Chris Worfolk's Blog


Grragh

October 8th, 2008 | Thoughts

Hmm, this isn’t good. My reasonably early night because all I was doing was going to a Christian event turns into me not even sitting down to look at my emails and get some work done until half twelve. I feel this is bad news.

The awesome factor

October 8th, 2008 | Humanism

It’s not easy being popular. A-Soc had moved of meeting room 4 because we weren’t sure we could fit everyone in as it only holds around ten people. We were right. Especially when 45 people turned up to A-Soc last night :D.

We had a lot on, a committee meeting, Norm’s talk “Intolerance in religion”, Pro Life Through Pro Choice, preparation for the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire’s debate against Bradford University’s Islamic Society and a social and it really pulled in the crowds.

When we arrived in The Terrace for our social not only did we fill an entire row of benches outside on the terrace itself but we had to move a few benches onto the end of the row to fit everyone on!

It really has been a fantastic start to the year for the society and I would like to congratuate everyone involved on really getting stuck in and making it work. People are already focused on maintaining this strength as well, it has really got me excited about what the society at the moment.

Series 4

October 5th, 2008 | Distractions, Thoughts

I’m going to make a more general post about the show later but for now I want to get some thoughts of my chest. I’ve just polished off the 4th series of Doctor Who and it was, well, interesting.

I did enjoy the series. But not as much as the previous ones. It really felt like a new series and so the criticisms I have of the new series really came through in this one. I prefered the first few series of the revival because they tended, or at least felt like, they had more mini off world adventures. I know the show has always spent a lot of time on Earth but these days it feels like it’s too focused.

The problem with the revived show is that every week it’s the end of the world. There just isn’t some problem on a distant world The Doctor has to take on, he has to stop some mad invasion force from destroying the fabric of reality. Also, I think it is far too open and well known these days. There is massive news coverage of what is going on. The whole world knows that there are alien invasions and that The Doctor saves them, which I don’t think is a good thing, it kind of ruins the magic.

Also nobody dies. The problem with doing some huge world ending story lines is, it is supposed to end something. Fair enough if you have a skirmish with the Darleks or the Cybermen and then they later return, that’s fine. But when they are wiped out of existence and then come back, that is just bad storytelling.

Finally, the whole thing is just a bit cheesy. I mean, bringing everyone back for one final happy ending? Come on, it’s just awful. The Doctor has a companion for a series and then moves on. They don’t just keep getting pulled back again and again in some kind of sitcom style guest appearance, it just looks tacky.

So that is what I didn’t like. But then I guess that is to be expected with Doctor Who being a BBC One show which needs to score ratings. I suppose I can live with such flaws because, as I said, overall I have really enjoyed the new series, including series 4. And I now have something to look forward to at Christmas now.

What credit crunch? Part 2

October 5th, 2008 | Life

Ever wondered what a £50 note looks like?

It has been a good day for cash intake lol. Our landlord refunded the money he owed us. Seriously though, who carries around £50 notes in their wallet?

Credit crunch? What credit crunch?

October 5th, 2008 | Life

Money

Ha, yeeeah. That’s just a few hundred pounds I happened to have in cash.

I don’t actually have any spare cash, I just happened to get my expenses back from A-Soc today. It needs to go into my bank account ASAP to make the books balanace this month but until the bank opens tomorrow I’ve got nothing else to do than look smug 😉 .

The calm before the storm

October 4th, 2008 | Life, Thoughts

These past few days have been fairly laid back. I’ve not felt too well so I’ve taken it easy. Next week is going to be rather busy though. With A-Soc’s meeting, A-Soc’s social, Pro Life Through Pro Choice meeting, I-Soc’s freshers’ dinner, the Alpha course I’ve been invited to, podcasting, One Life, Liz’s houseparty and the TKD social I recon it’s going to be a rather tiring week.

Christmas is coming

October 3rd, 2008 | Thoughts

It’s October 3rd.

I’m listening to a feature on the radio about Christmas.

That can only mean one thing. It’s almost that magical time of year again. The time where you can spend weeks, maybe even months, moaning about how early shops have started their Christmas preparation this year and how wrong and annoying it is.

Karaoke

October 1st, 2008 | Events, Humanism

Another acamedic year has arrived and once again the A-Soc machine is rolling. We delivered out intro meeting to a packed out room last night at which Norm gave an excellent talk resulting in another load of sign-ups for the society.

Afterwards we headed down to OK Karaoke, taking around 30 people with us and despite the fact that nobody else turned up we still managed to make the place look crowded all by ourselves. They were so impressed that we’re now in talks for regular visits 😀 . Not to mention that they kept the bar open all night for us having been planning to close at 11.

Everyone seemed to have an amazing night and by the looks of things we will have lots of new people coming back. I had to leave at 1am due to having to be up for work that morning and most people were still in there! May the good times roll.

It’s all going a bit wrong

September 30th, 2008 | Religion & Politics, Thoughts

I’m not going to use the phrase economic crisis because we’re not in one. Everything is fine. The only reason we’re in a recession because we decided to call it a recession which then scares everyone and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I would however like to throw a few ideas out there on the current economic climate.

Government’s all over the world are in the middle of nationalising banks. Like everywhere. Iceland’s Glitnir, which I’m told was a rather large bank, has recently been nationalised. Here in the UK, Bradford & Bingley have just gone. We’re still bailing out Northern Rock. Me, my tax money is bailing them out.

Point is, this isn’t how a free market capitalist economy is supposed to work. There shouldn’t be government bail outs, a free market only really works when the market is free. Companies go down, other companies take their place, circle of life and all that jazz.

Surely the way to encourage economic growth in such times is to increase the capitalist freedoms and reduce the socialist state rather than the current trend of increasing the socialist state with government bailouts and suprise taxes. Slash taxes, slash minimum wage, make it more profitable to actually generate profit than go cap in hand to the government.

We’re all moaning about these huge salaries the city big wigs are getting paid then coming to the tax payer for the bail out. Who can blaim them? That’s just common sense. They don’t lose it all when their company goes down to the toilet, most boards are remaining intact when the company is nationalised. Who wouldn’t take up that offer?

If we’re going to this whole capitalist economy (which we are, because it works, get over it) we should just get on with it. The world economy well go down the pan if government’s don’t intervene. But it will be back again. Bigger, better and even stronger than before.

Human nature

September 29th, 2008 | Distractions, Reviews

As I said in the text message I sent, I feel Rich slightly oversold Human Nature.

It was a two part episode from the third series of the new Doctor Who and came highly recommended. Not that it wasn’t a good episode, it was very good indeed. I felt Blink was equally as good though. Still, perhaps it will take some time to see the real genius in it.

While I should probably be sleeping now, I am just polishing off the third series, ready to make a start on the forth series soon and then I will be all caught up and ready to discuss new episodes every Tuesday. Not that it is even on at the moment lol.