Kanj Morph!
As teasingly hinted at last time, I want to introduce you to Popims Animator. It’s a curiously designed free application which seems to be good for only one thing: face morphing! A quick demonsration appears on the left. Yes, apologises for the overly-large file size and reliance on the cliché that Mr Kanj = Ross from Friends. You can see how you can have fun with this thing though 
Stunning
Hopefully it is also regarded as being in the spirit of Red Nose Day. The undisputed champion of Red Nose Day at our school, of course, is Mr Taylor, and this year was no exception. Alex Trafford has a better photo up, but I think Mr Taylor deserves the widest audience he can for his efforts 
Bravo!
I was also embarrassingly thrilled to have The Apprentice back, if only for Comic Relief. Of course, Piers Morgan had to be fired. It was just written in the stars. Sure, I happen to like Alastair Campbell and be slightly biased on this, but you simply cannot throw away an opportunity to fire Piers! It’s probably written in a bye-law somewhere. In the same way that I instantly recoiled in horror when Michael Winner turned up to their fair. (Update – it’s worth seeing Blair meeting Lauren Cooper too.)
Today (well, Saturday) was Emily’s very enjoyable birthday picnic in Queen’s Park. Featuring everything a picnic needs to be successful: bread, cheese, Pringles, cake, coke and… foam guns. Happy 14th birthday Emily! 
And since I’m in such a multimedia mood tonight, anyone care for a video of Saoirse leading a cheer for contraception? What’s that, you would? OK then!
Finally – I’ve made my final UCAS choices (Cambridge first choice, Birmingham insurance) after deciding I was really fed up with the whole application system. So I really have to pass my exams now
Oh, and! I’m rather touched by Alex’s comment on my last post that by mentioning planned posts in advance I’ll be building up “immense suspense” for my readers. So here you go then:
[voiceover]“Next time on The Musings of a Red Dalek! The family comes together for Mother’s Day, but will chaos ensue? Meanwhile, Dominic confronts a personal dilemma. And there’s disbelief at the Kings household when Andy wins a poetry prize. Followed by news & weather.”
[/voiceover]Happy Mother’s Day!
Over the past week I really, honestly, truly haven’t been sleeping enough. This is bad. Sleep is widely-recognised as being pretty vital for your ability to, ur, live, and therefore I am going to do it more.
Joshua doesn’t get enough photos
Which unfortunately means the rather cool blog I had planned about morphing faces into one another will just have to wait until the weekend. But it’ll be a better blog for it, I promise. Y’know, cause I’ll be, ur, alive.
That will be all.*
*Well it won’t really, because I’ve just realised I feel the need to include a picture or something to stop the blog being so dull. So have a picture of a Joshua snogging each and every one of you. Because he’s a lovely person and loves you all. He is Jesus after all.
This evening I attended a Socialist Worker’s Party public meeting. Future employers, upholders of the brutally repressive capitalist system and petty bourgeoisie alike – don’t panic! I haven’t signed up, comrade but it was a really enjoyable evening.
I went because Saoirse spoke so highly of Lindsey German, who was speaking about women’s liberation, and because I believe it’s only fair to turn the tables around a bit for a girl who I relentlessly debate with at school. Let’s make me the minority for once!
Anyway, Lindsey spoke eloquently and perfectly reasonably about women’s liberation – a flavour of which you can read on their website. To be honest, I didn’t disagree with much, because most of it was about diagnosing the issues we face in society today. The gender pay gap? How to support single mothers going into work? The pathetically low conviction for rapes? These are all genuinely important topics to discuss, and while I don’t believe a socialist overthrow of the capitalist system is the answer, they’re intelligently argued all the same.
The fun part, however, came afterwards as we all headed to the pub downstairs and started to talk. Slowly, more and more members of the public meeting seemed to encircle our table until I was surrounded by around 20 passionate socialists. Unlike, say, religious fundamentalists, their commitment to rational argument and debate meant that is was really fun and that’s not just me enjoying being the centre of attention as the black sheep to the party though that was fun too.
I don’t relish switching from being the most right-wing person in the room to becoming the most left-wing person in the room at certain Cambridge events, I have to say 
Today I got exam results: a C – 56/90 – in Physics and an A – 83/100 – in Maths. Which I am pleased about, yes! I may have scraped my A in Maths but I got it, meaning I don’t have to sit the unit with most of the class in June and hence freeing up valuable time for other revision. As for Physics, it should be noted this does make me the second highest in the class 
and while it’s not great it doesn’t affect my university prospects because no one takes account of my 4th A-Level. So, I might retake it for personal satisfaction (why not?) but it doesn’t worry me.
Yesterday I had the best catered lessons I have ever experienced. Ms Higgs Boson baked us delicious chocolate brownies as a bribe incentive for doing our presentations, while Mr Moore served mugs of tea all round. With chocolate hob nobs. Classy!
A really interesting part of my day today was helping to test a new website from UCAS, allowing prospective undergraduates to compare student satisfaction data. So I sat there, in front of a black MacBook and a mocked-up site, talking a lot about my impressions of the design. For someone who has done web design himself, it’s fascinating!
To be honest I’m sure I wasn’t that helpful because I probably knew a little too much about how the process worked. So I knew to insist that the behaviour of the search feature should fit the user model (“I want to search by subject, or uni, or both!”) and complain that there was too much vertical scrolling through menus before you got to the actual data. The guy observing chuckled to himself when I mentioned that no one ever clicks on ‘skip to content’ links. I also attempted – and failed – to click on the big logo in the top left as a way to get back to the homepage. He scribbled it down excitedly. They did have an excellent way of presenting data using colours though, where a stronger shade indicated a greater percentage of people.
It’s just fun because I’ve sat and watched people navigate my own humble web site completely differently to how I’ve designed it. Illuminating
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
