Godspeed You! Black Emperor

I have fallen in love with some of the most depressing but beautiful music that I have heard. They are called Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and there is a full Discography (with annoyingly tagged songs) on the major torrent sites. I suggest you get them all.

What do they sound like? Well, very apocalyptic, with no singing, expert musicianship and a genuine atmosphere created by the crashing of drums and guitars and strings. I suggest you download the following three tracks;
Storm (Full Track)
An incredible piece of music, the track that gave me chills and got me totally hooked on the artist. Craig Bayne must take full responsibility for this, as it was his MySpace thrusting of the song into my mind that caused the epiphany, and it is a glorious piece of music, split into four sections. Brilliant.
Dead Flag Blues
One of the more morbid tracks, the text is very bleak, but has some startling lines. "The sewers are muddied with a thousand lonely suicides" is pretty bleak, but the music is incredibly uplifting.
Moya (Full Track)
Recently, Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada is the album I have been addicted to, and this is the opening piece from it. It is followed by a longer, more unusual piece, but this one is more immediate.
Other sterling tracks that are available are East Hastings, which features heavily in 28 Days Later, and Static.

The tracks are long, with Storm clocking in at 28mins, but I implore you to investigate them.

The Tale of (Rock Steady 9: UEFA'd Enough?) PolitiX

The UEFA Cup Final, has been hailed by many as a great spectacle, where the eyes of Spain were focused on a small part of Glasgow for period of time similar to 90 minutes, but which became over 130minutes. And I was there. I always expected this to be a large blog post about the fantastic and brilliant night, but really it was just work. I met some real famous people, and saw some fantastically beautiful models who were walking about, but overall it was pretty underwhelming. In fact, it was rather disappointing. I worked from 2pm to close to 1am, standing, not eating, and generally getting less and less excited to be there, and more and more wishing that I was asleep, or at the very least, in a pants playing Football Manager. Ironically enough, I have just got West Ham to the Semi Finals of the UEFA Cup.

This post will concentrate on what I think I can do the most justice, and this is my ranting about something that has rather got me all hot and bothered.

Gordon Brown.

The new leader of the Labour party has been announced, and as he had no competition, he, by default, becomes the new leader and the new Prime Minister. I have heard many things that have really annoyed me about this, and I feel compelled to make another long winded post about my opinions on such a turn of events.

The first position I heard that was incredible was that the Liberal Democrats of Britain were asking for the Queen to announce a General Election, to elect a government. Now, I could understand that if the Labour party it self is finishing, but it is just the leader. We do not elect a leader, we elect a member of parliament that represents our local area in parliament, and this is for lobbying and bringing attention to local issues, and to vote on parliamentary decisions on our behalf. We did not elect Tony Blair, he was elected by the very people we elect our selves.

I am annoyed at the Liberal Democrats for saying this, when they know this to be entirely incorrect, and the method of which this has transpired is exactly how it should be.

My example for this argument is when Michael Howard stepped down, and David Cameron became the leader of the official opposition. He is the man closet to the government, and in the best position to block any movement in government by the Labour government by way of a parliamentary vote. If he can be elected to represent, as a leader, all those who disagree with the Labour rule, by those who are his peers, why does Gordon Brown not get the same treatment? Those who we entrust with the power of policy should have our trust in choosing the correct man.

Another problem is that some say Labour should have to be elected into power again. This is not a Republic, where we elect a leader, and a single party to rule. Our government is supposed to be the best suited for our country, and I think it does the job perfectly well, and better in some respects than other, certain unmentioned, countries that have a more single power weighting that others. Our system requires a democratic vote throughout a government filled with opposing members, and the more parties involved in that process the better. By announcing an election after Tony Blair stands down, gives the appearance of a leader based country, with little respect for all the other MPs that have worked hard to get their voice for their constituency.

I am an admirer of Tony Blair for his achievements as a Prime Minister. He has made our country more wealthy, has spent more money on health and education (at least in the south), gave Scotland it's Parliament, guided the country through rather interesting world developments, such as The World Trade Center Attacks, and the July Tube Bombings, and managed to create, then restore, the Northern Ireland Assembly. In 10 years, there has been a lot of change, but his rule will be forever marred by the Iraq war. He may have made a judgement error, but it is done now, and we need to see it through.

I think that Gordon Brown could be a great leader, and should be treated as his own man, which I am sure he will be. Guilty by association is very single minded.

At least, we will have a Scottish Prime Minister. Or one who is seen to be from Scotland, not like Mr Blair...

The Tale of Rock Steady 8: Prso, Rae, Klos, Shields...

Working at Rock Steady has both been exasperating, and also a whirlwind of fun and sometimes can be a really good laugh. Like this Sunday, I was tasked with working in the Members Lounge. This meant that at my (possible) last shift at Ibrox, I managed to fit in all the areas within hospitality into my short period of time I have worked there, Members being the last area.

It was both a good laugh and a easy shift.

The Members area is much better than the subject of my last rant, Bar72. Members is the poshest area within the stadium, being only one step (and a doorway) away from the chairman's room. This area of the stadium is by invite only; you will not find a ticket for this area on the website. Most of the old players and people connected with the club are here, such as commercial directors and others. And, due to it's proximity to the chairman's room, all the players.* See Appendix.

Ah the lifts, an endless stream of anecdotes from the lifts in Ibrox. The lift in question this week is rather different from the rest of the lifts in the stadium, as it does not break down (though likes to hide on the 2nd floor for some reason, I think it must get bullied by the staircases or something). For other reasons though, there can be special notability attached to it, as it is "David Murray's lift". He is the chairman of Rangers, for those who do not know. It was placed there, because the tunnel area is below the members lounge and the chairman's club, meaning that if he wants to go down to the team, he must go down a floor, and specially asked for this lift to be built. It is small, approximately just small enough to disallow any swing whatsoever, never mind a cat. It can fit 5 people comfortably, 6 at a squeeze, 8 at London Underground comfort levels, and trying to fit 10 into it would be similar to trying to squeeze Johnny Vegas into one the small Postman Pat kiddy rides outside your local Morrison's.

It is also special as it requires, out of this capacity of 5, a member of Rock Steady, which this Saturday, on rotation was me. To gain access to the lift, you must key in a secret password (which I know) into a keypad, where the traditional button would be. The key pad makes a beeping noise, akin to an alarm panel, or an old Nokia phone. This means, if someone forgets the code, they are heard from within the lift pressing a ritualistic 4, 8, or 12 and even 16 keys before giving up, or getting it right. Humuorously, this took place one time after the lift doors shut on a floor, but the lift did not move. I then heard someone enter a set of 4 keys. And nothing. They then entered another 4 keys after waiting around 30 seconds, which must have seemed to them a regular amount of time to be patient before become irate with the slow lift. Nothing doing. I realised they were entering the wrong code, but did not realise as such; there is a little green light and turns on if you get right. I smiled, and made the decision to not open the doors for the customer, enjoying my small Führer moment of power.

Someone then came along, and they said to this unknown party "The fucking lift's stuck". I thought this would be the perfect time to open the doors. The look on the member of staffs face was of total annoyance. I have to make the time pass somehow.

Appendix
I am not one to drop names, so here is a list of all the famous people I have met since I started working with Rock Steady.
Walter Smith
Ally McCoist
Ian Durrant
Andy Goram
Lorenzo Amorouso
Micheal Micheal Mols
Dado Prso
Kris Boyd
Gavin Rae
Ugo Ehiogu
Chris Burke
Kaspar Schemichael
Gordon Strachan
Neil Lennon
Thomas Graveson
Jan Venegoor of Hesselink
Gareth Southgate
Jim White
Charlie Nicholas
Pat Nevin
Dougie Donnelly
One of the Proclaimers
Darren Jackson
Actually, are any of the above really famous, outside of Heterosexual male footballing fans? I think the only real famous person was Paolo Coelho, who has sold over 90million books, and I did not even know who he was, for the shame of it.

NOTE: I notice I have posted this before part III of the Final Exams, but fuck it, I can do what I want.

The Tale of the Final Exams (Part II of III)

I had an okay exam on friday, where no batch processing came up, and evaporators did infact come up. For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, there was no McCabe-Thiele construction.

I sit Process Analysis III next, in approx 1hour 40 mins. For those of you looking forward to such a class, you should take solace that it is particularly easy, with the excpetion of Professor Hall's work, which is a ridiculous joke.

A final part will be released later on tonight, or if not, Tuesday.

Hope everyone enjoyed thier weekend, a tale of Rock Steady is in the pipeline.

The Tale of the Final Exams (Part I of III)

In one hour I will be in exam. The excitement and enthusiasm is building inside of me. I can recite the whole process on how to design a McCabe-Thiele diagram, which allows you to work out the stages required in a Distillation/Absorption/Direct Contact column. I also can recite the whole mathematical analysis of a multi stage continuous and parallel feed evaporator. I can work out the mass transfer in an Equimolar Counterdiffusion and in a Unimolecular/Stagnant B system, and can also work out the HTU and NTU system for absorbers.

I cannot work out batch distillation, one of the things I have sacrificed for the greater good. I known the theory, and understand the concepts, but the actuality of calculation escapes my intellect.

I am also, rather annoyingly, dying of hunger.

The Tale of Rock Steady 7: The Rip Off Firm

My last post was met with positive and negative criticism, which I take on board. It allowed a few conversations to take place with certain parties, and it has gotten a lot of my feelings and thoughts about the last four years. It was almost as if for a while I was in therapy, the wonders of the Internets never cease to amaze.

As promised, there would not be a serious post again, at least until a silly and humourous post was blogged. I don't know if "Blog" is suited to be used as a verb, but I think it might be going the way of "text", "Google" and even recently "Bebo", which I know will annoy as many people as it will please. I will try t use these new words sparingly.

This Saturday I was required to appear at Ibrox at 9am for the last Old Firm match of the year, between (if I need to tell you) Rangers and Celtic. My allegiance at these games is decidedly in the Celtic camp, with a family of Celtic supporters, but I don't get too bothered about the whole thing. In fact, I think it is just another game, and I know some other Glaswegians take it very seriously. The only shimmer of hope that would save me from this horrible day, and make it worthwhile would be being assigned to the Red Zone (which I have blogged (I can't help my self) previously). Luckily, I was assigned there for the first half. I was required to stand outside the Celtic dressing room, keeping tabs on the people milling around the area. Understandably the Red List was tighter than in previous games. I was also for a short period of time outside the Rangers dressing room too. The only moment of note was the team sheet that was handed to me by Gordon Strachan (for the initiated, he is the manager of Celtic).

I was then placed into Bar72, a bar that allows people to have a drink and then go and watch the game. Herein lies my rant.

To buy a season ticket for this area, it costs £979 a year, which, with on average 22 home games a season, works out at £44.50 a game. What does this greatly increased price give you? Free pies? Free drink? Nice seats?

No. It gives you the ability to come into a pub and pay £2.80 a pint, £2.50 a pie, and after the game have the chance to pay £4.00-7.00 for substandard fast food, which, elsewhere would cost you very little, and even then you would be hard pushed to pay little over £2 for some of the gloop they offer up.

Why not go to a local pub, near to the stadium, and pay £2 a pint (for anything, not limited to shitty Carling), go and have a hot dog at a stand and head to the chippy after the game? This will not only be better for you with the exercise actually moving from place to place, it will also save you a whopping £400 a year on season tickets! And this area is not even proper hospitality, but everyone just piles on, there are few seats, and team colours are allowed. It is basically a license to print money, ad the Rangers supporters seem to love it!

I have came to the conclusion that anyone who buys these types of tickets must be mentally insane, don't get me even started on the fact they are Rangers fans.

Oh yeah, I saw Spider-man 3. It is brilliant, though why is Sandman in it? No idea.

The Tale of Chemical Engineering (Part 1 of 1)

Ah so it is over. University, as I knew it, is 100% over, with no more lectures, classes, tutorials, with only two exams to go till the real world starts. I feel slightly differently now than I did when school finished. It is exactly four years since my time at Woodfarm ended, and has became slightly rose tinted as my sister begins the journey that I have just finished, heading to Strathclyde to do Chemistry with Drug Discovery.

When I completed school, I was going to miss hanging about with the friends that I had, miss the banter with the teachers, and the overall feeling that I had no choice that it was over. The law said I was finished and had to leave, at the age of 17. Nothing doing. With University, there is no age limit, it was my sole choice to end up going and doing a degree, even though it is becoming so dilute with so many students from schools going to university. I have the ability to go back to Uni and do a new degree in something, at any point in my forthcoming life, a choice that school never presented to me.

Another thing that is different is the manner in which I leave. At school I was tired of it, but not of learning, of education; this was obvious by my further education at University. At the end of my degree, I have many a question to be asked of me. Where do I go? What do I really want to do? But I think my education is over.

I am so tired of University. It really was a horrific experience for most of the time. I hated the classes, the lecturers and most of my "classmates". In fact, there is only about five people from 90 that started the course that I still want to talk to, to stay in touch with, and those who know me will already know them. There were some great moments with friends but nothing from the actual material that made go "Yeah, this is fucking great" whatsoever.

The four friends that I said I would still be in touch with, standing outside my house as they were walking home on the last day of school, in four years time when I finished Uni I still am in touch with them, though more so than others, but that is due to factors outwith my control. Steven, Colin, Saleem and Michael were there, and to this day I still see them semi-regularly, and I hope that now University is over me and Steven who did the same course will stay in touch. Out of the people at Uni, my certainties of staying in touch are not so concrete. I think people such as Jonny, Jonathan, Shayan and McWhinnie will be easy to stay in touch with, but whether or not our career paths allow us to is another matter.

I have heard people say that University is where you make your friends, the ones you expect to keep for the rest of your life. I cannot say that I have, but I definitely met some of the most genuine people whilst I was at University, and whilst at University I think I have met the people who I will be friends with, and have became closer to them in turn, but not from the course.

What do I really want to do? This poses a problem, as I cannot answer it. I fancy doing the usual boring 9 to 5 with a mortage and a car. This is for the simple capatilist life that I have been broguht up in, but I also fancy doing something totally unique, which is exactly the offer Gyrodata have gave me. This is travelling around the world, for weeks at a time, leaving little time for a "proper" or "normal" life. In addition, a more pipe dream-like route is that I would love to write. I know my writing might not be perfect grammatically, or even make any sense some of the time, but I would love to write a story, or something similar. This blog is really just an out pouring of that plan.

At the End, it is easier to see the choices that should have been made at the beginning. I chose my courses wrongly at the time of sending in the UCAS forms. I think I should probably have had a think about what I wanted to do, rather than what I think I expected people to want me to do. Seriously, I cannot figure out or remember the reasoning behind my choice to do Chemical Engineering. It might have been something to do with the prospect of a job, or something with maths and chemistry, but every so often I see people doing degrees that seem easier as they involve argumentative elements and extensive writing, and are far more subjective than the mathematics of engineering. Maybe, I have some regrets in that case, but I lost enthusiasm for the whole caboodle, which I think might have happened to any course I did.

This is the first serious post I have ever done on this blog, but I think at the end of University there is no better time to have a chat about the whole thing. My advice for anyone who has a few years to go in their course, or is choosing (or has chosen) one is simple. Pick one you want to do. Forget about jobs or anything afterwards, do something that you will feel passionate about, and will have the most "fun" doing.

After all, that's the only thing that is important.

A return to the more silly bloggins will commence this weekend, with a Tale of Rock Steady like no other; The Old Firm.

Just to give you a little taster of some of the things that have almost made me rant are below;
- The new Travis album, which is bloody great.
- Scouts and a few of the things that have happened over the last few weeks.
- Microsoft Office