As a nation, the British see themselves as above most other nations; as a western civilisation we all live comfortably in our central heated housing, in front of our computers that we brought after making a living, sending our children to school and really not giving a damn about others. ive been privatly educated and intend to go to study at a good university intending at the end to earn a good living and settle down with a wife and some children.

But in the grand scheme of things does this really matter? we are naieve to others struggles and as we attempt at being the best nation out of the wealthy west what does the individual strugle really achieve? In the world what does our own personal problems really matter. okay so we can't affoard that next pint of beer, or we can't affoard to live in a huge, posh house or can't afford that bit of cheese that looks so good. but what do these problems really matter in comaprison to those in africa, those whose lives have been lost attempting to give us those primark clothes, or that gorgeous diamond that we see walking down the city street. We take so much for granted, flushing the toilet, ridding our lives of our waste watching well-made movies and complaining when there is homosexuality on the television. To ensure we live like we do look at the struggle our grandfathers made in the world wars, look at what our government percieves as a real threat to us; the amount of children boycotting school.

but what about those who do not have access to a school in a different country; what about those whose family they will never see again because they have been seperated due to the war we have imposed on them? in our democratic sociery will our single vote, our little 10p in the charity box at the petrol station really make a difference? of couse it won't. the only way we will make a difference is if we collectivly strive to help others. there is no need for poverty or for war, for violence or hatred. sure he did something you don't like or apprechiate, but why hate him for it? it's not worth your while. why have nuclear weapons? if we all got rid of them there would be no need, and our intentions although may appear to be good at first glace to stay on top of the world and 'police' it, do we really need all we have? do we need people sitting on huge sums of money? don't get me wrong, capatilism is fantastic and it works to an extent. But take a look at what it's done to us, we're greedy, we're agressive and we're lazy.

The British government needs only to give out 1% of its GNP, along with most other western countries and give it to africa, those 'havenots' however we have said we are unable to do this until 2012. how many more lives need to be lost, how many more times must we see death on our news screens and in our newspapers until we finally decide that we as individuals and as a collective are not doing enough. Once i start getting a wage and am able to make an influence in this world, although uit may only be a tiny spec, i will do my part to help those in need. those on our streets in england are there because they put themselves there; drugs, crime and all that jazz. but those suffering in Africa are doing so because of us. because we wished to impose our rule on them a hunfred years ago. well, its time to stop it. and the only way his is going to happen is if you help me, and you help your friends and family understand the need and the strugle and the simplicity and lack of actual effort it will take for us to make a difference. don't sit and watch it on tv and continue eating your food, think about the monstrosities that are being committed, and remember how it was our ancestors who put them int hat position. it's time for us to reverse their undoing, and help them become something worthwhile, instead of just 'black africans who are fighting a civil war'. it's our fault.

- Appearance (0 - 3)
- Introduction/Learning Curve (0 - 3)
- Game Play (0 - 3)
- Fun (0 - 3)
- Approval Stamp (Yes or No, equivalent to 1 or 0)
- Total score out of 13

I was browsing the internet when i stumbled upon a badly-layed out but fun-looking football game. i signed up thinking to myself there can't be too much harm in it. One of the first things i stumbled on was the forums, having no idea how to play the game. The community appeared to be quite amusing and there was a mixture of people. So when i eventually bore my knuckles into the game i had a good idea how to play the game, with a little help from the Help section and others on the forums.

I set up my team, assuming that the players with the best attributes were going to perform the best on the simulated football field. if i remember correctly i won my first set of matches and being in a predominantly bot-orientated league managed to get promoted. Well, since then i've been hooked, playing 30 seasons each consisting of 4 weeks; matches being played at 3am and 3pm on weekdays. Since i have been playing there have been hundreds of minor and many major changes that have effected, positivley, the game-play. Currently there are still many more changes in the pipe-line and now there are national leagues for the different nationalities that play, with over 35,000 players indulging themselves in this game with many more joining every day there has to be something to this game that keeps people hooked, so i'm going to give each section of apperarence, the learning curve, the gameplay, and the fun a mark out of 3 and get to the bottom of why this game is such an addiction.

2.6
I'm going to look at Appearance and ease of navigation first. When you first log-in you are taken to a 'portal' of which your manager account is connected to. This 'portal' gives you the ability to write blogs, read the news of the game and take part in competitions and polls. There is a simple navigation bar at the top, and once into the main game there is a colour co-ordinated team-selection base with the ability to switch the background from black to white. The colour-coordination and ease of relating colours to players with the navigation bar at the top all adds to the appearnce, which forces me to give the game a highly respectable 2.6 for appearance, missing out on the .4 due to the lack of custimisation that is currently available in the game.

2.8
As you first play the game its simple to set your team up and play them, and this in itself is reasonably amusing. However if you wish to progress to the better leagues you are required to spend more time on the game editing such things as tactics, and playing friendlies. Once you've settled in you understand that not all is what it seems. the best players are not necessarally those with the best attributes, and the best teams are not those with the biggest stadiums noor with the largest teams. There is a great deal to learn and after 120 weeks of playing this game i still cannot get to the bottom of it, not to say that i can't, simply that i do not have the time. With that in mind, i must assosiate the age-old quote with this game, 'easy to use, hard to master' giving it a suitable 2.8 for the learning curve, perhaps this game has too many things to learn.

3
3
The gameplay is subtle, although you never get the experience of actually being a true manager, it is possibly more life-like than any other game on the market, even those that you have to fork out £40 for. The ability to spend money is not lost however, you can fork out as much as you wish on credits while not annoying those who play casually.You can pick your own formation, build your stadium up from scraps, employ your staff and deal with little details too such as weekend excursons to help your players with their morale or penalty shoot-outs. You can spend anything from 5 miniutes to 5 hours on this game depending on your lifestyle, as of such this does reflect your position on the league table, but chances are if you don't have much time to play you will stick to a reasonable table with people around you who are of the same skill and are possibly on at the same time as you are. You can buy and sell players and even make a profit training them or you can buy them to use them, sort out your youth club and chat with other managers. This adds to the fun and the gameplay with the abiliy to do things and sort the game out around your life, or as the case may be allowing your life to revolve around the game, adding to the ease of the gameplay and ability to have fun. In this case im going to give both gameplay and fun a full-score of 3, with nothing missing as the game is constantly evolving with something new to look forward to every season.

1
So if you want to know whether this is a game to dedicate your time to,  whether it be a few miniutes or a few hours, it most certinaly is. with the ability to look down to the smallest detail or just deal with your team at the highest level it's a fun game to play regardless of the fact that you like football or not. i'd give the game an outstanding yes to at least take a look at the game and i promise you'll get hooked!!

As a total score i have given it a 12.4, it may sound too good to be true, however you will be surprised when you finally get started, good luck and don't forget to offer me a friendly when you finally get on!

Written by Staircase United (Benjamin Neal)

What is life for, is it for living or is it for something else?

What are we given life for? we beat more than a million to one odds just to be born, but what do we do with that life we are given?

Quite often nothing. what do we work for, is it our own personal gain, is it for enjoyment or is it simply to reach a point in which we can enjoy our lives? 22% of the British population smoke, many more drink and just about all of us work. Be it in computing, politics, law, construction, teaching...however do we fully enjoy our lives? Most of us work for monetary gain so that when we are old enough to retire we can enjoy our lives. Is life for enjoyment or mearly for reproduction? We all enjoy making love and reproducing, but we don't all enjoy working however between the ages of 18 - 60 this is what our lives consist of. We enjoy playing games, listning to music, watching films playing sport. However how much effort is put into it so that we can have those few hours of enjoyment every week?

Spinner no doubt puts hours of time into this game but what is the true reason behind it? is it because he enjoys it? is it for money? is it both or is it neither? IT is socially unacceptable not to work but why is this? hundreds of years ago we needed not money to enjoy ourselves but love, children, eachother. Food. We work to put food on the table. What true value is on having a nice car and a nice house other than luxury, other than happyness? However we are told time and time again that money is not happyness. And this is true, you can have all the money in the world but no social skills, no friends and no family. would you truly be happy then? you could have everything but friends. So is the reason behind all thsi simply society? Then how did we get into a position in which we are born, we have 4-5 years of 'freedom' under the control of our parents and then we must all go to school to 'prepare' us for what is to come, and then once prepared we work, we get money, we pay our taxes have children and then die.

Truly what then is the point in life? people commit suicide because they see no happyness in their lives and no end to their misery but who is it who's placed them in this misery? it's us. Their different so we steer clear of them. Why? because we find them unhappy to be around. it's one never-ending cycle in which it is nearly impossible to get out of. Money is an object we can do without however can we do without love and friendship? Most of our actions are for happyness. we joke, we cook, we reproduce all for enjoyment, and none of them necessarally need money. so why then do we work?

Don't get me wrong, work can be fun. But can you truly say you are not working to either better yourself or to produce money in which you can spend to have fun? why does society then dictate to us what we can and cannot do, and why are laws set down reducing this yet again to a miniscule amount?

Drugs of all kind bring momentary happyness to oneself, be it alcohol, smoking or 'hard/illegal' drugs, however the government, or politics (which ironically is supposidly the state of bringing happyness and agreeing with the most people leaving the least unhappy) feel it encessary to dictate to us what we can and cannot do. smoking is banned in public places and taxation has been increaced by 11p per packet. We fought many wars to keep opium legal, however what is seen as one of the worst drug around? That in which opium is made for.

Life isn't for living, life is for dying. We all just wait until our time without putting up a fight. If we all truly believed there was no God, no heaven, would we be civilised in everything we did, or would we attempt to make the best of our lives. I'll leave you with this thought and a quote.

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

Ben Stein

Inspired...

So, it's basically the first real week of my holidays...because as i'm sure most of you knew...i had sociology on monday. Well i decided to write a blog...no idea why, just a wave of whatever you want to call it washed upon me; as well as a few thoughts entered my head.

Well i just finished watching Van Wilder...it's a bit of a weird film you would think to inspire anyone upon writing anything...but well...it seems i've been in an inspired mood recently because i got inspired just last night when i went to the grayhound track...admitedly when i was inspired i had already gotten though two half bottles of red wine...and just for those of you who may be a bit slow..that's one whole bottle, lol

So anyway...i went to the grayhound track; i didn't have the slightest idea what to think or what to expect...it was with some of my mums friends from work, and although their all pretty old and stuff i got on with them fine...admitedly it's nice having people to talk to who don't just go on about how so and so is annoying them, or how cool it was to see the latest big brother show.

So what were the enspiering factors of going to the greyhounds to bet? Well there were many really...but the first noticable thing was that there were 3 enterances...which i thought was normal. We were booked in in a large group so this man directed us to this enterance. We went in...everybody was reasonably smart...y'know, kinda like no jeans and a shirt with the top button undone with the women wearing long skirts and generally low-cut tops...but not too revealing. Another thing i noticed at this point was that most of the people who were entering via this enterence tended to look slightly interlectual...there was noone who looked like they played any sorts of sports or any kind of manual work. on the walls were the famous people who had been here; boxing stars, football stars...people who personally i'd think that noone surrounding me would really care about.

Well in that initial thought i was quite right. As we entered it looked quite posh...but if you want really posh theres always room for improvement. As i sat down there were 3 waitresses who quickly came over, gave me a betting slip, showed me how to bet, asked me what drink i wanted to drink and one who wavered a huge basket of bread infront of me. So obviously i took the bread, it was actually quite nice tasting bread...it wasn't mouldy or anything.

At this point i saw a huge difference...behind me were rows and rows of tables just like mine, each with 2 knives, 2 forkes, a spoon and a special knife primerilly for cutting and spreading butter. I only noticed this AFTER i'd used one of the propper cutting knives to spread my butter though, tipical, hehe.

Well as i said...the tables i was on and the ones behind me had table-clothes, quite nice wooden tables, comfortable chairs and waitresses/waiters serving them, all as i described earlier as reasonably well dressed. These people got served propper food, i choose a steak and had to pay a surcharge of £5, probably because steaks are expencive. Well...infront of me there was a low-ish wall...you could see over it, but only at the point where i was sititng, for as it got towards the centre of the room it rose so noone could see over it.

Over this wall...were plastic chairs, fast-food...people who looked quite strong actually, maybe in manual work...the clothes they wore were jeans...baggy t-shirts...short skirts, quite revealing items of clothing, and to bed they had to go up to a special betting kiosk which was behind a glass window, very unlike what we had to do. They were getting served beer and spirits in PLASTIC glasses, unlike us who had glass glasses if you get what i mean

So at this point what you can see is an obvious distinguishable factor between people WITH money...and people without...it looked from my point of view that people without money were treated like they were nothing...just there to make the numbers up, "bums on seats" as some people say, make sure the bookeys make enough money. They had plastic cups and the bookey hid behind a glass window because they were untrustworthy...the bouncer...yes..there was a bouncer making sure none of them came over to "our" side...even though i don't like saying it like that for it makes me feel like i think i'm "better"...wheras infact noones better than anyone else initially, it's just the mini-society we're each brought up in which distinguishes whether we are going to be placed in the not so nice or the nice part.

I made themost of it, having the waiters and all...it was getting stuffy though so i went downstairs and saw that there was an outisde...everybody outside seemed to come from the side that i was not on which i noticed. I walked around the track a bit, saw one race down there which was quite enthrilling...those dogs can sure run a bit! (i just lost all i wrote and got really scared...and noticed i'd only pressed ctrl+X so it was still there...thank god because i certianly wouldn't have written all this out again!)

Well down on the tracks i saw little boxes with what looked like people with an awful lot of money in. Each party had their own bar, fridge...special glasses and their own personal flat screen television. Each one was wearing suits, looking very wealthy.

Well whoever said that the English class system was deminishing? whoever said that deserves a slap and they need to wake up to the real world. It's present maybe more so now that it ever was! look at the difference in Estates, Blackbird leys to the North of Oxford. Blackbird leys...council housing...Oxford North...private. blackbird leys is renowned for stabbings, being a complete dump and all other things that go along with things like that...andthen the north of oxford which is a nice place...not shabby in any way, looks like a reasonably wealthy area.

Then there are todays sports...upper/middle classed people genrally play rugby...notice that there are no "chavs" or "chavettes" who play rugby, they all tend to be if you want to put a label on it "skaters" "preppy people" or people who have a bit if disposable income. The rugby grounds are generally kept better, they have better facilities, a nicer atmosphere...which is noticable in professional rugby too, with very few racism, not as much policing and hardly any riots and "firms" as the footballers like to call themselves.

And then theres Aircraft...compare Virgin flyers to Easyjet flyers...or Primark shoppers to Debenhems shoppers...or Waitrose to Tescos. Or schools! look at private schools to state schools. You can make a good thing out of a state school, everyone has the same chances in a state school, but the atmosphere and what the children at state schools aspire to are completly different. They have a completly different attitude to life.

From my experiences State school children just want to get on in life, don't care too much about good grades, just want a job and a family...but Private school children don't just want that...they want a GOOD job, they want a nice family, they want an enjoyable life with lots of holidays, a nice house a cool car and more than just friends. Even if people say these values are not put accross in school tell them their lying! because they are! someone who wants to become let's say a doctor at a state school will not be encouraged as much as someone at a private school.

Sure there are always going to be divisions, without poverty there will be no rich, without world hunger people wouldn't have the opertunity to get fat. Without leadership none of us would be where we are now. It's required...eveything. No matter how we all want equality there will never ever be it...not in communism, not in capitalism(obivously) not in some new system some guy might come up with in a few years time, theres ALWAYS going to be extreams, the rich want to stay rich, the poor can't do much about their situation, the world is like that, England is like that, and as far as i can see, it's always going to stay like that.

Humans are cruel...we do things for our own good, and we don't care what happens. We breed cows, keep them in captivity and use the excuse it's better that their kept in captivity so they never know the feeling of freedom than catch them in the wild and taunt them. So say to them, what your saying is that it's acceptable to breed humans just for being slaves, but it's only O.K if they've never tasted freedom before. That, i'm sorry, but that's complete bull.

Humans are ****s, we're all self-centered, horrible, nasty creatures. Even if you believe your not. For instance i believe im not, i don't like admiting i am a horrible, self-centred person...but thinking about it, we are. Take girlfriends for example. I want a girlfriend, i want to treat her well, i want the relationship to last forever and i want a bloody good friend out of it. I want to spoil her, make her feel special and make her love every second being with me. It's all true...but let's be honest here...it's all for verySELFISH reasons. i only want to do that because i want it returned to me, i want to be made to feel special, i want to be treated well and i want to be spoilt. And in doing all this, i'm going to enjoy every last second of it. The actions are self-less, but the reasons are selfish.

Even giving millions of pounds to charity are selfish acts...you do them only so that you feel like you've made a difference in the world, so that you feel good, happy about what you've done for them. Or you can boast to people going that was me who made that school for them, i created that well that keeps them living, i trained that doctor with my money who helps them survive tough times.

Every act anybody does is selfish, even if they don't want to do it their doing it so they please someone else which either makes them feel better about themselves or so that they just shut up!

Anyway, that's my few pennies for the time being, i bet not one person reads all this but meh, i wrote it to get some stuff off my chest and because i actually enjoyed writing this. might i add...this took me an entire hour of solid writing Anyway...leave a comment and tell me your views and such...or just let me know that you read it

Will talk to you all soon hopefully

Ben

WORD OF WARNING

this is a pretty deep blog about something i feel pretty strong about...please post your views on it...but please don't get offended

So i've watched a film...but it's not just any old film that you see on the high street...it's called "Amercian History X" and my god it's a good film.

The film is about racism, how a white protestant american, very inteligent, has everything going for him turns bad, starts a **** group up, ends up killing two black men and injuring one of them who was stealing this car, but he did not just kill them, he gave them possibly the most horrible death ever.

He goes to jail...he learns, he comes out of jail, he tries to turn his family around which at this point has all but diminished; his little brother is following in his footsteps, he is part of this white gang culture whose sole purpose is to create everybody's life a misery.

One question posed in this most inspiering movie was "Has anything you have done improved your life?" and of course the answer he gave...was no. Racism doesn't improve your life, hatred for things that are different, hatred for things that you cannot comprenend or understand does not get you anywhere, if anything it ruines your life. It's a waste of what could be a perfectly good, intelligent citizen. Racism is pointless, it creates friction, and it creates hatred. Sure, you come out with all these statistics on how "black people are the cause of most of the crime" but have you ever heard of a "self fufilled prophesy?". This is when people suspect a group of people to be the main culprites, thus they check more of them and therefore they find more of them to have broken the law.

Race does not matter, we are all the same, we all have two lungs, a brain, a heart...five fingers...two eyes. What's the difference do you say? Our skin colour...our religion...what we believe in, what we look like. But why i say, why do you have or hold a problem with this? is their beard too long? is it because coloured skin is more immune to skin cancer...it has adapted better? no, the reason is they are different. Society does not like differences.

We talk about equality in our society...us as English people pride ourselves on our equality, our multi-cultural society. But tell me this...what black or English/Western man has made anything of his life? Yeah, ok, you can think of a lot. now tell me this...what black or English/Western man has made something of his life...without embracing the white culture? you do not see a nigerian man going to work in his traditional clothes, he has to wear a shirt and tie.

ok, do you not see my point? a good example would be gipsys...or "pikeys" as they are more commenly known now. We say they have equal oppertunitys like us...they are English...they are white. Why do we dislike them? not because they are "renowned" for stealing, because they are not, who of you actually knows a gipsy? i do, and i can tell you straight off they are damned nice people. The government says they have equal oppertunitys...they can go into council houses...they can be homed like everyone else and get themselves a stable job. YOU call this equal? what you are doing is taking away EVERYTHING THEY BELIEVE IN. they are Gipsys because they MOVE around, that's what they are, they are travellers...equal oppertunity is letting someone nomatter where they are from, what their social background is, what they believe in or what their culture is do and work where they want. Bullshit our society believes in equal oppertunities, what our society believes in is making everybody live and believe in what the English do. Personally i don't mind this, but why go and LIE to the world saying we are multi-cultural, saying we are not racist, saying everybody in England has equal oppertunity? we do not! this is an outright lie.

I mean i'm not White, but i'm not black too, and i've had my fare share of racism, only a few weeks ago in town i got hurled abuse at by a black girl saying i acted white. Ok, fair enough i do, but there is not reason for being racist, my father does not have a cultural background, therefore i have been brought up in a white family so this is all i know, if you lived my live what would you be like?!?

And then i get hurled abuse at by WHITE people saying that i'm black! i mean let's be realistic here...all this happened in the space of one month...and Britian tries to sayit's not racist? I've lived in England all my life, i know nothing else, i've been brought up the English way in an English society with white friends.

My friends, this gets you knowwhere...sitting there and thinking "i hate black people" or "i hate white people" or "i hate muslims" we are all the same, we just belive in different things. Why can't you allow others to be themselves, give them an oppertunity.

Imagine you are the minority, imagine you got abuse by the black people because you and a few others were the only whites in town. You would hate it. So don't dish it out.

And i know what most of you are thinking "you come to our country and you're taking it over". how many english doctors are there? how many english cleaners are there? MORE ENGLISH PEOPLE ARE LIVING OFF THE DOLL THAN ILLEGAL IMAGRENTS so i tell you, why?

I will leave you with one quote at the end of that film that just about summs up everything i've just written...

"Life is to short to hate for all of it"

Ben.

See i randomly had an urge to write a blog..once again it's directly after a good film i've watched...this latest film was Battle Royale...about some children being left on an island to kill eachother. If it isn't banned...which something tells me it actually is; then it should be.

Well this film inspired me and racked my brain again. it made me think how everything in this world is based around two things,
1.Money
2.Love

No matter what anyone else says these are the two bases of society.

Every film has an essence of love in, where the American superhero get's the damsil in destress and they end up snogging at the end of the film, or the woman gets shot and the man swears vengance and goes on a huge spree, or the much obvious "chick flicks".

Love is a deep thing, but it's indiscribable. It's not an action, it's not a thought, it's not a belief it's not even a feeling; which is the closest you can come. Love is something else, but to be honest i really can't tell you what love is exactly, not because i don't know, but because it's something that you just can't discribe.

Everybody is aiming for love, even if they don't like to admit to it. The nice, cute girl who's intelligent, good looking but shy and hasn't had a boyfriend before is looking for love as is the "hot, sexy" slut, it's just each person has their own way of looking for it. The sweet girl idolises about finding a hansome man who he himself is intelligent, goodlooking and shy; and yet the chances are she will end up with the complete opposite man who is "hot, sexy" and a slut, and it works both ways too, the shy male ending up with the sluttish girl.

In my personal experience 9 times out of 10 this is what happens, and the one that gets hurt tends to turn around and comepletly give up on the opposite sex. (at this point i have no idea where this blog is going,and so i shall attempt to change the subject)

Actually i think i'll stop there, my inspired brain has kind of halted, so i'll talk to you next time i feel rather inspired that tends to be at around 12:30 after i've watched a film