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Exam Methods

There has been a lot of talk about what needs to be done, at post graduate level to get the required results..so i thought I would upload a pictorial guide to lifestyle to relate to your exam ambitions..

Distinction

Merit

Pass

FAIL

STORY OF THE DAY>>

Cash Family Blocks Haemorrhoid Ad

"The family of late singer Johnny Cash has blocked an attempt by advertisers to use his hit song Ring of Fire to promote haemorrhoid-relief products"

Surely it would sell millions!!

POLITICS>>

This is a very interesting story about a radio station in Costa Rica I worked at briefly. If nothing else it sums up the selfish interests that are abound at even the most 'respectable' institutions. Particularly the United Nations.

Radio For Peace International Closed by The University for Peace!!!

EXETER>>

Ok so I am now on day for of my stinking cold - and it's the thing to do on these blogs, write about your ailments! Normally I am over the worst by day two but this is getting progressively worse, sometimes feel like I am breathing with one lung, seriously! and chronic nosebleeds to boot...well I have the words of Gloria Gaynor to give me strength, "first i was afraid, i was petrified..." actually they are not that appropriate. What wold be a good, 'god i've got a stinking cold, song?' no one has written one yet... They write about the blues and hearts broken, 'loves lost-love found under the light of a silvery moon'..but never..."I've got those, can't get enough of those, snot-filled blues"

REVIEW>>

DVD of the Week

Trailer Park Boys: The Complete First and Second Seasons (Collector's Edition)

Only availaible in Canada, http://www.amazon.ca
"Absolutely hilarious"

Book of the Week:

After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order
by Emmanuel Todd
Columbia University Press £21, pp233

"He foresaw the Soviet collapse. Now Emmanuel Todd says America is next. John Kampfner assesses an intriguing vision of the future, After the Empire"

POLITICS>>

I suppose the incidence of the Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe is definitive of the failure of Capitalism.

The argument being that Wal-Mart force prices down and the average punter wants a jar or cockles for forty pence so even in a highly industrialised capitalist society like Britain, the concept of workers earning 10p an hour to fulfil this corporate greed is unprecedented.

The fact that the dollar is at an all time low is also evidence that the world cannot continue to support America in this way. As the world becomes more democratised and westernised, according to US guidelines, the bottom line is these countries are not going to provide the cheap services needed to sustain such an avaricious, consuming economy. I mean, even Haliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's company, couldn't resist ripping their own country off by charging stupid prices for gas in Iraq. The House of Cards metaphor springs to mind.

EXETER>>

Firstly, see the links on the side, including to Panos Exgossip Page and some other ones I think are quite important.

So, after much debilitating I finally decided that I would go out and enjoy the evening, arguably the first 'Greek Free' evening I have had in Exeter.(It failed, miserably, from the outset) So a slow trek, with Greek friends and associates, Maria, Amanda, Eleni and Mikus. And someone else I think, but forgot. Anyway. In Gandy's I met Sergio from Mexico who introduced me to some new friends, A Spanish guy who's name I cannot remember, a Japanese guy who - let's face it - couldn't speak English - and a painfully shy Swiss girl called Simone who I am unlikely to forget soon. Thus we drank Mexican beer for the best part of an hour and I press-ganged us all to going to warehouse. A fresh experience for most of us, though only half could ultimately be persuaded.

Warehouse: The only queue being for marketing reasons (so it makes the place look busy and popular) and a snip at 2.50 entrance. It is sort of a halfway house between Arena and Timepiece. Cheep beer flowed and my idea of a Greek free evening was tarnished by the presence of Stavro ( oh, and I met George's - both of them -on the way to Gandys). Martin (German) and Martin (Dutch) were there as were their usual entourages; ie The French Cassonovas, Estelle and Erica..The evening became more Spanish with the presence of Berni..Very drunk.. I did finally get to see the mythical German girl, who as reported, is extremely stunning but quite difficult to talk too. When you get to my age, it simply isn't worth that kind of effort - well that is the advice I passed on :-)

Much drink, muchos Espanola, and no real events to report apart from a return to JOC for the usual post party 'association' and inappropriate behavior from those of a Latin disposition that offended some continental, European conservatives. Details of which my journalistic integrity is not allowed to divulge suffice to say. 'You know who you are!'

I now have a terrible cold and a weekend of romance in London (for it is the weekend of romance!)

I have also found a Greek translator (an automatic one!) so can get the gist of Panos Postings!

EXETER>>>

There have been disturbing changes in the Little Greek Tragedy....

HUMAN RIGHTS>>>

Two thirds of the displaced people in the world remain in their owncountries, says a new study. The Global Internally-Displaced Persons Project says around 25 million are currently refugees within their own borders. It claims that they are often worse off than those who flee further afield. The project reports that the biggest single new displacement last year was in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

POLITICS>>

I am actually beginning to believe that there is hope in the US. That there is a very real possibility that Kerry can do this. I know it is so difficult to get into the American mindset when you're not watching CNN over there 'The Republican Party Campaign Channel'. The fact that some many democrats are rushing to the polls to select their leader shows that people are getting annoyed and there is a genuine momentum gaining.

When Bush landed on that aircraft carrier I just knew that would come back to haunt him, that will be his Kinnock 'Oh Yeah, Awwwwright' moment. [Neil Kinnock, labour party leader, ahead in the polls less than a week before election had a big rally in Sheffield. He approached the microphone full of ego and began to chant like a rock star to the 10,000 congregation...Oops...They lost the election]

Bush is starting to come across like the spoilt frat boy he is whereas say what you like about Kerry he is the real deal. I would also like to open an investigation into the type of medication that Dubya takes. When you see him in interviews it is not stupidity that causes him problems, it's coherency. Some kind of depressent perhaps? Ask any psychologist to analyse interviews of Bush from his Texas heyday to now. the change is quite dramatic. It could be anti-alcoholism drugs but they don't have that strength of effect. Or his head could be screwed from too much historical cocaine abuse, maybe that's why he couldn't actually fly in the National Guard after they spent all that money training him...bit of a 'positive' test there Mr President..

When I was in Costa Rica, someone said to me, and I thought it completely beyond even my own conspiracy theorist scale, that if Bush looks like he may lose there will be a dirty nuclear bomb attack in the US and he would declare a state of national emergency and defer elections. Far fetched? Not as far fetched as invading and destroying a country systematically over the last ten years for what amounts to nothing less than profit. It's what the Nazi's did and don't forget Granpa Bush looked after Nazi money during the war and had strong ties to the National Socialist Party...Fact..Watch this space!

EXETER>>>

The cleaners came today. They are a bit like fairies...unless you actually see them you don't know they've been. However my toilet paper collection is now getting significantly impressive, when I finish this course I am going to open a market stall and reclaim some of my fee's in Exeter-brand toilet paper sales.

There is talk tonight of going to a club on the Quay, having had two nights of being wonderfully toxic free I am concerned as to the shock this could be to my system. Still, the best way to get me to a bar is to ask me if I want to go...

EXETER>>>

South East England, the British Riviera. Today was sunshine, palm trees and the first outside meet at the Ram Bar. Things can only get better.

We are all floating in the post essay purgatory. Exeter lecturers (god forbid they would ever do some work for their money or status) are continuing to devise many ways to avoid us actually having to come to the University. This is the state of the British education systems. Exeter has become a country club for academics where students just get in the way. (That said to me by a Cambridge educated Professor whom I know very well). So it was no surprise that with the sun burning down on my ever-balding head I forgot I was a student. To make ammends for this shocking realisation I went and bought a book. It didn't make me feel any different but I am certain the girl in blackwells was impressed. I now have spent almost six-thousand pounds on my Amnesty International credit-card. A 'percentage' of which goes to Amnesty. I think if i spend fifty-thousand pounds on the card then a prisoner of conscience in some Israeli prison gets a quarter pounder with cheese meal on my behalf. So if you ever forget you are a student........

There is much romance in the air at Exeter..and I salute the Greek Community for looking outside for their love. It is such international and cosmopolitan behaviour. The French, they eat French, sleep French, love French and shit French. Whereas the Greeks are going to dominate the world through their genes.

Panos, 'The Little Greek Tragedy', is saying things about me in Greek on his blog http://www.exgossip.blogspot.com and I cannot translate them..But what I do know is that we scored more than you tonight. You were seriously lacking Nickos, (football Nickos, not the Metal Hammer Nickos) And we play as a team(except those whose name begins Martin). You must larn how to pass! Back home, if someone had a bottle of ouzo on the table and your brother at the other end wanted a drink..how would he get it? What is the Greek word for 'Pass'?


PICTURE REMOVED FOR SOCIAL, NOT LEGAL, REASONS

SPORT>>>

Well Spurs won 4-2, yet another goal fest...what we need to understand though is even though we have won two out of three..we have still conceded 9 goals in three games, it's like the Ossie Ardilles/Klinsmann years all over again. And Chris Perry scored against us! we bloody lent him to Charlton, he's our F$%%% player!!

EXETER>>>

Some people may read this blog and wonder what the Greek thing is about, don't worry about it...if you don't understand it just ignore the bits that begin EXETER>>

EXETER>>>

And besides, my girfriend cannot read Greek BUT she has Greek friends!

SPORT>>>

Spurs are 3-1 up against Charlton, Davies, Defoe and King scored.. A goal a game for Defoe so far, can't be bad..

EXETER>>>

OK so Pano has set up his weblog http://www.exgossip.blogspot.com and is libeling me left right and centre, which - as a lawyer-journalist I am not going to rise to the bait..Fortunately I have an understanding girlfriend who would accept that any publicised insinuation that i am 'hitting' on Greek girls would be interpreted as the utter ravings of a mad and deluded Greek Man. Perhaps it is the aftermath of losing at football to a more fluid, inter continental side than the all show and no substance of the Greek community that influences such spurious claims.

Still I hear Pano is practicing his Latin - and we all know what that means, his sudden interest in the Roman Empire...If Pano ruled the world, eh...everwhere would be an orgy and the Chinese would starve.

EXETER>>>

This library is very quiet...I must do some work and not procrastinate by going to the Ram Bar or anything...much as I would like.

I am also frustrated at academic texts in general..It should be a pre-requisite for any academic professor to have some kind of English language, post-graduate qualification in mass-communication before they are allowed anywhere near a word processor.

POLITICS>>>

A quick rant. Usual morning spent perusing the Grauniad and still praying, hoping that 2004 will see the end of Bush and Blair. Kerry winning last night was pleasant news, even though I favored Clark at the outset. My Clark bias was simple, I wanted someone who could beat bush and knew jack about US politics..Obviously as time went on it was easy to realise he wasn't up to the job. Kerry can do it. After seeing the bush-chimp on an interview it's a stunning insult to the American public that this klutz is their leader! I think they are waking up from 9/11, finally, and smelling the coffee.

SUPERSPORTS-BIKES>>

It's that two year time again, and my has it come quick. Yesterday I sold the beloved VTEC after two years of reliable and impressive service. The connundrum, what to get next?. Now at an age that I feel sensible enough to move into the 'hypersports' bracket I thought extreme machine. Top of the list, mostly based on a price factor was the Yamaha R1. Not the mad new one but the last model, cheaper that way. After a couple of phone calls I got cold feet about moving away from the magical world of Honda and their superior build quality back to the flimsiness of Yamaha ( actually, I have owned Yamaha before, they aren't that flimsy really - only compared to Honda). So the natural evolution for me was the Honda CB954RR 'firebalde'as it is now known. They are bringing an all new CBRR out in March so I thought I would be able to snatch a current model at a discount. Extremely hard to find!. I eventually found one in stock after much web-hunting. Hopping south of the river to Clapham on the tube with my bike gear in-tow within ninety minutes I was on the 'blade. This is a 954cc 160Kilo 172mph (276KMH) beast of machine. I went round the block and up the bypass getting used to it's lightness after the VTEC and found the power not hugely intimidating. Of course on the second circuit when I felt I had grabbed the quite different handling I decided to open it up. Pushing 73 (120KMH) in a 40 zone, I noisily sped past some guy in a 2 seater sports something with a foreign plate..He took the bait that I really wasn't offering and I heard him drop down a gear...Oh no. The little devil on my shoulder poked me with his fork, 'he cannot do that to you, don't let him, you're on a Fireblade! it's only a 40MPH zone, there's three lanes...look, he's LAUGHING at you'. Two gears down, 9,000 revs and counting a prison sentence on the horizon; said sportster became very much rear-view and I really felt the power of this monster.

Back at the dealer I had a big grin on my face but really felt that my life expectancy would be greatly reduced if I submitted to such temptation I walked away from it. A short hop to chiswick and my old crew who have supplied me with my last four bikes..I scouted the used machines, no more new depreciation for me having lost three grand on the VTEC in two years, I was really thinking of going back to another VTEC. They truly are a fantastic all round bike you can do everything on. I saw a nice black one but...Wait...What's this on the forecourt...It's black, hell it's sporty..mmmm...mmmmm..I want a change after all..It's nearly new, only 1700 miles ( no need to run it in!). 45 minutes later I am riding away on it.

It's faster than the VTEC, just, but you have to wring it's neck to get the power as it is distributed so diferrently. In other words you can poodle and be gentle or mix it with the best, especially post 7,000 revs. It's 40 KG lighter and 10more brake-horse. It can only be the CBR600RR.

Out With the Old....





In With The New...






So am now in my fifth consecutive honda year and first impressions are great. It won't be as comfy as the VTEC but this summer in the south-west of England it will be wild..And next summer on the grand prix track at Montreal it will be extreme fun ( of course it'll get a UK track day -or two-this year too!) all for 2 grand off list and 18 months warranty to run! Happy :-)