Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

On Wednesday, we headed down to Sheffield Humanists for their talk by Dr Natalie Hammond, “Paying for Sex.” She had recently completed her PhD on the subject, specifically men who pay women for sex and the law surrounding it.

After the talk, there was a group discussion which took a while to get going, initially with people discussing the laws surrounding the topic, but finally someone got up and moved the discourse to where we really wanted it to be – the ethics.

Naturally, being a progressive group, most people were in favour of women having the right to do as they wish and rational enough to see that it is just the same as selling your body to any labour (I sold my body to McDonald’s, doing hard labour for far less money for example), and supporting decriminalisation so that victims are not afraid to come forward and the industry can be properly regulated.

A good parallel between this with the law surrounding abortion. Even if you disagree with abortion, it still makes sense to legalise it because of the harm caused by back street abortions and driving the practice underground.

Similarly, the harm caused in prostitution is nothing to do with any inherent problems in the industry, it’s the fact that we drive it underground and as a consequence the pimps, the human traffickers, the drugs, etc, etc get involved and that is what causes the problems.

Luckily, there were a few people in the audience with more regressive views, so some great debate got going :D.

With the university term drawing near, Elina had to return to Finland for the final year of her degree. So, at the end of August we headed over to Manchester Airport to drop her off.

It was pretty rubbish. I hate airports at the best of time, but when you’re only going there so that it can take away your girlfriend, that’s just a kick in the nuts.

Luckily, in today’s modern age, distance is only a partial barrier and Skype has been serving us well ever since. Big thanks to George for coming to keep me company too.

Recently, myself and Elina went for a walk down the canal. It was pretty scary, there was a lot of nature, including the rabbit you can just about see in the middle of the photo of the bushes.

Elina and I recently headed over to Ilkley Moor to take in a bit more nature. Afterwards, we went to lunch at the Cow & Calf pub, which turned out to be the exact same chain as when we ate at the Roundhay Fox the day before.

Having a bit of time before before Elina headed back to Finland, we headed over to Tropical World and Roundhay Park where you can observe nature from the safe distance of behind 20mm of glass.

Following August Wendy House, it was time for the usual fry up club which I stepped up to cook this month.

All in all, I was reasonably pleased with how it went, it didn’t help that I’ve never cooked eggs before so I delegated that to George, but everything else seemed reasonably editable once served, and nobody died, so I think we can chalk that one down as a victory.

As part of Jonni’s never ending birthday celebration, we forwent our usual Wendy pre-party this month for drinks elsewhere, before heading up to the union. Not the best Wendy ever, but still good.

Recently, we headed over to James’s house for a bit of a party. It was interesting to see the exact same bag and printer at his house, but in the end we decided that he hadn’t burgled me, then got home quicker than we could get to his house and pretended he owned everything all along. So, in the end, a good night all round.

A few weeks ago, myself and Elina headed up to York for the York Brights monthly meetup.

It was much nicer than last time as we weren’t in the middle of a torrential downpour, so I could actually see the road in front of me. The meetup itself is held at a pub called Ye Olde Starre Inn, which those in York will no doubt be familiar with.

Having missed my mixed grill the day before (all you can eat steak is subtly different), I decided to go for the mixed grill. While it was very enjoyable it was certainly a little unconventional – it was basically a mixed grill, crossed with an all day breakfast with egg and beans. Crazy, buy never the less enjoyable.

Having hit Fazenda last month, and then again a few weeks ago, I took one more trip there recently, to celebrate Jonni’s birthday.

As usual, they delivered some good meat, though with us being there on a Tuesday, they seem to suffer from a lack of turn over, as the meat was often slow coming. This was a little disappointing, though ultimately we ate to bursting point, so we didn’t have any less food.

We also got a free cocktail for checking in – they weren’t shy with the alcohol either.

I think it clearly has a critical mass point though, so if you’re going to go, I would recommend going on a Saturday evening when there are plenty of people and plenty of meat coming round.