wedding

First of all - a pair of police officers just rode by my window on horseback. How weird! I love that, policemen on horses - such a quaint gesture to a bygone age. Maybe that's all we'll be seeing, what with the new budget cuts: policemen having to give up their comfy Vauxhall Astras and strapping on their saddles instead, shrieking "yee ha" as they gallop down the streets after the local teenage scallies. I quite like that image.

Secondly, congrats to William and Kate! About time too. I watched the post-announcement interview when I heard, and it made for an interesting watch. They seem happy enough so I'm pleased for them, but I do feel sorry for that poor girl. All the Diana-related questioning will be endless, what with the ring and all.

The interviewer himself hardly held back, saying stuff like: "Obviously Lady Diana was a real icon and an inspirational figure; does that intimidate you at all? Is that something you think about?" What on earth is the poor lass supposed to say to that?! "Erm, no, actually, I never think about my future husband's dead mother, and I'm a heartless bint." Or, alternatively, "Yes, I think about it all the time. In fact, I cower and tremble at her very name and fear I'll never be the style icon and philanthropist that everyone persists in reminding me that she was."

Good grief. So the little thing was left floundering around knee-deep in "erm"s and "obviously"s, until looking helplessly at her chap before he, jedi-like, raised a hand and said: "There's no pressure there."

Still, everyone loves a royal wedding, eh? And it didn't go unnoticed that this wedding has been announced right in the midst of the recession, remarkably similarly to Charles and Diana's in the last big economic crisis. What with that and the Olympics in two successive years and the inevitable tourist inundation which will ensue, ol' Wills might drag us out of the drudge of the credit crunch yet. Bravo to that!

chilled

First frost this morning! Had me slipping and sliding all the way to the Metro station... Felt incontrovertibly twee in my tweed coat with a little thermos in my leather satchel, but hey, I'm a third year.

I'm getting so genuinely excited about Christmas now - Fenwicks has unveiled its Christmas window display (an annual festive event) and Starbucks have started playing their Christmas mix. Now, I did have a moment - lasting all of about five minutes - during which I bemoaned the commercialisation of Christmas and how outrageous it is that the Halloween sweets were, for a surreal week or so, displayed alongside the Advent calendars. But, needless to say, it didn't last. I'm as giddy as a kipper wearing a Rudolph nose, and am biding my time before I put Christmas music on my iPod (1st December is reasonable, isn't it?).

We leave uni for the Christmas holidays on 17th December so I reckon we'll put our decorations up on the 1st-ish. So exciting! My new housemates seem well up for the festivities, so I reckon we'll be increasing our supplies of Christmas decks and spreading the joy throughout more of the house.

Eee! It's actually making my heart beat faster.

protest

Well, here it is - this is footage I took during the day. Slightly over-theatrical perhaps, but it conveys the mood.

 Regardless of how the media reported the day, I think this is a fair representation of the experience of 95% of the people that were there. A tiny minority of the 50,000 people that were there caused trouble - the rest of us had an incredible time.

Yes we were loud. Yes we shouted. Yes there were thousands of us. Yes we were passionate. Man, so glad that I went!

tomorrow

Firstly, I love this:

Secondly, man I'm excited!

Basically, tomorrow I'm off to London at 4:00 in the morning to attend this protest. I. Am. So. Excited.

Coming to uni, I was expecting there to be loads of protests - students up in arms at the injustices of the world, in an idealistically Les Miserables kind of way. It was something I was really looking forward to: joining the ranks of thousands of other students in an attempt to shake things up.

Yet, amidst the sea of seemingly apathetic rahs and disillusioned socialists there seemed to be a distinct lack of passion about, well, anything really. But now, in my last year at uni, I have my opportunity! In a final hurrah for my university experience, I'm going to join thousands of other students in an attempt to defend the right for my little brother to have the same opportunities I did.

For those unacquainted with the changes to be made to higher education funding in England, here's a (very) brief summary:

• Our government has taken the cap off university tuition fees - basically meaning universities can now charge anything up to £9000 a year for the benefit of attending their institution. A levy (tax) will be put in place for fees of over £6000 (last I heard), but to be honest I don't think that'll put the higher-end unis off.
• Funding for those courses which the government deems not "essential" (mainly humanities courses, like mine, such as English, History, languages that are not "strategically economically advantageous", Geography - all that kind of thing) will be cut the most severely - with government money being focused more on courses such as medicine and engineering.

Basically, the whole thing is a sham. It's outrageous. Now, I do know that compared with places like the States we still pay relatively little for university, but to suggest that students in a couple of years' time (my little brother included) will have to leave university with debts of up to £30, 000 (when our parents could attend for nothing) is scandalous.

Rant over.

So, that is why I'm off to London with a few of my coursemates and hundreds of other Newcastle students (and thousands of others from across the country) to march in front of Parliament and through central London.

Will it make a difference? Probably not. But, man, I'm buzzing for it.

aghast

Just come out of a seminar and now have an hour before my next lecture, so thought I would slump into the nearest computer cluster to do some online offloading.

Turns out I am not the English Literature proficient that I previously hoped I might be, as the vast majority of that seminar went straight over my head. Dreadful. I sat there nodding banally and taking notes furiously as people with a far vaster intellect than I can ever hope to accumulate made inciteful, probing, and - to me at least - almost incomprehensibly intelligent points about a critical essay which may as well have been written in Swahili for all I understood it.

So I'm now sat here, squatting behind an LCD monitor glancing furtively about, fearful of being exposed for the cerebral fraud that I am.

Still, I've got a children's literature lecture up next - we're studying Five Children and It this week. Much more on my level, evidently.