"A beer and some convo"
Overheard on way into the GP practice this morning:
“I’m not being funny but I think she’s a cow [pron "kaah"]“
No you are indeed not being funny. What was the point of the first third of that statement? I can’t think quite what it means.
I were up in Yorkshire on Friday past. OK I’ll stop that now.
The BJC this year was in lovely Huddersfield. Not been there before and somehow I doubt I’d have picked it as a place to visit were it not for the BJC plonking itself down there and inviting us in. Surprised how nice the place was. Probably another of those “shush don’t tell the southerners how nice here is, we don’t want an influx” things.
Sadly I only managed to get there for about 12 hours from midday Friday. I’d picked the Friday as I wanted to see the BYJotY show. Word had it that the normal org Luke B had cried off, some pitiful excuse like “not being in Europe” no doubt. So it seemed young Tom D had valiantly stepped into his shoes instead. Not a bad play considering he only had 3 weeks to pull the thing into shape.
Not long before the BJC I’d heard more, that there weren’t many takers for the show. Could it really be so?
On getting to the site I slowly made my way to the main juggly hall, being constantly waylaid by lovely folk going “Ooh Alby, Hellooo!” and offering hugs and chats, from Dr H at the reg desk to the P-Bs once I finally fought my way into the hall.
Some juggling was done in the afternoon with some measure of success. Later I parked myself in the tent where Tom was stressing about the BYJotY show.
He’d managed to get himself a load of entrants the day before so the show was on. Mind you it seemed that many people who should have been around weren’t. And a workshop was due to take place in the tent at the same time the tech run was due to be held, and on and on…
Then, at the right time, a bunch of folk wandered in and dutifully played their own role in the show’s prep and things looked good.
In come the audience and then we begin.
Nina compered again and immediately apologised for her shocking use of the word “Lie-sester” last year but then ruined it by blaming Luke’s handwriting. But in the main she got on with it and things ran pretty smoothly.
The usual things happened, the drop count, the best trick comp (still using the old rules tho – still think 1 min per participant would be better, where the whole minute is the person trying to get their trick sorted rather than 10 secs per go). Perhaps she could have pushed the drop count game more during the interludes, maybe would have got more money if it’d been pushed more, perhaps even someone could have walked the queues before the show to garner money and participants, ah well maybe next time. (NB this is hindsight of course, I wish I’d thought of it at the time)
Notable in the show was our pal ^Tom doing his first go (and what would be his last due to being too old next year) at BYJotY. Droppy but funny and a worthy first go at jungling on stage.
There was a girl too! Emma-Jane I think she was called and she was pretty good. Not much joining in and connecting with her audience but the technical skills were clearly there.
Other notables were Jonny who won with a lovely routine of skillful juggling and having a lot of fun which he communicated well to the crowd; Josh and Lewis larking about and showing off some different skills such as head bouncing and sharing patterns – also the first ever double act (I think it was previously against the rules); and David Haslam with some excellent club juggling.
After all this was successfully concluded with Jonny winning just about everything and a couple of other silver awards (still no golds) Tom looked mightily relieved so I suggested food out with him and a few others. We ended up in an excellent steak place in town, good choice.
After about 2 hours of further wandering and goodbyes I headed home via a 2 hour night time drive. Lovely quiet roads at that time.
I’m left with a strange feeling of having missed an excellent convention but I did enjoy what I managed to see.
I do hope there’s a strong offer for next year, I’ve heard nothing beyond “someone has a plan”. Fingers crossed.
Cheers to the orgs, well done.
Pics from the day here.
Right then ideas requested.
New politic party/philosophy is clearly required considering all the main parties are identical in all but name.
First thoughts for the manifesto:
1: Referendum within first 6 months: “Do you wish the government to treat you like adults?” If carried then no more bans on things, no-one allowed to complain about offence unless it causes material detriment to them. Age ratings for films and games to be enforced vigorously but anything allowed in top ratings bracket. If “anything” includes actual illegal activities (eg actual crimes for entertainment) then film makers (or participants or distributors) prosecuted for those activities.
2: Second referendum: “What age are people adults?” It’s currently 16 for this, 17 for driving, 18 for other things, and 21 for yet more. Make it all the same but allow the public to choose what age that should be. Choices? 16, 18, 21.
2: Drugs: all allowed but controlled by NHS. Users can get what they want in a safe environment of care rather than exploitation. Keep dealer sentences as they are.
3: Health care: Keep NHS free at point of use. Allow “top-up” insurance for those who can and want to pay for it. This would entitle them to some level of queue jumping on non-urgent things, nicer rooms in hospital etc.. Get rid of at least one layer of bureacracy, local NHS can do the same job as PCTs.
4: Crime: Dump lots of rules. Treat everyone over age of majority the same. Eg: if you assault someone you are by definition an idiot. It makes no difference to your idiocy whether you assault someone because you have some misguided views on their ethnicity or their class or gender or whether you want some of their stuff: whatever the reason you are still an idiot.
5: Crime again: Alcohol should not be an excuse. Triple all penalties if offender shown to be over a certain limit of blood alcohol.
6: Identity: Immediately dump ID database and ID cards scheme. Spend money saved on crime prevention measures and more police.
7: Roads: Keep speed limits. Cars to have tachographs. Penalties for tampering with them. Drivers ARE allowed to speed but HUGE penalties if they cause an accident and are shown to have been over the speed limit. Designated areas (eg small villages with 1 road through them, areas near schools etc) to be as they are now.
8: Free speech: Everyone has the right to offend. Ideally most people will be offended most days. You WILL have the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. Other people have the right to respond in kind. Ideas will not be responded to by violence or threats of violence.
9: Alcohol: Anything goes. If you cause problems then to a drunk tank for 2 working days. If on benefits then you lose those 2 working days worth of benefits. If employed then you have to explain yourself to your employer. Employer has the right to sack immediately on this basis.
10: Education: All religious schools to be made available to all. No enforced religious content in any school. Get rid of LEAs and give the schools the money to do with as they will. Ofsted to ensure that money not spent on fripperies! No national curriculum.
11: Benefits: Allow pretty much as they are. All benefit recipients to do a certain amount of work in the community for minimum wage. They are allowed to finish work at the point they’ve done enough for their benefit. Eg – if min wage is £8per hour then someone who gets £80 a week in benefits must do 10 hours work per week. The rest of the time is their own. Alternative plan is to allow 50% of that time for further education, job search with job centre staff etc…
12: Political process: Manifesto pledges to be kept! All sorted within the first 4 years of the term of government. Any to be dumped MUST be agreed by a referendum.
13: Renationalise power companies, water services, railways. Expand railways back to pre-Beeching levels. Subsidise rail heavily.
14: EU and immigration: Well here I seem to diverge with many. I like the EU and I like people coming into the country to work. Make your own rules up here.
So there are my first thoughts. I’d like to know any other opinions. Anyone fancy being my campaign manager?
Have fun.
I watched “Masterchef” last night. Not really my bag but it was on and some of the contenders were likable enough. The judges are quite odd and unpleasant. One of them looks like he’s had far too much to drink over the years and is a tedious cockney stereotype – “That mash is lumpy – SORT IT AHHT!” etc.
2 contenders stuck out. One was dismissed from the competition. He was called Terry and is unemployed. He clearly has confidence issues and has the annoying habit (in a chef) of playing with his hair, or wiping his face, or fiddling with his ears when stressed – which is constantly. Yum, nice seasoning in them there dishes.
The other one of note is a bloke whose name I forget. He’s a paediatrician. The programme makers decided to call him a “children’s doctor” throughout. Erm why?
The only reasons I can think of are:
a: They think people are too stupid to know what a “paediatrician” is.
b: they think people are stupid enough to think “paedophile? Facking BBC giving someone like that time on the channel. What were they thinking? I’m going to smack someone.”
Are the public really that stupid? I know possibly a silly question.