tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78943092012-02-08T00:26:45.047ZCombining the wisdom of youth, the energy of old age, and the maturity of a fine Vimto, Lazyliberal leads a merry dance through what he is pleased to call his mind.lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.comBlogger281100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1103064591116638152004-12-14T22:45:00.000Z2004-12-14T22:54:56.616Z

Further to my bad debating poetry of a few weeks back, and despite popular demand, here is some more. This is from a balloon debate, where one has to defend someone or something from being thrown out of a balloon that is rapdily descending to the ground. My chosen topic was Winston Churchill, and I survived the fray only marginally longer than socialism (losing to Scotland, Potato Lakka, and

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1101253727719091202004-11-23T23:42:00.000Z2004-11-23T23:52:22.450Z

Hmm, as ever I have been indefensibly slack at posting here, my only excuse being that I had better things to...oh no, hold on; that's cobblers. Actually I had nothing better to do and have no excuse, but hey, here I am now. The topic of the evening's symposium is 'The Meaning of Life', since I have just returned from a speaking competition on that very topic. As I spent an embarrassing amount of

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1099795537261584592004-11-07T02:22:00.000Z2004-11-07T03:00:13.300Z

Well it has indeed been a bit of a week: civilisation is going to hell in a handcart (again), lazyliberal the slightly elder submitted his PhD (huzzah), and various friends seemed to take various steps towards sorting out their entangled or unexistent love lives (hallelujah!). At the same time I taught my first class and yet strangely lived to tell the tale, not to mention dealing with other

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1099594442972756332004-11-04T18:42:00.000Z2004-11-04T18:56:45.986Z

BUUUUGGGGGGGGGER! Ahem, now I've got that out of my system. Needless to say Tuesday nights result did not meet with great approbation on my part. Although I had become resigned to it in the preceding weeks by the night itself I actually believed that Kerry had a good chance, at least of winning the vote of the people if not of the Supreme Court afterwards...However it was not to be, with the end

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1099348541177939372004-11-01T22:31:00.000Z2004-11-01T22:38:14.853Z

I read today that a Sri-Lankan businessman has already taken out a full page advert congratulating President Bush on his re-election. Some might say this is a little premature, although others of us might simply raise our eyes heavenwards and mutter 'well I'm sure Jeb's done that already anyway'. In theory electoral wonks, a crowd of which I am happy to be a fully paid up member, still have a

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1099267461464737582004-10-31T23:36:00.000Z2004-11-01T07:45:07.770Z

This weekend saw the joy, excitement and general lib demmery that is LDYS conference. It was my first conference in two and a half years but it only took a couple of familiar friendly faces and one person asking 'so what do the Standing Orders say about...?' before I felt right back in the thick of things. Amongst the several highlights of the weekend was Saturday night's karaoke - believe me

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1098879832712351422004-10-27T13:15:00.000+01:002004-10-27T21:13:32.796+01:00

The coming week sees not one but two momentous political events that will no doubt shake the world to its very core. The first is the autumn conference of the Liberal Democrat Youth and Students which is happily being held in the very town in which I am currently deployed, affording an opportunity to meet old friends, drink small sherries and do Lib Demmery, and yet not sleep on the floor of an

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1098049426764744242004-10-17T22:30:00.000+01:002004-10-27T13:14:51.756+01:00

Haven't written for a while for the extremely insufficient reason that I've been vaguely busy: school, university, lib demmery, finger slicery etc. etc. Of course because I've been up to so much since last I wrote I don't have enough time to cover it all, so a short summary: 1) Am on my first school placement, going pretty well, apart from my general dopiness-induced tendency to forget stuff.

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1096832077202884782004-10-03T19:59:00.000+01:002004-10-04T18:50:49.046+01:00

I can safely say that this weekend was one of the more surreal of my existence: I have on previous occasions carried bathtubs through town centers and attempted to invade whole oxford colleges, but on a scale of one to surreal this weekend was a tap-dancing dodo in a pink tutu presenting university challenge. It is after all not every weekend that you get to shake an ex-prime ministers hand and

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1096223650883017022004-09-26T19:27:00.001+01:002004-09-26T19:36:19.870+01:00

Been a while since my last post since I have been busy either dealing with the little darlings at Primary School or hauling thingy to Bristol. Actually despite my desire to present a suitably cynical exterior I must confess that saying goodbye to the kids at school was a bit sad, especially since they were for the most part very sweet about my departure, even if one of them did give me a

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1094991400304955692004-09-12T13:54:00.000+01:002004-09-12T22:12:22.506+01:00

This coming week the government will announce its plans relating to the application system for Higher Education. As a past and current student I naturally get a bit nervous whenever the words 'government', 'higher education' and 'plans' appear in the same sentence since such announcements tend to involve the screwing over of large sections of the student populace. In this case at least financial

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1094342266990473162004-09-05T01:42:00.000+01:002004-09-05T01:04:16.306+01:00

Teacher training starts on Monday with 2 weeks at my old Junior school. I won't be posting about that too much here since I don't want to clutter the place up too much - I'll probably concentrate on politics and general stuff here and hike the teaching off into a separate blog. But what I will do here is make a little rant about the kafkaesque delight that is the Student Loans Company. My

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1093976057219759172004-08-31T19:00:00.000+01:002004-08-31T19:19:24.076+01:00

It was today announced that the Royal Mail has been admirably consistent regarding its performance targets this year: they have missed all fifteen of them. This seems to me deeply impressive; I would have expected that they'd hit at least one by accident, but apparently not. On the other hand perhaps it isn't that surprising given that it's only the latest in a whole succesion of noteworthy Post

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1093816398086198182004-08-29T22:35:00.000+01:002004-08-29T23:10:47.110+01:00

Due to a number of scheduling conspiracies related to student union elections, finals, and being 6000 miles away, this weekends trip to Hartlepool was actually the first parliamentary by-election I've made it too. Well it seems the stories are all true: besides the obligatory gazillion leaflets to be delivered, and the apparently traditional luxury by election accomodation (offered by the 7 star

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1093451261720439252004-08-25T16:15:00.000+01:002004-08-25T21:49:20.850+01:00

An ever increasing number of moons ago when I was a high school student I was the proud holder of a school sports day record. Not the 100m, or the relay, or the triple jump, although my notable feat encompassed all of them and more. I was in fact the undisputed holder of the title 'most last place finishes on sports day'. You see my class, although populated with a few decent athletes, was very

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1093268980380802532004-08-23T14:22:00.000+01:002004-08-23T14:49:40.380+01:00

Since I had cunningly left my rather cheap camera in Singapore I had an excellent excuse upon my return from the Orient for acquiring myself a digital camers with all sorts of cunning features that the previous model was sadly lacking. To that end I yesterday acquired a Konika Minolta Dimage X31 digital camera (with go faster stripes naturally). Buying new pieces of technology is always fun, not

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1093195435984025302004-08-22T18:15:00.000+01:002004-08-22T18:23:55.986+01:00

I refer of course not to the 26 mile course itself, but to making it through the two and a half hour drivel fest that is the BBC commentay on the race. Brendan Foster is hardly the worst of the beeb commentators on a 'bollocks-per-minute' ratio, but unlike the other commentators we don't get regular breaks - from the start to the end he is wittering away with the best of them. To take one example

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1093036208975220002004-08-20T21:00:00.000+01:002004-08-21T00:33:34.676+01:00

Seconds out, Round Two. Earlier today, for the first time in two years or so, I watched some of my Yes Minister tapes, and was reminded of what pure genius the Yes Minster and Yes Prime Minister Series were. For those of you not familiar they centre on three characters: Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington), a likeable if dim minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthrone), his machiavellian chief Civil

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1092847613605799852004-08-18T17:45:00.000+01:002004-08-18T17:46:53.606+01:00

Which is how they say Good Luck in that strange place I called home for the last two years. To everyone with A Levels results tomorrow: good luck, I hope you all get what you need (wishing people what they deserve is a dicey business) and I hope you're all happy come this time tomorrow. Bon chance!

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1092571358232708542004-08-15T12:42:00.000+01:002004-08-15T13:18:54.456+01:00

Three days since last I posted, mostly because I have been occupied watching the Olympics. I am a great fan of the Olympics to the extent that I was glued to, of all things, the Men's Synchronised Diving last night, in the hopes of seeing Britain's first medal. Which brings me somewhat leisurely pace to my point - nationalism and sport. Like most other Brits, I almost invariably cheer for 'our'

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1092346264987635832004-08-12T22:27:00.000+01:002004-08-13T12:50:30.086+01:00

The latest wizard wheeze cooked up by the techno boffins at LDYS HQ is a jolly good show of top notch blog engineering...ahem, sorry. Playing the Battle of Britain this afternoon has infected my vocabularly. What I meant to say is that Will and Ryan at Lib Dem Youth and Students have aggregated a bunch of blogs together to produce http://www.artesea.co.uk/libdemblogs/ displaying the posts of

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1092318874017276392004-08-12T14:50:00.000+01:002004-08-12T14:54:34.016+01:00

Had another crack at the Battle of Trafalgar and managed to sink the French this time. The trick is apparently to completely ignore the advice of Admiral Nelson to try some clever attacking maneouver (because you don't have time to get organised before the opposition gets to you), and instead form in tight and fight a war of attrition. Not pretty but it did the job: next stop the Battle of

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1092267197594486722004-08-12T00:32:00.000+01:002004-08-12T01:00:00.750+01:00

Yellow Duck has directed my attention to BBC History's Battlefield Academy at http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/launch_gms_bfacademy.shtml which I have subsequently spent most of the evening tackling. After an unpromising start to the first battle (defending a hill fort from the Romans) left me praying for the timely arrival of some Prussians, I managed to dig in and eventually counter-attack to

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1092151003428155182004-08-10T16:16:00.000+01:002004-08-10T17:22:52.393+01:00

When you move from government to opposition you presumably have more time on your hands to pursue other interests. In the case of Michael Howard he has clearly been filling his time reading 'Tory clichés, and when to use them', and in particular the chapter on 'When you've nothing better to say'. Today's announcement of a 'crime cutting strategy' was a classic Old-School-Tory gambit. Firstly

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1092052370765406662004-08-09T12:42:00.000+01:002004-08-09T12:52:50.766+01:00

Last week the Tories announced how they were intending to pay for their plan to abolish tuition fees. Some of you might be wondering why there was such a gap between their plan to abolish the fees and their plan for how to pay for it, but hey what else is new? They do at least have a plan now though so I'd like to take a moment to put the boot into it. The Tories intend to pay for abolishing fees

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1091992367716622772004-08-08T20:11:00.000+01:002004-08-08T22:59:14.583+01:00

911 degrees Fahrenheit to be precise...shortly after I arrived back from Japan I dragged myself off to the cinema, along with my brother and sister-in-law-to-be, to see Michael Moore's new 'documentary'. In case the inverted commas don't make it clear I'm not a big Michael Moore fan. It's not that I'm a right-winger, more the opposite: although he often makes some interesting points I think Moore

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1091989126484451022004-08-08T19:32:00.000+01:002004-08-08T20:51:58.933+01:00

Okey dokey, I am now kind of up and running and ready to make my first proper post. Nothing controversial for now though, I'm gonna start with 'See now, take my car': this is something I plan to do until I run out of good ideas, and will basically involve my dredging up some vaguely obscure piece of TV, film, or music and attempting to persuade you of its genius. No. 1 on my list is Animalympics,

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7894309.post-1091967006616751642004-08-08T13:08:00.000+01:002004-08-08T13:54:42.593+01:00

I have absolutely nothing of interest to say. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that today I am acknowledging this fact. This is a mike test to see if this contraption works...

lazyliberalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05610320782718181908noreply@blogger.com0