Radio Shmadio

Last night I decided to take my minidisc player for a little outing (it has been neglected recently) across London to be used during my journey to Rahul's birthday thingie in London. Unfortunately, having exhausted my minidisc on the journey home, I found myself listening to London LBC Radio, for my old minidisc has an FM function. This LBC is a station of moaning. If you've had a particularly tough day, have read the paper (most likely the Express, or Mail) and despaired for the "way the country is going" a couple of times, then this is the station for you. I base this on 1 brief 15 minute listening on the bus on the way home at gone midnight, but it basically involved people ringing up moaning, and, more annoyingly, the DJ agreeing with everything they say, no matter how ridiculous and unfounded their ramblings. Particularly one fellow's argument , "I can't believe they're not giving out killer's names if they're under 18 to protect them. When I was under 18 I was in the army, and was trained to kill", annoyed me. I'm not entirely sure how he managed to link the two statements anyway, but the point I wish to raise is just what a good example of the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude such as that brought up by A Passage to India or Vernon God Little this is. The names of these "killers" are not given, because it is possible that they are, in fact, not killers, and if they are, we have a law system much better placed to deal with them than some vengeful member of the public who will be benefited by a name. In fact, I am often unsure of why the accused are named at all, regardless of age, unless, of course, they are on the run and may pose a risk to the public. I'm sure there will be someone reading this who will have a better idea of what I'm rambling on about - please leave a comment if you do!

In other news, Rahul's birthday was good fun. The food was pretty tasty (though I couldn't finish my main course - I blame the Tetleys Ally bought me) and the place was nice, if a little cramped and over-hot! A little shout out to Mr Todd, who has revealed his frequenting of this site to me. Keep on reading my man, and if you fancy it, leave me a comment to say hi! I hope you've recovered well from last night's shenanigans.

Pub Golf.. FORE!

Met Matt et al. in Surbiton for a number of people's birthday's (Matt and Matt infact!). We played Pub golf all the way to Kingston. Lalalalala. I got hole 1 (Guinness) in 2, that's 2- par. Oh yeah - hardcore me! Then I didn't play the next round, but lied to Dan (who was scoring), or the next round (but lied again)...

Then we all gave up cos everyone was FAR to drunk to carry on (though no hangover for Tom! I know my limit now. Woooo!) and spent an hour or so in The Mill (which had NO drinks. I had to get Gabriel his 4th choice. FOURTH! jeez!) and then went on to McCluskies, and danced to shite music till the night was done. Was pretty good fun all told!

Pic stolen from Natalie. Sorry, and Ta!

Happy? Feet

I went to the cinema with Sean, Westy and Dan to see Happy Feet (possible spoiler warning) – that where-on-earth-did-this- obsession-with-penguins- come-from film starring Mumbo the penguin and his crazy dancing feet. We wanted to go to a 2.30 showing, but somehow it got fully booked, so we bought tickets for the 5.15 one. That resulted in us sitting in a pub nursing a single pint each for two hours chatting and wandering round HMV. Great fun! The film was actually fairly good – the first 30 minutes took a while getting over, but then a very vague story line began to emerge – Mumbo (with an immensely annoying accent – Robin Williams apparently. Jeez!) decided he had to find the “aliens”. Blah blah, queue exciting adventure, cool Mexican penguins, love interest lost and found. However, towards the end, it became incredibly dark – he swam and swam, and eventually ended up washed up on a beach somewhere, got put in a zoo. Queue manipulative anthropomorphisation on an unimaginable scale – was quite tear jerking. Go see it – just for the weird experience, and to see if my staccatoed review is correct.

Christmas time doobidoobidoo.

Happy Christmas everybody! Hope you all had a fantastic day! I’m actually writing this on the 1st of January as I’ve been lazy over Xmas and hadn’t updated the blog - but, here we are now!

For the first time in living memory my sister had to be woken up on Christmas morning. I was also woken up as I had most definitely not spent the last hour reading as I was too excited to sleep. Oh no.
We were very civilised and had a fried breakfast before the crazy present opening began. I got some really cool presents including a Pierre Cardin shirt from my aunt, the new killer bunnies expansion pack from my Nan, a WD passport external hard drive from my parents (finally my computer will move faster than the athlete full of lead that it has been lately… so much potential!), a webcam (eek!), a really cool stubby Storm pen from Uncle Mike, some piggy cuff links from my sister and a tin car pencil case (complete with car-shaped chocolates inside) from my parents. I love Christmas – people always get me such cool (and useful) stuff!

In the afternoon we went down the pub to see our family friends in the local area. Frank and Greg were there, and I nattered to them for a bit (and was bought a pint by Frank who had to wait about 20 minutes to get served after the last-orders bell. If only you could have seen the panic on his face. Hehe), as well as seeing Dad’s friend Brian who probably hasn’t seen me since I was 14. He got a shock!

We ate at about 5.30pm; Chicken, Chipollatas, AMAZING cranberry and chestnut stuffing, peas, roasties and gravy. Mmmmmmmmmm. Pudding was of course Christmas pudding* - my favourite – especially swimming in cream. Mmm. How do you think I keep such a trim figure!? Cream!

*not just Christmas pudding, M&S Christmas pudding.

The Kingston Look

Ah, have been back a week now, and am getting used to life in Kingston again. Yesterday I went out to the pub for Nick's birthday, and it was alright. I've had better nights, but then again I've had worse. I just don't find getting drunk for the fun of it in a nightclub fun, so I didn't go; much to the disgust of a few people. Still, I wouldn't have enjoyed it and it would have cost me a fortune.

Anyway, today has been trop productive, I have posted here, finished working through a pharmacology lecture series on the Pharmacology of Inflammation and Immunosuppression, and written an essay on "the modes of action and uses of anti-inflammatory drugs" and got to wax-lyrical about aspirin, paracetamol, and less obvious drugs with fab names like zafirlukast and cyclosporin. Hehe. I have to make it interesting somehow! There's just so much stuff to learn, and so little time. Less than 2 weeks of holiday left!!!!

I have also cleaned out my computer by giving it a complete wipe and re-install, re-done this blog, made my room tidy, made it filthy again, made it tidy, and then filthy again for a 2nd time. It's a crazy cycle. There's a picture of my dad with a package on his head. Just cos its funny. It's entitled "Royal Male". hehe. classic.

Tom
xx