The Best Things About 2018.

THE BEST THINGS ABOUT 2018

It would be easy to write off 2018 as being a bad year. If you're British, this might largely be due to the ongoing chaos of Brexit negotiations being led by our 'strong and stable'government. As a response, I am continuing my tradition of finding a few of the many positives from 2018 to counter the negatives. 

#1 - The Royal Wedding

I might as well get it out the way. Despite my thoughts on the wedding, I do have to admit that it made a lot of people happy. Also, with Meghan, we finally have someone in the royal family who actually seems vaguely human. Hopefully, she won't adopt the same dead-behind-the-eyes look that the rest of them have. 

#2 - England in the World Cup

My first memory of watching a world cup was in 1998 and that was probably the highlight...until now. There was a sense that we might do alright before the world cup started but the team really did outdo all of my expectations. Of course, lots of people still managed to be disappointed but I was more than happy to see England reach their first world cup semi-finals I've seen them in.

#3 - Thai Cave Rescue

When this story first hit, it was easy to think it was all going to end in tragedy. Instead, what we saw was hundreds of people working together to try and save the lives of a load of people they had never met, many of them volunteers. It was a genuinely happy moment when the boys got to safety and you got to see how happy everyone involved was about the outcome...everyone except Elon Musk.

#4 - Kim Jong Un

Not quite as many positives have come from Kim Jong Un and the vague promises he made for peace and plans to denuclearize as you might hope. However, the peace talks are still a step in the right direction and there is continued hope of an eventual end to hostilities between North Korea and South Korea/USA.

#5 - Elections in Iraq

Iraqis were able to vote for the first time since the Iraqi government declared victory over the Islamic State. The election was marred with issues and a low turnout of voters but being able to vote was still a positive for people who have been through so much. It is hopefully a sign that more stability will come to the country in the coming year.

#6 - Chile helps the environment

Last year, Chile pledged to help protect a large area of land for conservation reasons. This year, it became official. Chile added 10 million acres of national parkland which will help to protect a huge array of wildlife. As with most Brits, 99% of what I know about wildlife conservation comes purely from David Attenborough documentaries and I'm pretty sure this is a move that David would be proud of.

#7 - UK carbon emissions 

UK carbon emissions fell to their lowest levels since 1890. Technically, this happened in 2017 but the study that discovered this information was completed in 2018. One of the main reasons this has happened is due to the decrease in the amount of coal being used and in increase in the number of renewable energy sources being used.

#8 - Saudi Arabia

In 2018, the ban on female drivers in Saudi Arabia was officially lifted for the first time in decades. Although there is a long way to go for women rights in Saudi Arabia, it is at least showing that the country is moving in the right direction on this issue.

#9 - Endangered animals

There a a number of previously endangered animals who have been slowly increasing in numbers through 2018. These include Pandas, Snow Leopards and certain species of Rhinos and Whales. Again, I'm sure that this is something David can be proud of.

#10 - Betty White is still alive!

Despite predictions of her untimely demise, Betty White is still going strong at 96 years young!

Betty White, a beacon of hope for us all.

Let me know which 2018 positives I missed out. 

   

Films/TV/Books That Terrified Me as a Child

FILMS/TV/BOOKS THAT TERRIFIED ME AS A CHILD

Horror is so much better when you're a child because it has the ability to genuinely terrify you. Especially when you're watching something you really shouldn't be. With Halloween in mind, here is my list of the top six films/TV/books I remember scaring me when I was a kid. 

#6 - Are You Afraid of the Dark? 

Are You Afraid of the Dark? was a much better series than the Goosebumps series because it had much more of a mature tone to it. Even the intro was scary. Anyone who doesn't remember that swing swinging by itself isn't a proper 90's kid. 'The Tale of the Dream Girl' is my personal favourite episode if you fancy re-watching one on YouTube. 

#5 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day

When I was very young my Dad wouldn't let me watch Terminator 2 because I wasn't old enough. However, I managed to secretly watch it by pretending to be asleep on the sofa whilst he watched it. The bit that really stuck in my head was the scene where the guy drinking from the milk carton gets killed. If you also watched this film as a child you might know what I'm going on about.

#4 - Goosebumps - The Ghost Next Door

I loved Goosebumps books as a child but, for the most part, they weren't actually scary. One exception was 'The Ghost Next Door' which is basically the Sixth Sense for children. It manages to be a bit more subtle than some of the other books with a slower build and a well revealed twist. Saying that I did try re-reading this as an adult and...not quite as good as I remembered actually.

#3 - Bad Boy Bubby

This was a classic example of watching something as a child that you really shouldn't be watching. When I was twelve and left to my own devices, I liked watching late night films on Film4 because it would have strange, cult-classics that you didn't get on other channels (i.e. Ginger Snaps). I'll let the Wikipedia plot summary speak for itself as to why this messed with my twelve-year-old mind a bit:

'Bubby is a 35-year-old man who has never set foot outside his mother's dingy apartment in the back of a printing press in an industrial area of Adelaide. In addition to beating and sexually abusing him, she confines him to the apartment, telling him that the air outside is poisonous and telling him he will die if he tries to leave.'

Yep, I didn't sleep well that night.

#2 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Hush

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was part of that amazing time in the 90's when you could watch The Simpsons, The Fresh Prince and Buffy on the from your sofa in the early evenings. They were all well written shows aimed at young people which didn't patronise their audience. The 'Hush' episode really stands out for me (and many others) as being significantly scarier than pretty much every other Buffy episode. The Gentleman, with their evil grins and floating feet were brilliantly designed horror villains. I'm pretty sure that scene where one floats past the window would still get me now.

#1 - Paperhouse

When my Mum put this video on for me and my siblings, she probably thought the story of a girls drawings coming to life was the perfect film for some young children. What she didn't know was that the boy she draws would end up not being able to walk because she forgot to draw him legs or that the dad she draws for him would be a psychopath because she accidentally gave him a grumpy face. Let alone whats happens when she tries to scribble his face out. Me and my sister still both remember how much this film stuck with us after we first watched it. 

What did I miss out? Let me know which films/TV/books scared you as a child.

MSN Messenger Memories.

MSN Messenger Memories

When I was a teenager, the hub of my social life wasn't the park, after school clubs or the bit of pavement outside a corner shop; it was MSN Messenger! There was recently a thread on Reddit about 'What do you most miss about the internet?' and the first thing that came to my mind was MSN messenger. Unsurprisingly, one of the top comments said the same and lots of people shared their own memories of this now antiquated social platform. It was a nice bit of nostalgia so I thought I would share some of my own. Please feel free to let me know anything I missed out!

#1 - Having an edgy username. 

To a thirteen year old in the early noughties, your MSN username was a great way to express what a deep, complicated soul you were. Most people did this through song lyrics. You could vaguely express something you were feeling but if somebody asked you about it and you got embarrassed you could say, 'oh, it's just a song I like'. Other people just threw together random words/phrases that they thought sounded evocative in some way. I was one of the latter. In fact, I must have put far too much thought into it because I still distinctly remember my username as being '$ublime_Plague'. Yes, with the dollar sign included. At one point a girl I liked even had a matching username with me. So cool.

#2 - Getting peoples attention. 

If you wanted to speak to someone but you wanted them to start the conversation or you just wanted to show how hilarious you were, there was one tried and tested method. If you signed out and back in to MSN a notification box would appear at the bottom right hand corner of everyone's screen saying '$ublime_Plague has logged in'. If you signed out and in repeatedly, these notification boxes would stack up until they filled your friends' screens from bottom to top. As ridiculous a way of getting peoples attention this sounds, so many people did it. 

#3 - Pretending you were busy.

This is one where I genuinely don't know if I was the only person sad enough to do this. On MSN you could set your status to something like, 'busy' or 'gone away' to show people that you might not be able to respond straight away. When realising people might be noticing that I had been online for six hours straight and worrying they might realise I literally had nothing else to do, I would occasionally set my status to 'busy' and just ignore peoples messages for a while to try and give the impression that I was doing something else and had some sort of life. I didn't. 

#4 - Online only friendships. 

There were a few people on my contacts list who were from my school but I literally only spoke to them online. We would have long, meaningful (well, kind of) conversations on MSN but them completely ignore each other in the school corridors. This was teenage awkwardness at its finest. Of course, there were also a few contacts I had met online but if my friends asked me about them then I definitely knew them in real life!

#5 - 'Listening to'. 

On MSN you could make it so that it told everyone under your username what song you were listening to. Obviously, you were going to ensure that anything people saw would show you as having a respectable music taste. If I show people that I'm listening to Radiohead then they will think I'm mature and serious (despite the fact that in reality I bloody hate Radiohead). You could also file share songs through MSN. It would take about an hour to download a single track but if a girl sent you a song she liked, you were damn well going to wait an hour for it to download and then pretend to love it. 

   

What Trump Has Done.

What Trump Has Done

The two most common things I see about Trump online are either things that make fun of the way he looks (specifically, the bad hair, orange skin and silly pout) or scandals about his personal life, usually him saying something he shouldn't have whilst being secretly recorded. This means that what he has actually done as president comes third. I don't think there is anything wrong about making fun of the way he looks or enjoying one of his many scandals but surely he should be judged more on his actual actions and decision making as president. If I was to put on my tinfoil hat for a moment I might say that the endless commentary on his looks and personal life might be a way of distracting people from what is actually happening during his presidency. Just to clarify, I DON'T think the earth is flat, vaccines cause autism or the Queen is secretly a six foot lizard. 

Personally, I'm interested in the way politicians present themselves and what they say when they don't know they're being listened to but I ultimately think they should be judged on the actual political decisions that affect their electorate. What I wanted to do was look at some of what he has actually DONE during his presidency and pick out anything that seemed particularly bad or good. To make it clearer I've put the good things in green and the bad things in red. Spoiler alert: there is a lot more red. Although, of course, whether something should be green or red is completely down to individual opinion. Also, so much has happened that obviously there is loads I've missed out. So,

•  Reduced money given to the affordable care act.
• Restricted immigration from certain Muslim majority countries, also known as 'The Muslim ban'.
• Diverted funds from the Environmental Protection Agency to increase military spending.
• Removed restrictions on fracking.
• Signed a large arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
• Withdrew from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
• Developed policies making things more difficult for transgender service members.
• Donated one million dollars of personal funds to relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey and allocated much more.
• Denounced peaceful national anthem protests in the NFL.
• Allocated two hundred million dollars per year in grant funds to the study of science and engineering. 
• Withheld millions of dollars worth of aid to Pakistan.
• Signs order to keep Guantanamo Bay open.
• Bans devices allowing semi-automatic rifles to become fully automatic.
• Removes ban on sport-hunted trophies of elephants.
• Proposes teachers having guns in schools as a response to guns causing deaths in schools.
• Authorizes air strikes in Syria that kill civilians.
• Meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
• Trump administrations own zero tolerance policy helps lead to 1,995 children being separated from their parents in just over one month at the border.
• Advises Theresa May to "sue the E.U." during Brexit negotiations. 
• Refuses to recognise US intelligence agency assessments that Russian intervened in the 2016 election.

This barely skims the service of what he has done during his time in office but overall, the majority of what I read about his presidency made pretty unpleasant reading. How has this affected his approval rating? Well, not much. It has dropped but only by less than 4%. It seems that despite all the memes, scandals and harmful policies, most the people that liked him at the start still like him now. 

After all that I need a laugh. Guess I'll just go back to looking at Trump memes.

Less Tommy Robinson, More Akala.

Less Tommy Robinson, More Akala

Recently, the perpetually unpleasant Tommy Robinson was sent to jail for, well, breaking the law. Since then, lots of people have been taking to social media and the streets to protest him being jailed for, again, breaking the law. In case you were wondering what these enlightened individuals who are gallantly fighting for his cause look like, it's mostly something like this,

Yep, a mass horde of out-of-shape, balding white blokes never seems to be a good thing does it?

I've read/seen a little bit about Tommy Robinson in the past. One thing that stands out was this documentary I watched where (among other things) he threw stones at police officers and seemed to shit himself every time a Muslim bloke went near him. However, I haven't noticed him as much in the media spotlight recently so when he popped up in the news again I had a Google to see what it was all about and what he had been up to. The main thing I learnt from what I watched/read was that when you listen to Tommy Robinson,you learn very little. 

The best video I watched was this one where he is dealt with perfectly by my favourite living musician, Akala. Rather than entertaining the ignorance of Robinson or making fun of him, Akala simply baffles him with knowledge. Baffled perfectly describes the look on Tommy's face at the end of the video after being forced to be quiet for a second and listen to some knowledge. For instance, after listening to videos of Tommy Robinson I never learnt anything new. Conversely, in this brief video Akala teaches me about the case of Christopher Alder, someone he correctly refers to (in my case) as being, "someone you've probably never heard of." 

When I listen to Akala, whether it is his songs, interviews, talks etc, I am always learning something knew. This is why I am always recommending him as somebody you should listen to. It's good that we all have different opinions and very little should be accepted without question. Interesting people we listen to/watch can often be angry about injustice but make sure they are making you think and not just hate.           

Who Is Paying For This Wedding?

Who Is Paying For This Wedding?

For what seems like an eternity, you haven't been able to read a news site without endless stories about the royal wedding. I wouldn't say I hate the royal family, I'm probably more indifferent to them although the fact I'm taking the time to write a blog post about them might suggest otherwise. It is the incessant nature with which it has been covered that has meant I've failed to escape something I might otherwise ignore. However, what made me want to write about who is paying for the royal wedding is the debates I've seen on social media. I've seen a few people posting their disgust at their tax money being spent on the royal wedding whilst others gallantly jump to the defence of the super wealthy groom by claiming the wedding will pay for itself via an increase in money from tourism following the media frenzy. On a side note, do people genuinely travel to Britain from abroad to stand outside Buckingham Palace? Different strokes for different folks I guess. 

Anyway, not being one to jump to conclusions (except for when I judge every human I ever meet on first impressions) I decided to do some research. So the royal wedding is predicted to cost around £32 million with approximately £30 million being spent on security. Or, if you want a conservative estimate, the security could cost as little as £24 million. So, yes, that £24-30 million will be paid for by the tax payer. Before you judge them, the royal family has kindly agreed to pay for the remaining £2 million themselves. Although, when you consider they currently get £82 million in public funding every two years, it seems a little paltry. BUT what about that huge injection of money into the economy from all that extra tourism money that the royal wedding frenzy will generate? Well, according to 'Euromonitor' (a global market intelligence publisher) the wedding is unlikely to generate an increase in tourist spending.

Of course, the royal family do bring benefits to Britain, largely through tourism. But in response to whether the taxpayer will be paying for the royal wedding? Yes, almost all of it. 

   

Wrestlemania Weekend: Some Of The Good, Bad And Stupid Of Wrasslin.

Wrestlemania Weekend: Some of the Good, Bad and Stupid of Wrasslin

Everyone has things in life that they are a bit embarrassed to admit they like. You get those types of people (for example) who will only admit to liking bands that are deeply alternative, critically acclaimed and unheard of by the unwashed masses but you know, somewhere deep in their playlist, they still have a few Coldplay songs that they sing along to when nobody is listening. Well, my Coldplay has always been pro wrestling. There are many reasons why it's embarrassing to admit to liking pro wrestling, one of which is the way people always feel the need to tell you, "It's not real you know." as if they are revealing to you some deep media secret that you have definitely never heard before. In this way, you're treated like a child being told Santa doesn't exist. Here are some of the good things about pro wrestling as well as addressing the often valid claims for it being bad and/or stupid.

Good: nostalgia. As with things like Nintendo, Sega, superhero cartoons and Goosebumps, wrestling is an important part of many peoples childhoods and therefore, will always evoke a strong sense of nostalgia whenever people watch it or read about it. WWE know this and will often bring back wrestlers way past their prime to get a nostalgia pop from the audience. Even though the wrestler you once viewed as a hero might now have sagging pecs and the agility of a newly born giraffe, it still feels good to see them come back now and again. They might now be old but they're still my childhood heroes.

Bad: negative stereotypes. This is probably the most common 'serious' criticism you will see of WWE these days. And it is very valid. In the past especially, female wrestlers were often presented as unintelligent eye-candy and both black wrestlers and foreign wrestlers were too regularly given the comic relief gimmicks. However, there were exceptions to this and things are changing. For example, The Rock was possibly the most popular wrestler of the late 90's and is of Samoan heritage and female wrestlers are now much more valued for their athletic abilities rather than just their looks. 

WWE's Lana.

Stupid: in 2000, there was a story-line where 77 year-old retired wrestler, Mae Young, gave birth to a rubber hand. Yes, that happened. 

Good: multi-media. Wrestling isn't limited to just watching wrestling. You also have a huge number of video games that have been made for it, as a kid who didn't have Sky TV to watch WWE, being able to play 'WWF Smackdown' on the Playstation was a bit of an obsession of mine. There are also the entrance theme songs that are often made or chosen to perfectly showcase and create an atmosphere for the character they are helping to portray. Entering the classroom everyday to the sound of Stone Cold Steve Austin's entrance theme would definitely benefit my teaching, although might be frowned upon by leadership. 

Bad: injury and drug abuse. When I was a kid, it wasn't uncommon to see a wrestler get repeatedly hit over the head with a steel chair. Shockingly, it eventually turned out that this wasn't good for their brain. Many wrestlers are now suing WWE for the concussions and brain damage this caused. As well as this, having to maintain a bodybuilder physique whilst living with the physical pain and injury caused by wrestling means that many wrestlers have died young due to addictions to bodybuilding and pain-relieving drugs. However, WWE wrestlers are no longer hit over the head with steel chairs and the WWE's 'wellness policy' is helping to deal with the drug problem. 

Stupid: Wrestler 'Max Moon' came to the ring looking like this and it wasn't supposed to be funny.

As stated previously, everyone has embarrassing things they enjoy whether it be listening to Coldplay, wearing Tapout clothing, voting Conservative or watching pro wrestling. On the one hand, you should probably try to live and let live when it comes to other peoples interests. On the other hand, if you like something then you should be able to deal with people having different opinions about it to yourself. Enjoy Wrestlemania tomorrow! 

Teachers With Guns.

Teachers With Guns

On February 14th there was another tragic school shooting in America, this time at Stoneman Douglas High School and seventeen people were killed. In the USA in 2018 there have, so far, been eight school shootings that have resulted in death or injury and we are only seven weeks into the year. In the UK by comparison, there have been zero school shootings since the Dunblane massacre in 1996. Shortly after Dunblane, the ownership of handguns was banned in the UK and you would have to be pretty determined to not see the link between the two. 

People have posted lots of opinions about how we can stop school shootings from happening. The most common opinion I've seen is that there needs to be tighter gun control laws in the USA. Other common opinions include increased security in schools, more help for young people with mental health problems and more research into the drugs being prescribed to young people with mental health problems. However, another stranger solution I've seen a few people put forward is that of arming teachers with guns themselves; this grabbed my attention as I am currently a school teacher. 

The vast majority of teachers I know, regardless of personality, want the children in their class/classes to be safe and protected because why would you not? Also, I do think the majority of teachers would go above and beyond to protect the children in their school because you do feel a profound responsibility for their safety. You only have to look at the heroic actions of some of the teachers on February 14th to know that. However, I can't help but feel that people who genuinely think giving all teachers guns is a sensible solution probably look at this as reality:

That is Arnold Schwarzenegger in 'Kindergarten Cop', where the most sensible solution to protecting an at risk child is to send an undercover police detective to work as his teacher whilst waiting for his violent, criminal father to arrive. Yes, it's a brilliantly awful film ("Who is your daddy and what does he do?") but it definitely wouldn't be a good idea in the real world. Here are just a few reasons why: 

• Most teachers are ordinary, peaceful people and, even with training, would not perform as well as Arnie in an armed fight. 
• Most classes I've worked in have around 30 children in one fairly small room. No matter how many precautions you take, having that many children so close to a firearm is an accident waiting to happen.
• You are completely normalising children to being around weapons.
• A child might decide they want to get get hold of the weapon.
• You are trusting teachers, who are constantly distracted by the needs of 30 separate children, to always be completely responsible with the firearm. 
• Many teachers could easily be overpowered by another adult (or even child in some cases) trying to get the gun.
• Having weapons in a school might make it easier to sneak in more weapons.

Honestly, I could go on and on and on. I love the thought of being a hero and saving a class of children from some scumbag who wants to hurt them but the dangers of teachers having guns themselves are far too obvious and plentiful to ever make it a sensible option. Despite this, we should still remember the heroic actions of teachers and children when tragedies like this occur. On February 14th you had: Aaron Feis who died shielding students from gunfire; Scott Beigel who was killed whilst locking a door to prevent the gunman from getting to his students; Peter Wang who, despite only being fifteen, spent his last moments holding a door open for others to get to safety as well as many others. We need more people like this, not more guns.   

How NOT To Raise Mental Health Awareness.

How NOT To Raise Mental Health Awareness

According to 'Mind', 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. If, like me, you've been part of that statistic at some point in your life you will know that some people still have awful attitudes towards mental health problems. I should say that I think attitudes are vastly improving and, in my experience, most people won't give a negative response if you talk about mental health. However, many of us will still have experienced ignorance from people on the subject. It could be anything from the self confessed 'expert' who over diagnoses themselves to the person who says depressed people just need to 'cheer up'. 

I remember being in a university seminar where mental health problems were being discussed and one woman loudly mocked the issue. I know her words and tone will have affected people in that room who had personal experiences on the subject. Therefore, I can only imagine how the family of a suicide victim must have felt when they saw that Youtuber, Logan Paul, had made an incredibly insensitive video about their newly deceased family member. 

In the video, Logan Paul visits the Aokigahara forest in Japan which is known for being a place where unusual amounts of people commit suicide. For what should obviously be a sensitive video, Logan sets his tone straight away by choosing to wear this,

Yep, a hat with one of the Aliens from 'Toy Story' and a Gucci jacket which he proudly tells the camera, "If I'm gonna get haunted by a ghost I'm gonna do it in my fucking Gucci jacket, I wanna look good". Keep in mind, this is literally as he is about to enter a forest where he knows people regularly take their own life. Still, you shouldn't judge someone on their clothes, I'm sure his behaviour will show more consideration and maturity...right? Not at all. He is laughing and joking the whole way, including when discovering and standing near the body of a recently deceased suicide victim. There are the odd moments of seriousness thrown in but they lose all credibility when alongside all the footage of him being completely inconsiderate. 

The mainstream media have largely focused on a moment when he approaches the body and says, "What, you never stand next to a dead guy?" before laughing. However, there are so many other moments such as when someone politely tells him it's a restricted area and he responds with, "You told us a little too late bro, we've seen a little too much already." whilst laughing. One part I found particularly disturbing was when he says to a little girl, "Don't go over there." with a grin on his face whilst pointing to the location of the dead body. The little girl he says this to is of a similar age to large parts of his fan base. I know this because I'm a year six teacher and many of the kids in my class regularly talk about him, quote him and ask if we can watch his videos. Yeah, I know.  

After receiving a huge amount of backlash from the mainstream media, other YouTubers and large numbers of the internet community, Logan Paul did what many others have done before and released an apology video. This can be risky because if you come across as insincere or say the wrong thing, you can just make it worse. For me, the response video that I most agreed with was this one by YouTuber, True Geordie. He puts it much better than I ever could.