Where is Life's Soundtrack?

We've all be shaken and stirred in films by their soundtracks. Whether it be an emotional chick-flick or a horrifically psychological horror it's the music that tells us where we should be emotionally in the film. When we hear the striking strings building up to a crescendo we know to expect something sudden, or feel afraid in a chase scene with what lies around the next dark shadowy run-down corridor. When we are presented with the slow build up of flowing rhythms and the layers of an orchestra behind a stirring melody we know that there's going to be a kiss between the couple or a glorious reveal. So, if films are based of the imaginings and experience of life, where is life's soundtrack?

In the past couple of hours I've been through most of the emotions it's possible for us to all go through; anger, happiness, pleasure, pain etc. Now, if I were in a film, the composer would really have his work cut out because of the contrasting emotions but in reality there was just the sound of cars rushing by, police sirens and birds singing. No electric guitar, no orchestra, no rhythms and no sweet melody. With the exception of when I was angry I happened to put on some AC/DC there was no music at all.

I think it's fair to say that we all put on different music depending the mood that we're in and that music changes the mood we're in. For example if I'm happy then I'll put on Paradise City by Guns 'N' Roses or Knights of Cydonia by Muse. If i'm in a chill-out relaxing mood I'll put on some Dire Straits or some slower Bon Jovi tracks. So how's this for an idea; everyone has their own miniature orchestra that is amplified so that everyone within 5 meters can here it. Don't you think it would really help those situations where you're trying to build up the courage to ask the girl out you're talking to and have fancied for weeks. You both would be in the right frame of mind because your brain would be thinking 'ahh, flowing, building strings, some romantic's going to happen' and the situation would more likely than not work out for the best. Conversely if you're in a bad mood at work in a meeting everyone would know because of the droning music with occasional build up from the brass section, or maybe metal guitar, and would know not to push you too far.

Maybe I'm on to something here but there is one major flaw. You would never get rid of your headache!

On a side note I think my Diet Coke has been spiked because it tastes horrible.

Red, Amber, Green - Not the Answer to Everything

As straight forward and useful as these colours are for directing traffic from one metropolis to the other they are not the best idea for everything. For example, most topical this week, they are not a good idea for telling people the legality of websites.

In the news this week, came the proposal from a group that want to stop people from downloading music without paying for it. They say that all search engine should introduce a traffic light system, yet another symbol by our search results, to show whether the site sells music legally or not. Now I'm not saying that this is a bad idea on principle, it's just that in practice it will deter such a minority of people it's not worth the small amount of space it takes. Most people have the intelligence to know that if they go to one site that is selling a special edition of the works of the late Amy Winehouse for £20 and another is giving it away for free, chances are it's not legal. Especially if the web address has "Pirate" in the title.

I guess I'm really making two points here; don't insult peoples intelligence and stop cluttering up web pages that have been designed to be as clean as possible with little symbols telling us what we already know.


That's it. Simple.

The Windows Time Warp

Today my time was filled by upgrading Design and Technology PC's from Windows XP to Windows 7. And during this time I realized that the system of all systems can actually warp time.

When installing or transferring files or doing updates Windows, like many other systems, gives a time estimation of how long this process will take. It runs something like this:


New Update Available do you wish to install? Yes
Estimated Time - 5 minutes
Estimated Time - 4 minutes
Estimated Time - 3 minutes
Estimated Time - 2 minutes
Estimated Time - 1 minute
Estimated Time - 30 seconds
Estimated Time - 2 hours
Estimated Time - 20 seconds
Estimated Time - 6 Years
Estimated Time - 15 seconds
Estimated Time - 10 seconds
Estimated Time - 5 seconds


Error - Download Interrupted


And in real time this took about 20 minutes to complete which at no point was the estimated time. Windows really is useless when it comes to this. Then after a restart while the update continues to install you go make a cup of tea, grab some grub, go to party, get over the hangover and come back only to find out it was waiting for you to click OK. Surely it can't be that difficult for the worlds largest computer software company to make things just work, somehow, magically, on their own.


Still look at it this way, if they did know/choose how to do that, I'd be out the job. So in one way, Microsoft creating time warps keeps millions of people employed all around the world. May the time warps continue.

Everything You Need to Know About Someone is in the Music

First impressions count for a lot these days. Most peoples lasting impressions of you will be formed within the first five minutes of conversation. In some cases, how you come across to others in those five minutes can get you hired or fired, accepted of rejected, laughed with or laughed at. So what is the best way to find out what someone is like without asking them straight out blunt questions? Ask them what music they like listening to.

When I went to both the informal and the formal interview at my current workplace I was asked this question but I gave different answers based off the first reaction. The first time I was asked was at the informal interview to which I answered that I liked Alice Cooper, AC/DC and Guns 'N' Roses. From that answer I was instantly judged and not in the best way either. What I displayed was a small portion of my personality; the slightly aggressive and psychotic part of me which despite what most people think, is defiantly there. At the formal interview I said truthfully that I had, over the past ten years, progressed through music history. Starting from classical and organ, through jazz, prog rock and then eventually to harder metal based melodies. In fact at the moment of writing this I'm listening to In the End by Linkin Park. I like the simplicity to the melody and the depth of the emotionally powerful sections. But it showed the people that were asking a greater portion of my personalty and it's contrasts which subsequently worked in my favor. 

Now it's certainly not true that you can tell because a person like one particular band that they must be like that bands music in some aspect. For example, if I said I like Paramore (which I do), that could mean that I like the music, how it has a certain rhythm that I can connect to. It could be that I like the voice of the Lead Singer or the words that are sung or the overall atmosphere it creates. Also, when I say I like Paramore I might mean that I like the harder, more upbeat songs like Ignorance , or I the relaxing acoustics of Misguided Ghosts. There so many angles that you can come from with this but if the discussion gets into enough detail and includes many bands across the spectrum, you can start to build up a mind map of the music and see how they intertwine. That can all be done within a couple of minutes and by doing that you know more about the person that is presently with you than you otherwise would if you asked them a series of generic questions.


There you go, it's all in the music.

I Love My Bed

For the past eighteen years I have been in a long term love affair with my bed. The way it knows how to comfort me the moment I slip in-between its soft sheets and lets me sleep so peacefully. And in this love affair, I'm lucky enough to get my perfection every single night. I'm also a massive fan of Alice Cooper and whilst listening to his song "I Love the Dead" I could helping singing along but instead the words were "I Love my Bed". Now I just need to come up with replacement lyrics for the rest of the song... shouldn't be too hard, maybe expect that at a later date.

As with every love affair you eventually have to leave your partner, whether it be to go to work, school or midnight snack but for me this is the most difficult challenge of my life. And I have to do it every morning. To get to work on time I have to leave by 6:45am and so I set my alarm on my phone for 6am. Three quarters of an hour to get ready for eight hours work and a four hour round trip commute. The idea being I have plenty of time to have breakfast and not have to rush things. But when that alarm wakes me up I find myself in the most comfortable position I've ever known. This is when my love is cruel to me as I have a decision to make; to leave or not to leave.

I do that thought process that goes through most peoples head whereby I calculate how much time it actually takes me to get ready to try and give a new target time to get up. Breakfast becomes unimportant as well as making that packed lunch I said the previous night I'd make to try and save a bit cash. The conclusion is that I can stay in bed for another fifteen minutes. Nine hundred more seconds where I can relax and let covers continue to curl around me in their loving cocoon. Apart from it isn't is it, it's the most agonizing 900 hundred seconds of my life. I can't relax because I'm too scared that I'll fall asleep again and be late for work so I keep checking the time every minute to check that I haven't gone past my cut off point. It really is a form of torture.

And once that fifteen minutes are up I find myself recalculating, seeing if I can create another torturous minute or five but ultimately I fail. I have to try my best and mentally gear up before trying to move limps in a coordinated effort to release myself from my one true love. 


This ordeal is undertaken by people all over the world every second of the day. If you are one of the lucky ones that doesn't go through this every morning then read the wonderful words of Garfield below who I think sums things up perfectly.

If people were meant to pop out of bed we'd all sleep in toasters

Following Food on Facebook and Twitter

The creation and innovation of social networking and community sites such as Facebook and Twitter are truly wonders of the 21st century. They have revolutionized the way we interact with others and have played their part on the world stage with the uprising and protests around the world, especially in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Over 700 million people use Facebook on a regular basis alone. So why, do I ask, are we constantly seeing adverts for food and other products that encourage us to follow them on such sites?

As a regular user of Facebook myself, I like the fact that most bands and artists have their own profile, fan page and, more often than not, a Twitter feed. It provides useful information such as up and coming gigs and new songs and the like. I also like to see what my friends have been getting up to, check out the profiles of those I've newly met and search around for old school mates. What I don't want to do is find out what a small cake got up to at the weekend.

Unless I've missed something, or have been in a coma for a considerable number of years, food does not, I repeat does not, have a mind of its own, is not alive and does not need a Facebook page. Of course, if custard creams do have the previously stated criteria then I do apologize, I meant no offence. Now naturally I know, as do you, that it's just another market that advertisers want to get into to maximize profits. Well, I suspect that's a minor reason anyway. I think the major reason is employees in the marketing division of one company came up with the idea so they would stop being disciplined for wasting time on social networks. Then members of that company went to party where they told others what they'd done who went back to their respective companies and pulled the same trick. To be fair, isn't that what you would do if you could?

Get Involved - I Think Not

It's was Sports Day today at the school where I work and it just reminded me of one of my real explainable pet hates; the phrase "get involved".

I have never been a real sporty personality, it's just not something I particularly enjoy with exceptions of motorsport and badminton and a few others. I enjoy playing others to as part of team and will even take it seriously providing fun is the main element but what I cannot stand is the sorts of language some of these people use. To give an example within the first few weeks of starting work I wanted to know what staff clubs where going of and I asked around and found out that there was indeed a badminton event after school on a Thursday for the staff and members of the sixth form. Now I might have well gone along and found out for myself if it wasn't that the person I was talking to at the time said something along the lines of "Yh you should mate, go and get involved 100%". Those words alone put me off the idea all together.

It's those sort of marketing words that I want to avoid and somehow repel me, maybe there's just an subconscious rebel part of my brain that won't let me go along with it. If anyone at any point in conversation involving development and ideas or even making a cup of tea works in words like "100%", "be part of the team", "go for gold" or any other marketing buzz words then I'm instantly annoyed. Now fortunately I've never heard the phrase "dynamic IT solutions" in serious conversation so I haven't needed to shoot anyone.

You expect that language from the kinds of generic IT sales people in the picture above but now it has infected schools. I more often than not find myself hearing phrases from the top level staff at the school such  as "pushing the boundaries and going for this 100% for the team". Now there are many four lettered words followed by the word "off" that I want to say and am saying in my head while agreeing to all this marketing speak. Also going across my mind are things like "we came up with this idea and asked you if we could proceed so please don't come to us like it was you're idea and try and sell it to us". It's very simple, all I want to hear is the facts of what has been done, what people want to do and what can actually be done further. Is that really to much to ask?

Knowing now that I have this pet hate for buzz words where their not necessary, just imagine what was going through my head when I went to the latest training day and they started talking about "Deep Area's". Namely "Deep Learning, Deep Support, Deep Leadership" and a few others. No, I was just a tad more annoyed that that. In fact I was deeply annoyed. Why of earth couldn't they just say we want to improve the following areas, can we have your input and discussion so we can move forward and improve the school to make it the best. But no, we had to go into Deep Thought and Deep Discussion and today it was Deep Sports Day.


Buzz words buzz off!

I Finally Took the Plunge

After years of putting it off I've finally given in and have spent literally the past ten minutes design and trying to find out where everything is on this here blogging site. Blogging is an interesting term, makes me wonder if it was initially thought up by someone call Jo or Joe or maybe Joey. But I doubt that. 

So anyway, guess you'll be wanting to know a little about me. Well my name is Ben, barely an adult in both mind and years. Nice to meet you :). I'm living here in London UK and I left school and little early just over a year ago  after deciding I'd had enough of sitting in a classroom and wanted to actually do something. Well I say that, what actually happened was I failed all my exams but hey, that was my decision right? 

After 3 months of filling in forms and a couple of interviews I finally ended up working in a top London grammar school near Croydon as an IT Apprentice. Am into my computers quite a bit and I will admit I'm a bit of a geek but that's certainty not all I am. I have been playing piano for the past 7 years and I'm told, even though I've never been tested, I play to a Grade 5 standard which is something to be happy about. I also picked up guitar last year and have been slowly but surely building up my skills. You see I think it's very important to keep both the logical and creative sides of your mind open to make you a well rounded person and with my job how it is, I need to get through a lot of music to make up for it.

Finally you may be wondering why this blog is entitled "Don't let the Buggers Grind you Down". (If your not then don't bother reading this bit.) Well it's because I first heard it in the BBC sitcom Porridge starring Ronnie Barker. That was his mentality and it's what I stick to as well. Life can be tough but you always have to find the lighter side no matter how small and use that.

Well that's about it from me for my first blog post. Now back to insanity....