the fact that (in my opinion) "Looking for Alaska" has the wrong cover and that "will grayson, will grayson" is (also in my opinion) weird in paperback form (is this me being bias against copies that are unlike my own?) and focus on what has been written underneath. Oh. My. GOODNESS. Waterstones is awesome. Well, I guess it's the staff more than the big chain but still, EPIC. Who would have thought that a branch of a mainstream UK book store would get so hyped up about an American Nerdfighting author? Well I'm not complaining. :)

DFTBA

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(I'm not going to do Two Truths, One Lie this post seen as I posted so recently but don't fear! I will blog again with the answer soon! I hope!)

Every proverbial cloud...

2011-07-27T19:57:00.000+01:00

You know you haven't blogged in a while when:

1) You keep getting bugged on Formspring to blog
2) The format of blogger has changed so you don't recognise how to use it
3) Matt starts suggesting blog challenges to get us both blogging more!

I have no idea why I haven't been blogging, I mean, I love blogging and I've run out of excuses such as "exams" and "school" and "work". Re-reading The Hunger Games trilogy is hardly a valid excuse and that didn't use up the almost month since I last blogged; The Hunger Games is too good to read that slowly!

On the plus side, not blogging for so long has given me many things to write about. I've had plenty of ideas, read enough books to review, played enough Portal 2 to at least begin to review it (I still haven't quite finished the whole thing but when gives you lemons, I'm not just going to sit back and make lemonade... ok, that only makes sense as a reference...) and I've got plenty of free time to rustle up some random drawings, moan about various things and just generally bore you readers to the brink of destruction. (Then again, I hope I'm not quite that boring...)

Also, I've realised that you're probably wondering what the answer to "Two Truths, One Lie" is seen as I've left you swinging for so long. However, it has given you longer to guess. The handful of you who read... See, every cloud has a silver lining and all that :)

So, welcome back! Have a happy summer and I hope to see you here again soon! Alons-y!

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Two Truths, One Lie:

Last time, number one was the lie. Surprisingly, I haven't got a toy sheep named Wooly but if anyone wishes to fix that gaping hole, my address is: [You really thought I'd be that stupid?]

Now for this time's....

1) I've never seen Jurassic Park

2) I've never seen Toy Story 3

3) I've never seen Cars

Goodbye Exams!

2011-06-30T18:27:00.000+01:00

I have finally finished! My A level exams are over, I no longer have to go to school and I have a bucket load of free time. Admittedly, my last exam was almost a week ago, however, in my defence, I've been making the most of my new found freedom. I spent the weekend catching up with some friends from Roothill in London, Monday I had work as well as spending some wonderful time with Josh, Tuesday I, well, I have to admit I just wasn't in the mood to blog, and yesterday I spent my time helping down my mum's allotment and writing letters.

The problem with having so much free time is that I don't know what to do with myself. When I was revising, I could think of so many other things I wanted to do: blog, scrapbook, paint, read, spend time with friends; and now I just don't know where to start! I'm all "so. many. things. I. want. to. do... OVERLOAD!!" or something along those lines...

I may be having trouble deciding what to do with my free time but I have been getting on with some things. I've finally drawn on the white pair of converse-esque shoes that have been hanging around my room for a while (Mark III seen as the first two pairs have holes in) and as before, one shoe looks better than the other. Someday I'll get the hang of making both feet look equally awesome! I've also been working my way through Star Wars with my mum and we've finished watching the 3 more recent prequels and next up are the proper films!! I couldn't decide which order to watch them in so we went for chronological order rather than filmed order. So far I'm really enjoying them (even if they are a bit long) and I hope the remaining three are as awesome as the surrounding fandom suggests. :)

Unfortunately, during my revision seclusion, I didn't keep totally undistracted... My friends and I ended up having a bit of a debate on facebook over whether Lego or K'nex is better, stemming from a post about a lego TARDIS. Me being the massive Whovian that I am, decided to "waste" my revision time making a TARDIS out of each using the K'nex and Lego collections we still have around the house and I concluded that Lego is most definitely the winner. (Although my K'nex people make a much better 11th Doctor/Rory/Amy...)

Nevertheless, Rosanna didn't want K'nex to be quelled so easily so she made a pretty awesome K'nex TARDIS, much better than mine! It's just a shame it's not all blue and is see through... Sorry, nevertheless, it is epic. I don't think the picture probably quite does it justice.

Talking of Doctor Who... Melody Pond... River Song... WHY?!?!?! Ok, I'll expand on that in another blog.. for now, I bid you farewell and I shall blog to you soon.

DFTBA

Two truths, one lie:

1. I have a toy sheep called Wooly that my friend gave me as a belated birthday present around a year ago.
2. I once won a "name the toy" competition. It was run by the school's French department so I called it a Spanish name... naturally. (Juan if you're curious)
3. The only cuddly toy that I bought for myself has a bell in it. I'm pretty sure every other toy was given to me.

And the answer to last time? Worryingly enough, not 1 but number 3. It wasn't me who dressed up as Pippi Longstocking but my friend who went on to win a prize for her costume. One year I dressed up as a Cuckoo from an obscure book and the other as Mandy Hope from the Animal Ark books I was obsessed with.

The Worst Workmen

2011-05-17T12:35:00.000+01:00

For the past goodness knows how long, I have had workmen attacking the road outside my house and I'm convinced they are some of the worst workmen in the history of workmen. Not that I have extensive knowledge of workmen or their history but to be honest these workmen as so bad that I fell my claim is justified.

I will start at the most logical point: the beginning. Around a week before the Easter holidays began, a row of cones and some traffic lights appeared outside the row of houses where I live. Literally just a row of cones, no workmen, no holes in the road, nothing. This row of cones was made even worse by the fact that these cones remained there for another day or so without any signs of work starting. Well, unless you count a couple of workmen using the coned off area as a car park whilst standing around talking because I don't.

Eventually, the work started. Well, when I say work, the progress didn't improve much. Almost every time I looked out the window or went past the roadworks on my way to and from the house, there was no work going on. In the first few weeks of roadworks, it seemed like hardly anything got done and if they were not on a break then the moon was probably blue. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but it certainly felt like it.

You may be aware that I've been using the past tense quite a bit. Well, they have improved a bit since they started. Possibly because the people have changed, possibly because they're not going to meet their deadline (what other reason would they be working on a Saturday?!) However, they did get worse before they got better...

How did they get worse?! I hear you cry. Well, I'd say getting a dump truck stuck in the ditch is a pretty good definition of worse. I have absolutely no idea how they managed it as there is quite a bit of path and verge between the ditch and the roadworks however, for a good couple of days, the view from my sister's bedroom window included said dump truck sitting head first in a ditch.

My mum also reports of other atrocities: blocking a rather major road with a big lorry so there are rows of traffic winding back down the road, drivers beeping horns in frustration; workmen deciding that the best way to removed the dump truck from the ditch is to dig under the wheel; and malfunctioning lights. The latest development being that there are a couple of girls who always seem to be sitting next to the traffic lights, their purpose not fully know. It could be that they're controlling the lights however as the lights function perfectly well at night, I'm not quite sure how this could be the case.

To be honest, most of this doesn't really bother me, the thing that really bothers me is that it is basically impossible to reverse into our drive. First, you have to avoid the cones in the middle of the road which is doable but the biggest problem is trying to avoid the cars behind you. So often the cars decided that pulling up behind you as close as possible, despite the fact that you are clearly indicating to reverse in and there is no other way for them to get past apart from waiting for me to move. The number of times I've almost hit the car behind because they're haven't left me enough room is frustrating.

Almost two months since they started, the road works have moved so our house is no longer in the middle of the roadworks. Instead, we're in the equally frustrating position of half way between the traffic lights and the "when red light shows wait here" sign. On the plus side, we can see which end has the green light. On the down side, people are so much more impatient and I've resorted to the "pull up on the verge outside our house and wait for a quite patch to awkwardly reverse in" approach. Not the most favorable approach but I guess it'll do for now.

I'm sorry this has been a bit of a moany post, hopefully revision procrastination will make a more interesting post next time!

DFTBA

Two truth's one lie:

1) I once continued to run around the playground whilst wetting myself in about year three, leaving a "lovely" wet trail behind me...
2) I slipped whilst playing 40 40 home once leading to a very slight chip in one of my teeth. So slight you can barely see it.
3) I once dressed up as Pippi Longstocking for world book day.

And the answer to last week? Number 1 is the lie. I went to a couple of maths challenges in primary school and one of them did involve running about to pick up and give in answers however I didn't trip over. Or cry at all during the day for that matter.

BEDA in one blog

2011-05-06T00:08:00.000+01:00

Is it just me or did everyone lose the whole of April? Nope, didn't think I'd be able to use that as an excuse for not blogging so, erm... sorry. I could claim I was doing DBEDA (the opposite of Blog Every Day in April) however that's a bit ridiculous and in reality I was just very very busy.

It seems like so much has happened since the last time I blogged and every time I think about writing a blog some other bit of important news pops up or I do something else that's awesome. However, it seems that fast approaching exams have halted my social life for a bit and surely April and May have had their fill of big news events so I'm just going to try and sum up a month or so worth of happenings in one blog post. I can't just ignore some things so here we go...

Let me start with where I spent the first week of the Easter holidays: the middle of nowhere. More specifically Heatree House in Manaton near Exeter where I spent a week with some of my Christian friends on a camp learning more about God, discussing common topics from a Christian viewpoint, having a lot of fun in boats, ice-skating, running about after or away from leaders, going for long walks and just generally being there for each other and having a good time. I think this year was possibly my favourite year so far. Even if I did end up in A&E on the last night. The week was just amazing and it was great to be reminded how much joy knowing Jesus can bring. The joy of being loved, the joy of belonging, the joy of security, the joy of having a purpose, the joy of the reward and the joy of the future. The gospel gives us so many reasons to be joyful and, despite our tendency to worry, it's so comforting to know God is in control.

What's that? You're not going to let me just pass over the fact that I was in A&E? Don't worry, it wasn't anything too serious. I just got impaled on a coat peg. Well, that's the short, rather exaggerated version. It started with a game called 'assassins'*. We were each given a name, location and a sticker which we were to put on the shoulder of named person in said location and thereby obtaining their name and location. Being the master assassin I am, I managed to survive to the last six or so at which point locations were removed. It was a sticker crazy free for all and being a master assassin, I took up lodge in the kitchen to keep an eye on my target who had washing up duties plus the kitchen was a no kill zone. However, my assassin had other plans. He decided to pick me up and carry me out of the kitchen as one does. Of course, I was hardly going to go down without a fight so a combination of his competitiveness, my stubbornness and the coat pegs located on the wall of the adjacent drying room led to a rather large gash on my back. Of course, me being me, I refused to let them take me to A&E until after the evening talk but by 2am I was snuggled back in bed trying not to roll on the bit of my back which was taped together with many steri-strips and layers of dressing!

Of course, a week of Easter Camp hasn't been the only thing to happen since I last blogged. I spent a day at Knole Park with three very awesome friends (a lot of deer jokes were said throughout the day...) a fun day being a nerd with Josh, a Saturday helping at the church fun day at which I was wrapped up in toilet paper by the kids and made cotton wool sheep with them, and an awesome Saturday at the Doctor Who experience with some of my favourite nerds (oh my goodness it was fantastic!) before being amazed at the National Theatre's production of Frankenstein.

Let me expand on last Saturday: after an early morning (well, early for a Saturday) I headed over to the train station to meet my friends on the train to London which contained a lot of Who related debate (what else do you think will happen when you put eight whovians in the same space?!) and then, after meeting up with two other friends we headed over to The Doctor Who Experience. We were so excited you couldn't keep half of us on the floor so you can imagine our reaction when the guy on the door said with a dead pan face "I'm sorry, we're not allowing anyone else in until one o'clock." Thank goodness he was joking and we were soon inside the world of Doctor Who. We were surrounded by objects from the various series (even some classic who stuff too) and the walk through bit was amazing. Stepping through a crack in time and space, entering an amalgamation between the library and the starship and riding in the TARDIS (the floor moved and everything!) I genuinely got so into the experience I got scared by the stone angel statues we passed at one point (don't stand at the back!) and they had a short bit of "proper 3D" film when it felt like the daleks were shooting at me directly and stone angels had their hands seemingly mere centimetres away from my face. We spent way too long absorbing it all in and got way over exited to take a picture in front of the TARDIS (Tenth's interior as well as Eleventh's exterior.) It was an amazing morning. We also had a bit of a Kristina Horner** moment when we saw some of the cute kids that had come dressed as the Doctor!

Of course, for the afternoon we had to grow up from being 8 back up to being adults as we watched Frankenstein that afternoon. It was a stunning performance (if you ignore the amounts of flesh revealed at times) and I could quite happily return and just watch the set changes. The stage had a circular rotating platform that raised and lowered and set seemed to appear almost out of nowhere!

The past month has also been full of rather large events in the news. Starting with what has been rather overshadowed by more recent events: the death of Elizabeth Sladen. Despite being too old, I watched Sarah Jane Adventures as obsessively as the Doctor Who episodes and Sarah Jane was one of the best companions. It was such a shock to hear that she had died of cancer and I guess I'm just adding my bit to say she will be greatly missed in the world of Who.

Of course the event that consumed England towards the end of April (and a lot of the time before) was the royal wedding. Unlike my friend Beth who took it upon herself to knit the happy couple (although I believe she may not have finished in time!) I didn't really get into the wedding and didn't even really watch much of it. I know it was meant to be a big occasion however I regret to inform you that I wasn't feeling particularly patriotic and just watched some of the highlights on YouTube afterwards!

Nevertheless, the world soon forgot the happy royal couple anyway. America in particular have been celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden - a news story that has dominated the whole week and seemingly even overshadowed the referendum in England too.*** I can understand how people are happy that someone who has been such a large figure in the world of terrorism is no longer a threat or how this could be a turning point however it just doesn't seem right to celebrate anyone's death. Even if said person was behind the death of so many others, it feels like we're stooping to their lows if we celebrate their death. Furthermore, surely celebrations are likely to aggravate things? Has nobody learnt from the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?****

I hope this blog has sufficiently caught you up with the goings on of Hannah and seen as exams are fast approaching, I'm sure there will be a number of procrastination or stress-filled blogs in the coming weeks however, for now, I shall love you and leave you my dear readers. DFTBA!

*We didn't say that to the triage nurse. Her story was along the lines of "I was mucking about with a friend" which was very loosely the case!

**Kristina Horner being a member of ALL CAPS known as italktosnakes online who always manages to find cute kids dressed up as nerdy characters at various conventions and other places and apparently has the desire to kidnap them occasionally in the least creepy way possible obviously.

***I voted for the first time today! It was sort of odd but where I live we only had two candidates for the local election so at least I didn't have too many candidates to worry about!

****I know it's not really the same but I can't help seeing some similarities.

As a thing, I'm going to end my posts with "two truths, one lie" for the foreseeable future. Try to guess which one is the lie and leave it in the comments and I'll tell you the answer in my next blog post!

1) Whilst attending a maths challenge when I was in junior school which involved collecting and handing in your answers at a table separate from your teams table, I tripped over my own feet in my eagerness to hand in an answer and landed on my face in front of everyone and then started crying to make matter even worse!

2) I once got bit by a donkey when I was much younger and for quite a while thought that two of the freckles on my arm were caused by said bite!

3) When I was in infants school, I was put in a flashcard group with older kids and I was so scared of asking to go to the toilet that I ended up wetting myself!

"Eee By By Gum"

2011-03-30T21:30:00.001+01:00

Let's skip the whole "I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while" thing and skip to the important stuff. Namely Doctor Who.

Now, anyone who has read my blogs and is at least vaguely observant will have noticed that I love Doctor Who. It has this wonderful way of brining together a story that uses intellect and amazingly clever plots without a huge shooting fest to defeat the monsters because those monsters are made up of fears much greater, deeper set in our instincts than a big monster with fangs that can be defeated with a couple of blows or bullets to the head. As one man said (well sung) it's "the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism." You have vashta nerada encompassing our fear of the dark, clockwork monsters hiding under our bed, stone angels making us even more afraid of those things that might be moving about behind our backs and episodes that make you realise just how terrible we can be as a human race.

Of course, all this means that I am terribly excited for the new series at Easter and I think the full length trailer is one of the best trailers I've seen. (Not that trailers are generally particularly memorable once you've seen the actual thing but my watching of it three times in a row must say something about it.) They've got an amazing balance between avoiding major spoilers and giving out just enough information to make us want more, to make us speculate on what the series will hold, what the characters will do, and makes us want to watch the series now! (I mean, do they really expect us to wait another... meh, do they expect us to wait at all?!)

One of the best bits of TV series is always the disscussions about it with your equally obsessed friends afterwards. Arguing with your friends whether they prefer 9,10 or 11, whether they like Martha or not, who is their favourite character, whether Love and Monsters should be allowed to call itself an episode, is the brown suit better than the blue suit, you name it, my friends and I have most likely discussed it. The thing is, there are only so many times you can agree to disagree about whether Stephen Moffat has created too many confusing time loops, only so many ways you can present your disdain of "Love and Monsters" and only so many times you can establish that you all undoubtedly love Doctor Who. This is why trailers are so awesome. They give you that extra fuel and excitement for the new series to start discussing the possible outcomes all over again. To give you new topics, new areas of agreement and disagreement and, of course, new reasons to fangirl over the series. (Or fanboy I guess.)

So, here's the trailer in it's full 60 seconds of glory. Inhale it, absorb it, close your eyes and listen to the audio only, turn off the audio and take in all the frames one by one, re-watch it so many times you have the trailer seeping out of every orifice in your body, and then look at the things that I'm picking out.

As convention dictates, let us start at the beginning....

A beard.... and chains. Has the Doctor been captured? What's happened to Amy and Rory? Is this something to do with River killing "the greatest man I ever knew"? How has the Doctor become so helpless? Although, my guess it's something some idiot human has caused, Torchwood style. See that soldier in the background? He looks pretty human....

Scary eyes... There is something so sinister about eyes that hold so much emotion in one glance. Is that hatred? Revenge? Helplessness? Is this a monster the Doctor will be fighting or is it not actually a monster? Is it a creature that the Doctor will help? Either way, scary eyes...

This.... thing.... keeps popping up throughout the trailer. Does this mean that it's important? It looks like it will either be really really scary - there's something of the witch-like creatures in "The Shakespeare Code" about them - or they could be an absolute disaster. There's something quite risky about creating a monster that looks like something made from Papier-mâché with some ginger hair added ontop. Oooh, that's a point... is the ginger something to do with Amy? Again, the eyes scare me. In some ways, hollow eyes are even scarier that the knowing look of intelligent eyes.

The over-used astronaut. Is s/he important or is this just the over-used figure that they think is OK to leak more because it's in the first episode. Is this River, like the first introduction in the library? Or is it another, just as important character that hasn't be revealed to even the most diligent of fans? Or maybe, it is the Doctor? So many possibilities, so much mystery.

I don't know what bugs me most about this: The fact that it has audio of River saying "The day he finds out who I am" playing over the top, feeding into that much too obvious idea that maybe they are (however unconventionally) married; or the fact that just at the end you see the Doctor's hand running up her arm in a way that sort of suggests affection, also feeding into this idea which I so hope isn't true. I really hope Moffat isn't double bluffing us.... Am I reading (or watching) too much into this??

Now, is this a crack that the TARDIS is flying out of? Are they extending the "cracks all across the universe" thing or is this something else entirely? It's certainly not the time vortex or is it? Is that the effect of the silence on the time vortex?

Also, just noticed that this clip, in the YouTube version, is not filling up the whole wide-screen in the same way the other clips do. Is this editing or something deeper?

As we know from the previous trailer, "I wear a Stetson now, Stetsons are cool." Is this clip in here to just remind us of that quote or is this episode more than just a "wow, we filmed in America!" sort of episode? Also, what's with the big backpacks?

Are these more astronauts? Are these futuristic astronauts? They look pretty human. Are they anything to do with that astronaut that popped up earlier?

A spinning River Song. I'm not quite sure what she's doing (besides spinning with some sort of sonic-like device) but I get the feeling that I'm not going to like whatever it is. It feels too much like she's the one in control, the one solving things instead of the Doctor as is her tendency.

When I saw this I almost simultaneously thought 'Waters of Mars' and 'Vampires of Venice'. Is this the monster to go with those scary eyes earlier? In the full shot it looks like there are lots of them (well, at least 3) and they look scary..

I'm not sure if this guy will be important but I get the feeling that he could be some important historical figure in a boat. Is it Ferdinand Magellan? The guy who would have been remembered as the first guy to sail around the world if he hadn't died part way round (some of his crew made it). Is the Doctor the reason he died? Maybe he is in fact totally insignificant...

Those funny... things pop up again!!!

A scared boy just after a bright blue light... Is this surprise at the Doctor turning up in his bedroom or is it something much deeper and darker than that?

And then below, the darkest bit of the whole trailer, pretty much slap bang in the middle. Is this the voice of 'the silence'? Does 'the silence' even have a voice? Is it some form of the Daleks? (Talking of which, don't actually feature in this trailer. I really hope they've given them a break this series but then again, they can't break a habit.) What is this sinister, deep voice? And is this a darker side of the 11th Doctor that we haven't seen much of yet?

Scary scary puppet head. It's those eyes again. Is it something controlled from outside or something more like the clockwork men in "The girl in the fireplace"?

(Also, a second or so after this, that funny ginger, Papier-mâché creatures pop up again. Top left hand corner.)

Is this a regeneration? Is this something happening to the Doctor or something that has got inside the TARDIS? It has the glow of a regeneration but it's not the right form plus would they reveal something like that in the trailer? Also, if Matt Smith were going, wouldn't we have heard something about it in the press by now? Also, note Rory and Amy in the bottom right corner. Are they the cause or innocent bystanders?

Now don't tell me that you don't think that clown is scary. Ever since possibly the scariest Sarah Jane episode which contained clowns, I haven't looked at clowns in quite the same way and to add a red balloon not dissimilar to the one held by 'sister of mine' from the family of blood is just not doing anything for my nerves. The episode better live up to my expectations of fear!

This reminds me of the gelf. Ghost-like and it looks like she's in a ship. Is this another poor creature trapped and troubled by the cracks and silence like the gelf were affected by the time war or something else?

I'm slightly worried about this creature. Is this going to be another "love and monsters" style monster or is it actually going to be some epic episode with a Minotaur-like creature, running the halls of some hotel... Ok, that also sounds a bit cheesy... I guess with this one we'll just have to wait and see. (And hope...)

Is this Amy with a gun? The way it's cut suggests she shoots the Doctor but surely that can't be right? Also, has she learnt nothing from the Doctor's "no weapons" policy? What is so serious that it warrants a gun and I so hope it's not the Doctor or Rory she is shooting. (Unless it's their clone that has gone haywire or something... I hope not.)

And then, before we've even had enough time to absorb all that's happened in the last 50 seconds or so, the end-screen pops up, brandishing the oh so frustrating two words that are "coming soon". We're left with questions, confusion, bewilderment, hope, longing, and so many other words describing strong feelings.

Who are these ginger haired creatures? Who really is River? What happens to the Doctor? Who or what is the silence? And least importantly, does Amy wear anything else apart from that red checked shirt?

DFTBA

"Yours forever, less than three"

2011-03-18T01:05:00.000Z

I have these friends. You may know them, but most likely you don't. They're called Terrie and Sam. Terrie is "the loud one who gesticulates a lot" and also gets mentioned on here quite a bit and Sam is "the awkward one who stares a lot" and also is the cause of the 'nom' debate. Now, why am telling you about these two? It's not like they've found the question for the answer 42* or solved world peace** or found out that the cake is in fact not a lie***. They're just two Nerdfighters made of awesome.

Well, these two specimens of Nerdfightaria have made a YouTube video. Technically they've filmed a whole ton of stuff but I edited it all together for them to give you 4mins and 44secs of Terrie-and-Sam-ness.

So now I introduce to you: "lessthanthreenerds"

So the beginning of the beginning has begun. Hopefully more videos will come sooner rather than later and I have a good lot of footage to make a blooper reel! So I hope you enjoy it and I'm sure they'll appreciate any constructive criticism.

DFTBA

The Alex Pettyfer 'nom' debate

2011-03-08T12:21:00.001Z

Alex Pettyfer: the young actor who first appeared as Alex Rider in the film adaptation of Stormbreaker. Back then, I was obsessed with Anthony Horowitz's series of books and dragged my Dad to come see the film. Since then, Alex Pettyfer has returned in "I am Number Four" (or I am four and I keep missaying) and that brought him up in a common room discussion over whether he is 'nom' or not.

So, what is 'nom'. To be honest, the definition of 'nom' is a bit hazy but in the words of my friend Sam, 'nom' is "phwar. Nom is, erm, I don't know, how does one define nom? Nom is 'I would...' *winky face* Nom is like nom. That is what nom is." So, hopefully that clears things up.

According to Sam, Alex Pettyfer is 'nom'. Very 'nom'. And while I and a few others may not disagree with Sam, our oppinion is not quite so set in stone. However, my friend Maryam dared to go against Sam leading to a long debate over whether Alex Pettyfer really is 'nom' or not. A debate that involved his initial role in Stormbreaker (Sam: obsessed with the film, Maryam: thought the film was a bit rubbish), his role is Wild Child (Maryam doesn't seem to understand the attraction of the male English accent against an American accent) and of course his role in 'I am number four'.

Now, while Alex Pettyfer isn't unattractive. (He wouldn't be cast as the 'fit' male lead in these films otherwise) but I wouldn't neccisarily call him nom. Well, I might call some of the characters he plays 'nom' but not him. Let me qualify. In calling someone 'nom' I think (well, I at least think) that personailty plays at least a slight role and if you google 'Alex Pettyfer', around half the results involve some 'bad boy' thing he's done.

So, while Sam says when asked why Alex Pettyfer is 'nom': "How, how does one put it into words.... It's not one of those things you can say. Because, I mean, have you seen him?! That is my only comment." I'd say, I'm not sure 'nom' is the right word. 'Fit' maybe if your objectifying him but I'm not sure. And also, Alex Pettyfer as Peeta from the Hunger Games?* Please tell me this isn't true.

DFTBA

*I'll try remember to do a blog on The Hunger Games asap as the series is just awesome.

Esther 9-10

2011-03-03T00:07:00.000Z

This is the very last in the studies of Esther I've been doing with the CU. Due to their short attention span and the length of these chapters, I've decided to stick to picking out particular verses (the highlighted ones) rather than getting them to read the whole thing out loud however feel free to read the whole passage yourself. =)

Esther 9-10

9 ¹ On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them.

² The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Xerxes to attack those seeking their destruction. No-one could stand against them, because the people of all the other nationalities were afraid of them.

³ And all the nobles of the provinces, the satraps, the governors and the king's administrators helped the Jews, because fear of Mordecai had seized them.

⁴ Mordecai was prominent in the palace; his reputation spread throughout the provinces, and he became more and more powerful.

⁵ The Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did what they pleased to those who hated them.

⁶ In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men.

⁷ They also killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,

⁸ Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha,

⁹ Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai and Vaizatha,

¹⁰ the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. But they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

¹¹ The number of those slain in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king that same day.

¹² The king said to Queen Esther, The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman in the citadel of Susa. What have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? It will also be granted.

¹³ If it pleases the king, Esther answered, give the Jews in Susa permission to carry out this day's edict tomorrow also, and let Haman's ten sons be hanged on gallows.

¹⁴ So the king commanded that this be done. An edict was issued in Susa, and they hanged the ten sons of Haman.

¹⁵ The Jews in Susa came together on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and they put to death in Susa three hundred men, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

¹⁶ Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king's provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of them but did not lay their hands on the plunder.

¹⁷ This happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.

¹⁸ The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and fourteenth, and then on the fifteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.

¹⁹ That is why rural Jews— those living in villages— observe the fourteenth of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.

²⁰ Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far,

²¹ to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar

²² as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote to them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

²³ So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them.

²⁴ For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction.

²⁵ But when the plot came to the king's attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back on to his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.

²⁶ (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them,

²⁷ the Jews took it upon themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed.

²⁸ These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never cease to be celebrated by the Jews, nor should the memory of them die out among their descendants.

²⁹ So Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter concerning Purim.

³⁰ And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews in the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Xerxes— words of goodwill and assurance—

³¹ to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation.

³² Esther's decree confirmed these regulations about Purim, and it was written down in the records.

10¹ King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores.

² And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king had raised him, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia?

³ Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, pre-eminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.

Esther 9-10

This is the last part of Esther and it would be easy to sum it up saying there was a big battle, lots of people died but at the end of the day, the Jews won. However, as you can see from the length of these chapters, the Jews’ victory was not overlooked as quickly as that.

If we beginning with the first 17 verses we see that we are not told if there were any Jewish fatalities. Instead, the most important thing is clearly that the Jews most definitely triumphed. Look at the second half of 9v2. How come others were so scared to stand up against them? How did they win so convincingly?

It was because God was undoubtedly on their side. Without Him, it would have been a completely different and most likely a very tragic story.

Now, if you only look quickly at chapter 9, it may look like the Jews had gone about killing as many people as possible however, if we look closer, we can see that the Jews only killed those who came to attack them. Look at verses 1 and 2. It was all in self-defence and there is no mention of women or children being put to death. The Jews obviously had compassion and only killed the men who were actually attacking them.

Look at verses 10 and 15: Despite being given permission in the order sent by Mordecai, no plunder was taken. That is, no possessions or goods were taken by force from those attacking them. This emphasises again that the killing was purely in self-defence, no other motive such as money.

Although the numbers of men killed seems like a large amount, we have to remember that it could have been a lot worse. Think about how many more would have been killed if the Jews had not been allowed to defend themselves at all or had gone ahead and killed anyone they pleased, not just those attacking them.

Of course, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. If we look at the last verses of Esther, we see a celebration! If we look at 10v3, we see that Mordecai was promoted and after the trouble was over, he wrote letters to all the Jews all over the province to recommend that they make remembering these events a yearly celebration. It may seem morbid of them to celebrate after so many lives were lost however they were celebrating their rescue from certain death.

It’s like us celebrating at Easter. It may seem odd that we celebrate the horrible crucifixion of Jesus however we’re celebrating what His death led to. Jesus dying on the cross meant that He took the punishment for sin that we deserve. His death means that instead of facing a certain death because of our sin, we can face eternity in heaven. If we trust in Jesus, we can celebrate being free from the certain death of sin, just as the Jews celebrated being free from the order of certain death.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

End note: For the last weeks before Easter I'm going to get them to come up with some questions for me to find answers too however, just in case they don't come up with any sensible ones, it would be nice to have a few suggestions. Thank you =)

DFTBA

Esther 8

2011-02-16T22:43:00.000Z

Esther 8

¹ That same day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came into the presence of the king, for Esther had told how he was related to her.

² The king took off his signet ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed him over Haman's estate.

³ Esther again pleaded with the king, falling at his feet and weeping. She begged him to put an end to the evil plan of Haman the Agagite, which he had devised against the Jews.

⁴ Then the king extended the gold sceptre to Esther and she arose and stood before him.

⁵ If it pleases the king, she said, and if he regards me with favour and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king's provinces.

⁶ For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?

⁷ King Xerxes replied to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, Because Haman attacked the Jews, I have given his estate to Esther, and they have hanged him on the gallows.

⁸ Now write another decree in the king's name on behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king's signet ring— for no document written in the king's name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.

⁹ At once the royal secretaries were summoned— on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan. They wrote out all Mordecai's orders to the Jews, and to the satraps, governors and nobles of the 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush. These orders were written in the script of each province and the language of each people and also to the Jews in their own script and language.

¹⁰ Mordecai wrote in the name of King Xerxes, sealed the dispatches with the king's signet ring, and sent them by mounted couriers, who rode fast horses especially bred for the king.

¹¹ The king's edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children; and to plunder the property of their enemies.

¹² The day appointed for the Jews to do this in all the provinces of King Xerxes was the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar.

¹³ A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province and made known to the people of every nationality so that the Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.

¹⁴ The couriers, riding the royal horses, raced out, spurred on by the king's command. And the edict was also issued in the citadel of Susa.

¹⁵ Mordecai left the king's presence wearing royal garments of blue and white, a large crown of gold and a purple robe of fine linen. And the city of Susa held a joyous celebration.

¹⁶ For the Jews it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honour.

¹⁷ In every province and in every city, wherever the edict of the king went, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had seized them.

Esther 8

So last week we saw the fall of Haman. Esther revealed who she was, Haman was revealed for who he was and everything seems to be working out. However, before they can sit back and relax, there is still the matter of the order to destroy the Jews.

(Read verses 1-6)

So, Haman had been overthrown and Mordecai was honoured in his place. However, we see that even before she is welcomed by the king, Esther starts to plead with him to save her people. She didn’t wait for the king to notice her and went against the normal protocol, weeping at the king’s feet showing just how important her request was. Haman may have been removed by the most important issue still remained: the problem of the order to annihilate the Jews.

(Read verses 7-8)

It seems silly that the first order wasn’t just torn up however to revoke an order would be to admit that the king had been wrong in the first place. Pride meant they didn’t want to be showing weakness and so this rule that no order sealed with the king’s ring could be revoked had been put in place. So now another decree was to be written and king Xerxes gave this job over to Esther and Mordecai. He was washing his hands clean of the matter and didn’t want to admit he was wrong.

We can be like that sometimes, not wanting to admit it when we’re wrong. However, covering things up and denying that we’re wrong can often be worse. It is much better to admit you’ve done wrong and to apologise. It may be hard but it’s a sign of strength and apologising straight away could avoid making the whole situation a lot worse.

(Read verses 9-12)

They couldn’t revoke anything in the first law so how would they sort the problem out? Well, Mordecai, in a wisdom that could have only come from God, wrote an order which stated that on that day the Jews could destroy anyone who attacked them, plunder the property of their enemies and protect and assemble themselves beforehand.

This is clever as, although they couldn’t initiate attack, they could defend themselves and prepare for attack. It would make people think twice before they attacked the Jews and also they would have had God with them every step of the way.

(Read verses 13-17)

The new order was sent throughout the whole land, to every province and in every language in the empire so that every single person would know what the order contained. As we see in verse 16, the order went down very well with the Jews and even non-Jews came to realise that it was not a good idea to go against the God of the Jews.

Just like the Jews, we are all facing certain death with no way we can save ourselves from the situation. There is no way we can save ourselves from the judgement our sin has brought upon us. However, Jesus has provided a way out for us. He died on the cross, taking the punishment we deserve so that we might be rescued and be given the opportunity of an eternal life with him. Our death order can be lifted if we just trust in Jesus.

(DFTBA)

Rights or Responsibilities?

2011-02-14T22:37:00.000Z

Right - "Your rights are what you are morally or legally entitled to do or to have."

Responsibility - "If you think you have a responsibility to do something, you feel that you ought to do it because it is morally right to do it." or

- "If you think that you have a responsibility to someone, you feel that it is your duty to take action that will protect their interests."

These days, everyone is on about rights. Whether it's animal rights or women's rights, gay rights or immigration rights, everyone seems to be claiming their rights to anything and everything. Demanding more money, more freedom, more say. Claiming rights always seems, I think, so selfish, as most of what anyone gets out of it is for themselves. (I think animal rights would be the main exception although some of my points will still apply.)

Demanding rights is so much "I want this" and "give so and so that". It's a very "take take take" outlook. I'm certainly not saying that people don't deserve a lot of these rights but I think demanding rights isn't always the best way to go about it. What we need is for people to embrace RESPONSIBILITY.

If people recognised their responsibilities, responsibilities to treat everyone as equal, to look after animals, to care for children, to provide food, water and sanitation to those who need it, giving and not just taking.

Some people would say that there's no difference between responsibility and rights and, in the sense of outcome, that is true to an extent. However, I think the attitude to how we get to that outcome is important. Are we only thinking about what WE want and what WE deserve or are we thinking of others too?

*Thought worm implanted*

DFTBA - Decrease world suck yourself rather than expecting others to do it for you because if everyone had the same lazy attitude, not much would get done.

Almost half the Who

2011-02-10T18:10:00.000Z

Hello!

The Whovians of Highworth unite (well, not quite...) to form an alliance of blogspheric abundance. This blog is clearly a conglomerate of awesome. Contrary to popular opinion, the 'WHO' is not completely insane. Nor is it an alliance of sheep. We are happily entitled to stroke sheep (but not kidnap them) and then we could take over the world!! The plan is simply to find a flux capacitor and then travel to the Medusa Cascade to meet Schrodinger's Walrus. Easy. However, we would also have to overcome the problem of the Raxacoricofallaptorians without crashing on Klom. If that were to happen, we would initiate Plan 42 (classified information that we cannot release on internet blogs...). If we were to tell you, we would have to send a radioactive pigeon to you in the post. After finding your address by asking Connor Temple to hack into the world database of addresses. Yes, it exists. Do not question this.

While we are not all here, Sam smells. It needed to be said... Also, to make it even: Terrie doesn't really like Doctor Who. And to top it all off, Taryn would rather talk to K9 than meet the Doctor. And Jennie (who is definitely Jackie) .... could have thought of something wittier to say about Taryn..... BUT of all things, Jennie is a totally incompetent Death Eater and Eco Schools prefect. Sorry, it had to be said. And so did that sentence - twice.

Moving on from all this,
WE ARE COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY AWESOME
now we need to eat.

TTYL...

Almost half of the WHO....
Rosanna, Hannah, and Maryam

Smellilicious

2011-02-09T23:40:00.000Z

When you're driving about, the car tends to pick up any strong smells that you drive past. Whether it's the strong smell of rape seed in the summer, the smell of the local fish and chips or Indian restaurant, the smell of muck spreading in the nearby field, the salty smell of the sea as you drive down the sea front or a strong smell of smoke as you drive past someone having a bonfire. However, the smell of tea tree oil is certainly not a smell you expect to be sniffing.

As I was driving to school, there was a point where I suddenly realised that there was a strong smell of tea tree oil. I sort of dismissed it, thinking I was just doing the nasal equivalent of "seeing things", what with there being a field on one side, trees and a couple of houses on the other side, and the perfume factory a good five miles or so away, even as the crow flies. I thought nothing of it for the rest of the day as that is hardly the most pressing of matters in life. That was until I drove home at least.

On my way home, at exactly the same point along the road, I smelt it again. That strong, refreshing, unmistakable and rather nice smell of tea tree oil. Surely I can't just be "smelling things" if I've smelt it in the same place twice. However, I still don't get how on earth it smelt like tea tree oil. I'm not complaining as I love the smell of tea tree oil but smelling it there just doesn't make any sense. A muddy field on one side is hardly going to produce tea tree smells and I don't get why the farmer would substitute fertiliser for tea tree oil. The same with anything put on the road. As for the hedges and trees, unless they are a special variety that release the smell of tea tree (rather fittingly) every fifteen years, I don't think it was them either. (Also, Wikipedia tells me that tea tree oil "is taken from the leaves of the Melaleuca alternifolia, which is native to the northeast coast of New South Wales, Australia." So I don't think that covers the trees in Kent.) Furthermore, I don't think any house holds enough tea tree oil to cause a road to smell of it for a whole day, however strong it is.

So maybe I'm mad, maybe someone planted a Melaleuca alternifolia in the back of the car without me knowing, I don't know. Ideas?

DFTBA

Esther 7

2011-02-09T22:00:00.001Z

Due to my interview, we missed a week of Esther however, we're back to looking at how God works unseen and now we see all those loose ends start to tie together.

Esther 7

¹ So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet, ² and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”

³ Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favour with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. ⁴ For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.”

⁵ King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who is he? Where is he—the man who has dared to do such a thing?”

⁶ Esther said, “An adversary and enemy! This vile Haman!”

Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen. ⁷ The king got up in a rage, left his wine and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the king had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life.

⁸ Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining.

The king exclaimed, “Will he even molest the queen while she is with me in the house?”

Esther 7

Haman, Esther and King Xerxes are about to sit down to the second banquet however they would each have different hopes and fears for how the banquet would go. How do you think each of them would feel and from what’s happened so far, why would they feel like that?

Esther: Anxious – Her people’s lives were at stake and she was going to ask a very powerful and terrifying king an important request.

Haman: A mixture of nerves and dread and possibly hoping that nothing would go wrong – What had happened with the honouring of Mordecai was most likely still in the forefront of his mind and his wife’s words of warning about the Jews would have still been fresh in mind.

King Xerxes: Tired and curious – The previous night he had been unable to sleep which we saw led to the honouring of Mordecai. He would have also been very curious about what Esther’s petition was. Any longer, he may have become angry so we can see how God’s timing is perfect.

(Read verses 1 – 4)

Again, King Xerxes asks Esther what she wanted, again offering up to half his kingdom. This must have been reassuring to Esther as her request was not that extreme.

So, if we look at how Esther phrased her request, we can see how God guided her.

- She starts by being humble and polite, asking for her request to be granted only if it pleases the king.

- She reminds the king of their close relationship saying “If I have found favour with you” or, in others words ‘if she has been a good and loyal queen’.

- She asks for her life before the life of her people which, rather than being selfish, is actually clever as she wants Xerxes to know that this order will affect his queen and put her life in danger, not just some people he has no contact with. This order will have a direct, personal effect on the king himself.

- She uses pretty much the same words as the orcder itself – “destruction and slaghter and annihilation” – so there is no misunderstanding and so she cannot be accused of exaggeration.

- She keeps her request humble. She states she would never bother the king if her people were simply being sold as slaves. Obviously this order of death is much worse.

- She doesn’t mention Haman or blame anyone else for the writing of this order. She waits for the king to ask which of course doesn’t take him long.

God was guiding her speech and God guides us in what to say as well so long as we ask.

(Read verses 5 – 6)

As soon as Haman heard the specific words of his order, he would have been filled with dread. He must have been shocked that the queen was a Jew and he also must have known that his time was up. He would have realised that he had picked the wrong race and the wrong God to go against.

Esther was not shy in her description of Haman and her description of “adversary and enemy” and “vile” was not only true but would also have brought home to the king just how completely evil and untrustworthy Haman really was.

Remember, it would not have just been Haman who was shocked by this speech but also Xerxes. Up until that moment, he was clueless about Haman and had thought him completely trustworthy and noble. It must have come as a terrible shock.

(Read verses 7 – 8)

The king was obviously furious for two reasons:

- His own queen’s life had been threatened without his knowledge

- His most trusted attendant had not been honest with him at all.

The king most likely also felt a bit stupid and realised that he was partly to blame for not knowing which race his own wife belonged to or which race Haman wished to annihilate before he agreed. This is most probably why he wanted some air and a chance to gather his thoughts.

Haman used this time to beg for his life. He already realised that the king had decided his fate and thought the only way was to beg to the queen. However, in his distress, he invaded the queen’s personal space and got much closer than was appropriate. Of course that was the time at which the king returned. Not the cleverest of ideas.

(Read verses 8 – 10)

In those days, when a person did something wrong, if their face was covered it meant that the person had to die. It was the end for Haman.

Esther had clearly made an impression on a lot of people including the eunuch, Harbona. He was a man who knew a lot about the goings on in the palace and he knew about Haman’s gallows. He also specifically mentioned that Mordecai was the one Haman had planned to hang on them but also the one who had saved the king from the assassination plot.

As we can see from Haman’s day, a lot can change in a short amount of time. It may seem extreme but what if you die today? Are you ready to face God, your creator? Have you put your trust in him or are you living as if you have all the time in the world. Live as if Christ died for you today and will come for you tomorrow.

So, the king had listened to Esther and believed her, the Jews’ enemy Haman was hanged so he could cause no more problems but do you think that was the end?

No, there was still the problem of the order to annihilate the Jews. The order still stood and, as the order had been sealed by the king’s ring, no one could revoke it, not even the king. Does this mean Haman was still to have his way, even after death? Of course not, God’s in control, however we’ll see how he changes this next time.

-----DFTBA-----

Esther 6

2011-01-27T10:14:00.000Z

Esther 6

Mordecai Honoured

¹ That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him.

² It was found recorded there that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's officers who guarded the doorway, who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.

³ What honour and recognition has Mordecai received for this? the king asked. Nothing has been done for him, his attendants answered.

⁴ The king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows he had erected for him.

⁵ His attendants answered, Haman is standing in the court. Bring him in, the king ordered.

⁶ When Haman entered, the king asked him, What should be done for the man the king delights to honour? Now Haman thought to himself, Who is there that the king would rather honour than me?

⁷ So he answered the king, For the man the king delights to honour,

⁸ have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crest placed on its head.

⁹ Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king's most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honour, and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, 'This is what is done for the man the king delights to honour!'

¹⁰ Go at once, the king commanded Haman. Get the robe and the horse and do just as you have suggested for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king's gate. Do not neglect anything you have recommended.

¹¹ So Haman got the robe and the horse. He robed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city streets, proclaiming before him, This is what is done for the man the king delights to honour!

¹² Afterwards Mordecai returned to the king's gate. But Haman rushed home, with his head covered, in grief,

¹³ and told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, Since Mordecai, before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him— you will surely come to ruin!

¹⁴ While they were still talking with him, the king's eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman away to the banquet Esther had prepared.

Esther 6

Read Esther 6

Chapter 6 opens on the night after the first banquet and we find the king unable to sleep. We’re not told why this is the case and in fact it seems quite odd as most people sleep really well after a large meal. Also, if we look at the chain of events, we can see God at work.

We start with the king not being able to sleep. What happens next?

He asked for the record of his reign to be brought out and read to him.

This was probably specifically to send him to sleep seen as that is such a tedious thing to listen to!

Which record was read out and do you think this was a coincidence?

The part describing how Mordecai had exposed the plot to assassinate the king was read out and it was not a coincidence at all.

Also, Xerxes was actually paying attention, and may have even remembered the date. Xerxes checked to find out whether a reward had been given which it hadn’t.

Lastly, Haman walks in just at this point and we’ll come back to this in a second.

So, if you think about what happened, there is just too much out of the ordinary going on for this to just be coincidence. It was obviously God at work, reminding Xerxes of Mordecai’s good work the very night before Haman had planned to ask permission to have Mordecai hanged.

When we first looked at what happened and when events first started to unfurl, there didn’t seem to be any logic to what was happening and it didn’t necessarily seem like God was in complete control. However, now we can see how God was bringing everything together and in a much better way than we would ever have thought of. God is always in complete control and just because we can’t always see this in the midst of problems doesn’t mean he isn’t. God’s timing is much better than ours could ever be and we just need to trust him as he will always do the right thing and the best thing.

Reread verses 4 – 10

Xerxes probably didn’t mean to be so vague about the identity of the man he wanted to honour however Haman got completely carried away in his own self-importance, assuming that he was the one to be honoured. This reveals an awful lot of pride in Haman’s part for him to so quickly think that he was the one the king wished to honour. He didn’t think the king would want to honour anyone else and immediately went into an elaborate and over the top description of what should be done for the man.

However, of course, Haman had jumped to the wrong conclusion and it was his sworn enemy, Mordecai, who was to be honoured, not him. When he heard Mordecai’s name he probably started to see his plans unfurl and he must have been shocked and very embarrassed. Of course he couldn’t contradict the king’s orders so he went off and did exactly as the king had said.

Reread verses 11 – 12

We’re not told Mordecai’s reaction when he was told what was happen but we are told what he did after. Unlike Haman after the banquet who went off, full of pride and boasting, Mordecai went back to work very humbly at the king’s gate. There is no mention of boasting at all. This may be an obvious question, but who should we be like? We shouldn’t boast as everything we have that we could possibly boast in comes from God. We shouldn’t be proud and boastful and instead be humble. In fact, the only thing we can boast about is Jesus and how he has died on the cross to save our sins if only we trust in him. Now that is a really important and amazing thing to boast about.

Reread verses 12 – 14

As soon as Haman had finished, he rushed home to tell his wife what had happened, probably for comfort and reassurance however his wife hardly seems the reassuring sort. She saw this honouring of Mordecai as a sign that he would soon be in trouble for two reasons:

- She probably thought that Xerxes would never allow the race of a loyal servant (Mordecai) to be eradicated by anyone and that he would soon see through his plan.

- Also, she was possibly reminded of Jewish history. How time and time again, the Jewish race had been threatened with annihilation yet every time God had saved them. Why she didn’t remember this earlier is unknown however this memory sent doom into the Haman household.

So we leave Haman being escorted to the next banquet and after these events I’m sure he wasn’t looking forward to this banquet nearly as much!

A definitive guide to my YouTube subscriptions (as of 27/01/2011)

2011-01-27T00:33:00.002Z

I'm always going on about different YouTubers and I've built up quite a long list of subscriptions so (mainly for Terrie's benifit) I've decided to list them all (alphabetically as that's easiest) and say a little about each. The ones with * are particular ones that I think you should check out!

*AlexanderCarpenter - An awesome guy who lives in the same house as Luke Conard and Jason Munday. He does a nice mix of sketches, music videos and vlogs.‏

ALLCAPSBAND- The home of ALL CAPS (Luke Conard and Kristina Horner) although they haven't made many videos on here recently.‏

alwayswheezy - The iPhone channel of Wheezy Waiter. All the 'big' names have more than one channel now!‏

Blendtec - The channel that I only subbed to because I like watching get things blended...‏

Cadegoestocollege ‏- I've only recently subbed to this guy. I found him through his Owl City video contest entry (which he won!) and I watched some of his other videos that looks pretty cool but I haven't watched much of his stuff yet.

charlieissoboredlike - Charlie McDonnell's second channel. Hardly used but very random!‏

*charlieissocoollike - If you're not subscribed to him you're either not on YouTube or possibly a guy. A loveable English guy who does everything from vlogs to sketches to funny music.‏

ChartJackersProject - A channel I haven't unsubscribed from since the project to get a crowd sourced song into the charts for Children in Need just over a year ago. (Wow, I've been on YouTube that long?!)‏

CowInParachute - He hasn't updated recently but he's the first regeneration of a Chameleon Circuit member *wipes tear away at the though of the next album not including things like "Gallifreyan History 101" and "K9's Lament"*‏

crabstickz - I didn't like this guy at first however my friend Alex kept going on about him and I decided that I did like him after all =)‏

crabstickz2 -‏ The second channel of crabstikz.

*dananddanfilms - An amazing guy (well, a guy who always appears as two guys in his videos) he/they make amazing short sketches that are hillarious and also often relevant to the news. However, he/they don't update particularly often. Nevertheless, when he/they do update, it's usually worth the wait!‏

devilishlypure ‏- The home of 'Tuesday' from the five awesome girls.

dftbarecords - This isn't updated much but I subbed after there was a behind the scene of DFTBA video or something like that.‏

*eddplant -‏ I wish I had discovered this guy so much sooner. I think I may have subbed to him a while ago however it wasn't until I went to the Sons of Admirals/John Green gig in the summer that I realised how amazing his music and singing is. Seriously, his voice is amazing.

*ElectricFaerieDust ‏- Another YouTuber I wan't totally convinced about the first time I discovered her. However, Terrie kept going on about her and I grew to like her stuff =)

*emilythebravee - Mike Lombardo suggested her and I looked at her channel sceptically and was pleasantly surprised. She's a relatively new YouTuber but she does really good vlogs!‏

*falletron - Ok, I have to admit I mainly subscribed to this guy for his accent... Is that wrong? However, his videos seem pretty good too =)‏

fallofautumndistro ‏- The creator of Erase This and co-founder of DFTBA records. I'm assuming his busy life with DFTBA records is the reason for his lack of videos however when they do turn up they're usually pretty awesome.

fiveawesomegirls - This colab channel has come to an end however there are a lot of really good videos there to go back and look at. The idea behind it was brilliant and I miss not having their faces on my screen every weekday (even if I did end up watching them the next day due to time differences)‏

fiveawesomeguys - A spin off of fiveawesomegirls. I wasn't around for the proper thing so I don't know why I subscribed however there are some good videos in the archives.‏

*fizzylimon - This guy is an all round good egg. Vlogs, music, intelligent discussions, sketches, this guy is amazing. I highly recommend you go watch some of his videos.‏

frezned - A fairly recent addition. I was introduced to his randomness in various Alex and Charlie videos and his videos are nearly always of the amusingly random kind.‏

GearsAgain - The second channel of thegearskeepturning‏

hankschannel ‏- The second channel of Hank from the Vlogbrothers. A mix of music and randomness.

*hayleyghoover - Another fiveawesomegirl who does hilarious vlogs and sketches (and also write a brilliant blog but that's sort of unrelated)‏

hexachordal - aka Tom Milsom who is crazy but a musical genius. However, for all the videos that leave you lost, you'll get an awesome one.‏

*HowToLiz - I subscribed to her almost a year ago when John from the Vlogbrothers linked to her. Her videos are hilarious and advice should be taken with a pinch of salt. A large pinch of salt.‏

iamthealterego - A very very recent addition to my subscriptions. (I had to check who it was!) I basically subbed to him because he seemed pretty good as 1/4 of the new vloglovers.‏

*ImprovEverywhere - This channel is amazing. Flash mobs, practical jokes, no trousers day... They may not update often but when they do, another epic even has taken place with epic reactions from the public. I highly recommend you go watch a few videos.‏

imSarahSnitch - Another very recent addition. I found her through Alex Carpenter and her video looked good and she hasn't made many videos so I subbed in the hope that awesomeness would follow!‏

IntheKeyofWill - The music channel of Will Dixon however he's getting rid of it soon so don't really worry about this one.‏

*italktosnakes - Another fiveawesomegirl‏ and an awesome vlogger. Most of her videos are vlogs (she also writes a really good blog) however the occasional video is a music video from either ALL CAPS or some other thing she's involved with.

*jasonmundaymusic ‏- A great singer overshadowed by Luke Conard. I think Jason Munday is an amazing singer and a lot of his videos are music based however he does some good vlog too.

*jbdazen - Wow! Someone who isn't either American or English! (Well, Frezned is Australian but I group him with them) J B Dazen is from the Netherlands (I think) and is an amazing musician. Seriously, he's done the intro music for a couple of other YouTubers I'm subbed to and his music is awesome. He also does vlogs as well which are pretty awesome too =)‏

*JeffIsOld -‏ The informal yet wonderful second channel of Mike Lombardo

jimmy0010 - This guy used to do some good vlogs but I think he's fallen off the face of Nerdfighteria...‏

johnjnoe ‏- Not sure about this channel yet. I subscribed because of links with Echo Base (Luke Conard, Jason Munday, Alex Carpenter)

JohnnyDurham19 ‏- This guy always does really nice vlogs however, if it wasn't for the fact that he's appeared in the videos of other YouTubers I would think he's fallen off the face of the earth.

jp - The second channel of Mystery Guitar Man. Often behind the scenes and that sort of thing.‏

kayleyhyde - The second channel of Owlssayhooot. It's a bit like a scrapbook I think =)‏

KickThePj - A channel full of rather good little sketches and animations. This guy is really talented when it comes to animations and making videos.

kristinahorner - The second channel of italktosnakes.‏

liliesarelike - Basically it's charlieissocoollike's mum!‏

*littleradge - He is pretty much the beginning of my YouTube obsession. Him and the rest of Chameleon Circuit. This Scottish guy is amazing. (Yes, more than just his accent and David Tennant-esque looks) His vlogs are brilliant and so are his sketches and even if he isn't the most consistent of vloggers, he is definitely worth a look.‏

*lukeconard - An amazing singer. As part of ALL CAPS and Ministry of Magic he has an amazing voice and amazing music production skills. I initially found him when I found that he helped with Mrs Nerimon, back before ALL CAPS and fairly early on.‏

maureenbooks - An author who I subscribed to because of her amazing tweets but I'm yet to see a video posted...‏

*MikeLombardoMusic - Mike Lombardo is AMAZING at playing the piano. He's also good at vlogs (a lot of the good ones are on his second channel) even ignoring my weakness for piano playing guys (Terrie thinks it's weird how I like watching guy's hands as they play the piano. Is that weird?) he is an amazing musician and an brilliant YouTuber.‏

*missxrojas - Her vlogs are often quite philosophical but I enjoy watching them. =)‏

MusicFromBlueSkies - Another recent sub but I've come across his music a few times before I subbed and I think it's really good.‏

MusicTheoryChannel -‏ Mike Lombardo's music theory channel. There's not much yet so I'm hoping he hasn't abandoned it.

MysteryGuitarMan - Really cleverly edited videos. I think you have to go watch them to see what I mean.‏

nerimon - Alex Day is another one of the YouTubers who started my obsession. He might vlog fairly regularly however his content isn't particularly constant.‏

*OhHeyJade ‏- An amazingly new YouTuber. I found her first video as it was part of a Ministry of Magic music video contest and it was amazing, astounding even for a first video, and she's just put up a second that supports my theory that she's going to be amazing.

*owlssayhooot - Another fiveawesomegirl who does really good vlogs of varying topics from fashion to Harry Potter to Disney.‏

*pineappleboyfilms - You MUST MUST MUST go here! This guy does awesome weekly updates and why does he do them? Because he is the writer and producer of the most amazing web series ever. Platoon of Power Squadron. Your view of that show is imperative.‏

PJTheKick - The second channel (and rather bizzare channel) of KickthePJ‏

pogobat - I wasn't too sure about this guy at first. Possibly just because of the videos I happened to stumble across however I found out more about him after a clip of him revealing his new project at VidCon and this guy is basically trying to see if he can live with his internet community telling him what he should do. From the small things like what to eat to the big things like where to live. However, content does vary a bit.‏

project4awesome - Subscribed for P4A updates. I'm staying subbed as I'm assuming it will be re-kindled for next year's P4A!‏

*RhettandLink -‏ These guys make amazing sketches and videos. They're often sponsored so often called sellouts however I think it just means they're able to make even better videos and of course there's their second channel...

*rhettandlink2 - RhettandLink's second channel where they tend to do more update-y vlogs. I particularly recommend looking them out at the moment as they're doing "Good Morning Chia Lincoln". Basically a 5-10 minute vlog with no cuts. Yes, they can get away with no cuts.‏

*RockstarRaquel -‏ This girl does some funny sketches however she also does some good vlogs although they tend to be more over on twonerdsinaboat.

smilinglimpet - A fairly recent sub too however he made the video for Charlie's song bread and is amazing at animation.‏

*songsfrompaul - This guy is amazing at doing covers of songs and has a brilliant voice. I haven't listened to much of his original stuff but go check him out.‏

sortedfood - Ok, so I subbed to this because Alex and Charlie were on an episode. However, I do watch in the hope that the cooking information will diffuse into my brain.‏

*TARDIStacular - Rosianna and Kayley do responses to all things Doctor Who. What could be better?‏

teabagnose - Someone from the Roothill camp I went on with the potential of becoming great.‏

thatzak - Another recent sub however I've been watching quite a few back videos and he does really good and funny vlogs‏

*thecolclough - A friend who is amazing at making animations and awesomely nerdy short films.‏

*TheGearsKeepTurning - Although not completely consistent, most of this guy's stuff is amazingly funny. He loves Doctor Who too! Also someone who I can say I discovered before they got partnered. Admittedly not ages before but still!‏

TheJoeFrom1993 - Hmm, fallen of the face of the earth I think.‏

theryanseiler - A recent sub however he is a member of the Ministry of Magic and has a great voice‏

tommilsom - The second channel of Tom Milsom. Usually very unpredictable and leads me worrying about his sanity. However that may be the desired effect.‏

trannylexxx - Second channel of tyrannosauruslexxx

*TwoNerdsinaBoat - A colab channel between RockstarRaquel and WillsOdyssey . Brilliant vlogs. Enough said.‏

tyrannosauruslexxx - She is a brilliant singer, even if she doesn't always admit it herself and she also does some funny vlogs too.‏

*vlogbrothers - The beginnings of Nerdfighteria, puppy-sized elephants, DFTBA, giant squids of anger, French the llama, and so many other inside jokes. Basically two brothers vlogging to each other regularly with content ranging from informative vlogs to odd songs.And don't worry, you'll get the hang of the inside jokes soon enough.‏

vloglovers - Basically two YouTubers who are in love vlogging back and forth between each other. Although since the end of the last couple (*dun dun dun* is the channel cursed?!) they've decided to have two couples as vloglovers 5.0‏

wheezynews - One of the many extra channels of wheezywaiter. Mainly where he does handstands at the moment.‏

*wheezywaiter - Craig Benzine is hilarious and while his clones, the eagle, his whale, singing carpet, Craig with a wig, explosion Wednesday (which may not be a thing) and all the inside jokes may be a little much at first, you'll soon catch up. His videos are brilliant and well made and I think his channel may be the only one where I've gone back to the beginning and watched every single video I could find. (Ok, I was procrastinating.)‏

*WillsOdyssey ‏- This guy is amazing. His sketches make no sense but in the way that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy makes no sense and he's obsessed with time travel which certainly isn't a bad thing. He's also pretty good at music too.

YourAverageAdam - Another recent sub. I'm still yet to watch more videos however he seems like a pretty good vlogger!

So, that took much longer than I expected! Hopefully all the links work and I hope you enjoy watching some of these videos as much as I do!

DFTBA xX

Hannah Likes Sheep *Baa*

Snow?!

Helping the Homeless

Happy Birthday [Insert name here]

Whale watching

Fort Paradox Returns!!

Cello Wars!!

Back to the Past

Competitive Streak

The downside of education

Try before you buy

Video Editing

Fedne

The Doctor, The Witch and the... wait...

Reverting back to Childhood

I still live in London. London is still cool.

Birthday Bounce

Essaytastic

Challenge Accepted (and a grovelling apology)

I live in London Now, London is Cool

A Very Different View

Can't read my, can't read my, can't read my poker face

Following the theme of what came before

And the obsession continues....

Preparing for the hate mail...

If Matt had a TARDIS....

Unlikely endings

How is something that looks like mud so tasty?

Home is where the heart is

Beth, Doritos only has one 'i'

Summer in the City!

Painting by Numbers

I'm not obsessed or anything...

Sssh! Don't wake me!

So… what to do when life gives you lemons?

No, not the man with the ark

Did you have to ask?

"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground."

Baaalmy obsessions

Returning to those all important questions...

Is this the last question?

"We Love John Green"

Every proverbial cloud...

Goodbye Exams!

The Worst Workmen

BEDA in one blog

"Eee By By Gum"

"Yours forever, less than three"

The Alex Pettyfer 'nom' debate

Esther 9-10

Esther 8

Rights or Responsibilities?

Almost half the Who

Smellilicious

Esther 7

Esther 6

Esther 6

Mordecai Honoured

A definitive guide to my YouTube subscriptions (as of 27/01/2011)

Hannah Likes Sheep Baa