April: The Month Stuff Happened

Well, I suppose April 2013 will be written in quite a few history books over the years. Some might say that it hasn't exactly been a slow news month. This month has seen my Godson turn 1, the upgrading of our Broadband package and me getting a few articles published in a local newspaper. As important as these things are to me, they are not events that are going to make it into the history books.

One of the most devastating stories was the Boston bombs on the 15th of April. The tragic scenes were shared around the world within minutes, and thanks to the Internet, I had pictures filling up my Twitter feed. I love being on Twitter to watch stories like this develop, however, it is never long before people start making inappropriate jokes and flexing their Photoshop skills. Things inevitably begin to turn ugly, and soon you can't believe anything. As someone else rather eloquently put it:

Twitter does its best work in the first five minutes after a disaster, and its worst in the twelve hours after that.
— Matt Roller (@rolldiggity) April 15, 2013

Broadchurch - The Best Whodunnit For Ages

The eight-part ITV series has come to an end, and those who have invested the past weeks watching it, now know who the killer is. For those who did, it was a rewarding end, tying up all the loose ends, bringing closure for the town and it's viewers, but also they got to watch some brilliant acting. It is at this point I should stress that if you don't want to read spoilers, find something else to do on the Internet - You're welcome.

My First Blogfolio

You may know. You may not know. I spent a week, a month ago, doing work experience at the local newspaper organisation - the Kent Messenger - and it is here I got the chance to do 8 hours of sitting down a day, in a busy and light-hearted office. Despite it, at times,  being dull when I had nothing to do, it was a great experience which hasn't put me off a career in journalism. I even got three articles published; one with my name in the by-line, and the other two anonymous, so you'll have to just believe me when I say that I wrote them.

Save The Journalist

I blog. You noticed did you? What a clever little so-and-so you are. Luckily, this blog isn’t massively read, makes me diddlysquat and is written solely by moi. Along with the fact that the servers that run this blog are owned by Google and located in the USA, I should be completely exempt from the new press regulation rules that are being pushed through by the Government. However, as someone who is over half the way through their Journalism degree at University, and looking for a career in local newsprint – they are a major worry.

I'm a media watcher, and I do not doubt for one minute that changes need to happen – how can anyone argue in the post-Hackgate times we live in - but this is certainly not the way. This has been the opportunity politicians wanted to gag the media – the same media that four years ago ran stories about all of their MP’s Expenses. Under these regulations, we would have never known about the duck pond.

Major Congestion Reported Getting Into SimCity

I have come up with another insult to sling around the playground: "Your Mumma's so fat, that she's slower than an EA Game Server". I can imagine it would be, and quite rightly so, followed by a chorus of "RINSED" by some teenagers, who also slap their fingers in appreciation.

This comes in light of recent events, in which people spent tens of pounds on a PC game, only to be told they couldn't play the game because too many people were playing the game. One might think that if you made 'X' number of games, you would, in the end, expect 'X' amount of people to actually want to play the game. But I'm not an expert, so what do I know?

You Think You Need A Holiday?

I made a stark realisation the other day, whilst in the pub with a small group of people. They were discussing holidays. The usual, 'where we're going this year', 'where we've been' and 'where we want to go' conjecture. I was very quiet during this period. I have never left the country and therefore never had a passport, as one has never been needed. However, I thought about the last time I went on any form of a holiday. The answer is 2003.

This raises a lot of questions about the actual point of holidays, and that most people are idiots. Far too often I see and hear people proclaiming that they need a holiday. Fair enough. However, more often than not, the people who 'need' a holiday, are the people who went on holiday a few months beforehand. I know they went on holiday a few months beforehand because they never shut up about their holiday, and then posted endless pictures on Facebook of them drinking in a foreign pub, eating foreign food or sitting under a foreign sky next to a foreign sea on a foreign beach with foreign people frolicking about, wearing their foreign sun cream. Then, they return to the UK and show off their foreign sunburn and you can see the foreign tan-lines from wearing their foreign bikini.

Let's Reminisce Into My 2012

This blog is an example of how neglectful I have become of my little bit of Internet space. 2012 has been and gone for nearly a month now, and yet I am only just about to write my usual blog on the subject. Anyway, it was another year to remember, which involved a lot mature stuff by me. It has changed me; for example I now own a washing up bowl.

So, the first four months of the year were fairly uneventful, what with it mainly consisting of writing essays and creating a student film. The film involved lots of trekking across London packed with a multitude of different equipment, and then hours of painstaking editing. Luckily, I enjoyed being with the people I done.

Milton Jones - Warming Us Up

Ahead of his 2013 tour, Milton Jones ventured down into Canterbury on a cold, January night. He came came and warmed us all up with his one liners, testing which ones worked, and which did not. Turns out, they mostly all had the audience laughing hard.

Milton Jones' Grandfather (I think it's just Milton Jones dressed up however) came out first and warmed up for the warm up for Milton's warm up show. He came onto the stage in an usual manner, but it shows an increase in his profits as it was more adventurous than pushing a trolley on like like he did last year. It obviously contained lots of his usual top class one-liners.

The Stuart Awards 2012

Well, it was that time of year where I present, through the power of typing, my awards for some of the best and worse things of the year. However, University work and a dodgy laptop, put the least anticipated awards ceremony back a few weeks. You know, just like the American writer's strike meant they had to postpone The Grammy's...
Anyway, it's time to crack on with the first awards:

If this is the End of the World: Bring it on!

On Thursday 6th of December, I went to see The War of the Worlds at London's Wembley Arena. I have always argued to lovers of music, that it is impossible to claim to be so, if you have not at least listened to Jeff Wayne's two disc epic of The War of the Worlds. It's huge orchestra and band collaboration is an example of Prog Rock storytelling at its ultimate best.