Remembering My Gran
My gran died just over two years ago now.
It’s bizarre to think about how much time has passed since then. I remember when it all started as if it was yesterday. I remember originally being told she was unwell, her descent further and further into more intense illness, family members rallying together and spending Christmas in each other’s company, her eventual permanent confinement to hospital. I visited her regularly, knowing that each time I saw her could be the last time I’d be with her. The last time I saw her, I held her hand and kissed her on the cheek.
The next morning, I was told by my mum that she had passed away during the night.
We had known for a while that she was going to die – she’d been majorly unwell for months and a heavy smoker for years – but when it actually happened, it was like a horrible, surprising punch. I tried to maintain my routine as best I could while trying to support my family and help them through such a difficult time. I was my usual bright self, trying to persevere as things went on around me.
The day of the funeral arrived and my family and I dressed in our nicest clothes as the cars to take us to the crematorium arrived. We bundled in and were taken to the funeral parlour and then to the graveyard. The reverence that members of the public displayed – traffic stopping to let us continue travelling together, a man on his bicycle stopping and taking off his hat to display his respect for the deceased – warmed my heart and made my eyes tear up.
But I stayed calm and composed, trying to remain my normal self as the convoy reached the necropolis. We pulled up and walked into the chapel, past a large number of family and friends, many of whom I had never seen before. We took our seats and the chatter died down as the pallbearers made up of members of my family carried the coffin in. I looked to the other side of the room and saw my uncle, a former soldier in the army and one of the toughest, bravest people I know, sobbing at the loss of his mother. I looked around to see most if not all members of the congregation quietly tearing up as well.
The Humanist minister – my gran was never religious – took to the podium and conducted the service, starting with a short biography of that revealed some facts about her even I did not know. He then went on to list her achievements in life and the legacy she would leave. It was a fitting eulogy for my final grandparent.
Members of the family were then asked if they’d like to take to say a few words in her remembrance, to which my two younger cousins and I stood up. There was a moment of light relief as we couldn’t make up our minds on who should go first, so we decided to go in order of age, youngest to eldest. My two cousins said their pieces and then my turn came.
I took to the podium, placed my piece in front of me and began to speak. I was cool, calm and collected. I tried my best to make sure my short speech was clear and that everyone could hear it. I started speaking, fluent and relaxed, thinking I would be able to get to the end with no problems.
Halfway through, the floodgates broke.
The tears came from nowhere, assaulting me as I reached the halfway point. I choked backed sobs, cried as I rushed words and stopped every so often to take in a ragged breath in a vain attempt to calm myself down. My blurry eyes made the paper hard to read and I found myself stopping regularly to fight back the tears. What should have taken two minutes soon stretched into what seemed like an eternity. I eventually managed to sutumble to the end, looking up as I did so to discover that everybody in the room was in the same state as me. I sat back down next to my family, hugged my mum and dabbed my eyes with several tissues.
It was in that moment that I realised how much I really missed her. I didn’t have much to do with her towards the end of her life, but she was still my gran: I still loved her.
After the service, a number of family and friends, both known and strangers, told me how touching it was for me to speak at the service and how brave I was for finishing my speech. It was nice to hear those comforting words, despite the fact that I still feel liked I ruined it even to this day.
It’s been years since the service and although it remains crisp in my mind, life goes on: time passes and new problems replace the old in a continuous, tireless cycle. I’ve come to terms with my gran’s death now, but I still miss her sometimes.
This is the piece I said at her funeral.
I remember going to my gran’s house at weekends when I was younger, and we’d make up loads of different games, such as pretending the house was a cruise ship, and we were passengers enjoying the ride.
What I don’t remember is giving her this card. There’s a little picture on it of Snoopy hugging Woodstock, with the words ‘I’ll be there for you…always’, with ‘To Gran, Love From Mikey’ written on the back. I was so young I can’t remember writing it, but she recently told my mum she always kept it with her in her purse, and now I’ll always keep it with me in my wallet. This is a lovely memento to always have on me, but I don’t need it to remember my gran; my memories of her will do that for me.
These are some lines I came across that express these feelings:
I fall asleep in the full and certain hope
That my slumber shall not be broken;
And that though I be all-forgetting,
Yet shall I not be forgotten,
But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds
Of those I loved.
Samuel Butler
1835-1902
I carry that card in my wallet wherever I go.
Fatherhood
Originally posted on Ready Up on 16th May 2011.
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Being a father is an amazing thing (or so I’ve heard, anyway). Creating a new life is a miraculous event, forever altering your outlook and perspective on existence and perpetually moulding your judgements and beliefs afterwards. This little person you now have is your responsibility, a blank canvas that will forever be influenced by your actions and morals and who will eventually carry on your legacy. They will depend on your care and wisdom for the rest of their – and your – life and the bond you share with them will shape them as a person. This bond between father and child, the attachment, friendship and love shared between the two, is one of the greatest and most precious things in the world.
Intolerant Intolerance
I have a friend called Michael.
Michael. Not his usual look, mind you.
He’s a great buddy and definitely one of my BFFs. Friendly, down-to-earth and a great laugh to be around, he was one of the few people that helped me endure the bullshit that occurred at the secondary school I went to. He now lives in Edinburgh in an amazing little flat (which I’m stupidly envious of) and I go through whenever I can, where we catch a coffee, catch up with one anothers’ lives and have a good bitch about everything that irks us. A day spent in his company is always a hilarious and therapeutic one and I’m glad to have him as a buddy.
Proof
He’s also gay.
That last sentence means jack shit to me: everybody’s different and your sexuality is an integral part of your personality, so you should be allowed to be attracted to whichever gender of person you like. I actually welcome the fact that he’s gay: it makes him stand out as an individual even more and his camp nature only serves to make him a wittier and more endearing person. I like girls and he likes guys: that’s fine and that’s the end of it, as far as I’m concerned.
Not so, according to the Scottish Christian Party and the birdbrained views they give across in their party election broadcast. Here it is in all its terrible glory.
Fantastic, isn’t it? I know that election broadcasts are traditionally terrible, but I’ve never seen one this bad. Did they honestly look at the final product and decide it was worthy of broadcasting on national television? What’s with the choppy footage of a photocopier printing leaflets? Why can’t you hear a word of what anybody’s saying? And what is that music about? It’s like something the Westboro Baptist Church would churn out.
I digress. In case you can’t penetrate the horrific production values and actually make out what anybody’s saying, what it basically boils down to is ‘we Christians are being persecuted for not liking homosexuals’. They say that the nation must turn into a tolerant society so that they can freely speak about their condemnation of gay people without the threat of persecution or punishment.
Right...
What a load of horseshit. How the hell would we be making a more tolerant Scotland by electing a party that would in turn decry and denounce an entire group of people purely for the way they think and feel? Their manifesto says that they ‘will expose the threat to freedom of speech’. How, by channelling the ‘persecution’ they receive onto gay people instead? They don’t seem to realise just how hypocritical they’re being when they say that “we don’t live in a tolerant society” while snivelling about their disapproval of homosexuals. I bet they’d be up in arms if similar broadcasts from other religious parties started doing the rounds.
When this popped up on my television, I was shocked, appalled and frankly offended: how can people harbour such intolerant views of others, looking down on them and lecturing them on how the way they choose to live their lives is sinful? Since when does being gay ‘infringe upon the rights of others’? If you happen to be gay, watch out: you’re apparently just as bad as criminals and murderers.
The Scottish Christian party is a hypocritical, intolerant, insulting and disrespectful organisation that doesn’t deserve any of the votes it may get. Their election broadcast is not so much a campaign promo as another opportunity to preach their archaic and idiotic views and ram them down our throats. They chose to follow the ways of Christianity and base their lives on such a decision: why can’t others do the same for any aspect of their lives? Why should we have to put up with being exposed to this shit? The Episcopal Church welcomes gay people into their community, so why are these people so against it? As the old biddy in the video says, Christianty is not a disease: what is are the abrasive and toxic views the people in this party are intent on infecting others with. What they’re doing is spreading hate disguised as political views. These people are just as bad as other hateful parties such as the BNP.
I wonder what Michael, one of the most personable, friendly and conscientious people I know, would think of such views. I’d much rather spend time with him and risk going to hell than spend the rest of eternity in heaven with these bigoted, ignorant, intolerant fools.
I know who definitely won’t be getting my vote this Thursday.
Pain
Originally published on Ready Up on 25th April 2011.
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Pain is a sensation that you’ll always be exposed to. It’s constantly stalking you, whether you know it or not. It can hit you suddenly and take you by surprise and can disappear as quickly as it appeared or stay with you long afterwards, watching, waiting. Physical; emotional; spiritual; psychological; it doesn’t matter. It’s with you for perpetuity and if you’re not suffering at this current moment, you certainly will in the future.
Life Lessons, or Eight Steps to Living a More Regret-Free Life
If only we could all say the same.
We all have regrets: those moments in our past we can pinpoint exactly where we wish we had an opportunity to travel back to and alter for the better. They take a number of different forms, be they large – the exact moment where you realised you hadn’t acted quickly enough with someone you liked and lost your chance with them forever – or something near inconsequential – wishing you hadn’t had those profiteroles after a hefty dinner – but their results nearly always keep on stinging long after the actual event has happened.
It’s impossible to exist without encountering situations where we regret our actions (or inactions) and while painful, they are essential to us: the consequences of such events shape us, moulding our outlooks, thoughts and behaviour for the rest of our lives. Knowing this, though, doesn’t make it any easier for us to accept them or the fact that we will inevitably suffer more in the future (hell, I’ve added two to my list of regrets in the last three months alone), but here are some lessons I’ve learned about life that will hopefully bring some emotional comfort and help you reduce the number of regrets you have over the course of your life.
1. Commit to things and do them, even if you waiver in your conviction. If you’re having trouble coming to a decision about something important, weigh up the benefits and disadvantages of each choice thoroughly and decide which seems best to you. Choose the best course of action and stick with it. Keep to that decision, even if you begin to have doubts over whether you’ve made the correct choice or not: it’s much easier to get something done and achieve your goals without the crippling doubt that can accompany you second-guessing your initial decision. Pussy-footing about has been the creator of a large number of regrets I don’t want to begin counting.
2. Always give people the benefit of the doubt, or at least if they haven’t wronged you before. It’s always disappointing when someone lets you down, but there may have been mitigating circumstances that prevented them from meeting the goals and objectives you had mutually arranged. Remember the next time that someone lets you down that they may be battling a traumatic event that is drastically hindering their ability to cope with their obligations and responsibilities. As such, you should award them a degree of leniency, especially if they have shone in the past. If they’re a repeat offender, however, all bets are off: they’ve shown themselves to be consistently unreliable, making it an unchangeable part of their nature and will only keep on letting you down in the future.
3. Don’t change for someone if they’re not going to change for you. Human relationships are mind-bogglingly complex, but people boil down to being akin to ingredients in a recipe: some will complement each other perfectly, others will get there with a little work and the majority just won’t mix at all. Every relationship requires compromise from both parties: it’s not fair for one person to constantly bend to the will and whims of the other. It’s admirable to change aspects of yourself in order to gel better with another person, but it’s a two-way street: they must be willing to do the same for you. If you feel you’re trying too hard with someone that isn’t reciprocating, you may simply not be right for each other. Forget about it and move on: there are plenty of other people that you would be more compatible with and vice versa.
4. Live in the moment, not the past or future. It’s all well and good wallowing in your past and worrying about what lies up ahead, but we exist in the present and that’s what we should focus on. The past is important in shaping us and the future is essential to focusing our goals, but don’t flounder in the former and worry about the latter: live in the here-and-now.
5. Value your true friends. These are the people that will stick with you through the good and bad; the ones that will stand by your side, who will never be bored or fed up with what you say and enjoy your company no matter how you feel. They are your best tools for overcoming any regrets, worries or problems you may have. Disregard things that you see on social networking sites: it’s all well and good seeing how many friends you have online, but the true ones are those you spend the most time around, that you can talk to about anything and who genuinely care about you, qualities that can’t be shown by arbitrary numbers on any website. Remember that fake friends are like shadows: they’re with you during your brightest hours, but nowhere to be seen in your darkest.
6. Don’t worry about things too much. Rarely does anything in this life require as much worry as we assign to it, no matter how much importance and significance we place on it. Yes, some things require more attention than others, but a plethora of resources and facilities exist to deal with these worries before they get out of control. Things could be worse and even then, nothing we ever do will matter in the grand scheme of things. After all, as a friend once told me, we’re just insignificant specks on a ball of rock hurling through space that will consumed by the sun at some point anyway. Take from that what comfort you will.
7. Things will get better. No matter how bad you feel, either physically or mentally, and no matter how long it takes, be it a few hours, days, months or even years, things will eventually begin to look up. The wheel of life is constantly turning, with good times following the bad following the good following the bad for eternity. When you’re down, weather the storm and come out the other side knowing that things are set to improve. When you’re at your lowest, be thankful that things can’t get any worse and that they can only get better.
8. Just go for it. If you really want something, then work your hardest at obtaining it. Nobody can ever define your limitations: the only person who can do that is yourself. Whether you want to succeed academically, attend an event when you’re not feeling your best or a whole host of other situations life presents you with, grab the opportunity with both hands. Even if you fail, you’ll know you’ll have taken your best shot at it. What would you rather do: mourn an opportunity you let go by you or be able to say you gave it a go anyway?
We all suffer setbacks and it can be difficult to maintain a positive outlook on life occasionally (even I have difficulties following these tips sometimes), but I hope these mantra help to make it that little bit more manageable. They’re from the heart and I hope they aid you through your day.
And if all else fails, just think of stupid sexy Flanders. That should cheer you in no time at all.
In no time at all. In no time at all. In no time at all...
Birthday Party
Orginally posted on Ready Up on 23rd December 2010.
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It was my birthday last week.
Last year, I’d gone out with my pals and the year before that I’d been to a gig and so I decided that, partly due to a bout of ill health but mostly due to my newly acquired old age, I’d have a quiet one this year. My family and I headed out to a local restaurant (although ’skate’ may be more appropriate: the pavements were like sheet ice) where we had a decidedly mediocre meal before purchasing envelopes for my brother and undertaking the trek back home before thankfully being rescued by a taxi. The day was so average, I kept forgetting that it actually was my birthday.
The Roots of My Conscience
When I was in school, my English teacher assigned us the task of writing about a memory we had from our childhood. What follows is the piece I created.
I’ve typed it up from the handwritten article in my jotter and I’ve made a few changes here and there to spruce it up a bit, but other than that, the document appears mainly as it was when it was first written all those years ago.
Enjoy.
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I can’t remember much of my childhood. Anything before third year [of secondary school] is a blur to me. However, having been tasked with writing a reflective remembrance on a memory from childhood, I dug deep into my memory banks and uncovered this little gem. It may not be wholly accurate, but hey, at least it’s something.
The primary school I went to had a lot of grass, and I mean a lot. My friends and I used to have wrestling matches on it (back when we were all fans of the sport, at least) and reporting back to class covered in mud was not a rare occurrence. There was a really big hill, the source of a whole load of fun. Seeing who could run down it the fastest without falling and smashing their head off the concrete at the bottom of the steep incline; rolling down it sideways at top speed and feeling highly nauseous afterwards, severely impairing their capability to walk in a straight line; slippery snowball fights on those occasional snowy days.
The school comprised of two separate buildings: the annexe and the ‘big school’. The annexe had considerably less turf than the other playground, but there was still a hell of a lot of it. Many fun playtimes took place on it over the years, although the only game I can remember playing was ‘Kiss, Cuddle or Torture’, where, upon being caught by the girls, the vast majority of the boys opted for the last option. I also remember pondering the spelling of the word ‘missed’, as when used in phrases such as ‘I missed that goal’. I was positive it was spelled ‘mist’…
But I digress. Back to the memory. It can’t remember how events began, but I somehow ended up throwing roots and bits of plants over the fence with another boy. It was so fun and liberating to my young mind: grabbing the nearest root, lobbing it over my head and watching it bounce lightly on the pavement on the opposite side of the fence made me feel so free. I have no idea what I was rebelling against, nothing most likely, but damn it, I was opposing some form of oppression all the same. I felt so happy.
The feeling didn’t last, though. As my class toddled into line and marched back into the classroom after the afternoon bell rang, the head teacher, Miss Hutchison, tapped me on the shoulder and ushered me into the corridor. I had no idea what was going on: I’d never been in trouble before, so I didn’t see what was coming.
In a composed manner, she told me that a teacher had witnessed plant matter being thrown from playground onto the street by a pupil before asking me calmly I had been that pupil.
How did she know!? I had made sure that no-one had been watching. Who had seen me? Had someone grassed me up? Why wasn’t my accomplice called up?
Of course, I denied it, although my mud-stained hands and knees said otherwise, thinking I had gotten away with the crime. I could never have anticipated her next move, though…
“Alright”, she said firmly with an arm on my shoulder, “but if I find out someone’s been lying to me, they’ll be in big trouble.” With that, she turned around and –probably deliberately- started walking slowly down the hall.
I panicked. I’d never been in big trouble before and it wasn’t something I wanted to experience. My young mind could only see one way out of the situation: I called her back and confessed to my crime, my eyes looking squarely at my sandshoes as I hung my head towards the floor. She told me she was I glad I had admitted it to her, told me not to do it or anything like it again and sent me back to class. I made my way through the classroom past the staring eyes of my fellow classmates looking sheepish and feeling disappointed with myself.
I have no idea why this particular memory sticks in my mind, but it must have had a profound importance on me. Maybe the guilt and disappointment I felt manifested itself into my need to have a clear conscience. Maybe it shows I’m a crap liar. Maybe I just hate plants.
The last suggestion can’t be true – I don’t mind plants – but I learned my lesson regardless. I have never chucked any plants over a fence of any kind since.
Teacher’s comment: Nice ending, it made me smile.
Suffer The Consequences
Karma’s an intriguing concept.
Distilled down to its most basic elements, it essentially states that by doing good things and being kind, you’ll be rewarded, while conversely committing immoral deeds will see you being punished. It’s a concept used in myriad pieces of media, being both directly and indirectly linked to the narrative of many a book, film, television programme, comic and videogame.
But while it can have a recognisable effect on fictional heroes and villains’ lives and plotlines, the same cannot be said when applied to real life. Unlike the cataclysmic events that befall and decree a fictitious character’s moral alignment, in reality we are only given the occasional yet still significant moment where our actions (or indeed inactions) demonstrate our own moral compasses.
These can manifest themselves in a vast number of ways: how we treat other people, especially those in need of our help; how we assimilate events, both positive and negative, that happen to the people surrounding us and how we react if we come across items that don’t belong to us, especially if they are of particular value.
I was recently confronted with a situation like this. Coming home from college (I had stayed behind to get some coursework finished), I arrived at the train station. Since I had stayed late, there was nobody else there. I was thinking this occasion would be just another unremarkable train journey home.
But as I approached the station, I could make out the faint purple glow emanating from a small black rectangle that was lying on the bench in the rain shelter. As I got closer to the object, I eventually realised what it was: a PSP that had been left switched on. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the battery was full and there were plenty of games, photos, tunes and movies stored on its memory card. I could have easily taken the expensive and valuable device home with me and kept it for myself, or sold it on eBay, or taken some other nefarious course of action.
Such a thought never crossed my mind, however: I would be distraught if I left one of my possessions in a public place, only for someone to find and keep it for their own, so why should I inflict such hurt on another person in the same way? I scanned through the files on the memory card to see if there was some piece of information, a name, a phone number, anything that I could use to get in touch with the owner directly. Failing that, I contacted the railway staff via the intercom at the station, told them about the lost property and arranged to meet the conductor on the next train coming through. Upon arrival, I handed the PSP over to him so that he could take it to the lost property department at the nearest terminal. As the train pulled away, I felt safe in the knowledge that I had done everything in my power to reunite the owner with the device. I wasn’t proud or smug about the choice I made: from the get-go, it was the only course of action I could possibly take. The only downside was the halo that appeared above my head for the rest of the day. It made wearing any form of hat that evening nigh on impossible.
Unfortunately, I know that a large number of people would have made the completely opposite choice from me. In fact, I know of someone that chanced upon £40 in cash just lying on a bench in Glasgow Queen Street Station. Rather than hand it in or at least try to find out who it belonged to (although I’m sure a large number of people would have claimed to be its owner regardless), she pocketed the money and spent it on herself the next time she was in town. She showed no regret over her actions and in fact openly told me about the occurrence as if she just happened to be extremely lucky that day. She didn’t seem to realise that her good luck was balanced out by the misfortune of the individual that had misplaced the cash in the first place.
Sometimes it gets to the point where I question my decision to be kind and helpful to others around me: myself and a group of random strangers stopped to help an old woman who had fallen over in the street get back on her feet while the majority of people just walked on by as if nothing had happened; I’ve given information to people who ask for it then stride off without saying thank you; even today, I informed someone that the chocolate bar in their pocket had slipped out onto the seat they were sitting on at the train station. Without a single word of thanks or even acknowledgement, he picked it up, shoved it back into his pocket and continued listening to his music as if I had never even opened my mouth.
Incidents like this will inevitably occur in the future, but despite how fed up I get with the selfishness and bad manners the majority of other people exhibit, I will continue to treat others how I would like to be treated: with kindness, respect and gratitude. I don’t necessarily believe in the concept of karma, it’s perhaps more a case of objectivism versus altruism, but I find it an interesting one: I wouldn’t expect or even want rewarding for my (I hope) good actions, but it would sure be nice to see people suffer occasionally for their bad ones.
Oh well, you know what they say: karma’s a bitch.
Gaga for GaGa
I’ve been to a lot of gigs over the years. Some have been awesome (Pendulum are always brilliant), some have been alright (Little Boots for a tenner? You can’t fault that) and some have been absolutely atrocious (La Roux. Worst gig ever). I used to love going to them, procuring tickets for artists I hadn’t even really heard or just knew the name of. I got caught up in all the excitement, the fervour of the audience to see their favourite band, the tension as we waited for them to appear on the stage. I used to get as close to the front of the crowd as possible, jumping about to the beat and singing along with all the words (or at least as much of them that I knew).
However, my enthusiasm for live performances weaned exponentially to the number of gigs I attended. Waiting ages for bands to come on stage long after their expected stage time grew weary and tiresome; the high price of tickets put me off going to as many gigs as I used to and some venues were so unpleasant and uncomfortable that they ruined my enjoyment of the occasion.
These days, I cherrypick the gigs I go to, making sure I only see the acts I really want to see. I go to fewer gigs but continue to search for the feeling that made me love going to concerts in the first place. Rammstein in Manchester were awesome and rekindled the feeling to a degree and I was sure that it would be the greatest gig I’d ever seen.
But then came Lady Gaga, who blew my mind and totally changed my perception of what makes a brilliant concert.
After receiving an email giving us an approximate stage time for when she was coming on, I arsed up my timekeeping and managed to leave far too early, meaning I had to wait for ages at Exhibition Centre waiting for my pal, watching the huge crowds and Lady GaGa lookalikes that followed each train’s arrival go by. Eventually she arrived and we made our way to the SECC, entering Hall 4 just as Alphabeat were finishing (thank God). After checking out the merchandise stall and deciding I didn’t really want a t-shirt with ‘I’M A FREE BITCH’ emblazoned across it in gold capital letter, we queued patiently at (i.e. rammed our way to) the bar and got ourselves a drink. Sipping on our pints of lager and Pepsi respectively, we made our way into the standing section and waited…
And waited. And waited. Then waited a bit more.
Michael Jackson’s greatest hits were pumping out the sound system and while it was good hearing some good tunes, it was a bit of a joke that we had to wait through the vast majority of his singles. Thriller, Beat It, Smooth Criminal and many others played in quick succession, with each one’s ending being accompanied by a massive cheer from the audience as the song playing ended before being followed by a huge boo as the opening notes of another began to play. Checking my phone, I saw that she had missed her stage time by 45 minutes, grumbling on Twitter as we waited a little bit longer…
Then the lights fell and the crowd went mental as Lady Gaga’s silhouette appeared on a white sheet to the strains of Dance in the Dark.
What followed was one of the greatest things I have ever seen.
Every element of her perfomance combined into an absolute belter of a spectacle. More a show than a gig, The Monster Ball performance followed her attempts to reach the titular party, overcoming problems such as a broken down car, being sucked into a twister and attacks by a giant fish (yes, really). Interlaced with anecdotes personal stories, a handful of obscene gestures and plenty of foul language, The Lady knows how to work an audience, captivating, engaging and shocking her audience in equal measure. Her stage presence was only helped by giant screens projecting some rather strange and grotesque images (including a woman throwing up on GaGa’s perfect white dress and the singer munching on what looks like a human corpse) alongside several costume changes (though ‘costume removals’ might be more apt) and extended solos played on a flaming piano.
Every song sounded fantastic, every visual was arresting and every setpiece was stunning. The crowd were wild with excitement by this point, singing the words to Bad Romance in perfect unison in a spectacular display of frantic camaraderie. She finished the show with a triple whammy of Poker Face, Paparazzi (accompanied by that fish monster previously mentioned) and Bad Romance, a powerful ending to such a fantastic show.
I couldn’t get over my excitement at having seen such an amazing spectacle. I still haven’t, having virtually listened to Lady Gaga and no-one since then. I’m sad that it’s over but I’m ecstatic for having seen it. I can’t wait to see her again in the future. I think I’m in love.
Altogether now: Ra, ra, ah-ah-ah, roma, roma-ma, GaGa, ooh la la, want your bad romance!
Cardonald: The Place To Be
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I’ve not written a blog for a while. Well, here goes.
So why did I choose HN Media? I suppose I’ve always been destined for a career in the Creative Industries. I had dabbled in the occasional art and drama course and only a small number of topics ever interested me at school (though none of which I particularly wanted to take beyond Higher level). Leaving school after I’d acquired some Highers, I was accepted onto a Music Business course where a chance encounter at a networking seminar set the foundations of the path I am taking.
I was approached by a representative of The Skinny, a Scottish lifestyle magazine that boasts quite a large readership in these here parts. A few days later, I was asked to submit an example of my work. Luckily, I’d written up a review of the latest Basement Jaxx album at the time (which can be read on my Last.fm profile) on a whim just before I left school. I then received an email welcoming me to the team during the next week. I’ve since written articles on different subjects for several websites (one of which I was given an editing position on) and honed and refined my craft ever since. However, I realised I needed to get a formal qualification on a Media related course and so, my research began…
I could have gone to uni to do a commercial music course but instead decided to apply for Communications and Media at Cardonald, which I’m glad I did: the course is much more enjoyable, the subjects are more apt to the career which I am aiming for and the lecturers bar none are knowledgeable, warm and friendly. Everyone does their best – and succeed – at making subjects interesting and inspiring. We get taken on all sorts of outings as well which don’t only act as breaks from our normal schedule: the trips are genuinely enlightening, demonstrating how what we learn in class is applied to real-world situations, be it observing how the Scottish Parliament operates (and seeing Annabelle Goldie being taken down a peg or two in the process) or being part of the studio audience of the BBC’s In It To Win It hosted by Dale Winton (with whom a fellow classmate is now enamoured).
Discussions with classmates and lecturers have inspired me to expand my cultural knowledge and communication skills beyond my speciality of videogames. I’m reading more books (both literature and comics), watching more films and T.V. programmes and attending events such as An Audience with Skins and a Q&A with Mark Millar (a renowned graphic novel writer) alongside important networking events such as the North East of North digital arts festival in Dundee. The course has helped me focus on my ambitions and has played a massive part in me achieving my goals.
Over the year, I’ve visited the offices of Denki, Dundee’s most playful developer, seen Rammstein in Manchester and attended the first year of the highly successful NEoN festival, but those are stories for another time…
Follow Michael on Twitter: @Fnoo
While he’s shamelessly proomoting himself, he’ll do the same for the production of The Wedding Singer that his brother is in. Come along and have some fun.
