I'm going to start using this thing...

Since finishing the first year of uni, which seems like a lifetime ago, I completely forgot about this blog, so as second year is starting next month I'm going to start writing on here again, you lucky people.

I've not really done any writing or work at all over summer, minus the odd session of shorthand to kill my spirit, so it's probably for the best I do something. I don't know where to begin writing though, what to theme this blog on, it'll probably slip back onto the theme of nonsensical drunken ramblings again but I suppose that is better than nothing.

I could do a 'what I did over the summer' post, like in primary school and talk about the lovely weather and all that rubbish, which i may very well do in a few weeks, but I'll wait till the end of summer first. I've seen a tonne bands over summer, been to festivals; (Leeds Fest next week as well) and traveled quite some distances for the sake of seeing bands, so at some point i'll try a review of one of these.

I fully don't expect people to read this and I really don't care about that. We were told to keep a blog, so it's writing for the sake of writing, I'll try to do a few of these a week, and when I know what I want to write about it will probably take on a solid theme, but don't hold your breath.

Work Work Work

Having not done an update for a large amount of time, now would be a good time to start again... It is nearing the end of semester and everybody is rushing about getting work finished, in this work, well for our module at least there are four modules all with deadlines for the same day, so hoping to get all the work done and dusted before Monday the 9th I'm having to juggle it around and have a few final late nights at the end of a lot of effort.

As all this work is on going, I'll use this post as a learning log of sorts, saying what I have done/will do/intend to do etc instead of a standard blog post.

The first piece I've got finished is the major assignment for the Introduction to Law and Public Affairs module. This was a 2000 word essay, the question I chose relates to contempt of court, and the defenses available to the media. I tackled this explain what contempt of court is, how you can be found in contempt, what could happen, other restrictions on the press, examples of contempt of court, what the defenses are and finial summing it with a conclusion. I feel this was one of the hardest pieces of work in the whole first year, very challenging and involving a lot of research, luckily, the teacher for this module is brilliant and I found myself knowing a lot more on the subject than I had expected.

The current piece of work I am working on, is the major assignment for the Professional Development in Journalism module. This is a 1500 word feature article on a chosen subject, I liked the sound of this article as I think I prefer feature writing as apposed to straight up news, it leaves space for a bit more creativity, however I can already tell that I may struggle to reach the word count.

The third piece of work is a portfolio for Professional Writing, included in the portfolio is this blog. The portfolio has 5 individual pieces of work, 6 including this blog, and cover a range of subjects, we looked at a different subject every week in lessons. The 5 pieces I have decided to do are; a review, a press release, a speach, a pitch for a documentary and a short essay on a legal/ethical issue. Some of these will be more enjoyable then other modules, more room for a bit of creativity and a lot more choice on subject matter.

The final assignment I will be working on is the the Digital Publishing module. This assignment is a group piece of work in which groups of four have to design and make a news website for a fictitious newspaper called 'The Daily Herald'. This module is definitely not one of my strongest. I don't particularly enjoy designing websites, and it's a hard thing to learn, the technically things and coding things are like a foreign language... 

As well as all this, we do shorthand, which we need to revise and go over all the time, I think shorthand is a good skill to have if you can master if and get it to any speed, it is however hard to learn and get in the habit of doing, I quite enjoy it anyway and surprisingly don't find it too hard to get to grips with on the whole.

So, basically the second semester of work and what i'm doing for it....

ANGER

Trains. Today is not a good day to travel in the north of England. I am writing this on a Cross Country service to York currently between Durham and Darlington. Set to arrive home a whole 2 hours late. First there was the 95 minute delay on the train, waiting in the freezing cold Newcastle train station on a rainy Saturday morning, then once getting on the train, and battling for seats, it turns out the driver who was set to take over in Newcastle was on an also delayed service which lead to another 20 minute stationary wait in the station. Then news of the snow in Leeds which is set to delay the latter leg of journey home even more, never mind having to wait in York station for a connection, I dread to think for how long now, are just more blows, not to mention the dire overcrowding and deployment of a low number of carriages.

The reason for all this messing about and waiting, leading to every train from Newcastle to be either cancelled or massively delayed on a busy Saturday? Signalling problems. Really? It’s 2011 and a bit of trouble with some wiring can cause so much bother? Something needs to be put in place for when this happens, because it does happen regularly, surely there is a better system that can implemented, trains are rarely on time in the best of situations anyway.

And don’t get me started on the conductors. The depressing, easy job of walking up and down a train, checking tickets and occasionally having the pressure to open a door can give someone such a superiority complex, don’t get me wrong, there are some lovely friendly conductors who can actually do their job without making themselves look stupid, but that would not make for an interesting blog would it. Yesterday me and two friends were going to Newcastle, on the 18.35 train from Leeds, Greg, ACCIDENTLY booked on the 18.27 train, same destination, same journey length, and for the sake of getting a train 8 minutes later the conductor forced him to pay for another ticket, at the cost £28.50... How can that be justified?

You would think that we would have a better train system in this country by now, I mean there has been a major rail network in the UK for 161 years, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. Do yourself a favour... don’t bother with trains.

A rant that I feel needs to be said...

Right... So it's late at night, I've been out, came home and logged on Facebook to see a group entitled 'Soldiers should make as much as football players', don't get me wrong, I do think a soldiers work should be rewarded more than a sports player, but really? How many soldiers are there compared to British football players? Exactly.  It would hurt us, and we know it.

The average football player salary in the 09/10 season was £676.000 per year. Wayne Rooney, Mancheste United and England international star is paid £230.000 every week to play football. So roughly £11 million  per year. Crazy. 

So take an average for example... An average famous footballer in the British Premier League earns £647.000 a year. In april 2010 there was a recorded number of 113,970 British soldiers, so if they earned an average wage for a footballer if not more, like many people would wish, that would come to a minimum of  £77,043,720,000.... Our government, especially in these times of economic uncertainty where it is looking increasingly likely we will enter into a double dip recession based on recent figures and the surprising negative last quarter of negative economic growth in 2010, can not afford to make unruly out goings on wages for all these army workers.

The armed forces sign up to serve their country, not for a pay cheque. It is also important to note that the government do not pay for footballers wages. Owners of the clubs, multi-billionaires, pay wages, they decide how much, so it is no reflection on our government or our society how much footballers get paid in comparison to soldiers, It is not possible for soldiers to get paid that much, unless people want increases in taxes, which, if this happened, will absolutely cause more trouble than is necessary. 

Inflation, costs and ranting

Not wanting to sound like an increasingly old man, but bloody hell why has everything become so expensive?! It's just come from nowhere, and I know, rise in VAT blah blah but 2.5% here and there is nothing compared to the increases.

For example, train tickets, every year they go up more and more, I don't know how they can justify it. My local train station in leeds (Garforth Station) to Leeds City Centre in 2008 it cost £1.80 for a return ticket, rising to £2.40 in 2009, £2.70 in 2010 and now a whole £3 in 2011, all for a 10 minute train journey. Crazy. Then Leeds to Derby, after the new year when coming back to University the price is now £9 more per journey, making going home look a lot less appealing. I know the price of oil has risen and the average level of inflation takes places, but £9 extra PER customer PER journey? No thanks.


Now I looked at inflation charts to see what could be taken from them, all that happened is a headache, too confusing, the only thing of note is that inflation is up .6% from december 2010, and if we don't wish to go into hyper inflation the Bank of England will need to raise the interest rates from the historically low 0.5% which have been in place since May last year.


 In conclusion, I dont know why everything is a rip off, but it is, the facts and figures are too much for me to stomach though. Rant over.

Capping the Ticket Touts.

"Ticket tout" is a British term for a scalper, someone who engages in ticket resale for more than the face value of the ticket

Anyone who has been to music gig, show, concert whatever you like to call it, will know of Ticket Touts. Always Standing outside the venue selling sold out tickets for rip off prices to take advantage of the fans of whatever band is playing who have no choice other than to pay massively over face value.

In recent years with the move towards all ticket sales being online there has been a huge increase in these Touts buying as many tickets as possible for popular events, such as the Glastonbury or Reading/Leeds Festivals, and selling the tickets on Ebay later that day for hugely marked up prices. A prime example of this just last week was the ticket situation for the Rise Against London show in March. This show is a one off album launch show and the bands only date until the end of the year so it was bound to be popular, but coupled with the fact it is being held in a 1200 people capacity venue the tickets were greatly in demand. The tickets sold out within 10 minutes and within the hour on Ebay they were going for £65, triple the face price. Fans are missing out these people are making easy unearned money.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10137075 - Average Profit from touting tickets is 59%, this is outrageous. So, what are the government doing to combat this? Little to nothing. The only action taken is telling them to 

"clean up their act" because they exploit fans. I'm aware that it is a hard thing to stop, but steps should be taken to ensure only a reasonable amount of tickets can be bought at anyone time, possibly having to prove ID when attending the event to limit resale.

In conclusion, If there is good reason to sell tickets then so be it, but marking the price up ridiculously is not fair to fans or the artists, and I feel should be stopped.