New Years Resolutions

Okay, so here I figured I'd actually done a "New Years" blog... apparently it got lost in cyberspace. Well this new year has been a pretty good one so far, but has come with the disappointment of not yet having flying cars or robots to do our bidding. Some would say we have robots of sorts, and that really any car can fly if you launch it hard enough, but I didn't start my New Year to launch cars, so let's move on.

Have you made any resolutions? Have you stuck to them? I have found that the more general you make a resolution the easier it is to uphold. This may seem a bit obvious, sort of like saying "eat less" as opposed to "eat less on every other Monday, except Bank Holidays or when it involves muffins." but my resolution is a little different. My resolution is "be less rubbish." this afford me a little breathing room, as I can well say that facing one of my biggest fears or kicking a bad habit would count as "being less rubbish" just as much as sleeping past my alarm by 29 minutes as opposed to 30 minutes is "being less rubbish." Regardless, it works, but why does it work? It works the same way that all resolutions should work. We set ourselves a target, and when we achieve that target then we feel generally good about ourselves. This is why eating less on every ohter Monday, except Bank Holidays or when it involves muffins is a bad idea, but eating less in general is a good idea, because everytime you achieve a small part of your target, you're still getting somewhere, and it feels good.

I've slowly been picking at bits and bobs about myself that have been making me feel better and better about myself as I've been going along, and it's starting to make me embrace change rather than fear it. So I beg you all - face your fears, no matter how small they are. I spent a long time not doing a lot of things because I just thought I didn't like them or didn't want to, when in reality it was because I was scared to try.

I now have a weekly cooking slot, every Friday night. This is good because I can finally try some things out on a few people rather than just myself. Last night I tried a chicken casserole recipe. As it goes, the recipe was actually shit and so I had to adjust it a bit. It didn't turn out perfect, but was actually alright, and resembled more of a "soup with chunks of chicken, carrot and mushrooms". Next time I'm going to turn it into something like chicken noodle soup. It was a good start regardless.

This has been a bit of a positively charged blog post, so here's something to balance it out a bit:

I still really fucking hate Twilight*1.

Ja ne~

*1 Hatemail ensues

...and I'm back

I have been away a while, but I am back, and coming back on a mission. Future blogs will have a new format, and I will be working on an accompanying website. I want to know what you'd like to see in the blog - suggest some topics, no matter how challenging or mad, on any subject. Any other general feedback is more than welcome. Email me on "phoenixtaichou@gmail.com"

~ja ne

Apathy

I realise it's been nearly an entire month since I last wrote anything. I find sometimes that my enthusiasm flags a little and I try too hard to think of something to say. That's generally where anyone goes wrong - overthinking things - which is something many who know me will know I'm rather guilty of in everyday life. Sometimes it suits me quite well, it has its uses, but then sometimes you need to look at life and all within it in a rather simple manner and things just turn out a lot better. Regardless, I will be churning out more blog posts from now on.

I was watching Se7en last night, and the general message the movie gives is that of people sinning and the world's general apathy to all of this. I loathe spoilers so I won't say any more than this, but the message is quite convincing. I am by no means a religious man, and I imagine I've been guilty of... probably all of them at some point in my life, like I imagine most people are in some small way. I'll quote the character of the mighty Morgan Freeman:

"Apathy is the solution. I mean, it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work. "

"Apathy is the solution" isn't of course saying that it's the right way. It's a solution. The point being made is that it's far too easy to do nothing than to work for something. The stabbing of Kitty Genovese comes to mind. And I quote Morgan Freeman's character again:

"Never cry for help. Always yell 'Fire.'. Nobody answers 'Help.'. Holler 'fire' they'll come running."

I've heard this before elsewhere but a little different. What does this say about people as a whole? They wouldn't react to "rape!" or "help!" because it doesn't concern them directly. They would react to "fire!" because it could encroach upon them. Sad, isn't it?

This is not to say that everybody is like this, as there are bound to be people who say "No, I wouldn't do that." but if there's one thing people always forget is that they'll never know what they'll do when the time comes. Good intentions are never always enough, it's how you act on them. And for the most part, people rarely even act at all. One last quote from Morgan Freeman's character:

"People don't want a hero, they want to eat cheeseburgers, play the lotto and watch television."

Ja ne~

Secret Project 1: Results

I've been meaning to write this up all week but a few things have gotten in the way. However, finally, here is the first ~Secret Project~. Was that mysterious enough? Maybe not. Mystery however, was a part of the secret project.

It started on Facebook with a bet, of sorts, with my brother Graham. He had the idea of adding all of each others friends to see who would accept the request. I said this wasn't quite a fair trial as we had an uneven number of friends. So we settled upon 20 each. Over the space of about a week we checked often with each other to see how many and who had accepted the request. As it turned out, it was 8/7 to me. Statistics said then, that 35-40% would accept the friend request. This gave me an idea.

I wondered, what would happen if this were done on a grander scale? How many people really would add a complete stranger, and why? The easiest way I found to do this would be to add friends of friends. I decided on a few rules:

• I would start on a Saturday and end on the following Sunday.
• I would choose 250 friends, and from each choose one friend
• This friend would be taken from the first 6 randomly displayed people on the friends profile

Seemed simple enough, but I realised 250 was a lot. I decided that because it was way too many, and for a few other reasons, I'd cut it down to an ever rounder 200. This made it a fair bit easier, so I wrote down all these names and for each I randomly picked one from each. I wanted a fair amount of men to women ration, and if I ever saw anyone particularly older, I'd choose them first. I will admit my scientific integrity slipped a couple times when I favoured a particular person over the others, but er... moving on...

I found my 200 and added them all. It took most of Saturday up. When I was only halfway through people had already begun adding me back. By the end of the first day 42 people had accepted the requests. By the end of the second day 60 had, then 68 the next. It slowed to a few a day, until the final total was 80 out of 200. As had been the case with mine and Graham's bet, 40% accepted the requests. So my curiosity was satiated about just how many people would accept a friend request from a complete stranger - nearly half. What confused me was the lack of questioning as to why I had added them. About 20 people asked if they knew me, and for the most part I kept it simple and said that they didn't, but that we had a mutual friend in common. They all seemed to accept this. There were a few who weren't quite as... open as that, and bluntly just asked how I was, so to these I fully explained what was going on. I think I freaked a few people out.

A fair few people responded to my messages, I'd take a guess at 30 - 40, and some I had quite lengthy conversations with. Initially I sent a generic message: "Hi [NAME], thanks for accepting the add. How are you?". I think this generally polite message might have been the reason why most people didn't message me back and say "Piss off, you nutter." Those who did message me back were all rather nice people. Even the ones who seemed a bit confused/angry/freaked out at first were all nice once I explained. I didn't quite get all the answers I wanted to, I still don't know why the majority of them did add me. If you're reading this, comment on my page and let me know!

This project didn't quite work out how I wanted to, but I definately enjoyed it, and hopefully have made some new friends from the whole thing. Though the point of this experiment was to find out whether people would add me and why, I was also looking forward to finding some interesting people along the way, and that I did.

Thanks to all 80 that added me, extra thanks to Adam; Alex; Beth; Billie-Jo; Charlotte; Colleen; Dan; Dani; Darren; Dave; Edwina; Emily; Francis; Gemma; Heather; Jade; Jessica; Judy; Kate; Katrina; Kaz; Kelsey; Kevin; Lauren; Louise; Matt; Melanie; Mirkku; Myles; Naomi; Paula; Rebecca; Richard; Rory; Sam; Sarah; Steve; Suzanne B and Suzanne S; Tage; Tasha; Tom and Tracy for getting back to me, but special thanks to Frances S & Joe H, who I'm mostly definately glad I met through this project. I hope to hear from all of you again soon!

If anyone isn't happy about their name being in this, let me know and I'll edit it out. Also, if anyone feels they want to remove me from their friends now, I'll be sad to see you go, but if that is what you want feel free.

ja ne~

Illness, Cup-A-Soup and Technology

ILLNESS

So, after getting over the flu, that was all good and well, a few days ago I fell ill with food poisoning. When I say fell ill, I mean cramping over in pain through most of the night. It's really not much fun, mostly because you're in pain all the time, but also because you just can't (and don't want to) eat anything. Being unable to move much without immense pain, I couldn't change the DVD, so I ended up watching Back to the Future three times. Not that that's a bad thing, mind, but I'm in no danger of forgetting the whole storyline any time soon. Anyway, what helped a little through the illness was...

CUP A SOUP

Something I had completely forgotten about but is a rather awesome creation. Soup in a cup. It's create, you stick the kettle on, put the powder in, pour the boiled water in, give it a stir and it's done. Magic. I know it's hardly a new invention, but being reminded of it I intend to make it a frequent part of my diet. I have a problem with not being able to eat a lot - not for want of trying - and I tend to want to drink a lot to, so Cup A Soup helps in that respect. Maybe I'm incredibely lazy and that's why Cup A Soup appeals to me, but I'm going to for now with the chicken noodley goodness that has me hooked.

TECHNOLOGY

Onto the serious bit. Something that bothers me a fair bit is everyones utter reliance on technology. We've lost touch with ourselves and each other a lot because of relying way too much on easier means to do things. I've seen both sides of it, in a sense. The rest of my family grew up in a time before the internet, before consoles, in the day when if you wanted to speak to someone, you'd phone them up, or go and see them at their house. Nowadays, you just need to send them a text message, an email, a Facebook message, a MySpace message, or just read their Twitter updates or their Facebook statuses. If you want to find out something about people, why go to the trouble of talking to them to find out when you can just look at their "profile"?

I've always been slightly behind in technology, something which sometimes frustrates me, and sometimtes I can sit back and smile about it. While everybody else was carrying around a phone that not only had ringtones, but text sounds, WAP, Blutooth, all that junk, I was carrying around a plastic brick that didn't even have a decent digital display. This was never a bad thing, my phone could create and send texts and make and recieve phone calls. It's what they're for, aren't they? Still, usually behind in technology with games even, sometimes while everybody else is playing Dead Space, I'm happily sitting back running through Doom once more, or going back further, trailing through dungeons in Dungeon Master or alien bases in Captive on the Atari ST. Perhaps its nostalgia, perhaps its reluctance to indulge in the ever lazier modern technology. I am in no way saying it's bad technology, games, music (well maybe music), but simply that it's all applied in ways to make us a lazier generation.

So before computers you had toys, and even if you didn't, you had imagination. I think I can safely say that my imagination for my writing came from the dying days of those times. I'd happily sit for hours playing out a new story with my brothers Star Wars figures, recreating characters from the old, even carrying the story on for more than one day.

So I grew up with Ghostbusters and my brothers Star Wars figures, and computer wise I played the Atari 8-Bit or Atari ST. I was mostly left to my own devices to play when younger as the age gap between my brothers and sister were just too big. When I wanted to play with toys, they were too old for that. It all helped toward my imagination though. Now, yes, I did spent a fair amount of time too in front of the Atari, but then games back then were difficult, and especially on the Atari 8-Bit, still required a fair amount of imagination to go with it. There was one particular game called Star Raiders II on the Atari 8-Bit. To accompany playing this game, I used to build a makeshift spaceship cockpit out of cassette tapes, and grab a couple of Star Wars figures and pretend that they were piloting the ship I was playing in the game. I can't quite see a kid these days grabbing some CD cases, sitting a David Tennant figure on them and pretending he's driving a Nissan Skyline GT-R while playing Gran Turismo.

Games and toys these days don't inspire imagination, they've replaced it. And the many means of getting information about people and contacting them have crippled socialising. I wouldn't say so much I'm blaming technology. Who wouldn't want to make their lives easier? But surely we need to have some kind of balance? Don't rely on technology. We're all guilty of it, I'm guilty of it. I see it's somebodys birthday on Facebook and I leave them a wall message wishing them happy birthday. It's a bit impersonal, but I like to at least be able to make some kind of effort, as a good few of my friends are across the country.

I haven't mentioned the good that comes out of these things. Yes, such new technology allows us to be able to talk to these people who are across the country and keep in better touch, but what I'm getting at is it should be an accompaniment to keeping in contact face to face, by phone or by letter... it shouldn't replace it outright.

I've rambled enough. Ja ne~

Post-Dartford Festival and More Projects

Dartford Festival

So as it turned out it didn't really go to plan. I was hoping to have a look around at the various stalls and things they had, however, I mostly went to meet up with a few friends I hadn't seen in a while. I had some good fun while I was with them, and had a bit of a think about the whole thing. From what I did get to see of the festival, and I did get a good walk around, it was a bit... well the best way to describe it is that it had "character". But after a bit more thinking I realised I was looking at it a bit wrong. It didn't matter how crap the rides were, how misplaced some of the stalls were (they had a scuba diving stall - the deepst water you'd find was a dodgy stream next to the park, and you probably don't want to go in there), and how some of the acts they'd booked for the event were something you'd see on the bottom end of the scale of a reality TV show.

So my thinking took me back to when I was waiting for a friend outside the park. There were so many attendees I was quite surprised. When I attended quite a few years ago there were nowhere near as many. Perhaps some of them had come to see Lemar? Perhaps a budding scuba diver came along on the offchance they'd find some likeminded people? Regardless their reasons (and I suspect a fair portion of them was to drink cider on the grass with their friends) it still brought a lot of people together. You can forget how crap things have been in the economy, or that you might catch flu, or that your scuba diving club is a little lack of members. Instead, people seem to come together as one random group to just have fun - it doesn't matter if you think it's all a little bit crap, it's fun crap, and it's all about who you're with and not where you are, something which could really apply well to general life.

So I've made a mental bid to attend more things, more random events, in the hopes of finding out new things, meeting new people, and generally having something more interesting to talk about than swine flu or the economy. You never know, I might gain a love for scuba diving.

Projects

I love these. I start too many of them and finish too few of them. However, I'm trying to do some projects that take very little maintenance, or time, for now at least. I've had a good few ideas for projects, and been given a few good (slightly unconventional) ideas for projects. Some will remain secret and will be revealed upon their completion. I'm looking forward to them all.

Ja ne~

Swine Flu, Dartford Festival and an Upcoming Project...

SWINE FLU

So I was struck down with some sort of flu the other week. Up until then I'd thought all of this swine flu stuff was a load of over-hyped panic caused by the media. After, I was pretty certain it was just a load of over-hyped panic caused by the media. I will admit, sadly, I fell into it a little bit. When I fell ill, someone else I'd been in contact with two days before had fallen ill with most of the same symptoms, and he had brought up that he had the symptoms of swine flu and was worried about it. At this point I wasn't too bad, just had a dodgy stomach and was feeling generally crappy. After that was said though, it did play on my mind. What if there was a chance I had swine flu? I spoke to NHS Direct and a doctor at my local surgery. Both said the same thing. "Well, you have *a* virus, but I dunno whether it's swine flu or not. Just drink lots." If they had no bloody clue, what chance did I have of knowing?

Let's skip to the end. I was absolutely fine, I am absolutely fine now. Whether or not it was swine flu, I don't think it would have made a difference if it had been. It's just a flu. It's *a* flu. You could get over it the same as you would any flu. However we are led to believe it's some epic disease that's going to wipe out humanity if we don't exhaust all vaccine's now to anyone who's feeling slightly under the weather. Let's address some points:

-- It's Killed People
Yes, it has, but they all had underlying health problems. Think of the regular flu, in which it usually attacks the young and the elderly, ie, those that have not yet fully developed, or those that are, bless 'em, a little worse for wear. Swine flu isn't as discerning, but the point still stands that those who aren't quite as healthy are more susceptible. This is hardly anything new to the human race. Calm down.

-- It's Going To Mutate
So there's the chance it'll mutate into something stronger, yes, because it's all new and that. But think of all those people who are taking the vaccine for when they think they have swine flu (or worse, doctors and surgeries giving it out willy nilly) what's going to happen if it does mutate and we really do need it? It'll be gone or in short supply because of the huge panic. Calm down.

-- Shit, I Caught Swine Flu From...
If you're going to get it, you're going to get it, don't blame whoever you thought you might have got it from, or the person you actually got it from, they didn't ask for it either. And don't shuffle nervously away from anyone suspected of it either. We're all human beings here, not many people like being isolated, and those who do are probably sitting at home anyway. Calm down!

In short, you're not going to die, grow pig ears or start snorting when you laugh. And for those who do snort when they laugh (or happen to have pigs ears), don't worry, maybe this is your natural immunity kicking in.

DARTFORD FESTIVAL

I'm off to the Dartford Festival today, possibly also tomorrow. For those not in the know, it is a festival in Dartford. At least, that's what they call it. It is always on Saturday and Sunday, with a stage and musical acts, and various sort of festival like things. Okay, I'll admit, I haven't been in years so I've completely forgotten, but the point of this is I'm hoping to remember a few things to write about when I get back. What normally happens is that a bunch of friends go to the festival, despair at the music and get drunk on cider. The last time I was there, I went to the festival, despaired at the music, but I only have the odd cup of tea. However, taking a look at the official website, for once, I might have a look around and partake in some of the things they have available. I will investigate, and report back.

UPCOMING PROJECT

Does that sound nice and mysterious? Not mysterious enough probably. After taking part in an unusual bet of sorts, I'm going to try something on a bit of a bigger scale. I will start this project on Monday, and give it a week, to the Sunday, and will report my progress.

Ja ne~

Inspiration...

...comes in some unusual places for me. Maybe I think it's unusual because it doesn't really come to me often. Or there's the third option, that I'm mistaking inspiration for enthusiasm. Regardless, occasionally, I find something that makes me want to get up and go and get something done. One of these things lately has been Gunnerkrigg Court. It's a fantastic webcomic done by Tom Siddell. It's a fantasy story about a girl named Antimony Carver who attends an unusual school, Gunnerkrigg Court.

I love webcomics. The list of other webcomics I check daily:

Ctrl+Alt+Del
Goblins
Penny Arcade
Questionable Content
Least I Could Do
Darths & Droids
Anders Loves Maria
KinokoFry
Octopus Pie
Basic Instructions
DAR
Sarah Zero
DigitalPimpOnline (has a number of different comics by the same artist)
Dueling Analogs
Three Panel Soul
Minus
Striptease

The latter few of this list I've only found recently. You may think it's a lot but it doesn't take fifteen minutes to check out the latest strip of these, though not all of them update daily. Regardless, I read a lot of webcomics, and have read a lot more over the years. Some of them ended (Shaw Island and Mac Hall, now Three Panel Soul) and some I just fell out of touch with (VG Cats and Real Life Comics - still great webcomics however). Some I enjoy more than others, some I like to keep up with to find out the fate of particular storylines or characters, some are one shot comics that are a good laugh. However, there are none that I had read that have made me want to really better myself. Usually, I'd look at comics such as Penny Arcade and wish I could be as eloquent as Tycho Brahe in his articles and humour, as taboo smashing as Ryan Sohmer of Least I Could Do, as original and imaginative as Rebecca Clements of KinokoFry, or create characters mould breaking like Meredith Gran, least of all being able to draw anywhere near as well as Gabe of PA, Lar DeSouza of LICD, and Rebecca and Meredith of Kinoko and OP respectively. (Special mention also to Jeph Jaqcues for Questionable Content, Erika Moen for DAR, Rene Engström for Anders Loves Maria and Tarol Hunt for Goblins, all great and original comics.) I've always looked upon these with a level of awe and somewhat jealousy, wishing I could create works as good as these.

Now where does Gunnerkrigg Court come in against these aces of the webcomic world? I hadn't heard of Gunnerkrigg Court until I found a link within someone else's webcomic. Within the first Chapter, even the first few pages, I was hooked. This was something different. I read through the entire archive in one sitting. The artwork is nice and simple - nothing ground breaking - but retains it's own style, and improves as the comic goes on. What struck me about this webcomic though, was that it contained everything that I used to love about comics and cartoons. The unique characters, the continuing plot with interjecting storylines, the mythology... all seems to fit together seamlessly. Even when things don't quite make sense, they're still believable. Tom Siddell has written this in such a way that robots, mythological spirits of nature and virtual reality seem to live comfortably together.

Although the above mentioned writers and artist do great work and still inspire me, Gunnerkrigg Court makes me want to do something about it. Why? Writing this has made me understand why. It's because it gives me hope that there's still room for the old generation of the great storylines and adventure series that I grew up with. And that's something worth fighting for, right?

Busy, busy, busy

I'm loving having no time anymore. No, really. Well it's not so much no time, as complete panic that I have something that needs to be done or could be done each day. Generally, when I need to get something done it just doesn't happen, and when something doesn't need to be done, it get's done double quick. (see PROCRASTINATION)

So it seems I'm writing, filming, and writing for film at the moment, with something to do nearly every day. But I do love being busy. I seem to work better when I'm rushed off my feet than when I can toddle along at my own pace. This doesn't couple with deadlines, mind you. By rushed off my feet I mean in a physical sense - that there's things that NEED to be done there and then. It's probably the only thing I miss about working in retail (aside from learning that yes, customers are still as stupid as they were ten years ago) is having a busy day with a lot to do.

This is only a short entry, as I'm now off to do some "pre-production" on a project. Ooo, alliteration.

Procrastination...

...is quite a bastard. It's been a double edged sword for me. One hand, I try to get something done and it just doesn't seem to want to happen, so I get distracted with other things. On the other hand, I tend to get a lot of those other things done. So where the original work hasn't been done, I've got a few other things sorted. My idea now is if I do something pointless and unimportant but that I really don't want to do, all my important things will get done. Works in theory?

I'm rarely ever later for meetings or appointments. I sometimes forget I've got them outright, but when I do remember, I'm there on time or early. So why do I have so much trouble with deadlines? Maybe it's because there isn't someone there in front of you saying "You're late, you bastard!"

My most time consuming distractions lately have been:

Twitter - you'd think that only have 140 characters to write in would mean you don't spend that much time on there. Well, I have TwitterFox, a little icon in the bottom right that pops up every now and then when someone sends a "tweet". I have an annoying compulsion everytime I see the Twitter icon with a numeral next to it to see who's posted what. Most of the time it's pointless crap or references to something I have no bloody clue about, yet somehow it's all still quite fascinating.

Facebook - somewhat similar to Twitter, anytime I get a notification, I have to check it out, even though 90% of the time it's someone making an inane comment on someone's status I commented on, or some bollocks quiz such as "which finger am I?". Who is that bored that they'll sit there and do a quiz to find out what finger on their hand they are? How is this going to enrich their life? Personally I hope I'm in the middle finger. I shouldn't need to explain that one.

Disgaea DS - anyone who knows me knows I love my games. Anyone who knows me better knows I can kill hours on these things. There are certain timesink games, ones with extra content that can steal your soul. Disgaea is one of the worst for this, as apart from having the main game, you have ridiculous amounts of customisation, and plenty of goals to aim for. As a general hint to anyone who plays and understands RPGs, the level cap is usuall 100, right? In Disgaea, the level cap is 9999, and that's not counting the fact that you can reset your character to level 1 and gain some extra benefits.

24 Hours, 24 Lives - my new book has been somewhat time consuming. Organising has been the biggest time devourer so far. Everyone now and then I've taken the time out to sit and do little tables on Excel and scribble all sorts of notes down. Now, this is a beneficial form of procrastination, but rather ironic considering that without the course I'm doing now for which I'm meant to be finishing an assignment, I wouldn't even be writing that book.

Other odd procrastination distractions were eating, drinking, breathing etc, all of which were somewhere in there. So, tell me, what keeps you from doing the things you need to get done?

Introductions...

...have always been a pain for me to manage. I never know how much information is too much or too little. So I'll start with too little, you can figure out the rest as you go along.

I'm 20-something, and I'll stay 20-something until I reach 30-something. I'm starting my 2nd year of a Foundation Degree in Creative Industries Professional Writing, (try explaining that one to someone after your 6th straight double whiskey of the night) where I study literature classics, career prospects, and movie and psychology. It all ties in together and makes sense, believe me. Well I say it makes sense, if you can get your head around feminism and dystopian futures, the notion that your career could hinge on having a shit life or being dead, and the idea that the movie Alien(s) is really about male fear of childbirth. It is a fantastic course, and I have learnt and done a lot just in the first year.

I'm just getting my head around the settings and layout of this blog thing. It seems simple enough to figure out at a glance, but then so do women. Go figure. I seem to have settled nicely for what you see now, though it's bound to have the occasional change, as I like to keep busy with pointless endeavours.

As a writer, I know a few nice long words, and I like to try and find more of these nice long words. But sometimes we even forget the simplest of words or ideas. As is usual with me, I end up on one thing and go off onto something completely different, so while writing my "about me" section, and checking that "rambling" really did mean the pursuit of walking for fun (yes, I know, inconceivable isn't it) I found this on Wikipedia which amused me:

"In the United Kingdom, "walking" is the usual term for what in other countries is called hiking, which in the UK is a slightly old-fashioned word, with a flavour of heartiness and exercise."

Why this amused me is the wording. "is a slightly old fashioned word, with a flavour of heartiness and exercise." as if it's implying we consider it old-fashioned because it's full of "heartiness and exercise", and we all know that us British are a bunch of lazy and unenthusiastic sods.

I'll leave it at that for now, hope it's been an interesting first post. I shall return soon with more.