Eurovision Part 3 – 2013 – Malmö does it in style.

Well, Im back, after a good many months, I felt my duty to post my regular moan at Eurovision and how it’s just a massive sham and politically swung, but I was certain to hold my judgement this year.

Malmö has played it all brilliantly this year. A fantastic venue, brilliant visuals, great acts from countries that are usually underrated and a few pretty duff entries from previously awesome countries. I think I have become a little less cynical than last year, but I’m sure there will still be some political votes.

So, shall we get on with the analysis.

San Marino – 8 to France : Relatively close in proximity, similar languages.

Sweden – 10 to Denmark : Scandinavia, what did you expect?

- 12 to Norway : Again, Scandinavia, it was obvious, they’re neighbours.

Albania – 10 to Greece : They’re neighbours, it makes sense to keep the borders happy.

Netherlands – 12 to Belgium : “Love only for Neighbours”, not my words, theirs.

Austria – 10 to Italy : close proximity in Europe, and again they’re neighbours.

Serbia – 10 to Ukraine : Close proximity eastern block countries.

Ukraine – 8 to Moldova : Keeping the borders happy again.

- 12 to Belarus : Hmmm, neighbours eh? Must vote for them.

Romania – 12 to Moldova : Neighbours stick together, again. Do I blame them? No.

Azerbaijan – 10 to Georgia : Another border shared, more votes shared.

Norway – 12 to Sweden : Not as bad, major points to neighbours but no more to the rest of Scandinavia.

Armenia – 10 to Georgia : Borders think alike? Seems to be a trend. No love for Azerbaijan though. I wonder why, hah.

Finland – 12 to Norway, What a surprise to see, but no love for Sweden? What happened?

Spain – 12 to Italy, Bit of an odd one, but both are in financial crises, best stick together.

Belarus – 8 to Russia : No surprise there.

- 12 to Ukraine : Do I have to repeat myself?

Latvia – 10 to Estonia : Estonia were terrible this year, and the majority of votes saw that, all but this one.

- 12 to Russia : I really don’t have to repeat myself.

This was half way and I, personally, was very surprised with the outcome of the voting so far. Usually I would have picked apart all of the votes and most countries would have had 2-3 potentially swung votes yet this year seems pretty clean, I hadn’t yet found a single country that put its top 3 votes to related, bordering or close countries yet. Azerbaijan and Denmark were well away in the lead, and I had come to the conclusion that Azerbaijan just made a good song this year, and the same with Denmark. Personally, I didn’t like the Danish entry but I will reserve my judgement.

The votes so far showed me that for once the UK had not voted with bias, and neither Hungary nor Italy had been even slightly biased.

Shall we continue?

Bulgaria – 10 to Ukraine : Close eastern block countries. Need I say more?

Belgium – 12 to The Netherlands : Just reciprocating the love.

Russia – 12 to Azerbaijan : A shared border and Im pretty sure they are close countries.

Malta – 8 to Italy : Just across the water really, closest country for Malta is Italy.

Estonia – 10 to Ukraine : Both share a border with the 12 point winner, Eastern Block.

- 12 to Russia : Need I say more, they are its only other border, other than Lithuania.

Germany – 10 to Denmark : Really doesn’t need explaining, it was a good song, but they do share a border.

- 12 To Hungary : Hungary didn’t exactly blow me away, they’re pretty close too.

Iceland – 10 to Norway : Scandinavia.

- 12 to Denmark : As above.

France – 10 to Italy : Border shared, language ties, culture ties.

Denmark – 8 to Sweden : What a surprise. Brown-nosing is a easy to spot thing.

- 12 to Norway : As above, again.

Montenegro – 8 to Greece : I think I might have been to harsh with this one, they are close, but not massively close.

Georgia – 10 to Armenia : No surprise there.

- 12 to Azerbaijan : Again, no surprises. They are isolated in Europe, they stick together.

Cyprus – 12 to Greece : Need I explain this one?

Croatia – 8 to Italy : Close countries, only a small area of Slovenia separates them.

Switzerland – 10 to Hungary : Close-ish countries. Maybe not so biased.

- 12 to Italy : *sigh* Oh well, how more obvious could you get.

Lithuania – 10 to the Ukraine : Close Eastern Block countries.

Actually now, looking back on this, it was a pretty fair competition, I think a lot of Europe went against just voting for neighbours and went with their hearts. There was some fantastic music this year and my congratulations go to the city of Malmö for organising and putting on one of the best shows of the European Music Calendar. It truly was a fantastic night, well done to all the performers and special Congratulations to Denmark, our winners of 2013. You deserved it!

Emmelie-de-Forest-of-Denmark-Wins-1897870

This is JuzzTF, signing off.

(For another 6 months, hah)

Peace.

4 Month Catchup

Good evening all!

My sincerest apologies. I haven’t blogged in over 4 months for which I do apologise.

Its been a hectic 4 months mind you!

 

So what has been happening?

 

November – A bit of catching up with old friends but mainly work. Lots of work. The build up to Christmas was particularly hectic to say the least so at least I had been busy. Just wish I got myself a little more time off! But never mind, I seem to have gotten through it ok.

I had no such luck with the bike theft in the end. It appears to have gone forever….

 

December – More Christmas run-up. Again, a bloody hectic time but all round it went pretty quick. I proceeded more with the compensation claim against the woman off my bike which was going smoothly. Other than that, not a lot. It was just a work filled month. Had a good christmas overall. Nice Christmas Party with work too, pretty awesome all round. 

 

January – Sales, sales and more sales. Seems like they didn’t end. But it was nice to continue the busyness at work through for another month, made time fly. Again, not a lot to report, a pretty average month by most standards. I guess. Again, just keeping tabs on the bike accident. All going well.

 

February- What a turn around. I got a pay out for the bike accident! £1400. That’ll pay off my credit card! Other than that, bonus from work will be announced pretty soon and that will pay off the debts too. Turns out I’ll be debt free by the end of March. No more bank charges and no more letters. Its an awesome outlook for the rest of the year!

 

So there we go, all summarised for you.

 

Hope your last four months have been equally awesome :)  

 

You’ll be seeing more regular blogs from me now, hopefully. Perhaps an odd post from Rob, but I have mainly taken the blog on myself now.

Onwards and Upwards!

 

JuzzTF

What happened to the Newbury that I used to know?

It has come to my attention that my home town has been lost.

No, not disappeared off the map. Its still there…

Here is it (photo courtesy of Google)

So much time has past since I was a child, I remember when my mother used to work at Boots and we would go and visit her on the weekends with dad. Newbury used to be a calm, peaceful and ultimately safe place to be.

Or so I remember.

Over the years, things have gotten much worse.

Victoria Park has mostly been taken over by youths, mouthing off, littering, starting fights, generally just being completely brainless. The bandstand is one of their ‘strongholds’. Captured by the ‘trackie-wearing’ variety, smoking, drinking in public. The Police just walk by, powerless. They don’t to get involved, they know what happens. It just leaves us all living in fear that just looking at them the wrong way might provoke a unintelligible lexical nightmare and most likely a fist to the face.

We can’t compete. I know all too well about this. I had my bike stolen on Thursday night. Most likely by one of these types. Police were called and they did their investigations, but nothing. Just so happened that all the 7-8 CCTV cameras in the area were pointing the wrong way or were not in operation. How can you have such a massive blind spot?! It’s completely unheard of. It makes me worry that no-one is really safe, even with CCTV. Its not a comfort at all.

But back on topic, these youths. I mean, I say youths but I think some of them are as old as 22.

(Me being 21, you could say I am also a youth, but I would never associate myself with these type of people.)

I worry about the safety of myself and the safety of others. We’re defenceless, unable to fight back.

 

Until now.

I am fed up of they way they think they run the place, spitting, drinking, doing what they like without reprimand. Their time is over. After all, I have plenty of time on my hands. I’m going to start trying to record any anti-social behaviour, then publish it. Let the world see what our town has fallen to. Maybe then the Police/Council will do something about it. Maybe they wont. Then its down to us, the public. Take it upon ourselves to do something. I will, I’ll wait for you to join me.

Maybe if we start something off, the police will take notice. Citizens arrests, etc. Tonight, I’m going to wait outside the park, see if someone rides past on my bike. They’d better watch their back.

I guess that would be my only complaint.

Newbury is still suffering. Parkway Shopping Centre is failing. I’m slowly running out of patience with the town. If no-one does anything to save it, I will.

Watch this space.

 

JuzzTF

iPad Mini Launch 2nd November – Review

So it has finally come, the iPad mini.

 

After year of ‘hope’ and rumors, we finally see Apple releasing a device to rival the Nexus 7 and the Galaxy Tab 7″.

 

On first impressions it looks and feels like a quality bit of kit. But then again, what do you expect from Apple. It feels fantastic, easy to hold in a single hand comfortable, either gripping the edge or clasping the device whole. At 308g (WiFi version) its light but still has that robust feel to it.

On boot up, its quick to get through the initial setup, then into a completely immersive display. So its not Retina, but it still looks great. the screen is sharp, and just using apps like Pages and Keynote; its fluid and un-compromised. Another winner for Apple.

Internally it uses the same A5 chip we saw in the iPhone 4s and it utilises it well. Its more powerful than the iPad 2, which surprisingly is still being continued with its old 30 pin Apple connector. I would have expected to see the 3rd gen iPad replacing it, but never the less, still a fantastic piece of kit.

The mini benefits from a massive 12 hours of battery life from testing, even though Apple themselves state 10 hours so it really is a tablet you can use all day long without the need to whip out the new Lightning cable.

So, all in all a great little device. It really towers over the likes of Google and Amazon’s choices of tablet.

 

Apple have set the trend once again.

 

You can find the new iPad mini for sale at John Lewis in Newbury from 9am tomorrow morning, but be advised that stock is limited so make sure you get in early to grab yourself this fantastic piece of kit.

Enjoy!

 

JuzzTF

Hot Cycling.

Another long day at work, another day with less pay than I should be getting. But chin up, its Sunday tomorrow, and that means I only have to work 6 hours. Get in.

 

I’m slowly reconsidering my mode of transportation to work. Cycling is enjoyable but it leaves you hot and sweaty when you get home. At least if my car was still on the road I could drive in on occasion, even though its more expensive than cycling. I guess maybe it could be my weekend treat.

 

But then again, I’ve noticed, if I were to drive in every morning, I’d be later than if I’d cycled in. Considering I wake up at 8am, this wouldn’t really work in the car. I really dont want to wake up any earlier.

 

Never mind. I’m sure I could convert my bike to electric. That would be fun!

 

JuzzTF

The Wonders of IKEA

So I’m planning on moving out soon, as you may have read. But where to get the furniture from?

Answer? IKEA.

 

I really should be saying John Lewis as they are my employers, but I have to be honest.

If you are on a tight budget and you need good quality furniture and other bits too, go to IKEA.

 

I did all my shopping on the John Lewis website for furniture, fixtures and fittings, utensils, the lot!

Even with discount, I still saved £500 by shopping at IKEA. Just think if I didn’t have discount, that would be closer to   £700 saving. 

 

In a few words, that is completely insane. IKEA do a Sofa for £95!!! 

 

£95!??!?!!

 

I mean, I’m not getting that one because it’s too small, but even then the one I’m getting is £160. Thats still had the price of the cheapest John Lewis one, and it looks better!

 

Image

 

Even then, Im still getting my 55 inch TV from John Lewis, and the Blu-ray player. Still get discount on that, and IKEA don’t do TVs, yet…….

 

Anyway, better get planning!

 

Laters

 

 

JuzzTF