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Action surpasses information. That was the valuable lesson learnt yesterday evening during the Mission Impossible 3 film. The film was fairly stunning, but like so many films at current the director had opted to shoot much of it using handheld cameras to make the viewer feel more “involved”. The effect is impressive, if not a little annoying. It gives the impression of being there, but I don’t want to be there, I want to know what’s going on. You really need to keep your eyes open the whole time during any action sequence. I’m sure its just a fad and it will pass.

Speaking of action, the last few days have filled with a few spots that would make your hardcore car spotter wet themselves with glee. On Wednesdays I saw a £400k Koenigsegg going the other way down the road. On Thursday I then saw a Ford GT which I think they only made about 40 of and is the same car Jeremy Clarkson has (although it wasn’t his). The final one on the list was then on Friday, whilst walking back from the train station I saw a stretched Hummer H2, which is rare to say the least. It looked just like this one.

Of course spotting cars is not all I have done all week, but it is the most interesting for the most part. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I have had exams, and I have a further 2 next week to complete the set. I did however take a little break from work (well, a longer than normal break) to go visit down in Brighton.

It was during that visit he informed me that I should be putting a post with his photo meme in it. So here goes:

Photo Meme: Tell me up to three things you want me to take a picture of and I’ll post them in my journal.

In the last few years I have come to realise several things. These are not big things, but nor should they be considered small. I consider myself to be relatively well off (socially, and to an extent financially) and come not from distinguished circles, but more the top end of middle class. Now I know using the mentioning of the class system is not the “done thing” in our modern, “equal” society, so perhaps I should better define that.

The vast majority of my friends are well educated, coming from good solid homes with equally well educated and cultured parents. Their parents come from a time when the class system was more integral in the world with such distinguishments as the 11+ exam here in the UK. This exam allowed them to further their education and almost certainly (although not exclusively) go to university. This would have been when approximately 5% of their age group would have gone. Now although the exam for the most part is gone, these children, my friends, have inherited this elevated start financially and culturally.

The reason I say I have realised these things is the last few years is because it was not until then that I truly began to see the stark contrast between my own way of living and what you could call the “norm for the masses”.

This stark contrast was brought into much sharper focus when Channel 4’s big brother came on to TV. Although the original concept and even the first few incarnations of the program were very original and did make for an interesting “fly on the wall” view into how some people worked, this good start was soon compromised with such fickleties as prospective fame taking over the show. The current series of big brother does nothing more than illustrate people’s grotesque lust for fame.

I remember several years ago when the 3rd or 4th big brother was running and I took part in a “discussion” with other members of my year group in something entitled “where do you stand?”. The format was truly wonderful and something I enjoyed very much. We had a large room with a table in the middle and a member of staff stood on that table with a list of statements in his hands. When a statement was read aloud you had to stand close to the table if you agreed with the statement and far away if you disagreed. Obviously people were then left to make up their mind to what extent they agreed or disagreed and stood in the corresponding place. The member of staff then proceeded to quiz people about why they had stood where they had and during those 4 or 5 questions people would shift about if they so felt the need upon the back of someone’s response. One of the statements put forward was “The television show big brother has been going on too long”. Within 30seconds there was the best part of 100 students are as close to the table as they could.

This was 4 years ago and still this tedium is on our television screens.

You can see peoples interest in worthless, fake celebrities all the time. All you need do is pick up a tabloid newspaper and look at the first 10 pages of pictures. No one in there is special, interesting, funny or even for the most part, intelligent. Yet for some reason so many people follow their every move with the up most interest. How sad and meaningless is your life if you need to read about people who’s only attribute (bar anorexia) is fame.

For a race of beings with so few tasks to complete we are pretty crap at them really. I don’t know about you but I hate dealing with taxes, and it seems, so do those who’s job is to help me sort mine out. Then there is Death, well having learnt that my granddad is going into hospital tonight (and it’s extremely unlikely that he will come out) I’m not even sure how I feel. I can tell you for one thing it isn’t happy. I just went outside to play badminton against the wall (hit it hard and bounce it back) and have had to come in because I broke it.

Thinking about it, another thing we have to do is work. Now the fact that there is a word such as “procrastinating” shows that’s not a strong point of that many. Oh, I guess there is breeding, I suppose the Chinese light the way with that one, but even so, how many infertility clinics, family planning centres, drugs, IVF rooms etc do we need, we must be hashing it up along the way there too.

I’m not in a good mood.

It’s always nice to know that the world hates you. I have been finding that the world hates me rather more than I first thought.

You may or may not remember that I have been having a little trouble with my badminton racquet over the last month or so.

First, I broke my old workhorse which served me well, but alas, it’s time came. I accepted that quite well since I knew it was coming. Then I got a new racquet, all very nice, worked well etc. A few weeks later the string broke! To say the least I was irked by this. Being the good little soldier I am, off I went and had it re-strung (at the cost of £15) in Brighton on Friday. I combined this with a visit to Thomas and a bit of shopping. You see, at this time I was feeling quite flush with money. I bought a 512MB SD card for my camera and a card reader too. They were planned purchases and this seemed like a good time to get them. Strike while the iron was hot and all that. Apart from anything else, I didn’t know how long it would be before I would be feeling broke again. The time came a little sooner than I thought. I went to badminton that evening and as with the previous week, something broke. Now you would have though the string would have broken, that being the bit that was 6 hours old. Oh no, the world hates me much more than that. I snapped the racquet in two places. As you will see from these pictures, it’s looking rather buggered. So today, I have been to Brighton again. I now have another one. I haven’t even taken it out of its bag for fear of breaking it. Next weeks badminton should be interesting….

In other news…no wait, that can’t be…don’t be silly Craig, you don’t have any news….

Ah, actually, as sceptical as I’m being, I do!

Today being 1st of April I played a little joke. Actually, I’m over ratting it. It wasn’t a joke, not even a prank really. I think it would be best described as just me using the date as a good excuse for pissing people off.

Jonners, (who I go halves on web hosting with) has a blog. His blog gets viewed lots. Today it wasn’t viewed much at all. It may have something to do with it looking like this….

Hmm, ah yes, update time. It seems I haven’t updated for some time now. Well, not a huge amount to report so I guess that’s why.

We now have a new TV to replace the one that was fired. Its new, flat, thin, LCD, HD and all in all, rather cool.

I have been off this week, so not a huge amount has happened. Come to think of it, I haven’t a clue what I did this week. Well, I know I went to work on Monday. I think Jonners was here on Tuesday, don’t think anything happened on Wednesday or Thursday (except some shopping)…I did have badminton on Friday in which I did something rather silly. I broke my racquet. Now I don’t/didn’t have some silly little toy one, oh no, I have/had a nice expensive carbon graphite, one piece one. Now yes, I’m annoyed I broke it, but I will get over it. What really bugs/shocks me is I snapped the top in a game, with a smash. Suffice to say, said smash didn’t come back (and I won, so all ends well).

Oh, also, while I remember, my gallery is buggered. Well, it works fine for everyone except me. I can’t add pictures because the function that I have for making the thumbnails has been broken with my hosts recent upgrade of php (by 0.1 of a version, typical). So my next task is to get that working so I can post pictures of the break in my racquet.

Ah all fun, work in 7 hours.

Today was the last day of my exams. Now these exams weren’t that important, they were only end of semester ones and I didn’t have them for every module. The point is they are done. While I was doing them I have pondered about how I prepare for an exam. Most of the time I like to do as little as possible. My interpretation of this for my morning exam today (well, yesterday now) was to have a lie in. Did I get this? You have to be kidding. Today the first words I woke up to go as follows, “Shit! The TV is on fire”. These were shouted by my dad from the lounge at about 7:10am this morning. I made what must have been my fastest exit of my bed and made it downstairs (I think all of this happened in under 5 seconds (I know I only touched one stair on the way down)). I made it into the lounge to see the TV indeed on fire and helped my dad pick it up; while ripping plugs out of the wall and preceded to help get it to, and out of the front door. I then scampered up to my room and climbed back in for what turned out to be only a 10 minute lie-in. Suffice to say, conversation at breakfast revolved around what TV to get next.

For the interested, my brother turned on the TV, it went bang, smoke, flames, fire….

Oh, and I think the exam went well.