Thursday 17 May 2007

A post dedicated to Englishness


First of all Test Match special has returned to Radio 4, as Test cricket is currently going on , England vs. West Indies. England seem to be doing ok, which given the current problems with English cricket is very encouraging. Cricket is such an English game, I can't think of any other sports which take 5 days to play a game, and have breaks for afternoon tea!
It now feels like I can get in to revision properly now, it's interesting enough to keep me listening, but not so interesting I end up not taking in anything I'm writing.

Last night I watched a programme on BBC 4 about making Jerusalem the English national anthem. As they played the song several times you ended the programme feeling very proud of being English, and ready to go out in the street and declare I'm English and we're great...... just me, oh ok. Seriously though it is a magnificent song with all the characteristics of a great national anthem, it can instill pride in a way that God Save the Quuen doesn't manage.

Lastly in this trio of Englishness is the programme QI. QI is a very odd quiz programme on BBC, the scoring system is incoprehensible, and the whole quiz is based around Quite Interesting facts, with a different letter of the alphabet acting as the theme for each series. The panel members have to try and answer very unusual general knowledge questions without getting it wrong by saying the commonly thought wrong answer, and loose lots of points. Getting a positive score on this programme is very rare!
The programme is hosted by Stepehn Fry, The Independent once declared that he was a stupid persons idea of a clever person, however I will happily worship him as a god on Earth! There is also a QI website which is a fascinating place to waste a good hour or two. It's filled with people who know random and highly useless facts, but somehow knowing that these people exsist is wonderfully reassuring!

Tuesday 15 May 2007

I've been to 6% of places



create your own visited countries map

In an act of extreme distraction I found a website that lets you pick where in the world you've been to and gives you a lovely map!
I'm a little disappointed it's only 6%, but never mind, also my only unusual country (Qatar in case you're wondering) is too small to actually show up well!

Edited to add-Thanks to ebygomm who very kindly told me how to sort out the map so it actually diplayed properly.

Monday 14 May 2007

More bouldering

Another climbing video. Filmed by me over a couple of locations around Easter time. Life has been a little busy lately so Lex and I have only just got round to arguing about editing it!