Ikea Fun

Today was an exciting day, it was Ikea shopping time for our house next year, clearly the best part of moving is buying stuff to go in it! It was doubly exciting because I'd never been to Ikea before, what with my Blackpool childhood, so it was a whole new fun world.

Our house is pretty kitted out as it is so all we needed was the smaller stuff like cutlery and plates etc. but you can still look around everything else. We tended just to buy any item which was especially colourful, our knife set is a particular gem. Our house is going to look like its owned by a clown, just the way it should be!

Without doubt the single best buy of the day was my idea, and I'm very proud of it. Cast your mind back to your childhood, did anyone used to have a kind of large mat which had a picture of a cartoon town on it with roads that you could drive toy cars on? Because that's what we got :) Its like the one in the picture but I think ours is better and doesn't come with the complimentary smiling child.  I have no idea what its going to be for or where it will go but it just had to be bought. Brilliant times.

Back to the seaside tomorrow, should be good to see everyone back home, I'll miss Manchester too though. Maybe I'll appreciate our beach more now that I've experienced life without being close to the sea as well.

An Overdue Return

Well in all the excitement of finishing exams and university life I've neglected talking about what's going on in the world, I'm sure people have missed it. What's going on in our new ConDem-nation?

We've had a little bit of time now to get used to this whole coalition government business and its high time I gave my view on it (I bet regular readers can guess before I even start!). My favourite story, if it turns out to be true, actually happened before Cameron even moved in but we didn't hear about until now. Apparently one of Gordon Brown's last acts (before writing some letters to people that inspired him) was to accept a pay cut for the office of Prime Minister, just in time for David to arrive. Depending on your party either an underhand trick or a pure stroke of genius, good lad Gord. The real masterpiece was that David can't even complain about it because it was he who argued for scaling back Ministers pay!

But anyway, on to actual policies. We had our first wave of cuts come through since the election, nice to see Lib Dem's sticking to what they said in the campaign. Yes, coalition means compromise, but I don't see how doing exactly what the Conservatives wanted and dropping all your own argument's is a compromise? And David Cameron's promise to eliminate waste ahead of any front-line losses must be sounding pretty hollow now in light of his cutting of the Future Jobs Fund. How he can lump that in the same kind of 'efficiencies' savings as pot plants is beyond me. That fund gave guaranteed work for long-term unemployed young people, the very people that Cameron claimed he was saving from a lifetime of being saddled with national debt. That's all very nice but it won't help them much to be out of work.

We had our first resignation (which ruined my prediction that Vince Cable would be first to go!) of a minister in the shape of David Laws. Now people are pretty split about whether or not he should have gone but I think in the end at a personal level it would have been very tough for him to stay. Those who argue that the media coverage was homophobic are plain wrong to start with, no-one was bothered about giving money to a gay partner, just that it was his partner who was being given money, regardless of gender. And I know there is the argument that he could have legitimately claimed more money and that he was protecting his privacy, but surely it would have been much more private to just have paid the rent out of his own pocket if that was what he was worried about? After all, he isn't short of cash having worked in the city.

And then Labour continue their contest for a new leader. Nice to see Andy Burnham looking like he could get on the ballot paper and it'd be even nicer if McDonnell and Abbott could manage it. I might not agree with them but the more people in the debate the better it will be. I'm a little disappointed that Harriet Harman isn't running as she's shown at PMQ's she's certainly capable, and she'd have a lot of support in the party, even if she isn't my own personal favourite. Another one to watch for the future as she's ruled herself out this time is Yvette Cooper, she wanted to spend a few more years with her children whilst they were young, completely understandably, but she speaks well and her article about the sexism she faced for not standing from Cameron and the right is a fine piece.

In my first ever post on politics I talked about how I had a lot of time for the Lib Dem's whilst still being a Labour man. After their performance over the past few weeks I'd have to say I'm fast falling out of favour with them as they drift away from the centre-left and are looking more like a centre-right party. If they fail to vote against raising tuition fees when it inevitably comes up (and abstaining from a vote is not enough by any measure) then that really will be the final straw and you could see that as the moment they abandon all their previously held principles. That's that, feel free to tell me where I'm wrong if you disagree.

Exams are over!!

Pretty much summed up in the title really, my very last one was yesterday, freedom at last!

The semester test went pretty well I thought, it went better than my Semester 1 test and I got a decent mark in that so things are looking good, not to jinx it I hope.

We didn't actually have the exam until 2pm which is probably for the best seeing as after the exams in January which were earlier the fact we started drinking straight after meant that by about 6 we were pretty gone and the night never really happened because we were all paralysed. This time though we timed it to perfection :)

Even the weather loved us because when we went for the post-exam BBQ (brilliant idea btw whoever thought that up!) it was absolutely roasting and nothing beats sitting next to a lake with a burger and a beer in the sun! Then we went down to Woolton Bar for a bit more pre-drinking with some mint vodka before heading off to Sankeys.

After the disaster of my last visit to Sankeys (Involving being inside around 5 minutes before being asked very nicely to leave aha) this was a great success. Although I did spend an extortionate amount of money in there, but that's allowed for such a great occasion. I'm sure about half the people in there were medics who'd just finished exams, every time I lost someone another person would magically appear. And I'm not sure what was in those buckets but they did serious damage to my liver!

All in all, great day, and now I can look forward to my house next year and my very own 12 children to take out on curry night and PJ pub crawls, excellent times!

P.s. I remember some Pbl 19er's telling me they wanted mentioning on here so hello to Becky, Zara, Will, Anna, Rach, Cad, Dave, Gej, Debbie, Wei and Ibrahim. (In no particular order :) ) And thanks for the picatures Debs.

My Big Personality Test

A couple of nights ago 'Child of our Time' was on, and they did a massive personality test over 51 countries to look at five personality traits that pretty much cover most aspects of human life; Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. So, eager for another excuse to have a break I decided to do it myself and you lucky people can see the results.

Ta da. Apparently my highest trait is agreeableness (4/5) and my lowest is neuroticism (1.8/5). Whilst I know that any kind of test like this isn't going to be 100% accurate, I'd tend to agree that I reckon these results pretty much sum me up in these 5 areas.

Agreeableness is how easily you can get along with others and how well you can read their expressions and fears. I've always liked those quizzes where you have to tell how someone's feeling from a picture of their eyes and I'm pretty good at it if I do say so myself ;) It also probably has something to do with the fact that sometime's I crave approval from other people quite a lot, maybe too much. Although not being neurotic means that I don't get too stressed when I don't, see how they all go together nicely.

I'm definitely low on neuroticism, if I had to predict any that would have been the one I'd have put hard cash on. Being neurotic means that you're sensitive to stresses and I'm just not a worrier, sometimes I worry a bit too little. On the plus side, it means I rarely get stressed about exams or other things which helps me because while some people thrive under stress, I prefer to work when I'm calm and can think things through.

And plum in the middle is conscientiousness (3.4/5), that's the ability to make plans and follow them through. In the middle is pretty much right for me I'd say. I can make plans and stick to them if I really need to but most of the time I just like to go at things as they come along, having a plan can be so boring sometimes.

So there is me, simplified down to five numbers, make of it what you will.

P.s. This hasn't just been written now, because I'm currently on a major binge having finished exams. I wrote it earlier but just posted it now for you lucky people. Let me know what you think of the re-jig with the Medicine/Politics/Football buttons -> and whatnot.

Doctor Who, seriously?

There's far too many serious posts around here, I've decided, so here's one about something I've recently decided is brilliant. Doctor Who. Yeah, the Chris of 2 months ago would be disgusted too but then after watching one episode I was officially hooked and much to my disgrace have now watched all the modern Doctor Who's.

I don't know why I think it's so good, its not exactly realistic, it hurts your head if you try and think about it too much, and its not exactly the pinnacle of special effects. I think its just because its so unashamedly fun to watch, a man running around with a screwdriver fighting aliens and saving the planet in his little blue space ship, simple but fun. The only problem is that in some episodes I end up hating humans because some of the things they do are so stupid in the programme, obviously that isn't too handy a quality to have in normal life.

And then there's the all important question, who's my favourite Doctor? Well, I liked Chris Eccleston when I first watched it, but he's nowhere near the other two so I'll discount him first. Between David Tennant and Matt Smith it's a lot closer, I think at the moment Tennant would win it but Smith might edge ahead if the finale of this season is good and he gets a few more quality episodes. The finale's are always the best and he hasn't been in one yet so I think its a bit unfair. Plus, David Tennant was just brilliant, so he should be happy to be still in the contest.

Like I said, Chris of 2 months ago would hate me, sorry.