It was an unusual event if you were invited to dinner to my house in the first 6 months of the year and were not served tartiflette. After the first mouthful, a worrying addiction quickly took hold (though I am a man of whom addiction has an easy relationship), that resulted in me quite quickly putting on a lot more weight than normal. A dish from the Alps, this is not one for those who want to be conscious of calories, but it is cheap and remarkably tasty, and has entirely replaced potatoes dauphinoise in my kitchen. 1kg/2lb 4oz…
Author: Jez Harvey
Score: Bangor City 0 – 1 Prestatyn Town (Parker 51′) Date: 30th August Venue: Nantporth, The Book People Stadium Attendance: 701 Photos by LJ Taylor and Jez Harvey Full Gallery available here A small but noisy crowd followed Prestatyn Town to Nantporth to face Bangor City in the third game of the season. The game began in a fairly rough and ready way, with Prestatyn having the majority of the possession and chances, though Bangor were quick and aggressive on the break, with neither side particularly able to force the keepers to stretch themselves overly. Play settled quickly after the first 15 minutes…
The next few weeks will see the run up to the most highly anticipated final episode of a TV show for nearly a decade, as the culmination of Breaking Bad approaches. The final weeks of our time with Walter White are upon us, and his descent from mild mannered chemistry teacher to the drug baron mass-murderer will have people across the world glued to their TV’s. Though it never successfully made it onto any of the British channels, it is available in the UK through Netflix only 24 hours after being aired in the US. If you have never watched…
The rise of online streaming services such as Netflix and Lovefilm have had an unforeseen change in how television works. Aside from simply providing people with a large range of films and TV-shows to watch on-demand, the companies are now producing TV shows of their own. Netflix have had three such shows launch in the last year: the reboot of one of the best comedies America has produced, Arrested Development; the US adaption of the British political drama House of Cards and most recently, the prison drama/comedy Orange is the New Black. Arrested Development, whilst returning to somewhat mixed reviews,…
This summer has seen the launch of several new Android and Google products, some exciting, others more mundane. The most newsworthy and covered is the launch earlier in the year of Google Glasses – Android powered specs that link to your phone and is currently out in the world being tested and played with by developers who are working out what exactly the potential of this device could be. Google have a lot of form in this area – a blue skies project that they release to the wider public to develop. This means that much of their products are…
If you head over to the travel section you’ll find an article on my recent trip to Palestine. In the week I spent there, I was also reading a book by Simon Sebag Montefiore called Jerusalem: A Biography. This particularly weighty tome coloured all of my experiences during my time there and has changed my entire outlook on the situation. The book explores the full seven thousand years of history of the city and each chapter looks at the particular dynasty or regime that controlled the area at different times. This way of telling the story of Jerusalem allows Montefiore…
• UCAS posts 8.7% drop in university applications • Fees being increased to £9000 to blame? Figures recently released by UCAS have shown an 8.7% drop in university applications under the new £9000 fee regime being brought into place in 2012. In England, the figure was nearly 10%, with only a 1.5% drop in Scotland, where students do not pay fees. There are other important variances in the figures – applications have dropped faster amongst men, mature students and for certain courses. For example, a man in Wales is only half as likely to have applied as a woman from…
From Bangor Students’ Union to wider student movement; why you should mark your x on the ballot paper It may not have the glamour of the the American Presidential elections, but the next three months will see the leaders of the student movement in Bangor, Wales and the UK elected. These are, you will know, interesting and complicated times for students across the UK, and I wanted to take this chance to explain why I believe that it is vital that as many students as possible use whatever chance they have to make sure they have the right people leading…
I premise this by saying that whilst of course I had an opinion on the situation before I travelled there, the main opinion I had was that I didn’t know enough about the situation for my opinion to be worth squat. After a week there, that hasn’t really changed, but it has certainly refined my thoughts. But still, I am just an outsider, and certainly no expert. Anyway, the week was never supposed to be a trip in ‘solidarity’ with anyone or a fact finding mission – it was a holiday with my friend. So we start at the airport…Why…
It is easy to forget sometimes that in many senses, we are not citizens of a country, but subjects of a hereditary monarch. It is, for some people, hard enough to stomach the idea that a single person could inherit an entire country; it is much harder when it is revealed that the Government has been offering vetos on various bills to the heir to the throne. A constitutional loophole forces the Government to ask permission of the Prince of Wales if a bill touches on his private interests. Unlike Royal Assent which is required for a bill to become…
Gwynedd Council have been criticised recently for placing health and safety warnings on a group of rocks on a beach in Cardigan Bay. The group of rocks, that might in some peoples eyes be viewed as perfect for larking about on, are in fact a danger to life and limb for anyone foolhardy enough to go near them, according to the council. A spokesperson for the council said that the rocks contain, “significant voids” which when combined with the slipperiness of being near the sea, make them dangerous to people. They said that the council has a duty of care…
Events in Syria continue to raise concerns in some parts of the international scene. A popular uprising started in March at the same time as the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. Unlike the uprisings there however, the regime was swift to crack down, using force on the rallies. So far, over 1,600 people have been killed, and another 10,000 have fled to Turkey. There are broad similarities between the Syrian and other Arab Spring uprisings. Syria has been ruled for over 40 years by the Assad family, with “emergency law” being in place for even longer. Extrajudicial killing, torture and imprisonment…
There are some people, Ben Aaronovitch claims in his new book Moon Over Soho, who are born Londoners, even if they only visit for the first time in their old age. There are others who are born in London who never quite get it, and dream of escape. I fall into the first category. Despite being born within the gravity of the great city that is London, I am absolutely and incontrovertibly a Londoner at heart. There’s little about the city I don’t love, and as Aaronovitch says, “Every Londoner has their manor – a collection of bits of the…
Do you ever suffer from those long sleepless nights when your mind decides that rather than sleep, it’s going to replay the Top Ten Most Embarrassing Moments of your life? Well, it could be much worse. A student at the University of Derby, but originally hailing from North Wales, became trapped in a clothes horse and required help from the Fire Service to be freed. Danielle Morgan was apparently “mucking about” and fell off her friend’s bed and somehow became entangled in the clothes horse. Bolt croppers were required to free the student, whose friends very kindly and helpfully recorded…
In late November the National Union of Students held the first Student Activist training event for many years. After several decades largely on the sidelines of British politics, the student movement has re-emerged from its rather stagnant cocoon to once again become a voice against what many see as ideological and flawed ‘reforms’ to education in this country. 2010 saw the largest demonstration by students in many years, and unlike the protests during the Labour government’s introduction of top—up fees, the ball has not stopped rolling. Protests have continued and spread to other sectors of society affected, both by the…
Jez looks at the reasons that people all over the world are taking to the streets and making their voices heard If 2010 was a year that will be remembered for the Coalition turning politics on its head, then 2011 should be remembered as the year where the establishment were challenged. Not, of course, by the Coalition Government, but by ordinary people (and in some cases enraged celebrities) taking a stand against what some see as “morally repulsive” inequality (Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC). The start of the year was dominated by the phone hacking scandal and the…