Extent of New Spain

Just in case anyone was curious!

New Spain in 1821: Today’s US States Overlaid by Jordan White is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.lib.utexas.edu.
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One awesome Dick!

When I was in school, I would tell my art teachers about my cousin Lee and his art work. They were all very interested, that is, until I told them his actual artist name and his website address. Whether they thought my entire story was a fallacy and that I was actually trying to direct them to a pornography website, or because they had extremely conservative art interests, Dick Cherry was a name they wished not to find on the internet, at least not when I was in their sight. They hardly set a good example, as Dick Cherry is a great artist, and the artist name really does tell you everything about his artwork; it’s unorthodox, bohemian – something out of the ordinary.

My family on my mum’s side is small in numbers, but that in a way is a nice thing. It means that it’s a lot easier for us to stay close; apart from the fact the Atlantic Ocean separates me from most of my family – Lee included. Though, in spite of this great distance, we’ve seen enough of each other for me to have the honour of being his best man at his wedding just over 3 years ago. Throughout his art career, I have kept up to date with his work through both his website and prints sent to me.

I’ve always liked to separate myself from the norm and become my own individual, and part of that is probably down to Lee being such an individual and an influence on me; I really couldn’t have asked for a cooler cousin. His individualism really shows in his artwork; I’ve never seen anything quite like his work. Though, there are similarities between Dick Cherry and Roy Lichtenstein and the comic book art style. Dick Cherry’s bold use of colours also reminds me of political propaganda posters. The fact that Lee is a big Batman fan also transpires into his work through the realities depicted in his art as being somewhat theatrical and obscure.

I’ve only began listening to rock and metal in the past couple of years, but now I can really appreciate some of the names Dick Cherry has worked with, such as David Draiman  (Disturbed), Tommy Clufetos (drummer for Ozzy, and previously Rob Zombie), Joey Image (Misfits) and Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden) amongst others.

Dick Cherry is a truly amazing addition to the art industry, and I always look forward to the new artwork he produces.

Dick Cherry is listed on Artists Wanted website, and the more people who give him a rating on the website will give him a greater chance of gaining a $10,000 grant, which could further help Dick Cherry reach his fullest potential in the art industry. So please click this link and don’t be hesitant to rate Dick Cherry generously, after all, the work he does is amazing. http://www.artistswanted.org/portfolioStory.php?preview=true&artist=Dickcherry To rate look the the top right of the linked page.

To find out more about Dick Cherry, here’s a list of social networks he’s a part of:

http://www.facebook.com/dickcherry.art
http://twitter.com/__Dickcherry
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Dickcherry
http://dickcherry.livejournal.com/
http://dickcherry.deviantart.com/
http://www.myspace.com/dickcherry

Also, Dick Cherry’s personal website is www.dickcherry.com

Dick Cherry Haiti Poster. Haiti Poster Project

Orphan Factory poster by Dick Cherry

Brennen Sie Die Nazis by Dick Cherry

Dormitory Effect poster by Dick Cherry

Missed opportunities and homeless people

Sorry, readers, but this is not going to be a post about how homeless people have merely missed opportunities which have resulted in them being in their homeless situation. Instead, the happenings in Birmingham New Street Train Station with a homeless fellow and I.

If I was in the unfortunate situation of being homeless, I would probably become slightly resentful of those folk that have faired better than I. I would become resentful of how one could stop in at a train station and enter a coffee shop to buy a beverage. But one thing that I believe I would refrain from is showing this resentment and translating it into aggression and forcefulness to someone that could help buy one’s next meal.

I shall put the previous paragraph into context, but not before explaining my stance/views on the homeless. I was brought up being told of a man named “Nobby the Tramp” who was a homeless man through choice, that lived in my hometown; very few people didn’t know of him. Built like an ogre; he was tall, fat, extremely hairy and smelly – to me he was a feral man living in an urban cityscape. He was always revered as a kind man, and this in turn meant that as a young, naive child I had no negative connotations attached to homeless people.

This one sided view of the homeless was degraded through time as I saw homeless people smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol; is that where the small change given to them goes? I became very critical of homeless people and why they’re in the situation they are.

A friend of mine, whom I’m not sure whether he wishes to be named (therefore shall not be), took a homeless person to Mc Donald’s for a burger when begged the request of money; to make sure his donation to the homeless man was well spent.

On a getaway to Brighton last year with a few friends, on an evening out a homeless man begged for money with the plea that he wanted to buy more drugs and alcohol. Most of the group laughed and donated generously. This beggar shook my morals when I too reached into my pockets to give him money. That was the last time I gave money to a beggar, and it shall be the last time until I see a compassionate man like Nobby to raise my spirits.

A similar sight to the homeless man in Brighton

 

It was not only the frank and truthful beggar that made me wary of homeless people, but tonight, in Birmingham New Street Train Station too. I was on my way back to university in Stoke-on-Trent, and I had to connect in Birmingham. It’s a frequent stop for me, and there’s nothing I like more than getting a coffee at this checkpoint. Tonight was no different.

As I walked off from the platform into the shopping hall, I began to walk towards Upper Crust, a baggette store which also sells coffee. I was unsure whether I wanted a coffee or not, though I steered myself tentatively in the direction of Upper Crust nonetheless. Until, a man carrying a Big Issue magazine stood infront of me to stop my stride and said confidently and firmly “Could you buy me a meal?” I replied by saying that I had no physical money in my pockets, therefore I was was unable to give him money (not true, but hey). He then proceeded to call me a lier because he saw me heading in the way of Upper Crust, therefore I must have money. Feeling quite besieged, I simply told him that I was going to use a card if I was to make a purchase. At this point, he turned back to his original question by saying “Why can you not buy me a meal then?” I felt the hostility and therefore replied “Because I’m not in the mood for a coffee anymore” then I made a swift walk away from the man, but not before he could hail abuse at me.

Firstly, I don’t understand why this man placed himself in a busy train station; Birmingham New Street Train Station is full with business people commuting, the kind of people I’m sure this man resents. No wonder he has become such a hostile man; he has surrounded himself in what he dislikes. But those people he dislike are also the people that can buy him his next meal, revealing a poor irony for this man and many other homeless people.

I was truly disgusted by the behaviour of this man, and if I would have been expecting this confrontation, he could have expected a much better response from me; better meaning riddled with passive aggression and condescension, but that was just one of my missed opportunities.

To end the tale, after I paced up to my platform board I returned to Upper Crust, the homeless man had disappeared therefore I bought myself a coffee and went on my way!

Live on the wild side; walk over three drains!

As I was walking through my home town of Peterborough earlier, I walked over three drains. Whilst I took these steps, I began to ponder on why it is deemed unlucky to walk over three drains. Following this, I kept an eye on all of the cracks in the pavement (there were many), and I began to ponder too on why it is deemed unlucky to walk on crack on pavement.

I’ve never really thought much about superstitions until today; they’ve just been something I’ve been brought up with. Who ever you talk to, there is likely to be overlaps in examples of bad luck superstitions. The only superstition I recall my mum believing in was that one shouldn’t walk over three drains. So, being an obedient son; for many years I took measures to avoid walking over three drains, as who wants to be cursed with bad luck from something that can be so easily avoided?! If I noticed a set of three drains, I would walk around. If I failed to notice until I was already stepping over the drains, I would often quick-step off of the drains as to miss the second/third drain, saving myself from bad luck. In other instances, if I had already walked over the drains, I would then make sure that I would walk over the next three, as to make me feel as if I had somehow counteracted the superstition. Whether these methods have been accepted by the superstitious community, I’m not sure, but it gave me comfort!

After years of avoiding drains, I then decided that the superstition was ludicrous, and there was no need for me to abide by it. Yet so many people live their lives with superstitions dominating nearly their every move. Personally, I think superstitions are greatly outdated in the present day.

So, how did superstitions come about in the first place? I’m not entirely sure, but one can stipulate. When many of the common superstitions are listed, most can be rationalised into practises that could lead to a negative event occurring.

Walking over three drains – Someone must have fell through a manhole before, therefore making three drains appear as a triple threat.

Walking over cracks in the pavement – Who hasn’t tripped from walking over a crack. It’s not the gods, but instead because the unnoticed fault in the path has meant that the front of your shoe gets stuck at this fault, causing you to fall as the rest of your body continues to have forward momentum.

Walking under a ladder – Someone at some point probably by accident hit a ladder whilst walking under it, therefore meaning the ladder fell on them. Alternatively, the person who hit the ladder may have been unharmed; if there was a person on the ladder at the point of impact, it’s likely that an injury was caused.

Breaking a mirror – sharp glass! You might cut yourself on the sharp edges, or if hastily cleaned up, there might be fragments left which could result in a piece of glass lodging itself in the underside of your foot. Ouch!

Finding a horse shoe – This, unlike others I’ve noted is supped to bring good luck. Probably because an equestrian was the person who found it, saving he/she the purchase of a horse shoe.

Opening an umbrella inside – I have quite a large umbrella, yet I’m not sure of its exact measurements. Therefore, when opening my umbrella, I make sure I have sufficient room around me as to avoid any damage to another person or object. The origin of this superstition is likely to lie in the hands of an inconsiderate person who opened his/her umbrella in a small area, causing a vase to fall from a cabinet… or something along those lines.

Black cats walking across a road – Witches are in the neighbourhood, need I say anything more?!

What I’m trying to make clear is that superstitions are likely to have originated from either unfortunate events, fortunate events, or from inconsiderate people putting aside common sense. Then, publicised through word of mouth, degrading in context over time, until all that is left in the anecdote is the very beginning.

All you really need to do is the following: make sure that you keep an eye out for drains which look to be risky if walked over. Keep an eye out for cracks in the pavement as adjust your stride accordingly. Don’t walk under ladders as you could very easily hurt yourself/someone else. Make sure you keep a close eye out for shards of glass after cleaning up a broken mirror as it’s very easy to miss a piece. Praise all that’s holy if you find a horse shoe because now you only need to buy three instead of four. Don’t open an umbrella inside unless you have a leaky roof and cannot move elsewhere to avoid the drips. Be extremely wary of black cats and the owner who has a pointy black hat.

Opera’s in tune

Opera isn’t really to my musical tastes, at least not very often. Though, when it comes to web browsing, Opera’s my first stop.

Opera is definitely not unheard of, it’s the most popular mobile browser, and with good reason. But when it comes to computer web browsing, Opera yields one of the smallest market shares of major web browsers with a mere 2.15% (Dec 2010). For me this makes no sense. I have used IE, Firefox, Chrome, Lunascape and of course Opera. Out of all of these, it has became clear to me that Opera leads innovation in web browsing. For all that don’t use Opera, here’s five reasons why you might want to give it a go.

1. Opera turbo

I believe this is Opera’s best and most useful feature. Turbo decreases the quality of images and web graphics on websites to improve page-loading speeds in times of slow internet speeds. Until I was at university I had no use for this. But now, in times of high traffic, Turbo can help me browse the internet with fewer speed bumps. It can easily be turned on and off, so when your internet is back up-to-speed you can view images and web graphics in the quality they were produced.

2. Opera text-to-speech

All you have to do is highlight text and right-click speak. It’s by far the best text-to-speech engine that I’ve used to date; it hasn’t pronounced one word incorrectly to date. Furthermore, you can change gender, pitch and confidence level to make the voice you hear in tune with your ears.

3. Convenience

Though I underuse mouse gestures, they have the potential of being a great convenience to web browsing. All that needs to be done is a right click and then a drag in whatever direction corresponds to your desired function i.e. left = back. See below for all gestures.

Another great convenience feature in Opera that I make great use of is Speed Dial. When a new tab is opened, I have all of my pre-chosen favourite webistes boxed out. See below.

One can choose how many boxes are visible on this screen. Each box is numbered, and if these numbers are remembered, they can be used to redirect to these pages with great speed from whatever your current tab is. For example, if I was on twitter.com and wished to redirect to facebook.com, I could merely use the keyboard shortcut ctrl 2, and facebook.com would load, as facebook.com is number 2 in my Speed Dial menu.

4. Opera Unite

Opera Unite brings in the community aspect of Opera. In Unite you can share files with friends as well as having online space to store files, a free solution to online back-up.

5. Support the under dog

It’s always been my ethos to support the underdog. Not just any underdog, but one who’s voice is yet to be truly heard, yet under the covers is actually leading the way forward. I believe Opera’s voice is yet to be truly heard, but when it is, I can say “Hell, I’ve been using it for ages, you should have listened to me when I told you about why Opera’s better than other leading browsers!”

So why not give Opera a go? I promise you, you will not be let down by what the browser has to offer. O is the way to go! http://www.opera.com/browser/

 

The quiet conservative

Since the start of the fees row, I decided not to blog about it. As far as hot topics go, I know this is one with actual fire. Fire in the eyes of the angry student, and fire on the streets of London. But after the events of yesterday, I believe at least two of the major attacks in London were totally unjustified and show nothing more than the embarrassingly unpatriotic people that think violence will help the situation.

Liberals (and to a lesser extent, angry conservative voters); did you really expect any different from the party you voted for? I’ll tell you exactly what was wrong with this election and what it did for politics: it turned an election into a show of X-Factor where the public were Simon Cowell. I hope to no ponder into tabloid-like newspaper talk again, but it’s time we opened our eyes. In the past, there was a huge focus on who your local MP was. It was not about who has the best comebacks when three middle-aged men stood by separate podiums. We were supposed to be voting for a local MP to represent our constituency in parliament. Instead, the entire nature of politics was romanticised, and it gave people higher expectations from politicians than ever, all just to get people more involved and interested in politics. But I believe it has come at a great cost. Prince Charles and Camilla’s car was bombarded, the Treasury’s windows were smashed, Winston Churchill’s London statue has been defaced and urinated on. Do you want to know who is really ruining our country? It’s the angry student violently protesting in London. What has the Royal family done? Nothing. What has the legacy of Winston Churchill done? Nothing.

The conservatives haven’t ever been greatly popular with the university student. Why? Because being Conservative is exactly the opposite of what students want. They are not dynamic. So, why must there be uproar now? The conservatives (more specifically, the coalition) have been dynamic to create change; with the end result being to fix the economy. That’s what needs to be done.

Will I carry on studying after I graduate Bachelors? Maybe. Will that cost be a lot higher than it currently is? Yes. But it’s time we faced the facts, and went to British roots – we are not freeloaders and we should be accountable. I accept the higher fees.

Going back to expectations… Does history not show us that politicians aren’t the sincere people they were represented as, in debates prior to the election? I didn’t fall into the trap of choosing my party based on the debates. Instead, for the past two years I have read my party’s local newsletter and read all of the MP’s leaflets which came through my door. Are all politicians honest? Not by any stretch. But as a group, rest assured, they just want their time in office to be a legacy, and that is exactly what the coalition want. They want to be known as the party who fixed our broken economy.

I would totally understand if the Liberals face some seriously hard times in the next election. But what people should really be looking at is the views of their constituency’s MP. Because that is who represented their people.

I know this post will anger some people, including people I know personally. But this is my view. You have definitely shown yours. And at least my view is sticking to politics instead of ruining the city of London. The only people that I’m confident are hindering our economy right now are the violent students. London is a major tourist base for the UK. But, if I was a foreigner, I wouldn’t want to come to a country where educated people are being anarchists and undermining the prestige of our Royal family and historical politicians, and even fallen troops.

The entire country is aware of the large amount of students that are angry, but can we now just let the politicians get on with their jobs. The decision has been made. Maybe next election you’ll make what you believe is a wiser choice on your ballot paper. Good day.

P.S. If you look at the conservatives record on economic growth historically through changing policies, you might start to believe that they might in fact know what they’re doing.

My love of food, but also hygeine

I love to cook. Which therefore gives me the right to also have a love for eating. I like to experiment, even if it leads to failure. I’m a pioneer of weird food concoctions, sometimes nice, other times… not.

To the left is a meal I cooked for myself last week, and it can only be described as being absolutely delicious. There’s a carbonara sauce which I made, pasta, green beans, cajun (yes, that’s right, cajun) spiced chicken and heaps of seasoning and extra parmesan cheese to top it off. I’m not sure if it’s worthy of copyrighting, or if it was just because I hadn’t had much else to eat that day. All I know is, it was in my top 5 meals I’ve cooked.

I have come to appreciate fresh ingredients a lot more over the past few months, primarily due to what university has done to my diet. University has thrown my diet over a bridge. University has put my diet in an oven and refused to take it out. University has, in one word – destroyed my diet. My semi-healthy and experimental one, that is.

My university diet has become as humdrum as a microwavable meal, and by coincidence, I’ve been eating quite a lot of them as of late. As of late meaning since the day I arrived at university. My breakfast is most commonly just a coffee, though if I’m feeling exotic, I’ll have a kellogg’s Elevenses bar. My breakfast isn’t filling, but it’s enough to get me into my lectures. Lunch meals can be morphed into the same list as dinner, as my meal choices really suit me any time in the day. Much to my amazement, I think I’ll have to make a bullet pointed list for this.

• Canned soup
• Tuna sandwich
• Ham sandwich
• Ham and mustard sandwich
• Crisp sandwich
• A selection of micro-meals

Apart from the odd take-away meal; that’s about it.

You might be asking why I am on such a diet. My girlfriend definitely has. It’s simple – my kitchen is a mess. I quite often appear to be the only person to have true complaints in my university house about the mess of the kitchen, therefore I have little to no drive to clean it and use it to make a meal, because I know the clean state wouldn’t be sustained by anyone but me.

If I can recommend anything to an A-level/college student planning on pursuing university education – make sure some kind of cleaning rules are set out within the first week of being at university. Because, once you’re a month in, you’re too far in. You’ve gone beyond tipping point. The plate has not just tipped off the counter-top, but it’s been left on the floor for weeks. It’s a sad situation, more so for those with a passion for cooking. but hey, there’s always a nice cooker at home which you can seek refuge in! Which was, if you haven’t already guessed, where I cooked the meal pictured above.

To finish this post off, here’s a lovely omelette I made some time ago!

The information is already there for’um!

The computer. It’s what you’re reading this blog post on. It’s where you go to talk to friends, family and work colleagues over various platforms. It’s where work can be done. Needless to say, if you’re adept enough to have found my blog, the computer is a part of your everyday life, and perhaps it even dominates your life. But where do you go when you have small issues, computer based or not?

Since I have started university, and even before; I have been considered to be someone above average on the computer. I am not a genius by any stretch, I just know what I feel I need to in order to make my computer make my life an easier and more entertaining one. People think I’m a computer whizz, but the truth is, when you’re on the phone to me, talking to me online or even sitting right beside me and you ask me a computer related question (generally software), if I don’t know the answer to your question, I’ll still be able to give the information required in a very short space of time – often seamlessly. How do I come across as if I already know your answer?

This is going to sound like a primary school I.T. session for a few sentences, but bear with me, because if you know the fundamentals and apply them, your life’s issues can be resolved in a streamlined way. Search engines, don’t underestimate them. Also, don’t neglect the fact that there’s probably other people who have faced the same issue as you are. You put those together and what do you get? A query that can be typed out and inputted into a search engine.

Forums swarm the internet; they’re absolutely everywhere and cover topics from how to create superscript text in Excel, to where to buy the best bananas. My point is, you’re not alone. And if you ask one singular person, the chances they have the information you require compared to the millions of people that use help forums is vast. What you ask doesn’t have to be too specific, just type the sentence into a search engine and trust that someone else has typed something similar before, and has yielded a result. For example, I am currently leading the design part of a A0 size project poster based on a hypothetical reservoir being created in Edale, Peak District. I opened up Adobe InDesign, placed my Adobe Illustrator file which had the base map for the reservoir and other miscellaneous vector paths, and I noticed that the file placed into InDesign looked terribly pixelated. Worried that I had somehow done something wrong, I deleted the placed file and tried again. Yet, again, the image quality was of a poor standard. So, at this point, I turned to the internet. I typed in “image of high resolution pixelating in InDesign cs5”. Voila! The first page listed had my answer; it turns out Adobe Indesign is set by preset to low graphic standards.

You see, what I’m trying to do here is to help those not fully aware, that a search engine is a truly powerful tool which can be used in many situations of difficulty, despair and confusion. I would post in forums, but I hope that advice posts such as this can be just as easily found.

Happy searching. Happy solving. Happy Jordan.

Why Twitter Owns Facebook

Twitter and Facebook. Without a doubt, my two most visited websites.

The thing which most avid facebook users don’t understand is that Twitter isn’t just a 140 character status – it’s a community. The Twitter community is one of interest to those you’re following. It’s easy to write a facebook status, you can write a paragraph and hit send. On Twitter, being limited to 140 characters means you have to think about what you want to say, so it can fit into that small character limit. Because of that, people on Twitter assume that a tweet is something probably worth reading, as time and thought has gone into it. Also, as all Twitter is is statuses, Twitter users generally don’t abuse the use of them; what’s said is relevant, and the person tweeting truly wants someone to read what has been typed.

Twitter does not have a picture upload feature, not does it have a video uploader or a blogging feature. Twitter understands its strengths, and respects the strengths of Flickr, Youtube and WordPress. If Twitter users want to share any of this media to the Twitter community, external links can be posted via a tweet. And if there is an image which people may want to be the focus of a tweet, there’s Twitpic and the like. Here, one photo is uploaded per tweet, therefore in my view it’s just as valuable as the 140 characters someone can type, as they’ve routed through their photos to find one singular image to share. There’s an understanding that as Twitter users, there’s a limited amount of interest we have in each other’s lives.

Twitter is still something which I believe has yet to be tapped fully into the UK. Is this a good thing? I haven’t yet decided. I’ve noticed that some people who have used Facebook for a while and then decide to start using Twitter don’t exactly fit in, or at least not straight away. This is because of the change in mentality needed to appreciate the quick pace associated with Twitter, as opposed to the information overload in Facebook. With Twitter, less is definitely more. Often, Twitter statuses are worded quite differently to Facebook statuses. This is because on Facebook, replies or likes are almost expected, whereas on Twitter replies are not generally expected, meaning ambiguity is generally discouraged, as it makes a boring and pointless tweet. On Facebook, everyone is friended to everyone they know, however loose the connection may be. However, on Twitter, people are followed on the value of their tweets, as their tweets use page space, and as I’m sparing my time to read tweets, I want them to be of interest and value to me. On Facebook, it’s all about joining the bandwagon; there’s millions of groups to join which are supposed to show your personality in a different way, but all it really shows is that you’re a sheep, you can’t think about how to convey your interests in a more original manner. Be original, write a blog! It’s strangely fulfilling!

If you clicked this link through Facebook, that means you’re willing to reach out beyond that social network, into another, so well done. Because, you see, I could have posted this all in a Facebook note, which holds the same basis of a blog. If Facebook have done one thing right, it’s the consolidation of all forms of social networking placed into one convenient place. Want to post photos? Want to upload videos? Want to blog? Want to play online games? So, to conclude, as your current tab isn’t Facebook, maybe you should make your way to www.twitter.com and join the Twitter army! Be an individual!

 

Has mobile technology made us ignorant of etiquette?

I have a mobile phone. I have an iPod. I have a laptop. But unlike many people who let these products lead their lives – I still try to keep a good social etiquette.

This post was sparked from a study session I had in my university library earlier this week. My university has what I believe is a great coding system a red, amber and green: which dictates how much noise one is aloud to make in that particular area. For example, in green areas, group study accompanied with talks is if anything; promoted. However, red areas are totally opposite – they are for people who require silence when studying and would prefer not to be disturbed. Before I get in to the main body of this post, I’m sure you’re aware that libraries are generally areas in which phones should be on silent.

The house I live in at university has a very slow internet connection – I’m not sure if that’s because “Digital Britain” is yet another thing to be cut from the budget, but all I know is my network bandwidth is abysmal. From online games users to watching a bit too much on BBC iPlayer – at times it can take me over 30 seconds to load a Google search page. So, because of this unfortunate network situation I find myself in, I often seek refuge at the closest 24 hour wifi hotspot – the university library. Being a quiet person and liking quiet moments, I often take a perch in a red zone, where I expect everyone else present to be of a similar mindset. Whether it’s the people with deadlines in hours to come, people wanting to read a novel or those who are probably in a similar situation to me, most of the time there’s a peaceful harmony associated with the red zone.

On my way to the library, Tuesday as I recall, I noticed the weather to be overcast and windy. Without my umbrella at hand, I held great hopes that the rain would keep, at least until I got to the library. Thankfully I arrived just in time, as a great rainstorm came over Stoke-on-Trent. At that very point, I knew this visit to the library wouldn’t be a short one. I found a computer which had the library catalogue, and searched out books on soil chemistry and Britain’s geological history for an upcoming report on soils in valleys. After finding the relevant books in the catalogue I searched them out on what happened to be the second floor, a designated red zone. This is a frequent place for me to study in, and without previous issues regarding this area, I decided not to break the norm, and I sat in the back right corner.

Reading about how peaty soils develop, I saw in the corner of my eye a woman who decided to sit in relatively close proximity to me, not that this bothered me, as I was assured that she would be aware of the etiquette of a red zone. One of the first things I noticed when she was by me was that she breathed very heavily and loudly. I’m not sure if she was asmatic, but in retrospect to this event, I feel that I probably should have recommended a local doctor for her to visit. This was a slight bother to me, but worthy of too much complaint – as I would hope other people would be sympathetic to me if I have a respiratory issue. After about 20 minutes, I was most rudely disturbed by a loud ringing of the woman’s phone. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the sound of her phone vibrating on the table shuddered though me like a pneumatic drill to concrete. Ok. Despite my greatest efforts, I have forgotten to turn my phone onto silent mode before entering a library. But wait, there’s more. This woman did not warrant the look of concern for disturbing people nearby, but instead barfed out a laugh. so if anyone wasn’t disturbed by the ringtone, she most certainly had everyone’s attention by this point. The woman did not turn her phone onto silent, yet she carried on getting a constant stream of text messages. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! The woman received a phone call. And as tolerant I am to other people’s music tastes, JLS really does strike a bad nerve with me. After about a minute’s worth of conversation, she packed up her belongings and left. Finally. Peace. Quiet. Some time to make some headway with research. In this time I just tried to calm down after the multiple offender of red zone rules and general library etiquette had cleared the area.

Apparently, peat develops in conditions whereby… HOLD UP… SHE’S BACK?! Maybe she noticed the red zone posters and had turned her phone onto silent? She sat down, in the same place as before, but this time, she has a little friend with her… a packet of crisps. In a totally silent room, the sound of a person eating crisps runs through one like a Harry Potter does to Platform 9 3/4. I had gotten to much for me. Though, not wanting to further exacerbate the issue of broken silence, I decided not to confront the woman, but instead move to another floor, which was also a red zone.

International students. In my view they’re a great addition to any university. They stir up the diversity which is the very thing which makes university a great place to be. But how did the two international students nearby me respond to library etiquette? Terribly. From loud talking in broken English about their business course to chatting about facebook and the like, one was least pleased. I packed up my belongings and took the sorry books back to my room with me.

That, fellow readers, was a rant I know, and a long one at that. But if you have followed me through to the end I hold great respect for your tolerance, and probably understanding of  my dire library situation. Please post comments on any bad experiences you may have had, it may lighten my mood. On the other hand, it could further prove my title – has mobile technology made us ignorant of etiquette? Because I am a strong believer that yes, it has. And this is but one of my arguments, though I won’t occupy your time with anymore for now. I wish you the best of luck in any trips to the library you may take, though I must say, keep your expectations low, unless you could very well be disappointed by the ignorance of people around you which ruin what I believe is the best place for personal study.