Yesterday was more kart racing in the Championship. We finished 13th overall out of 34, which on the face of it is pretty good, but could have been so much better. Nick made an excellent start for us, moving up to 4th place from 22nd on the grid but as I was starting to feel that maybe this really could be our day, we got taken out by Bristol and that snapped the bolt holding the steering column in place meaning a long stop in the pits, leaving us 33rd I think (only ahead of the B team who were having a nightmare of a race too). We sent Carl out who did a similarly great job, getting us up to about 25th, then Prash went out and, while scaring the hell out of all of us by always slithering all over the place into the corner we were standing at, kept it going and pushed us further up the leader board into 18th, at which point I took over. I got us up to 13th, which on the face of it again is another good job, but I had two spins, both of which were my fault because I was trying hard to make it to the top ten. Nick then finished the race for us, finishing just 14 seconds behind 12th after being 3 laps behind them at the start of his stint. But if I hadn’t spun that would have easily been 12th, and if Bristol hadn’t broken our kart it very well might have been an easy top ten finish. I am now convinced we can do it this year. Will we though? I certainly hope so.

I foolishly watched most of that 2 hour special on Sky One last night, and I have to say that it hasn’t changed my opinion of Michael Jackson very much. He still seems like a complete fruitcake to me, although I do think the whole sleeping with kids thing is probably innocent, it’s still odd. Of course, this show “with footage you were never meant to see” (if we weren’t meant to see it, why was it recorded?) didn’t address a lot of the question’s Martin Bashir raised, like why did he lie in the first place about his plastic surgery, or does he think it’s healthy for his kids to be covered up? I do love his reasoning though that they won’t be recognised because of the mask. (Hey, it’s a kid in a mask, it’s Jacko’s kid – get him!). I read in a newspaper a while ago something that seemed very true about this – he just doesn’t make good music any more. Before the music spoke for itself. Now he’s just a weirdo in a big house who invites kids to come and sleep with him.

Well I’ve spent most of today working on my project, and I’ve finally worked out what my user interface design should look like. I think it’s a much cleaner look than the previous version and should hopefully be quite easy to use. I’ll have to start getting it implemented this week, and I hope I can force Java into displaying it the way I want! Anyway, I must get an early night as I attempt to actually make a 9am lecture. With a lecturer who can manage to mess up some basic Maths…

I got and watched Bugsy Malone on DVD today. I think my housemates thought this purchase a little odd, but nevermind, I like it. It’s one of those films that I used to watch loads when I was younger, you know, like one of those films your parents record for you because they think it will be good for you. Anyway I watched it, and it really is a good fun film, very nostaglic indeed. I’d really like to own all of the films I used to watch, like “Short Circuit”, “Batteries Not Included” and a new copy of “Tron”, but that’s a bit expensive so it might have to wait until the summer when I’ve finished my project.

I’ve been reading “The Salmon of Doubt” for the last week, which is a collection of writing by the late Douglas Adams who is one of my favourite authors. He was, in his own words, a radical agnostic who couldn’t understand why people, especially educated people, believed in god. I’ve always been a strong sceptic of religion, and while I was watching Film 2003 this evening, which reviewed “The Magdalene Sisters”, about a sort of Catholic prison where girls were sent and held under strict regime by some nuns, I started thinking about this again (it does cross my mind quite often). All of this really does make me think that for all the moralising religion gives society, the amount of bad things that go on in this world under the auspices of religion really is quite scary. We’ve got Islamic fundamentalists trying to destroy Jews and Christians, fundamentalist Christians murdering black people and various people being abused by people who hold office in religious organisations. What’s needed here is education, we need more understand in the world, because simply saying no one should have a religion is just as bad as any person pressing their beliefs on those of another culture. If we can improve understanding then we make less people feel alienated, less people feel the need that they need revenge on those of another religion and fundamentalist organisations would quickly dwindle. But will this happen? I think not, which is a very sad thing.

Had a race up at Warden Law yesterday with the BUKC. I haven’t driven there before, and the track seemed quite good. It was certainly good practice in 2-stroke techniques with lots of late apex corner meaning that you had to get the kart sliding into the corner fairly early. I thought I’d made a good start, moving from 22nd to 10th and was having a loads of fun swapping positions with one of the Bournemouth B drivers, but then some guy tried to go down my inside going into a fairly open hairpin, I hung on round the outside, staying nice and level, but the bastard just swung out and pushed me on to the mud, putting me into my first spin in a competitive situation since Whilton Mill last year. To top that off I then got black flagged 2 laps later for jumping the start. Better luck next time I think. The rest of the team fought back admirably and plenty of fun was had actually racing against the B team on track, and we finished 18th out of 33. Or so we thought, when the official results were read out, Nottingham was missing! Very odd. Gareth was apparently following me for quite a long time, and he seemed impressed with my driving, which is nice, but I’m really bad at taking compliments like that as I wasn’t the fastest, so it’s not good enough. I do feel like I’m still learning though, so here’s hoping I can go quicker. Problem was today that I didn’t feel that confident about the brakes on our kart, as I couldn’t tell when the wheels were locking which made braking a bit hard to judge into the hairpins especially. Still, role on Buckmore Park on the 26th I say.

Ok, so after I got worst exams results of my entire University career last semester, I decied that I’ll actually go to my lectures now, and do some reading so I have a bit more of an in depth understanding. Set my alarm, got up on time, showered, then noticed I’d set my alarm an hour too late. Arse. Still, I got my Connect Test Server compiling, and I’m off to Durham in a bit to go race at Warden Law tomorrow, which should cheer me up a bit. I’ll start attending lectures on Monday. Apart from I can’t because I have an interview in Oxford. Can’t I get a break here?!