Uni’s Blog

Samuel Beckett Seminar

I take my seat in a small square room with fifteen other people that I do not know. The seminar for this first week is on Samuel Beckett. He is a part of my course and I will return to him in the coming weeks, but prior to this evening I was not overly familiar with his work. All I knew was that he had a certain sort of reputation; a literary playwright among other things…our tutor asks what we More

Lessons Learned

So I asked a bunch of my uni friends to write a diary entry to post on this site so you could all see what it is like in our collective shoes. And a friend of mine, I kid you not wrote this. I thought I should post it simply because you will probably find as much amusement in it as I do.

People can be so awful, dear diary!

People—at least the peasants of the middle and working class More

Classic Albums - You Are The Quarry.

A lot of people see Morrissey as being a bit ‘Morose-y’. I can see where they are coming from, but in this way he is comparable to Leonard Cohen. Yes, his music can little a bit dark, but there is a humour to it all as well.

If you were looking for his best album then it would probably come down to a choice between ‘You are the Quarry’ (2004) and ‘Ringleader of the Tormentors’ (2006). These both contain some More

The quiet life

I’m naturally quite a shy and introverted person, so one of the things that I was worried about when I started college was that I’d be leaving my friends behind. I was nervous about meeting new people, and was concerned that I would have difficulty meeting anyone new amidst the flurry of classes and my part-time job, which took up quite a few hours of my week. I was terrified that I would be completely isolated, and miss out on More

Hockey: What a sport!

As an avid football fan, and I’m talking about proper football, not that American rubbish, I have been largely disappointed with the state of the sport in Canada and North America. Sure, it is there, but it’s not as big as it is in England and I am certainly missing it greatly.

However, another sport has managed to fill the void quite nicely, and that is Ice Hockey. The energetic, quick pace of the game makes it entertaining to watch More

The Little Things Make Life Wonderful!

Late last year I had the pleasure and the honour to be a steward during the visit of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux to England. The event was widely reported in the news but let me tell you a little about it and how it could have a positive impact on all of our lives, whether we ourselves are religious or not.

St Therese was a young Carmelite nun who lived in France in the 19th Century. Although More

Spyro Flies High.

Spyro the dragon is one of those characters that you just cannot help liking. He is small, lovable and has large pick-me-up-and-hug-me eyes. Back in the days of the first Playstation, his adventures were enormously popular. Thousands of gamers could not get enough of the purple dragon and all three games went platinum.

There were several key ingredients which made the games play so well. The graphics were not only good; they were beautiful, bright and appealing. Each level was wonderfully designed and had some really nice finishing touches.

The control system was incredibly easy to use and you could be whizzing around quite confidently within the space of five minutes. There were quite a few different moves to master, but the programmers had configured everything perfectly. And the learning curve was set just right; not too easy, but not so hard that you wanted to bite your own hand in frustration.

Each game in the trilogy actually managed to improve on its predecessor. Minor glitches were ironed out, new characters and moves were added and the visuals got even better. By the time that the third adventure was out, the already polished design was really pushing the boundaries of 3D gaming.

But the other great thing about Spyro’s adventures was the music. Many games like this will have a good soundtrack, but nothing that is quite so memorable. The Spyro adventures were decorated with the tunes of Stewart Copeland and the overall effect was stunning. No other musician could have come up with anything half as suitable as this; it tied in with the games perfectly and made them even more of a joy to play.

The gaming world may have moved on since then but Spyro will never be forgotten. And modern programmers can still learn a thing or two from his adventures.

So before I go, I have something to admit. I love Xena Warrior Princess (sorry Pauline). I was viewing the most recent season on dvd well into the night and it is an amazingly entertaining show! I would highly recommend this one to all of you…

Sony Vs Phony.

Being an owner of a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, I decided it was time to buy myself a set of mini speakers. My friend (who has the same mobile as me) had recently bought herself some official Sony ones. Because they were a bit on the pricey side, I thought I would shop around for mine…

Yesterday, as I was on my travels, I came across a market stall that sold mobile phone accessories. I told the guy what I More

Why Are We Superstitious?

Why is it that people are still superstitious in this day and age? With all the logic and technology that we have around us it seems a little silly. It is difficult to believe that some people are still cautious about opening an umbrella indoors, walking under a ladder or crossing on the stairs.

Perhaps there is some sort of comfort attached to it… By keeping superstition alive we are holding onto the past; an age where things were more More