How Sez Sees It

I used to have a subscription to the largest British weekly music magazine dealing with rock and metal. I stopped that subscription and I had some very good reasons for doing so. The main reason was that I had just moved house and I couldn't justify the subscription fee every few months. I just figured that it might be better to buy it on a weekly basis if there were any articles I liked. For example, a wonderful human I know was in the magazine a couple of weeks ago because his new band were in a feature on the 'New Grave' scene. Regular readers will know that I have been supporting Solace in Nightmares for about a year now and it was this band being featured. As I lead their street team I kind of figured that I should buy the mag just for that article. The other reason is basically around the content. I had already decided to cancel my subscription but I was fed up that my favourite bands were not getting the coverage. Just as I cancel they all start getting featured...

Got bored. Did a vlog as you can see below. I am going to tell you the 10 things here, but I will leave you guessing as to the context of some of these things. You will have to wait and see in the video what the hell I mean by number 4... I cosplay I like pandas I run a street team for a band I once punched a police man in the balls I burnt my fingers and feel nothing in them now I love Japan despite never having been there I am a hypochondriac My favourite food is cheese I hate my birthday I can recite 'Withnail and I' word-for-word So, as you can see, there are some odd ones in there. I will leave you to find out more in the video below.

I'm studying a course on poverty and inequality with the Open University via the learning website Future Learn . It is really interesting and I thought I would just share some of the things the course has so far made me think about along with some of the recent news stories doing the rounds. We need to pay more: I am a socialist and, as such, I believe we need to be paying more taxes. I for one would be happy to do so and I certainly think the rich should be paying more. I also believe they should not be allowed to put it in off shore holdings in order to avoid paying tax. I have heard the argument before that if people earn the money they should be allowed to keep it. Great, yes, keep some of it. We are all human beings though and it should be within us to want to help our fellow humans out. By paying more in the way of taxes we ensure that people have a good education and access to health care or that they can afford to travel to work (I am also in support of re-nationali...

So this week I did the unthinkable and bought a Southampton football shirt. This may not seem like the unthinkable to you but it is to me. You see, I was a life long Chelsea supporter. Actually, let's back up here, I still am a Chelsea supporter. Let's start this again or rather go in to more background detail. I have lived most of my life in a small village in Hampshire which is about 6 miles from the city of Southampton . Recently I moved to the city itself and this is likely to be my permanent home now as I have no intention of moving for many years if I can help it. My fiancé was born in Southampton and raised in the nearby town of Eastleigh and has been a life long Saints supporter himself. I have been to more Saints home matches than Chelsea (I have never been to a home Chelsea match actually and only seen them play when at St Mary's against Saints). I can even name more Saints players than Chelsea players (though we are not doing that one right here an...

Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party on Saturday (12 September 2015) with an overwhelming majority. The way the system works is that the members and supporters cast votes in the alternative vote (AV) system. This means you select your favourite and put a ‘1’ next to their name and your second favourite has a ‘2’ and so on until all the candidates have a number. The winner of the leadership election has to have more than 50% of the vote. The person with the least amount of votes goes out in the first round and their results are redistributed if there is no clear winner. This continues until someone has more than 50% of the vote. Corbyn sealed his win on the first round. This is almost unprecedented. His first act was to join a rally in support of refugees. One of the next public appearances didn’t go down as well. He attended the Battle of Britain celebrations and caused the internet to go a little mad when he refused to sing the national anthem. To anyone who doesn...

So, I went to a funeral of someone I didn’t know. Don’t worry, I don’t just gate crash funerals, it was the husband of someone I work with. I won’t go into more details than that. I admit, I didn’t know how my mind would process this information as I have been experiencing existential crisis this year while in the process of moving house. Regular readers will know of my life long death anxiety. What the day did tell me was that life is too short to worry, so go and do the things you enjoy. For example, I recently found out that one of my favourite bands, ONE OK ROCK, are coming all the way from Japan to play three UK shows and one is in London. Now, this isn’t too far away and I could either make it there and back in one night or stay over in London, but the logistics were stressing me out. After realising that this wasn’t important and I’d figure it all out, I went ahead and booked those tickets. I normally stress about going on holiday too. No idea why. This time I’m...

I adore anime but boy does it deal with fanservice! For those not in the know, ‘fanservice’ is basically a fulfilment of a fan group’s expectations and desires. Like, showing a popular character naked or pairing up two popular characters in a suggestive situation/encounter. A big part of this seems to be the portrayal of women. Take the popular series ‘Black Butler’ (‘Kuroshitsuji’). This is set in Victorian England, a time and place so conservative about clothing that a flash of ankle was deemed scandalous. However, there are characters always getting into various states of undress in the anime. Series two has a fancy dress party and maid Mey-Rin and Lizzie’s chaperone, Paula, both wear very little and have unfeasibly big breasts. Even Alois Trancy’s maid, Hannah, gets naked for no apparent reason…where’s her under garments? To be fair, this doesn’t happen in the manga and the undercurrent of yaoi (boys love) remains between Sebastian/Ciel and the advances of Grelle (spelling fro...