On 21 May, Gurkhas who left the British Army with at least four years service before 1997 will be granted UK residency. This is a topic I feel particularly strongly on as my Grandfather was in the Gurkhas from the early 1950's to the 1980's, and then when he retired from service he established the Gurkha Museum in Winchester.
Before Thursday the Gurkhas who had left the British army before 1997 with at least four years service were denied the right to settle in the UK. Appreciation must go to Joanna Lumley who created "the perfect storm in a positive way". Her Father, like my Grandfather, fought with the Gurkhas so this personally I am very grateful for what she has done for these brave warriors.
I have become active in my appreciation for the Gurkhas as for our third project for Media Production I chose to create a photojournalism piece on the Gurkha's struggle. This included taking photographs in the Museum in Winchester and at my Grandfather's house, and an interview with my Grandfather, which details his opinions on the Gurkhas right to settle within the UK.
Intitially my production piece was created before the Gurkha's won the right to settle with the UK, thus making it a convincing piece of localised propaganda, however they went on to gain access to settle in the UK so now my piece merely stands as a tribute to the Gurkhas and their hard work over the last two hundred years.
Sunday 24 May 2009
Sunday 17 May 2009
The Stupid World Of People And Cameras
Sunday... what a day. But this day ended in my group producing the best god damn news package the world has ever seen!!!!!!!
For part of our Reporting Skills course we had to produce a minute and a half tv package on a local news story. We chose to film ours' on the Alresford Watercress Festival, which initially I wasn't too sure on but it turned out to be a great story as the streets of Alresford were rammed with watercress enthusiasts lol.
For our piece to camera we filmed Josh walking towards the camera "miked up" and telling the camera about the background of the festival. We thought this would be a relatively simple task to overcome as how hard can it really be to film twenty seconds of footage of a man walking and talking through a crowd?.... ANSWER: very hard! The stupidity of some people was amazing! At one point we had a woman stand about a metre in front of the camera lens as we were filming, and remained there even when she had noticed... stupid bitch.
If our group were to burn all of the amusing out-takes onto a disk then we would probably have a pretty decent DVD of ridiculous antics. One of the most memorable moments of the day for me was when a woman walked across Josh's path and nearly sent him flying, and because I had the headphones on I could hear everything... the poor woman was so apologetic hahaha!
A further disastrous part of the day was that when we arrived in Alresford it was absolutely tipping it down. So to counteract that move we decided to buy an umbrella and no sooner had we parted with twenty pounds for a shitty umbrella from a coffee house had it stopped raining. The staff at the coffee house found this most amusing as we walked outside and the rain ceased, so to show them how bothered we were we just walked around with the umbrella up, however this just encouraged their laughter. boo hoo.
Another amusing point to note is that we were at a watercress festival, and wait for it, we didn't film any fillers of watercress. In fact the first time watercress is mentioned in the package we cut to images of sausages on a barbeque. How stupid could we be? It was only when we played back the footage in the editing suite that we all noticed the absence of the very reason we had gone out to film in Alresford in the first place.
Despite these funny events, we managed to produce exactly what we had been asked to. As far as quality went we were pretty spot on BEEP BEEP. Although I don't know that Brian liked it too much, which was a surprise (satire). If we had included shots of watercress I feel that the package would have been almost without fault.
For part of our Reporting Skills course we had to produce a minute and a half tv package on a local news story. We chose to film ours' on the Alresford Watercress Festival, which initially I wasn't too sure on but it turned out to be a great story as the streets of Alresford were rammed with watercress enthusiasts lol.
For our piece to camera we filmed Josh walking towards the camera "miked up" and telling the camera about the background of the festival. We thought this would be a relatively simple task to overcome as how hard can it really be to film twenty seconds of footage of a man walking and talking through a crowd?.... ANSWER: very hard! The stupidity of some people was amazing! At one point we had a woman stand about a metre in front of the camera lens as we were filming, and remained there even when she had noticed... stupid bitch.
If our group were to burn all of the amusing out-takes onto a disk then we would probably have a pretty decent DVD of ridiculous antics. One of the most memorable moments of the day for me was when a woman walked across Josh's path and nearly sent him flying, and because I had the headphones on I could hear everything... the poor woman was so apologetic hahaha!
A further disastrous part of the day was that when we arrived in Alresford it was absolutely tipping it down. So to counteract that move we decided to buy an umbrella and no sooner had we parted with twenty pounds for a shitty umbrella from a coffee house had it stopped raining. The staff at the coffee house found this most amusing as we walked outside and the rain ceased, so to show them how bothered we were we just walked around with the umbrella up, however this just encouraged their laughter. boo hoo.
Another amusing point to note is that we were at a watercress festival, and wait for it, we didn't film any fillers of watercress. In fact the first time watercress is mentioned in the package we cut to images of sausages on a barbeque. How stupid could we be? It was only when we played back the footage in the editing suite that we all noticed the absence of the very reason we had gone out to film in Alresford in the first place.
Despite these funny events, we managed to produce exactly what we had been asked to. As far as quality went we were pretty spot on BEEP BEEP. Although I don't know that Brian liked it too much, which was a surprise (satire). If we had included shots of watercress I feel that the package would have been almost without fault.
Thursday 14 May 2009
Man Flu: The truth Is Out
The facts are here. hahaha. Finally we have the proof! Man Flu is for real.
It turns out that men have weaker immune systems then women. Scientists have discovered that female hormone oestrogen boosts women's protection against infections. However, an enzyme in men hampers their ability to fight bugs.
This is the best news since sliced bread. When this news was broadcast yesterday, I was sat in front of the TV with a cold and had to shove the sky plus on to show my parents the revelation when they got home from work. Although i myself thought this revolutionary, my Mother just rubbished this revelation (obviously cos she thought i would want sympathy, which i kinda did) and my Dad, who should have supported me, just shrugged and said that he already knew that. This aside, I know that in the future the "man flu" argument, is an argument with scientific fact and who can argue with fact.
Quote of the day:
Dr Maya Saleh: "These results demonstrate that women have a more powerful inflammatory response than men."
It turns out that men have weaker immune systems then women. Scientists have discovered that female hormone oestrogen boosts women's protection against infections. However, an enzyme in men hampers their ability to fight bugs.
This is the best news since sliced bread. When this news was broadcast yesterday, I was sat in front of the TV with a cold and had to shove the sky plus on to show my parents the revelation when they got home from work. Although i myself thought this revolutionary, my Mother just rubbished this revelation (obviously cos she thought i would want sympathy, which i kinda did) and my Dad, who should have supported me, just shrugged and said that he already knew that. This aside, I know that in the future the "man flu" argument, is an argument with scientific fact and who can argue with fact.
Quote of the day:
Dr Maya Saleh: "These results demonstrate that women have a more powerful inflammatory response than men."
Sunday 10 May 2009
Why Obey The State?
For our final assessment in People and Politics we were asked to write an essay. I decided to write the essay of why we should obey the state. I chose this particular question as I initially thought that I would try and shake things up a bit, and try and find justifiable reasons as to why someone would indeed obey the state, however I found this harder to achieve than first thought.
The odds were stacked against me. I mean, come on, there are a million and one frickin' reasons as to why one should obey the state. Just think about it, for all the so-called "obeying" we do, we get a lot in return; a strong example of which can be seen in the NHS. If we did not obey the state then the NHS would be non existent. In addition to this, everywhere would be total chaos as there would be no police force in place and thus total anarchy would prevail.
Rousseau made the point that we need a governing body to protect us from humanity’s State of Nature (where we were before law and order) and thus that is why we should obey the state, to protect people’s property and interests, freedom and equality. From reading his work I found it very difficult to justify my own attempt at an argument for not obeying the state.
As much as I tried to start my essay by arguing that we shouldn't obey the state, the fact of the matter is we have to so that the world can function. Below is an extract from my essay as to why we should obey the state:
"However philosophers like to rephrase scenarios, the fact is that we can always find an argument within their own argument as to why one should obey the state, thus giving very good grounds as to why we should indeed obey the state"
The odds were stacked against me. I mean, come on, there are a million and one frickin' reasons as to why one should obey the state. Just think about it, for all the so-called "obeying" we do, we get a lot in return; a strong example of which can be seen in the NHS. If we did not obey the state then the NHS would be non existent. In addition to this, everywhere would be total chaos as there would be no police force in place and thus total anarchy would prevail.
Rousseau made the point that we need a governing body to protect us from humanity’s State of Nature (where we were before law and order) and thus that is why we should obey the state, to protect people’s property and interests, freedom and equality. From reading his work I found it very difficult to justify my own attempt at an argument for not obeying the state.
As much as I tried to start my essay by arguing that we shouldn't obey the state, the fact of the matter is we have to so that the world can function. Below is an extract from my essay as to why we should obey the state:
"However philosophers like to rephrase scenarios, the fact is that we can always find an argument within their own argument as to why one should obey the state, thus giving very good grounds as to why we should indeed obey the state"
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