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Showing posts from April, 2016

A eulogy

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I wasn't sure if "eulogy" was the right word. I gave the definition a Google and feel it is. Just over four years ago, someone bought me a pair of shoes, and a few weeks ago they fell apart beyond repair. Didn't have me pegged as a person who would be moved by losing a pair of shoes from her wardrobe? Let me tell you that these weren't any old shoes. They cost £3, came from Primark, and were brown, lace-up wedge heels with a fabric, like, cuff, around the top. I don't know what it's called I never buy shoes. You're not reading the words of a shoe fanatic, you're reading the words of a practicality fanatic. At first they were just a pair of shoes that made me look about three inches taller, it took me until the following summer for me to realise they had super powers. Perhaps not super powers, but you've got to respect that fact that these were a pair of three quid Primark shoes that took a lot of wear and tear. Over the summer I we

Edinburgh: mash, milkshakes, and Christmas

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It's 8pm on a Saturday. I'm in bed watching TV and writing this and once again contemplating if I'm living my student life "right". If there is a "right". Perhaps that's not what I mean, more, I feel like I might be letting my "best" three years slip away. By the way, I'm in an Edinburgh hotel. So I might not be "wasting" my student life, but it certainly feels a little odd. Since Christmas, I've got into a bit of a habit of disappearing from uni each weekend. Mash for the over-5s. I didn't decide to write this till late in the first day, so mind that I've not included anything before then. A summary: Scotland is far away, I ate a meal in the form of mashed potato, I got stuck in the back room on a vinyl shop. I think part of the charm of the Scottish capital might be that it feels nothing like a capital. Ten minutes out of the city by train and you could be in the middle of the Highlands. Actually, I t

Brexit, pursued by a bear

Finally, after months of drafting and re-drafting this post, I can form it into something more than an nonintellectual babble with little articulation or purpose. On June 23rd, I'll be voting to stay in the EU. At first I believe this vote was merely dictated by my want of some level of security, but after a discussion yesterday, I've realised I can now support my argument, and I'm no longer in a position where I could be swayed. A "reformed" EU From what I've seen, a lot of people are voting to stay in the hope of a "reformed" EU. I don't know exactly what this vague term means to individual people, but I presume people are looking for a more democratic union. I won't quote statistics here, because I believe every figure I've thus far seen on any matter relating to the referendum has been challenged somewhere else, so there would be little point in doing so. It would deduct from the point. However, what I do know, wi

31 songs: part 3

The end is nigh (at last). Part three of three of my 31 desert island songs list. Normal blog posts shall soon resume. Postal Service -  District Sleeps Alone Tonight Last December I got into loads  of new music. Postal Service was one of the best I found, they're fantastic. Public Service Broadcasting -  The Other Side Another band I got into last year, during my Mercury Prize love phase. I found this in a list of artists that should have been nominated but weren't. The whole album, Race For Space, is brilliant, but this is particularly special. It's bizarrely motivational. Relient K -  Must've Done Something Right I saw the lyrics to this song on Tumblr. Googled the lyrics, loved them so much I got hooked on the song. I have a blog named after a line. They're so cute. Damien Rice -  The Blower's Daughter My favourite film (if you hadn't guessed) is Closer , and this is the song through the titles. This track got me into Damien's music, it's s

31 songs: part 2

Following me finishing Mentioned a week ago (and what a relaxing week it's been for it), I started building a list of my all time, desert island, favourite 31 songs. You can read the first ten here , and below is the next bunch. Fatherson -  James A lot of musicians fill my Instagram feed, and in the spirit of "support your scene", they share a lot of music they like. As I'd heard the name a few times, when I saw Fatherson's I Am An Island  posted on there, I gave it a listen in a late study session after college a few years back. I fell in love with one track off the record, Cat Stevens , and when I listened back to the album in full a year or so ago, I loved the whole thing, but the line, "so go home, sober up, take a weight off your feet and just chill", caught me. In the first weeks of uni I wrote it out with a thick marker pen on some cardboard and stuck it up. The Front Bottoms -  Cough It Out Someone posted the internet famous line, "with