BJK&E

It’s official – by next month mobile phone calls could be allowed on planes flying in European airspace. Under new European Commission rules mobiles could be used once a plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more.

The decision to offer the services will now fall to individual airlines, but there are some regulatory hurdles to overcome before the technology is fully approved. The European Aviation Safety Agency needs to approve the hardware that would be installed in the aircraft to ensure it didn’t interfere with other flight systems.

Air France is believed to be ready to deploy the technology while Ryanair is expected to submit an application. (Airlines to avoid, perhaps?)

I do think that allowing mobile-phone calls is a good thing, especially for people on important business. But we’ve all been stuck on a bus or train with a woman who just won’t (or seemingly can’t) stop gabbing away. Let’s hope they put in some decent restrictions so as not to annoy the majority of passengers!

You have been Rickrolled if you have come across a link expecting to find one thing, but actually ended up watching Rick Astley’s music video for his song “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

Rickrolling, apparently, began on 4chan’s imageboard the day of Grand Theft Auto 4’s official website premier. They received such heavy traffic, though, that it was impossible to watch the trailer for quite a while, so someone took it upon themselves to link everyone to a supposedly leaked trailer hosted on YouTube. What they got was Rick Astley.

And then came April Fools’ Day. There were lots of incidents of Rickrolling on April 1st. All the YouTube Featured Videos were hyperlinked to the Rickroll, and Livejournal also got involved by announcing that they would be adding a new member to their Advisory Board, and then linking members to the journal “rickastley”, which contained a Rickroll. Popular gaming sites also decided to Rickroll their users.

I haven’t yet been Rickrolled, but I wouldn’t mind if I was, because to be perfectly honest it is a song that makes me smile, and I’d probably listen to it all the way through too!

According to figures cited by Nielsen Online the social networking site, Facebook, had its first drop in UK users in January. It fell by 5% to 8.5 million from a previous 8.9 million. This has sparked a debate that social networking is in decline, but others argue that one month of falling audiences doesn’t mean the decline of Facebook nor of social networking.

The decrease may have reflected a lower level of fascination with the site but, with 8.5million unique users still active and a growth of 712% from January 2007, Facebook remains the most popular social networking website in the UK.

Myspace also recorded a 5% decrease in January and Bebo suffered a 2% decrease. This may show that the leading social networks are less popular in the UK than they were a year ago, but I would like to see the profile of the people who have left the sites before passing judgement. Nielsen Online measures website traffic based on a panel of UK users at home and work. It does not cover the usage in schools, universities and internet cafes, so the younger internet users are very much under-reported.

And just last week Hitwise cited that Facebook’s market share of UK Internet visits went back to its Christmas peak during the Easter week. Obviously the Easter holidays may have played a role, so we’ll just have to see how the figures change over the next few months, but I think Facebook is here to stay for a while yet!

As part of BJK&E’s new monthly culture events a group of us went to the Vue cinema in Leicester Square to a preview of the new Coen brother’s movie - No country For Old Men.
 
The film was scary and amusing in just the right amounts, never losing our attention. A masterly tale of the good, the deranged and the doomed, it was a definite throwback to the brilliant original Coen brother’s work such as Fargo and Miller’s Crossing. They loaded the film with realistic touches and achieved an action film with a serious philosophical undertone - a winning formula.
 
The end did leave a few questions and left you wanting more, but it wouldn’t be a Coen brother’s film if they didn’t end it like they did.
 
This was the first of many culture evenings I hope to enjoy in future, and I’m sure all who went would like to thank Milly, Fabio and Mark for organising it!

Most of the UK knows about all the racism issues brought up in last year’s Celebrity Big Brother. Amongst fears that people lost faith in the show and decreasing viewing figures the show’s producers decided to give the format a bit of a shake-up. This time, the celebrities act as ‘Big Brother’ by setting tasks, controlling shopping budgets and basically doing what they like. Another change is the contestants had to have at least one talent to be in the house – in other words these are people who wouldn’t have been allowed in the house in previous years. This was probably due to talentless schmucks being more malleable and you can make them do just about anything.

Thankfully, the show has not taken up any space on Channel 4, but has instead been pushed onto E4. This has resulted in the expected decrease in viewing figures. The performance of this show will probably determine the future of any other Big Brother shows. I, for one, hope it doesn’t succeed. I admit it - I used to watch Big Brother in the early years. It was interesting – a social experiment if you will. But all it seems to be about now is watching a group of people argue all the time and getting drunk so they come out of the house famous. Shove a whole family there at Xmas time and that could be interesting!

There are also rumours that the celebrities will be put in the house and voted off soon, but I won’t be watching to find out.

The easiest way I can describe this sport is “like Squash, but with your hands”.

I started playing Eton Fives at the tender age of 16, when I attended St. Olave’s school to study for my A-levels, and I couldn’t love the sport more.

Eton Fives is one derivative of the British game of Fives. It is played in doubles on a three-sided court. The object is to force the other team to fail to hit the ball ‘up’ off the front wall. The shape of the court used in Eton Fives is taken from the chapel of Eton College. There are 3 walls and a 2 levels to the court – top and bottom step - with a ‘buttress’ halfway up the left hand wall. There is also a ledge at about chest height around the top step which the ball must hit above.

The sport has some simple rules: the ball must hit above the ledge; you are only allowed to return the ball with the gloves you wear; the ball is only allowed one bounce; and you can only hit the ball once to hit it up. You can only score a point if you are serving. When a pair reaches 11 points, the server of the pair must stand with at least one foot on the bottom step when they serve. They are only allowed to move when the ‘cutter’ has hit the ball. There are, however, other rules that you only really understand once you have played the game a few times.

There are a huge number of championships and tournaments that take place at various times throughout the Fives season. I try to take part in any I can get involved in. There are a lot more male competitions than female though, as our numbers are low compared to boys. This is because the courts in existence in England are mainly found in boys Public Schools. However, the number of women playing is increasing each year.

There are not many courts in England, most of them at Public Schools, but the Westway sports centre in London’s White City also has Fives courts, possibly steering Eton fives away from a minor sport. Courts are also found in certain parts of Europe, India, and Australia.

Eton Fives is a highly enjoyable, fast-paced, physical game. I usually find my body aches in places I never thought it could ache the next day and I hope to carry on playing the sport for many years to come.

Please visit www.etonfives.co.uk for more information.