tredford01

When I first moved to Manchester for the first year of my course at Uni, I spent the first few weeks just settling in and trying to get used to the whole idea of living away from home and being in a city and country with a quite different culture from that which I grew up with. This past week, I have been sort of doing that again. I just started back at Uni for the second year of my course, and its quite strange how all the totally new experiences are mixing with lots of familiar stuff.

I have to find a launderette and work out how to use storage heaters and an Economy 7 water heater, but I know my way around campus and can find most of my lecture theaters without getting lost. It helps that I have a decent place to live this year. Last year, I was in a really bad hall of residence in Hulme, sharing a flat with people who I didn't really get along with. This year, I have a comfortable flat in Didsbury which, thanks to their cheap furniture, almost resembles a page out of an Ikea catalogue. I'm still getting the hang of things, but I feel a lot more settled than I did last year.

For the past few weeks I have been looking forward to a formal reception to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a charity which I am involved in. Well, the reception was on Friday night and I can truly say that it was a let down. Aside from the fact that I hardly knew anyone there, I managed to add some drama to the evening by fainting. Mostly as a result of having not been able to sit down for over an hour I began to feel a bit dizzy and, after leaving the main hall, I blacked out in a corridor and narrowly missing hitting my head on a stone step.

It was quite an odd experience. I can't recall anything about falling over, but I found myself lying on the floor, with one of the guards from the front door trying to wake me. The only pain involved was from the fall. I ended up with carpet burns to my face, courtesy of the industrial strength carpets, and a few bruises from where I fell. The guards had called an ambulance, which seemed to me at the time as a bit unnecessary, but thinking back, I would probably have done the same if someone had collapsed on the floor.

Possibly one of the contributing factors was the general feeling of excitement that I had, as a result of successfully renting a flat in Manchester. I have found a really nice unfurnished one-bedroom flat, so I'm going to spend the weekend in Ikea finding cheap furniture and then attempting to put it up. It'll be nice in September when term starts again not to have to share a flat with people I don't like, and not to have to put up with things like this happening on my doorstep all the time. The picture in the article is of a pub literally across the road from my hall of residence.

BBC News story

It is official. I have entered politics! With my first letter to the Edinburgh Evening News, I have sparked two people on the EEN web forum to strongly disagree with me and call me a "career-driven supporter" of the SGP, speaking "no more than blatant propaganda"! Here are the posts in full:

#12
(#10 Climate Truth) - Wow! It is good to hear from someone who can speak knowledgeably about these issues that have been reduced to no more than blatant propaganda by the Greens and too many career-driven supporters. Climate Truth's comment refers to the latest IPCC report allegedly supported by "2,500 scientists" and to the "Summary for Policy Makers" which has been released in advance of the report proper. If I understand correctly, this Summary was issued before the report proper was finalised. However, it was announced that the report would not be changed except to bring it into line with the Summary - completely the wrong way round! The summary should be of the findings of the Report! It is not only Tom Redford who says such untruths with a straight face - Greens as a group are lying their way through the Press. A couple of days ago we had another who stated as fact something that was just not true, not misinterpreted, not misunderstood but just not true. And these people have the gall to suggest we vote for them!

#14
Yes (12), I too dislike this propaganda that the Greens are using to present their argument. It implies that they have a very weak case so have to use the "big lie" to make their argument. Tom Redford says that Helen Martin "writes that the scientific community is divided on the matter of whether climate change is caused by human activities. This is simply not true." That statement is simply not true, as Climate Truth says with significant references to dissenting scientists. At least Steuart Campbell, whilst supporting TOm [sic] Redford's view, is honest enough to admit the reality - that pursuing the Greens' policy would wreck the economy, a significant factor in my view. I had the privilege to attend the lecture given some months ago by Bjorn Lomborg, who left Greenpeace at the same time as one of the co-founders. They took the view that the argument had been won, that people were correctly concerned about ecology and it was no longer necessary to pursue confrontation to make their case. Too many Greenpeace activists enjoyed confrontation to follow their lead, leading to that schism. Lomborg argues that whilst everyone should be concerned about the planet, Kyoto required far more investment than the improvements that it could create. It couldn't produce a realistic return on the investment, both in activity and financial cost. He even wrote a book about all the other steps that could be taken instead with far greater benefit to the planet and its inhabitants. He has been described as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He also disagrees with the IPCC "findings".

Full Forum Page

I'm shocked by the number of spoilt ballot papers that are being announced in the Scottish elections. From what I have seen, it seems to be, not that the computers aren't counting papers correctly, but that the electorate haven't understood the papers. I've seen a lot of papers which are filled in completely incorrectly.

It doesn't look good for the Greens or any of the other small parties. We seem to be losing our list seats to the SNP, so the hopes that we had for 15 MSPs are gone. We have returned Patrick Harvie for Glasgow, but lost the South of Scotland. No other regional results are in yet. From what I have heard, the political classes are now losing faith in the electoral systems, so it will be very interesting to see how the next government decides to proceed in four years time. I will be keen to see how we do in the council elections.

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/msp/elections/2007/07index.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2007/scottish_parliment/html/region_99999.stm

Update:
SGP has lost the Mid Scotland and Fife Region.

I'm now in the penultimate week of term (translation: one week to go before Easter break) and I was thinking how it has been, adapting to life in Manchester. For a start, there is the natives strange insistency on calling bread rolls "Barm Cakes". Putting aside bread related differences, there are other things that have been really strange. To totally further a stereotype, there is Wilmslow Road as it passes through Rusholme. Along the stretch known as Curry Mile, there is a definite hint of the sub-continent. The smell of curry, the traffic chaos, and the general atmosphere, all shout Asia. Then, before you know it, you are in utterly middle-class Didsbury, with its poulterers, fishmongers and provision merchants. I suppose the real difference is the diversity in everything. Edinburgh has diversity, but not like Manchester.

The other main difference that I've noticed, is the relationship that most Mancunians seem to have with their cars. The way that people would walk along a footpath in Edinburgh, is the way that Mancunians drive. It is not uncommon to have to dodge out of the way of a car as it mounts the pavement so that the owner can park and go to the ATM, or buy a hot-dog. It gets worse if you happen to want to cycle anywhere. Then you have to contend with the busses. There is this thing in Manchester called the 'bus wars'. Basically, in the name of free trade and capitalism, the bus service is highly unregulated. Therefore all of the bus companies in the city are engaged in trying to outdo each other in terms of cheap fares and frequency of service. Sounds good? It is not. The result is Oxford Roads status as the busiest bus route in the whole of Europe, and very lax standards in training and safety from the operators. One company was recently taken off the roads because one of their poorly trained drivers knocked a man out of a cherry-picker on a pavement. Even without that company, the standards of driving are very, very poor. A couple of days ago, I was cycling through Rusholme, and a bus stopped on my right hand side to let passengers off. As a result, I had to sit there, unable to move on, as all of the passengers tried to leave the bus and walk around me. No trained driver should act like that.

But to leave the rant behind, I have only one week and two assessments between me and a three week holiday. As usual, I have offered to do some volunteering work in the first week of the break, so I'm looking forward to that. I think it will be leafleting and other campaigning stuff for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in May. I should also, all going well, be embarking on a week long placement at the Scottish Executive, in the Scotland-Malawi Development Team.

Speaking of international issues, my blog has now had visitors from fourteen different countries. Most of it was sparked by my number one position on Yahoo! Search for the Cumbria train derailment, so I doubt it will mean repeat visitors, but the dots on my visitor map of the world are building up. Still no one from South America or Africa has visited, but hopefully it is just a matter of time!