Lists, lists, lists...

My 25 favourite albums!!

1. Ok Computer- Radiohead
2. The Bends- Radiohead
3. Deja Entendu- Brand New
4. Bringing It All Back Home- Bob Dylan
5. Open Heart Zoo- Martin Grech
6. Origins of Symmetry- Muse
7. Morning View- Incubus
8. The Joshua Tree- U2
9. Room On Fire- The Strokes
10. Blonde on Blonde- Bob Dylan
11. Parachutes- Coldplay
12. Kid A- Radiohead
13. Wish You Were Here- Pink Floyd
14. Shaman- Carlos Santana
15. O- Damien Rice
16. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots- Flaming Lips
17. Elephant- The White Stripes
18. Rage Against The Machine- Rage Against The Machine
19. Rumours- Fleetwood Mac
20. Automatic For The People- REM
21. Word Gets Around- Stereophonics
22. Hail To The Thief- Radiohead
23. Gutterflower- Goo Goo Dolls
24. Ten- Pearl Jam
25. Make Yourself- Incubus
    

2005: In retrospect

A list of 10 really, really good things that happened in 2005

1. Going to see Coldplay with Becs at the Reebok stadium in June.
2. Making some groovy new friends (in Bangor and Cambridge)
3. Living in my very first house (rented).
4. Two super-sweet visits to London. Firstly with Jon in July and secondly with Becs in Oct.
5. Dan and Sarah's wedding.
6. 'Not the Grand Nationals' Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Liverpool (finished a surprise 3rd)
7. Cambridge International Outreach (best two weeks of the year)
8. David Finnie's sermon on Psalm 19 (the drooler!)
9. CU houseparty in Quinta, October. And the awesome game of Mao on Sat night.
10. England winning the Ashes and having the satisfaction of not being a 'glory-fan'.

A list of 10 really, really bad things that happened in 2005

1. My Grandma being terminally ill and simply waiting for her to die.
2. Having an assessed essay questioned for plagarism (I was innocent).
3. Faber & Faber rejecting some of my poems.
4. Hurting the lower left cartilidge in my knee (and being to stupid to see a doctor).
5. Having a 'chat' with Cheryl.
6. Wales winning the Grand Slam.
7. Not being allowed into the Indoor UK Nationals (Ultimate) despite qualifying.
8. Repeatedly getting irrate with Alex.
9. Being forced to read feminist literature.
10. The earthquake in Pakistan.

Listening to now: All Night Long- Lionel Ritchie.

A world premiere...

Memory #2000

She left me for a husky
Mexican man; the irony!

Travelled in a roaring whirl
wind for six agonising years.

Jumping city to city:
Dubai to Monserat and back.

But then he got bored; and picked
up an Irish lass named Connie.


Listening to now: Smooth- Carlos Santana ft. Rob Thomas

At the moment I mainly love...

(Dylan Moran)



















In Black Books.

Listening to now: New Millenium Homes- Rage Against The Machine

Recently I have been mainly listening to...

Funeral For A Friend. A powerful post-Emo Welsh band. You have heard of them, you may have not. You may have listened to them, you may have not. But I love them right here, right now. They're not in the same league as other post-Emo bands such as Brand New (as if that was possible) but they are pretty sweet. Here follows the lyrics to two of my favourite songs from the 2005 album Hours:

History

Dear friends of this academy

Oh, Romeo is bleeding to death..

To see a friend bleed to death

What for, some kind of metaphor

That I can't see..

So I'll drink until I see it.

This sky will make me sick,

So I'll give up on you,I'll give up on this.

This sky will make me sick,

So I'll give up on this,I'll give up on you.

Archers in your arches,

Raise your fingers for one last salute..

And bleed this skyline dry

Your history is mine.

So you want to hold me up and bring me down?

Yes, you want to hold me up and break me down

I don't care for your sweet scent

Or the way you want me more than I want you.

I don't care for your sweet scent

Or the way you want me more than I want you.

It's all mine.. it's all mine.. it's all mine...

The End Of Nothing

Killing you

Might be the only chance I have

Of recovery

But I know it's so severe

As you know it would be

The punishment, it fits the crime.

So let's take this knife (Take this knife)

And run it down your chest

Does this feel like love? (Feel like love)

Here we are waiting

So let's take this knife

And run it down your chest

Does this feel like love?

Here we are waiting

The light looks good against

The bruises on your cheek

Another medal that you'll have to wear this week

The light looks good against

The bruises on your cheek

Another medal that you'll have to wear this week

Killing me

Might be the only chance you have

Of recovering

But I know it's so severe

As you know it would be

The punishment, it fits your crime.

So let's take this knife (Take this knife)

And run it down your chest

Does this feel like love? (Feel like love)

Here we are waiting

So let's take this knife

And run it down your chest

Does this feel like love?

Here we are waiting

The light looks good against

The bruises on your cheek

Another medal that you'll have to wear this week

The light looks good against

The bruises on your cheek

Another medal that you'll have to wear this week

You and I, will die alone tonight

You and I, will lie alone tonight

You and I, will die alone tonight

You and I, will die alone.

Rich's 2005 in pictures...

... well from October onwards.

Who'd have thought that I had the same hands as Clint Eastwood?

Becs at Covent Garden.

The scariest street mime ever!

With Becs at the start of our Great Adventure to London!!

I love the houses of Parliament, such an eye-catching building.

When in London Becs stayed with our friends Phil and Liz Orchard and their gorgeous daughters, Rebecca...

... and Bethany!

Sweet photogenic effects courtesy of Mark's breath!

The view from Bangor Pier, so much better than Aber!!

With Tim at Mao night. Possibly the worst Zoolander poses ever...

The worlds stupidest game of Mao (Tim is honestly not gay!)

Mark

Joey and the Ukeleli that just never worked...

Tim dressed rather bizarrely as Atlantis and Mark as a Russian Peasant (die bourgeois scum!!)

The Beautiful alcove at Quinta frequented during CU Houseparty.

Myself and Tom in blurry action pose.
With Nerys at the CU banquet.

'The King' in uber-emo pose.

With Steff pulling some kind of weird face.

With Cheryl, probably before she either physically or verbally abused me... (jokes/jokes :p)

'Nezza' and 'Chezza' pre CU banquet.

Listening to now: Forget About Me- Hobo Exile Hotel

Apologies for the lack of quality posting recently, normal service shall resumer when I return homr tomorrow...

Little Acorns

Take all your problems
And rip 'em apart

Carry them off
In a shopping cart

And another thing
You should've known from the start
The problems in hand
Are lighter than at heart

Be like the squirrel, girl
Be like the squirrel
Give it a whirl, girl
Be like the squirrel

And another thing
You have to know in this world
Cut up your hair
Straighten your curls

Well, your problems
Hide in your curls

I don't think that i've ever wanted to go home so much as I do right now.

Listening to: Under the bridge- Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Yesterday started as one of the worst days of my life...

But got gradually better... I rose at around half seven so that I could trek to the other side of Bangor for an eight O'Clock CU exec decision day. We had a day to decide who the next exec would be after nominations were placed during the last CU main meeting. Tom, my housemate, told me that last years decision day was a disaster, going well over nine hours of mental torment, so it was cool that we got to half nine with nine out of twelve desicions under the belt! But then it went disastourisly wrong. I can't actually divulge anything yet in case anyone concerned randomly reads this, but I will when the time is right. Needless to say that i was not a happy bunny. After we had finished (I can't help but feel that we won't be finished properly for a while yet) I headed to the last Ultimate session of the year, only to give up after five minutes with a severe dizzy spell, thinking that i was going to black out and retching on any empty stomach (sorry!!!) anyway, i headed home and sat on the sofa for about an hour to relax. Generally everything up to then was pretty rubbish :S but then in the evening I had a really sweet game of Mao with some of my friends, and had a chat with my friend Sam about the exec events which was really helpful. So yeah generally a crap day that got better towards the end! Sorry to complain.

Listening to now: Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades- Brand New

From Jon


Seven things to do before I die
1. Procrastinate
2. Get married and procreate
3. Not be labelled 'controversial'
4. Meet Bob Dylan
5. Write a really really good poem
6. Not be consiedered generally as a joke
7. Climb Angel Falls

Seven things I cannot do
1. Be beaten on EA Rugby 2005
2. Become a Charasmatic
3. Eat a potato crisp until 2012
4. Celebrate Josef Stalin's birthday
5. Admit to liking Jimmy Eat World
6. Stop being sarcastic
7. Appreciate Arminiasm

Seven things that attract me to my spouse
all things in relationships are officialy confidential...

Seven things I say most often

1.Stop being an idiot Al
2. Anyone want a coffee?
3. No, I don't have ADHD
4. Wasn't that a sweet layout?
5. I'm fed up with the CU
6. Who's up for a game of Mao?
7. Well I get up before seven every day anyway.

Seven books (or series) I love (Bible not included)

1. Walk Two Moons
2. Captain Correli's Mandolin
3. Holiness by JC Ryle
4. Hymn to intellectual beauty
5. Hendriksen's N.T Commentaries
6. Calvin & Hobbes Almanac
7. My family and other animals

Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)

1. The Waterboy
2. The O.C Series 1 & 2
3. Star Wars 4-6
4. Shrek
5. Legends of the fall
6. Gladiator
7. Spinal Tap

Seven people I want to join in, too

1. Thom
2. James
3. Mark
4. Hwee-Chong
5. Caleb
6. Bob
7. Rob Whiteway

I wish...

That i'd never decided to study literature at Uni. Sure, its by far and away my best subject and at times I do seem to have a sort of natural flare for it, but studying it so intensely seems to have taken so much out of my enjoyment of reading. Gone are the days when I could pick up any random book and simply melt into it for hours. It has become a constant battle to force myself to do my set reading and most of the time i end up losing.

My pastor, David Finnie, preached a wonderful sermon today on Romans 3. He looked at Righteousness through faith and concentrated on three points:

• Christians should never boast about their salvation.
• Christians should never think they are greater than other believers.
• Christians should jettison the law.

It was the kind of sermon that really challenged me and left me looking at how I am wrong in my life and should change. David is such a fine teacher and I am very grateful for his ministry.

With Compliments...

My friend Cheryl, a student at Bangor, paid me a very welcome compliment the other day. She said that upon meeting me she thought I was very similair to the great Seth Cohen (of O.C fame.) Seth is one of my heroes in life so I thought it was a pretty cool thing to say. I've now borrowed the first season DVD off Cheryl and afterr watching some of it Tom and I agree that its alarming how like Seth I am. A complete geek... and yet seriously cool... You know its true.





Listening to now: Words- The Doves