As you may or may not know this is my second blog, made purely for an assessment. My original blog wedgiest.wordpress.com was made long before this and to be honest I prefer that one. It has more posts, more love and more time spent on it.

The reason for this post is a half reply/half answer to a post by Rob J Wells. He has a point, this was made for an assessment and since then I haven’t really updated it. That’s because I want to spend my time on wedgiest. But what do I do with this blog now? It’s pointless updating two blogs with the same posts, and I’m not updating two blogs with different posts. I only want to update wedgiest, granted many of the posts may not interest people but it’s mine. I get to self-publish any ramblings that I type.

I have my answer! Well actually I don’t. Anyone have any suggestions? Do I just close this blog down, never to be updated or seen again. Do I update once a month with my favourite post from Wedgiest? Do I just update with the same posts?

Answers on a postcard please.

Because of this HUGE gap filled by work I did have a really good idea for an exciting, brilliant and hugely entertaining post to kick start my blogging back into life. Sadly however, I didn’t write this idea down.

Those of you who know me will know how bad my memory is. Therefore there will be no exciting, brilliant and hugely entertaining blog post. Instead there will be me telling all of you to always carry a notepad and pen for when you have genius moments.

So, my notepad and pen theory. Well, I’ve been doing this for quite some time now, I always have a pen to hand and at least a scrap of paper, a receipt for example.

The thing is you have to actually use them. I do write some things down, ideas for stories or something funny I hear on the radio but for some inexplicable reason I didn’t write down my exciting, brilliant or hugely entertaining idea.

 Shame on me. So, lesson of the day.

Always carry a notepad and pen and use them!

So, to begin. I’m sorry. This is the blog that was being marked for my skills assignment and I wasn’t sure if I could still post so I decided to only update the sister blog Wedgiest. Again, I apologise.

Now point number two. These eight months or so have really flown by. I mean it, I understand that people hate cliches but the truth is they describe things so well it’s hard to use anything else.

It all began with Freshers Week. Moving into a flat with 5 other complete strangers, and to be completely honest, I think I got a pretty good deal compared to what I have heard from others. Granted there is a definite seperation between certain flatmates but it wasn’t all bad.

The course has been fantastic and the friends made have been even better. It’s true what everyone says, these are the friends who will be there forever.

I’ve learnt a lot and I realise there is still more to learn and I can’t wait.

For some reason this got me thinking that I might be able to mould some kind of a blog post around the number two! Three is the magic number, at least that’s what Blind Melon thought. And, according to Harry Nilsson, one is the loneliest number. So what is two?

Two is an important number, you need at least two people for a conversation. Talking to yourself just doesn’t cut it in the modern world of psychology.

You have two ears, two eyes, two arms, two legs. This is obviously for some reason, symmetry?

Lovebirds like to be kept in pairs.

Good things come in two’s apparently.

And finally according to Wikipedia (a trustworthy source I know) it’s the first Magic Number, I don’t know what this means but it sounds good.

So maybe two isn’t that important on the surface but what would the world be like without the number two? Would we just call it something else? Or would there never be pairs?

It’s certainly a thinker!

After numerous recommmendations to read Flat Earth News I headed out just before Christmas and got my very own copy. I was slightly disappointed with myself that I didn’t finish the book in time for the lecture; I have had 3 months after all but that is the busy life of being a student. The half of the book that I have read, however, did quite impress me. Nick brings up some perfectly good points and I understand that not everybody agree’s with everything said, but then again I suppose that is partly what the book is about; along with not believing everything you read.

The shocking figures of which Nick spoke last night made me think about the future of my chosen profession. Only 12% of stories are found by the journalists themselves. 80% are from press releases, and who knows what happened to the other 8%. This definitely made me think. If all I’m going to do is repeat a press release then what is the point in me becoming a journalist? Well, I believe that if enough young traineee journalists hear about these figures then maybe we can start some kind of mini revolution.

Or perhaps not, but we certainly need to try and get out of this habit of churning out PR material. The only trouble is finding the stories. I will admit that I have little idea of where to look for local stories. In our multi-platform workshop we were working on story ideas, then we were asked for stories that weren’t in the Echo. Just how do we go about this?

We’re students so nobody is willing to talk to us about new controversial news, or even softer news. How are we meant to get local stories that aren’t PR nor from local papers?

I believe that it is wrong to blame the press for everything, after all it is the mentality of our adoring public who also have some input.

While flicking through I found an interesting article about the latest web craze. Spotify.

I have to admit, it is amazing! You simply type in the name of someone you want to listen to and bang, it’s there. Ready to listen to whenever you want to. It’s similar to Last.Fm but it seems much easier to use.  With a variety of ‘subscriptions’ it is perfect for anyone to use. Either use it for free with an advert every 20 minutes, 99p for a day pass completely ad free or £9.99 for a month ad free. With these prices you can see how they manage to make this a business with revenue from advertisers and customers alike.

I love being able to type in a name of an artist of whom I can’t afford to purchase but still have an interest in. For example I am now listening to Cat Power. I had only heard one song but now I can listen to a variety of material completely free but still get the same enjoyment.

I recommend this to anybody interested in music. A brilliant way to ‘widen your horizons’ with suggested artists, and brilliant if you just fancy something completely random.

Ross Noble – Randomist

The title says it all. Randomist. A truly beautiful word to describe an amazing tour, DVD and DVD extras. I could just leave this here but like I said, I am going to justify my claims.

Firstly you get 2 and a half hours of footage, and this isn’t including the most hilarious encore in the world. And, as Ross so kindly points out in the main feature, it is definitely value for money compared to Jimmy Carr for example. Ross’ style is also fantastic! Again, as the title suggests ‘Randomist’ is definitely a word to describe him and his stand up routine as no two shows are the same. You can quite easily sit and watch the main feature and then the extra’s with no worries about hearing the same routine, you will be just as engrossed because it is all new material. He uses the audience to fuel his madness and because no two audiences are the same, no two shows are alike.

With topics ranging from sparkly poo, fairy jasmine, Fiddy Cent and and top tips regarding owls and blankets you will never get bored. The completely random nature of Ross’ mind also adds to the overall show including a Live 8 story which lasts the entire show due to seemingly unrelated tangents.

The DVD extra’s are also amazing, the commentary and Highland Fling feature give you an insight to Ross’ world and is well worth the money.

Well done Ross! ★★★★★

You may recall that I wrote an e-mail to TV Licensing? As I was writing about it on my blog I thought I would try and make it a good read, not some boring formal rubbish that everybody would churn out. Rather than lie I sent the exact e-mail you see copied on here and Wedgiest. I also got a response saying that they are now going to stop harassing me. So my somewhat humorous and extremely sarcastic e-mail got potentially the same result a boring one would have received. Despite this someone decided to criticise my writing which I am quite offended about.

I’m proud of my writing and I hope to be able to improve it during my time here, but I don’t think it’s fair for people to criticise something that I take pride in and something I am good at, which is proven by the relatively good marks for assessments so far. I wouldn’t go around to people who do art and tell them that it’s no good and offensive. Nor would I walk up to a musician and tell them that but for some reason someone basically did that to me.

The internet is a pretty free space and hard to control. With over one and a half billion people having access to the internet (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) it’s no surprise. I believe that it should also be a neutral space; this isn’t going to happen I know but it’s certainly not a space to offend. My point is that it’s not right to criticise people in something they take pride in and something they are going to be basing their whole lives around.

In a seminar today we touched on social class issues surrounding Madeleine McCann, Shannon Matthews and all the other children who go missing every day but are never in the mainstream media. In a desperate attempt to be not sued in my first year I’m not going to write about that but more my opinions of social class in education.

Education is important to me but the different opinions about certain institutions really annoy me. Why is it that a 1st from Oxbridge will generally be more highly regarded than a 1st from Bangor? Why are GCSEs and A-Levels from Eton more highly regarded than the qualifications I gained from a perfectly good state school and FE College? 

You have to work just as hard no matter where you go, an A from a state school is the same as an A from a public school but those who have the money to go to a public school may have their grades considered to be worth more and that is not fair, no matter how you look at it.

If I managed to get a 2:1 when I graduate I would be chuffed to bits but the fact is that if it was me and an Oxbridge graduate going for the same job with the same degree and grade they would get the job based purely on the paperwork.

Is it possible to have a completely fair education system though? I sadly think no.

This time I thought I’d try and review something so here it goes.

Lee Evans – Big – Live at the O2.

To put it bluntly I was disappointed. Now don’t get me wrong he is great at what he does it’s just that I felt let down after having such high hopes. Maybe it’s these high hopes that didn’t help. His old stuff was fantastic,  Live in Scotland from 1998 was the first of Lee Evans that I saw and I was amazed, his energy and strange take on everyday actions was splendid, you sit and start nodding because you know exactly what he’s on about. The Lee Evans Trio was amazing, I noticed that he tried a similar style with the Speed Dating on Big but it did nothing for me.

It seemed like much of his material was recycled, I just didn’t laugh out loud which is a bad sign, maybe as I have gotten older my comedical tastes have changed; but I don’t agree as I still rank Evans’ old material as some of my favourite stand-up. While he still has all the energy and nervousness there is something just a little bit off which is what lets this latest DVD down. I will gladly admit that I’m happy that I didn’t pay money for the DVD and just borrowed it and sadly this has put me off purchasing any other releases in the future including buying tickets to see him live.

If you’re a fan of recycled material that fails to hit the mark then this is the DVD for you but if you want quality laugh out loud material then you need to look elsewhere (try out a bit of Ross Noble, his review coming soon!)

Sorry Lee but this only gets ★★