Shut Up And Listen 23/02/08 Playlist

1. ZPU - Yo Soy Un Soldado

2. Example - Diamond Days

3. Wiley - Get Along Gang (instrumental)

4. Pharoahe Monch - Simon Says

5. The Purple Pixels - Ready, Steady, Go!

6. Maniac - Wiley Freestyle

7. Tinchy Stryder ft. Goldielocks - Stereotype

8. Xzibit - Saturday Night Live

9. Jay-Z - Izzo (H.O.V.A.)

10. The Cribs - Hey Scenesters!

11. Idlewild - Little Discourage

12. Fenech-Soler - The Fight

13. Not Idea - Worthless Treasure

14. Imajim - Single Crumb

15. Hello Saferide - San Francisco

16. Robyn - Who's That Girl

17. The Cranberries - I Can't Be With You

18. Tripwires - Kings And Queens

19. Arty Karate - Ammunition

20. Foo Fighters - Generator

21. Spectrum 7 - The Last Great Train Robbery

22. Garbage - Vow

23. The Knife - Heartbeats

24. Hadouken! - Love, Sweat & Beer

25. Dizzee Rascal - I Luv U

26. Kano - P's & Q's

27. Papa Vito - Drill It (Lillica Libertine remix)

28. Roni Size & Reprazent - Snapshot

Troops to Teachers in the UK

Once again the BBC website of which I am so fond (and arguably over-dependent on) has covered an excellent story and raised a proposal that I consider to be an excellent idea.

The Centre for Policy Studies, a British government think tank, has suggested that the UK should model an American scheme called Troops to Teachers, known as T3 [1]. This scheme retrains experienced ex-members of the armed forces to become teachers.

This is expected to bring back respect to the classroom, as the servicemen and women would bring with them self-discipline and act as role models for them. Their experience in maintaining discipline is anticipated to work wonders in inner-city schools, where children look up to physical strength as a key quality.

I must say this would also be mutually beneficial to former servicemen and women, as it is often very hard to reintegrate into "Civvy Street" (i.e. the real world). Some ex-soldiers, sailors and airmen struggle with the lack of a rigid hierarchical structure, absence of strict discipline and no longer having the feeling of serving society, their country and the greater good in general. Some can also lack qualifications that will help them compete in the commercial job market. This scheme would allow them to train for another job and bring a very useful set of skills to our education system in addition to bringing a vast wealth of life experience into the classroom.

The scheme on paper sounds like a fantastic idea and indeed the US scheme has proven to be highly successful (88% retention rate of T3 participants as opposed to the national average of 50% as one example). However, I think that it will need to be handled very carefully and the right candidates will need to be vetted thoroughly. Also, could it be possible that the scheme would further the romantic idealism of violence in modern culture and continue to ingrain the notion of aggression being directly linked to respect, power and authority?

It may be that some of these ex-servicemen/women will also struggle to cope with the lack of respect in the classroom: after all, working in the forces is voluntary but school is compulsory (to paraphrase the comment of "Voice of the Voyager" below the article in question.

A British analogue of the T3 scheme has the potential to have a positive impact on our education system provided it is handled well, with the recruits being correctly selected and given the right training.

Sources
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7245122.stm

BBC iPlayer: amazing

The TV is officially dying and internet TV is rising from its ashes. The new iPlayer from the BBC allows UK viewers to watch any missed programs for up to 7 days after they have been broadcast. I have recently used it for the first time to catch up on games from the first weekend of the Six Nations rugby tournament, and I am very impressed. I am a child of the internet generation: in my student flat we don't even have a telly (although one of the girls has a TV card for her laptop which is also impressive technology).

Hopefully the England rugby team can put together some decent performances to make the most of it!

Six Nations Excitement

So it's nearly the start of the 2008 Six Nations and I'm not the only rugby fan who's excited. Here's the thoughts of The Manic Street Preachers' cross-dressing bassist Nicky Wire on the BBC website [1]:

"I'm just a huge sports fan and the start of the Six Nations is just one of the most exciting times of the year - close the curtains, get a sausage sandwich on and have a shandy."

Sounds like one hell of a party! What a fruitcake!!!


Source
[1]http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/7221292.stm

Just For A Giggle

Here's a little footage from the Harry Enfield/Fast Show archives. Classic, if a little naughty...

Shut Up And Listen 26/01/08 Playlist

Guest DJ: Sean Williams

1. Tiny Masters of Today – K.I.D.S.
2. Does It Offend You Yeah? – Battle Royale
3. Peter Bjorn & John – Young Folks (Punks Jump Up Remix)
4. Tapedeck – Falcon
5. Justice – Phantom
6. Friendly Fires – Your Love
7. Vampire Weekend – A Punk
8. Filthy Youth – Boys Don’t Smoke
9. High Contrast – White Stripes Blue Orchid Remix
10. Blood Red Shoes – It’s Getting Boring By The Sea (Blamma Blamma Mix)
11. Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip – A Letter from God to Man
12. Skream – Smiley Face
13. Example – Vile
14. Whitey – Stay on the Outside
15. Radiohead – Bodysnatchers
16. Late of the Pier – Bathroom Gurgle
17. Babyshambles – The Man Who Came to Stay
18. Lightspeed Champion – Devil Tricks for a Bitch
19. Danger Mouse – Public Service Announcement
20. Plan B – Missing Links feat. Radiohead
21. Maps – You Don’t Know her Name
22. Trash Fashion – Mom & Daddy (Jet Storm’s Ear Cleaner Mix)

Considering Erasmus? My advice: DO IT!

May I start by confirming the fact that choosing to do Erasmus is probably one of the best decisions you will ever make, so put aside any fears about language barrier or the distance from home! After a year you will have loads of friends from every corner of Europe, speak another language with confidence, be ludicrously employable and have had some unforgettable experiences.

In pretty much every university the Erasmus students form a very tight community, so any problems with language barrier are instantly removed by the fact that everybody else is in the same boat! I personally found the mixture of people from all different nations absolutely mind-blowing. I wasn’t very well travelled before Erasmus and thought it was going to be a problem: on the contrary, I think that’s why I enjoyed it more!

Conversations consisting of more than 3 languages at once will become the norm and you will not cease to be amazed by the cultural and linguistic peculiarities of our neighbours. Exploring the language and culture of the host country with your new Erasmus mates makes it so much less scary and a hell of a lot more fun. I met some incredible people whilst in Santander and if it wasn’t for Erasmus I would have never met anyone like them in a million years!

During the first month living in another country everything is pretty daunting, but at the same time massively exciting! The language learning curve is incredibly rapid and after 4 weeks, your confidence is sky high and you will wonder why the hell you were ever worried in the first place! And if that still isn’t enough, may I remind you that 47% of the EU speak English as a second language, so you have nothing to worry about!

It is probable that many of your fellow Erasmus students may be doing the year for little or even no credits, so keep this in mind towards the end of the year when deadlines are approaching, especially if you want to do well. If you are writing a thesis or project out there, remember to see your supervisor as much as humanly possible and continuously ask members of the group questions.

I would advise you to try and organise a language buddy with a native speaker as soon as possible, because it is tempting to only hang around with Erasmus guys which linguistically is a bad move! Also try to join a local gym, sports team or some form of club as this will allow you to widen your social network and get some good local chat on the go!

Make sure you get a Skype account for a free or very cheap way to call back to the UK and most importantly: go on a road trip with your new mates early on in the year when the work has not started to build up. I went on a 10 day road trip of 30 people to Andalucía in November and words cannot express how awesome that was!

The Meaning of Life... via text message

Last week I received a text from a company called Texperts offering me a free text message as a trial of their service. They apparently have a panel of experts that quickly answer any question that you text them for the sum of £1.

Seeing as I am studying a Philosophy module this year I used my free SMS to ask the eternal question "What is the meaning of life?", hoping to get some sort of humorous reply from a bamboozled "expert". About two minutes later I received the following answer:

"No inherent meaning to life other than to create meaning. The more one values life the more valuable it is. Each individual defines their own meaning."

Of course the first thing that came to mind was the sweet irony of receiving the answer to the eternal question of existence via a mobile telephone. Oh how technology enhances and enriches our modern lives! I wondered if it was a quote from some revered 20th Century thinker. It seemed a fair statement, albeit staunchly from the perspective of a modern atheist. But as I looked at it more and more, I started to doubt its credibility. It seems more probable that it is just some pseudo-profound waffle from the office's self-appointed "thinker".

The first part is very bleak indeed and anybody religious would be exceptionally liable to disagree. It plainly contradicts the Aristotlean idea of every life having a telos (Greek: specific end, goal or purpose) and the theistic idea of us existing due to God's grand scheme, the divine purpose.

I find the second part equally disagreeable. Can someone's life be worth more because they consider it to be? Is the life of a depression sufferer worth less than that of a happy newly-wed just because they value their life less? I find this hard to agree with; in my opinion every life has an equal and unwavering value, regardless of their state of mind.

The final part has its feet firmly embedded in the relativism that seems to be prevalent in a lot of moral thinking today. It also elevates man above God and says that our will is central to defining our own meaning. I don't like the sound of this: what happens if I believe my life's meaning is that I was put on this Earth to be an axe murderer?

Whoever wrote the text message has given an answer that ignores that we may have a specific telos or reason to exist. By suggesting that our life gains meaning depending on what we believe seems to be reminiscent of Anselm's ontological argument. Just because I believe that my life meaning is to eat muffins does not necessarily correlate with the truth. It's like saying that because I can imagine a pineapple with legs that can run as fast as an ostrich, that it must exist in reality.

I'm tempted to write Texperts an email and get them to update their answer to something a bit less bleak! What if someone in a fragile state of mind asks the same question and gets this reply? I hope that there's nobody out there vulnerable enough to take an answer to the meaning of life via text message as gospel.

Shut Up And Listen 19/01/08 Playlist

1	Akala	Electro Livin'
2	We Smoke Fags	Photo Fitness
3	Take Aim Fire	A Barren Spell
4	Bombay Bicycle Club	Open House
5	Kasha ft Composure	Hustling
6	Edan	Emcees Smoke Crack
7	Yila ft Scroobius Pip	Astronaut
8	Sway	Black Stars
9	Spank Rock and Benny Blanco ft Amanda Blank	LOOSE
10	Roots Manuva	Seat Yourself (Miami Mix)
11	The Mitchell Brothers	Don't Try This At Home
12	Timbalana ft Dr Dre, Justin Timberlake and Missy Elliot	Bounce
13	Illastate Mixtape	What You Doing
14	Tinchy Stryder	Xtra
15	Faith SFX	Oh My
16	Lady Sovereign	Chi Ching (Cheque 1 2)
17	M.I.A.	XR2
18	Bolt Action Five	Stand By Your Lover
19	The Cleft Palettes	Seasnake (Yes Sir Idol remix)
20	Simian Mobile Disco	Sleep Deprivation
21	Lillica Libertine	Diamonds
22	Yes Sir Idol	Idol vs Bul!m!atron!
23	Bloc Party	Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)
24	Hadouken!	Leap of Faith (Chase and Status Vocal Remix)

China: a nation of dichotomy

I've just finished reading two articles about China on the BBC website and I can't help but be totally flabbergasted at the difference between them. It transpires that China, the world's oldest political entity (at approximately 2,000 years old), executes more people than the rest of the world put together [1]. According to the article, Amnesty International estimates 1,010 people were executed there in 2006, amounting to 60% of global executions for that year. China does not actually release official figures on the topic, so worse still it could be "just the tip of the iceberg".

In complete contrast, there has been a recent boom in people reading the works of Confucius, with new nursery schools entirely dedicated to his teachings and a recent publication of his main sayings reaching the best-sellers list [2]. His teachings "extol the virtues of harmony, humility and courtesy to others" [2] and he has been described as "one of the most humane thinkers of all time" [3]. The discrepancy between the morals of the government and morals of he people would appear to be as divergent as one would be inclined to expect from a communist society!

Sources
[1]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7169122.stm
[2]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7169814.stm
[3]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Analects-Classics-Confucius/dp/0140443487/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1X2T99HPQIZQ4&colid=2V0GOPK79A8NQ

SHUT UP AND LISTEN: radio pilot

So I presented a pilot of my radio show live on icradio.com last Monday. It was all a bit hectic; I only knew I had a time slot about 3 hours before the set so I just had to run home, grab my laptop and run back! Did it solo as well which wasn't ideal at all! Definitely room for improvement but the initial feedback was encouraging and I had listeners in more than 3 countries which boosted the ego.

The show should normally be available online but the site is being a bit dodgy this weekend. When it does come back, it should be available here: http://www.icradio.com/show.php?id=500. The Facebook group can be found here: http://imperial.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15237950470. Download and enjoy!

Here's the playlist so you can pursue these fine artists in your own time:
1. We Smoke Fags - Lust Puppet
2. Late Of The Pier - Space And The Woods
3. Goldielocks - Dolla Dolla
4. Lillica Libertine - Loose Lips Sink Ships
5. Bolt Action Five - Think Fast (Think Trash remix)
6. Duchess Says - Cut Up
7. We Are Wolves - Fight And Kiss
8. Lincoln Smith vs The Black Prince - Satellites Are Falling From The Sky
9. Scanners - Bombs (Young Americans Terrible Fuss mix)
10. Yelle - A Cause Des Garcons (Techno mix)
11. The Klaxons - Golden Skans
12. Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - Fixed
13. Hadouken! - Tuning In
14. Plan B - Where You From
15. Faithless - Insomnia
16. Wiley - Slippin'
17. Saïan Supa Crew - Blow
18. Mark B & Blade ft Rodney P - We Stay Rough
19. Diplo - Diplo Rhythm
20. Boy 8Bit - Jolene
21. Hadouken! - Leap Of Faith

Supporting the Hollywood Writer's Strike

Music Festival #3- Sziget

I knew this festival was going to be huge and was likely to be messy but I really could not imagine the scale of it until I was actually there! Immense!

Along with my travelling buddy of the summer, I flew into Bratislava, Slovakia from where we caught the 2 and a half hour train to Budapest, Hungary. We met some girls from Glasgow on the way and got a few beers in (obviously). There had just been quite a severe heatwave in this part of the world a couple of weeks before we got there and the heat was still pretty intense but thankfully we had missed the worst of it.

We cheated and got a taxi from the station to the festival, as we just wanted to put up the tents pronto and check out the bands. Cheeky sod charged us 40€ though!! That's probably a month's rent in Budapest!!! We paid it, silly tourists that we were.

Upon arriving at the island it was immediately obvious that this was one hell of an event. The entrance to the island was absolutely teeming with people. Previous years had seen over 400,000 attend the festival over the 7 days and it was beginning to sink in how many people that meant.

In contrast to the standard English festival consisting of one flat open field for the stages and another for the tents, this was unique. The island is forested with various footpaths and roads spreading throughout it, the effect being a wooded labyrinth. Every now and again there would be a clearing with a stage or two in it, or a road with a selection of food stalls at the side. Otherwise, wherever there was a big enough gap between two trees, people would pitch their tent.

The line-up boasted some big names and I ended up seeing some acts that I would normally have not even thought twice about seeing, which I imagine was quite good for my personal music development. We managed to catch Manu Chao and I didn't expect it but the crowd went absolutely bananas! Chemical Brothers were absolutely immense and their visuals were pretty spectacular. Faithless played an infinitely better set than their attempt at Global Gathering (I think they have a bit of a soft spot for Sziget crowds).

I saw !!! (pronounced "Tchuk Tchuk Tchuk", apparently) for one song as I was on the hunt for some grub, but they weren't my thing and I was pretty hungover so I gave them a miss. Other acts who I would never normally see include Nine Inch Nails and Tool, both not really my cup of tea but no harm done in watching them from the bar. Also saw Pink whilst sunbathing early on in the afternoon and probably could have done without that, really. Madness turned up as well, which was a bit of a turn up for the books!

Had a big of a mad night in the dance tent on the Tuesday to Annie Nightingale (Radio 1) and Plump DJs, who did the business. One of the most full-on rave-ups I've been to in a long time. Lots of crazy backpackers in there, some of which had attended the Fete de Bayonne in France which is a bit of a badge of honour, it must be said. The Killers closed the festival and everybody was too knackered to enjoy them, unfortunately!

Made a nice little trip to Bratislava to wind down for a couple of days after the madness of Sziget. Ate a 3 course meal in one of the best restaurants there for about £15 each. Sorted! Place is a bit of a toytown though, like something out of a Disney film!

Music Festival #2- Global Gathering

Now this festival was the first one I camped at and so probably counts as "officially" my first music festival. In contrast to the rather eclectic assembly of styles present at Lovebox, Global is strictly dance music. And then some. It is held on an airfield near to the birthplace of Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon, but couldn't really be any further from his legacy if it tried...

I only bought my ticket and train tickets 2 days before the festival in a spur-of-the-moment, go-with-the-flow type of move that often results in the best moments one can have. This time, my mate Sean was already going with a load of his uni mates in a kind of mass post-graduation celebration. He invited me along at the last minute and I decided to go for it. What a great decision it turned out to be!

I took the train up on the Friday after work and had to queue for ages to get my ticket. As such, I missed all the fun build up stuff. After meeting Sean and then pitching the tent at light speed, we quick-stepped it over to the main stage and managed to catch the legendary Faithless live! I'm not sure if it was me being tired from work or missing the first part of the set, but they didn't turn out to be as good as I had hoped live. However, I would be seeing them later in the summer so I would be able to see if that was just a blip or not.

After Faithless, we caught up with Sean and all his mates and for the majority of them it was the first time they had ever had the pleasure of Mr. Moo Cow's company. After a good dose of house-trance malarkey from Sasha, we moseyed on over to see a young chap called Kissy Sell Out. I had heard of him by name only, but it turns out he was the absolute business! A graduate of Central St. Martin's in London, he has recently been given a regular slot on Radio 1 and I definitely recommend checking his work out. When he plays live he is one of the most "on it" DJs I've ever had the pleasure of seeing! He even has an air-horn which he likes to blast out excitedly to gee the crowd up! His set was the highlight of the weekend for me without a shadow of a doubt.

The next day (finally getting to bed despite 2 hours spent looking for the tent in the pitch black) a few more of our mates from home drove up to enjoy the music. It must be said that I went to see so many acts, it does elude me who I actually saw. I spent a lot of time in the drum n bass tent and think I saw Mampi Swift. We did catch DJ Food and Jungle Drummer, druming the drum n bass rhythms live!! Then a brief visit was paid to the hard house tent to see Yoji Biomehanika, a totally nutty Japanese DJ. Hard house is not really my cup of tea any more though, so the visit didn't last too long in all honesty.

A bit of time was spent in the Minimal house tent, listening to a music style that boasts a bit of bleeping and copious amounts of unending drum loops without any hint of a bass drop. Understandably not a great deal of time, then. However, I made sure that I was present for the whole of Paul van Dyk's set, who boasts the nickname of "God" from his followers. His naughtily-good trance set meant that the Godskitchen tent positively heaved to every new track. Tent here is somewhat of a misnomer; marquee doesn't come close either to describing how cavernous the arena was. It was quite possibly the biggest room I'd ever been in, and still it was too small for PVD and his aficionados. To quote a rather drunken Moo Cow to a load of Sean's mates who I had only just met, "WOW! It's like a cathedral of music!!!!". Suave.

Music Festival #1- Lovebox Weekender

It's been an awesome summer so far: so much so that I haven't had time to write about any of it! But being Bank Holiday weekend I have a lot of spare time on my hands and can afford to spend some time reasserting my dominance on the blogosphere! I'll start at the beginning...

Before this summer I had never been to a music festival. Travesty for a music fan, isn't it! You see the thing is that before this summer, I had never really even been to many gigs. It never really appealed to me to go to see bands live, I preferred to go to the big clubs and see all my favourite DJs and MCs instead. Unfortunately, this means that I haven't really seen a lot of my favourite bands, and now some of them have broken up (Everclear, Rage Against The Machine and so on). In this regard, summer of 2007 has been very good for my outlook towards music.

The two main reasons that caused me to go to more gigs this year are firstly that after 10 months in the music backwaters of Spain, my appreciation for the music scene in England exponentially increased. Secondly, I basically just jumped on the bandwagon with my mates, who have all been busy following their own favourite genres.

However, the first music festival I attended was actually my discovery: Lovebox Weekender in Victoria Park, East London organised by the band members of Groove Armada. I'm not sure if it counts as my first music festival though, as it is not possible to camp there and I only went for the second day of it (but let's not dwell on technicalities). I went along with a mate who knew some of the bands on the line-up that I didn't, so I was going to come away from the festival having learnt some new music, which is always nice!

The first thing we noticed in the festival was a converted Routemaster (the old London double-decker red buses for those not in the know). Upon further inspection it turned out to be a MySpace stage!!! Inside all the downstairs seats had been ripped out and they had a small space for a band or DJ. We saw a band called Tiny Dancers play an acoustic set; quite cool indeed and made cooler by being right up close to them. Definitely a fan of this concept!

Over the course of the day we saw some good new music and some excellent older stuff. Bands like Good Shoes, Adem, Hot Chip (awesome!) and Nouvelle Vague. I must say a personal highlight for me was that I got the chance to finally see Diplo DJ live. In fact, the whole reason I found out about Lovebox was due to examining his tour dates for this summer, as he is American and therefore not always touring Europe. He didn't disappoint, playing a sick little 50 minute set in front of a very up-for-it crowd. I think there were quite a few people who like me had specifically gone to see him, as they really were loving every single tune he put out!

The final set of the weekend was by the organisers themselves, Groove Armada. I'd always liked their tunes, without being a fan per se. However after seeing them live, I have to say I absolutely loved it! They instantly got the crowd in the party mood and have a cracking live sound. Not particularly inspiring analysis I'm afraid, but I'm not a journo, just a mere blogger!

Why Facebook is better than MySpace

Considering that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation bought MySpace for $580m (£315m) [1], he is probably not very happy with the opinions that I am about to convey. But in all honesty I doubt that I am alone on this topic.

The fact of the matter is that MySpace and Facebook are both social networking sites, although MySpace has a distinct edge over Facebook in that it has a bias towards the music industry. Various record labels and artists have their own profiles, using it to display their material and communicate with fans. In contrast, Facebook is entirely on a personal basis and leans towards photo-sharing.

I've got no problem with the MySpace focus on music: in fact, that's actually all I use it for and I think it is a fantastic idea. Now fans can stay much more up to date with their favourite artists and discover all sorts of new music all over the world incredibly easily. MySpace in that regard is quite possibly one of the best things since sliced bread.

My gripe with MySpace is that the actual website is absolute rubbish. It is slow, messy, poorly designed and the search function is terrible. As an example of poor design, when a song is running on the profile of an artist, in order to add the artist as a friend, or view their photos, the music stops. Now this is not a big deal when using it occasionally, but for people like myself who use the site to trawl through new bands to find new material, it really becomes a big deal pretty quickly.

The site is so visually noisy as well, in contrast to the clean lines of Facebook. This is, in all fairness, largely down due to the fact that the user can actually edit the code dictating the appearance of their profile using html code itself. Also the site is a lot more advertisement-intensive, no doubt due to the rule of the News Corp. For comparison, Facebook only contains at most two advertisements per page, a side banner and a discrete banner at the foot of the page.

Facebook is constantly being updated and developed by Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of his team, whereas the legendary "Tom" and co. of MySpace seem to change very little at all. In fact in the 10 months or so that I have been a member, the only significant change being a little button to flag up a friend request as spam; whereas during the same period Facebook has been through a major aesthetic revamp and more recently witnessed the addition of Facebook Applications. This allows users to add applications to their profile from independent sources in a way that it is "turning Facebook itself into a kind of operating system for internet users" [2].

Overall I am a fan of the service provided by MySpace, but I wish the developers would get their fingers out and make sure they do it in a better way! I think it's time for Murdoch to get the chequebook out and bring in the coding cavalry. Before they start losing even market share than they are now.

Sources:
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5101942.stm
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6907895.stm

Hadouken! Mixtape

I can't believe that I didn't mention the awesome mixtape made by Hadouken that I found last month. It contains tune after tune after tune, and is definitely the sound of this summer. It is totally free and available legally for download by clicking on the link below:

Download free Hadouken! mixtape

Personally I think this band are so fresh and just going to explode into the charts with their debut album, which according to the band is going to be called Repetitive Strain Industry. I'm quite tempted to put a bet on it reaching Number 1; if you could get odds on it I think they would be quite favorable!

Alan Johnston Freed!

Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter kidnapped by Palestinian militants and held captive for more than 110 days, has finally been released. Let's hope he enjoys spending some quality time back in the UK with friends and family before rushing back to the Middle East!

End of Erasmus

So, it finally happened. On the Saturday 30th of June 2007, I caught a plane back to England, marking the end of my Erasmus placement at the University of Cantabria. A sad day that I really hoped would not come, but as they say: all good things come to an end.

My final exam was an oral presentation in Spanish explaining my thesis. After this finished, I wandered over to the International Relations Office to get my form signed confirming I had been a student there all year. After, I dumped my stuff at home and made straight for the Segunda Playa de Sardinero to enjoy the excellent 27 degrees and blazing sunshine. Nothing like a cheeky bit of after-exams sunny beach Pimm's! No wonder I'm such a happy chappy in the photo!

The my final night in Santander involved the classix rendez-vous in the main Plaza before heading out to BNS, a club literally on the beach front (Primera Playa de Sardinero). There we enjoyed the delights of both a beach party (complete with guitars in addition to multi-lingual crooning and multi-national banter) and the nightclub itself. It was a fantastic night and my flatmate, his brother and I stayed on the beach, singing and playing the guitar until sunrise, with the company of a random Spanish group who were a very appreciative audience!

So after (eventually) arriving back at the flat at 10am, we embarked on a marathon 4 hour cleaning session still devoid of any repose at all! When the landlady finally came to collect the keys, all three members of the flat (and the brother of one) said our final goodbyes and then I made my way to the airport. Here's a funny photo of us in our kitchen at about 10.30am during the clean and final goodbyes:


I am going to miss all the people I met there massively, especially my two flatmates, you boys are top dollar! All the best to all the people who were graced with the joy of my presence over the year and thanks for helping make it the best year of my life so far!

Decks fixed... DJK has arrived...

So I went out the other day and invested some cashish in fixing my decks. If you remember as stated a few weeks ago in this blog, I bought the Hercules Mark I DJ controller that doesn't have a soundcard incorporated into it (its the budget option at €99). That means that it requires your computer to have two sound cards to be able to listen to the main track on the speakers and the next track on the headphones.

However, being the intuitive physics student and generally resourceful young scallywag that I am, I solved the problem quite simply. For €35, I picked up an external sound card and some headphones for €25 from PC City (Spain's version of PC World). After some gentle coercion and some software jiggery-pokery, I managed to sort it out and now it works perfectly as a set of decks should. So in effect what I have is an improvised version of the Mark II for €159 instead of €219 for the real deal. Bargain!

The final straw that made me fix the kit was the fact that the day before I made an 80 minute mixtape without headphones: the tunes are cracking but technically the mix is far from ideal. Hopefully when I move back to England in early July I'll have another bash at it properly and put it online for all to enjoy. It's not bad at the moment but still too raw to put out there.