Bedroom Tax (by sarah)

I wrote this post a while ago but never go around to publishing it!

I saw something about bedroom tax or the spare room tax and thought 'Argh! We have spare rooms oh no!' but when I checked it out I found out that it wouldn't affect us. You would think I would be happy about this as if we had to pay it we would have to move or get lodgers or something as we couldn't afford it - but I am not happy.

I wish that it did affect us as at least then it would be fair even if it was horrible for us.

Instead this tax affects those who are on benifits or in social housing. The idea is that it will make people move to smaller houses but in many places there are not smaller houses availble meaning that they will have to pay. Charities like Shelter have warned it will lead to an increase in homeless families as they fail to be able to pay it and end up loosing the homes they are in.

Siblings will have to share - sounds sensible and money saving until you realise they are not taking the size of the room into account so a house with tiny rooms counts the same as one with huge rooms, nor do I agree with the age barrier for different sex siblings sharing. The sharing will lead to what has previously been considered over crowding. You are allowed an extra room if you have a disabled person living in the house but there are still issues with the families most going to be affected being those with disabled children and a move would mean they would have to have all the ramps and stuff put in all over again...

There is another issue here were a young people who may have been thinking of staying on in education will feel they can't - they move out and their parents get whacked with the tax. If they stay they will have to pay but they can be earning money to do so - if they can find a job.

If I'd been faced with this I would not have been able to go to university.

I think though that my anger actually lays in the fact that the person who thought this up has 18 bedrooms most of which are not used. Now a tax to solve the housing crisis because it made people take on lodgers... I might have swollowed.

Astronomical Fun (by sarah)

The last few weeks have seen me going in to help with the scout group for their astronomy badge - I took in my old Astronomy Now mags and some old lab books and mission cloth badges I was given at the museum when I worked there and the stuff I won with Celestial Montage from ESA.

Oh and one antique telescope our lovely friends bought us as a wedding present - this is the fourth time it has had an outing to help infuse you people with the joys of space 🙂

I didn't have time to plan a talk so had to wing it - this was made extra interesting due to the meteorite air burst over Russia and the near miss asteroid which the kids were a little confused over. So I waffled at them and gave them stuff to look at and asked them questions which showed that some were confused over the difference between America and Russia but that they have brains enough to deduce impact behaviour which was interesting.

The some of the girls meticulously pawed over my old note book and I explained abit about blasting rocks with lasers to see what they are made of. One boy shyly asked to keep an Astronomy Now and I think he would have taken more if he could have 🙂

Then they all toddled off to look at the night sky as it had cleared up nicely.

Yesterday I bought in stuff for them to make little models of the Hubble Telescope out of loo roll middles and serial packets - this seemed to go down really well and ended up in interesting conversations about space probe design.

I really enjoyed it 🙂

Turning People Off (by sarah)

I take part in lots of online chats and things one of which is LitChat on Twitter. During one of the chats last year I upset soem 'trolls' and ended up with a rain of abuse - my crime?

I was talking to the guest author about his books, these were his Hate Club - he as a person is basically the oposite of my in the political sphere but we were having a good discussion and talking. He writes a column in some big American newspaper of something so is well known over there hence the rain of abuse.

Now the thing is that politically I am more in line with the attackers but their behaviour made me not want to be. They were not contributing to the group, they were gate crashing and being vile. They were not interested in actually talking about things but just ramming their own ideals down peoples throats and were being very personal about how they attacked. On top of that they targeted the people who were talking to the guest author and I can not make this right.

Worst of all is that some of their points were valid but the way they came over put everyones back up so no one is going to listen to them. They hurt their own cause.

From a social dynamics point of view the episode was interesting.

Mine Craft (by sarah)

There is a new craze in the Snell-Pym household - it is a game called MineCraft and it began with Alaric, now me, Jean, Jean's friends and my Dad all have our own worlds which we are constructing homes and farms and mining in.

Initially I was very bad at it, I could not even work out how to look up let alone move and as for fighting the monsters of this almost eden-esk world - that was impossible. But after being attacked by a spider, a skeleton and a zombie, being stuck in a whole, being suspended in the air and drowning.... I finally seemed to master basic movements.

Being me I skipped the tutorial and refused to play in creative as I like there to be a challenge. Anyway I finally after a week of playing managed to construct a one room house. It started off in mud and then I mined cobble stone which I clad the outside and then mined the mid away from the inside.

The idea is that you mine and farm things and make stuff. I started off by making a crafting table, then a chest to keep things in. I was on the hunt for stuff for torches and a bed - but this proved tricky and so I found myself hiding in a dark corner of my house - it had a door I'd made on the crafting table but no light as I need to make charcoal or find coal.

Fortunately no monsters spawns in there with me - this was why it was all still earth - a monster called a creeper did blow my house up from the out side though which hacked me off! (I may have said a rude word).

Eventually I found the resources to make my torches - I had to build a furnace. So now I have light, food (due to killing poor unsuspecting cows and cooking them in the furnace), shelter, a crafting table and a double sized chest but still no bed! This means I can not sleep during the games nighttime which is annoying.

The game is made of large pixels and I can only play a bit at a time as the motion on the screen gives me motion sickness!

I also keep accidentally hitting the left hand toggle as a button instead, this changes the perspective of the little avatar - not helpful when you are fighting zombies!

I am really enjoying it - even more so as there is a quest to be completed!

Each world is a new generated one - mine is called Gaia, Alaric's is Genesis, Jean's Bob and Dad's one is the un-named My World. If I remember I may post the world seeds (the code that other mine craft players can used to generate the same world though devoid what you have built in it!).

Unsigned Sessions and Mention the Bear (by sarah)

Me and Alaric finally made it out to see some live music - something which has not happened yet this year! We went to the Unsigned Sessions at The Playhouse in Cheltenham. These are run by The Record Shop down by the Norwood pub.

It was the first time we had been in The Playhouse which has a nice light fitting I took photos off to try and sort our how my camera works! I only found the black and white setting after the gig!

The first band was unfortunately ill but a young guy came on and played some cracking tunes - I can't remember what his name was unfortunately.

We then got a band called Red Shift who were a three piece band, a guitarists with two guitars, a saxophonist and flutist in one and the dude at the back with the squeeze box who I unfortunately was not in the right place to photo.

They played some lovely covers - some of which had a depth the original songs never had.

The guitarists voice put me in mind of David Bowe meets Pink Floyd with a little Bon Jovi thrown in.

My one issue was I felt the Gnarls Berkely cover needed more energy, but having it sung by a warm female voice was genius 🙂

Then we got on to our friends' band, Mention The Bear, they were doing a 68 Come Back Elvis Special with guitar cases for percussion and more guitars than you can shake a stick at!

There was some serious hand blurring on the fret board happening and Richard did not disappoint with raw performance - if Elvis and Jim Morrison had had a love child... just watch the video I took!

Neither the film nor photos are as good as I wanted as I was just mucking about with settings to see what I got and some of them I didn't realise weren't quiet there until I got them up on a computer screen!

See guitar case drum!

Guitars galore!

Dan rocking out!

Richard absorbed by the music.

Jumping around time!

I was really happy to have an chance to wear my fifty style skirt I made last year (with modernish heavy metal themed material!) and my ancient blue suede boots 🙂 Though I am still disappointed there was no black leather!