Match of the Season?

Well, that lived up to the hype. Arsenal and Barcelona, two of the most exciting teams around and that match showed it.
First half was all about Barcelona, and so was the start of the second half, I was worried that it might get embarrassing for Arsenal. Then came Walcott, what an impact, that can't have hurt his England hopes with Capello watching. When Barcelona are at their best they can't be touched but they somehow let Arsenal back into the tie. The penalty was generous to say the least but it was nice for Fabregas to get something against his old club, especially seeing as he's now out of the next leg, you've got to feel for the guy. I do think it was a bit silly keeping him on after the penalty though, he was clearly in a lot of pain.
I still think its Barcelona's tie to lose, especially at the Nou Camp with no Cesc, but Arsenal have given themselves a shout.

Leeds 2010

Well, the tickets been bought and the line-up's released but I can't help feel like its a bit of an anti-climax. Don't get me wrong, the line-up isn't awful and the past two years I've been to Leeds fest the actual bands haven't been the thing that make it what it is, the atmosphere and fun around the camp site is almost worth the ticket in itself. I'm sure this year will still be brilliant but it could have been that much better.

I look at the other line-ups with a hell of a lot of envy, especially T in the Park. Muse, Eminem, Kasabian, Jamie T, Prodigy... Its unfair for one festival to have that many great acts. There were so many rumours about Muse being at Leeds that I thought it was a dead cert, after they weren't playing everything else was going to struggle to compare to be honest.

But lets look at the positives. The Libertines should be fun but somehow I don't think I'll be sticking around for Arcade Fire, not when Pendulum are on the NME stage, I imagine that'll be one of the highlights, they certainly were 2 years ago. I don't know how Modest Mouse or The Cribs will fare on Main Stage but I might pop by.  The next day we've got Foals on NME and then Blink-182 at night, I'm not the biggest fan but it should be pretty good. The rest of the saturday looks pretty awful to be honest. Then the sunday has Mumford & Sons on NME followed by Queens of the Stone Age and Guns'n'Roses on Main, an adequate day, nothing spectacular though. 

Like I said, the best bit may well turn out to be the camping and things around there, the relentless tent is always a good laugh and the silent disco was possibly my highlight of 2009, people may well call me a heathen for saying that but it really was brilliant.

My Place in Politics

My real interests are what I study and football in the main, but I do like keeping up to date with what's going on in the world of politics so I thought I'd let you know where I stand so that you know what to expect. I'd definitely class myself as left-wing in many of my views, but I think that being strictly one or the other is quite outdated. There are so many different areas within politics its unusual to be able to use one phrase to explain all your thoughts. In terms of actual parties I support, I'd say I was a Labour voter but I have a lot of time for the Lib Dems, they've got some great policies, they just don't have enough clout for me to see them as a realistic government at the moment.


As for the Tories, they may look a more appealing party under Cameron but when I look at what they're actually proposing I see nothing new. Putting up posters attacking the other leader doesn't mean you should be elected, you have to show why you're a better alternative and frankly, I don't think they are. Osborne is a joke, I wouldn't let him run a five-a-side team, never mind the economy. They seem to be banking on people voting against Labour rather than voting for them, and that shows from the way Osborne totally ruled out the Lib Dem's during the Chancellors Debate the other night, I hope it bites him on the ass, hard.

One more thing to mention is America. I don't have many warm, fuzzy feelings for the USA, and that'll probably show over time. One thing that really pissed me off was the way they attacked the NHS to try and defend their disgusting insurance-based healthcare system. Anyone who can still believe that America has got it right and the rest of the western world are somehow communists for having socialised medicine, well they're too stupid to be allowed an opinion on the matter. I personally think the NHS is this country's greatest treasure.

Blackpool: The home team

So I promised some stuff on sports and by that I mean mostly football, maybe a bit of cricket around the Ashes or Tennis at Wimbledon but mostly it'll be the king of sports.

I support my home team, Blackpool FC, currently in the championship and hopefully there or higher for many years to come. Before I moved away I had a season ticket for 5 years and despite wanting to kill myself at times I don't regret following my lowly local team instead of a premiership giant. I think Football loses its fun when you support a team at the top. Sure I enjoy watching the big clubs fight it out but to support them means the only acceptable outcome is to win everything, and when you do win the victory isn't as sweet because you were expecting it.

Take Man U for example (You might see a theme of anti-united feelings due to my hatred of 'glory supporters'), if they win the league, that's great, but they would have been disapponted not to so if anything half of the 'happiness' is just relief. If you support a smaller club, like Blackpool for example, no-one is expecting promotion, so if that freak miracle happened there'd be no relief, just pure ecstacy. You have to put up with occasional poor performances to pay for it but I think it's well worth it.

With Blackpool currently flying high in the championship after years of relegation battles I should thank two men in particular, Ian Holloway, the manager who performed miracles and the man above, Charlie Adam, the greatest Blackpool player of my generation so far?

My Life as a Student

Like I said in my 'About Me' I'm currently a student at Manchester Med School in my first year. It's brilliant, not least because its a PBL course which means less than half the lecture time. I seriously don't know how people survive lecture-based courses, it bores me half to death listening to half the people who give them, The fact that everything's pretty hands-on makes it so much more interesting and its the only way I can really learn something well.

I couldn't have picked a better city to live in, Manchester is the ideal place for me. I always used to come here before university as it was, Blackpool might be nice but it can't quite live up to the size and style of Manchester. The area I live in, Fallowfield, is pure student central, its rare to see anyone over the age of 23 around, unless they're a mature student of course. Everything's cheap and that's perfect considering all my money is coming courtesy of the government at the moment and I'd like it to pay for as much as possible :)

Welcome

I thought a nice way to start would be to give an intro to what I'll be writing about here.

For a start, this isn't going to be serious, it's just a nice way to pass time and feel like I'm actually doing something. It's going to be about anything and everything that I'm interested in: Student life, a fair chunk of sport, maybe a bit of politics seeing as there's an election coming and anything else that pops into my head.

I'll post a few more bits and pieces to let you know about me before I get into the meat of it.

Cheers for reading and I hope you enjoy it :)