Robert Leverington

This afternoon I went to the cinema with my mum and step-dad to see the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace; while I am disappointed overall, it was worthwhile to go and see it. Here I have outlined what I thought about the film, avoiding any spoilers, so you can continue to read even if you have not yet seen the film.

What was lacking the most was exciting action, there were three or four occasions that I can recall involving proper explosions, gun battles and car chases - much fewer than previous Bond films (except, perhaps, Casino Royale) - and the way they were filmed was quite poor in my opinion. This was perhaps most apparent in the opening sequence, where the camera was very close which made it difficult to see what was going on, and angles changed so frequently it was almost impossible to keep up with the order of events. It reminds me somewhat of Cloverfield, which also had this problem (although much, much, worse).

The plot itself was ultimately flawed by the fact it tried to be a continuation of the previous film in the series, while it was possible for me to follow it - having seen Casino Royale - my step-dad did comment that he had no idea what was going on for much of the film. Being a sequel makes it not fit in to the franchise particularly well either. Bond films are supposed to be one offs, with a very amorous ending - neither this nor Casino Royale had this. Hopefully the next installment will be an improvement; Daniel Craig mentioned about this being to tie off loose ends in the prequel, but this should never have needed to happen in the first place - at least this should be the end of it.

Another somewhat lacking feature was that there was no real Bond girl, no wild sex scenes, and most importantly no romantic ending. My favourite part of the film was Agent Strawberry Field’s short section; Gemma Arterton is an amazing actor, and it’s sad that we couldn’t see more of her in the film. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” - best line ever.

To summarise, the film was overall quite poor; but at least it gives a black canvas as it were for the next film to succeed where this one has failed.

Today in mathematics one of my peers asked the teacher for assistance with the homework we had been set (see my previous post on this topic for background information on the website they force us to use). Near the end of the lesson,  she opened it up in her web browser and put it on the projector, then proceeded to go through it and explain how to do it. On just the second question she had to ask students in the class who had already attempted the exercise what the rounding was, to avoid getting it incorrect, and did not know what the software was expecting as an answer to the last question. This proves how badly authored the website is: if even the teacher cannot do the exercise the first time, how can we as pupils - inherently with less ability than her - be expected to spend our precious spare time doing it.

It was even mentioned to her, once again, by another person in my class that most of us would happily complete work out of a text book on paper; she replied with a sarcastic comment to the effect of “so you’re not just being lazy, this is what I have set and it is what you will do.” Quite frankly this abuse of responsibility is appalling, there is no reason maths teachers should be allowed have all the work done for her by a computer, it is also insulting to other teachers who spend many hours preparing and marking homework - even if all it consists of is photocopying or the like. I would be delighted if we could do it on paper instead, and believe that government intervention is needed.

Recently I have started travelling to London using the train on approximately a fortnightly basis. The journey is very long compared to what I am used to, and also fairly tiring.

My journey begins with a bus journey to Luton; I’m not sure why but this week it was packed, wheras two weeks ago there were only a couple of people on the bus. The bus is fairly unreliable, often being late, and there is no seating at the bus stop so I have to stand up. My bag is also quite heavy, due mostly to the laptop I like to take to my Dad’s (to stop myself going insane while my brother and sister are using the computer) - but hopefully I will be able to afford a new one at Christmas. Once on the bus, however, the journey isn’t long and I am soon at the station.

There are very long queues for train tickets, causing me to miss the train I wanted both times I’ve gone - however I plan on buying them in advanced online next time. The first time I travelled I kept being quizzed about my age, but yesterday this did not occur. While the second train isn’t too long after the first it is also delayed most of the time and the platform is very cool; I like watching the fast trains soar through the station though, it is very fascinating. Only twenty-five minutes is spent on the train which is fantastic, I could never have imagined being able to get in to London so quickly. St Pancras International is also a very nice station; much cleaner and spacious than Kings Cross which somewhat surprised me, although it is much newer so that is perhaps inevitable.

From St Pancras I then move to Kings Cross and get the tube, it is very packed so there is not very much room. I bought with me a book to read this time (Secrets and Lies, as recommended by HauntedUnix), it was hard back so while usable on the train and at the station, the tube was too crowded to make it worthwhile.

In total the journey is about two and a half hours, but hopefully I will be able to cut this down by booking in advanced - sadly they won’t do seat reservations so I’ll still have to stand up or sit on the floor.

Since starting this year of school, my final year of compulsory education, there has been a great increase in the amount of homework we have been receiving. Teachers who would give us virtually no homework last year have changed path and now give us it on a regular basis - those who did give out homework last year have stepped it up a gear. This is probably reasonable, given the restricted time available until our final exams in May, however I’m now struggling to keep up with this endless backlog, especially on top of a large amount of coursework that needs doing.

The most taxing segment that I am getting is, without a doubt, maths. Rather than providing exercises for us to do with pen and paper, we are instead instructed to use a website which the teacher can then monitor. This brings up a variety of points, most important in my opinion is that it reduces the level of student-teacher communication when difficulties in the task arise. With regular written assignments the pupil can go up to the teacher with a piece of paper in their hand, and the teacher can explain to them what has been done wrong; this is not really practical or very easy to do with virtual based learning.

Another factor that causes this difficulty is the software chosen. The website our school opted to use is, quite frankly, appalling. How they expect school students to use it effectively I just don’t know, and the frustration it causes is tormenting. From the moment you log on it is quite clear that it is unfinished, sometimes the links don’t work and the use of flash can be irritating at times. Doing the exercises is the largest difficulty, sometimes they round the “correct” answer without telling you and hence mark it wrong; and when you do make a silly mistake you are forced to do the entire exercise again, not simply the part that you got wrong. This can be extremely time consuming and gets tiresome after several attempts - especially with the longer questions.

The website being segregated in to separate learning and homework sections causes you to struggle when the solution is unclear, in normal text books an example would be given at the start of the section that you could study - but we don’t even get given text books. Instead the laborious process of navigating to the relevant section on the website is needed, often insufficient information is provided making certain sections almost impossible without significant dedication to the task at hand.

Overall I think this was a bad decision to make, and in fact shows up badly on the maths teachers who use it. At least in my school the majority of teachers spend a significant amount of time putting work together (even if it is just a few photocopies) and marking it, this tool allows them to check a few boxes on a website and give out detention for those who don’t complete the work. What makes this even more insulting is that our maths teacher expects us to cover the entire GCSE Statistics syllabus (a separate GCSE for the accelerated set) entirely online - with no class work except revision.

I decided that the best course of action in developing a theme would be to take the Wordpress default and modifying it to suit my needs. I think the new design looks more professional and personalized, and will certainly allow me to add more content.