This be the blog

If you've ever read any blog post or opinion piece about starting university, you'll probably have heard the following written and regurgitated a million times over; but as they say, the cliches are all true. So, in no particular order (well, actually, the very particular order in which I thought of them), here's what I've learnt at uni so far. Some people you're only friends with because you see them five days a week. Anyone still worthy of a daily message or occasional call once you're getting a workload is one to keep a hold on to. You will benefit from being on the front row in classes. Sorry. Keep on top of the work or feel the wrath. If you're told to get a book, don't... ...Unless your lecturer is very  insistent on the matter. Always carry your ID with you. I know you think you're going to the library, but I assure you, you're going to the pub. For god's sake don't leave your ID in another city. I know you'd rather sp...

I've started uni a week or so before most people, it would seem, and this is a post partly aimed at people who have seen a million posts about Freshers and can't wait to start, or are alternatively dreading it, whether they're starting this year or haven't even applied for uni yet. First things first, Freshers isn't just about partying so much you throw up on your shoes/bed/doorstep/friend, can't remember a single thing and think the brightest idea in the world is having a glass of water by your bed constantly. Similarly, Freshers week isn't about staying in and trying to live as close to how you did at home as possible. Freshers week is about what you want it to be about, whether that be meeting new people over quiet BOGOF burgers on a Monday or splits on a club floor or a Wednesday, or trying to decide if you're on the right course and organising a million meetings to make an informed choice, or making new lifestyle choices, or budgeting so you can sa...

I couldn't vote in the general election, I was too young. I held some vague opinions but I never researched things fully. I supported Greens in a sort of passive, do-gooder-y way but I didn't really know that much about politics. I asked a lot of questions but I never really understood what was actually happening or the differences between Labour and Tories. I could just about get my head around some of the technicalities, but, like almost every other seventeen year old, I didn't know enough and was therefore backed into a corner of not caring, as my institutionalised education until then had taught me more about recessive genes than how I had a say in how the country is run. That priority in education is something that needs to change. Upon turning 18 I was thrilled that I could vote in bi-elections etc., but gutted that it'd be almost five years before I could have the say I really wanted to have (shoutout to my parents for putting me into this world a month too late...

T minus fifteen minutes. Plenty of time to get there. We figure out the set of artistically designed bins, dump our pints' plastic glasses and stroll to the venue. T minus nine minutes, we reach the venue and try to figure out the signs. It's not too surprising for the constantly re-marked chalkboards to not show your event, so I wander to the green hut of information to ask where the show is. Turns out my friend's working there so I cover up our confusion with my usual how-typical-I-can't-understand-the-obvious attitude. T minus eight minutes, my friend in the hut gives me a very professional, "no, sorry, you've got the wrong venue". I assume the venue will be nearby, boasting the same name as the one we're stood in, and even his offhand, "it's on the other side of town" doesn't phase me. He's my friend, he's an actor, he's done bigger things to pull my leg. It's only when his friends, who I don't know, earnestl...

There’s a well loved and much used phrase that goes “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” sometimes with the addition of “the truth is you did know - you just never thought you’d lose it”. In a few weeks’ time I’ll be moving to university, and this is a phrase that’s been playing around my head; not in relation to myself, no, I’m well aware I’m leaving my friends, family, mostly reliable WiFi and 11" CRT TV with built in VHS player behind. It’s more about my parents. The title of this post relates to the “well done on your results/getting into uni” presents they gave me. For some reason my mum was possessed to get a free Kellogg’s spoon engraved with “Mentioned” on it which explains that as best as possible, but the picture of Bill Nighy is a little less obvious. Well, it’s a snap of him, copied and pasted from Google via Paint, in Love Actually as a rockstar. I’m doing a music journalism and broadcasting course, so, so far, so good. However, my rents stuck this on a car...

There's little-to-no money for the majority of people in music. No one has ever thought, "I need a way to get rich quick - I know, I'll start a band". Unless you're right at the consistently-chart topping, sickeningly-rich end, you've probably got yourself a day job. People go into music because they love it, and they love it enough to be worth the long hauls, the let's-record-this-quick-because-we-can-only-afford-three-days-in-the-studios, the empty gigs, the negative feedback, the bad eggs of the industry. At the best of times, budgets can be hard to stick to. At the worst of times they can be bloody impossible, and artists can be forced - note my use of forced  - to turn to their fans. I can't imagine any band would think, "we're short on cash, it's easiest for us to ask total strangers for their hard earned money, so that's what we'll do". Also, remember, whilst crowdfunding can be aimed at their fans, it's als...

This is essentially a continuation of the last post ( on the personal/private divide ), as I intended that one to make some brief points but the topic felt too deep to ignore. You don't have to read it to make sense of this post. I basically discussed how social media allows us to know the personalities behind the music we listen to. Whatever your opinion of him, even if it's sheer, bone crushing apathy (as it was for me for a while), almost every corner of the Western world has heard of Kanye West. I can't find a figure for how many people watched his performance headlining Glastonbury on Saturday night, but hundreds of thousands, or possibly a million odd, wouldn't surprise me. I watched it because I knew someone would ask my opinion of it. And people are talking about it, which is the ultimate goal - but we'll get to that later. Now we know more about our favourite musicians than snippets of live show ramblings, thanks in a CD insert, or the odd off-the-beat...