Cancelling Sky

I like TV. I love live sport, I love Seinfeld, I love The Office, Peep Show, and crap like Californication. I love reality TV. I love the occasional documentary. I like watching Girls Aloud on MTV. There, I've said it.

But TV is not compatible with my new life. I can't afford the time and, given I'm now pressing ahead with a new business, I can't afford the Sky subscription either. So for the first time in 18 years, I've cancelled it.

Instead my new life involves more of these:






I read 3 books over the bank holiday, for pleasure. Books are good aren't they?

I'm a survivor...

I'm not gon' stop, I'm gon' work harder.

Well I'm not because firstly I'm going to have a ruddy good sit down. Phew. That was long, difficult and unpleasant, like a James Joyce novel. I had to lie on my sofa for 3 days afterwards - it's funny how tiredness builds and how much our bodies are under the control of our brains. Mine basically ordered me to rest.

I'm not sure what I learned from the whole thing, but certainly now I'm thinking like a psychologist. I can't prove this of course, but the likelihood of my hypothesis occurring by chance is less than 5%.

And now, a new plan.

Umm Bongo

Do they really drink it in the Congo?

So...

In we go. My daring (well, it feels daring to me) 5 year career change plan effectively takes me up to the end of these exams, which finish next Tuesday. So I'll be needing a new one. This one has left me poorer, older, tireder, but wiser, happier and more hopeful.

One last hideous leg to get through first. See you on the other side...and now one last reminder, the world's greatest ever advert, of what we should all be trying to do beause frankly VERY SOON WE'LL ALL BE DEAD:

Some revision stats

Now, I like a good statistic, but not as much as Dan, so given the customer-centric nature of this blog here are some stats to help him out. He requested some information about my revision. Now, revision is somewhat subjective, and much of what I'm doing is learning for the first, not second, time. We called this 'vising' not 'revision', and the estimated vising / revision ratio is:

80:20

For every 1 item of knowledge I knew (and revised) I am learning 4 new items (vised).

Other figures:

Estimated number of hours vised / revised to date: 210 (21/34 days total)
Estimated hours to go: 130 (11 days to go)
Total time elapsed: 62%
Total info memorised (vised): 50%
Procrastination %: 20% (per day)
Procrastination % (total since start of vision): 40%
Average number of hours at desk: 12
Hours at desk today: 14
Panic factor: 3/10 (rising)
Boredom factor: 8/10 (falling)

I wanted to show an upward curve of effort to time but my excel skills are now so limited I kept on producing a graph which had % vised totalling 200% by the exams - which Iassure you is not the case. Pathetic. Dan, help.

A rough breakdown of time spent per day is as follows:

Shelterbox, Myanmar and the fleet of foot

A friend of mine, T, recently completed the Shelterbox challenge which you can read about here.

I heard on the news today that Shelterbox has managed - where governments have failed - to gain access to the scene of the disaster in Myanmar (is it called Burma again now?) to distribute their amazing boxes and no doubt save lives right at the frontline of the disaster. This really does seem to be a great example of a fleet-footed charity making a meaningful contribution where other larger charities (not to mention Governments) cannot.

And though this is in contrast to T, who must be feeling anything other than fleet footed having lugged that enormous box about, well done for completing the challenege but more importantly raising awareness and money for what seems an amazing charity doing incredible work. Go support.

Observations

1. I noticed the first murmurings of disapproval from people after not voting yesterday. First time in my life. Is it because I'm old and you are too? Will be interesting to see turnout figures.
2. But do we really need more elected politicians? Does anyone actually know how power for council / local authority / regional assemblies / Mayors / MPs / MEPs breaks down?
3. Does anyone care?
4. I would love to know how the greatest city in the world ended up with a choice between a reformed Trotskyite pseudo revolutionary crony-favouring lizard and an irrelevant Toff.
5. I still don't trust David Cameron.
6. Gordon Brown looks increasingly like a a plastic head on a stick.
7. The weather is shit. Secretly I'm glad.
8. The BBC News really does look like Brass Eye these days. ITV news has done so since before Brass Eye.
9. The Apprentice editors are now looking like bigger idiots than those on the show, and that's saying something after that little toerag Kevin in the week. Their lack of nuance, and faith in our ability to detect subtlety is surely plumbing new depths. Please, just show us what happened.
10. Toe rag. One word? What is a toe rag? Toe rag. It's a rag specifically for toes.
11. Peep Show is back. Best Britsh comedy since Spaced.
12. I like you, and ft you can't handle me liking you, you can just fuck off.