What am I giving up for lent??

"Remember two years ago when you tried to give up alcohol for lent?" This was a text message I received a few days ago, and yes. Yes  I do. I lasted 30 minutes before caving in. It would be fair to suggest it was the least impressive display of willpower I know of, but this year I shall do no such thing!

Why should I even give up anything? I am not religious, and although I like chocolate at Easter, and presents at Christmas (and I loved the pancakes I had on Tuesday night) I feel no need to give up anything to mimic Jesus in the wilderness. In fact I find the whole concept of giving up something for lent incredibly negative! I am very happy with my life, so instead of giving something up, I am going to take on an activity. Twice a week outside of hockey I am going to go out running. A little bit of extra fitness never hurt anyone, and I have been looking for an excuse to get out running again, so what better time than now!

So this year, instead of giving something up, make a change for the better and try something new!

PER

Because I say so!

It has been a while since I have written a post, and I knew it had been too long when friends asked why I had given up! Just to clarify, I haven't given up, I have just been waiting for something to inspire me! Sure, I could have written about the snow, but everyone with a window saw that, or about my trip to see Jersey Boys (if you can, see this show) however, if you want to see it, I'm sure you will. But a topic of conversation has been appearing fairly frequently in my life, so I took it as some sort of sign. I must write about it, so here it goes: What is freedom of speech?

The right to Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's ideas via speech. Wikipedia also "reliably" informs me that under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, freedom of speech is recognised. The article states that "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice"...Yeah right.

Although if freedom of speech is supposedly there, we live in a society happy to suggest one thing, and act in the opposite way. Recently the boxer Chisora was arrested for stating he was going to "literally shoot" David Haye, yet when Jeremy Clarkson suggests all protestors should be shot, no such action was taken. This is not the only level at which this hypocrisy exists. If freedom of speech is truly real, why was John Terry reprimanded? Surely he should be allowed to voice his thoughts? Or do we have to accept that freedom of speech does not exist? I understand that threatening to kill someone like Chisora did is more extreme than John Terry's case. However when Terry called upon his limited intelligence to construct a sentence, he based his insult purely on the aesthetics of his target. In other words he called Anton Ferdinand Black. This is considered a heinous racial crime, yet when a trio of muslim girls beat a white woman shouting obscenities such as "death to the white girl" they were acquitted of the crime due to the fact they were not used to drinking alcohol. Now this is not me ranting about racism or race, but simply  highlighting that freedom of speech, isn't.

Everyone should be able to voice their opinions, that is how a democracy works!

If however you disagree with anything I have said, tough, it's my opinion! :)

PER

"A Work In Progress"

Yesterday was a good day. A day when the term 'value for money' was re-defined. Sophie and I saw Michael McIntyre perform new material for about an hour and a half and managed to eat dinner before the show for the grand total of £18 pounds (I made sure my maths was correct before uploading this time). £18 pounds for two tickets, and two steak baguettes. Amazing. What made it more exceptional was that our seats from Michael McIntyre were front and centre due to keenness on my behalf (we only queued for 15 minutes before anyone else). Him and I had eye contact during his show, and I can honestly say I have never felt more vulnerable or exposed in all my life!

It is always interesting when you see celebrities in real life, especially when you see them as close up as Sophie and I did yesterday, purely because it is easy to forget that he is just a person (albeit a very funny one), and not just an image from inside the T.V. In fact his humanity, and modesty took me by surprise, as when I think of his comedic styling, I tend to think of a comedian whose material is highly polished and very slick. Yesterdays show titled 'A Work In Progress' was not the finished article. Not at all. The first thing he told us was that he had no idea if he would be funny, as due to the fact his show was still 6 months away, he was under prepared and that his work tonight was not representative of his best (quite frankly Newcastle United's last 2 performances should have come with a similar warning). But that was not the case. He was hilarious. Within minutes he had the audience in stitches, however, it wasn't his new and slightly un-refined jokes that did the most damage, but his improv. The way he dealt with people was incredible. The speed at which stand-up comedians must think to deal with hecklers is sensational!

Now I am sure you are all aware with Michael McIntyre and his comedic genius, and a review by myself will do nothing to increase his already fantastic reputation, yet I feel credit should be given when credit is due. Michael McIntyre, you are a funny funny man, and after last night I am already looking forward to October, when I am seeing him perform once again, this time at the 02!

PER

My first time...

I have a confession to make. I am a murderer. I have killed. Not only have I killed, but I ate part of the evidence and binned what I could not chew. But I tell you what, my first experience of eating what I killed was sensational, and has opened a lot of new doors! To clear up any confusion, yesterday Sophie and I cooked mussels for the very first time. Of course I have eaten them at home, but never had I cooked them from scratch. In fact we didn't realise they were alive until they started opening and closing their shells in the bowl. It was at this point we were faced with a serious moral dilemma. Do we, or do we not cook them? After very little deliberation we held a moments silence before throwing them into the pot, along with the wine, butter, garlic and onion. Four minutes later, dinner was ready!

All this happened yesterday, and I was tempted to write this up there and then, but I wanted to make sure we hadn't poisoned ourselves before telling the world about our culinary success.

Look at those mussels!

If you are tempted to try cooking them from scratch, all you need to do is follow this link and get cooking! http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/moulesmarinierewithc_71787 

"What a ghastly way to go, steamed alive in cheap white wine" Paul Round-last night

PER

What has happened to our nations game?

I know I mentioned footballers last time, so to mention them again may make it appear that I am a broken record, capable only of repeating the same ideas, but on a serious note: what is up with football these days?

It seems that every weekend I open the newspaper to read stories of corruption, violent conduct, racism and rather awful play acting. Yet, viewing figures are on the rise. Why, if all people do is criticise the sport, do we waste so much time and money on this sport? When looking at tickets to watch Chelsea vs. Manchester United, I found tickets being sold for over £400.00 for 90 minutes of football. For that fee, every minute of action is worth £4.40 (so if I were you, I would pray for added time). That is flat out extortion. I could never justify paying that much for a football game. It's not as if the players on show are honest citizens either! John Terry, involved in a recent racism row will be playing and no doubt the Chelsea crowd will fully support this individual, even though cameras caught him allegedly racially abusing Rio Ferdiand's brother.

The support of the managers is equally as farcical. "Harry Redknapp for England manager" is a phrase becoming all too familiar, but after recent allegations into his private life, evidence has been found indicating that Harry has accepted secret payments into an off shore bankaccount in order to avoid the tax man!

Howard Webb, the flagship of English referees, once again failed to spot and act accordingly to a serious incident this weekend, in the form of a Mario Balotelli stamping on Scott Parkers' head. This lack of competency and willingness to act due to the amount of money involved in the sport is absurd, and is ruining the sport as a spectacle.  So is all the play acting and diving that goes on in the EPL, or as it has eloquently been dubbed by FIFA"simulation". It happens all the time in the Premier League, and although it can be argued the Spanish league, especially Barcalona have the biggest problems, the EPL sees its fair share of play acting, which in my opinion is pathetic! That may be due to the fact that I was brought up playing rugby, where you never want to show any sign of weakness, and diving will get you nowhere (apart from the subs bench). Yes, rugby had an issue with 'simulation' with the famous bloodgate scandal in 2009, but unlike the EPL, the player involved was banned for 12 months, the coach was banned for 3 years and the club fined £260,000. As far as I am aware, diving or 'simulation' has not been dealt with in a similar way in football (if it has bring it to my attention).

Therefore our national sport one day could be :

• A team full of people willing to simulate fouls for personal gain (i.e. cheaters).
• Captained by an (allegedly, trial pending) racist.
• Managed by a tax dodger.
• And Refereed by an incompitent individual.

And people wonder why the youth today are the way they are! One look at their role models helps to sort that out!

PER

Is it really their Call of Duty?

I was on Facebook the other day, and I saw a status update that stated "A football player earns £250,000 a week, a soldier earns £15,000 a year. If a footballer gets flicked in the leg he falls over screaming, a soldier gets his arm blown off and carries on. A footballer lets us down every year, a soldier makes us proud everyday. Repost if you think soldiers should get paid a lot more than footballers". Now I don't normally pay attention to these chain messages, but this one made me think. Whilst I agree that footballers are overpaid for what they do, how could soldiers be paid more? As far as I understand, footballers make a lot of their money due to high levels of sponsorship, which is not realistically available for soldiers as the only people that would see this advertising are the enemy (who are quite clearly not a target audience, [pun intended]). Also to receive similar salaries war would have to be televised, or at least turned into a spectator sport, where people could turn up to cheer on the favourite soldiers. This has happened in human history, as the Gladiators were the celebrities of the Romans, famed for their combat skills. But this can't be what people want today.

There must be an easier way for soldiers to earn more money. Since 2008, it is estimated that over 60,000,000 copies of the famous first person shooter "Call of Duty" have been sold. If we assume each retailed for £40 (or the equivalent in other countries), over £2,400,000,000 has been spent on C.O.D alone. This doesn't take into account any of the DLC (downloadable content). That is just one franchise of many. There are so many games that encourage us to take to the frontline and 'be a soldier'. Gears of War, Battlefield, Medal of Honour, Resistance, Killzone etc. If all of these franchises are earning similar amounts, then it shows people are willing to spend money on war simulators, but similarly people are willing to make money out of war simulation. Although war profiteering is not illegal, it is frowned upon, but it seems major game companies have found a way to mass market war to the youth of today!

You may wonder where this is leading, so I shall go ahead and tell you. I don't think these games should be banned, but a small charge should be added to the cost of the game. If £5 had been added to every C.O.D game that has been sold, over £300,000,000 would have been generated! That is a lot of money, and could go a long way to helping people affected by war. Now I am not sure if the person who had this as their status has donated money to military charities, to actively help change soldiers salaries, but like I said, it got me thinking. It would be so easy to help support these soldiers who are risking their lives, without having to do anything apart from to buy the game you were already going to buy! I feel this goes to show that a lot of small donations would eventually add up to a large amount of money, money that could be distributed to the people who have truly earned it!

PER

Money. What is it worth?

Today, I personally had to rectify a costly error due to lack of funds in the hockey clubs function account. Last year I knocked a hire car into a small post, and as a result have had to pay £192.00. To put this into a student perspective, that is the equivalent  of 128 Jager bombs (assuming Jager retails at £1.50). This is very annoying. If given the choice, I would rather drink 128 Jager bombs than pay to repair a car that is not mine. Upon hearing this news yesterday, I reacted in true Paul fashion, and by this I mean I sulked. Not to be confused with full scale tantrum level, but it is fair to say that hitting a hockey ball about has never been more therapeutic. My bad mood continued until about 8 30 pm last night (a good 5 hours of being in a bad mood) when my girlfriend Sophie told me that her Grandpa's illness had gotten worse and that he would be requiring surgery soon. Was my issue as big as hers? Albeit, having to spend £192 repairing the car is annoying but so what? The fact that i had to pay £192 to fix a car is obviously a much smaller issue than an ill grandparent. Suddenly it didn't matter any more. Bigger issues needed to be addressed, other people required attention.

What I'm getting at here is that perspective is key. My issue is classified as annoying, hers as important. I guess overall this saga has taught me two things.

1.Someone will always have worse issues than yourself, so try not to be self absorbed in your own problems, as you may miss out on the opportunity to help someone who really needs it!

2. Cars are expensive. Try not to crash them!

PER