BCL Bollocks

A climate of fear and foreboding is sweeping the Oxford academic legal community... people scurry from bookshelf to bookshelf in the library...the BCL exams (that's my course, by the way) are only, er, more than 3 months away...

I'm going to actually stick my neck on the block here and say that this is ridiculous...the amount of work some students do on this course has effectively precluded any wider experience of what oxford (or - given that many come from overseas - this country) has to offer. While noone disputes that at Oxford you have to work hard, there is a balance to be struck...

There, rant over - I'm off to read some more IDS articles :)

Severance

" When a weapons multi-national Palisade Defense reward their European sales division with a team-building weekend in the mountains of Eastern Europe, comedy blends with horror as the team fight first amongst themselves, and later for survival against a group of war-crazed killers intent on revenge."

When my friend managed to land a job in the glamerous world of showbiz, I was waiting for the preview invites to come rolling in...and they did, well, sort of...

At first glance the plot sounds quite promising, or, as one review put it, "the Office meets Deliverance"...and to be fair the film did have its moments. As the band of war crazed killers (who seem to have been taken from RussianStereotypes.com) approaches the lodge, the American boss (who, unaware of the plight of English employees had been hanging out with a pair of Hungarian hookers) comes charging out - eager to test a new piece of 'highly advanced' weaponry and to kill the t'urrisrt motherfuckers, fires what looks like a Stinger missile at the approaching pair...which of course misses completely, shoots into the air and hits a passing plane (a referecne to the US shooting down an Iranian airliner off the Persian Gulf? Well perhaps not...). Another brilliant exchange comes when Palisade's answer to David Brent (played by Tim Tim McInnereny of Blackadder fame) exclaims, when one of his employees suggests that, maybe, Palisade have done things slightly less than ethical, that,

"Palisade is a public company...my God, we've got representatives of both our governments on the board"...

Overall, the movie makes for an entertaining enough diversion for an hour and a half...however, the attempt to build suspense for the first half of the film didn't really work (at least for me); and the sheer number of stock characters and cliches was a bit wearing at times. Also the ending was somewhat protracted. And anyone who doesn't like blood is advised to stay away (ever wondered what it would be like to see a guy's foot squashed into a mini-fridge ?)...

On the whole, Severance walks the fine line between funny and tacky...if you want any semblance of serious horror (or comedy for that matter) look elsewhere...but in the teen horror/mindless flick market Severance makes a worthwhile choice...


2 out of 5 Chainsaws...

For Simpsons Fans Everywhere

Ever wondered what it would be like to see the opening credits to The Simpsons acted in real life ?

Check this out...

Thanks to Laci for this one...

Leila Music

Only a short post today : had a bitch of a competition tutorial with a prof who blatantly doesn't like me (which given that competition law is by far the most demanding course I do here isn't great) and still have to read some learned academic bullshit on proportionality for Friday's human rights seminar...

More importantly have to swallow hard and support Arsenal against Real Madrid...

You guys all need to check out this girl's music : she did law with me @ LSE and is really tallented : anyways here's the link (given to me in a drunken MSN conversation last night - only remembered this AM when I saw the link on my desktop...

India

My return to the web wouldn't be complete without mention of my awesome and life changing trip to India...rather than write (instead of making notes for my impending tutorial) I'll simply direct you to Judge Jonathan's account here.

You can see some of my photos here, here and here.

A Tale of Two Politicians

Two politicians were in the news recently...

Firstly 'Uncle' Ken Livingstone, who was suspended from his (elected) job for referring to an Evening Standard hack who had been pursuing him down the street shouting at him as 'a Naxi war criminal'...understandably this was fairly offensive to the Jewish reporter; of course Rothermere's rags have not always been so highly sensitive to these causes, not least when the Daily Mail went into bat for, er Oswald Mosely !

Secondly Tessa Jowell, queen of the 'Blair Babes' and Culture Secretary (as well as being responsible for sport, no-one mention Wembley Stadium) who's husband (they've now separated so she can spend more time with her career) has allegedly taken a "gift" (a technical term in the law of property for a bribe) from lovable Italian rogue Silvi Berlusconi in exchange for "helpful" testimony in the Italian courts...

Both politicians are basically innocent and will stay in their jobs - after all it would be a bit rich for Blair to sack Jowell after he himself accepted a free holiday from Silvio only a few years ago); however, you have to ask which is more serious - a stupid but provoked remark to a tabloid hack on the one hand, or a spose rolling (allagedly) in money donated by a less than clean Italian politician; the latter, assmuing - and its a pretty safe assumption - that there's more that could come out of the woodwork creates an obvious conflict of interest and is a blackmail risk...

Oh well, maybe God can judge this one too...

Oxford Life

I remember looking at at tourist brochure for the City of Portsmouth a few years ago...early on was a large advert advertising "Fine restaurants only three hours away by ferry"...

This was, in truth, partly my prediction for a year in Oxford : with the ferry replaced by the Oxford Tube (Oxford to London, 24./7, £6 return)...

To be fair, this hasn't always been the case; Oxford is a gorgeous town with loads of awesome pubs (favourites include The Turf, the Rose and Crown - expensive beer and crazy landlord) and the Gloucester Arms (cheap shit, need say no more)...talking of cheap shit, had a £1 open bar at New College which was - predictably - catastrophic; unfortunately had to meet a friend at PT (Purple Turtle, a fairly crappy student bar cum airraid shelter sutiable for a last drink before the bombs rain down but not much else) and remember little...

However, Oxford life does have its difficulties and ironies :

- the weather & proximity of Lady Margaret Hall (my college) to everything else necessitates a freezing cold walk to get almost everywhere, especially when the bar shuts.

- the BCL : those running this 'demanding' law course seem to be paid by the wieght of the reading lists they produce; the only thing more annoying is the average BCL student who believes they will actually remember all this crap come exam time)...

- tutorials : have to read a load of other students' essays (most of whom will be considerably better than mine) for Wednesday - every single one is above the word limit...

- pointless academics : Oxford has a degree classification called the MSt (Master of Studies) - says it all really...

Overall, Oxford definitely gets a thumbs up....funnily enough far more people visit me here than they ever did in Winchester (aka bumblefuck, see blog passim)...oh and the people are )with a few exceptions) awesome, especially at LMH - summer will be a lot of fun...

Welcome Back !!!

Well after nearly six months of laziness on the blogging front, I've finally decided to resurrect Web of Spin...