Words are all I've got, to take your heart away.

Do you think that these essays and things really get read? I've got to write 3,000 words. I could probably copy and paste all of these blog posts into Word and submit them as an essay. I make a cohesive argument, I feel.

I discovered essay plans before - what wonderful ideas, I've never done one before. I've always just sort of written - I suppose this is why I've never really achieved academic excellence. Do some context, say what points you're going to make, make a point, explain the point, do the rest of your points, explain your points, and in conclusion say what your points were. It all seems rather pointless to me.

All this balancing arguments nonsense, what's that all about? I'm always right, I don't like to give the opposing argument the oxygen of publicity - unless it's worth an extra 650 words, in which case it merits a place. I don't even know why I'm bothering about all of this, it doesn't have to be in for two weeks. I've never started anything two weeks in advance. I've just got it into my head that today is an important day to Get Something Done.

This being organised business is an alien concept to me - still, must crack on.

In which I'm still not writing an essay.

I read a whole book this weekend. This would be number 3 in my list of top ten ways to NOT GET ANY WORK DONE.

It was a good book though - I picked up some Len Deighten reissues over the summer, having bought lots of them over the years from charity shops I knew what I was getting. I like World War 2 books - as wars go it was probably the most fun one in history; classic good versus evil fight, a choice of glamorous locations and the use of much exciting technology. It was quite an even fight too - no macguffins until right at the end when the Nazis were using their weird rockets and jet engines and the Americans dropped a couple of apocalyptic shitstorms on the Japs and killed loads of them. That sort of thing. WW2 was the real advent of spying and all that kind of stuff - SOE and all that. Good times.

The problem for me is that I get really caught up in a book - reading SS GB this weekend I had to remind myself that I didn't really live in German-occupied Britain and the King was in mortal danger. What can I say, I have an active imagination. I watch the news and think 'man, President Bartlett's going to kick off about this'.

Yeah, yeah, back to work.

memories of summer.

a walk in the park
Originally uploaded by ALBOWIEB

I procrastinate ye not.

It's amazing how much of the internet there is left to explore when you're supposed to be writing an essay or doing some work. I have the concentration span of a goldfish with ADHD at the best of times, but I do try to focus the mind. And then I end up writing a blog post. I'm a seat of the pants kind of studier - I like to leave it until the last moment and get it all done just in the nick of time. I live for the adventure. Being fully incapable of any of kind of real adventure, an intellectual emprise is about as much as I can manage. Also, doing something right at the last minute leaves me devoid of the kind of nagging 'can I do it any better?' doubt that irritates me so.

I was looking with guilt at ALBOWIEB the other day, thinking regretfully how much I have neglected it this month - but then if you include the posts I've written on Everything is somewhere else, then it's my bloggingest month in over a year. Back in my university days I'd post up to 60 times a month, but that was back in heady times of no work and even less reponsibility. And no twitter, of course, that corrupter of thoughts that could be strung out into a hundred word post. That stealer of mealy jokes and wordy broths that are distilled down to a palatable 140 characters. They said the microwave would destroy the kitchen, being so convenient and compact, but I haven't seen it happen. Why nuke something when you can finesse and slave away, flavour with nuance and sprinkle with wit and regard? Mark my pixels - blogging will have its day once more, and be filled with gourmands.

Let them have their microwaves.

Search me.

Interesting - a number of Google searches asking if the X Factor is live on a Sunday. As far as I am aware the main show is definitely live, but the opening contestant song is mimed and a number of the famous guests record their performances at other random but more convenient times. I was outraged, for instance, to learn that Shakira pre-recorded her song earlier in the day last Sunday and that Susan Boyle wasn't even there - she did hers on the Saturday. And it took two goes. Shocking.

The phone bit has to be live, otherwise ITV would get into more terrible trouble with WhateverCOM for taking folks' money and ignoring it. I actually think that the results themselves might have been recorded tomorrow night in order to get a day longer of telephone revenue.

But anyway. More google nonsense - ginger people still don't smell of wee, I don't know where these rumours get started. I also come up when people are googling whether Modern Warfare 2 is a bad influence. I couldn't rightly say, but don't buy it for your children.

Time will pass you by.

I just had a cup of tea, thinking it was 8pm or something, when it was actually half ten. Not that having a cup of tea at 8pm is great, but it keeps you going, y'know? It's like time has ceased to function properly for me.

Wouldn't it be nice if scientists could isolate the time gland, you could pop a pill before a meeting and three hours suddenly felt like 5 minutes? Christmas day? 30 seconds! Horrid party? But a minute! And then if you were about to sit down with some really nice cake you could pop another people and really savour it in slow motion.

The only danger then being if the cake turns out to be horrible or you get a phone call and it last for hours. But actually a couple of minutes.

What I find really strange about time is that if you take care of the evenings, then the years take care of themselves. It's bizarre how meta-time can pass so quickly, but whatever-the-opposite-of-meta-is-time can pass so slowly. A bird in the hand is worth two in the fist and all that.

I've no idea what that means.

A bit of Radio 4.

There's something about Radio 4, I'll put it on whilst I'm doing something, like surfing the internet, reading a book, or falling asleep and it lulls me into a waking torpor - like a conversation at a party that you're trying to do well at because you don't want to be one of those people, but there really are more interesting things happening just over there.

I'll start, and suddenly the prime minister is aurally gurning at my head, or there's an obnoxiously dull radio play on, or some documentary has started that it takes precisely 14 minutes to actually work out what the hell the thing is about. I can see how people might have got excited about the radio, but then the television got invented. It's intellectual cycling - people get the opportunity to feel smug whilst not getting very far.

Radio 4 is very much like one of those electric exercise things you occasionally see adverts for. You can stick them to your tummy and eat burgers whilst volts are pumped into your gut and apparently they tighten up your flabby, distended abdominals. It's something for nothing, an easy win in return for just sitting there whilst your belly twitches.

With Radio 4 you might feel like you're getting smarter just having it on, but in reality looking at Facebook at the same time is actually making you even stupider. In fact I don't think I've ever even met anyone who can match the before and after transition from the frazzle-me-a-six-pack contraption adverts. Once the people who sold it you have shifted a few thousand on a backwater shopping channel they nip over to the Bahamas and change their names before you get a chance to realise how fat you've become.

And besides, you can't walk anyway. I might try a book.

I can't believe it is butter.

Johnny Rotten. JOHNNY ROTTEN. Rotten, Johnny. Esteemed proprietor of Sex Pistols Incorporated. Doing adverts FOR BUTTER.

A prime example of spending years and years building up something and then pissing all over it. Who jumps on their own sandcastle? I can't understand it. There ought to be an Ombudsman for YOU'RE ABOUT TO DO SOMETHING STUPID, some emergency number, or something.

I don't know - maybe he really likes butter. "Yo, Johnny, my man - would you like to completely sell yourself out in return for a year's supply of butter?" "Butter? Sure. I really like butter."

I wash my hands.

I often fall out with the hot tap. It takes ages to get warm, like you're having to coax it along, persuade it you're not going to do it harm. Your once-cold hands are not perilously close to Fiennesian frostbite which wil involve seven months of severe pain and a hacksaw. It gets to just the right temperature and there you are, massaging soap into disillusioned fingers that once felt the weight of the world. The heat comes rushing back, fickle friend that it is. And then ouch, that's too hot. You went too far, hot tap. There we were, just getting on, reconciled to one another, basking in the warm glow of your warming warmth and it got too hot. You spoiled a good thing man, I'm burned on as many different levels of profundity that can be squeezed into a blog that's as deep as a kids' shallow splash pool. With toys. I'm going back to the cold tap.

A bad influence.

Whilst burning the way-past-midnight oil I just saw an advert on the telly for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, that terribly controversial little piece on the computer with the guns and the explosions that I believe a number of people may have discussed in previous weeks and that several people may even have gone out and bought.

Goodness, computer graphics are getting horrifically good, aren't they? It made be want to go out and shoot up a shopping centre, or some shit like that.

X Factor Sunday live blog

20.58 - That wasn't nearly as controversial as previous weeks, but it seems we're setting ourselves up nicely for the final run down to the final show. I'm telling you, this is a classic season of X Factor. What fun.

20.55 - Oh, I completely forgot I was blogging for a few minutes there. Jamie's off - and thank goodness that Simon's smug sheen has lost its buff. Sadly for Jamie he can't even wipe his bum now until March next year unless Simon gives him permission.

20.51 - Pub busker against SingStar Superstar. 

20.41 - OK. Brief moment of pause. Jamie and his hair versus Lloyd at the sing-off. This week's Sunday show feels really quite odd, like we've been short-changed out of a second singer. The hokey charity single miming and the cannons of glitter were bizarre. I like that Dermot is so cheeky, but the show feels like it's going to disappear up its own gazoo.

20.37 - And longer.

20.36 - Here goes. Now that there are fewer acts in, Dermot's pauses are going to get longer...

20.35 - I think I've caught diabetes from the first half of the show. Luckily someone getting mercilessly evicted will go some way to helping me.

20.30 - All of the 12 finalists turn up to mime to their charity single. Not sure why. I did note with interest that Rachel had come back with her spikey hairdo - I suspect that she's going to lock a Jedward in the cupboard and try and sneak back in the competition. Can vitiligo go the other way? She'll have to think of something.

20.27 - Of course, everyone should give money to help the poor kids. I couldn't help but notice there that Cheryl was wearing some sort of basque. Not sure if Ann Summers is the closest shop to the studio or what, but the girls seem to be having an underwearingest competition going on.

20.25 - WHAT IS THIS? Is Cowell trying to steal Pudsey's crown now? Some charity pitch going on. They don't need to try that hard, the single's going to sell whatever happens.

20.18 - Lovely jubbly - instead of plumbing the back catalogue of X Factor winners because Simon doesn't like what's left, they're doing a special preview of the crappy Christmas single the current 7 and the other 5 losers will be releasing soon.

20.15 - What I like most about Shakira's slinky-hipped dancing is that she makes the classiest of stage occasions look like a stag night do.

20.12 - There was an invader on the stage yesterday after all - you can never quite tell with those naughty little twins. Some singer bloke who brought a pineapple with him to the studio - I've had my bags checked going to see a Radio 4 comedy that no-one's heard of being recorded, how did he manage that? I agree with Cowell on this one - twat.

Ooh, Shakira.

20.09 - More recaps whilst the work experience boy puts the tape in for the next act. Lloyd sounds like one of those singing trouts you used to get from petrol stations.

20.08 - According the poodle-alike one from Queen, Stacey is 'very employable' - lucky for her then if she gets voted off. A job as a maid in Malibu is on the cards.

20.05 - Half of Queen are actually on stage! Someone's had a cod liver oil tablet with their Weetabix this morning!

20.02 - Dannii comes on stage looking like a King Kong from My Little Pony land and Louis has come straight from the Under the Sea dance in Back to the Future where he was stamping the tickets. Look! More Queen being murdered, it's treasonously good. They've certainly saved the cheesiest 'til last. Unfortunately there's only girl left in the competition but it looks like Lloyd and Joe have bravely stepped in with their falsettos at the ready.

20.00 - It's the ruddy Sunday results show! Dramatic recap! Shouty voiceover! And Dermot even does an illustrated opening joke - he said the word fireworks, and by golly there were pyrotechnics all over the stage. No stone left unpointed out here.

X Factor live blog.

21.28 - And that's the end of another Saturday night extravaganza. I can't help but feel slightly muted after all that - it wasn't a classic show. The controversy will come tomorrow night, no doubt. See you then...

21.26 - It also seems that some tit called Calvin Harris ran onto the stage during Jedward's performance with a pineapple on his head. Seems he's a singer and he was invited onto the Xtra Factor. Quite why he ran onto the stage with a pineapple on his head I don't know. What's even more amazing is that no-one really noticed, that's how weird the twins are.

21.25 - I swear that there's a competition amongst the technical team each week to pick the worst possible clips each week for the recap - Lloyd trills, Olly wavers and Joe appears stuck in a limbo between notes.

21.23 - Danyl gets alright comments from the judges - his performance was alright but instantly forgettable. I can't see that the poor lad has the charisma to get a connection going with his audience. Look at me getting all profound, I feel I need to slag something off. Dermot's suit jacket looks a bit baggy this week. Hobo.

21.20 - Danyl says during his VT that he needs to be confident but not cocky so that people will support him. And then he starts belting out 'We Are The Champions' - I wouldn't be using Cowell's Humbleometer, old bean.

21.18 - People have criticised Danyl saying that he's worse than Hitler. I don't think that's fair - I've never heard Hitler sing.

21.15 - And do you know what else? I'd heard a rumour on Twitter that the 'holidays are coming' advert was supposed to be coming on during the X Factor today. I don't think I saw it - that advert is the single thing that gets me jazzed up for the festive season. The holidays are comin...the holidays are comin...

21.07 - Stacey's on stage - she's got one of Leona Lewis's dresses on, Matt Edmondson's patented Jesus Light behind her and she's projecting a diva likeness. I think they've only got a single jelly mould for female X Factor contestants. Luckily Stacey fits it fine as long she doesn't talk to anyone. Ooh, sparks as well. Clearly they think she's going to win...mark my pixels.

21.00 - Freddie Mercury is spinning so fast in his grave he could generate enough electricity right now to power a small town.

20.56 - Dannii despairs, Louis appears to be high on something, Cheryl tries to be nice by not commenting at all on the twins' performance and Simon is doing whatever Simon does. It's the same every week, I don't think you really need to listen.

20.54 - Thank goodness, they weren't allowed to do Bohemian Rhapsody. Falling over on the way onto the stage doesn't help, but that's OK, because it proves they have 'character'. They don't appear to have done any singing this week, which is good both for them, us and the last vestiges of Queen's reputation, which are being trampled underfoot by two greasy flop-haired goons from Ireland.

20.51 - Oh man. Here it comes.

20.42 - Can't argue with Joe's dreamy eyes, but this does feel like that bit on the Royal Variety Performance where they run out of good people and crack out the Tony award-winning cast of 'Cliche-ridden excuse to use pop songs: The Musical'...

20.35 - Olly's performances are a weird mash-up of normal vocals with slightly mental Jacko-meets-Robocop dance moves. They probably work on the dancefloor in Essex - and thinking about it his phone number is probably going out to just as many people.

20.33 - Bless him, Olly's manning it up and the show must go on despite a grave injury to his...what? His little finger? Grow a pair, son.

20.31 - Man alive, those TalkTalk adverts with the 'everybody's brightdancing' thing are the most irritating thing since Janet Street-Porter was last on the television. Nobody's doing it except the people they paid. I hate it when people try to start crazes. Cf. 'Don't shop for it, Argos it.' Idiots.

20.27 - Another break. Gosh, these come around quickly. They're probably shoe-horning the dancers out of those horrid Anne Summers clingfilm dresses they were just wearing. Keep an eye out for Dannii's necklace, I reckon she might be eating them necklace biscuits with a cup of tea whilst the adverts are on.

20.22 - 16-year-old Lloyd appears to be dressing up out of his dad's wardrobe. He's got a pair of leather jeans and a lumberjack shirt on and I think he's trying to convince us he's a big boy now. He'll show us in a minute how good he is with pull-up nappies.

20.21 - What's left of Queen are trying to show some gravitas in their little bits to camera. They forget we know that they pranced about the Seventies in PVC and shocking hair.

20.18 - Phew, I'm glad of the ad break. All a-flutter after the first ten minutes. X Factor should carry a health warning for those week of heart. I shall pause for a moment and take stock of the evening ahead. I understand that Jedward are doing Bohemian Rhapsody, for which I hope they will be dragged out backstage and shot afterwards. Joe will lend some cruise ship-chic to the occasion and Stacey will continue to be...well, Stacey. Let's see which way Danyl goes - Queen lends itself to bombastic big personality, but he's been pretending to be sheepish the past few weeks...

20.14 - Cheryl shares some hair tips with Jamie. Because she's worth it, like.

20.13 - In fact, she looks like she's not wearing a dress in the close-up shots. That thing is only gently cupping her boobs, good job she only has to sit there. Louis slags Jamie off. Crowd boos. I don't think a single person in the country could tell you what he just said.

20.12 - Shock! Just spotted Dannii on the end of the judges' desk. She won't like that. At least, the Daily Mail won't like that.

20.11 -  Poor Jamie. I don't think he's ever going to sound like anything other than someone who sings in a pub.

20.09 - Jamie Afro's up first. The contestants got to meet what's left of Queen. I'd like to see Jamie's hair voted off this week, his wafro drives me crazy. But then it's part of his name, so he's probably not allowed to shave it all off by law. Ooh, it appears to have been trimmed. More Michael Jackson than Scary Spice this week.

20.07 - Simon slags off Sting and then does his 'nice guy', man of the people biz. The crowd are fickle - they were booing him literally 90 seconds ago now they're cheering. I love this programme.

20.05 - The judges! Dannii appears to be wearing foil-wrapped biscuits. I didn't catch the hair. How's the hair - perhaps a rock mullet in tribute to one of the world's greatest rock bands?

20.04 - Dermot appears out of the bowels of the studio. I suspect that most of the screaming children in the audience won't have heard of Queen. 

20.02 - Nice to see a programme that doesn't take itself seriously. The voiceover man WHO SHOUTS EVERYTHING HE RUDDY SAYS is taking us through the Jedwardgate shitstorm.

19.57 - It's strange how little the Sunday night line-up has to do with the theme. In retrospect I can see that it was mere coincidence that Michael Buble happened by the studio in big band week and the Jovi family appeared in rock week. It was wishful thinking that got Alexandra Burke in for diva week and Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas happens to have been in a film. Possibly her qualification for movie week. Anyway.

19.52 - Merry evening, dear reader! It's that time of the week again, it's X Factor time! It's Queen week - I can only assume the songs will be themed around the rock band and not our gracious monarch, Lizzy 2. So many questions - will Jedward finally leave? Will birds fly out of Jamie's hair? Where will Dannii sit? Will Cheryl be wearing her wedding ring? Will Shakira wear any shoes tomorrow?

Some of those questions and more will be answered as we get through tonight's programme.

Dear reader.

On a Saturday evening I can usually be found twittering my brains out whilst X Factor is on, making pithy, wry observations. Or more realistically, slagging everyone off.

Tomorrow, for one week only, I shall be liveblogging this hallowed event on ALBOWIEB! How exciting. Imagine how thrilled you must be.

Feel free to drop by tomorrow evening and offer up your own pithy wry observations in the comment box. Or just slag everyone off.

Yours,

Sam

Oh. This isn't an email.

Slackjawed. Mostly through death.

a dead fish
Originally uploaded by ALBOWIEB

The nights are drawing. Landscapes, mostly.

It always surprises me how quickly it gets dark at this time of the year - you have a lazy morning, you potter about, have some lunch and when you're ready to get out there and do something, suddenly it's getting dark. What's the point in leaving the house? You make a cup of tea, you have a sit down and then it's time for dinner, have another cup of tea, see what's on the television and then it's time for bed. Achieved? Nothing.

Lest we forget - what happened.

I've been wondering today why we do what we did today each year - before I left for lectures this morning BBC News 24 was showing the French and German premiers commemorating the end of the Great War. Armistice Day specifically remembers the end of that war - known, ironically, as The War To End All Wars.

Let's face it, that was an entree. An appetiser, a bit of a warm-up. Bitter irony in the French and Germans commemorating the end of that war because they were at it again twenty years later and dragged the whole world into it. Again.

I can't quite understand why Armistice Day still exists as an event in itself in the format that it does. Remembrance Sunday serves as a memorial to those who have died in wars worldwide, something to stop the world from ever doing it again. It's strange that we sort of start the commemorations from 1914, as if war before then was infinitely more civilised and middle class. Possibly more amateurish as well - it's all become a lot more professionalised since.

World War One never did much at all to end all wars - in fact it was the primary catalyst for the encore. It left such a bitter taste in Germany's mouth that they invented the Nazis to seek their revenge - politics is nothing if not populist and of its time. But Central Europe had been an area of tremendous tension for decades before the Second World War - as much as we quibble with the concept now, the only reason there hasn't been another one since then is the genesis of the European Union. It started as a trade organisation with the express purpose of locking France and Germany into a relationship so tight they could never kill each other again. Like sticking them in a room until they start talking again, but with steel.

Perhaps it's the formation of that, those efforts to enter into our more perfect union that we should be commemorating, and spending the time to remember the people who died to make that happen.

On cheapness.

So we must be about the cheapest people in Britain. Channel Five are thinking about making a documentary about us called "The Cheapest People In Britain And Their Naked Killer Sharks". The nakedness and the killer sharks are largely superfluous, but that's how they roll at Channel Five, man.

We went to Ikea on Saturday night for some meatballs. Nothing wrong with that, you might think - we paid full price for our meatballs, we're respectable people. What can I say, there's an Ikea in town, sometimes you just want to go their and have some meatballs, you know what I'm saying?

Except we didn't really go there for meatballs, that was what you might call a ruse, a diversion, a little something on the side. We watched a fireworks display that we knew was happening over the road from Ikea. We stood at the window at the bottom of the escalator and. We. Stole. A. Fireworks. Display.

I'm telling you, if there was a competition to find the Readers' Digest Cheapest People in Britain 2009 we'd be right up there. Perhaps not first, on reflection - to get that we probably would have just had a cup of tea and some straws between us.

Playing with some audio

We did some basic audio stuff at university today - here's what I did just whilst I was listening to today's Prime Minister's Questions...you just need to click on the post title. I can't work out how all this stuff works.

EDIT: 22:38, 5th November
Crivens, try again - I think I've just about cracked it. The link isn't even worth the bother, but I'm going to try and knock together a one-off podcast one of these days.

Everything is somewhere else. But not me.

Ooh, it's like November already and everything. I've started a new (parallel) blog to ALBOWIEB called 'Everything is somewhere else' - writing about my course and cars and that. It's interesting and fun for me, but I can see that people who might read this blog aren't necessarily interested in my course and cars and that. So if I'm quiet here it's because I'm over there.