by far the funniest occcurence of today – and one that has to be recorded – was my broother pronouncing Papys as ‘peppies’. When I heard that, I simply sannk to my knees and howled. Wooohoo.
Mind you, it tells you what a trruly dull day it has been. Did a bit of work, watched some Time Team. That’s about it. Cant wait to get back to college next week.
It’s a fine day, and I have been out in my chair. Through Bilbo Baggins, Tolkien once said that roads are dangerous because you never know where they will take you. He was right: I can tour town and the countryside around Congleton for endless hours, seeing what there is to see, shopping, talking to people I meet. It’s great and far better than being cooped up inside. There is something about travel that refreshes the soul.
However, upon my return, I found this page open on my desktop. No doubt, Luke found it to encourage me to blog, but I’m grateful that he did. I find it both novel and fascinating: as a historic document, Pepys is invaluable, and the fact that someone has chosen to place it online as if it were a modern blog shows a great scholarly wit.
Recently, I’ve been communicating with tamsin Coruthers of 1Voice. This charity aims to teach young disabled kids to use communication aids through rolemodelling. This is a great idea – you have no idea how solitary lives of young disabled kids can be, when robbed of the ability to communicate. Therefore I must help, however I can. Of course, I can be quite a prat sometimes, so role-model may not be the right term, but I must help however I can.
I was lucky: with what speech I have I am able to brag, bully and wheedle sufficiently, and have a very supportive, if sometimes imbecilic, family. I am, however, aware that others will need support and help, and I could potentially be of service. The right to communicate is inalienable, for to deny it is to deny people free speech, upon which democracy is founded. Given that I have some expertise in this field – that is to say, I can use my Lightwriter with some proficiency – I have no choice but to offer my services. Not to do so would be negligence, and too many disabled people have been denied the right to speech before now.
I will help however I can. There are events to go to. The review of the fun day, appearing in their newsletter which I have in front of me, looked rather cool, although I doubt I could cajole the Lukester into taking me to such an event. I need a new PA! Either way, I’ll look seriously into joining, should be cool.
this is sick. I like a joke, but to make fun of this poor girl appalls me. as for my opinion on the case, as usual I can see both sides, but I think life should be preserved just in case. after all it isn’t so long ago that people thought us CCPers were brain dead, and I can’t help thinking of anne mcdonald. Of course, the two cases are totally different, but I think it shows hope remains.
Ok, so my blog is back up. Thing is, I’m rather tired, so I won’t write too much, but we went to visit my baby grand-nephew Jake in Sussex. Cute little tyke. Saw uncle Rich, aunt Jill, Adam and Ellen, and generally had a good time. Anyway, here’s a link to my [file=”1″]opera review[/file].
I’m back. after a period if about three weeks, I’m back blogging with my own domain. Our server basically screwed up. please update your favorites to http://www.matthewgoodsell.co.uk/ as the old address will not work for much longer
It’s the easter holidays. not much out of the ordinary happened. my fairy outfit made an appearence at the last disco of term. and I wrote a review of an opera I went to see at the RNCM, which was cool. I’ll post said review here soon.
yay. the sites bacck up. lord knows what went wrong. oh wait…thought we agreed he didn’t exist.
rather a dulll week anyway
I am getting worried about our American cousins. Some – but by no means all – of them seem to have taken aboard some truly scary ideas. I was in the bar on monday evening and got talking to two siblings from South Carolina. We got on to the subject of politics, although I’m not quite sure how. What I found scary was that this guy – they were a brother and sister – was very opposed to political descent. He thought that people should always support their government, and protests were wrong.
I didn’t argue, I just got scared. I believe protest is the cornerstone of democracy; without political protest, no government is accountable to its people. After all, was the United States not founded on the back of protest against Britain?
It occurred to me that this was symptomatic of thought in certain quarters of American society, or rather lack there of. I see parallels between this sort of statement and creationism: this is a “science” which seeks to prove that the Earth was created. As such, it is a science with an aim, which itself is not scientific. Science seeks to define and describe things, not prove. Darwin was simply describing one model of how life on Earth may have developed, and it just so happens that there’s a hell of a lot of evidence to support it. Furthermore, evolution is logical: all living organisms mutate randomly, some of which will be (by chance) better able to procreate than others. However, the creationists deny this logic, claiming that we were all created. Michael Behe has proposed an inteligent design theory on the basis that some organisms are too complex to evolve. Keh? Behe has also proposed that ‘inteligence’ itself is a force like matter and energy, or some such gibberish. OK, so he’s ignoring most scientific data, and bending what data he has to fit his ideas. Then he accuses scientists of being in some kind of priesthood. is this a joke? Such arguments are so easily debunked that it is worrying that people cling to them, just as the fellow on monday night worried me.
I was in writing 1 today, and it turns out that we are goint to have a lesson or two on writiing online – blogging, fanfic etc. the tutor, however, claims sshe knows nothing about these things, so guess who she asked to write the smegging lesson.
ME!
“Matthew, can you make me a list of sited…?”
[derranged spastic laugh] she has no idea what she has got herself into!
wooohooo. msn works again!
jjust having a lazy sunday morning here. the family are sitting in the conservetory in the jammaria (conservetory) reading the sunday papers. last night we went to the italian resteraunt in town – it was lovely. not that this matters, but I wore some cool trousers, with FLIES. i’ve been secretly craving decent kecks recently, not joggers. anyway, the night ruled. the waiters were excellent at makking us all layugh, and the food was superb, if hard to cchew. dad chose somme excellent wines, especially thee chianti.
i know how this guy feeels. never before have i felt so sorry for an animated bunnny
my brothers are coming home later. i’m really looking forward to meeting them again. tomorrow night, the combined i.q around the dinner table will be over 900. it would be oover 1000 but my iq is about -150
what do we have here.
1 undergraduate bioinfomaticist, having used computers since he cam walk… can program the hind legs off a donky
1 phd student in physics, who can take apart a computer in seconds and then e have a troll, using a punctuation mark because sshe or he hasn’t the wit to find an alias. kiss goodbye to your computer!
…the arbouritum
It’s somewhere approaching freezing outside, but this place makes me feel tropical. I am sitting in the Arboretum – a place in the middle of the canteen with a high roof. It has tables to sit at, and beds planted with trees and shrubs. There is a palm and a pond with fish. It echoes in here with the sound of water. For some reason it reminds me of Stapely Water Gardens, and makes me feel botanical and scientific, which could explain my recent interest in dinosaurs and natural history.
well, last nite was cool in both senses ocf the word. I suspected it might freese so i took the chair to the disco; i didn’t fancy my chances of getting home safely. at 11,, security pushed me home, and the plan worked a trea.
I notice quite a discussion going onover my computer. becca vursus dad. its quite cool to have a friend fight my ccornerr for once – i appreciate it becs. however I just want both sides to know one thing: from what i have seen, both parties respect eachother loads. my parents seem rather fond of becca, and becca seems to like mum and dad, and for that matter the Lukester, aka afroboy. thus, if there appears to be annimosity on the reply threads, I strongly suspect it is an illusion.
that having been said, the quite insulting repliees of “.” really do nnot help. moreover, the fact that this person leaves comments while hiding behind a punctuation mark seems cowardly.
i’ll write a proper entry later.
luke, i wanna install the update to msn, but i need admin password. you don’t respond to my email, so i’m typing this here
the idiots is the second dogme 995 film, and i watched it this evening. i found it both appauling and hillarious. its about a group of young people who ‘spaz out’ i.e, pretend to be mentally disabled, as a form of expression. they take it in turns tto be the minder, and go to public places like the swimming baths, where their assumed disability seems to give them carte blanche to behave abominably. the funniest scene is where one of them leaves his ‘retarded’ brother with a group of bikers, who end up takingg him to the loo. what is telling, though, is a scene where a few people with down’s syndome come to the house, and they act with prejudice.
please note, though, that this film is highly pornographic in parts.
freedom of speech must be protected this is why
today I just want to say that I for one am welcoming bush’s visit. at last he has decided to mend fences. in iraq, although there is a long way to go, there is democracy, and I’ve always thought that democracy is a good thing. thus, the time has come to put aside our differences and work together.
surely this is a step in the right direction at last.
i know i shouldn’t laugh, but it was funny. this morning for breakfast i had croisants, but my helper didn’t know how to cut them properly. sh tried cutting them sideways, like a rolll, and squidjing the butter and jam in, then cutting them into chuncks forr me to pick up. You know me – i slowly started to chuckle at these totally desecrated lumps of warm french bread. I then proceeded to eat them, getting rather sticky in the process.
i am currentlly having difficulties with my extended keyboard. it seems to be working now, but a moment or two ago it was going haywirde. too much dribble in it i suspect.
This May well amuse you guys.
this week is reading week. having written most of yesterday, i spent most of today reading. the fifhtieth chapter of summon the lambs appeared online, and it continues to be a sleek and sophisticated – and rather addictive text. I am also quickly finding how much off s git charlie chaplin was: mr. lynn’s biography of him exposes him as a hard and fast comunist. however, I’m starting to think lynn may be a little biassed. its still an exceelllent read though.
we just got back from my grandparents’ housse in london. my maternal grandparens arrived in london from cyprus in the late 50s, relatively poor. they met, and raised 3 children. these gave them 6 granchildren.
sitting in the front room of haycroft gardens an amazing statisic hit me: those grandchildren all hold or are doing degrees; 3 are doing PHDs; 2 wen to oxford. oddly, tho, I am unique in studying an arts subject.
Not bad for immigrants, eh mr. howard?!
Given the recent upsurge in the debate between Darwinism and Creationism, I will attempt to objectively compare and contrast the merits of the two theories. Both need to be given equal respect if one is to be methodical. However, if one has only empiricism in mind, the discussion will be one sided.
Working in the Galapagos Islands, Charles Darwin proposed that all beings on Earth had evolved, and were adaptive. This happens through the process of random mutation and natural selection. It follows that life on Earth has been in a constantly changing state for millions of years. This gives us a time frame from which to work from. The bible says, on the other hand, that the Earth was created 7000 years ago. This offers us a nice contrast which we can use.
First we can use plate tectonics as a test. The Earth’s crust moves at precise speeds, causing continental shift. There is strong evidence that Africa once met South America. Fossil remains of one species exist on both sides of the Atlantic, suggesting that they were once joined. At current continental speeds, they split about 150 million years ago.
This number does not marry up with Genesis. Moreover, the creationist claim that man existed alongside dinosaurs does not add up. Bones decay at a pre-defined rate, showing that the dinosaurs etc existed at a time which agrees with the tectonic data. If such fossils are only 7000 years old, then our theories about decay must be wrong. These decay rates are based on ions, which are part of nuclear physics. If these decay rates are wrong, it would throw all of physics out the window. The fact remains that there is no mention of such beasts in the bible.
WE see similar tales in Cosmology. When we look at the most distant stars, they appear red. The Doppler Effect suggests this is because the stars are moving away from us. Apparently when the paths of such stars are traced, they all originate from one point – the site of the Big Bang.
However, creationists claim that this evidence was planted by either God or the Devil to test our faith. If so, why did God go out of His way to so convincingly disprove Himself. All the available evidence points to a lack of God, from atomic physics to fossil evidence of ancient fish in the Himalaya. It’s true that I myself have heard this evidence second hand, and thus could have been lied to, but on the sheer volume of evidence 9including my experiences at Hebden) All my instincts rule out the existence of a creator. One can argue even with this, but then one might argue forever. What, then, is the purpose of asking the question?
I heard about this while I was eating breakfast. it’s quite an interesting project, and I think it would be good for preservation, which I strongly believe in although I reserve the right to eat meat. however, I think it’ll take two or three centuries to complete. good luck to the scientists!
Not that we see much of that around here! we at alsager are too busy playing football and hockey in the name of sport science to do much proper science. what the smeg is sport science anyway?
whatever it is, it seens to be rather noisy.
went 2c the tekkies about msn. said they’d get back fto me…on tuesday!
grr off to watch football
god frigging dammit. microsoft wants me to install the new msn messager, but my pc won’t let me because of the security protocol bullshit luke set up. now i can’t talk to anyone.
NOT FUCKING HAPPY!
I read last nnight that ellen macarthur has beaten the record for sailing around the world. she impresses me a lot. if it was up to me, i’d comission her as an admaral in the royal navy.
got into uni today to find that he work I emailed myself hasn’t arrived. bugger!
another 1500 word day. hurrah!
think i’l sleep well.
boy, did i overdo it last night? started off ok, but my friends kept topping up my beer. the disco was rather cool, and at one stage tthey played Greenday’s Basketcase, which is one of my all ttime favourite songs.
spent most of today reading: got through a fair chunk of the story of film by mark cousins, and thee chapliain bio arivedd so i rread two chapters of that. i forwent my nightly trip to tthe bar in order to read – its a fascinating work into chaplain, who, I already realise, was a very ambiguous, rather troubled character. the way Lynn uses reasoned, witty debate is marveloous. to top it off, i also read my daily dose of Palin.
quite, quite excellent
i’m very tense tonight. my arms are going into moro quite frequently, and my back aches. bed early tonight.
the library still hasnt got the biography of chaplain i asked for. i”n not complaning – i still think its remarkablre that i have access to any book I want. its by knneth s. lynn, who wrote an excellent biography of hemingway i read three years ago. I l=ooked hynn up on google: he was a conservative, although not a hard liner. this has taught me academic briliance has no reguard for politics, and somene might be conservative and still be invaluable. yes, i know the fact that i ofthen forget this shows how polittically immature I am, but hey, i’m learning.
this weekend, we went to visit kat amd mark in ushaw moor near durham. i like to visit my big bro – ok, we’ve dicagreed on one or two subjeeccts, but the fact remains that i’m dead proud of both my broothers. we got up early yesterday and drove up. i love car journeys – they give me a cjhance to read, think, etc.
got to their place – a smalll, homely terrace with fish – at about 11, and spwnt the rest of the day talking, wwatching football, drinking tea and readding my culture handout. m+k made a very nice lamb cobler, and I slept attheir place. (airbeds kick ass!)
this morning, mark helped me get dressed. it occcured to m that we hadn’t slept under the same roof since he left for oxford, when I was 15 or 16. hmm. I see far tooo little oof my brothers these days.. mum and dad slept in a local b+b.
having watched the australian open, we hadlunvh at a tres nice seaside resteraunt, ovvverlooking a calm north sea nder a blue sky. drove along the coast to the mouth of the tyne, round and back to shaw moor. we dropped m+k off, dad had a nap, and drove homee.
dad put radio 4 on. I must say the iraqi election seems to have gon ewell. I was against the invasion, but I believe democracy is the best form of government. for better or worse, iraq now has democracy, which is a good thing surely.
perhaps the yankss have been vindicated. hmm…
i’m currently working my way through the library’s collection of charlie chaplain films, and tonight I came across something quite, quite interesting. ‘a king in new york’ is one of chaplain’s later films – 1957, i think – and for once I was very impressed wwith it’s politicism. the film concernzs a depposed kingg who moves to new york. hre he’s a celebrity. while touring a school, he meets a young commnist, whose parents soon get tangled up in the mccarthy trials. the film has an anti-mccarthy feel, which given the times in which it was made, is both srprising and dangerous. chaplain himself was hauld in frront of those trials after the film was made, and I was surprised at the boldness of the film.
it’s certainly ignited my interest in ‘the little tramp’. i hope to get his biography from the library soon.
I fear the old addage is right – one can feel lonelyin a crowded room. for somee reason, i felt lonely at tonights disco. it started off ok – i went to the footie social, and had ben to the ffootie match earlier, but during the disco, i felt lonelyy. everyone was dancing, but i perched mmyyself on the pool table, watching. Fell off said table…bar staff madee executive dcision to send ‘matty’ home, couldn’t argue.
tired
i ache. went to the theatre last niight, as my friend nick said there was something good on. “cool,” i thought, “a relaxing night at the theatre”. while the thing i saw was in the theatre, it was not a play. there were no seats; the audience walked around a big box in the middle of the hall while four actresses climbed in and out of it, sayiing random lines it seemed. at one point we were ushered inside the box for more random line saying. all I could gather is that it was about a robbery at an art gallery. all the audience had to stand for the duration, about an our.
i ache all over.
