Hello, welcome and greetings to all you people so wonderful enough to read this week’s offering of random babbling. As is almost the religious ritual I’m writing this exceedingly late in the day so I have a feeling this may take a while to jot down as I lose concentration here and there. I just thank the people in the far east for showing a very cunning Austrian business man how to make an excellent soft drink that keeps you up all night.
So what’s happened to me this week? Well not a great deal. The scuba didn’t happen as it was the annual curry-night, of which I hate spicy food, hence I didn’t go. The extent of my distaste for spicy food extends all the way down the scale to those spicy wedges that you’d find in the freezer. So anything REMOTELY hot is a no no for me. Also this week unfortunately, the volunteer work at the local youth club was once again called off. There were only two students (myself included) who’d be running the scheme till Christmas. However the other student dropped out at the last minute and I’m certainly not comfortable with taking on and being responsible for up to 30 kids. So that project is on hold till at least one other person is willing to join the scheme.
The only thing I’ve done this week not related to work was pop down to the jam night at the Student Union. Oh dear. I’d obviously forgotten how bad the SU is in Stafford. I swear if you not into WOW, dubstep, death-metal or just generally raping the insides of a PC ‘cause you got nothing better to do, you are quite simply screwed at this campus. I headed off to the SU with my trusty Roland Alpha Juno (ah she’s a beauty, can quite happily write an entire blog on my synths... but I won’t), only to find I’m basically redundant because I don’t fit into the group of shredding guitars and pounding drum kits. By the way, the louder you play doesn’t make you a better musician, you just suck more. In fairness, hats off to the poor guy running this venture because he actually has to be there ALL the time to mind the uni’s equipment. I’m just glad that I could afford a nice lie in and full-english breakfast to help my poor pounding head recover. Never again will I venture into Stafford’s Lounge bar out of lecture hours.
Alas the majority of my week has been ticking over, bumbling my way slowly, but methodically through various projects. Minus the film project as I’ve still yet to get hold of the films, hopefully to be rectified tomorrow. Actually talking about film, the lecture on Friday was quite...er...amusing in some weird way. The lecturers on film are now focusing on this new found medium called SOUND (*aghast from the crowd*) and MUSIC! (*swoon*). Our mini-task tomorrow is to arrange and edit a very old Russian silent film to the audio we created in our Friday lecture, all within 40 mins. Now that’s really good actually, as that’s good prep work for the real world when turn around times for some applications or projects are incredibly tight. However I haven’t said what the sounds we recorded were. In their infinitely clouded wisdom of artsy fartsy la la land they tryed and put on their own-brew symphony. The Brandenberg Concerto it was not, especially considering these people didn’t really play any instruments at all. I really wanted to wrench the poor screaming soprano saxophone from one of them, Kenny G she was not. Things then picked up when the recording shifted to us the students as we attempted to try an emulate a Gregorian choir. In fairness some of the audio wasn’t too bad and I can see where these audio clips could be salvaged and put into another project with success. However the film in which these sounds will be put to doesn’t fit at all. What audio we have sounds like something that should belong to a Stanely Kubrick film or material on the cutting room floor from THX 1138. Far from the emotionally charged scene of a respected elder family member passing away in rural Russia. Hmmm fail, but an interesting fail.
Brief update on the Ableton stuff, 4 out of the 6 songs are now on the computer in some form or another, though the focus this week has been trying to comprehensively organise all the relevant files ready to be compiled into Ableton possibly within a couple of weeks. The two remaining pieces yet to be inputted into the computer will take time as there is no MIDI files or chords at all anywhere on the net, It’s going to be a pain in the arse sorting these tracks out. The other pain is going to be trying to get hold of a wireless MIDI system for my keytar. The Pro Tools work is in suspension till I can get some recording done with other people, however the organisation is out of my control with that one. Lastly the mathematical stuff, there was a marked assessment this week, one of two in this semester. Thankfully I passed comfortably. In fairness this module is pretty easy once you get the maths and the practicals mucking around with the desks are a bit of a doss to be honest. My trick is augment reality when looking at a patchbay/mixing desk and logically think of things like a flow chart. So yer not much going on in my life at the moment.
However there has been some very big news this week. The Spending Review was unveiled. Ode to Joy (sarcasm). Not only am I a university student and young but my industry is a creative one. I’m in for one hell of a whipping and wallet raping. Actually no, if all goes to plan, I should be able to just get out of university BEFORE tuition fees go through the roof in 2012. It’s people like my little sister who I feel sorry for when it comes to university as they are going to be fucked over. I’m totally against tuition fees, it should purely be based on ability, nothing else. I’m not a socialist by a long shot, but everyone should be able to make their own way in life starting from a level playing field, not from one based on the size of your parent’s wallet. Hence I hate those middle-class knobs who take great pleasure from pushing the fact their little darlings went to private school. You know those sorts, don’t you? My hatred of these people is possibly amplified by the fact that I went to a High School that didn’t have a high reputation, everyone constantly put it down and turned their noses up at it. Well I take great, great pleasure basking in the fact that 70% of the time I ended up with better grades than them, yet I didn’t pay a single penny. Ha! Tangent aside, it basically means when I leave university there are going to be sod-all jobs in my sector even though arts/creative industries make up 8% of our economy (same as banking apparently). Don’t quote me on that, I briefly overheard that from a guest on Newsnight.
In all honesty that’s my only real gripe at the cuts, but I know that we need to cut and cut fast. It’s pure common sense to get rid of a loan as fast as possible to reduce interest, simple mathematics. Something the last government overlooked. This is the point where I totally loose any venire of socialism. Politicians have been very quick to bash the bankers, quite rightly so, but the UK is in such a vast amount of debt. That’s not the bankers that’s the reckless spending by New Labour over the last decade or so, the banking crisis exacerbated a problem that was already there. Think Germany in 1929 and I rest my case.
I also think that the cuts planned are NOT enough in some places, causing a knock on effect in other departments. It was a big mistake to ring fence the NHS as that was a rod for everyone’s back, it’s got an over bloated management and poor efficiency and it sucks up well over £130bn. Ouch! Something could’ve been quite easily been done here. The last other big thing that could be happily cut is universal benefits i.e. bus passes, free TV licence for plus 75. I’m sorry but I live off less than what pensioners get and I still had enough budget to have a TV license last year. Go figure. In short if it’s universal i.e. to everyone rich or poor, it’s not a necessary benefit. If it’s not necessary for a bit, cut it. I was glad to see that the pension age is being raised, equally proud that we don’t kick off like those pathetic French unions. Your striking because your to work till your 62! Don’t make me sick, it’s going to be 66 here soon. By the way you have easily twice as many national holidays, so shut up.
Oh the last thing that annoyed me was that somehow despite all these cuts to British workers and families, they somehow managed to find another few billion for over seas aid (another ring fenced dept.). That few billion, combined with slight cuts to the NHS and universal benefit could’ve been the deciding factor in definitively saving a few more jobs. Jobs linked to close family members.
I do seem to almost contradict myself on the whole spending issue, yes I fully understand and support why we are doing it. I just think in some areas there could’ve been some tweaks to be fairer to younger people and younger families. I’m a firm believer in education that’s fair and accessible to ALL, money needs to be saved to be invested here. From then on your on your own matey. For you see, it’s going to be less of us younger people supporting more and more older people, so we need a better education to pay for your retirement. Think of it as a very indirect investment for your future. In all honesty I can’t see myself getting a pension or retirement, it’ll be too costly for that, we’ll be back to a situation of working till we die. I actually welcome that because it’s the best way to keep oneself both mentally and physically stimulated for longer, the spin off is that I’ll still be providing something to society rather than being a burden.
I’ll wrap things up now before I get RSI from my 1900+ word saga this week with this little fact. This generation, 18 - 30 year olds are a damn sight worse off, and will be for some time worse off than our parents or grandparents. I’ve heard many a yarn of ‘back in my day...’ well that’s bollocks, it’s always been bollocks. It’s like Concorde, we had progress, now we recess. Check the link at the bottom of the page. It’s a fiscal study from about 10 years ago (but still kind of relevant) and on page 9 onwards there are some demo-graphs to prove my point. So the next anyone starts giving the ‘oh but back in my day...’ rhetoric, tell them to take the rose tinted specs off and shut up. Now I’m off to bed as I’m tired and cranky (suppose you can tell). Toodle doo
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