DJK's First DJ Set!

So I finally tried my hand at DJing in public on Thursday at an Erasmus party! My buddies at www.europesounds.110mb.com were organising a Hip-Hop party at Bar Sahara in Santander and asked if I wanted to try and do a little warm-up set for them. Naturally I jumped at the chance!

In January I bought a Hercules MP3 controller for my laptop which came with some DJing software and have been trying my hand since then. Thursday was the first time I tried in public and although I still have a lot to learn, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Hopefully this summer I can spend a bit more time learning and need to upgrade my kit: currently I'm using Virtual DJ but I think it is fairly recognised that Traktor VinylScratch is top banana. Also I either need a second sound card for my laptop or to get a new MP3 controller with one built in: I didn't realise in January that with the controller I bought, you can't listen to the incoming track on my headphones. Which is kind of the point of DJing. Silly sod that I am.

Future Uses for the Internet

The human being is a social animal; its full potential is achieved when working with others. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons that we have become so numerous on the planet: cooperation leads to increased efficiency. From the early humans who first started living together in settlements, they found that they could get more done by sharing work. Specialising in certain tasks meant new developments and higher production.

In this regard, the internet is a fundamental step forward in the way that humans can cooperate. Instantly it speeds up communication, sharing ideas. Before, communication between humans was limited to small, isolated social/geographical groups meaning ideas and information were shared slowly. But now, the internet has revealed itself as the portal by which theoretically any human on the planet could talk to another. The potential applications are as wide as your imagination can stretch.

So far the Internet as an entity has passed through two main stages. The first was the popularisation of the net; people began to get connected and access content at the click of a mouse. Email and Instant Messaging facilitated communication between people, and websites increased communication of products from companies to consumers. The "dot com bubble" of the late nineties crashed when optimism about the Web collapsed, due to expectations racing ahead of what was actually occurring. Money had been flooding into web companies but usage patterns and technological development meant that the incoming revenue was way below the investment and share price levels. The theme of the early Internet was Communication.

Since the dot com bubble burst, technology and usage patterns have caught up. Connection speeds are significantly faster and cheaper now due to Broadband. Far from being a novelty, the internet has become an absolute necessity in the Western world; daily use starting with just reading news or checking emails has driven user numbers sky high and meant that it is no longer a tool for youngsters [1]: many sections of the population in developed nations use the internet. The initially cautious attitudes shown by many towards financial transactions over the Web has rapidly thawed out in recent years: meaning cyberbusinesses are now actually viable compared to the late '90s (prime examples being eBay and Amazon). Rocketing user numbers has now meant that advertising has a huge presence and provides another possible means of generating revenue (the most obvious being the world's most successful Internet company to date, Google).

The early to mid Naughties has seen a marked change in usage patterns. In addition to increased economic activity over the net, the public has begun to shape the landscape of cyberspace by adding content. Dubbed by technowags "Internet 2.0", the main characteristic change in usage has been the rapid rise in Interactivity. Now the average internet user is no longer a pure consumer, entirely passive in the process of information exchange. Now the majority of users have some sort of online presence: they actually contribute to the content of the Internet in various ways.

The entirely new concept of blogging is an example of user-generated content. Sites such as Blogger allow people to have a blog effectively an e-diary) posting on the web their ideas, stories and pretty much anything that be expressed by the written word, like the very thing you are reading now! Also, social interaction sites such as Facebook and MySpace have sprung up, allotting each user a small presence of the Web through which they can interact with others. Facebook also allows users to share photos, along with other sites such as Flickr and MySpace allows people to post their own music. YouTube, recently acquired by Google for a whopping $1.65bn (£883m) [2], allows users to contribute their videos to the cyber-community. The interaction boom is growing and the Internet is no longer spoon-feeding idle users content.

One of the more radical ways of having a cyber-presence is that of SecondLife. Developed by Linden Labs, it is an online 3D rendered universe where the user controls an electronic character (an "avatar") and can interact fully with the environment and other users. It has over 6.3 million current users worldwide and a fully functioning economy using the in-game Linden Dollar that can be transferred into US$ on various market exchanges [3]. This online cyberworld is actually becoming a business for many and its market base is set to grow extensively in the future as people become accustomed to having a cyber-persona [4].

The Internet 2.0 phenomenon is widely established in the behaviour of Internet users. However, I have noticed very recently there seems to be a new pattern emerging and I predict shall become a major trend in the next five years. I shall refer to it as Internet 3.0, with its main characteristic being Collaboration.

As mentioned earlier, the human being is a highly social creature: indeed our ability to cooperate is one of the main factors for out success. Our usage of the Internet is maturing, and people are starting to realise how it can be used to enable us to act collaboratively and thus achieve things that would not normally be possible.

On the website http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/, there is a group trying to mobilise 50,000 football fans in a revolutionary way. Each paying £35, they will pool resources and together buy a football club and behave as a collective unit, sharing decisions on the club's financial matters, staffing and even team selection! And on http://www.winthishome.org.uk/, 25,000 people will pay £60 to enter a competition for a house worth £650,000.

I personally believe that the future of the Internet will allow such group collaborations to exist and flourish on a wide scale. I also believe it will, in time, allow current democratic political system to become truly representative of the views of the people, with online polls allowing politicians to start to gain accurate indications of the views of their constituents. Political entities may even be able to get started and gain support.

In short, it is my belief that with time, the Internet will start to allow humans to cooperate in ways never thought possible. The sky is the limit.

Sources:

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6662469.stm

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6036337.stm

[3] http://secondlife.com/whatis/

[4]http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070416_386810.htm?chan=technology_special+report+--+virtual+life_virtual+life

Wedding Congratulations!!!!

Congratulations to Monique Maselle and Michael Kelly on their wedding. All the best for the future from myself and the rest of us in Santander.

My 21st Birthday and visit to England

Woohoo! This week I turned 21 years of age: officially now an adult! As such, I flew back to England for a 5 day extravaganza to celebrate with friends and family. Festivities involved a Friday night pub crawl around London (Blackheath, Fulham Broadway, Chelsea) followed by a house music night at Key Club, King's Cross. On the Saturday night, my friends threw me a little surprise party in a pub we used to work in and I got to see some more on my UK buddies. On the Sunday we booked an Italian restaurant for the family meal and invited some of my closest friends along. Good time was had by all and the food was excellent (although in an Italian restaurant that is hardly a surprise). What a lucky young rascal I am having three birthday parties, even the Queen only gets two! Photo link to follow in the sidebar in the next few days.

Cheers to Richard for making the Friday and Saturday nights happen, you're a legend!!! Thanks also to everyone to came out over the weekend, thanks for a great birthday.

My Drunk Aussie Mate

Here is a video of my friend Hartley drunk on St Patrick's Day. Needless to say he was in no fit state the next morning to cook the afforementioned meal.

Dazed Chicken Model

Who said Physics had to be boring? Below is an amusing analogy I found that has been proposed to help people remember what happens when a solid is subjected to positron bombardment.




Source: Physics World (IOP Publishing)

First Visit to Racing Santander!

Last Sunday I went to watch the local top division football team, Real Racing Club de Santander (commonly known as Racing) play at home in their stadium, the Estadio del Sardinero. It was the local derby against the nearest other top division team, Athletic Club de Bilbao. In addition to this local rivalry, Bilbao is in the Basque country (a province in Spain that is striving for independence) whereas Santander is in Cantabria and is loyal to Spain. The strong nationalistic emotions evoked add a further element dimension to the already tense setting of a local derby: all these factors add up to a guaranteed electric atmosphere! However, this comes at a price: it is the most expensive game of the season and the cheapest tickets start at a sizeable 60€ (£40).

Before the match, Athletic were languishing in the relegation zone, whereas Racing were in the respectable position of 9th in La Liga. Racing were the odds on favourites but that didn't seem to bother Athletic, who scored within the first 10 minutes, scored a dubiously awarded freekick by smashing it low under the legs of the mid-jump wall where it was deflected past the motionless Toño. The rest of the half saw an almost silent stadium and a tame performance from a Racing side who couldn't wait for half time. I was beginning to doubt the extortionate price I had paid for entry.

Well that all changed in the second half: what resulted was 45 minutes of end to end football and 8 goals! The final score? 5-4 to Racing, all thanks to a hat-trick from the Serbian striker, Nicola Zigic. Racing's comeback was, from my point of view, mostly down to excellent performances produced by three players. The two Racing strikers formed a classic little-and-large partenership: Zigic using his 6'9" frame to full effect, acting as a solid target man and making his presence felt; Munitis rapidly scampering about and feeding off the little nod-downs from his Serbian teammate; and Balboa the able and nippy right winger who caused Athletic all sorts of headaches down the righthand side, constantly getting the better of his marker. He provided some excellent crosses for Zigic as well as linking up well with Munitis, playing some attractive one-twos and some nice through balls allowing the striker to whizz away from the Basque defence.

The win took Racing to withing 2 points of a UEFA cup spot and committed Athletic to almost certain relegation. They were very vulnerable to the Athletic set pieces, with 3 of the goals being conceded in this manner and if I go to see them again I would hope this situation would be remedied. But all in all, very attractive football and well worth the entrance price!

Scary Statistic

Here's a scary quote from a recent issue of The Economist. If this doesn't make you want to give up smoking after reading it, you are a crazy fool indeed!!!!

"The single most shattering statistic about life in America in the late 1990's was that tobacco killed more people than the combined total of those who died from AIDS, car accidents, alcohol, murder, suicide, illegal drugs and fire. The deaths of 400,000 Americans a year, 160,000 of them from lung cancer, make a strong case for the prohibition of tobacco, and particularly of cigarettes."

I agree!!

Another Visit by a Professor

Last week I had a visit from my university's Spanish Coordinator. She was in Cantabria with her husband visiting friends and decided to pay me a visit to see how I am doing on my placement. She also wanted to come to my department to talk to my supervisor about promoting the University of Cantabria as a choice for physics students from my university to do Erasmus. It turns out that UniCan in fact boasts one of the oldest and most prestigious Civil Engineering departments in Spain! This was as much of a surprise to her as it was to me! After a very good meeting with the head of the department, I am pretty sure it is going to be offered to the engineers at my university and will turn out to be a popular choice!

Jeremy Clarkson is a legend

If Jeremy Clarkson ever invites you to join him for a spot of "clay pidgeon shooting", graciously accept the offer because this is the sort of thing he gets up to. What a legend this bloke is!

Visited Countries

I found a cool little tool http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedcountries that allows you to select everywhere you have been in the world and then paints you a picture of your visited "countries". I have been to 7, which is apparently 3%. A lot more travelling to be done, methinks. I do aim to conquer some more of Europe this summer, so I shoud be correcting the absence of red there. As for the rest of the world, that shall have to wait for now.

Incidentally, there is also a version of this for States in the USA, if it interests you. I haven't been there yet so I haven't included it.

Updated Links section

If you check out the righthand sidebar of this blog, I have updated the Links section. There are now two new sections. MySpace Links contains the MySpace sites of several artists of whom I am a fan and likewise Charity Links contains a list of some of my favourite charities that I would suggest are worth supporting.

First Visitor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi fans: you may be pleased to hear that I finally had my first visitor to Santander, none other than the legendary Smiler himself! Not only did he have to take time off work from HM Forces to visit and catch two flights over 2 days to get here, he even had the good manners to bring 250 of the finest PG Tips Pyramid Bags over to yours truely on the very day I ran out! Now that is what I call a true gentleman!

So I introduced the man himself to my buddies out here and everybody reported on what a thoroughly nice chap he is, not to mention that the ladies were also rather taken by his toned military physique as well! His visit luckily coincided with a 'warm snap' ; temperatures reached a dizzying 23 degrees Celcius (impressive for early March).

We made the most of the weather and enjoyed a goliath coastal walk around some of the most beautiful parts of the town's coast. During his stay he sampled the local nightlife and a few of the local restaurants, in addition to helping me discover the town's pool bar! He beat me 6-3, but considering he helped me locate the place for the first time, I shall forgive the old rascal.

Smiler: you are a legend! Cheers for the visit!

My comment on Jade Goody and Big Brother

After all the recent news about Jade Goody's alleged racism on Big Brother UK, I feel that it is high time I released my views into the blogosphere. Now it must be noted before taking into account any of my views that I have not actually seen any of the events in question since I am currently living in Spain and have no access to British terrestrial television. However, I constantly read articles on the BBC News website, which in my opinion is a rather excellent news source and seems to demonstrate a balanced and intelligent viewpoint through its journalism. It has kept me up to date with developments back in Blighty over the last 6 months.

I shall first set the scene before airing my views. On the most recent series of Celebrity Big Brother UK, the British strain of the infamous pioneer of so-called "reality TV", celebrities are put into a house that is sealed from the outside world for a fixed period of time. An army of cameras and microphones details their every move for the viewing pleasure of the greater public. Throughout the duration of the show, the housemates nominate two of their peers to be put forward to the public for eviction from the house; the public opinion then being collected by a lucrative phone-in vote scheme until a final winner is chosen from the final few constants at the end of the show.

The celebrities chosen for the show are often not those classed by the tabloids as "A-list" and are usually those who currently have little media exposure or flagging careers and thus wish to make use of the instant and relatively easy publicity offered by reality TV shows. In some circumstances they actually use non-celebrities for tedious reasons, for example in CBBUK they once used a lookalike of Paris Hilton, an A-list celebrity. In the recent Celebrity Big Brother UK, the housemates ranged from Jo O'Meara from the now-defunct chart-topping pop band Steps, the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, to Jade Goody (who shot to fame as a previous contestant of the non-celebrity version of Big Brother UK) and some of her family [1]. There were other contestants on the show as well but these are those relevant to the events in question.

Over the course of the series, events transpired that caused an public outcry both in the UK and abroad. Shilpa became the focus of alleged (I haven't seen it, remember) bullying by Goody, O'Meara and some of the other housemates. It remains a point of considerable debate whether the supposed bullying towards Ms. Shetty was outright and intentional racism or just silly comments made by uneducated people unaware of how their behaviour could be perceived.

Some of the reported behaviour involves Ms. Goody referring to Ms. Shetty as "Shilpa Poppadom", telling her to "go home" and the list goes on and on [2]. The ensuing media frenzy over the series managed to overspill to Shilpa Shetty's home nation, India and happened to coincide with a diplomatic tour to the very same nation by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown [3]. Such a high profile tale of prejudice did not do any favours for Mr. Brown on a trip that was designed to boost political and economic relations between Britain and its rapidly developing ex-colony as well as highlight his statesmanship and therefore suitability as the probable replacement for Tony Blair in 10 Downing Street.

Now I cannot comment fully on the events of the television program myself, as I am not a first-hand witness of the series and only have second-hand articles to go by. One of the themes raised by the events was the difference between racism and ignorance and this is discussed in article 2 of my source list. My interest in the events described lies not in the details of the events; more how was it possible for the behaviour of a few people to create such a widespread media outcry and what is it about modern British culture that permitted such people to gain such publicity.

The first topic to address is the platform of the said events: Big Brother. Throughout the history of civilisation and perhaps even before, other people providing entertainment has had a place in mankind's culture. Kings and emperors from a vast range of eras had court jesters; the ancient Greeks had a particular taste for drama and comedy; and the Romans spread throughout Europe large coliseums to provide thousands of people with the opportunity to watch gladiators slaughter animals, slaves and criminals. The modern age, with all the advances in telecommunications has a massive range of entertainment, with the use of stadiums reserved now for the viewing of sports of the non-lethal variety.

Big Brother is a form of entertainment that is as basic as it gets: a group of people are put into a box for a fixed period of time and observed. This is voyeurism in its most pure form and we as the viewing public are condoning its existence by tuning in. Its simplicity and addictiveness led to massive ratings, which spawned an entire genre of reality TV shows. During the 10 weeks or so of Big Brother season, it seems that the entire nation is gripped by this simple show: the recent developments in the "Big Brother house" hit the front pages of all the major news papers and seem to occupy every spare minute of conversation by the majority of the population. And this is not just in Britain: in all the other countries where BB exists, the same occurs each and every year.

But is it really "reality"? In the quest to grab ratings, the show's producers Endemol began to using people very different from society's "norms". In the recent series of BB, two contestants seemed to have been selected purely for having health problems that the public would find it in interesting to watch: namely Pete the singer from Brighton with Tourette's Syndrome and Shahbaz who exhibited strong of signs of mental illness, at one point threatening suicide in front of his other housemates by claiming he was "a dead man walking" [5].

In addition to exploiting ill people for capital gains, Big Brother also flies in the face of convention because it catapults normal people to overnight fame. Historically, people earned fame through outstanding actions or achievements, but reality TV specifically aims to bring normal people to the public eye. This in itself is no bad thing: the problem begins when these people are in the position to represent our country and affect the views held by other nations of the average Britain, as the case with the recent story between Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty.

People are undoubtedly selected by reality TV producers as they are caricatures that would be highly amusing or provoke a strong reaction in viewers and thus boost viewer ratings. In the case of Jade Goody, the attraction is her strongly working-class upbringing in Bermondsey, her incredible stupidity and a notably low level of education. The recent events of Celebrity Big Brother combined with the magnifying glass effect of modern media scrutiny allowed this woman's ignorance to spread to all over the globe and as her fellow countrymen/women we are therefore associated with her. Is it right that such people should be able to tarnish our reputation and even so far as damage relations with the one of the next century's potentially biggest economic powers?

One of the main attractions in viewing and a key element in the show's success is what I call the "Snob factor". By featuring ignorant people such as Ms. Goody, and people who appear to be highly detatched from reality such as Shahbaz, people are taken aback by the nature of these people and instantly feel a sense of superiority. This allows people to instantly feel better about themselves and is hardly surprising when they have such extremes in personality with which to compare themselves such as Pete's Tourette's or Shahbaz's quasi manic-depressive behaviour.

On a more fundamental level, is the quality of the program suitable enough for viewing? On E4 (Channel 4's digital arm) and the internet, viewers have 24 hour feeds to the BB house, which often consists of them just sitting around, cooking or even just sleeping. I have often found it somewhat bizarre that millions of people around the world find this exceptable subject matter for television. Why not rig up mirrors in their own home so they can watch themselves sit around/cook/sleep!

To sum up my opinions, I personally think that Big Brother is a perverse form of entertainment that exploits pyschologically weak (and maybe even now unhealthy) people in the quest for ratings; I think it is insulting to the intelligence of the viewing public due to the mundane and trivial nature of its material; and I think it is not a topic suitable for newspapers or conversation. I urge everyone to do as I do: switch off Big Brother and refuse to pay this joke of a series any attention. Endemol: enough is enough.

Sources:
1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6281223.stm
2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6275363.stm
3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6270825.stm
4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5266302.stm
5 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5008062.stm

Kano vs Wiley MC Battle

I'm a big fan of Kano it must be said; Home Sweet Home is one of my favourite albums of UK hiphop/grime or whatever name the genre now carries. Here is a video of him having an MC battle with Wiley and in my personal opinion Kano wins hands down. However, I'm not entirely convinced his lyrics are off the cuff but that doesn't take away from the fact they are still sound awesome.

New Erasmus batch about to arrive!

So today is the Orientation of the new batch of Erasmus students in Santander, should prove to be an awesome week of parties, especially as today is St Valentine's Day and the weekend in Carnival! I might be travelling to Santoña, Cantabria, where the Carnival is pretty famous. Everybody descends en masse to this small town on the coast for a weekend of costumed-fun, drinking, socialising, music etc. Should be pretty awesome!

Barcelona New Year's Eve

Here is the belated report of Moo Cow's recent excursion and after I shall be almost up to date with current events! Along with a few mates from my old school, the illustrious DGS, I spent a week in the capital of the Catalunya and Spain's second-biggest city, Barcelona. There were five of us in total and it turned out to be an interesting experience in several ways.

Arriving there in the fume-spewing airborne hamster cage that is a Ryanair £36 return flight, we were greeted by a smiling Sun and a surprising 18 degrees Celsius: cue jacket-removal and pleasant mutterings by all Brits present. However, Spain once again lived up to its potential as the bearer of the most weird-and-wonderful smells known (and unknown) to man. The entire week managed to demonstrate to my associates that time spent in Spain is akin to a game of olfactory Russian roulette. The spectrum of possible odours ranges from the "Wow, this restaurant smells incredible! The chef must be cooking little bits of rainbow mixed with kisses from Lindsey Lohan out there" to the more harrowing "Has there recently been an ethnic cleansing in this vicinity or is it just that the local sewer has been made redundant from his job and spent the last 6 weeks without a shower watching daytime TV and eating microwave meals?".

With 18 degrees C and clear blue skies on the 31st of December, we soon managed to forget that we had been awake since 3am and that we actually had no accommodation for the first night. It also helped us to remain light-hearted after one of our party's cards was swallowed by a cash machine almost as soon as we arrived. We left our suitcases in the station, ignored the bad omen and sallied forth into the unknown city. We spent several hours exploring the centre, targeting possible points for festivities, admiring the scenery and desperately trying to seek some available accommodation. Alas, there was none (as if that was a surprise 6 hours before New Year's Eve in one of the most highly rated cities in Europe). Prior to flying out to Barcelona, we did have the sense to book a flat for the other four nights there, so we knew we were only homeless for NYE itself.

Back in the station, we got changed into our glad rags and ventured out to meet 2 of my mates from Erasmus in Santander, each of whom had a friend over from France and the States respectively. The party that night was awesome; we did the countdown in Plaça Reial in the midst of hundreds of people and then proceeded to spend the majority of the rest of the night touring the Plaça's bars and wandering around La Rambla searching for a club until the early hours. We got the Metro back to the station where some lovely benches were awaiting our weary selves. In fact, one of my favourite moments of the week when two English ladies were chatting up my mate on the Metro and it was obvious they were cracking on to him to everyone else except the silly sod himself. So when they asked "...So where you heading off to now?", he came out with the awe-inspiringly suave reply: "I'm going to the train station to sleep!!!". Nice one, Heemy, at least you gave me a laugh!

After five hours of intermittent dozing in the station's chilly conditions and two hours waiting in a café near our flat whilst the lazy Spaniards took their time in cleaning it, we finally moved into our pad for the remainder of the week. Turns out it was an awesome little place on Caller D'Avinyo right in the heart of the Barri Gotic (the city's centre). It was better than staying in a hostel or similar as it was awesome to have a place to host pre-parties for all my Santander mates that were there. We sat down and took stock of the night before and heard that one of our mate's phones had been pick-pocketed and someone tried to take one out of another mates hand whilst he was using it!

The first visited location we headed to was, of course, the world-famous stadium of FC Barcelona, Camp Neu. We did the stadium and museum tour and realised what a shame it was that it was the winter beak of Spanish football and thus we wouldn't be able to see a game there. No trip in Barcelona would be complete without investigating the art and architecture. So cue visits to the Cathedral, Museu Picasso and Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell. It was mind-blowing to finally get to see some Gaudí in person, as I am a bit of a fan and have been for some time.

We also had another brilliant night out on the bar strip next to Port Olimpic which was eventful to say the least. As we left, two of my mates had their wallets lifted straight out of their pockets in the crowd, one of them being the poor sod who had his phone nicked only days earlier. The title of Europe's pickpocket capital seems to be a deserved one. We returned to England on the 5th a little older, a little more culturally informed, and more importantly a little wiser about which pocket our wallets and phone should be located in! The motto of the week was "Triumph over adversity" without a shadow of a doubt.

End of Term and Christmas

So, the end of term arrived at the University of Cantabria and as such I discovered a tradition of Spanish university life. Called champanada, it involves skipping the entire last day of lectures and going to have a massive party outdoors (this outdoor partying/drinking actually has a name of its own, botellón). I think the name champanada is a play-on-words between the sound of a bell ringing and champagne, although I could be mistaken. Also I am not sure whether this tradition is the last day of every term, or just Christmas.

Anyway at 11am, I headed down to the patio-terraces that are on the hill facing the university which are the main area for UniCan's champanada. There was about 500 people there all milling around, partying and just generally getting off their face before lunch. Pretty awesome sight, really!

One funny memory that comes to mind was the fence where the boys kept running to in order to relief themselves throughout the day was next to a block of flats (although to be honest in this country, they are everywhere). The occupants were so intent on dissuading the young gentlemen from 'watering the plants', that some of them used their shower attachments to spray water out of their windows onto the offending youths below, although this attempted deterrent was in vain.

The whole event began to finish at about 7pm as students scuttled off to sober up before dinner with mummy and daddy (most students in Spain still live with their family as they stay in their home town for university). At 11 o'clock people started to hit the main bar zone until about 3am. So was a pretty intense day of celebration!

Whilst back in good ol' Blighty over Christmas, I indulged in the usual activities (i.e. pubs and clubs) in my home town, in addition to making the most of the sales at Bluewater. I didn't go too mad though, as my cash reserves were being saved for my 6 day trip on New Year's Eve for Barcelona.

Andalucía summary... 2 months late!

I have really hit new levels of blog-related procrastination: nearly two months without an update. They have been pretty intense months, in all fairness! The end of November/beginning of December saw me and 20 of my Santander Erasmus companions venture to the other side of the country on a 9 day road trip, making the most of a week that contained two national holidays. We spent one night in Toledo, two in Granada, two in Cádiz, two in Sevilla and one in Córdoba and had an awesome time in each place.

Whilst there we visited some awesome sights, including: the old fortified city and cathedrals of Toledo; the Alhambra (a beautiful Moorish palace) and the Sierra Nevada in Granada; Flamenco dancing, the Cathedral, the Plaza de España and the Alcazar palace in Sevilla; and the Cathedral in Córdoba that is rather cheekily built inside a massive ex-mosque. There is, of course, a link to my photo album of said places in the sidebar.

We also passed by Gibraltar on the way to Tarifa, which is a town located on the "Costa del Windsurf". Suffice to say that upon trying to enter Gibraltar it transpired that, like a complete plonker, I had left my passport all the way back in Santander and was thus denied access to my own country. How I enjoyed sitting in the frontier McDonald's mindlessly stirring a McFlurry for 2 hours whilst my French mates ran around like schoolkids having the time of their life in "my country".

The people in Andalucía are a lot more accessible if you need help or feel like chatting to a stranger in comparison to Cantabria. However, the downside of this is that when you do talk to them, they have this daft accent that omits the majority of the appearances of the letter S, a sound which Spanish is not exactly shy of. The end result is that they sound like they are speaking with a dummy in or have some juvenile speech impediment. I assure you that this ceased to be amusing rather quickly.

Toledo is actually not in the region of Andalucía and is situated right in the centre of Spain. We used it as a stopping point on the first day to avoid a full 12 hours driving. It had beautiful old buildings, but was how dead the nightlife was for a Saturday night beggars belief. Granada was not particularly attractive as a town but appeared to have a lot going on. Unfortunately we were there on Sunday and Monday nights and therefore didn't really get to sample the nightlife. Cádiz was really quite pleasant in terms of architecture and general city ambience. The nightlife on the Tuesday night before the Wednesday national holiday was good, but it seemed like quite a small town and would probably get boring pretty quickly. Sevilla was far and away the best place we visited: awesome architecture, brilliant nightlife and so many fantastic sights in one area. The flamenco there can only be described accurately as mesmerising and addictive. If you ever get the chance to see it, do, as you will not be disappointed. Córdoba was scenic but pretty small and we weren't there long enough to judge it accurately in all fairness.

Lazy Moo

Haven't I been naughty boy; three weeks without writing a blog entry. Tut tut. In fairness I have been pretty busy living the jetset lifestyle.

A few weekends back I went to the Fiesta de Orujo in Potes, Cantabria. Orujo is a local liquor that comes in various varieties and they hold a festival to celebrate it and to drum up interest. It was in the picturesque village of Potes, perched nicely in the Picos de Europa mountains. The festival was totally free and consisted of one enormous tent with two stages and loads of stalls giving away all the different types of Orujo, again totally free. My travelling buddies and I decided that drinking from the little shot glasses they were issuing was far too slow so we pinched a few of the bottles and enjoyed the drink at a more enjoyable rate.

After the main tent shut, all the Erasmus crowd headed into a nightclub that was playing some house/trance malarkey or joined the crowds in the village in a spot of bar-hopping or listening to all the street music and performers. All-in-all very enjoyable evening with the exception of a few of the bar owners being a little bit unfriendly with us foreigners, which struck me as a bit of a daft attitude for someone in the hospitality industry.

On to university issues. My department at Imperial sent over a professor to meet with me and discuss my project, how things are going for me generally in Santander, etc. They also footed the bill for a five course meal at a delightfully expensive restaurant in a very nice part of town. My project is beginning slowly, next week I hope to get in the lab next week to get "down and dirty" with all the gear.

I've just returned to Santander after a five day stay in England. A night out in Sheffield, another in Reading for my mate's 21st and a day in my university picking up software and catching up with some mates there. Next excursions I have planned are a week-long road trip in Andalucia in December and maybe some skiing in January. Exciting times.