Review: Darwin Deez, Rock City Nottingham

It's not every gig you attend that you can close your eyes and allow the music and atmosphere to take you somewhere completely different.

As a crowd member at this seemingly under populated Rock City gig you could easily believe you'd some how time travelled back to an awkward teenage boy's bedroom as Darwin Smith (lead singer) and the rest of the band began the show with a slick and well rehearsed hip-hop style dance routine.

The guitar melody of You Can't Be My Girl broke the excited and surprised cheers of the mixed crowd, who must have all felt the same need to stop in their tracks and start dancing- complete with glow-sticks.

The humorous band dance routines, to the crowds glee, became expected brief dancing interludes filling the normally awkward gap between songs.

Smith did, however, indulge into a few guitar solos boring the crowd a little for which he apologized: "I've fallen in love with playing the guitar, sorry". It seems everyone attending wanted the same thing from the gig: to dance and sing the night away to the quirky tunes.

Finally the highly anticipated and catchy first few bars of constellations began, and the crowd was alive again, transforming the barely half full venue into a massive sing-along.

Surprisingly the band didn't save the chart topping Radar Detector for the encore, choosing some of the tracks from their new album, Songs From Imaginative People instead.

Smith grinned and gushed with thanks as it was time for the band to leave, " We've made it to Rock City!" he said.

Darwin Deez, Rock City,Saturday 27th April.

Margaret Thatcher Dies

You could compare her to marmite: you either loved her or you hated her. Whatever your opinion, there's no denying Magaret Thatcher was, and still is, a massive figure of female empowerment. The first female Prime Minister with a strong will and equally strong sense of style to match.

She divided opinion, but this is not to say that I agree with every policy she implimented during her time as Prime Minister.

She also arguably did very little in her time as our leader for women: she froze child benefit, refused to invest in affordable childcare and the rest, however it is not the where she placed the governments investments or the benefits she froze that should be remembered, it is her remarkable journey that proves anyone can reach their goals with hard work and determination.

The journey from daughter of a greengrocer in Grantham to the highest position in British politics.

Not only did she break through the class barrier to reach her position, she broke through the gender one too, and this is what makes her such a great female role model.

She may not have done all she could for women's rights when she got to number ten, but she drilled into both men and women's heads that both politics and leadership are gender neuteral.

This is what we should remember when we think of Lady Thatcher. The legacy she has left, an inspiration to strong women everywhere and not the problems she may have caused.

It should be remembered that she was an elderly lady. An elderly lady that has died, and she should be respected for what she undoubtably did for Britian, despite her flaws. 

R.I.P Maggie Thatcher.

Chocolate Brownie Cake

I came across this recipe whilst reading back issues of Good Food magazine, and have been wanting to give it a try for a while... and what better opportunity than to use my boyfriend coming round for dinner tonight as a guinea pig !

The recipe is pretty much the same as a normal brownie, however the seperation of the eggs and whisking of the egg whites used in this one, however faffy, certainly leads to good results.

So! Without further ado... 

 

Ingredients;

• 175g butter
• 225g chocolate (broken into pieces)
• 200g caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs (seperated into whites and yolks)
• 65g plain flour

Method;

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and then line your cake tin with grease proof paper
2. Place the chocolate, butter and sugar in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until melted. Leave to cool
3. Whisk the egg yolks into the mixture (ensuring it is properly cooled) followed by the flour
4. Whisk the egg whites in a seperate bowl until they form soft peaks, and then add to the chocolatey mixture 
5. Finally pour the mixture into your cake tin and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes (the deeper the tin, the longer it'll need)

 Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or cream- perfection!

Philpotts: Fault of the welfare system?

The Philpott case has been that of a dark and emotive one which has unfolded in the public eye over the past year and finally come to an end. Justice for those children at last some may say... but what is justice when those poor innocent children are gone?

Left in the wake of the horrendous and selfless crime carried out by Mick Philpott, his wife Mairead and family friend Paul Mosley are not only angry family and friends, but a shocked country looking for someone or something, so it seems, to blame.

A serious case review is now to be taken place into the deaths of the six children by Derbyshire Safe Guarding Children's Board, and today Chancellor George Osbourne visited Derby sparking a political debate.

He questioned whether the state should pay for the lifestyles of people like Mick Philpott: arguably what we have all been thinking, is it not?

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls however condemned the comments made as a "cynical act of a desperate chancellor."

I'm with George on this one. 

Labour may argue that the Conservatives are making the rich richer and the poor poorer, but what about those in-between. What about those just over the cusp of receiving benefits because they work hard to achieve the lifestyle they desire? Surely this isn't how it should be, and surely it can be argued that it isn't fair that hard working people should have to pay taxes to fund lifestyles like Mick Philpott's.

This is not to say Mick Philpott is  representative of all on benenfit: this was a freak case. However, it has dug up issues within the welfare system. A system where people are rewarded for not working and having more children, and a system which punishes those who do work.

I ask you this, Ed; what about the tax payers who fund these lifestyles, those who are on the borderline of paying for other peoples benefit whilst not receiving their own, and those who are "punished" economically for working?

Surely this isn't fair, and surely a reform is not something that will make the rich richer and the poor poorer, but encourage people to go out and work instead of opting for the easy option.

Blast From the Past

When I spoke to a family friend over coffee earlier this morning, I uncovered an untold secret she had been keeping.

Peggy has been one of my auntie's closest friends for as long as I can remember, and we got chatting when I told her I was studying a degree in journalism.

Canadian born Peggy grew up in Vancouver, and aged fifteen left school during World War II to work in a busy newsroom in the city.

"Of course it was all done on typewriters then" she recalls, "The tapping of the keys is something that will always remain synonymous with that newsroom in my mind."  

A far cry from today's papers, hers was churning out five a day, one in the morning, several throughout the day and a final edition in the evening.

As a copy writer her job involved supplying the reporters with paper when they needed it, taking copy to the editor, and generally running around.

"I was a slim size 8 back then!" she jokes.

After working her way up and learning the ropes Peggy became a reporter for the paper. She still remembers her first headline story.

"There was an armed robbery at a local jewelers that was down the road from the newsroom. I managed to get the phone number of one of the customers caught up in the incident meaning I could do a phone interview and get some great quotes before the police even got to the scene!" she tells me.

Peggy tells me about her favorite parts of the job which surprisingly happen to be surrounding the celebrity interest of the industry.

"There was the same obsessive celebrity culture then that there is now. I remember always being incredibly excited to see where all the heart throbs of the era had been on their yachts."

"It was an exciting job and fast paced." She says.

Shame I wasn't training to be a reporter back then!

Animal Cruelty

My Dog, Poppy 

After reading on Sky News online this morning that a dog had been found in Sheffield tortured, burned and tied to a tree, I felt sick.

What heartless people find this animal cruelty entertaining and furthermore, socially acceptable?

Police are appealing for witnesses after the male Staffordshire bull terrier was found on a path off a main road in Sheffield. It is believed that after being severely beaten the dog was tied to a tree and set alight.

A dog owner myself this story disgusted me.

This brutal, barbarous and bloodthirsty attack on an innocent animal makes you wonder what goes through people's minds to drive them to commit such an offence. Revenge? What could an innocent dog have done to deserve this treatment.

I only hope that whoever is responsible for what can only be described as a savage offence is brought to justice and given what they deserve for taking a defenseless life in such a sickening way.

For me the conscience of what has been done would be enough to drive me to insanity although, for the killer who has committed this offence it is merely more than a gruesome joke. 

GSMA predictions- data will have overtaken voice by 2018

Kevin Bacon, EE advert

What’s wrong with good old fashioned face-to-face conversation? This was my reaction this morning when I read predictions that mobile data will have overtaken voice by 2018.

Mobile data is the transmission of  information between devices and includes texting, and a surge in this has created a recent new demand: it seems people just don’t want to indulge, or more likely, simply don’t have time for a man-to-man chat anymore.

The articles regarding this new prediction boast the benefits of mobile data connection including that of the developing world. Last time I checked their main concerns were clean water and cholera not texting and accessing the internet.

The unveiling of 4G in the UK late last year has supposedly left the world feeling more connected. Although with Kevin Bacon playing a one man game of word association on their adverts to prove this, I can’t help feeling an unfillable void where conversation used to be.

Quick and effortless, texting is undoubtedly a convenience the human race have become both reliant and dependent on. In fact, many have argued they would rather starve than go without their beloved mobile phone. Sad really.

In a world where this form of “communication” is branded as acceptable as a heart-to-heart chat, I ask whether we really understand what monster we are creating. A heartless generation who find it socially acceptable to spend a night in sharing their feelings with Facebook rather than with their friends… God help us.