Pan Bloglodytes

Remember Me?

2006-09-03T19:11:00.000Z

I'm going to dredge this Blog up again, as though it was some kind of literate zombie, and I was an idiot with a book of incantations and a very poor knowledge of Horror Movies. There are an awful lot of reasons why I haven't blogged in the last six months- some of them horribly angsty, so it's a good thing I can't remember what they were- but largely because nothing very interesting happened. It was half a year in the prime of my life, which is a bit unsettling. I don't want to reach fifty and end up looking back wistfully at "the times where I used to sit around", or, worse, "the time where I had legs". That wouldn't be good at all.

Still, when I wasn't frittering away precious weeks of my life staring at walls, one or two things did manage to happen to me. I won a short story contest (you can read it here, although I'd advise against it if you're religious, French, or have political opinions that are relatively advanced, as opposed to stupid), saw several movies I didn't understand, and summarised medical files.

Summarising medical files I did a lot, because it was my job, but didn't do as much as I could have, because it was sheer agonising torture after a while. When it's still new, it's fantastic. You get to read pretty much every meeting between a patient and their doctors that they had in their lives, and pick out the parts that matter while ignoring the bits where the doctor envisioned numerous warts slowly erupting over their charge's face while explaining for the fourteenth time that day that no, antibiotics do not, in fact, work on colds. It's strange, and kind of cool, to see someone slowly growing older as you flick through the letters, as concerns about the size of a nose give way to hideous sexual diseases give way to abortions. There are a great many stories I can't tell from the files, some of them facinating, some of them heart-rendingly tragic. After a while, you begin to feel the pain of everyone whose file you see (except the people who never have to go to the doctor, the lucky bastards), and begin to realise that pretty much everybody has horrible secret problems, problems which they can't talk about because they're terrifying, and so don't realise that everybody else has them, too. There were a lot of people who were depressed in there. I wonder if doing my job for a day could have helped, or made things worse. But then all you can really do in the end is forget, except for the things that you never can, and never should.

After a longer while, though, the job really sucked. Eventually doing the same thing over and over again can become unbearable, and when the thing in question is leaning over a desk three sizes too small for you in a seat that won't adjust that's slowly crushing all your interior organs, while reading the words "He was in hideous, hideous pain" repeat themselves over and over again, that point arrives depressingly quickly. Now I have nothing interesting to say about my work at all except that the Scottish NHS readcode systems, that put all the significant information from medical files into a computer database in an encrypted form, have codes for "Injury caused by tropical venemous millipede on farm", "Injury due to scalding chocolate" and "War injury: Crushed by falling plane", but no code for "Hepatitis A". Our tax pounds at work, there.

That's all, really, barring brief interludes where I tried to conduct an experiment on horse grazing which backfired when a horse ate all my data, went to London on a protest and protested in the wrong place by mistake, and passed part of a University course by drawing cartoons of rabbits. Not the most interesting of half years, I'll grant. But then the slim medical files are the dull ones, and the ones you become most jealous of, so, at least in a way, "not interesting" is perhaps a very positive thing indeed.

Even my mid-life crisis is an early developer

2006-03-28T07:08:00.000Z

There are, as far as I can see, three types of students: the ones who know exactly what they're going to do in life, and so are able to spend their time as a student drinking constantly, the ones who have no idea what on Earth's going on with them, and so drink constantly to forget, and those who lurch wildly between the two, and have to drink for other people's safety.

I fall somewhere between those last two camps, like a non-accurate parachutist in a terrible analogy. Every so often, I'll sit bolt upright, say something like: "Yes! Starting up a company which creates abstract art out of sheep is exactly what I want to do!", before sinking into a blind panic that lasts about seven hours. After which I'm pretty much where I started, but with about 7000 GigaJordans of added humiliation.

This comes from doing the least vocational degree ever. Actually, prospective employers could read this. From doing a spectacularly vocational degree. But to what end exactly I'm still not quite sure: Biology has a nasty habit of seeming too sciency for creative-type jobs, and too soft for analysis-type jobs. So spreadsheets, basically. Woo. There is always the "Medical Researcher" pathway left open, but frankly I'd rather go down a pathway to a big scary house, which, knowing my luck, is exactly the sort of thing I'll end up doing in my future career.

So I'm a bit terrified, really, especially considering my concern about my employability, twinned with my concern for the rights of all people, led to me agreeing to be locked in a cage. God knows how that's going to look on a CV. Still, whether I'm locked up, mildly dazed, or lost in the middle of a suburb, one thing's certain: Pan Bloglodytes is most assuredly running again. Yay!

Neuron: Your Own

2006-02-08T22:34:00.000Z

I went to Edinburgh's AGM today, the democratic system in the Uni that, depresssingly, 99% of students excercise their democratic right not to go to. Blogging, voting, giving your opinion in a World this full of people can be like being a red blood cell telling the circulation system how to work: things tend to ignore you, and flow on by at dizzying speeds. I think this might be too cynical though, or hope, anyway. I still believe, perhaps because I'm still eighteen years old and there's only so much cynicism my glands can produce, that a more appropriate analogy from Biology for any of our positions would be that of a neuron, a little interconnected cell that lives in the Brain. One neuron telling a person to scream won't succeed, but if it nudges those beside it with chemicals in a way science still doesn't quite understand, and everything else understands even less, slowly they'll start signalling to other neurons, the whole process building and building and multiplying, until suddenly the woman they all inhabit screams for her life in the middle of a conference about scissors, and has to retire in a fit of shame, you stupid neuron, you. If you're in the right place, at the right time. And aren't a hopeless wuss like me. I still believe that, because I still need to hope.

I worry I'm not outspoken enough, and then speak up and accidently offend everyone, and worry about being outspoken. When you have views that aren't offensive if expressed right that have the small snag of being impossible to express, and passionately believe in things people don't understand very well, or believe it's impossible to be passionate about. I'm worried that, over halfway through First Year (that's an eighth of my time as a student!!! Not counting Masters and possibly pHDing!!!) all I seem to have achieved is annoying a corridorsworth of innocent people, mistaking a blazer for passable ball dress, and designing a poster which attracted precicely one person to the advertised event, the fact that it was the most attractive person on my course and indeed Planet notwithstanding. Meanwhile there are all these people debating concepts I can't pronounce, editing newspapers, being mindlessly attractive. I'm worried I'm going to look back on my Student years and remember them. I'm worried I'm going to have about as much impact on anything as One True Voice. You don't even remember who they are.

But the motions I wanted to passed, and the one I really didn't want to pass folded despite overwhelming support from people who weren't me. Yaying and booing on the sidelines isn't much, but perhaps it's enough, for now, before I have the energy to do things and the schedule to fit them into around the endless work. Things change, and change in ways I certainly don't understand, and sometimes you hope you were a part of them, and sometimes you know you were, and have to hide the poison darts. I hope you reading this change the World. Trapping Boris Johnston in a cage, naked, over a field of angry Liverpudlians armed with feathers would be a start. But more on him later.

Urrk II: Curse of the Speaking Blob

2006-02-07T20:10:00.000Z

As you'll know by now, this blog is like a field of brambles: every once in a while it produces something sweet and purplish, but you have to wait a lot to get it. If you're me, you tend to slip and fall into acre upon acre of agonising thorns, which, if you've ever kept a blog, you'll know isn't stretching the analogy very far.

Life at the moment isn't great: someone seems to have installed a Doom-o-matic over my left shoulder, and it's been on full pelt these last few weeks, dumping steaming piles of awfulness as it goes. Much of the stuff I can't talk about, because to do so would cause any hope I have left of PB remaining angst free shattering, and because I don't want to right now. Suffice to say that there are still lots of good things happening to me, although I often don't notice them until five hours later, like that joke someone told me I took six years to get.

Soon, every post won't be a "here come some posts!" post, I promise. Not now, though. I'm tired now. If I've got more traffic now I'm on ScottishBlogs, hey! Nice to see you. It's exciting here when there's less February around.

Emergency Edit: I just looked at ScottishBlogs, and it appears I've spelt the word "basically" wrong on my blogvertisment. 'S the Doom-o-matic. Nightmares in its path.

Urk: The Blob speaks

2006-01-24T13:06:00.000Z

Several people become different things depending on the time of day, as anyone in the market for a huge, monsterous half human who accidently turned up during Jekyll's practicing hours will testify. I myself undergo a transition to a huge squeaking blob in the afternoon, which given I'm an Evolutionary Biology student means I could probably launch a research investigation into myself. It sucks- for at least two hours every day I lose all functions, and any speech I'm capable of usualy involves grunts, waving arms, and nodding. Given that it's ten past one right now I shouldn't technically be capable of writing this, so yay, go me.

Which is a slightly more interesting way of saying nothing very exciting is happening and it won't for at least two hours. And that I need to get the hang of only updating when there are things to say, a skill several posts here suggests isn't the most finely honed of things.

Monky Buisiness

2006-01-23T20:28:00.000Z

Much as I don't want this Blog to become an Evolutionary Biologist's cliche, and be about my encounters with Religion all the time, it looks like I might have a fairly hard time of it (as you might have surmised from the no posts for ages), as every single one of my encounters is, in fact, Religious. I don't mean this in the sense that I frequently have majesticly righteous visions of things catching fire in increasingly incomprehensible ways, but rather in the sense that everything that's happened to me while being back in Edinburgh that wasn't me sitting on my bed imagining what it would be like if Arthur's Seat had eyes, and was staring at everybody, involved the old A-Atheism in some way. I've played pool with Creationists (who cheated several times more than I did, to both my and Jesus' disapproval), thrown out some old hot chocolate in a Church, and run away from a man with a look in his eye only marginaly less disturbing than the covers of his books, which were along the lines of "Jesus'll love you while you burn forever in sulphurous Hell". More interesting than those, however, is the relationship I've accidently struck up with a Monk on the Royal Mile. Now, I'm quite scared of Monks, as a rule, never quite knowing if they're donating the butter you're buying them to a small, independant commune or a company that makes nuclear bombs out of endangered animals, and this one was, at first, no exception. He ran up to me as I was walking from one improbably religion-based episode to another, telling me that I should give him money for reasons I don't remember. I'm hideously miserish when it comes to even real, established Charities, to be embarassingly honest- I haven't even joined Amnesty International, despite being in the Society and giving a five minute talk about it in three weeks time- and while he was talking about freezing Monks unable to raise enough money for even one forty volume Sanskrit tome, I was thinking about how I could probably get to the Hot Chocolate shop without him noticing were I to run under his legs. Still, something gave in me, and in desperation I realised a pact I'd made with myself after not giving money to thirty-three charities in a row.

"April!", I said loudly.

The Monk stopped in mid-explination of the Holiest Fountain in the World, and looked bewildered.

"I'll give you the money in April! When I'm finished here! And not just you! All of them! No matter if you're connected to Arms Dealers or Terrorists or that bloke next door who plays the same bloody song over and over every night! April! I'll take all the small books about Karmic Spooning you have then!"

I think I may have got a little flustered. Passers by might have thought the Monk was holding me up, thereby lowering my reputation in Edinburgh to ever-new depths. Still, the Monk himself, once realising I was serious, and, more importantly, not actualy going to kill him, split into one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on a creature with lips, and assured me that yes, indeed, April will be fine. And now every time I walk past the Royal Mile, which is lots because it's Edinburgh and that's what you're supposed to do, he smiles at me, waving books and CDs of insperational wailing, saying "April!" "April!", in a manner suggesting he's enjoying himself very, very much. It seems they aren't all bad, those scary Monks.

...I realised yesterday I'm actualy leaving in May. I don't quite know what I'm going to do.

DC Confidential

2005-12-07T16:54:00.000Z

Have you ever had an exam where all the way through, you have a nagging feeling that something isn't right, that despite knowing all the facts, they all seem to be telling you quite clearly impossible things, such as the fact that the combustion of water couldn't happen, and that the three things you know about chiral molecules all contradict each other? And then, afterwards, hearing other people talk, you slowly realise that all the facts you thought you knew were completely wrong, and the World actualy works in a totally different way, and gruff, eighty year old men are even now clustering around your paper, slowly guffawing as they read your pathetic attempt at a sensical answer? Have you ever had an exam like that?

No? Good, because I'm not going to talk about that today, but rather (Ooh!) Current Affairs, specificaly those of David Cameron, a man who utterly facinates me. I remember when I saw him for the first time I almost fell out of my chair in astonishment (I only didn't because it was a really big chair), due to just how ridiculously British he looked. He didn't just look like a Prime Minister, he looked like the sort of person people would hire to play the Prime Minister in an idealistic Rom-Com involving Richard Curtis and a rampaging mob of Disgruntled Cynics. It's astonishing-He's like Colin Firth crossed with a big jolly cushion, the sort of man Old Ladies would cross the street to hug. He looks, and acts, like the Platonic Ideal of a PM. It was kind of terrifying. As soon as I saw him, I knew he would win the contest he was in, even though at that point he was a laughable outsider. He couldn't not, looking like he did.

I'm rubbish with political predictions, mind, so I'm not using that as a basis for my employment as a Political pundit (although, by managing to get the result in every single swing state in the last US Election wrong, I've about the same success rate as the best of 'em). Rather I'm saying that what's interesting, and kind of terrifying, about Cameron is that he could very well win the next election just based on the myth he spins around himself. Furthermore, looking and listening to him, it's obvious he understands this in a way David Davis didn't to an almost heroic extent: he knows he doesn't have to cast around spin very much if he just lets his body do the spinning for him. All he really has to do is sit and watch the Labour government implode, and then wag a knowing finger as it does.

Why is this terrifying? Two levels. First, Cameron's rise to power, like Blair's, shows that detailed policy doesn't really matter: As long as there's this nice seeming bloke who says nice seeming things, nobody really cares what his plans for Train Station Renewal are. Secondly, though, and more importantly, I don't care. I've tried very hard to dislike Cameron on principle until I've found out about his policies, as is a good idea, and I just can't do it. He's too loveable, and while the tiny rational voice in my head is bitterly screaming into my frontal lobes that I don't know this man, the larger, emotional part of me is thinking about his funny pudgy cheeks. You can hardly not win an election with that on your side, especialy not when up against Gordon Brown, a man who caused a two minute silence by telling a joke. Dark times.

Still, I might be wrong. Ol' DC seems to place Climate Change high on his agenda as a really bloody important thing, a fact which alone puts him into the "worth listening to" section of Politicians, even though the mere thought of voting Conservative literaly makes my hackles raise, which is actualy a surprisingly relaxing feeling. But in all his other policies, and in some of his dealings, he seems to be somewhat more complex than he appears to pudgy lovely cheeks embarassed wee smile. Look at his sweet little eyes!

...It's one thing being brainwashed. It's quite another to do it to yourself.

Breif Encounters

2005-11-27T18:07:00.000Z

I expect the none of you who've stuck around during my not-writing period are wondering where I've been, so I'd better explain, although it's about as interesting as www.lint.com, which I haven't actualy checked out, so is probably insanely interesting, and consists of flaming motorbikes leaping over exploding snowmen. Basicly I've just been really tired. God knows why, given nobody else seems to be, despite their getting 19 times less sleep than me and having all sorts of interesting escapades, or so I hear through the wall of my room. So instead of doing things that require energy, such as updating my Blog, I've been doing things that don't, such as walking several kilometeres a day, going on a protest, making over a hundred headbands, and designing my own language of the future (which, amazingly, is even worse than it sounds). I'm not convinced I've thought this explination through enough.

So I'm back, and I'll post again. Not now. But I will.

Reviewish upon a Star: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2005-11-26T23:52:00.000Z

I have a friend who used to look exactly like Harry Potter. He had amusingly toussled hair, a strong, vaugely loyal chin and a pair of glasses straight out of The Oxford Graduate's Guide to Fashion. And I teased him about it all the time: "Hurr hurr, look at him, he looks like Harry Potter", I would say, amazingly witty as I am. Come to think of it, I think the last time I did this was three weeks ago, which may be why my friend doesn't talk to me very much.

The joke, however, is on me: I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight (Tomorrow in three minutes! Wooo!), and Daniel Radcliffe now looks disturbingly like a somewhat hotter version of me. I could apply and be the back of his head for the next movie, if it wasn't for my multiple skin diseases. He even has the same tiny bald patch I do-right on the front of his big shiny head-and the same weird crooky thing in his nose, albeit in a way that doesn't make him look like a man metamorphosing into a fish, and hence differentiates him from myself. I spent most of the movie marvelling about what an ironic, bastardly thing fate is.

And I did that because the Movie isn't very good. It has its moments- The ending, all the bits with Ron, the Hogwarts Clubbing Scene-but these sit nastily with some awful ones, such as the start, which resembles an FMV from the worst Final Fantasy game ever, and makes about as much sense. Indeed, some of the CGI is appallingly bad, made even worse by the fact that the Director clearly thinks that making a Movie "dark" entails making almost every single shot look like it was shot through a radiation cloud.

The Director. This is interesting in HP4, because I think he's simultaneously the best and worst director the films have had. On the one hand he's managed to get brilliant performances from everyone-there was only one cringeworthy scene from Harry to stop me thinking about how my chin was more masculine than his, and Cho and Ron and Snape and the others are great, except Dumbledore, who appears to be drunk through the whole Movie. But then there's all kinds of alcohol in the wizarding world. On the other, he's absolutely pants at the bit where he's actually directing. I didn't think it was possible to inject less Magic into the series than Chris Columbus, but Mike Newall does exactly that, using unimaginative shot after unimaginative shot to make Hogwarts seem like a sort of duller, more death-filled version of Oxbridge, as opposed to a seething tapestry of awesomeness and wow, despite using the same eye-gougingly beautiful Hogwarts setup the last Director did. And it's this that damages the Movie more than anything, more than the cuts nobody really cares about (bar the ones at the start, which are stupid, and the making the maze boring and rubbish, which is worse), more than the fact the main bad guy is played by Doctor Who, servant of all things good, more than the fact the Dark Lord, despite being so amazingly dark, appears to only have six followers. The Movie feels like part of a franchise, and nothing more, a Thriller with precious little actualy Thrilling or stunning, which is a real, real shame. The last Movie did capture the Spirit of the Books, in an awe inspiring and beautiful way. This one makes a race away from a Dragon boring. Sucks.

It's not a Bad Movie. It's not even an Average one. But it is, like the first two before it, one which clearly has the potential to be so, so much more than it actualy is, due to the stupid amount of potential fizzing out of it at every level. At times, Goblet of Fire is worse than Chamber of Secrets. I can think of no more incomprehensible way to render my mild disappointment.

...The Score sucks, too. If they don't bring back John Williams for the Seventh Movie I will not be a happy Daniel Radcliffe lookalike.

Pantoumonium

2005-11-11T22:01:00.000Z

I'm just posting to let you know I'm still alive, and not blogging much because everything is a bit rubbish right now. And, of course, to tell you about fifteenth century verse poetry. Specificaly the Pantoum, which I read about in Stephen Fry's new book, The Ode Less Travelled (I have a signed copy, its value somewhat diminished through its being covered in iamb-marking pencil dots), and has pretty much the most complicated structure of any poem ever, where there's eight lines, but they're all used twice in a really confusing way. A good Pantoum is stunning, however, as you won't discover reading my own, Brighton Pantoum:

(Yes, amatuer poetry. I get more cliched by the day. I didn't even spell amatuer right.)

Brighton Pantoum

The Dark and Deadly British Isles,
Sheltering under the squeaking rain,
Shoppers, unconvincing smiles,
Tourists stopping to complain.

Sheltering under the squeaking rain,
Locals by the Kiss-me-Quick,
Tourists, stopping to complain,
Buy an overpriced rock-stick.

Locals by the Kiss-me-Quick,
Blame it all on Tony Blair,
Buy an overpriced rock stick,
Suck on it, and stop and stare.

Blame it all on Tony Blair,
Shoppers, unconvincing smiles,
Suck on it, and stop and stare,
The Dark and Deadly British Isles.

...My Mum likes it, anyway.

From Year to Eternity

2005-10-31T16:20:00.000Z

Halloween is rubbish at Pollock Halls. Everyone already seems to have done all manner of exciting spooky things while I was busy vomiting over a spreadsheet, and so tonight everyone's wandering around looking glum, and I have Oxbridge levels of work, most of which involves quoting journals that don't appear to exist. Spooky.

Still, there's a much more exciting event than National Be Terrified By Greedy Children Day on: Today is the first anniversary of Pan Bloglodytes, or my "Blogloversary", to coin the worst phrase ever. I feel kind of smug for my blog lasting this long, even if it is now in a hugely altered form, and the most interesting thing that was ever on it I nicked from Horizon, then deleted in a rage. Smugger too for having readers: you're greatm you are, all of you, and if you ever want to comment at how blatently stupid something I've said is, for God's sake do. I think the last time I said something intelligent was about five years ago, and it involved noodles.

Anyway, I'm sure you have better things to do tonight. So dress up and Scare well, and don't hesitate to combine todays events by dressing up as a cynical, undead chimpanzee. I do that pretty much every day of the year, after all.

Bigot Bob and the Pirates: The Worst Band Ever

2005-10-30T17:03:00.000Z

I feel guilty for writing the last post, in a brazenly cynical sort of way. See, as my Blog veers ever further from the "cheerful observations about life" zone to the "ruthless Bigot who'll hunt you and your family down" one, I become less and less able to tell anyone about it. Why, a mere five days ago I could have had any number of Creationist cartoonists reading and politely chuckling, and now if I'll ask they'll spit all over me, using amylase-production ducts designed from above. I only mention all this because I had to tell my Christian friends to not look at my blog until I'd, like, written more stuff to obscure the last bit for ever and ever and ever, before they instantly went and looked at it. And Lord knows what they thought, quite possibly literaly.

Still, the hideous car crash between Religion, Secularism, and cartoons aside, I've had quite a good weekend, largely thanks to the aforementioned Christians, who are a lot more fun than I could possibly be without the assistance of some form of nose made out of balloons. We went to the cinema, gazed at the baffling art outside it, and ended up getting kidnapped by some Pirates as a result, which probably isn't what the art installation people had in mind. Mercifuly, though, they turned out to be the friendliest pirates ever, and gave us loads of jelly beans and sofas before letting us get away with narry a ransom at all, arr. Halloween, you see. Walking home I couldn't tell which people were dressed up and which weren't, being a hopeless simpleton Rube.

Which was better than today, when I went to the Swimming Pool, remembered I couldn't swim, and flailed around helplessly while some eight year olds laughed at me, and spent a good twenty minutes working out a calander for a 25-hour day, on the grounds it's be much better, before remembering that it wouldn't work. There was no November, which was great. November really sucks. That's all today.

I'm Right! You're Wrong! Schsnawww!

2005-10-27T19:37:00.000Z

Tolerance is a bit like sex-Everybody says they practice it a lot more than they do, and it seems everyone else is doing more exotic things with it than you are. I've always felt that being a scrawny nerd makes you naturaly suspicious of tolerance; too often, it seems that people stop attacking, say, Asians, because that's racist, and start attacking Computer Nerds instead, because Computer Nerds aren't a race and mindless violence is great, because everyone says so (Mindless violence is also a bit like sex-It's somewhat less interesting than everyone gives it credit for, although admitedly I have no experience of either one). The fact that you're still bunching a group of people together for an arbitary reason, of course, means that this is pretty much as intolerant. I admit it doesn't seem that way, though, if only because I'm terrified I've just written a Racist Slur without meaning to. For God's sake, don't think I want you to attack Asians. Or Nerds.

I bring this all up because I was on Answers in Genesis, the well-known Creationist website ( http://www.answersingenesis.org . Don't go there) today, to see if I could use a quote for my essay on evolution. Boy, I'll never make that mistake again. The place is hideously, rampantly intolerant, and seems to regard the concept of Atheism as others might regard the concept of marrying Noel Edmonds. It's not the articles that I mind (although I found the criticism of the use of the word "evolving" to describe Bird Flu, because even though it was, in fact, evolving, it might make the public think they came from an ameoba somewhat baffling) although there do seem to be a rather large number of logical fallacies hovering around. What bothered me were the cartoons. They're for children, and deign to educate them. Looking through them, it seemed the only thing they could possibly educate them to be was unbearably smug psychopaths. The "humour", such as it is, involves such japes as several people who don't believe in God being crushed to death, or, in a witheringly funny exchange, a boy commenting that Evolution must be wrong because Science can't predict the weather, the punchline presumably being that he doesn't understand Chaos Theory, and is an idiot. I was shocked. Honestly. Creationism claims to be a moral force-and, indeed, AiG blames Evolution for being responsible for pretty much all the evils in the modern World today-but to show such evident glee in the idea that the Scientists are wrong, and they're going to Hell, and look at this stupid man in a white coat, Ho Ho frikin' Ho-is about as moral as announcing you're going to deliberately abort some babies, set fire to them, and throw them at Mormons for fun. Because Science is ultimately where all the intolerance is aimed at, you know. Accused of being hideously powerful, it's always seemed to me to be one of the weakest things in the World, constantly sniped at and manipulated by people who don't understand, and sneer at people who do. And yet the ideal of Science, and the point of Science, is to fight for it to survive, to rip it and mould it into something that doesn't care what you say will happen, or has happened because it has a pretty good idea itself. Which is an idea you won't accept, because all the best ideas in Science are ones it's a struggle to accept. Some of the worst, too.

Which isn't to say they're wrong at AiG, of course, although empirical evidence and philosophy suggest they probably, and in cases certainly, are. It's to try and get them to take the cartoons down, and to stop with the "We're right and they're wrong!" sctick in absolutely every article on the site. Because Intolerance is nothing but sneering, in the end, and even sneering at your enemy is the sort of thing that has a habit of blowing up in your face, especialy, despite how hard it is, when you're supposed to be loving the poor guys.

Hiatus Here. Nyah.

2005-10-25T21:06:00.000Z

Being an Evolutionary Biologist (kind of) is great and all, but there are some small things that get to you. Most things people think that Evolutionary Biology implies, such as killing your neighbours for fun and burning effigies of Jesus, it doesn't really, but occasionaly one or two of the more awkward bits slip through into your mind. It is the case, for example, that Evolution implies an awful lot of suffering on behalf of the animals of the World, although, as anyone who's spent any time studying the animals of the World will testify, there's an awful lot of suffering no matter what you believe. What bothers me more is this: Most things fail. While I was on Holiday back in Aberdeen (Which, given I haven't posted in eight days, which I'll get to, you might not actualy know about, but hey), I saw a book with this very title, and it got me thinking depressing thoughts. I had a project to buy it, but you know how these things go. Far from being the Survival of the Fittest, Evolution is more the Survival of the least Rubbish: Your bicycle might only have one wheel, but you'll still win the race if everyone else is riding a bicycle with no wheels. Unless everyone ran past you, which they would. Anyway. The idea is important in Blogs, which I was trying to get to in a more torturous way than usual.

Most Blogs fail. And I thought Bloglodytes had, for a while: It's been some time, after all, and my constant state of being exhausted seems to be becoming an accelerating state of being exhausted, especialy as the weeks wear on and the idea that I have to learn all these Latin names for things that would kill me begins to sink in. My first four blogs all failed. My friends blogs, as far as I know, never update anymore, even the really good one with the 3500 word post about how all stages of life are rubbish, and leave me alone. Even Gay at Edinburgh never made it past two posts, which is a crying shame. I wasn't sure what hope little old this had.

But I do now. I was round at my friend's house on Sunday, and it all suddenly seemed worthwhile. My friend's family, see, all appear to have become regular readers without me realising, and they were demanding to know where all the updating went (and, true, if I hadn't been exhausted there'd have been a great story here, involving lots of broken glass and the French language). I was amazed, and happy.

So I was too tired to Blog, but I'm not now, because people actualy read it. That took three long paragraphs to say. I'd be more concise, but I'd probably fail. Hard life, is Evolutionary Biology.

A Fly in the Ointment: Biology gets Scary

2005-10-17T20:38:00.000Z

You know those rite of passage things they have in America? (If you are, in fact, from America, which you probably are given my one regular reader is, then of course you'll know far more about it than me, and proceed to beat me over the head for the ensuing ignorance, with a giant Internet-stick). They take young Freshers, then they tie them up, attach them to the bottom of an Iceberg, and tamper with an Oil Tanker so spectacular ice-ravaged chaos ensues, and give the Students that are still alive at the end of it some sort of homoerotic club membership. As is my understanding. Anyway, I'm going through that, sort-of-but-not-really, on a massively reduced scale, living in Britain and all. I have to kill flies on Friday. And God, but I don't want to do that.

I know, before you say anything. I think its mildly ridiculous as well. In a World where ten year olds go to war and flee their burning homes, something like a quarter of the human population is suffering a ridiculous volume of disaster punctuated with incompetance, and, according to LiveJournal, some kid's Mom has grounded him on the day of the fukin' important game, WTF, having to kill flies loses some of its Epic qualities. But I'll try to explain, anyway. Scoff if you will.

I wasn't always this hideously wussy. Back when I was about five, I would tear the legs off Mayflies to see what happened (not very much, because it didn't have any legs, and couldn't move. A four year old could have figured that one out), and jump on slaters to observe the small puddle they left on the ground. Not anymore. As I matured, I began to see the error of my ways. The legless ghosts of mayflies and the everythingless ghosts of slaters would haunt my childish dreams, which being childish dreams were frankly terrifying enough already. By the time I was ten, I was a changed boy. I went round outdoor Swimming Pools heroicly, saving flies that were drowning therein. And it felt good, by damnit. I had attoned for my sins. And as far as I can remember I haven't purposely killed anything since, although given I'm clumsy I've accidently killed about ten billion things, and given I live in the Western World the hideous volume of woe and suffering my existance has caused is quite possibly too great to comprehend. Principles, though. You have to have principles.

I think individual life becomes more important to an Atheist, not less. When something only gets one bite out of the proverbial cheesecake, you want to make sure it savours it as much as possible. Killing flies seems to violate that some way. It's maybe not the killing that frightens me so much as people's reactions to it-which, more often than not, involve high degrees of uncontrolled glee, and uneasy jokes. I have a suspicion most of the great evils in the World were caused to some degree by the making of uneasy jokes. We're being taught genetics, but we're also being taught to accept the morality we're handed down, and bugger the consequences. Scientists shouldn't have to do that. Especialy not Biologists, given the somewhat dizzying power we seem to be able to wield. I feel I should at least take notice.

And I'm scared of myself, as well. Scared because I know I'll be in there on Friday sorting and dumping them, examining them then discarding them (Discarding. It says that, in the course guide. That scares me too), and more probably than not making uneasy jokes, which may or may not involve uncontrolled glee. Scared because it may be just flies, but given a rat, a pig, a person, so many of us would still be in there, because at the end of the day to cow against conformity is more terrifying than to go against what and who you are. Scientists are supposed to be objective. But we can't be objective if we don't think, because then what we hold up as objectivity is nothing more than a poorly formulated opinion, and so the most subjective thing of all. We should be breaking that down, not building it up.

That was a terribly formulated and poorly expressed argument. I'm sorry about that. Maybe it'll be great, the killing flies. But I don't know, and the not knowing is scary. It's hard to grope in the dark with a candle, but even more so when you're burning and charring the living World around you, searching for something that you know must be there, and which everything desperately needs, but which never emerges from the sometimes-lightened gloom.

Look Who's Dawkins

2005-10-15T09:54:00.000Z

I haven't, when it comes down to it, exactly had a normal teenage life. Everything appeared to be going smoothly, with me becoming typicaly jaded and even managing the odd bout of angst about something stupid like having lost my jacket or the ultimate nature of matter in the universe, until I was about fourteen, when everything fell apart. I'm still not quite sure why. All I know is that after that, the concept of being a teenager seemed as oddly terrifying to me as it would to an eighty year old Mail reader who's just been beaten up by a gang who want his teeth to sell for drugs. It might have something to do with my being an imbicile.

Anyway, the point of all this. While most people my age were discovering music and substances, I was at home looking at trees, but I was still, essentialy, a teenager, and teenagers get obsessed with things. But I didn't get obsessed with what a lot of people do, for better or for worse (and it is a source of at least mild regret to me that while I can hold a conversation about the value of Socrates' teachings in the modern age, a conversation about "music I like" or "How mad drunk I've been" will always be beyond me), and turned to books, like any good citizen who scores "all three" on an "Are you a Dork, Geek or Nerd?" test would. Which all makes it sound like I had a miserable teenagerhood. I didn't. Reading books all the time is great. All you Hedonists missed the boat.

The reason is really just this: It was at least thanks to my teen-phobia I discovered evolution, which is why I'm studying Biology, which is why I'm here at Edinburgh (partialy, althougth the story behind that is an entry to itself) , which is why I'm typing this now, which is why your eyes are glazing over and suicide is beginning to seem like just that little bit more plausible an option. It's amazing, these chains of events. But the fact I'm interested in evolution, and probably the fact I even believe in evolution, is pretty much down to one man. It was his books that threw me a rope that, when followed, led to a giant net of evidence and analogies that made the World make sense in a way nobody, and nothing, else ever has in quite the same way. And I saw him last night, lecturing. And it was amazing.

You need the context, you see. Richard Dawkins, who's who I'm talking about, who's great, buy all his books now, is to me what the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and questionable acid were to the students of the, um, age where all that happened. The man bloody shaped me as an adult, which considering he advocates the eradication of all Religon from the World is kind of a scary thought. But to see him talk- on a facinating subject, convergence in Evolution, where life happens on the same solutions again and again and again, which hints that natural selection, far from creating species randomly, is actualy in a sense even more ordered than we thought- was just amazing, especially considering he lived up to all my expectations and wasn't short, like everyone is supposed to be in real life, or as shockingly ugly as a sack of potatoes covered in piercings, like Ringo Starr. Even more amazing than the way he can explain anything, incredably clearly, to a bunch of people with no idea of what he's talking about in half an hour, was how he answered the questions afterwards- There was a "Don't you think Fascism is great?" question, and he explained why no, it wasn't, on clear and exciting terms. To someone who believes that evolution, properly understood, aids rather than subtracts from any moral sense it was like all my Christmasses colliding with all my Birthdays to create some sort of cake-filled bliss.

And I got to go to Dundee to see him, with the Philosophy Society, and they have something called the "Bonar Hall". It's hard to imagine things getting better than that. Richard Dawkins, then. Wow.

Into Winter: The Dull Bit Continues

2005-10-11T17:15:00.000Z

Edinburgh, lovely as it is, is a lot like a celebrity: It seems beautiful and lovely when the tourists are around, but becomes cold, icy and waterlogged when they leave. And we've finaly crossed the threshold, it seems: I crossed at least three massive puddles on my way home today, one of which was a road. The rain is falling horizontaly, upwards, and in basicly any direction which ensures it'll hit my face. It's going to be fun when the foreign students realise just how far North they really are, which judging by today will be very soon indeed.

The work really is piling up, now: I'm writing a report on an experiment I haven't done yet, which is a bit metaphysical of me. The only reason I can be here talking to you, as opposed to using triangles to work out how fast a gazelle dies, is because I left all my work at home by mistake, and I can't be bothered in any case right now. It is very cold.

Interesting things soon, I promise. But not now. Icicles are forming on my thumbs.

Downhill Racing: Behold the Suckicity

2005-10-09T17:39:00.000Z

I had a much better time than I thought I would at the Dinner thing, especially due to the sausages. But you probably knew that already, and it happened so long ago now that I can't really remember the details, hugely exciting as they probably were (they were good sausages). So I won't talk about that.

I'm sorry it's been so long since an update. If you've kept a Blog, and perhaps even more if you haven't, you'll understand that life has a habit of looking at your schedule, laughing, and rolling on anyway, really really fast. When I haven't been working or out at hilarious Blog-worthy events I've been too exhausted to write, because of the working and, to a far lesser extent, the events. But I'm sorry. I'll write more soon, and you'll be impressed.

...My, but for a "non-stereotypical", "non-angsty" blog, everything's become remarkably angsty and stereotypical. I'm sorry about that as well. It's the tiredness more than anything. I'll sleep soon, and perhaps then be able to tell you about my adventure with the drunken eighty year olds, or how my Common Room floor got covered in chicken, or about how Going Postal by Terry Pratchett is really really good and you should read it now, no matter how popular it is. But not now. I'm tired now.

The Masson House Rules

2005-10-05T16:59:00.000Z

I don't think in any of my posts I've described what life is like in Masson House, so here goes: life in Masson House is rubbish and it's mostly my fault. Mostly. It isn't my fault that every floorboard in the building is warped. But it is my fault that I've found myself knowing less than ten people's names after almost a month. Don't be ill in Fresher's Week, kids. Especially not during the compulsory "bonding with your house" bit. Otherwise, you'll emerge virus free to discover everybody knows everybody else, and will look at you as though you are a strange smell, which, if you're me, you probably are. I still haven't really got the hang of laundry.

I mention all this because the Masson House Dinner Party starts in around 20 minutes, and I am terrified. If I die, which in all probability I will, this will be the last post in the Blog, as it will be if I become paralysed for life after everyone holds my mouth open and pours alcohol down it. My strategy as it currently stands is to run towards the, ooh, 3 people who I know and not leave them at any cost.

That's the thing, see. I'm incredably antisocial in the house, far more so than outside it (and, if you've met me outside it, you'll understand that's taking antisocialbility to quite staggering new heights), and I can't stop. I have Massonphobia: I run away from the girl next door, avoid every male who isn't from Luxembourg (and one who is), and haven't been in the pantry for two weeks out of fear I might see someone. I don't actualy know why this is, although I suspect hearing about the wild exploits of everyone in the corridor at 3:30am through three pillowsworth of muffling might have something to do with it. I'm not my biggest fan.

So tonight could go either way. I could spend it hunched, glaring, and not saying anything, or I could go into constant gabbling mode, which given my gabbling skills since starting Uni would probably be even worse. I might also die. It isn't fun. Currently I'm favouring the first of the two, if only because my clothes at the moment haven't dried from the laundry three days ago, so I resemble a hideous fungus beast, or an Old Crone in an exceptionaly low-budget movie. But we'll see. Wish me luck, in the virtual world.

Appropriately, the post on Politics arrives days late, overbudget, and isn't very good

2005-10-04T09:23:00.000Z

I'm sorry about the lack of updating over the weekend. Interesting things happened, but they all had a tendancy to exhaust me horribly in increasingly humiliating ways, so there we go. This might be a short post as it is, as the cleaning lady is in the next room over, and given the number of crumbs in here, I'm pretty sure she hasn't been in here yet. So I'll try and be concise, then I'll fail.

I had a great night last night, again involving nothing stronger than hot chocolate. I went to the Politics Society by mistake, and ended up listening to a debate on ID cards, which, as everyone who they'd got to speak in favour of ID cards hadn't turned up, morphed into a "let's all critisise ID cards" fest. I even ended up forming a vauge opinion, which, if memory serves, was "Politics is a bit rubbish".

Anyway, things got interesting after that. Ish. I met the vice-secretary of the Edinburgh University Labour Party, who's, well, a parody of himself. Ask him a question and he'll answer it in perfect Politicalese, complete with Blairite pauses. I was bloody impressed at his defence of the bit of the Labour Conference when they threw out the 82 year old man, which he almost made sound like a good idea. He could probably justify murdering Tory candidates in their sleep, and we'd all giggle and smile. Politics is a bit rubbish.

That's all I can really put without risking libel action, sadly. Until I can muster the strength for a decent update, sleep well. And be aware of what your opinions actualy are, just in case someone comes along and gives you one of their own, bit by bit in tiny soundbites.

Just Smile and Nod

2005-09-29T19:28:00.000Z

The Philosophy Society, then. It's something I feel slightly guilty being a member of, what with not being an Arts student and all, and whenever I tell anyone there I do, in fact, do Biology, they stare at me as though I'd just revealed I was actualy made out of polystyrene, and was the next big thing in Japan. But I don't care, because it's really great. Tonight was a lecture on Pascal's Wager, a topic which for an atheist basicly translates as "Your beliefs are rubbish and here's why". I did learn an awful lot- It's much more subtle than it first appears, although like a lot of theological arguments there's something ever so slightly silly about it, with its mathmatical reasons for why religion is a good thing (I'm paraphrasing a lot here, you'll understand. You'll need to look up a real website to find out about it properly). I also became ever so slightly jealous of Arts Students, as the lecturer started to do things like write "DALEKS" in large capital letters to illustrate free will and crack Woody Allen jokes to illustrate something which I can't remember anymore, but Was Profound.

So anyway, I was sitting there after the lecture thinking profound thoughts and wondering if the entire lecture theatre really was held up by what appeared to be two thin sheets of iron, which knowing Edinburgh University it probably was, when a smiling old man slid along the lower row of seats to talk to me. "Great!", I thought, "A smiling old man!"

"Good lecture, good lecture", said the smiling old man.

I smiled back and nodded.

"I thought there wasn't enough on psychadelia, of course."

My smile froze.

"Now, that Bloke up there's talking about his Wager and all that, and it's all well and good, but-hack, cough-he doesn't really know what he's talking about. Hell isn't a place of eternal punishment, it's just a place people go to respiritulize, a bit like a prison."

My smile unfroze.

"I've seen it many times, you see."

"Just keep nodding, you ponce", muttered my brain as the frost sparkled over my face.

"Oh, yes, and Heaven too. Now, Hell is-wry chuckle- quite hardcore, man, and it's not the sort of place you'd want too spend much of your time in. That Professor doesn't know what he's talking about! You've heard of the experiments in the sixties? With acid?"

"Oh, Dear God", thought my brain, as I tried to nod, smile, and search desperately for a magical exit from the middle of a lecture theatre all at once. Eighteen years of making cut out snowflakes and walking through the woods has left me completely unprepared for this kind of thing. The truth is, of course, that as a semi-smug atheist it absolutely terrifies me when somebody comes along and talks about Hell as a real place you can visit, albiet in a somewhat unconventional way. Factoring in the bit where said person is wild-eyed, coughing, and brandishing a half-empty beer bottle diminishes the sensation, of course, but it's a bit jarring all the same. Not in a conversion-style way, though. Atheism is really great.

Anyway, back at the lecture. The Professor asked for questions. My Old-Man from the Sixties friend's arm shot up.

"Good lecture, good lecture. I thought there wasn't enough on psychadelia, of course..."

As I looked down, and tried not to smile, I realised that my life's finally become interesting here in Edinburgh, even if it is in Old-Man related ways. It's kind of sad, but also not, to realise this was the sort of thing I wanted back in the Summer when I was Blogless and alone- the feeling that something had happened to you that might be strange, and might involve tortured academia, but that you wouldn't take back for the World. And now that happens pretty much every day. I love being a Nerd Student.

Glazed and Confused

2005-09-28T17:00:00.000Z

Everyone seems to have a point in life where they suddenly look at themselves and realize they've become really thick. I'm worried it just happened to me. I spent three hours today looking at some graphs, and at the end of it I still didn't even know which way up they were supposed to go. I imagined University would be hard, but I imagined it being hard in a way that was at least slightly stimulating, not a way where you have to decipher 14 different tables simultaniously, each one of which contradicts the other ones. I guess that's life. And it gets worse once I've deciphered the graphs: I have to plot one of my own using values that don't exist, before writing a clear and lucid expliation of how elegant and simple Science is. It's all a bit of a nightmare. Good job it doesn't have to be in for 9 days, and I get to don my Liberal hat tonight and go to a talk about the Death Penalty. It isn't all bad.

That's pretty much all that happened today. I did have a lot of exciting and stimulating thoughts, but I either can't remember what they were or have a dim idea of how rubbish they are, so I won't be discussing those today. I rearranged large quantities of wierdly-shaped glass. But that isn't exactly thrilling either. Sorry, guys.

The Forecast Looks Glum

2005-09-27T19:29:00.000Z

I'm beginning to suspect that a large majority of the small minority of Students here who know who I am think I'm a bit rubbish, and right now I feel somewhat prone to agree with them. Observe: I tried to go to the Philosophy Society today (It was "What is Beauty?", which in my opinion isn't the most interesting topic in all the World, although I thought they should have held it in the ugliest building they could find just for fun), only to simultaneously get lost and be late, while confusing some Third Years unintentionaly for good measure. It just sort of happens. Prior to this, I went to dinner, had a stupidly small amount of salad to eat, and ended up sitting next to the most interesting person ever. And here's the thing. While he was talking about Japanese culture and the functional grammar of Shakespeare (University. People really do that here), I was sitting spilling couscous all over my trousers and completely unable to say a word. Most people feel they lose their identity at Uni, and I'm one of them, but in my case the replacement appears to have become lost somewhere around Inverness. I feel very boring, and while I know that I thought lots of interesting things, once, I can't remember what any of them actualy were. So I feel a bit rubbish today.

It's probably just the weather. Edinburgh does wind like Glasgow does drunken crime: It's everywhere you go, and has a tendancy to bellow out of nowhere and knock you over. I had to walk to Princes Street yesterday sideways, which wouldn't have been so bad if the rain wasn't travelling upwards into my face due to a facinating meterological quirk. Once I actualy get a decent night's sleep and a waterproof that is I'll be fine. Then I won't feel rubbish, I'll hold my head high, and I'll talk cheerfuly to anyone about Japanese linguistics, while spilling couscous wherever I damn well please.

Reviewish upon a Star: Howl's Moving Castle

2005-09-25T19:41:00.000Z

Given I can't talk about almost anything that happened over the weekend, for all sorts of reasons, I thought I'd restart the review feature from Old Bloglodytes that ran to a hugely impressive 1 post before never being heard from again (It was of Metroid Prime 2 on the GameCube. Don't get it). Howl's Moving Castle, then. A anime from Studio Gihbli (I think), the people that bought you Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and the horrible nightmares you get where monsters with three faces mould into one another, it's a bit like watching a version of Yellow Submarine that's actualy good. Well. Good-ish.

The problem with Moving Castle is the Plot. There isn't one. Well, there is, but only in the very simplistic sense: A girl called Sophie gets turned into a 90 year old Woman by a Witch, and goes to work for Howl as a Cleaning Lady. Adventures ensue. There are so many holes, though, that you'll spend a lot of your time watching the Movie thinking "What?", even when you're not supposed to. When Howl's Moving Castle is confusing in a good way, it's trancendant: Villanous Blobs morph into giant monsters, flying airships drop living missiles then explode, witches melt under the effort of climbing up stairs. Even the castle itself is worth the (extortionate) price of admission alone: A bizzare mixture of gun-emplacements and houses stuck together on a small pair of moving legs. But the sheer frustration of the long periods of the Movie when nothing is going on, the sequences when all the characters try to reach a goal for no obvious reason, comes perilously close to destroying the whole film.

Not quite, though. Ultimately, Howl's Moving Castle is just too loveable to dislike, even when it's being tedious and meandering. It has Billy Crystal as a fire. You just can't critisise things like that. So see it, concentrate, and don't go if you're in the slightest bit tired. But don't be too upset if at times your brain feels as if it was on the screen, melting and folding like the giant blob it is.

Tales from a Balding World

2005-09-23T16:17:00.000Z

It's a bit scary, being a science student. Even though you know the common conception of, well, non Arts-Grads is based on prejudices and misconceptions, usualy started by people who haven't met many science students, there's always a small part of you that thinks you'll wake up dribbling and bald. It's especialy bad in Edinburgh, as the powers that be decided to put the Arts Campus in the centre of town, and the Science one about 17 miles away, the upshot being you end up walking through sleet and rain while everyone else buys coffee and satirical magazines. Which they don't sell at the Science Campus, because Science students are like, nerds. I presume.

It's probably just paranoia, of course. Today was certainly full of science-related fun: I went to the Darwin Library, a building which resembles a time-warp to the 1970s in every possible way (I swear everything turns a little yellower as you walk in), and vainly tried to work out what on Earth my lecturer was on about as he read poems related to the origin of life. It's all good. Amazingly interesting things are still thin on the ground, though, which made me turn my attention to the media. It's unbelievably depressing. Being 18 sucks, although you could wring that conclusion out of pretty every blog published, ever.

I can't update this weekend for a really exciting reason, but I can't tell you what it is. Have a good one, though, and be sure to smile at a Scientist for me, because God knows they get enough negative publicity, even without mice with ears on their backs running around.

Ouch, Groo, and Ick

2005-09-22T08:45:00.000Z

I woke up at six, again. It's like I have the exact reverse of stereotypical Student problems- I'm tired all the time, but largely because I wake up when everybody else is going to bed, and my body's a mess due to excercising too much. So I might be a little muted, here.

I had a great day yesterday, though, which makes up for the huge bags under my eyes. After spending every waking second wishing I didn't have to do chemistry, or indeed acknowledge its existance, I actualy went to a chemistry lecture and loved every second, which, again, shows what I know. The lecturer demonstrated half-life by bursting balloons. S'great. And just when I thought the vast majority of people I met last week had disappeared off the face of the Planet, I went through a bizarre four hour period where I met every single one of them, often in wildly improbable situations. It culminated in meeting my Christian friends in the Pleasance Bar, who are nice enough to override the fact that the Pleasance Bar is horrible, and we theologicaly argued the night away. I have several hilarious things to say about that, but I'm going through the bit of Uni where you become stupid and forget how to organize coherent sentances, so it'll have to wait. Perhaps I should only update when I'm actualy awake. There's nothing worse than a Comotose Blog. Well, Herpes.

Boring in the Mor(n)ing

2005-09-20T15:26:00.000Z

Somewhat unpromisingly for the Blog, I feel very, very dull today- I have a suspision I left the interesting bit of myself back in Aberdeen, so God knows what it's doing there. In tears, probably. I got lost in several places again today, and walked 3 kilometeres in half an hour so not to miss a lecture. Student life isn't supposed to be that hard.

You know when you feel all things of interest you have to say slowly dissolving from your mind? Yeah, that's going on right now. This better not be the point of University, or in four years time all I'll be fit to talk about is what I'm doing in the immediate future and winches. Winches are quite dull.

...And I realise I've sailed into a problem here, one independant of the one where I'm a hopeless moron. Now that I'm a proper Biology student, most of the things that happen to me will be, well, really boring to anybody who isn't in the field. "A funny thing happened to me while analysing an asymptotic graph" does not the best Blog make. But hopefully things will be okay. Not today, though. I'm dull today.

Joe isn't, though. Joe is really interesting, and thanks to my being influential and all now has a Blog of his own. Read all about him at http://gayatedinburgh.blogspot.com, a Blog so called because he is indeed gay, and does indeed live in Edinburgh. To achieve such a zen-like state here I'd have to be a large frying pan who walked around explaining terrible puns to people. That wouldn't be dull, though, and so would defeat the whole purpose of the post, so we won't be talking about that any more.

Yo Ho Ho and a Barrel of Angst

2005-09-19T14:10:00.000Z

Avast, Landlubbers! Greetings from the Depths of the Bloglodytes Sea! My belly feels like a keg'o'rum, my throat feels like a chest full of swordfish! Arrrrrrrrrr!

Right, now that that's done, I can actualy write about something useful (It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and the whole point of having a Blog is to mark things like that). I meant to update all through the weekend, thrilling you as I made my way across the Scottish coastline, but forgot that as soon as I come within eight miles of Aberdeen all my desire to do things leeches out of me like the guts of the Goose with the Golden Organs in the middle of a town in the Wild West. They say you can never go home, and, as I just did, they're obviously wrong, but I can kind of see what they mean. On arrival, I discovered Aberdeen had decided to live up to its record of torrential rain and moronic traffic decisions, and found more cones littering the street than there are in the pond beside Pollock Halls (Students, eh? They've employed a very grumpy man purely to fish things out of there. There was a chair on Saturday). Some of the buildings seemed to have switched position. It was cold. Franz Ferdinand's new album wasn't actualy out because I'd misread the promotional posters in two different ways. It was rubbish.

It got vastly better, though. I bought an incredably nerdy book about the future, met my friends and talked for hours, and picked brambles covered in interesting desieses. I ate real food. I slept in a real bed. I had a bath. It's amazing how even after a week small things like that are so infinately novel, but it's great, like being the Sultan for the day. I had a great time. Then I came back and everyone smiled. They hadn't noticed I was gone, but I won't go into that.

I have to go, sadly: my book review for the paper isn't writing itself, although I'm not sure I can improve on its motivation. I tried to write one about the greatest book I've ever read, then gave up and decided to try one with the Hypnodog in it. He's all over popular culture, after all.

The Curious Incident of the Hypnodog in the Night-time

2005-09-16T14:17:00.000Z

I had an unbelievably wonderful time last night, full of unbelievably wonderful things, and it didn't cost me anything at all (if that's not an argument for gut-splintering medical conditions, I don't know what is. Not drinking is the best thing ever). I had a long argument with a creationist merely by telling him what subject I was doing, and he ended up buying me some water and becoming friends, which is a fine example or why controversial opinions are great, sometimes. Then I went to see the Hypnodog. I think I've mentioned this here before, but I'm going to talk about him again anyway, because I can do that, and you have to listen. Hah.

The Hypnodog is the best thing ever. Granted, he was only on the stage for about five minutes, and to see him I had to sit on a freezing staircase that didn't seem to lead anywhere for about an hour, but the sight of seeing someone who's been hypnotised for about two hours staring into a dog's eyes, then falling over is the sort of sight Uni is all about. My creationist friend giggled. His creationist friend, who is now also my friend, giggled. It was wonderful in every concievable way.

It appears to have sapped my writing ability, though, which given I just joined the Newspaper in an unbelievably minor position is probably not for the best. Until next time, when I can actualy communicate in an interesting way, stay calm,keep safe, and try not to get hypnotised by anything other than the most canine of entities.

Pan Bloglodytes: Now with 100% more incoherence.

2005-09-15T14:59:00.000Z

Here's a rubbish thing: Nothing interesting happened to me today. In the middle of Fresher's Week. In a city where so many interesting things happened they even have a famous dog. I went to lots of places and got lost in them. It's very, very easy to get lost here.

Lots happened yesterday, though, the best thing being registering with the Doctor and instantly discovering I'm not supposed to drink, delivering a ready made excuse right on my lap, and the worst thing being hallucinating through the night due to my fever. I went to a Ceidiglgh, or however the hell it's spelt (you know, the Scottish dance night thing. You should know. Philistine), and that was fun until the bit where I felt like I was going to faint, on account of the sheer distances I've walked this week between places to get lost in. You wouldn't think Ceiidigilgigillighs would be popular during the Hedonist Fun of Fresher's Week (for everyone else. My Fresher's Week has so far been about as Hedonistic as Scrabble Night at the Nunnery, much to my relief), but the place turned out to be full, so full that before long it had decended into some sort of Scottish Moshpit. All the dances collided with each other, I got glared at by a member of the Scottish Dance Society for being rubbish, and I had to at one point dance down a flight of stairs while trying not to feel stupid.

I'm going home for the weekend. I still feel awfully groggy, and the thought of spending this one in Edinburgh with near nothing to do and a large headache fills me with despair, although realisticly that's how I'll be spending the 3000 or so after this one. I have a horrible suspicion when I get back everyone will be chummy and I'll feel an idiot, which is kind of what's happening now anyway. I joined the Revelation Rock Gospel Society yesterday and didn't realise it was Christian for half an hour.

Stay safe, wherever you are. It's one thing to be hit by a bus, quite another to do so after being patronized by a Blog.

Look! A Grouchy Student! Write an Angry Letter to The Mail!

2005-09-13T08:47:00.000Z

I read on a Neighbours Forum before coming here (don't laugh, you do that secretly too), that in Soapland the surest way to have a baby was to be declared barren, and the best form of contraception was to desperatly, desperately want children. Uni is a bit like that, but not really. I've discovered that whenever I become convinced that I'm never going to meet everyone, everything in Edinburgh is awful, and I'm going to be beaten to death by the entire cast of Trainspotting in Kilts, I instantly meet about a million different people all inexplicably eager to hear my stories of going to bed early and being ill, and whenever I make a concerted effort to see anyone, I end up completely lost in the Arts complex, or at a jumble sale where the jumble hasn't turned up. Thus, writing my blog at 9:30 in the morning during Fresher's Week is actualy a really good thing, and isn't antisocial in any way at all. Really.

I have so much gubbins to sort out that I can't see myself doing things worth blogging about today. There are about a million forms to fill in, most of which require information that I don't have or relate to bank accounts that don't exist, and they've formed a small mountain over my laptop, which is still completely useless. I'm slightly worried my Hall is about to fall apart, given the entire building's habit of wobbling when a door slams, or somebody yells, which happens around 700 times a minute, and the fact that when I can flood my bathroom merely by walking into it, as sludgy goo comes up through the tiles. It's probably all part of the University experience, though, because that's how you're supposed to explain the millions of rubbish things that happen to you.

My, I'm a right grump this morning, I am. Stay cheery, anyone reading this, and don't get lost in an unfamiliar city at least three times a day. It's hard not to do.

Ed, Edd, and Terrifying Cases of Dissentry

2005-09-12T18:44:00.000Z

Now, the reason there's been nothing for a while isn't because I've been doing interesting things all weekend, but rather because the internet services here are so unbelievably complicated (they involve a several page book, and long sequences of opening boxes I never even knew existed on my laptop) that I haven't been able to get online. I still haven't set it up, actualy, and am writing from the Hall Computer Lab, which took me this long to find despite being right next to my house.

Oh, but you'll understand. Unbelievably, it seems I wasn't paranoid enough about going to Uni, which, given I spent all August gibbering under a sheet, is something of an achievement. The entire first day read like an episode of "Mr.McFool does Academia", and was like something out of a nightmare (Edinburgh Halls do look like they exist in a dream, due to both the wierd geological mess of the surroundings and the confused, unreal looking students). I managed to be sick, three times, in the back of the dining hall. With all the students there. Then I had to run past them all to get to the toilets. Which were several doors away. And I went in to the womens' by mistake. This hardly did my nerves much good, and I ended up collapsing in a heap at 9:30, the exact time at which everyone else in my house left to party. When I woke up, everyone knew everyone else, and I had a headache any other student would have needed quite a lot of alchohol to achieve.

So things are a bit rubbish so far, and the "huge number of friends for life" you're supposed to meet are conspicuously failing to materialise. It's not all been doom and creaky floors; I went on a great coffee-house crawl last night, met loads of people, and forgot to ask where they lived, I finaly met one of my English friends due to a series of preposterous coincidences, and I met a wonderfuly lovely guy at supper today just as petrified as I am. And the Guardian costs 20 pence. But it's still strange, after living in total isolation for so long, and terrifying, having, well, lived in total isolation for so long. More soon, once I stop feeling so unwell, and the abnormal heatwave plauging the city goes away.

Trans-ition: Fun with Obscure Titles.

2005-09-09T17:52:00.000Z

Genuinely significant days in your life-the last day before you go to Uni probably qualifying as one-are rare, and when they come along they tend to be a bit rubbish, at least if you're me, which I am. You keep thinking you're supposed to be having profound thoughts, or throwing lavish parties for all your friends, and you end up playing computer games all day in a pink shirt. I didn't even win the stupid computer game. Angst angst angst Mcangst.

I've also been packing, and realising how womanly I am, as every second item seems to be something like a minature sculpture of a pig or pure essential oils. I'm praying whoever lives next door to me doesn't turn out to be a muscley Jock who was constantly picked first for his school's official sport, beating up poncy nerds, or I'm in deep, deep trouble. Explaining to people I am in fact straight, while my perfumed cushions fragrence the tension-filled air around us is probably going to be one of the trickier things about this term. It's also totaly uninteresting, so I won't talk about it anymore, unless exciting developments occur (trans: I get beaten up).

Uni is supposed to make you into an apathetic slob, so this might be the last update of the Blog if we're all torturously unlucky. It better not be, but just warning you, y'know, in case. Stay in school, kids. And stop reading this instead of doing your homework, for Heaven's sake.

Soc and Awe (now with extra drink!)

2005-09-07T07:43:00.000Z

Going to University is a little like going into Space: It sounds great until you learn that your organs'll be floating around inside you for the entire duration. Reading the Societies list made things even worse: The ones that don't involve passing out drunk in a sewer appear to involve firebombing old ladies for being connected to Capitalism in some way. There are Book Clubs with no books, and lots of drink, Philosophy Clubs which appear to consist of several people yelling at each other (while drunk), and PubSoc, which consists of drinking, with drink. PubSoc's promotional speil bizzarely proclaims at one point that "Tee-totallers are welcome", without appearing to have asked the question as to what exactly somebody who doesn't drink would be doing in a drinking society. It'd be like turning up to the string group with a guitar, or, from what I can gather, the book club with a book. The conclusion seems to be that anything designed to make you less scared about going to Uni only makes it seem even worse.

I'm going soon, though, which means (poor you), that the entirity of the Blog for around 7 years will be related to the subject in some way. When I do get there, I'll write about what I actualy do, assuming things do happen to me. Edinburgh has a great collection of skeletons. That might be exciting, in a dim sort of way.

Moan Kampf.

2005-09-04T17:52:00.000Z

I'm aware that promising a Blog with "exciting regular updates", and then not updating it for ages, is a way to lose the three readers you actualy have, so sorry, guys. I spent the last few days mostly wondering if the internet wanted to hear about me wandering aimlessly through rooms humming to myself before deciding that no, it certainly wouldn't.

I think it's probably some sort of pre-Uni defence mechanism, this crushing apathy of mine. By achieving a state where I don't do anything, I become too bloated to care that in six days time I'll be crouched in a corner of a tiny room while drunken people try to bash my door down, in honour of an ancient Edinburgh University tradition I forgot to find out about (and my, do they have those: I discovered today that the Duke of Edinburgh is the Uni's Chancellor, a discovery akin to learning the old name of your school was "Herr Hitler's Male Correction Institute". Things are getting worse by the day). I really, honestly don't have any idea how I'm going to cope: I don't drink or drive, let alone both at the same time, and the most illegal thing I've ever done is stealing a complimentary sugar cube. I feel like a very ugly sacrificial lamb.

In other Uni news, my stupidly expensive pack arrived today (From Newcastle, inexplicably), full of questionable student offers, from corparations, and questionable student writing, from students. I read the Survival Guide with mounting panic, as sections on drugs (with in-jokes) gave way to sections on "how to deal with the police", while my inner censorship advisor from the fifties muttered "Good Heavens" over and over. The only practical thing I really learned is that I have even more work than I thought I did, and Arts students almost literaly have none at all, a maxim that basicly translates as "life isn't fair". You learn all sorts of lessons at Uni, you do.

Oh, no.

2005-08-31T18:50:00.000Z

I remember when I first heard about The Tsunami (the only event I can think of so awful that it doesn't even have a proper name) I was in Tescos, and just happened to glance at the front pages of the newspapers. The slow, rapidly increasing horror as I realised something unbelievably awful had happened is something I'm not quite sure I'll ever forget (although I did find out about the London bombings as soon as I'd finished having a conversation about how my Sister's friend had just gone to London, on the Tube, which was in it's own way even worse).

First things first. Are you okay, Rectalgia? Total idiot that I am, it didn't actualy occur to me where you lived until it occured to me that a fucking major disaster had happened, which is to say about five minutes ago. I really, really hope you're alright, and everyone you know is, and things don't get even worse than they already are. My friend knows people in New Orleans. I spent all yesterday insulting him for no reason. I'm going to the Ninth Circle of Hell.

Katrina sounds worse every time I hear about it, in short. And that's all I can say, really. I hope you're all okay, people reading this. People you know, too.

Bigot Up.

2005-08-29T19:57:00.000Z

I had an utterly splendid time at the party, which I wasn't expecting at all. There was a stream of people telling me how great I was, and masses of sausages. It was like being in some sort of glorious dream, cliche-baitingly. Lots happened, but not lots I can really write about here. When you're starting a new life in 12 days-arrgh, help, no, deargoddeargod- writing in length about things that got resolved from pre-blog days would be very confusing. And more importantly, I'm tired, and it'd take ages.

I bought a book today on the basis of the fact the back cover said it had been "banned in several countries", only to realise once I'd bought it that I had made that up, and it was merely frowned upon by all major religions. It's "Why I Am Not A Christian", by Bertrand Russell, and while it's very good (It's full of dirty jokes, one about a train), I feel a little guilty reading it, as I might as well be reading a large manual entitled "Confirming Your Prejudices for Dummies". I am an Atheist, but being told that I'm right and sensible in a book is a bit rubbish, as the Student in me wants to be a dangerous radical, in a tee-total, nine-hours-sleep kind of way. I get the feeling that ambition may fail on more than one account.

So I'm a Bigot, then, but a popular one. I'll be assasinating the leaders of countries before I know it. Until next time, keep well, stay sharp, and read http://www.nakedblog.com. Random, I know, but it's a much, much better Scottish based blog than this, and it's written by a cynical man in his fifties (I think), which is always fun. And for those disturbed by the link, it has as much nudity in it as The Beano does. And much, much better jokes.

Avast off them thar rails: Thar blow that there Blog!

2005-08-25T18:01:00.000Z

It's time for an embarassing confession. The reason my former attempts to keep a blog failed somewhat spectacularly wasn't just that nothing ever happened to me (although nothing did-I spent the first half of last week sitting around for days on end, and the second half slowly coming to the realisation I had no life), but rather that blogs terrify me. They're really scary, they are. Not just other peoples'. It isn't so much the admitting all the things that are happening to you, and having people laugh at them, as admitting them and realising all the things in your head that seemed incredably profoud, or hilarious, or (groan) alluring in fact sound as intelligable as a Postmodernist lecture in Japanese being beamed from the bottom of the sea. I guess that's why I'm a bit worried about this Blog. It's going to suck in a very dull way, like that stupid Sonic game where you kept being hit on the head by invisible robots.

Still. I feel very calm today, happily, having meditated to a CD full of laughing people, which is somewhat distracting. I've been invited to a party tonight, which never, ever happens given my quasi-hermit status (I live in the Woods, for heaven's sake. On top of a bloody hill), so I'm looking forward to standing in the corner of a room squeaking and not getting drunk, while not saying very much. Sounds fun. Less scary than Blogs, at any rate.

...There will be a point to this Blog, soon, y'know. Just you wait.

Goodbye, Restart

2005-08-24T19:57:00.000Z

Hey. If you're one of the two people who've stuck around Bloglodytes for the past year and are wondering where all the stuff about Scrappy Doo has gone, I'll tell you soon enough. For anyone else at all, hey. It's nice to see you, not that I can.

There are three types of blogs on Blogger, as far as I can see. The first variety is Porn Blogs, the reason why if you're a prude, like me, the "Next Page" button proves to have a somewhat significant flaw. The first one I accidently came across I genuinely thought was about dogs for about five minutes, until I realised they were in fact breasts. You should already have guessed I don't get out much. The second, and semi-mercifuly more common type of blog, is the Product Blog, whose reason I've never been bothered to assertain. These blogs consist of the phrase "Nasdaq" repeated in various forms of capitalization, and are the reason why people without time to spare find the "Next Page" button has a somewhat significant flaw.

The Third Type of Blog is the one about peoples' lives, which are the reason why everyone finds the "Next Page" button has a somewhat significant flaw.

Pan Bloglodytes is the Third Type of Blog. It's the story of someone you've never met, and unsurprisingly, it may not be the grippingest of things, at least at first (and I know "grippingest isn't a word. It should be.). But fortunately, I'm not the sort to harp on about their problems all the time, never quite remembering what they are, and so if all goes to plan the Blog should be refreshingly free of angst, and, less-refreshingly, full of torturous Biology-related stories. Sounds fun.

Incidently, to the two people, I restarted the Blog because it was rubbish. Which doesn't really bode well.