So every year when New Year's Eve comes round that inevitable question of New Year's Resolutions is raised and what we hope to achieve in the coming year. This year I thought I would do something different, rather than stating what I want to do in the coming year I thought I would state, or rather, request what I would like others to do in the coming year. So in a way this isn't my New Year's Resolutions more my New Year's Suggestions for others, and I will welcome any suggestions others have for me. I can#t promise I will be able to fulfil them as even New Year's Resolutions are rarely upheld, but at least we'll have gained an insight into what others want for us.
My only New Year Suggestion is to help those that want to learn how to do something you already know how to do. We are a species that has advanced because we build upon the foundations laid down by the people who came before us. The idea that knowledge is only valuable or valid if it is achieved through self teaching and discovery is incredibly arrogant. We are all teachers and we all learn from other people. No matter what you set out to learn in life or anything you have learned in the past you will inevitably use resources that were provided by others who sought to share their knowledge and teach others. Every reference manual, every web page, every tutorial etc these were all written by people who sought to document their craft or their skill so that it could be passed on to others. Unless you lived in complete isolation all your life and learned everything through trial and error and never had any influence whatsoever from anyone else then you have been taught by someone in your endeavours. Knowledge is valuable but you will be no better than anyone else for dying without having shared it. All that we learn in life we lose in death. Just because it dies with us does not mean that what we learned cannot be remembered by others, so share your knowledge with others, it's the easiest way to contribute to the human race and it doesn't cost a penny all it takes is a simple conversation, or simply to answer a question when asked that you know the answer to. Even if you don't know the answer just share your ideas, together we can achieve great things.
The Meaning Of Life
I have a question
It is rather complex and your answer will explain your view of a soul.
A man is 35 years old and has his legs amputated. They are replaced with robotic limbs
At 36 he has his arms amputated and they are replaced with robotic limbs.
At 37 his stomach, lungs, heart and other major organs all below his neck are replaced with mechanical ones.
At 38 his entire chest and outer body is replaced so that only his internal organs in the head are still original.
At 39 his eyes are replaced by cameras.
At 40 the rest of the organs in his head except his brain are replaced with mechanical ones
At 41 the left portion of his brain is replaced with a mechanical one and the right is left as its original.
At 42 the right portion of his brain is replaced with a mechanical one.
At 42 his body from head to toe in its entirety is robotic.
The Question: At what point, if ever did he stop being human, and is the robot that survives, really him and sentient, and does it still embody his consciousness?
It is rather complex and your answer will explain your view of a soul.
A man is 35 years old and has his legs amputated. They are replaced with robotic limbs
At 36 he has his arms amputated and they are replaced with robotic limbs.
At 37 his stomach, lungs, heart and other major organs all below his neck are replaced with mechanical ones.
At 38 his entire chest and outer body is replaced so that only his internal organs in the head are still original.
At 39 his eyes are replaced by cameras.
At 40 the rest of the organs in his head except his brain are replaced with mechanical ones
At 41 the left portion of his brain is replaced with a mechanical one and the right is left as its original.
At 42 the right portion of his brain is replaced with a mechanical one.
At 42 his body from head to toe in its entirety is robotic.
The Question: At what point, if ever did he stop being human, and is the robot that survives, really him and sentient, and does it still embody his consciousness?
He's not me
Can you change your personality? This is a question I have thought about and answered before, my answer then was yes, but I am beginning to question that - based on my own experience and based on what I see in others. I have tried to change my personality in the past and changed many things in my life, a few of them quite major but no matter how long I hold on to those changes, I always come back to being "myself".
To date the longest change that I maintained was for 4 years - part of that was at University and the rest was after I graduated, but I eventually found it too much stress to maintain a personality that did not reflect how I really felt on the inside so eventually I went back to being "the real me".
The motivation for this post has come from seeing friends around me trying to change their lives. I don't want to be cynical and "jinx" their efforts or be discouraging but at the same time I can't spur them on with vigour in an endeavour that deep down I believe is pointless or wasted effort. Really what this comes down to is whether or not you should stand back and let others make their own mistakes - then again, this shows I believe they will fail, they might not, there is always the possibility that I am wrong and they will succeed.
I don't believe you can deny who you are forever, but I have always believed that just because someone else has tried and failed that does not mean that you will fail. I have never been one to accept that because someone else, or even everyone else, who tried failed, was a justification for me not trying or that others should try and stop me. For me personally I can't accept that, I have to be allowed to make my own mistakes.
So I am at conflict. On one hand I believe it's not possible to change who you are and feel that I should try and stop them making the same mistakes - on the other hand I know that I would not want to be stopped, I would want to make my own mistakes, it is the only way that I can be satisfied that it is not possible.
Through all this I know one thing that keeps resurfacing as the only truth that I can accept from this scenario with resolution: They are not me.
To date the longest change that I maintained was for 4 years - part of that was at University and the rest was after I graduated, but I eventually found it too much stress to maintain a personality that did not reflect how I really felt on the inside so eventually I went back to being "the real me".
The motivation for this post has come from seeing friends around me trying to change their lives. I don't want to be cynical and "jinx" their efforts or be discouraging but at the same time I can't spur them on with vigour in an endeavour that deep down I believe is pointless or wasted effort. Really what this comes down to is whether or not you should stand back and let others make their own mistakes - then again, this shows I believe they will fail, they might not, there is always the possibility that I am wrong and they will succeed.
I don't believe you can deny who you are forever, but I have always believed that just because someone else has tried and failed that does not mean that you will fail. I have never been one to accept that because someone else, or even everyone else, who tried failed, was a justification for me not trying or that others should try and stop me. For me personally I can't accept that, I have to be allowed to make my own mistakes.
So I am at conflict. On one hand I believe it's not possible to change who you are and feel that I should try and stop them making the same mistakes - on the other hand I know that I would not want to be stopped, I would want to make my own mistakes, it is the only way that I can be satisfied that it is not possible.
Through all this I know one thing that keeps resurfacing as the only truth that I can accept from this scenario with resolution: They are not me.
Merry Christmas!
Whilst getting in the mood for Christmas I stumbled across a video in a playlist I had on Youtube and thought I would share it! This video was made a few years ago by the Belfast Giants hockey team, enjoy!
Forgotten Dreams
With those three things I set out to write stories that captured the imagination and reflected to an extent, the personalities of those who made the submissions.
Love it! Hate it! Get lost!
If you are anything like me, you probably have a passing interest in many things and often find yourself intrigued by certain things and set out to learn more about them. If your experiences have been anything like mine you have probably come across the three phrases in the title of this post many times- that is to say you come across extremes most often and discover that the middleground - that fourth assertion that offers encouragement, can be rather hard to find.
When I have an interest in something new and look online to find out about it I usually come across 1 of 3 types of people, a preacher, a hater, or a scorner. Preachers love the thing you are interested in, so much so to the point that they are often blind to any negative point and fail to critically assess the field they are interested in. Admittedly I can have a lenience toward this as can anyone really but I'd like to think I can look at it from a third person point of view, I know there are a lot of things I like personally that others hate, or find very boring. Preachers on the other hand assert their opinions as fact and believe that their way is the only way.
That leads me to the haters, these are people who effectively form the antonym of the preacher, they hate something with such vehemence that they will not even concede any redeeming positive attribute even where they do exist. There's little to be said here except "haters gonna hate" - there's no point wasting your time and effort on these people, their opinions will never change.
The third mentality I find is the scorner. These people seem to deplore anyone asking questions and most often treat their fields as an almost occult status, if you don't know, then find out yourself. I despise this mentality the most as it is the most abject mentality of the three and seemingly deplores the act of learning from others in itself - to them self teaching is the only acceptable form of teaching and I just can't accept that.
Beyond the Internet I have experienced all three mentalities in various situations and perhaps the most relevant to the post I have experienced all three within learning environments such as school and University. I have met teachers who were like this and I stand by my judgement on them - they're in the wrong job - without going into details I HAVE actually said this to a teacher before.
It just seems to me that the middleground is rather hard to find. Finding someone or some source of information that is not in one of the extremes is quite hard. You'll often find on forums and in groups and sites used for resources that there are collectives that fall into the three categories above. If you are going to suggest Wikipedia to me as a source I'd ask you to refrain. If you have never edited an article on there then I would forgive you for suggesting it but if you have ever tried then you'll know as well as I do that the editors of Wikipedia are prime examples of the above three categories. You will find a number of articles are quite "militantly moderated" by volunteers to the site who push their agenda more than any other.
'Bias' it seems is a fact of life, something we just can't escape, no matter how hard we try.
When I have an interest in something new and look online to find out about it I usually come across 1 of 3 types of people, a preacher, a hater, or a scorner. Preachers love the thing you are interested in, so much so to the point that they are often blind to any negative point and fail to critically assess the field they are interested in. Admittedly I can have a lenience toward this as can anyone really but I'd like to think I can look at it from a third person point of view, I know there are a lot of things I like personally that others hate, or find very boring. Preachers on the other hand assert their opinions as fact and believe that their way is the only way.
That leads me to the haters, these are people who effectively form the antonym of the preacher, they hate something with such vehemence that they will not even concede any redeeming positive attribute even where they do exist. There's little to be said here except "haters gonna hate" - there's no point wasting your time and effort on these people, their opinions will never change.
The third mentality I find is the scorner. These people seem to deplore anyone asking questions and most often treat their fields as an almost occult status, if you don't know, then find out yourself. I despise this mentality the most as it is the most abject mentality of the three and seemingly deplores the act of learning from others in itself - to them self teaching is the only acceptable form of teaching and I just can't accept that.
Beyond the Internet I have experienced all three mentalities in various situations and perhaps the most relevant to the post I have experienced all three within learning environments such as school and University. I have met teachers who were like this and I stand by my judgement on them - they're in the wrong job - without going into details I HAVE actually said this to a teacher before.
It just seems to me that the middleground is rather hard to find. Finding someone or some source of information that is not in one of the extremes is quite hard. You'll often find on forums and in groups and sites used for resources that there are collectives that fall into the three categories above. If you are going to suggest Wikipedia to me as a source I'd ask you to refrain. If you have never edited an article on there then I would forgive you for suggesting it but if you have ever tried then you'll know as well as I do that the editors of Wikipedia are prime examples of the above three categories. You will find a number of articles are quite "militantly moderated" by volunteers to the site who push their agenda more than any other.
'Bias' it seems is a fact of life, something we just can't escape, no matter how hard we try.
How do you express yourself?
This is something I have been thinking about lately, inspired by others telling me how they express themselves I got to thinking about how I express myself.
For you my readers the most obvious way I express myself is through writing, and you get quite an intimate insight into that on this blog, from the day to day posts about whatever is on my mind the issues raised in the news, and then of course there are my short stories which you get to read. The latter is an interesting point I should raise - my stories rarely portray my thoughts or feelings and they certainly don't touch on issues that affect me - not really.
I have never really wrote about being gay, mostly for the fact that its not that much of an issue for me I have quite accepted it a long time ago and this blog is meant to be an example to the world that you can be gay and have thoughts and opinions on anything and everything and not everything has to be about your sexuality. My short stories that I write have never really touched on sexuality either, that's not out of any conscious decision just simply a consequence of my thoughts dwelling on other things. The main focus of my stories tends to be the plot and the world the characters live in. Character development has never really been a strong point, I tend not to give back stories but instead let the reader get to know the character through the story - this is a shortcoming however as it creates quite 2-dimensional characters, granted in a short story that's not that much of an issue.
What all this has to do with expression is simply that writing is my main method of expression but as far as my works of fiction go, I do it in a manner that does not delve too deep into my psyche. The only forms of writing that express myself duly would be the opinion pieces I share. Beyond writing I tend to draw occasionally but it's never been anything that complex. I think the only other form of expression I would have would be my games and music. The latter being a key that can unlock any situation. No matter the mood you can find a piece of music that will match it.
As for games they have somewhat moved along an inverted bell curve for me. When I was younger they were a big part of my life then for a while they were virtually removed completely - while I studied Computer Science with Games Technology in University - but recently they have been reclaiming their presence and my love for them is growing. I advocate games as a method of expression for the simple fact that as with music regardless of mood you will find a game that matches it.
Some people: draw, write, compose music, make comics, make animations, play an instrument, work-out, work on self-defence disciplines such as kung-fu or boxing, as well as many others. How do you express yourself?
For you my readers the most obvious way I express myself is through writing, and you get quite an intimate insight into that on this blog, from the day to day posts about whatever is on my mind the issues raised in the news, and then of course there are my short stories which you get to read. The latter is an interesting point I should raise - my stories rarely portray my thoughts or feelings and they certainly don't touch on issues that affect me - not really.
I have never really wrote about being gay, mostly for the fact that its not that much of an issue for me I have quite accepted it a long time ago and this blog is meant to be an example to the world that you can be gay and have thoughts and opinions on anything and everything and not everything has to be about your sexuality. My short stories that I write have never really touched on sexuality either, that's not out of any conscious decision just simply a consequence of my thoughts dwelling on other things. The main focus of my stories tends to be the plot and the world the characters live in. Character development has never really been a strong point, I tend not to give back stories but instead let the reader get to know the character through the story - this is a shortcoming however as it creates quite 2-dimensional characters, granted in a short story that's not that much of an issue.
What all this has to do with expression is simply that writing is my main method of expression but as far as my works of fiction go, I do it in a manner that does not delve too deep into my psyche. The only forms of writing that express myself duly would be the opinion pieces I share. Beyond writing I tend to draw occasionally but it's never been anything that complex. I think the only other form of expression I would have would be my games and music. The latter being a key that can unlock any situation. No matter the mood you can find a piece of music that will match it.
As for games they have somewhat moved along an inverted bell curve for me. When I was younger they were a big part of my life then for a while they were virtually removed completely - while I studied Computer Science with Games Technology in University - but recently they have been reclaiming their presence and my love for them is growing. I advocate games as a method of expression for the simple fact that as with music regardless of mood you will find a game that matches it.
Some people: draw, write, compose music, make comics, make animations, play an instrument, work-out, work on self-defence disciplines such as kung-fu or boxing, as well as many others. How do you express yourself?
Dreams
I find dreams fascinating for a number of reasons. One of the things I find most interesting is the conversations we have with people in our dreams. There are various theories as to how the brain deals with information, in particular how it deals with information about the individuals we meet and interact with. One such theory is that we create Internal Working Models of the people we interact with, we even have an internal working model of ourselves - or at least of the person we see when we look in the mirror, and the attitude and behaviours we think we express. As far as the model of ourself goes that one is pretty easy to prove inaccurate. Our view of ourself is warped, we are naturally biased in this respect. You only have to think about your "internal voice" the one inside your head right now that you are reading this post in - that is if you aren't imagining my voice which some of you will have heard.
The models of others however can be more accurate than we care to admit, maybe even more than the subject cares to admit but again this will depend on how well you know them. The more information about an individual and the more behaviour you observe the more detailed your model of them will become, to the point where you can imagine how a particular conversation would go. This is what I find fascinating about dreams, when we dream about others, if these models are involved which I assume they are, then you could have conversations with them in your dreams that would probably play out as they would in reality. Does this ever affect our behaviour towards them? I know it's pretty obvious that the more embarrassing you would find telling the person about the dream in detail, the more likely it would affect your interaction with them. Take the example of having a sex dream about someone you work with, if you don't know them well then that dream would for most people cause some degree of embarrassment.
The question of accuracy is perhaps most interesting however in regards to people we have limited interactions with. For example if you dream about someone you've never actually met, and never heard speak, how accurate could the voice you hear in the dream be? Would it even be a voice or would the meaning be intimated by your unconscious? Staying with the theme of sex, how accurate could the 'events' of your dream be to life? - again if you have never experienced this with the person before. I think most people will have realistic dreams that capture the moment in vivid detail, but how accurate can we be in dreaming of things that have not [yet] happened?
We will invariably incorporate our experiences into our dreams, and while we may not have any experience that directly relates to the individual in question, e.g. never having heard them speak, we do have experience of what other people look like and what they sound like. While we may pose that logically there would never be any real correlation between what someone looks like and what they sound like, we can at least agree that each of the binary genders male and female have an atypical vocal range and there are stereotypes that you would expect - e.g. male voices are deeper. The amazing thing about dreams is that the processing our brains undertake when we dream isn't carried out by the conscious mind but rather the sub-conscious meaning the range of conclusions and scenarios it can permute are a lot wider than our conscious mind, while we, here and now, awake, can not quickly conclude any correlation in our vast experience, the sub-conscious mind potentially can. Our sub-conscious while we sleep and dream can take our entire collection of experiences and present a scenario based upon them. So with dreams about things that haven't happened, how accurate can they really be?
The models of others however can be more accurate than we care to admit, maybe even more than the subject cares to admit but again this will depend on how well you know them. The more information about an individual and the more behaviour you observe the more detailed your model of them will become, to the point where you can imagine how a particular conversation would go. This is what I find fascinating about dreams, when we dream about others, if these models are involved which I assume they are, then you could have conversations with them in your dreams that would probably play out as they would in reality. Does this ever affect our behaviour towards them? I know it's pretty obvious that the more embarrassing you would find telling the person about the dream in detail, the more likely it would affect your interaction with them. Take the example of having a sex dream about someone you work with, if you don't know them well then that dream would for most people cause some degree of embarrassment.
The question of accuracy is perhaps most interesting however in regards to people we have limited interactions with. For example if you dream about someone you've never actually met, and never heard speak, how accurate could the voice you hear in the dream be? Would it even be a voice or would the meaning be intimated by your unconscious? Staying with the theme of sex, how accurate could the 'events' of your dream be to life? - again if you have never experienced this with the person before. I think most people will have realistic dreams that capture the moment in vivid detail, but how accurate can we be in dreaming of things that have not [yet] happened?
We will invariably incorporate our experiences into our dreams, and while we may not have any experience that directly relates to the individual in question, e.g. never having heard them speak, we do have experience of what other people look like and what they sound like. While we may pose that logically there would never be any real correlation between what someone looks like and what they sound like, we can at least agree that each of the binary genders male and female have an atypical vocal range and there are stereotypes that you would expect - e.g. male voices are deeper. The amazing thing about dreams is that the processing our brains undertake when we dream isn't carried out by the conscious mind but rather the sub-conscious meaning the range of conclusions and scenarios it can permute are a lot wider than our conscious mind, while we, here and now, awake, can not quickly conclude any correlation in our vast experience, the sub-conscious mind potentially can. Our sub-conscious while we sleep and dream can take our entire collection of experiences and present a scenario based upon them. So with dreams about things that haven't happened, how accurate can they really be?
Emotional Memories
Most memories are passé, almost static if you will, they inspire little more than a fond feeling of nostalgia. There are however those special memories that in themselves can be something minute, but attached to them is a string of others that often brings on a flood of emotions and feelings that instantly transport us back to the place we were in our minds when the memory first happened.
Whether it's a song or a piece of Music you associated heavily with one person, or a Movie you loved as a child perhaps, that smell of food you haven't ate for years that only your grandma could seem to perfect - all these and more are associations, a stimulus invokes the memory which by association brings on the flood.
While I lived in London there were a few people I got to know, shared things with, became quite good friends then through the trials of life end up parting, sometimes amicably sometimes not so much. There were landmarks we went to see, clubs we had been to, bars we would frequent, and places we would grab something to eat. Around London there is a map of my memories and there are places that I can visit, or even just see pictures of and those memories come flooding back. I was aware of this so much to the point that I had a handful of places in London that I loved, which I vowed I would never take anyone to - for want of not spoiling my enjoyment of them and to this day that vow has been kept. The most notable would be my favourite place in Chinatown which I have only ever been to alone. There are fond memories, and I have often thought those places I love and have never shared could become so much more meaningful if I got to share them with someone, while my younger self would vehemently protest, as I have grown I have opened more to this idea, there is so much that I want to share, but recently I have come to realise I don't want to share it with the whole world, I want to share it with someone who will be my whole world.
There is a lot to be said about these memories, namely that breaking the association is perhaps one of the hardest things to do - I guess in many ways the emotions attached govern the association more than the memories themselves, in that line I can only imagine that a stronger emotion would be the only way to break the association, by replacing it with something better. This is in many ways a metaphor for life, the bad experiences of our past can be replaced by the good experiences we share in the present. I know this may sound cliché and some may protest that "nothing makes it all better" - but that may be a short sighted judgement, the future after all is unknown and we can only ever see where we want it to go or where we think it might, but our thoughts can influence the path, so try and look to a positive future filled with the dreams of today that will become the memories of tomorrow.
My mentality has changed over the years and in its present incarnation it is very much one that has come to accept that there will be certain things that remind me of certain people, those memories may not be happy, or they may be happy but sad at the same time, but I shouldn't fight this so much - a memory cannot harm you and it cannot control you if you do not let it. So I have come to accept that all that my life up until today is as it was always going to be, there are many things that could have been done differently but I could never have had it any other way. Everything has been leading up to my life, my past, my present, and my future. What is done is done and what will be will be. Let's see where this goes.
Whether it's a song or a piece of Music you associated heavily with one person, or a Movie you loved as a child perhaps, that smell of food you haven't ate for years that only your grandma could seem to perfect - all these and more are associations, a stimulus invokes the memory which by association brings on the flood.
While I lived in London there were a few people I got to know, shared things with, became quite good friends then through the trials of life end up parting, sometimes amicably sometimes not so much. There were landmarks we went to see, clubs we had been to, bars we would frequent, and places we would grab something to eat. Around London there is a map of my memories and there are places that I can visit, or even just see pictures of and those memories come flooding back. I was aware of this so much to the point that I had a handful of places in London that I loved, which I vowed I would never take anyone to - for want of not spoiling my enjoyment of them and to this day that vow has been kept. The most notable would be my favourite place in Chinatown which I have only ever been to alone. There are fond memories, and I have often thought those places I love and have never shared could become so much more meaningful if I got to share them with someone, while my younger self would vehemently protest, as I have grown I have opened more to this idea, there is so much that I want to share, but recently I have come to realise I don't want to share it with the whole world, I want to share it with someone who will be my whole world.
There is a lot to be said about these memories, namely that breaking the association is perhaps one of the hardest things to do - I guess in many ways the emotions attached govern the association more than the memories themselves, in that line I can only imagine that a stronger emotion would be the only way to break the association, by replacing it with something better. This is in many ways a metaphor for life, the bad experiences of our past can be replaced by the good experiences we share in the present. I know this may sound cliché and some may protest that "nothing makes it all better" - but that may be a short sighted judgement, the future after all is unknown and we can only ever see where we want it to go or where we think it might, but our thoughts can influence the path, so try and look to a positive future filled with the dreams of today that will become the memories of tomorrow.
My mentality has changed over the years and in its present incarnation it is very much one that has come to accept that there will be certain things that remind me of certain people, those memories may not be happy, or they may be happy but sad at the same time, but I shouldn't fight this so much - a memory cannot harm you and it cannot control you if you do not let it. So I have come to accept that all that my life up until today is as it was always going to be, there are many things that could have been done differently but I could never have had it any other way. Everything has been leading up to my life, my past, my present, and my future. What is done is done and what will be will be. Let's see where this goes.
Sunday Shuffle
Every Sunday I will post the first 6 songs my iPod throws up on Shuffle mode.
Rhythm Of My Heart - Rod Stewart
Dance Me To The End Of Love - Leonard Cohen
Little Black Book - Belinda Carlisle
Too Much Of You - Kelly Osbourne
Chemicals Collide - Boys Like Girls
Rhythm Of My Heart - Rod Stewart
Dance Me To The End Of Love - Leonard Cohen
Little Black Book - Belinda Carlisle
Too Much Of You - Kelly Osbourne
Growing Your Own Food
After watching BBC News Magazine's feature on allotments I got to thinking about the concept of growing your own food. For me the idea sounds intriguing, I know for many it would not be entirely practical if at all to grow your own food but perhaps self-sufficiency shouldn't necessarily be the goal, if we all grew just a little bit of any food really then the collective impact would ease the strain placed on our already exhaustive exploitation of resources.
When you think about it, we live in a society of waste. I would estimate some 90% of us will have access to ground whether that be in the form of a garden or a communal area or what have you, which most of us use for flowers or in my mind the completely useless lawn of grass. I say completely useless as a lawn essentially gives you nothing of great value, it does not help the planet breathe to the same magnitude several trees would and if anything it costs you money to maintain through the price of the electricity or petrol or other fuel you use to power your lawn mower. Scrap the lawn and build a small enclosure of greenhouses or plastic equivalents - you can buy these made from recycled plastic bottles.
If we put the ground we currently use for superficial aesthetic displays to some practical use we could make a difference together. If gardens filled with vegetables or fruits either in the open air or in greenhouses became common place we might even make a profit from our endeavours. Certainly one would expect the food we grow and consume to amount to a saving in the long term after you discount the initial investment.
I like the idea of being self sufficient and I certainly feel that governments should be more encouraging in this line, there are other areas such as solar power that could prove to be a significant opportunity. If the millions of homes in the UK were all to have solar panels fitted on their roofs the collective accumulation of energy minus our usage could result in a net gain in power, cutting our dependency on oil, gas, and other non-renewable sources of energy. If the collective capacity to generate energy exceeded our energy usage as a Country then we could find ourself in a position where we could have a new export - electricity.
When you think about it, we live in a society of waste. I would estimate some 90% of us will have access to ground whether that be in the form of a garden or a communal area or what have you, which most of us use for flowers or in my mind the completely useless lawn of grass. I say completely useless as a lawn essentially gives you nothing of great value, it does not help the planet breathe to the same magnitude several trees would and if anything it costs you money to maintain through the price of the electricity or petrol or other fuel you use to power your lawn mower. Scrap the lawn and build a small enclosure of greenhouses or plastic equivalents - you can buy these made from recycled plastic bottles.
If we put the ground we currently use for superficial aesthetic displays to some practical use we could make a difference together. If gardens filled with vegetables or fruits either in the open air or in greenhouses became common place we might even make a profit from our endeavours. Certainly one would expect the food we grow and consume to amount to a saving in the long term after you discount the initial investment.
I like the idea of being self sufficient and I certainly feel that governments should be more encouraging in this line, there are other areas such as solar power that could prove to be a significant opportunity. If the millions of homes in the UK were all to have solar panels fitted on their roofs the collective accumulation of energy minus our usage could result in a net gain in power, cutting our dependency on oil, gas, and other non-renewable sources of energy. If the collective capacity to generate energy exceeded our energy usage as a Country then we could find ourself in a position where we could have a new export - electricity.
Written in the stars - or in iTunes maybe?
I was listening to a playlist I have comprised of Madonna's Album Confessions on A Dance Floor, Hung Up the Single, together with Kelly Osbourne's Sleeping in the Nothing and Gwen Stefani's Love Angel Music Baby. I randomly hit shuffle to reorder the list and I saw the Track order and titles and thought by chance they seemed to almost make sense. So this is basically every song title in the order it appeared with some words added to make it coherent.
Song titles are enclosed in 'single quotes'
This is a 'Serious' 'Redlight': 'Don't touch me when I'm sleeping'. We live under the force of 'Entropy' within 'Suburbia', but you have to 'Jump' because of that 'One Word'. Don't worry, it will be 'cool', 'I Can't Wait' so 'What You Waiting For?'
'Push!', we have a 'Long Way To Go', for now we are just 'Future Lovers' waiting for 'The Real Thing'. Don't waste your life floating on the 'Edge Of Your Atmosphere', you have to let that 'Bubble Pop, Electric!'.
'Uh Oh', 'Sorry', I know 'The Real Thing' is hard to find, and you don't want to end up a 'Hollabeck Girl' but you need to know 'How High' you want to aim, before your worlds 'Crash' and youse 'Get Together', for now at least I could be your 'Secret Lover', but don't get 'Hung Up' on that 'One Word'.
'I Love New York', because I'm a little 'Rich Girl' but I get 'Hung Up' on life. People say 'Let It Will Be' but in this 'Luxurious' world no matter what you have you can always get 'Hung Up'. So come and 'Save Me', 'What You Waiting For?'
Don't get 'Hung Up' on the world as it is, or you'll fall into a 'Danger Zone' dreaming of 'Forbidden Love' you need to dress in your own style like those 'Harajuku Girls' and see the world you want it to be, as a visionary or a prophet, as 'Isaac'
Song titles are enclosed in 'single quotes'
This is a 'Serious' 'Redlight': 'Don't touch me when I'm sleeping'. We live under the force of 'Entropy' within 'Suburbia', but you have to 'Jump' because of that 'One Word'. Don't worry, it will be 'cool', 'I Can't Wait' so 'What You Waiting For?'
'Push!', we have a 'Long Way To Go', for now we are just 'Future Lovers' waiting for 'The Real Thing'. Don't waste your life floating on the 'Edge Of Your Atmosphere', you have to let that 'Bubble Pop, Electric!'.
'Uh Oh', 'Sorry', I know 'The Real Thing' is hard to find, and you don't want to end up a 'Hollabeck Girl' but you need to know 'How High' you want to aim, before your worlds 'Crash' and youse 'Get Together', for now at least I could be your 'Secret Lover', but don't get 'Hung Up' on that 'One Word'.
'I Love New York', because I'm a little 'Rich Girl' but I get 'Hung Up' on life. People say 'Let It Will Be' but in this 'Luxurious' world no matter what you have you can always get 'Hung Up'. So come and 'Save Me', 'What You Waiting For?'
Don't get 'Hung Up' on the world as it is, or you'll fall into a 'Danger Zone' dreaming of 'Forbidden Love' you need to dress in your own style like those 'Harajuku Girls' and see the world you want it to be, as a visionary or a prophet, as 'Isaac'
This is why I love the NHS
I awoke in the middle of Sunday night to find my stomach retching, moments later I was short of breath and the next thing I knew I threw up. I have vomited before, most people have. I have had gastroenteritis before, which for me was one of the worst experiences of my lifer, and when I was sick with it I actually cried when I threw up. This was different though, for a start it was unbelievably hot, at least that's how it felt, I assume this was simply the high acidity of the vomit. Whatever happened to me over the weekend to cause this, my stomach had obviously been working hard trying to break something down that it simply couldn't and after releasing an abundance of chemicals and acids to try and break it down it gave up and admitted defeat, what could not be digested had to come out, and it did.
Just after being sick my throat felt on fire, I drank some water and tried using mouthwash or anything to soothe it but to no avail. I eventually went back to bed in quite a lot of pain. I awoke at around 7 o'clock and my throat was still raw, my Tonsils were now the size of golf balls, I could not swallow without severe pain and the sensation that I was actually trying to swallow my tonsils, which caused me to choke and gag. Breathing became hard and every few moments my gag reflex made me feel like I was going to puke again. I went to the Doctor's surgery at 9 when it had just opened and they gave me an appointment for 10. I came back an hour later and the Doctor diagnosed the condition in all of 10 minutes. I walked out at 10 passed 10 with a prescription for Phenoxymethylpenicillin and Paracetamol, went to the Pharmacy straight away to pick it up and all I can say is thank God for the NHS, free drugs! and free prescriptions! [in NI anyway!], I took the first round and I have been doped up since. Thankfully my throat no longer feels like it is on fire. My Tonsils are returning to a normal size although they are still a little too big so they aren't healed completely. The Penicillin took almost immediate effect and I am grateful for that - I was actually quite worried, my Brother and my Father are allergic to Penicillin, Mum isn't though, and it appears that I am not either; I was dreading the possibility of having to get my Tonsils removed. I have another 6 days of the course of Antibiotics to finish.
For the most part I feel a hundred times better - while the tablets are in effect. I woke up last night in the middle of the night in agony and had to take a round so that I could get back to sleep. I am therefore assuming the awesomeness I am feeling of being relatively healthy is caused by the tablets and my throat is still healing. I am at a loss, and so is my Doctor as to what caused it though. As a result, I am now on an almost liquid only diet, the only exception I have made so far was for some egg noodles and sweet chilli which went down a treat - I know some of you will think "You ate egg while you were sick? You're insane" and you're probably right but when I am healthy I am usually quite resilient with food, however my reasoning is that the infection is probably confined to my throat as that is the only place I have any pain. Despite my reasoning, for the mean time though it's chicken soup, and either water or Apple Lucozade. This is affecting what I can and can't eat, and for me that is a very VERY big deal, I am a foodie, I never stop, even when I have a cold or a flu I still eat, albeit I usually switch to liquid based foods like soups, but right now I can't eat crisps [potato chips to my American readers] because they are quite rough and they'll irritate my throat, curry as it is hot and will also likely irritate my throat, and dairy products like cheese are off limits as they interfere with Penicillin absorption and after all they are virtually entirely bacteria based after all a block of cheese is basically a block of bacteria, so I have to avoid that - egg has no impact as far as I know.
In conclusion:
Thank you NHS.
Thank you Doctor.
Thank you Sir Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered Penicillin.
Just after being sick my throat felt on fire, I drank some water and tried using mouthwash or anything to soothe it but to no avail. I eventually went back to bed in quite a lot of pain. I awoke at around 7 o'clock and my throat was still raw, my Tonsils were now the size of golf balls, I could not swallow without severe pain and the sensation that I was actually trying to swallow my tonsils, which caused me to choke and gag. Breathing became hard and every few moments my gag reflex made me feel like I was going to puke again. I went to the Doctor's surgery at 9 when it had just opened and they gave me an appointment for 10. I came back an hour later and the Doctor diagnosed the condition in all of 10 minutes. I walked out at 10 passed 10 with a prescription for Phenoxymethylpenicillin and Paracetamol, went to the Pharmacy straight away to pick it up and all I can say is thank God for the NHS, free drugs! and free prescriptions! [in NI anyway!], I took the first round and I have been doped up since. Thankfully my throat no longer feels like it is on fire. My Tonsils are returning to a normal size although they are still a little too big so they aren't healed completely. The Penicillin took almost immediate effect and I am grateful for that - I was actually quite worried, my Brother and my Father are allergic to Penicillin, Mum isn't though, and it appears that I am not either; I was dreading the possibility of having to get my Tonsils removed. I have another 6 days of the course of Antibiotics to finish.
For the most part I feel a hundred times better - while the tablets are in effect. I woke up last night in the middle of the night in agony and had to take a round so that I could get back to sleep. I am therefore assuming the awesomeness I am feeling of being relatively healthy is caused by the tablets and my throat is still healing. I am at a loss, and so is my Doctor as to what caused it though. As a result, I am now on an almost liquid only diet, the only exception I have made so far was for some egg noodles and sweet chilli which went down a treat - I know some of you will think "You ate egg while you were sick? You're insane" and you're probably right but when I am healthy I am usually quite resilient with food, however my reasoning is that the infection is probably confined to my throat as that is the only place I have any pain. Despite my reasoning, for the mean time though it's chicken soup, and either water or Apple Lucozade. This is affecting what I can and can't eat, and for me that is a very VERY big deal, I am a foodie, I never stop, even when I have a cold or a flu I still eat, albeit I usually switch to liquid based foods like soups, but right now I can't eat crisps [potato chips to my American readers] because they are quite rough and they'll irritate my throat, curry as it is hot and will also likely irritate my throat, and dairy products like cheese are off limits as they interfere with Penicillin absorption and after all they are virtually entirely bacteria based after all a block of cheese is basically a block of bacteria, so I have to avoid that - egg has no impact as far as I know.
In conclusion:
Thank you NHS.
Thank you Doctor.
Thank you Sir Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered Penicillin.
Celebrities and Private Lives in the Public Eye
Should Celebrities be allowed to have a private life when in public? By this I mean, should they be able to do whatever they want in public or should the try to present themselves with a level of respect and decency that is expected of everyone else?
Personally I think 'privacy in public' is an oxymoron. I believe that no matter who you are famous or not you should always be aware that while you are in Public anyone can and will be watching. I think in public people should conduct themselves with a manner of respect regardless of your standing. I think when celebrities complain about their lack of privacy in public places that is an expectation of special treatment because of who they are.
I believe, anyone with a level of public influence has a responsibility to set an example. Children and impressionable adults for that matter, do not base 100% of their behaviour on their parents and parents are not present 100% of the time in a child's life. It is a fairly basic psychological principle that as we interact with others we base our behaviour on that of others we see around us.
I think in any job where public presence is part of the remit you should be expected to conduct yourself accordingly. There have been a number of cases involving celebrities and their twitter accounts, now arguably Twitter is the ultimate example of how people treat privacy in public. There are millions of conversations between people made openly back and forth between accounts, which i have mentioned previously on this blog, anything you tweet other than through Direct Messages can and will be seen by the world. In the same way you wouldn't necessarily walk down the street where everyone knew who you were and say something intensely personally - for a non famous person the easiest example here would be to imagine living in a small town where everyone knew each other and everyone knew you, in that situation you wouldn't walk down the street with a friend and have an open conversations about say visiting the Gynaecologist and some rash he was giving you advice on, while in ear shot of people around you.
Personally I think 'privacy in public' is an oxymoron. I believe that no matter who you are famous or not you should always be aware that while you are in Public anyone can and will be watching. I think in public people should conduct themselves with a manner of respect regardless of your standing. I think when celebrities complain about their lack of privacy in public places that is an expectation of special treatment because of who they are.
I believe, anyone with a level of public influence has a responsibility to set an example. Children and impressionable adults for that matter, do not base 100% of their behaviour on their parents and parents are not present 100% of the time in a child's life. It is a fairly basic psychological principle that as we interact with others we base our behaviour on that of others we see around us.
I think in any job where public presence is part of the remit you should be expected to conduct yourself accordingly. There have been a number of cases involving celebrities and their twitter accounts, now arguably Twitter is the ultimate example of how people treat privacy in public. There are millions of conversations between people made openly back and forth between accounts, which i have mentioned previously on this blog, anything you tweet other than through Direct Messages can and will be seen by the world. In the same way you wouldn't necessarily walk down the street where everyone knew who you were and say something intensely personally - for a non famous person the easiest example here would be to imagine living in a small town where everyone knew each other and everyone knew you, in that situation you wouldn't walk down the street with a friend and have an open conversations about say visiting the Gynaecologist and some rash he was giving you advice on, while in ear shot of people around you.
Sunday Shuffle
Every Sunday I will post the first 6 songs my iPod throws up on Shuffle mode.
I'm In Love - Starparty
Club Can't Handle Me - Flo-Rida feat David Guetta
Perfect Enemy - t.A.T.u
Life Goes On - LeAnn Rhimes
No One Needs To Know - Shania Twain
I'm In Love - Starparty
Club Can't Handle Me - Flo-Rida feat David Guetta
Perfect Enemy - t.A.T.u
Life Goes On - LeAnn Rhimes
Segregated Media
About 20 years ago in the UK there were 3 main Television networks, BBC, ITV, and Channel 4. BBC had 2 channels BBC One and BBC Two. ITV and C4 had 1 each. With 4 TV channels there was little choice as far as which channel to watch was concerned, however these channels broadcast an eclectic mix of content that ranged from Sports, News, Drama, Comedy, Entertainment, Music and Documentaries among others.
Today we have Digital Television. Freeview is the prominent free to air television service in the UK which has between 30 and 50 channels depending on your area and coverage. With Satellite and Cable services like BSkyB and Virgin Media Respectively there are hundreds of channels on offer. All these services still include the original 4 channels. The original networks have branched out however, BBC now has several channels as do ITV and Channel 4.
We have at our disposal today a vast array of TV channels. Many of them are specialist channels that deal in one type of programming only. Music Channels, Sports Channels, News Channels, Movie Channels etc. This vast array of channels seemingly providing choice conversely seems to be depleting the number of channels that offer mixed content. Take BBC for example they now show most of their comedy shows on BBC Three and most of their Documentaries and Arts programmes on BBC Four along with some Drama. As we move along this trend it's hard not to stop and ask the question of whether or not we will lose channels that broadcast Homogenised Media and move to a set-up where we have Segregated Media where each channel follows the 1 Channel : 1 Type of Programme scheduling structure.
Do we risk losing exposure to new content? In my previous posts I have said that one of the biggest problems I have with the Internet is that many of the websites and services that run over it make it too easy to fall into content bubbles. Watching a video on Youtube with related videos linked at the side you can easily end up in a cycle of related videos that lasts hours, but during that time you are often seeing the same type of content - there is a lack of diversity. By Youtube's very nature you have to know what you want to look up to find what you want to watch. Recently Youtube announced that it was hiring new content creators to make original content in a move seen by many as an attempt to create a more traditional TV Channel based experience where content is scheduled. It seems to be that one service [the Internet] is moving 'backward' in mimicking TV while the other [TV] is moving 'forward' in mimicking the traditional model of content online.
My fear is that Segregated Media will ultimately be the end of traditional TV, with the Internet taking up their old model of content combination it is preparing to take the reigns, TV will be replaced by the Internet and Segregated Media may be the final nail in the coffin that does it.
Today we have Digital Television. Freeview is the prominent free to air television service in the UK which has between 30 and 50 channels depending on your area and coverage. With Satellite and Cable services like BSkyB and Virgin Media Respectively there are hundreds of channels on offer. All these services still include the original 4 channels. The original networks have branched out however, BBC now has several channels as do ITV and Channel 4.
We have at our disposal today a vast array of TV channels. Many of them are specialist channels that deal in one type of programming only. Music Channels, Sports Channels, News Channels, Movie Channels etc. This vast array of channels seemingly providing choice conversely seems to be depleting the number of channels that offer mixed content. Take BBC for example they now show most of their comedy shows on BBC Three and most of their Documentaries and Arts programmes on BBC Four along with some Drama. As we move along this trend it's hard not to stop and ask the question of whether or not we will lose channels that broadcast Homogenised Media and move to a set-up where we have Segregated Media where each channel follows the 1 Channel : 1 Type of Programme scheduling structure.
Do we risk losing exposure to new content? In my previous posts I have said that one of the biggest problems I have with the Internet is that many of the websites and services that run over it make it too easy to fall into content bubbles. Watching a video on Youtube with related videos linked at the side you can easily end up in a cycle of related videos that lasts hours, but during that time you are often seeing the same type of content - there is a lack of diversity. By Youtube's very nature you have to know what you want to look up to find what you want to watch. Recently Youtube announced that it was hiring new content creators to make original content in a move seen by many as an attempt to create a more traditional TV Channel based experience where content is scheduled. It seems to be that one service [the Internet] is moving 'backward' in mimicking TV while the other [TV] is moving 'forward' in mimicking the traditional model of content online.
My fear is that Segregated Media will ultimately be the end of traditional TV, with the Internet taking up their old model of content combination it is preparing to take the reigns, TV will be replaced by the Internet and Segregated Media may be the final nail in the coffin that does it.
Emotions Running High
Call it happiness, call it joy, call it pride or call it whatever you want, for me I just call it emotion. When something becomes so moving that you have to cry. I felt compelled to write this post after seeing this photo-reel on BBC News on The Crying Games.
The London 2012 Olympic Games have been emotional for many people, within the sideshow captions you will see a quote that a Freeview survey of 2,000 viewers of the Olympic Games found that 2 out of 5 had cried watching the games and I would like to hold my hand up and say I am one of them. Not one of the people who took part in the survey, but one of the people who cried watching the games. There have been a few moments actually where tears have fallen, the opening ceremony was the start of it - literally - when the Olympic Athletes nominated seven young athletes with promising careers to light the Olympic Cauldron in unison, I welled up with tears of pride. I also shed a tear of joy when Andy Murray beat Roger Federer a month after his Wimbledon defeat to claim a Gold medal, I saw that as redemption for Murray and the scenes of Murray hugging a random kid in the audience who asked him for a hug just epitomised the entire experience for me.
The London 2012 Olympic Games have been emotional for many people, within the sideshow captions you will see a quote that a Freeview survey of 2,000 viewers of the Olympic Games found that 2 out of 5 had cried watching the games and I would like to hold my hand up and say I am one of them. Not one of the people who took part in the survey, but one of the people who cried watching the games. There have been a few moments actually where tears have fallen, the opening ceremony was the start of it - literally - when the Olympic Athletes nominated seven young athletes with promising careers to light the Olympic Cauldron in unison, I welled up with tears of pride. I also shed a tear of joy when Andy Murray beat Roger Federer a month after his Wimbledon defeat to claim a Gold medal, I saw that as redemption for Murray and the scenes of Murray hugging a random kid in the audience who asked him for a hug just epitomised the entire experience for me.
Forgiveness
As far as Karma is concerned, you should try to forgive anyone who has wronged you and not hold hatred towards them. The belief is that they will receive what is due in time for their behaviour and their actions, as well as the belief that you as an individual should not continue to harbour hate and resentment as this will attract tragedy to your life.
Now, I don't know if I can completely agree with these principles to live your life by. Certainly I will agree that you should try and avoid harbouring hate and resentment as these emotions will eventually consume you and affect your decisions in life - I believe when bad things happen we should deal with them and try to move on as best we can.
However I can't agree with the idea that you should forgive people for anything wrong they do against you. There are many things I would try to forgive, and I would like to think that I am a somewhat reasonable person and willing to try and understand most things, however for me personally there are things which I can not forgive - ever. I don't believe this is an example of a short temper or impatience and I certainly don't believe it is a lack of giving others the benefit of the doubt or an opportunity to redeem themselves.
For me the simple fact is that for everyone there will be certain things they can't stand and there will be certain things they don't like talking about or don't like to do. I think that anyone who continuously ignores this is being selfish and ultimately exerts an oppression over you. I don't believe when people make the same mistake repeatedly after multiple warnings and reprieves that they should be forgiven perpetually. There has to be a line you draw where you have enough and everything is lost, no amount of sympathy will be given and ultimately you must exert for yourself the demand for respect you deserve - if that means treating someone harshly or with a completely uncensored attitude then I believe it is justified. Just as a Judge must be true to the law when passing judgement on an individual I think personal beliefs and behaviours sometimes need to take a back seat and you have to treat people with the level of disrespect their ignorance has earned.
Now, I don't know if I can completely agree with these principles to live your life by. Certainly I will agree that you should try and avoid harbouring hate and resentment as these emotions will eventually consume you and affect your decisions in life - I believe when bad things happen we should deal with them and try to move on as best we can.
However I can't agree with the idea that you should forgive people for anything wrong they do against you. There are many things I would try to forgive, and I would like to think that I am a somewhat reasonable person and willing to try and understand most things, however for me personally there are things which I can not forgive - ever. I don't believe this is an example of a short temper or impatience and I certainly don't believe it is a lack of giving others the benefit of the doubt or an opportunity to redeem themselves.
For me the simple fact is that for everyone there will be certain things they can't stand and there will be certain things they don't like talking about or don't like to do. I think that anyone who continuously ignores this is being selfish and ultimately exerts an oppression over you. I don't believe when people make the same mistake repeatedly after multiple warnings and reprieves that they should be forgiven perpetually. There has to be a line you draw where you have enough and everything is lost, no amount of sympathy will be given and ultimately you must exert for yourself the demand for respect you deserve - if that means treating someone harshly or with a completely uncensored attitude then I believe it is justified. Just as a Judge must be true to the law when passing judgement on an individual I think personal beliefs and behaviours sometimes need to take a back seat and you have to treat people with the level of disrespect their ignorance has earned.
Inflated Statistics
The population of the London Metropolitan Area is just shy of 14 million. Having lived in London I can believe this, simply because I have witnessed the vast numbers of people that populate the city. The population of my home town where I was born is 27,000 - I find this harder to believe. I find it hard to believe for a number of reasons the first few would be that, I don't believe the infrastructure to support that many people exists, I know quite a few people there and so do my family and close friends, I know the theory of six degrees of separation but I don't think I can number 27k with just 1 degree, but I could have known the name of any passing person, or at least a friend at most would know if I didn't. The other reason would be the lack of large crowds and the relatively sparse level of housing. While there are many housing estates when you consider the number and the occupancy it would be hard to push any population figure beyond say 5 to 9 thousand.
The population of the city I live in at the moment when you take in the urban area is approximately 24,000 and again I find this hard to believe mostly for the same reasons above. These are just two examples of statistics of which I question the accuracy. The population of the UK overall is 62 million. The population of Earth is supposedly 7 billion. The wider you make the scope the more seriously questioning the statistics is taken. Question your local population figures and you're probably laughed at but question the 7 billion figure for the world and people wouldn't be so quick to laugh as there are legitimate arguments against these figures as they are deemed to be approximated - there has never been an all encompassing "world census". The question is whether your local population figures and invariably the amalgamated figures that comprise your country's overall population are accurate.
Let's try something else. If you google 'anything' you will see "displaying results 1 to 20 of 2,420,000,000 results" - 2.4 billion results - really? Now if you actually go beyond the first page of results - I know, welcome to a world rarely seen - you'll find there's a limit to how far Google will go. For 'anything' Google let me go 77 pages.
Now, forgetting the fact that page 77 has less than 20 results on it, if we multiply thee 20 results per page it presents you'll find that the most search results Google presents for the term is typically 1,540 that figure is a far cry from 2.4 billion. Now I don't doubt that there are a lot of web sites online and I don't doubt that Google has indexed a lot, I do doubt however whether Google really has cached 2.4 billion pages, and that's a trivial example you can try yourself, you can find lots of searches that will return higher "results"
What is at question here is whether or not we can truly trust these "statistics" and whether they are accurate or vastly inflated. Google uses a page rank system. It's search results are initially like that of any other search engine - quite useless really. Google re-orders its results based on the popularity each result. This is hard to demonstrate without going to great lengths. The people who will have experienced this first hand will be people who have built their own websites. When you search for something that no-one else has searched for before, Google is rather useless. If you start a new business with a unique company name and create a website, Goggling your company name for some time along will return nothing - even if you have a name that is a Googlewhack - a search term without quotes that will return only 1 result - your new customers have to find you through your content, not your name. So if you were a company selling bicycles then people would have to search for your company name and a keyword related to cycling. The more popular your site becomes the quicker it will rise up google's ranking and appear at the top.
The relevance this has to our discussion is that Google at the end of the day is not a search engine that presents billions of results for a given term, it presents results that other people have clicked for a given term. In order to keep that momentum going you need to feed back the search term and the result you clicked, if one result eventually becomes more popular then it moves up. Now for the question - if you only ever see the top 1,500 ish results for a given term, and they struggle amongst themselves for the top spot, how can you be sure that beyond those 1,500 Google really has listed them all for a given search term? The moment you introduce another single keyword to your search, effectively you have a new set of results, one that mixes the old set and the new set for that word.
Now before I leave you I want to give you two new terms to add to your computer vocabulary. They are "Surface web" and "Deep web". The Surface Web is comprised of every website that search engines can reach. The Deep web is comprised of every website that search engines can not reach due to technical barriers - mainly log-in only sites which have not given search engines access, dynamically generated sites that present content on request etc. There are methods to make these web sites available to search engines but the majority are not. The surface web is quite small in comparison to the deep web. The terms were coined Mike Bergman as this New York Times Article will explain: Exploring the Deep Web that Google can't grasp.
According to WorldWideWebSize - a site which estimates the size of the web based on amalgamated data from Yahoo, Google and Bing.- there are currently around 8 billion web pages. WWWSize uses two metrics:
GYB - Google, Yahoo and Bing
YGB - Yahoo, Google and Bing
The first engine is sued to retireve a data set, so in GYB Google is used first, then those results are checked against Yahoo and Bing and the final set contains all entries that Google listed that both Yahoo and Bing listed. YGB does the same, but starts with Yahoo, retrieving its entire set first then reducing it based to entries that both Google and Bing contain. GYB and YGB result in different set sizes due to the fact that Google 'indexes more pages' than Yahoo
In both scenarios above you effectively remove the inflation and see the pages that each search engine can verify exist. So, if the three working together can at most find 8 billion pages that exist, should you really believe Google when it tells you it found 2.4 trillion results for your query?
Just for fun if you like, see what the highest number of results you can get Google to say it found. I'll set the bar for you with "a" which returns 25.27 trillion results apparently.
The population of the city I live in at the moment when you take in the urban area is approximately 24,000 and again I find this hard to believe mostly for the same reasons above. These are just two examples of statistics of which I question the accuracy. The population of the UK overall is 62 million. The population of Earth is supposedly 7 billion. The wider you make the scope the more seriously questioning the statistics is taken. Question your local population figures and you're probably laughed at but question the 7 billion figure for the world and people wouldn't be so quick to laugh as there are legitimate arguments against these figures as they are deemed to be approximated - there has never been an all encompassing "world census". The question is whether your local population figures and invariably the amalgamated figures that comprise your country's overall population are accurate.
Let's try something else. If you google 'anything' you will see "displaying results 1 to 20 of 2,420,000,000 results" - 2.4 billion results - really? Now if you actually go beyond the first page of results - I know, welcome to a world rarely seen - you'll find there's a limit to how far Google will go. For 'anything' Google let me go 77 pages.
Now, forgetting the fact that page 77 has less than 20 results on it, if we multiply thee 20 results per page it presents you'll find that the most search results Google presents for the term is typically 1,540 that figure is a far cry from 2.4 billion. Now I don't doubt that there are a lot of web sites online and I don't doubt that Google has indexed a lot, I do doubt however whether Google really has cached 2.4 billion pages, and that's a trivial example you can try yourself, you can find lots of searches that will return higher "results"
What is at question here is whether or not we can truly trust these "statistics" and whether they are accurate or vastly inflated. Google uses a page rank system. It's search results are initially like that of any other search engine - quite useless really. Google re-orders its results based on the popularity each result. This is hard to demonstrate without going to great lengths. The people who will have experienced this first hand will be people who have built their own websites. When you search for something that no-one else has searched for before, Google is rather useless. If you start a new business with a unique company name and create a website, Goggling your company name for some time along will return nothing - even if you have a name that is a Googlewhack - a search term without quotes that will return only 1 result - your new customers have to find you through your content, not your name. So if you were a company selling bicycles then people would have to search for your company name and a keyword related to cycling. The more popular your site becomes the quicker it will rise up google's ranking and appear at the top.
The relevance this has to our discussion is that Google at the end of the day is not a search engine that presents billions of results for a given term, it presents results that other people have clicked for a given term. In order to keep that momentum going you need to feed back the search term and the result you clicked, if one result eventually becomes more popular then it moves up. Now for the question - if you only ever see the top 1,500 ish results for a given term, and they struggle amongst themselves for the top spot, how can you be sure that beyond those 1,500 Google really has listed them all for a given search term? The moment you introduce another single keyword to your search, effectively you have a new set of results, one that mixes the old set and the new set for that word.
Now before I leave you I want to give you two new terms to add to your computer vocabulary. They are "Surface web" and "Deep web". The Surface Web is comprised of every website that search engines can reach. The Deep web is comprised of every website that search engines can not reach due to technical barriers - mainly log-in only sites which have not given search engines access, dynamically generated sites that present content on request etc. There are methods to make these web sites available to search engines but the majority are not. The surface web is quite small in comparison to the deep web. The terms were coined Mike Bergman as this New York Times Article will explain: Exploring the Deep Web that Google can't grasp.
According to WorldWideWebSize - a site which estimates the size of the web based on amalgamated data from Yahoo, Google and Bing.- there are currently around 8 billion web pages. WWWSize uses two metrics:
GYB - Google, Yahoo and Bing
YGB - Yahoo, Google and Bing
The first engine is sued to retireve a data set, so in GYB Google is used first, then those results are checked against Yahoo and Bing and the final set contains all entries that Google listed that both Yahoo and Bing listed. YGB does the same, but starts with Yahoo, retrieving its entire set first then reducing it based to entries that both Google and Bing contain. GYB and YGB result in different set sizes due to the fact that Google 'indexes more pages' than Yahoo
In both scenarios above you effectively remove the inflation and see the pages that each search engine can verify exist. So, if the three working together can at most find 8 billion pages that exist, should you really believe Google when it tells you it found 2.4 trillion results for your query?
Just for fun if you like, see what the highest number of results you can get Google to say it found. I'll set the bar for you with "a" which returns 25.27 trillion results apparently.
Sunday Shuffle
Every Sunday I will post the first 6 songs my iPod throws up on Shuffle mode.
All God's Children - Belinda Carlisle
Sally's Pigeons - Cyndi Lauper
Call On Me [Red Kult Remix] - Eric Prydz
Speakerphone - Kylie Minogue
Lose My Mind - The Wanted
anti-Social Networks
With my latest 30 day posting challenge wrapped up I thought I may as well explain now what has been going on with me in regards to social networks. I would not at all say that I have become anti-internet or anti-networking but in regards to Social Networking I have definitely moved myself into the anti-Social Network camp.
There are many who believe that Social Networks in reality breed anti-social behaviour, and I would have argued against this view for years when I was a member of various social networking sites, but I think as you gain a little more perspective on their use you do have to stop and think about what you want to be on a Social Network for and what you gain from doing so. We can start with Facebook as I axed that recently. Now as I explained elsewhere you can deactivate your account, and reactivate at any time - I didn't do this though. I actually deleted my account, which is a two step process, you request deletion and then get a confirmation, that tells you your account has been marked for deletion, you have two weeks to change your mind. Two weeks pass and if you didn't log in then the account is deleted. I did this for mine.
I first joined Facebook in 2006 when I was at University, when Facebook was a closed service, you had to be a student at a University that was part of the Facebook network and you had to have an Academic email address in order to sign up. Facebook was very much for students. There were a lot of networking features, each Network had its own Network home page so my University had one, you could easily find people at your University, I met a few through it and I engaged with the people I went to Uni with on it. Over the years the purpose of Facebook has become more and more ambiguous for me, slowly it moved to the point where I really only logged in to see what other people were up to, check messages and reply to anyone that had contacted me.Then came Applications mainly Games I played a few of those but I have the Android versions of the ones I played now. I have other ways of contacting the people I want to speak to and as for posting things to Facebook with the Public nature of the site even with privacy controls the motivation has very much died. My blog serves the purpose of letting me publish things I want the world to see, and there is no ambiguity here, there is no access control you see everything and anyone can comment, it's simple and I am conscious of the simple guideline: "If you don't want people to see it, then don't post it".
Twitter has been the same as Facebook in essence. Google+ however was an interesting endeavour and in the end I realised that it wasn't for me, the reason being that it was far too easy for trolls and other negative commentators to trawl. With a blog you have to go out of your way to find it, that or it will be something you discover in passing and bookmark for later. With social networks you tend to log on with the intent of engaging. I don't mind if people read my blog and don't comment, I'm not really here for comments, although they are appreciated, they aren't the reason I blog - and therein lies the main problem with social networks, the reason many use them is because the comments, the likes, the retweets, the favourites, the +1s and the reposts are the reasons many people use social networks. They want to feel popular and they want to showcase that popularity to the world or to their world. I have never been one for fame. I would much rather have fortune, I would much rather have happiness more than anything, I have never seen popularity or fame as a means to that end so I have never sought it. In my life I was always quite private, and it was my time at University that flipped that side of me to become one that was quite Public, there was a freedom and a sense of liberation in being that way but I have gained insights into the kind of people who treat anyone with that attitude as a piece of entertainment, as something they can watch or "play with" in other words: the more open you make our life the less sincere the people who look into it will be.
To that end I am reverting to my teenage self in many ways. The last 9 years of my life are being undone and I am becoming the private, quiet person I once was, the type of person who spoke to others when spoken to and only told others what they asked, if you don't ask I won't tell. This blog will remain a window on my life and the level of openness I have exhibited on here will remain constant but as I said in my About Me section, if you want to know more you'll have to ask me, and I have very much made that a requirement more than a suggestion now, you won't find me on any social networks, you won't be able to find out things for your self so if there is anything you want to know, you really will have no other choice but to ask me.
There are many who believe that Social Networks in reality breed anti-social behaviour, and I would have argued against this view for years when I was a member of various social networking sites, but I think as you gain a little more perspective on their use you do have to stop and think about what you want to be on a Social Network for and what you gain from doing so. We can start with Facebook as I axed that recently. Now as I explained elsewhere you can deactivate your account, and reactivate at any time - I didn't do this though. I actually deleted my account, which is a two step process, you request deletion and then get a confirmation, that tells you your account has been marked for deletion, you have two weeks to change your mind. Two weeks pass and if you didn't log in then the account is deleted. I did this for mine.
I first joined Facebook in 2006 when I was at University, when Facebook was a closed service, you had to be a student at a University that was part of the Facebook network and you had to have an Academic email address in order to sign up. Facebook was very much for students. There were a lot of networking features, each Network had its own Network home page so my University had one, you could easily find people at your University, I met a few through it and I engaged with the people I went to Uni with on it. Over the years the purpose of Facebook has become more and more ambiguous for me, slowly it moved to the point where I really only logged in to see what other people were up to, check messages and reply to anyone that had contacted me.Then came Applications mainly Games I played a few of those but I have the Android versions of the ones I played now. I have other ways of contacting the people I want to speak to and as for posting things to Facebook with the Public nature of the site even with privacy controls the motivation has very much died. My blog serves the purpose of letting me publish things I want the world to see, and there is no ambiguity here, there is no access control you see everything and anyone can comment, it's simple and I am conscious of the simple guideline: "If you don't want people to see it, then don't post it".
Twitter has been the same as Facebook in essence. Google+ however was an interesting endeavour and in the end I realised that it wasn't for me, the reason being that it was far too easy for trolls and other negative commentators to trawl. With a blog you have to go out of your way to find it, that or it will be something you discover in passing and bookmark for later. With social networks you tend to log on with the intent of engaging. I don't mind if people read my blog and don't comment, I'm not really here for comments, although they are appreciated, they aren't the reason I blog - and therein lies the main problem with social networks, the reason many use them is because the comments, the likes, the retweets, the favourites, the +1s and the reposts are the reasons many people use social networks. They want to feel popular and they want to showcase that popularity to the world or to their world. I have never been one for fame. I would much rather have fortune, I would much rather have happiness more than anything, I have never seen popularity or fame as a means to that end so I have never sought it. In my life I was always quite private, and it was my time at University that flipped that side of me to become one that was quite Public, there was a freedom and a sense of liberation in being that way but I have gained insights into the kind of people who treat anyone with that attitude as a piece of entertainment, as something they can watch or "play with" in other words: the more open you make our life the less sincere the people who look into it will be.
To that end I am reverting to my teenage self in many ways. The last 9 years of my life are being undone and I am becoming the private, quiet person I once was, the type of person who spoke to others when spoken to and only told others what they asked, if you don't ask I won't tell. This blog will remain a window on my life and the level of openness I have exhibited on here will remain constant but as I said in my About Me section, if you want to know more you'll have to ask me, and I have very much made that a requirement more than a suggestion now, you won't find me on any social networks, you won't be able to find out things for your self so if there is anything you want to know, you really will have no other choice but to ask me.
Breaking The Circles
Show me where I belong tonightGive me a reason to stayNo matter if I go left or rightI always come back to your love
This song is one from my childhood, one that I have shared with a few people over the years. When I hear it, it inspires moments of nostalgia where I look back and think, where are they now? I say that for the singer more than anyone else, Samantha Mumba seemed to drop off the face of the Earth but then again a lot of teen artists did that too.
Your love for me came as a waterfallFlowing inside me like never beforeYour love for me, something I didn't seeBut baby, I know better now
So as for me and my Nostalgia, I am happy enough with my memories. I remember the good and the bad, which has lead others to say I focus on the negatives in life, I would argue however that remembering the good and the bad helps me to try and prevent myself from repeating past mistakes - whether or not I am successful in doing so is another matter entirely.
On that note I will leave you with another Nostalgia ridden track!
30 Days of Game Shows
I recently run a 30 day Challenge that wasn't so much a challenge to make 30 posts to match certain titles as with the other challenges, more a top 30 challenge. I listed my top 30 game shows.
Below you will find links to all 30 posts, plus the contenders.
Note: The original Youtube Playlist is no longer available, I hope to restore it at some point, sorry for any inconvenience caused!
Below you will find links to all 30 posts, plus the contenders.
Note: The original Youtube Playlist is no longer available, I hope to restore it at some point, sorry for any inconvenience caused!
0 - The Contenders
There were a number of Game shows that I wanted to include in my top 30 which I had second thoughts about or simply could not find a place for them. I have chose to mention 3 of them here they are:
Ready Steady Cook
This is technically a Game Show although the competitive aspect of the show is somewhat drowned out more so by the fact that it is first and foremost a cookery show. There are two resident Celebrity chefs who head either team, the green peppers or the red tomatoes, they are then joined by one member of the public each. The member of the public brings in a bag of food, I believe 5 items of less and the goal is for the player and the chef to create a meal from what they brought in. As much as I love food I think this one was too overshadowed by the emphasis on food for it to be considered a game show so I left it out.
The Games
As with the previous show this show was also overshadowed by the theme. The Games was a show that ran on Channel 4 in which a series of contestants lived in a reality show type of environment, where they trained together and then competed in a series of athletic events my favourite of which was actually the high dive. Despite the entertaining nature of the show I felt it could not really be considered a game show as the theme of sport and the aspect of the reality show were too prevalent.
Big Brother
Although at its core Big Brother was a game show and the housemates were there to compete against each other this show ultimately became a popularity contest on steroids. The vast proportion of this show was comprised of people essentially sitting in a house interacting, as fascinating as I found the show with my interest in Psychology I felt this nature overpowered the game show aspect so I decided to omit it from the list. Had I included it then it would have made it into the top 10 for me. I know this show isn't everyone's cup of tea but then again I know studying Psychology wouldn't be either so I feel as much of a love hate relationship exists for this show it is firmly in my love category.
Ready Steady Cook
This is technically a Game Show although the competitive aspect of the show is somewhat drowned out more so by the fact that it is first and foremost a cookery show. There are two resident Celebrity chefs who head either team, the green peppers or the red tomatoes, they are then joined by one member of the public each. The member of the public brings in a bag of food, I believe 5 items of less and the goal is for the player and the chef to create a meal from what they brought in. As much as I love food I think this one was too overshadowed by the emphasis on food for it to be considered a game show so I left it out.
The Games
As with the previous show this show was also overshadowed by the theme. The Games was a show that ran on Channel 4 in which a series of contestants lived in a reality show type of environment, where they trained together and then competed in a series of athletic events my favourite of which was actually the high dive. Despite the entertaining nature of the show I felt it could not really be considered a game show as the theme of sport and the aspect of the reality show were too prevalent.
Big Brother
Although at its core Big Brother was a game show and the housemates were there to compete against each other this show ultimately became a popularity contest on steroids. The vast proportion of this show was comprised of people essentially sitting in a house interacting, as fascinating as I found the show with my interest in Psychology I felt this nature overpowered the game show aspect so I decided to omit it from the list. Had I included it then it would have made it into the top 10 for me. I know this show isn't everyone's cup of tea but then again I know studying Psychology wouldn't be either so I feel as much of a love hate relationship exists for this show it is firmly in my love category.
1 - The Crystal Maze
This entry made it to the top of my list into the number 1 position for many of the reasons that the Krypton Factor made it to number 2. The Crystal Maze saw a team of players working together to navigate the 4 areas of the Crystal Maze, they were the Aztec Zone, The Future Zone, The Medieval Zone and the Industrial Zone which was later replaced with The Ocean Zone.
The Show had side stories that involved Richard O'Brien the original host of the show, a regularly referred to character called Mumsy featured who departed with Richard when he handed the reigns over to Edward Tudor-Pole. For me, no-one could ever replace Richard and while I think the show ultimately lost its cult nature when he left I like to think that it was meant to be. I'd love to see the show run again but sadly I think as with the Krypton Factor its time has passed.
After Crystal Maze Richard went on to pursue other career paths during which time he wrote the Rocky Horror Picture Show which is a prime example of his eccentricity and his marvellous ability to tell a story in the most surreal yet engaging manner.
My favourite zones in the Crystal Maze where the Aztec and the Future zones. The format of the show saw the team of players compete one at a time to complete challenges, these challenges were set in rooms found in each of the 4 zones. Successful completion of a challenge won the player a Crystal which bought the team 5 seconds in the Crystal Dome - the ending point of the show. The player had get out of the room in time, they could either complete the challenge then get out or abandon the challenge if they didn't think they could do it in time and get out. Failure to reach the door in time locked the player in the room, where they would stay. Their team could buy them out, if they gave up a Crystal to do so and many teams did as they wanted everyone to make it to the dome.
The Crystal Dome itself was a large enclosure that had a metal grid floor under which there were powerful industrial fans. Scattered through the dome were silver and gold tickets, the fans would activate and scatter the tickets through the air. Players had 5 seconds for every Crystal the had won and managed to take with them to the dome. If they collected enough tickets they could win the prize of the show.
Update:
Not surprisingly, videos relating to this show are often removed from Youtube for copyright reasons, so I have updated this post to include a video that explains the history of The Crystal Maze, including the revival which happened years after this post was first written, it seems I wasn't the only one feeling nostalgic.
2 - The Krypton Factor
In this the penultimate post in this top 30 countdown it will come as no surprise that yet another game show that requires problem solving, ingenuity, and a certain aptitude for dealing with the pressure of a time limit should make it to this place.
The Krypton Factor is one of the great game shows in our TV past in my opinion but unfortunately I think TV has very much made its way to a place where all the things this show valued are somewhat disconnected from the audience today. I don't like to say that TV like to "dumb down" its audience but I certainly feel this show had its glory at the right time and would not work today - no surprise then that a revival a few years ago failed to gain momentum.
The original Krypton Factor consisted of a number of rounds notably a mental agility, logic test, and a physical agility round as well as general knowledge questions among other rounds. The logic test was my favourite and often presented the contestant with a jigsaw of sorts which they had to reassemble within the time limit, and the physical agility round was completed on an obstacle course filmed on location.
The video below is from one of the episodes of the show, it contains the entire show.
The Krypton Factor is one of the great game shows in our TV past in my opinion but unfortunately I think TV has very much made its way to a place where all the things this show valued are somewhat disconnected from the audience today. I don't like to say that TV like to "dumb down" its audience but I certainly feel this show had its glory at the right time and would not work today - no surprise then that a revival a few years ago failed to gain momentum.
The original Krypton Factor consisted of a number of rounds notably a mental agility, logic test, and a physical agility round as well as general knowledge questions among other rounds. The logic test was my favourite and often presented the contestant with a jigsaw of sorts which they had to reassemble within the time limit, and the physical agility round was completed on an obstacle course filmed on location.
The video below is from one of the episodes of the show, it contains the entire show.
3 - Test The Nation
Test The Nation was a sort of Quiz show that was presented by Ann Robinson. I say "sort of" as the show had a number of incarnations, there was an IQ test episode, there was a Relationship Test, a Music test among others. Often the show took the form of multiple choice survey type answers, there wasn't always a "right" answer.
The show was interactive, you could play online and you could play if you had a digital television by pressing the red button and responding to the questions as asked. The thing I loved most about this show was that it engaged the audience, it informed the viewer and it sometime broke down stereotypes while at other times it enforced them - the live studio audience were split into sections often categorised by various cultural or class divided groups.
The video below demonstrates the mechanic of the show and lets you see some of the questions that were asked.
There is also an archived version of the test on the BBC Online site which you can play along to.
The show was interactive, you could play online and you could play if you had a digital television by pressing the red button and responding to the questions as asked. The thing I loved most about this show was that it engaged the audience, it informed the viewer and it sometime broke down stereotypes while at other times it enforced them - the live studio audience were split into sections often categorised by various cultural or class divided groups.
The video below demonstrates the mechanic of the show and lets you see some of the questions that were asked.
There is also an archived version of the test on the BBC Online site which you can play along to.
4 - The Bubble
This next show features David Mitchell yet again, and also yet again this is a game show that features an element of guesswork combined with that balancing act of "Do I think that could happen?" versus "Do I think that did actually happen?"
The show was called the Bubble and it saw 3 contestants locked away in a house with no internet, mobile phones or any communication with the outside world other than through the show's producers. After their isolation they were brought on the show where David asked the questions about recent events, some fictional some fact, the job of the contestants was to decide what was true and what wasn't. As with the price is right you need to put aside whether you think it could happen realistically and ask whether or not you believe it did happen.
The thing I liked most about this show is that it highlighted the at time unbelievable nature of our News and Media outlets, the press in general often run with "stranger than fiction" news stories and this show was a step towards making people realise that. They even had mocked up news reports for some stories which added to the surrealist moments of the show.
The show was called the Bubble and it saw 3 contestants locked away in a house with no internet, mobile phones or any communication with the outside world other than through the show's producers. After their isolation they were brought on the show where David asked the questions about recent events, some fictional some fact, the job of the contestants was to decide what was true and what wasn't. As with the price is right you need to put aside whether you think it could happen realistically and ask whether or not you believe it did happen.
The thing I liked most about this show is that it highlighted the at time unbelievable nature of our News and Media outlets, the press in general often run with "stranger than fiction" news stories and this show was a step towards making people realise that. They even had mocked up news reports for some stories which added to the surrealist moments of the show.
5 - Supermarket Sweep
This next show was always on early in the morning time on weekdays to the point where I only ever got to see it when I was off school sick or if we had a holiday or something. The show is called Supermarket sweep and I think the thing that made me enjoy it most was the idea of running through a Supermarket and getting to fill a trolley without any thought of the price, which for me as a foodie would be heaven - I'd also end up completely fat.
The show was presented by Dale Winton who was the campest TV presenter in a generation and also loved to be [fake?] tanned. The show had a few rounds general knowledge etc and questions inevitably related to food. I liked it when I was younger as it was fairly simple and easy to follow and the prizes were appealing.
The video I link below is a typical episode of Supermarket Sweep!
The show was presented by Dale Winton who was the campest TV presenter in a generation and also loved to be [fake?] tanned. The show had a few rounds general knowledge etc and questions inevitably related to food. I liked it when I was younger as it was fairly simple and easy to follow and the prizes were appealing.
The video I link below is a typical episode of Supermarket Sweep!
6 - My Kind Of Music
This next show unfortunately I can't find any videos for.
The best way to describe My Kind Of Music would be to call it a quiz show and talent show all rolled into one. Contestants competed in pairs and the first round consisted of one contestant singing for the audience. The rounds that came after ranged from a general music knowledge quiz to a guess the singer or group round where the contestants stood on two opposing podiums, behind one was a screen that would display a singer or band and the other had to try and impersonate them well enough for their partner to guess, after each guess the contestants swapped places.
The show is perhaps most memorable for one round which involved the contestants watching videos of members of the public singing for the show, this segment was filmed on location I believe at Westfield Shopping Centre in White City.
The show was interesting to me and with my love of Music I found it entertaining, it ran for 5 series with a total of 50 episodes before it was axed. I have included the show in my top 10, as it brought together many components that I loved with the emphasis on Music being my favourite part.
The best way to describe My Kind Of Music would be to call it a quiz show and talent show all rolled into one. Contestants competed in pairs and the first round consisted of one contestant singing for the audience. The rounds that came after ranged from a general music knowledge quiz to a guess the singer or group round where the contestants stood on two opposing podiums, behind one was a screen that would display a singer or band and the other had to try and impersonate them well enough for their partner to guess, after each guess the contestants swapped places.
The show is perhaps most memorable for one round which involved the contestants watching videos of members of the public singing for the show, this segment was filmed on location I believe at Westfield Shopping Centre in White City.
The show was interesting to me and with my love of Music I found it entertaining, it ran for 5 series with a total of 50 episodes before it was axed. I have included the show in my top 10, as it brought together many components that I loved with the emphasis on Music being my favourite part.
7 - Blankety Blank
Blankety Blank was by definition fabulous. The show was based on the Australian Game Show Blankety Blanks and the version I remember most was presented by the hilarious Ms Lily Savage - the alter ego of the comedian Paul O'Grady. Lily Savage is one of my favourite characters in Comedy and her television roles have been most entertaining.
The concept of Blankety Blank is quite simple, there are two players they take turns in playing a single round, Lily presents them with a short phrase with a word missing, the contestant's job is to guess the missing word. Playing with them are six celebrities who Lily asks to complete the same short phrase. This is done simultaneously, then the six celebrities reveal their word and for each that matches the contestant's guess the contestant wins a point, they need 6 in all to make it through.
I remember the show mostly for its obvious inevitable innuendos with the game structure but also for Lily as host who had moments of pure comedy. The video below I link is a series of out-takes from the show that never made it to air.
The concept of Blankety Blank is quite simple, there are two players they take turns in playing a single round, Lily presents them with a short phrase with a word missing, the contestant's job is to guess the missing word. Playing with them are six celebrities who Lily asks to complete the same short phrase. This is done simultaneously, then the six celebrities reveal their word and for each that matches the contestant's guess the contestant wins a point, they need 6 in all to make it through.
I remember the show mostly for its obvious inevitable innuendos with the game structure but also for Lily as host who had moments of pure comedy. The video below I link is a series of out-takes from the show that never made it to air.
8 - Strike It Rich
This show was originally known as Strike it Lucky then it changed its name to Strike it Rich and was based on the American show of the same name. The UK version I remember most was Strike it Rich presented by the Eccentric Michael Barrymore.
I have to mention briefly that Michael Barrymore's private life is somewhat colourful and has a few moments of controversy that have had him in pretty deep water, I would rather not discuss these here but I acknowledge that they existed and I would rather not confront the issue as I personally do not know enough about the incidents to pass comment.
As far as Barrymore's TV career goes he has always been quite a funny man and brought out the funny side in other people for that reason this show features on my list inside the top 10. I often found myself in stitches watching this show and I still find clips of the show hilarious. I link two videos below that highlight some of the many hysterical TV moments.
The show had a two part format, the first was a question and answer section, each correct answer earned them another step forward, if you reached the end of the row you went through to the next round. On the second round the contestants guessed "top, middle, or bottom" picking one of the screens in each column to reveal, they had to reach the other side by passing through each column without revealing a hot spot. Of the actual game rounds the second was always my favourite.
Update:
With the original videos now taken down for copyright, please enjoy one of the unexpected moments of gold from the series:
9 - Catchphrase
The UK version of the originally American Game Show, Catchphrase, was presented from 1989 to 1999 by Roy Walker. I remember Roy Walker presenting the show and for me he is the face the voice and the personality of the show. When the show passed the reigns from Roy in 1999 to Nick Weir in 2000 I was not impressed.
For those of you who like to be superstitious or ominous you may find it interesting to know that on the first filming of the new series of Catchphrase with Nick Weir as the presenter, he fell down the stairs and broke his foot and had to be taken to the Hospital. Subsequently as he presented the show in a cast and on crutches since many episodes were filmed over a short period of time he was seen to be the man who had been in crutches for the longest ever time.
The two videos I link below are firstly one of the many funny moments from the show while a contestant tries to guess the catch phrase the partially revealed image looks rather rude!
And this second video is of Nick, falling down the stairs.
For those of you who like to be superstitious or ominous you may find it interesting to know that on the first filming of the new series of Catchphrase with Nick Weir as the presenter, he fell down the stairs and broke his foot and had to be taken to the Hospital. Subsequently as he presented the show in a cast and on crutches since many episodes were filmed over a short period of time he was seen to be the man who had been in crutches for the longest ever time.
The two videos I link below are firstly one of the many funny moments from the show while a contestant tries to guess the catch phrase the partially revealed image looks rather rude!
And this second video is of Nick, falling down the stairs.
10 - Countdown
To anyone who has read my blog and particularly to anyone who has read through the posts in my 30 Days Of Tragedy Challenge you will no doubt be aware of the high esteem in which I held Richard Whiteley before his untimely passing. Beloved host of Countdown the show for me was never the same again without him.
Richard had a sense of humour and never let that be questioned for in his time on the show there were many jokes but perhaps the funniest to others and indeed to him was when Noel Edmonds then presenter of Noel's House Party resolved to play a practical joke on him which was featured on his show. At the end of the practical jokes the truth was revealed to the subject and they were given a trophy called a Gotcha. The video below introduced by Richard Whiteley is that of the show where he was given his Gotcha.
Beyond the laughter and mirth the show was also entertaining for me in that it often brought up people who amazed me. Among these people would be James Martin known for his extraordinary numbers:
And also Kai Laddiman who became the youngest ever octochamp on the show, the following a compilation of his appearances:
Richard had a sense of humour and never let that be questioned for in his time on the show there were many jokes but perhaps the funniest to others and indeed to him was when Noel Edmonds then presenter of Noel's House Party resolved to play a practical joke on him which was featured on his show. At the end of the practical jokes the truth was revealed to the subject and they were given a trophy called a Gotcha. The video below introduced by Richard Whiteley is that of the show where he was given his Gotcha.
Beyond the laughter and mirth the show was also entertaining for me in that it often brought up people who amazed me. Among these people would be James Martin known for his extraordinary numbers:
And also Kai Laddiman who became the youngest ever octochamp on the show, the following a compilation of his appearances:
11 - 8 Out Of 10 Cats
At number 11 in my top 30 we have 8 Out of 10 Cats - a show about opion polls surveys and statistics. The show features recent news stories each week as well as having more generalised rounds. As with other shows in my list you often have to think about the answer as what you would expect to be the answer often turns out to be the exact opposite - highlighting the very nature of statistics in gathering information that often seems counter intuitive.
The show features comedy heavily and is perhaps a comedy show more so than a satire based show such as Have I Got News For You. Again the show takes the format of two teams, each with a resident captain and two guests that change each week. The two resident captains have been Sean Lock who has served the longest and is still part of the show and the opposing captain who has been Dave Spikey, then replaced by Jason Manford then replaced by Jon Richardson.
The videos I link are two comedy moments from the series, more videos can be found in abundance on youtube. You will have to view them on youtube however as embedding has been disabled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw0BjhbdDUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn4P68uF3Hs
The show features comedy heavily and is perhaps a comedy show more so than a satire based show such as Have I Got News For You. Again the show takes the format of two teams, each with a resident captain and two guests that change each week. The two resident captains have been Sean Lock who has served the longest and is still part of the show and the opposing captain who has been Dave Spikey, then replaced by Jason Manford then replaced by Jon Richardson.
The videos I link are two comedy moments from the series, more videos can be found in abundance on youtube. You will have to view them on youtube however as embedding has been disabled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw0BjhbdDUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn4P68uF3Hs
12 - Would I Lie To You
This next entry is presented by Rob Brydon who I very much enjoy watching and find hilarious. Having said that I much prefer to see him in hosting roles than in comedy roles I feel his humour is much more natural and connects with the audience when it originates from a shared experience, a situation comedian if you will - no surprise there then to know that he has been in acting roles before such as Uncle Bryn in Gavin and Stacey alongside James Corden as Smithy.
The premise of this next show is nothing more than the title itself, namely that contestants must read out what it says on a card whether it be true or false and attempt to confuse the other side into guessing wrongly. Teams score points for each correct guest. The show has two resident captains, David Mitchell and Lee Mack both of which are excellent comedians. They are accompanied each by two guests and compete against one another.
The thing I love about this game show is that you can play along while watching as you weigh up whether or not they are telling the truth, and often find yourself saying "Oh I wish that is true" or "Oh, no, you didn't! No way".
The video is a compilation of funny moments for you to watch.
The premise of this next show is nothing more than the title itself, namely that contestants must read out what it says on a card whether it be true or false and attempt to confuse the other side into guessing wrongly. Teams score points for each correct guest. The show has two resident captains, David Mitchell and Lee Mack both of which are excellent comedians. They are accompanied each by two guests and compete against one another.
The thing I love about this game show is that you can play along while watching as you weigh up whether or not they are telling the truth, and often find yourself saying "Oh I wish that is true" or "Oh, no, you didn't! No way".
The video is a compilation of funny moments for you to watch.
13 - Blockbusters
Blockbusters was a game show based on the American show of the same name. The show was popular in the UK during the 80s, and had revivals twice once in the 90s and once again in the early 00s. There has recently been a third revival which brought the show back to our TV screens on the satellite channel Challenge.
For me and many others this show was defined by the host Bob Holness who sadly passed away earlier this year on the 6th of January. The video I link below is an example of the show which also features Bob Holness in his marvellous role as host. The show has been hosted by Michael Aspel, Liza Tarbuck and in its current incarnation by Simon Mayo but in my opinion no-one could ever replace Bob.
There's is not more I can say about this show apart from the format, that players compete to create a bridge from one end of the board to the other. They must do so by claiming hexagons of the board by answering questions their only clue for which is the first letter of the answer.
For me and many others this show was defined by the host Bob Holness who sadly passed away earlier this year on the 6th of January. The video I link below is an example of the show which also features Bob Holness in his marvellous role as host. The show has been hosted by Michael Aspel, Liza Tarbuck and in its current incarnation by Simon Mayo but in my opinion no-one could ever replace Bob.
There's is not more I can say about this show apart from the format, that players compete to create a bridge from one end of the board to the other. They must do so by claiming hexagons of the board by answering questions their only clue for which is the first letter of the answer.
14 - Pointless
You may have noticed the shows I like are often those that require a little bit more thinking than just sitting and watching mindlessly as is the misconception most people have with game shows - and with games in general, I deplore those that shun video games as I know many of them would not have the mental capacity to actually be able to complete a video game. This next show in my top 30 is one of those more ingenious entries in the list and it's called Pointless.
The object of Pointless is to answer questions. You must give a correct answer to the question. Each question has been put to a survey of people and the answers been allotted a number of points based on how many people gave that answer. The goal for contestants is to score as low as possible, many questions will have answers that are correct but no member of the survey said and therefore gained a 0 point score - 'Pointless Answers' - finding these not only guarantees a low score but also increases the jackpot of the show the contestants are playing for.
Update:
Since the original video has since been taken down, here's an updated full episode link:
15 - Wheel Of Fortune
This next show is yet another game show that has its origins in the USA. It seems the UK and the USA both have a love of game shows, and it seems that although we take different approaches many shows that originate in either country are often picked up within the other - even if the show would never have been commissioned in the first place without proven success.
Wheel Of Fortune I believe falls into the latter category. I don't believe it would have been commissioned if it had first been presented in the UK, I believe it was only commissioned due to its success in the USA - I happen to believe the same holds true in reverse for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for the simple reason that the "audience" of either country in the eyes of programme commissioners are considered to be fundamentally different. I don't think many would argue that Wheel of Fortune is quite typically American by nature.
The show didn't make it into the top 10 as it often wasn't that funny. The video below demonstrates this, but also demonstrates the host Bradley Walsh horrendous wardrobe.
Wheel Of Fortune I believe falls into the latter category. I don't believe it would have been commissioned if it had first been presented in the UK, I believe it was only commissioned due to its success in the USA - I happen to believe the same holds true in reverse for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for the simple reason that the "audience" of either country in the eyes of programme commissioners are considered to be fundamentally different. I don't think many would argue that Wheel of Fortune is quite typically American by nature.
The show didn't make it into the top 10 as it often wasn't that funny. The video below demonstrates this, but also demonstrates the host Bradley Walsh horrendous wardrobe.
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