On the 26th June 2010 one of my friends, Laura, ran the Race for Life in Richmond park. I went in support and took my camera with me. These few photos have been sitting around on my desktop for a while, so I thought it was about time I posted them here. [read more]
In November 2002, as part of my AS level General Studies course, I wrote this essay relating to the term ‘British’. As with the other school work released here, it’s released here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.
How can one define ‘British’?
We use the term ‘British’ everyday in all sorts of situations, but can a set of factors, or even one single factor, be identified which defines the term? While there are a number of stereotypes associated with the British, can any of them be applied to everyone who calls themselves British? Also, with such a diverse mix of people calling themselves British, can one culture be identified as one with which everyone identifies with, and what are the defining characteristics which separate the British from the rest of the world? [read more]
Something’s been eating at me for the last month. Something someone said at my friend’s housewarming party. Just as she was leaving, Jess, who I haven’t known all that long, said “I won’t hug you, I know you don’t like it”. I know she was just trying to do the right thing — she didn’t want to invade my personal space if I didn’t like it — but it made me start thinking. It’s not true and don’t want people to think that about me. [read more]
Here’s something a bit fun. Sunday was nice weather so I ventured out to the Alton bus rally & running day. When I was younger I attended a similar event in Halifax with my dad and really enjoyed it. For some reason I find busses (and trains to some extent, but in that case only after a certain era — I’m not that interested in steam trains, but heritage DMUs are fun) really interesting. I was also a little bored this evening, so had a little fiddle with these pictures. In my professional work I would never apply this kind of processing but I quite like the effect I got from over driving the levels on these, especially given the nature of the subjects.
Tiara: £10; return train ticket: £62.75; party supplies: £33.00. Total: £105.75. Not really too bad for a weekend spent at the other end of the country with my friends, although I could have saved the £33 given none of the supplies were actually used.
Last weekend a couple of friends, Ben and Emma, had their house warming party. They’ve been living together for a couple of months now, but hadn’t had chance to get around to having a party until now. When I first found out about them moving in I asked when the party was going to be. I was told they weren’t having one. Of course that meant that when I received the invitation I couldn’t exactly say no.
In the spirit of my previous post, and because I’ve already released a couple of these photos under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence, I’ve decided to post a few of photos I took at the West End Live event last weekend. I’ll try to do this more often when I take my camera out just for fun.
There are a few things I’ve done in my life which I hate while I’m doing it, but keep coming back for more. One was the sporting results website I ran while at university — for one long weekend every year I’d work 24 hours a day on the site, collating results, piecing things together, and doing some statistical analysis to predict what might happen, as well as being involved with the radio station, and even doing some overnight broadcasts. I’d finish the weekend and collapse into bed for a few days swearing I’d never do it again. Yet come the next year there I’d be there to do it all over again. In the last year or so I thought about it and came to a conclusion: I must enjoy it, even if I didn’t realise it, because otherwise I wouldn’t keep going back.
And I think sometimes it’s the same with my photography.
I’d been planning for a while to take my camera out to Brighton but hadn’t really had much chance — it takes while to get there (via Clapham Junction), and whenever I’d had a free day the weather hadn’t been up to much — until yesterday. I was lucky enough to be doing a shoot on Brighton pier, and as it was a glorious Saturday I decided to hang around for a bit and get some shots in for fun. The following photos (along with sunburn) are some of the results.
Forgive me for a moment: for the first time I can think of in this blog I’m going to be political. I’ll try to be brief.
It’s not especially a secret that I’m a leftie. I’ve not talked about it much here, but I suspect you could decode it from my posts, and especially via Twitter. So it won’t come as much of a surprise that in the upcoming general election I’m backing Labour.
As the election looms it’s looking increasingly likely from the opinion polls that the UK will get a hung parliament on Thursday. Accordingly the Queen would invite Gordon Brown, as the incumbent Prime Minister, to form the next government. It’s likely that Mr Brown would then approach the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in an attempt to form some kind of anti-Tory coalition government. For a moment I’m going to assume this happens — that the Liberal Democrats would rather form a coalition with the Labour Party than the Conservative party.
It struck me the other day while listening to Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire talking about the Labour leadership on the radi0, that there’s still a way the Labour Party can come out of this election (for a definition of “this” see below) with a strong mandate to run the country for another 5 years. Let me explain. [read more]
It all went off pretty well really, all in all. And, as I said in a slightly drunken state at the time, “New friends, that’s what it’s all about. There was a play in there somewhere too, but that’s what I’ll come away with in the end.”