Blogphen

One thing that concerned me just a little over the past week or so is the death of Steve Irwin. The man was, agreeing with just about everyone else on this issue, a legend. He made wrestling crocs and dangling poisonous snakes upside down a worldwide craze. He successfully encouraged youngsters everywhere to start doing stupid things like that too!

More seriously, though - the one thing I can’t believe is how much mourning happened for him. Even in the UK there were messages all over various forums, instant messaging protocols and in Usenet all saying how sad it was. Yes, he was a man everybody could relate to in his shows but was he really all people make him out to be? In his shows he often proceeded to aggravate and harass animals unnecessarily. He would, for example, be in the Australian outback and he’d come across a deadly poisonous snake. What is the one thing anybody with a brain would do? Avoid it like the plague, of course. Irwin, however, proceeded to annoy it by picking it up and dangling it upside down for 5 minutes. His shows raise a lot of questions about potential cruelty to animals and his treatment of them.

Not only did the above annoy me but I was reading through the Metro (granted, not the mose unbiased paper in the world given that it’s partly owned by the Daily Mail!) and there was a small section in the bottom left hand corner of one page about the death of one of Britain’s soldiers and how there might be an inquest into it and then a two-page spread about the death of Irwin. Not completely fair in my opinion!

Anyway, rant over! In other news, I figured the other day that I may miss Nottingham. Granted, for the first few weeks I’ll be fine and it’ll probably feel like Summer School but having not been away from home for more than 3 weeks, I may get a bit homesick at some point! It’s not as if it’s too easy to get back, anyway - even with a Railcard it’s £50 open return to Nottingham. Mind you, it’d work out cheaper to catch a local coach service from Swansea to Cardiff Central and use one of Central’s offers to get to Nottingham. It’d be a much more painful journey though!

I now have just less than two weeks left in Nottinghamshire - I will move into accommodation on either the 23rd or 24th of September. I’m still awaiting confirmation though!

This coming week we will be having builders in to ruin the kitchen and then fix it again. Basically, we’re getting a new kitchen installed and for free too - this is what complaining to the head of customer relations at the housing association does! However, this does mean that the kitchen needs to be emptied and the house completely tidied. Not fun, I assure you!

Also this week (tomorrow, in fact), I will be making my way towards Warwick Racecourse. The yearly volunteering conference is being held there and my manager at Barnardo’s managed to get me a last minute place on it. She forgot that I missed last year’s due to a maths exam I had. Technically, I could have made it to Kegworth (in Leicestershire, a local bus goes there) and caught the bus back to sit my exam on time. However, it seemed a better idea at the time to actually stay at home and revise for it. Not as many people are going to this one but as it’s so far away they’re sharing a minibus with some volunteers from Alfreton. Better than catching the train, anyway - apparently it’s Nottingham > Birmingham then Brum > Coventry, Cov to Leamington Spa then Leam > Warwick. Not much fun is that!

Anyway, this post is long enough to keep you busy until I next update!