Journal – October 2003

Welcome to another little collection of posts from my journal, as I begin my third and final year at university, and mention quite a few DVDs and TV shows that have been keeping me entertained. I hope you find things of interest in amongst it all!

Thursday October 2, 2003

Mum and I went out for a quick shopping trip today. She got herself some clothes, and I bought myself a pair of cargo trousers in the same store. But I also bought some more DVDs to keep me going:

• Porridge: Series 3
• The Best Of The Two Ronnies: Volume 2
• Open All Hours: Series 2
• The Sweeney: Series 1

I’m looking forward to the last one especially, as I’ve only ever seen 1 or 2 episodes in the past, and I’m assured it’s really good. The two Sweeney films I bought recently were good though, so it’s promising. The other 3 TV shows all star Ronnie Barker, he’s quite popular with the BBC’s DVD releases right now it seems, and they are all classics.

Monday October 6, 2003

I’ve started back at uni for my final year, and my first day went ok. I had to change one module because it clashed with another, but it could be worthwhile. My first lecture today was for that module I changed to, and it was a nice easy start.

My timetable isn’t too bad. Just 1 hour on Monday, 4 hours in a row on Tuesday, a couple of lectures on Wednesday afternoon, 4 hours of classes on Thursday – but with a nice big gap for lunch, which makes it better than Tuesday – and then a free day on Friday, giving me a three-day weekend. I’ll put my timetable in here when I know every class, there’s still one or two to sort out yet.

I also managed to buy a few more DVDs today, it’s typical that all the good stuff is coming out at once:

• The Simpsons: Season 3
• Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em: The Specials
• The Good Life: Series 1

I still haven’t finished watching the others I’ve been buying recently, but at least I’ve got plenty to keep me going for a while!

Wednesday October 8, 2003

This week has got off to a reasonably easy start so far. It will get much harder though, I’m sure. My timetable’s pretty much complete now, so here it is:

Monday

• 2pm-3pm: Economic Principles & Policy (Lecture)

Tuesday

• 11am-1pm: International Accounting (Lecture)
• 1pm-2pm: Economic Principles & Policy (Lecture)
• 2pm-3pm: Financial Management (Tutorial)

Wednesday

• 2pm-3pm: International Accounting (Tutorial)
• 4pm-5pm: Company Law (Lecture)

Thursday

• 11pm-1pm: Financial Management (Lecture)
• 3pm-4pm: Economic Principles & Policy (Tutorial)
• 4pm-5pm: Company Law (Lecture)

Friday

• No lectures or tutorials yet!

It’s not a bad timetable. You’ll notice that I have 2 hours of lectures and 1 hour of tutorial time per subject. The Company Law tutorial is missing because I don’t know when it is yet. I’m glad that two subjects (Economics and Law) have had their 2 hour lectures split in half across different days, as they’ll be easier to get through.

I have to buy textbooks for my subjects as well. So far, I’ve got one for Economics and one for International Accounting. I don’t know how many I need for Financial Management yet. But for Company Law I need 3!

Apart from that, mind-reading magician Derren Brown played Russian Roulette live on TV on Sunday, which was fascinating to watch but naturally caused some controversy. It was filmed in Jersey, as gun laws in England prohibited it. He got a volunteer – whom he had chosen through a strange, but clever, process – to load 1 live bullet into a gun which had 6 chambers without him seeing. Derren then made the volunteer count to 6, before they went away to leave him on his own. He then had to point the gun at his head and fire, until he got round to the chamber with the bullet in, which he would then fire away from him.

And he did it, of course. He did get one wrong, thinking one chamber had the live bullet in when it didn’t, but he did correctly fire way the live bullet too. It was then revealed by the Jersey police to be fake and used blank bullets, which wasn’t a surprise – Derren is an illusionist after all, so nothing he does is completely real – but even so, firing a blank into your head at close range still wouldn’t be a wise thing to do!

Tuesday October 14, 2003

I’ve got another DVD – Series 7 of Minder, the last with Terry McCann in, although the preview of Series 8 with Ray Daley looks pretty cool. The Simpsons: Season 3 is also good, from the first few episodes I’ve seen. The DVD commentaries are interesting too (and there’s a hidden bonus commentary on the first episode, just use your audio button to go to the third audio stream during the show).

Friday October 17, 2003

That’s another week over and done with, uni’s still going well so far. We had to have an extra Financial Management lecture today, to make up for one that was cancelled last week. It’s not easy, but I’m understanding it so far (my maths A-level’s helped, I think!).

It’s my dad’s birthday today, so we’ve got a birthday cake and some champagne, and I got him an audiobook. And for myself I bought another DVD yesterday – The Matrix Reloaded. I haven’t seen it yet, but I liked the first film. I’m still working my way through season 3 of The Simpsons as well. It’s the first time I’ve seen most of the episodes, and there’s a definite improvement in quality over seasons 1 and 2, which are still good in their own way. And I’ve found a second hidden commentary, on Lisa’s Pony. I think there may be one or two others later on as well, but I haven’t got far enough to find them yet.

Friday October 24, 2003

Concorde has made its last flights today, a sad end to a great institution. It’s a shame, as there’s no other plane like it in the world. It always looks like a bird gliding through the sky, it’s amazing. At least I can say I’ve been on it though. Well, I’ve not flown on it, but I have been inside one at Duxford’s air museum, which was cool.

Staying on the sky theme, the sky outside our house is in a funny mood. It’s a normal evening sky now, but it was quite a sight about half an hour ago. It just turned a funny colour. Some of it was quite dark, and some was bright orange. It looked different to a normal sunset, it was more interesting. Then it started raining and, as a consequence, there was a huge rainbow in the street outside the front of the house. We don’t often see them, so it was pretty cool.

Back on terra firma and I bought another DVD this week – Series 2 of The Brittas Empire, a great comedy. I’m still gradually going through Season 3 of The Simpsons as well, with all 4 hidden commentaries now found. The commentaries are quite interesting too, whereas some commentaries on other DVDs can be quite boring. 

On TV, The Bill has been getting quite good recently. Yes, it’s got many characteristics of a soap opera now and isn’t as good as it used to be. But it’s 20 years old, and to celebrate it they’re doing a live episode this coming Thursday. So that should be interesting. They’re good actors, so not much should go wrong. Apparently there’s going to be stunts and stuff too, as well as a cast member getting murdered, so fingers crossed that it goes ok for them all. Anyone who’s watched the show this week will have a good idea of what stunts they’re capable of, as well as the original stunt from over a year earlier which eventually led to the current one. Both have involved quite impressive looking explosions – largely computer generated perhaps, but still cool.

Friday October 31, 2003

That’s my fourth week at uni over with. The tutorials for my Company Law module started today, so I no longer have a completely free day on Fridays. And apart from lectures there’s just plenty of reading to do mainly. I’ve only got one essay to do, which I think I’ll start this weekend.

When I was out yesterday, I bought another DVD – Have I Got News For You: The Best of the Guest Presenters. Even though presenter Angus Deayton was sacked, it’s still been good. Rather than pick one new presenter straight away, they’ve had guests presenting it, which has worked well and made it feel fresh again.

The Bill did its first ever live episode last night, and a good show it was too. I didn’t notice any mistakes or problems, it all seemed to hold together very well. They proved it was live of course, with Jim Carver reading the day’s paper, and asking a bloke when Paul McCartney’s baby was born – to which he replied by singing Yesterday, which was true, as Beatrice Milly McCartney was born the day before. And someone else had to look at the clock to tell the time of death for one of the characters. The fireworks at the end were good too, an interesting backdrop to a quick stunt. The officer who died (Juliet) was good but not one of the best characters, so I won’t miss her too much. At least they didn’t kill one of the big stars of the show.