The Maths Student: 09:30 Train to Examination Station

Note to self: devote more time to coming up with wittier blog titles.

Anyway, for the indubitably vast, global audience that no doubt hangs on my every written syllable, I started an access course in September, and I thought it might be fun to pepper my blog with a more personal flavour, in addition to it's usual programming. Incidentally, Google chrome is informing me that I have spelled flavour wrong. Well you listen to me Google chrome, this is Britain! You hear me? Britain! You're not allowed to tell me something is spelled wrong just because it doesn't match up to your warped defilement of the majesty that is the English language. We only invented the bloody thing! Damn Americans.

Um... yeah, studying and stuff

For those who don't know, an access course is aimed primarily though by no means exclusively at people who, for whatever reason, don't have the necessary academic qualifications to get into university, or perhaps do, but not for the subject of their preference. In my case, I dropped out of school at the age of 17, four years ago next month as a matter of fact. After a few years in the wilderness, I decided I wanted to study theoretical physics, which has led me to this course, which will lead me to doing A-levels upon it's completion in 18 months, which will, all being well, lead to university in 2017. Now, background information, or to needlessly use some film terminology, establishing shot out of the way, let's actually look at the course it's self

Essentially, I and my classmates will be studying English and Maths at essentially GCSE level, in addition to the three major sciences at GCSE level in year one and AS level in year two, AS level for those who don't know being essentially the first year of a two year A-level course. In our first four months, we've looked at osmosis and basic anatomy in biology, the period table, salts, and fractional distillation in chemistry, and random and systematic errors, Hooke's law, and electrical resistance in physics. (Incidentally, as a heads up, I am very much in favour of Oxford commas) However, English and Maths are currently the more pertinent to discuss, as it is these two that we face exams for this coming Monday. Last night, Monday night that is, we had what was largely a review session of essentially everything we had covered in maths up to this point. Nothing too drastic in the grand scheme of things, the maths on the course being GCSE equivalent meaning that we faced nothing that had not been previously encountered. The few months we've spent doing maths has more or less been a refresher course, everything from shapes, angles, perimeter, area and volume to probability, averages, graphs, long multiplication and division, and multiplying and dividing by decimals and fractions. It's nothing new, but it has been 4 years since I was doing GCSE maths, and even longer for others. The information not being fresh coupled with the workload it's self being quite densely packed has resulted in the course, even doing it part time, being more intense than one might think for GCSE level, quite a few people in the class already having dropped out, our numbers having dwindled from 19 in September to 12 at present.

Tomorrow night brings English, the last stop on our journey before pulling into examination station on Monday. Ideally, I'll be doing a fairly broad review of English tomorrow night, and looking in more depth at each individual lesson in future, but with last night's and tomorrow night's classes largely being review sessions, it's not really feasible to cover everything we've done in four months in one blog. Still, promising beginnings, or so I feel. Until then, I've been the maths student, and I can confirm that two plus two does, in fact, equal four.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: The Review: The endless sequence of colons: Here's another one:

So, following the head crushing success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and coming off the back of part 1 of the hobbit film, I mean, two-part film, I mean... trilogy, here we are with the Desolation of Smaug and... why are you looking at me like that?

Alright, so I haven't posted a blog in almost 9 months, I never got around to declaring the winners of the BWAP awards, and I'm sure all those who were nominated have just been wetting themselves desperate to know who took home the platinum galaxies orbiting my head in real time that I have decided the BWAP awards trophies look like, I've just been really... really lazy, and kind of busy, but if I'm being mostly honest, it's mostly lazy. But fret no longer internet, the prodigal son has come home, so let's do something nice and familiar before we dive, head first into the vat of awesomeness that is the future projects that I have in store right here on Ph.D.

So, The Desolation of Smaug. I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings films immensely, I think they rank among some of the highest achievements in the history of cinema, certainly in terms of raw scale and size, in addition to being very well put together, immaculately cast, visually stunning and boasting perhaps the greatest music in the history of film. They also made quite hilarious amounts of money, so I suppose it was really only a matter of time before New Line cast there all seeing eye (see what I did there [and indeed, there?]?) on Tolkiens other, though not quite as famous opus, The Hobbit. After part 1 avoided any real trip ups last year, despite not being all that memorable (as evidence by the fact that I can't remember much about it), part 2, The Desolation of Benedict Cumberbatch, was released today. So, was it any good? Yes. Yes it was. Thanks for joining me here on Ph.D and I will see you guys next time...

Alright, alright, a little more information might be necessary. The Hobbit: The Unblocking of Clog is most definitely worth a watch, it's well acted throughout, it's well paced, it's exciting... but it missteps in the most curious of places. Strangely enough, TH:TDoS suffers from... poor visuals. Now, to qualify that statement a little, I don't really mean poor of course. What I mean is relatively poor, it's not in the same league as Man of Steel for example in terms of pure visuals, and even the Lord of the Rings films, now more than 10 years old, have it beaten visually (in addition to all the other ways). The Orcs look strangely computerized, and there's a strange sense that it's missing a certain... Hollywood sheen. Now, to be totally fair, this may very well have been the fault of the 3D that was my only viewing option, so really the jury is still out on the visuals until I see it on DVD, but tonight at least, it was quite jarring, and it took a solid hour to really get used to it. Not that length was something The Hobbit: The Resurrection of the Blog was short on, it runs a formidable 2 hours 41 minutes, but it's to the film's credit that it never feels that long, it's well paced throughout, there was never a scene during which I felt bored, even if newcomers Tauriel and Bard are a little underdeveloped to really carry the few scenes that they're asked to.

The biggest exception to my gripe regarding the films visuals is without a doubt, the appearance of Smaug, voiced by sexiest man alive, Benedict Cumberbatch. Smaug is an incredible cinematic achievement, and more than deserves the near 5 hour build-up preceding his appearance. Cumberbatch is an inspired casting choice, blessed with a voice that can go from soothing and soft to the pants-crappingly evil growl possessed by Smaug. The final few scenes before Smaug appears are breathtakingly tense, and the dragon utterly dominates the last 30-40 minutes of the film, which can only be a good thing.

It's not without fault, but The Hobbit: Ground and Pound on the Lonely Mountain Fountain is an improvement over it's predecessor, and sets things up nicely for the third installment, The Hobbit: What Are We Going to do After the Dragon is Dead?

Overall: 74/100

The 2nd Annual BWAP Awards: The Nominees

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the nominee announcement for the 2nd ever annual BWAP awards, the awards show dedicated to honouring the actual best films of the year, rather than whatever film best panders to the academy's tastes (looking at you, King's Speech and Artist). A few announcements first however...

1. To my deep regret, this year there will be no "Best Actress" category. I apologise profusely for this, but the fact is that I just didn't see that many films this year featuring women in a leading role. I know I'm gonna have feminists knocking my door down, but it is what it is, again, I apologise.

Alright so it was just the once announcement, so let's not waste anymore time, let's get right down to it, here are the nominations for the 2013 BWAP awards:

Best Supporting Actress

• Emily Blunt - Sara Rollins in Looper
• Anne Hathaway - Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises
• Maggie Smith - Muriel Donnolly in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Best Supporting Actor

• Michael Caine - Alfred in The Dark Knight Rises
• Tommy Lee Jones - Thaddeus Stevens in Lincoln
• Mark Ruffalo - The Avengers
• Alex Russel - Chronicle
• Tom Wilkinson - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Best Visuals

• The Avengers
• Looper
• Dredd

Best Audio

• The Dark Knight Rises
• Looper
• Skyfall

Best Screenplay (Adapted or Original)

• Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon - The Cabin in the Woods
• Rian Johnson - Looper
• Tony Kushner - Lincoln
• Max Landis - Chronicle
• Joss Whedon - The Avengers

Best Ensemble

• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
• The Cabin in the Woods
• The Dark Knight Rises
• Lincoln
• Looper

Best Actor

• Daniel Day-Lewis - Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln
• Dane DeHaan - Andrew Detmer in Chronicle
• Robert Downey Jr - Tony Stark/Iron Man in The Avengers
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Joe Simmons
• Karl Urban - Judge Dredd in Dredd

Best Director

• Drew Goddard - The Cabin in the Woods
• Rian Johnson - Looper
• Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight Rises
• Josh Trank - Chronicle
• Joss Whedon - The Avengers

And now, last but not least, the big one, here are the nominees for 2012's... 

Best Film

• The Avengers
• Chronicle
• The Dark Knight Rises
• Lincoln
• Looper

And there we have it, the nominees. The 2013 BWAP awards will be announced on March 31st. See you then.