Three cardinal sins of the student kitchen

Recently, in an attempt to become even more of a skint-flint, perhaps even impress my peers, and maybe even seek out an alternative career path, I’ve attempted to spend more time in the kitchen. As a teenager who has grown up in the ‘microwave era’, I’ve been used to limiting my cuisine to several three-minute wonders, including those infamous Chicago Town pizzas, macaroni and cheese from Marks...

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TechTalk: Exploring the social networking undergrowth

If you’re a keen follower of this blog (which I somehow doubt), you’ll know that it’s my (frankly, rather pathetic) attempt to cobble all of the things that I’m passionate about into one place, whilst earning a few pennies on the side (yup, those ads, unfortunately, aren’t decorative). Recently, though, you’ll have noticed that I’ve put several joules of energy into writing about social networks,...

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TechTalk: Social not-working: Facebook’s numerous GUIses

Like a group of teenagers with their fads, or a woman with her clothes, social networking giant Facebook has suddenly changed again. If Mark Zuckerberg hadn’t asked his loyal and numerous users to master enough user interfaces already, another one has come along to baffle them and question why they use the site. We were all used to the Facebook of yore. It had a nice and uncluttered interface, and...

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TechTalk: "MySpace Tom" is now just "Tom".

Years ago, when you first logged onto the then social networking hotshot Myspace, you would have had one friend. It wouldn't have been a friend that you knew, a friend that you necessarily cared about, or a friend who impacted your life. It was just a caucasian guy, sitting by a scribbled-on whiteboard in an office somewhere, smiling at the camera in his dazzling white shirt. That guy was Tom. Throughout the years, he's been known under several pseudonynms, including "Tom Anderson", "Myspace Tom",...

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Book Review: One Day [+ A film too far?]

The Book Bit It's not often that one can read a book that perfectly condenses life, warts-and-all, into 464 pages of paperback perfection. Most authors tend to capture a wonderfully two-dimensional perspective of life. It's either usually too happy, too sad, or too damn boring. David Nicholls, however, has managed to flesh out the emotions to a tee, making the characters of his lengthy and emotionally...

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Clues of the World: Was the closure imminent?

After the intense rollercoaster ride of allegations into the News of the World's phone-hacking scandal, News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch have made the decision to pull the plug on one of Britain's best selling tabloids. A memo was only passed round to staff and press members today, but given the pasting that News of the World has received in the past week, one must wonder if the closure was...

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Inbox Nasties

Aaah, don’t you remember the good old days? Back when spam filters actually seemed to work, and the only weird emails you’d get were from your long lost Nigerian businessman friend who conveniently chose this time to waltz back into your life so you could transfer him some money, even though he’d obviously pay you back? Or from those pesky people...

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AV Explained

THE POLITICAL BIT As most people know, the people United Kingdom went to the polls yesterday, both to vote on the parties that controlled their councils, and to choose a voting system to be used in future elections where MPs are selected to represent their constituencies in the House of Commons. Being someone who has yearned for a true democratic voting system for a while now, AV is a change that...

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Popcorn Post: Scream 4

It's the occasion horror fans have been waiting for for years on end. The telephone is back, the mask is back, and so is the haunting question: "What's your favourite scary movie!?" Despite being parodied several times in the Scary Movie franchise, and with Scream 3 becoming everything the series stood against, Scream 4 [or SCRE4M, as it's snazzily styled in the film] has come to our screens with...

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Afore Ye Go...- My Travels in Scotland- Part 2

After sitting on a train for around an hour, and crossing two giant bodies of water on what can only be considered marvels of engineering [in the form of the Forth Bridge and the Tay Bridge, the latter of which, I found out afterwards, collapsed while a train was on it in the middle of a storm, leading me to make a pact where I’d never cross it again], I had arrived in Dundee- a place I’d always heard...

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Afore Ye Go...- My Travels in Scotland- Part 1.

For years, I, like many, have heard that Scotland is a dreadful place. Wet, grey and cold, it seemed to have struck fear into the hearts of many, and it was quite sad that I was slowly starting to believe these myths without actually visiting our Northern neighbours- so I was honoured when I finally got the chance to visit. Departing from my cosy-warm bedroom at roughly 4.50 in the morning, I...

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Libyan Activists Protest in Middlesbrough

Activists hoping to raise awareness of the crisis and massacres in Libya gathered at Teesside University, Middlesbrough today in order to protest outside the Student Union. Unprecedented protests in the Libya's capital, Tripoli, have been countered by extreme force used by the country's army, with gunfire being heard into the early hours of morning, and with several buildings being set ablaze by...

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Popcorn Post: 127 Hours

In this day and age, "true-to-life" movies have become the domain of the Channel Five afternoon line up. You know, the ones where you've not bothered with going into work, so you've feasted yourself on the several, low-budget, American, "made for TV", oestrogen filled dramas of babies with several mothers, and the like. 127 Hours, however, may just alter the perception, target audience, and connotations...

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