Who knows?

It seems there's going to be a rumble in the streets of Edinburgh, vaguely related to the G8 conference, and promoted by such figures as Bob Geldof and, more interestingly, Gordon Brown. Excellent work from our Prime Mnister-in-waiting. This whole "make poverty history" campaign sounds great doesn't it? Wonderful idea that no one would possibly disagree with. How we go about it, on the other hand, is where the real problem lies. Simply writing off debt won't work. Africa is made up of countries with corrupt governments and civil wars waging. If you simply write off debt, you risk lining the pockets of dictators or funding bloody massacres. Obviously this is a sweeping generalisation and there are as many different situations as there are countries, with some success stories. But what is needed is an aid programme linked to reform - conditional aid if you will. This will be met with screams of attempted colonial interference, but really is the only sensible way to make any progress. Billions of pounds have been thrown at the continent already and little progress has been made. If anything conditions have worsened, particularly with the spread of HIV Aids.

And if the countries of the western world really wanted to help, a good place to start would be the crazy, unfair subsidies that they throw at their farmers. The Common Agricultural Policy in Europe is a disgrace. Not that it's wise to talk about this at the moment. The French government and the EU are unpopular enough as it is without discussing removing the billions of euros that the CAP gives to France each year.

If you think the protests in Edinburgh are going to be lively, just imagine what hell would break loose in France if their precious CAP was threatened.

You'll be glad to know (well maybe) that 5aside was pretty tiring and that I might actually get to bed before the sun comes up. Excellent.

Before that though I think it's time for a rant. I don't know if you've been following the Jackson trial, but I have and I find it simply amazing. The feeding frenzy surrounding it would be comical if it wasn't for the fact that a guy's life and reputation is at stake. I say his reputation as, despite the numerous jokes told as his expense, I'm not sure if many people really believe he's a paedophile. An in-depth survey carried out by me this evening (3 people in the pub) suggests this may be the case. The general feeling was that, yes he's odd but not in a threatening way and certainly not in a child-molesting way.

Having followed the case vaguely I get the feeling the defense has done a pretty good job of undermining the prosecutions case and painting the Arvisos in a bad light. It's now up to the jury who'll take, it seems, around 2 weeks to reach a verdict on the 10 charges against Jackson. I just hope that the general mocking that Jacko receives and his reputation for being odd don't affect the jury's decision. They should be aware that they've got a guy's life at stake (not in the death-penalty way (now there's a theme for another rant!)) and that they have a duty to reach a decision (or decisions) objectively. The judge will have made this clear to them, but it can be difficult to get passed prejudices sometimes as they can be so deep-seated that the person may not even realise they're being affected by it. It'll be interesting to see what happens, and perhaps more interesting to watch the reaction to it in the US and world media.

I think I can safely say that my sleep pattern is a mess. I got up at 4pm today. That's just not good. It's not that I'm sleeping for crazy periods of time, its just that I don't go to bed til late (or early depending on your perspective). For example, last night I was up til 6am simply because I wasn't tired. This is clearly because I'm not getting up until late. Bloody vicious circles. The question is: how do I sort this out? Now, last weekend I tried the old "stay up all night until a decent time to go to bed the next day" trick. Which worked. For one day. The very next night I was up until 3am and it went downhill from there. Clearly I need a kick up the arse and to be more disciplined. The problem with being a student (dirty and unwashed etc etc) is that at the moment I have very few commitments during the week as I'm supposed to be revising. I am revising (in a way) but theres no pattern to when I work, which I don't like.

Anyway, I'm playing five-a-side this evening. Maybe a bit of exercise will help be sort me out. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm not entirely sure why I've started this blog. It's probably best explained as a combination of boredom and work avoidance. I am, it should be said, a king of procrastination. I can make the smallest of unimportant tasks take hours and once I actually start work I'm easily distracted and once distracted, there's little chance of getting back to work for hours. Should probably work on that. Oh well.

Anyway, I don't want to waffle on about me because, quite frankly, I'm not entirely exciting. No idea what I'm going to write about in this thing. There's no grand plan or anything. It'll more than likely be a dull stream of consciousness on whatever I feel like ranting about. Life, the universe and everything (now theres a good book - still not seen the Hitchhiker yet film though).

So, what's the rant for today? Su doku. I love the things. If you don't know what they are, http://www.sudoku.com should explain it all. They're basically logical thinking puzzles that have sprung up next to crosswords in numerous newspapers. They look innocuous enough - but for some reason I can't NOT do them. I am addicted. To a puzzle. I really need to get a life. I've got exams coming up soon so thats probably not going to happen for a least a few more weeks. But: su doku! Why? What is it about the things that is so great? Rows and columns that have to be filled in with numbers. It sounds pretty dull right? Well they're not. They suck you in and before you know it, hours have gone by and you've still not done half of it. Madness. I would say give them a go if you've not tried one before, but I'd be condemning you to a hours of wasted time. So I'm actually going to say - avoid them for the sake of your friends and family.

Su doku - as addictive as cigarettes, as pointful as Celebrity Love Island.