#oneaday Day 738: Diversifying

In a recent blog post, one Ben Goldacre described Spotify's auto-sharing behaviour as "creepy" and called for greater transparency in opt-out procedures. While I don't disagree that users should have the option of whether or not to share what it is that they're doing, I do disagree with the good Doctor's assertion that showing off your tastes to others is somehow "creepy" or "wrong".

The reason I don't find it either of those things is because of discovery. Spotify is built in such a manner that it's easy to check out an artist or album you're unfamiliar with in a risk-free environment. You don't drop any money on the album directly, so if you wind up hating it, you haven't lost out. And if you end up loving it, you can whack it in a playlist or star it for future reference.

Combine this ease of trying things outside of your usual comfort zone with social features and you get a powerful tool to expand your own tastes. Because music is an ever-present part of society these days — silence, it seems, is frowned upon by most people, particularly those of more tender years — conversations about what artists are awesome are less common than they once were in the age of buying CDs (and, heaven forbid, cassettes). Music is just there for many people — a disposable thing that people may well have a strong connection to but perhaps don't always think to actually discuss,

What Spotify's sharing feature does is allow you to see what friends have been listening to and, if it takes your fancy, jump right in there and have a listen yourself. I've discovered more than a few new favourites this way, and I'm certain other people will have been curious about some of my tastes too. I don't have any objection to people seeing what I've been listening to and I'm certainly not ashamed of it. The same is true for Netflix, newly launched in the UK and nicely integrated with Facebook to allow you to share what you're watching. On the whole, I'm much more inclined to pay attention to new releases if my friends are enjoying them rather than if they're simply "critically acclaimed". See: The Squadron of Shame

Goldacre suggests that people will make judgements based on what you have been listening to, and your playlists which, if you weren't already aware, are made public by default. And perhaps people will — but the attitude I have always taken with personal taste is that it is just that: personal. If you're the sort of person who ridicules someone else just because of what music they listen to, how they dress, or their appearance… I probably don't really want to know you. Everyone is free to make their own choices with regard to what entertains them (unless, you know, if you're into something fucked up and illegal) and so people should not feel ashamed or embarrassed to share what it is that they have been enjoying.

In fairness, it's entirely possible that there is the scope for cyber-bullying among schoolkids based on what they might have been listening to with Spotify, or the content of their playlists. But there's the scope for cyber-bullying based on their photos, their status updates, all the other stuff that's on Facebook, too. This isn't excusing it. However, it does mean that Spotify itself isn't some sort of creepy bully-magnet. As with all forms of social media and teens interacting with others on the Web, it's important for parents to be involved and aware of what their offspring are up to. If it looks like causing a problem, they should be familiar with the options that are there to protect people — and Spotify has those options if, for whatever reason, sharing things does become a problem. But someone's listening habits are public by default — and why shouldn't they be? There's nothing to be ashamed of there.

Perhaps I have a naïve view of social media and sharing information on the Web. But I just don't see how sharing your entertainment consumption is particularly harmful. Sharing deeply personal information, yes. But the fact that you listened to the Lazy Town soundtrack today? For me, that's the start of an interesting conversation, not something creepy.

#oneaday Day 736: To Sir and Miss, with If Not Love then At Least Fondness or Enduring Memories

Following a conversation with Andie, I thought I would challenge myself to name as many teachers from my own schooldays as I possibly could, along with the contribution they made to making me the person I am today, for better or worse. Mostly the better, I think, which doubtless they'll be delighted to know if they do happen to be reading this, as unlikely as that might be.

If you are one of my old teachers and you are reading this and I forget to mention you, I apologise in advance.

Anyway. Let's consider these in roughly chronological order.

At primary school, our early years were accompanied by Mrs Place. I have to admit I don't remember a great deal about her, but I think given my tender age at the time, that can probably be excused.

Class 2 in primary school was taken by Mrs Robson, whom I also can't remember a great deal about. I do remember her not being there one day though, and me being tricked into saying "shit" to Mrs Powell the cover teacher by Natalie Forster, the bitch.

Class 3 was taken by Mr Edwards, who had a bit of a mullet and a moustache. He liked to play the guitar at every opportunity, meaning that "Circle Time" (the point of which I'm still not sure of even having been a primary school teacher myself) more resembled a campfire singalong than anything more meaningful. It was fun though.

Class 4 was taken by Mrs Barrett, a formidable lady by all accounts who had some very old-school values. The rest of the school was terrified of her, because she had a withering look that could cause geese to fall dead out of the sky if she so desired it. Once you got into class 4, however, it became apparent that she wasn't so scary after all, and even had something of a sense of humour. Her insistence on strict discipline meant that she ran a tight ship, and her class achieved well. Crossing her made you feel like, as cliche as it sounds, you had let yourself down.

On to secondary school, and my form tutor was Miss Quirk. She was Scottish, had short black hair and said "poem" as "poyem". She taught Maths, but I don't think I ever had a lesson with her.

Elsewhere in the Maths department was Mr Wilbraham, who may or may not have had a drinking problem. He was certainly rumoured to have a drinking problem, but I can't say we ever saw any direct evidence of that. He was another of the Mrs Barrett breed — regarded with fear and misunderstanding from afar, but actually turned out to be very pleasant to work with once you were in his class. He didn't help me enjoy Maths, however.

The English department was my second favourite department. At various points, I was taught by Ms (not Miss) Derbyshire, who was a bit like Victoria Wood when she was being funny; Mr Bowie, who was the obligatory male teacher whom all the girls fancied, was very cool and convinced me to explore the music of Jeff Buckley; Miss Idziacszyk (I think I've even spelled that correctly), who was a good, knowledgeable teacher, particularly at A-level. On one memorable occasion, Mr Bowie came with us to a local recording of Songs of Praise which our steadfastly secular school had, for some reason, been invited to. On that occasion I had my shortest ever relationship with a girl — we went out for a week, during which time I saw her once, kissed her once before she decided she wanted to go back to the way things were before.

The Music department was my favourite department. Initially staffed by Mr Murrall and Mrs Choy-Winters, later by Mr Murrall and Miss Garrick (whom my erstwhile best friend Craig fancied the pants off) and even later by Mr Murrall, Miss Garrick and Mr Wrigley. All of the teachers in the department were laid-back, fun and a pleasure to be with both in lessons and outside. By far the highlights of my time at secondary school were the school concerts, during which staff and student were able to interact in a way that just wasn't possible in the normal classroom.

Up in the Upper School were the Geography and History departments. Here, two particular teachers stood out — Mr Mason (pictured above) on the Geography side, and Mr Watts on the History. Mr Mason had long hair and a porn star moustache, and always spoke in a calm, quiet voice. Instead of shouting when he got angry, he went quieter. It was terrifying.

Mr Watts, meanwhilem was the exact opposite. He could shout your face off, and frequently did. Despite his deservedly formidable reputation, he was an excellent teacher. Okay, I can't remember a lot of what we covered in History, but I certainly remember the lessons I had with him — and the occasions he looked out of the window, saw a year 7 kid and just tutted and shook his head.

Mrs Lloyd taught Integrated Humanities and Sociology. She knew a lot about her subject and was also one of those teachers whom it was very easy to talk to. Perhaps it was the nature of the subject itself, which often dealt with issues that affected us directly, or perhaps it was just her nature. Either way, I remember her very fondly.

Then there's the senior staff. I have fond memories of Mr Cragg the erstwhile head teacher for understanding fully why I turned around and lamped Murray Crofts in the face after the little cunt had been harassing me all day. And Mrs Knight, who was a motherly figure to much of the school in many ways — right down to inflicting embarrassing discipline on those who stepped out of line. (One of the worst punishments, particularly for younger kids, was to be forced to have lunch with her, or to to be on "Five minute report" to her.)

There are doubtless plenty of others I've missed — Miss Cuthbert, who was one of heads of Sixth Form, and regularly tried unsuccessfully to get us all being a bit more religious; Miss Stafford the art teacher, whom I didn't spend a lot of time with (as is probably apparent from the pictures which accompany these posts); Mrs Graham the formidable and terrifying Home Ec teacher.

I know one thing, though — as difficult as schooldays were at times, I'll remember the adults who got me through it for the rest of my life, even more so than those whom I considered close friends at the time, but have since drifted far away to pastures unknown.

I now know first-hand how hard your jobs were, Sirs and Misses. I respect you even more than I did back then. Those of you who have the courage to remain in education with the kids of today, I salute you.

#oneaday Day 735: Enough with the Period Jokes

I've been using our new toy, the iPad 2, for a little while now, and I have to say it is a most wonderful device of much majesty. Like many others, when the original model iPad was first announced, I was skeptical as to whether such a device could be useful when we already had smartphones. No one seemed quite sure who needed a tablet device, and it didn't look like Apple did either.

That's because, as it turns out, pretty much anyone can get something out of a tablet device. My experience with this particular breed of tech is, at this time, limited to Apple's entry to the market along with my Kindle (not exactly the same breed of device, but does what it does very well and is making me read more — always a good thing) but I can imagine there are similar benefits to Android tablets, albeit without the robust infrastructure that is the App Store.

Let's consider what I have used this device for today. I have browsed the Internet on it. I have looked at Twitter on it. I have shared images using it. I have played games on it — both five-minute diversions and deep RPG experiences. And right now I am writing a blog post on it, the cack-handed image you see at the top of which was also created on the iPad.

In short, I'm rather in love with it. In fact, the only thing I can't completely do with it is my job, since the sites I currently write for use self-hosted WordPress that isn't set up to work with the iOS app, and this means I can't upload images via the Web interface. A bit of a pain, sure, but at least I can write the posts on the go and put the images in later should I need to.

I've been impressed with what an all round entertainment device it is, particularly now we finally have Netflix in the UK. Should I find myself wanting to watch Twin Peaks while on the toilet, I can. We really are living in the future.

I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon, but the fact that since I've come home from Americai haven't played a single PC or console game as yet is somewhat telling, and the videos I've watched on the big TV were simply to have them on the big screen — if I wanted a more personal experience, it'd be no big deal to transfer them to the iPad, particularly now you can do it over Wi-Fi.

A sound purchase, then, and not a hint of buyer's remorse. I may be done with Apple as an employer, but it's hard to deny that they make damn good products through that gradual process of refinement they go through over the years. I'm intrigued to see what the third iPad may have to offer, should the rumours of its release in March of this year turn out to have any validity whatsoever.

#oneaday Day 731: Airport 2012

I'm sitting on a surprisingly comfortable chair at the Firewood Grill in San Francsico International Airport. I've just finished a bag of barbecue-flavoured Kettle Chips and am about to start on the last cup of Peet's latte of the trip.

Across the table from me is Andie, who is furtively glancing at her phone and flicking the screen in such a manner as to indicate she's either refreshing her Twitter app, or playing Bejeweled Blitz.

"You know that option that says 'watch a video'?" she asks, referring to the hoops you have to jump through in order to access the "free" Wi-Fi here at SFO. So that's what she was doing. "You can't watch it on the iPhone, so all you have to do is wait fifteen seconds."

I laugh. It's a bit of a marketing failure to make the sponsored video for such a service to be incompatible with a device as common as an iPhone. HTML5 is growing at such a pace now, and iPhones are becoming so ubiquitous as the de facto smartphone that it's surprising more people haven't cottoned on to this fact yet.

To my left sits a pair of gentlemen. One of them is fondling a Blackberry — poor bastard — while the other is discussing something to do with the rival smartphone platforms out there. I can't really make out the gist of his argument as he's facing the other direction to me, but he certainly has a pretty deep, booming voice which would be good for public speaking.

Andie pulls our new iPad 2 out of the bag and rests it gingerly on the table. She doesn't get on well with the Smart Cover we picked up with it, but has managed to make it rest comfortably on the table without collapsing for once. She's fired up Plants vs Zombies, a game which she has already played to death on both iPhone and PC, but had little hesitation in grabbing the HD version for iPad.

"Don't we look social?" she says with a grin before turning back to the screen. She's playing by tapping gingerly with her middle finger, the same way my mother does. In my experience, using an iPad this way indicates a user who doesn't want to smear greasy fingerprints all over the screen. It's a losing battle, however, for as you'll know if you've ever seen a well-worn iPad, it is impossible to keep those delightful greasy smears off that lovely big screen. The nature of the beast with a touch-based device, of course.

I take a sip of my latte. It's still slightly too hot to drink, but it tastes good. The milk is nice and creamy and the milk isn't too bitter.

"If you want any of this, just help yourself," says Andie, indicating the bottle of Sprite we ordered before sitting down. "I know you've got your coffee, but if you want something cold…"

She turns back to Plants vs Zombies. It is serious business, as anyone who has ever found themselves in the clutches of that game will attest. Personally, I never got into it but I know plenty of people who lost a good few hours of their life to it.

"Oh noez!" Andie cries, holding up the iPad for me to see. For a moment it looks like it's frozen, but after a moment the fateful message "THE ZOMBIES ATE YOUR BRAINS!" comes up on the screen. It doesn't take long for her to restart the level and try again.

Suddenly my phone goes bananas. A push notification from Twitter referring to a mention I've already read; another from Hero Academy telling me it's my turn with a bunch of people; three text messages from my good friend Chris whom I had the pleasure of seeing this week for the first time in about a year.

"If you want to move, just give me a shout," says Andie. I'm not sure she's aware that I'm blogging our every move right now.

"Okay," I reply. I glance at the clock in the top bar of my iPhone's display — 15:15. The gate for our flight will be opening soon. I have 15 minutes in which to gulp down this coffee which is — yes — still slightly too hot too drink. But that's okay.

I smile, thinking back over the past week. It's been a good one. I got to be a part of my brother's surprise 40th birthday celebrations, which he claims really we're a surprise. I got to hang out with my buddy Chris. I got to visit the city of San Francisco, ride the cable cars and be a bit of a tourist. I got to spend a day working with actual people rather than isolated in my home office. I got to show Andie a part of the world I really love for a wide variety of reasons.

Now, though, it's time to go home. I hit "Publish" on this blog post, gulp down my coffee, and we head for our gate just across the way.

See you back in the UK!

#oneaday Day 730: Foreigner

We fly home from the US of A tomorrrow. It's been a good trip but over far too quickly for my liking. Still, it will be nice to sleep in our own bed again, as the sofa bed we've been kipping on all week isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, to say the least. That and the idiosyncratic heating in the room we're in having two settings: "hot as the sun" and "freeze your balls off".

As much as I like America, though, it will be nice to get back to "normality", I guess. Haven't quite adjusted to the time change while we've been here, so going back home is going to be interesting. Either I'll be able to sleep normally, or I'll have to endure the mild annoyance of a completely screwed up body clock again. We'll have to wait and see.

Mostly, though, it will be nice to feel like I'm in my "home" country again. America is superficially similar to the UK in many ways (only a bit bigger) but every so often you're reminded that you are a foreigner in a strange land.

Try to find prepacked sandwiches in a supermarket, for example. Or decipher a menu at a Mexican restaurant. Or remember what the different types of eggs you can order at breakfast are (hint: it's not "boiled, fried, poached and scrambled". Or have a discussion about a kid's grade point average. Or… Well, I could go on. But I won't.

It's actually pretty interesting to see quite how different two cultures which speak the same language can end up. You say "tomato", I say "why are you shouting out names of fruit?", that sort of thing.

I'm sure you get used to it after a while living here. Perhaps one day I'll have the opportunity to get used to it for myself.

Dream on, eh?

#oneaday Day 729: Stop SOPA, Read Books

So apparently a bunch of the Internet has blacked itself out in protest against the insanity that is SOPA. It's a move that I fully support and endorse, as SOPA is a piece of crap that, while (arguably) well-intentioned, is completely impractical with the digital world we take for granted today.

That's all I'm going to say on the politics of the matter for the moment, since there are plenty of other commentators out there who can doubtless discuss it in much greater detail than me. As a Brit, too, I'm not someone who will be directly affected by the law, but as we all know by now, the proposed measures will have a knock-on effect that could throw the whole online world out of balance.

What I wanted to talk about was how Wikipedia's blackout has affected the stupid people of the world. Not sure what I'm talking about? Give @herpderpedia a follow on Twitter and you'll quickly see what the problem is.

Wikipedia is an excellent and useful resource, of that there can be no doubt. But the level to which people have come to rely on it is perhaps a little worrying. To some people, it's almost as if Wikipedia is the only source of information. (People who think this are probably the same people who believe that Facebook is "the Internet")

There are, however, many more sources of information in the world than Wikipedia. Many more sources of information in the world than the Internet, for that matter. (Engage Old Fart mode) When I was at school, we had no Internet. Imagine that, you teenage morons! No Internet! If I got a bit of homework to "research" something, then I had to pick up an actual book and look through it. I had to know my alphabet well enough to look stuff up, and I had to know how to spell the thing I was looking up. Dark times? Not really, it was the norm; we accepted it. When the Internet came along, it was a source of information in addition to the knowledge we had in books, not a replacement. When I presented that homework to the class, it was written in my own words, showing my understanding. It wasn't a printout from Wikipedia.

And yes, when I worked as a teacher, on more than one occasion (more than ten, in fact) I received homework from students who thought that I wouldn't recognise a printout from Wikipedia. It showed absolutely no understanding on their part besides the most basic of net-savviest — an important skill in today's society, for sure, but not what I was looking for with the assignments in question.

Technology breaks. Open forms of media are unreliable. Every so often someone will come along and want to censor things. I'm not saying books are immune to these issues, but at least you can still read them when the power goes off.

SOPA sucks. Fortunately, it looks like it might not get through — though we're still a long way off victory at this time. Instead of bitching about not being able to cheat at your homework, try opening one of those dusty old books on your shelf and looking up the thing you want to know more about.

Magic, isn't it? Knowledge without electricity. Who would have thought it?

#oneaday Day 728: Lag

I've had a somewhat inconsistent experience with jetlag on this particular trip. The other night when I was playing Ascension until 1AM, I was absolutely fine. Yet tonight, it's 9.30PM and I'm knackered. Doubtless I will sleep shortly and awaken at approximately 4AM, when it will be freezing cold. At least it will give me some time to get some work done ahead of visiting the fine Mr Whittington tomorrow.

Part of this evening's tiredness can probably be attributed to a fairly busy day, however. We took a trip into San Francisco, rode the cable cars and walked a whole lot. I discovered what the hell "taffy" is (chewy, and available in a huge variety of flavours) and enjoyed some calamari and fries by the Bay.

As with so many trips away, time is passing far too quickly. There's only so much you can do in a week — particularly if you have a bit of work to do along the way — and it's easy to get to the end wishing you'd done more. Ideally we'd have had the chance to stay over here a bit longer, but that's not really practical at the moment, sadly.

On that note, I feel I'm going to have to bid you all farewell as I can barely keep my eyes open. Time to sleep early, and wake up at stupid o'clock in the morning; an inversion of my usual habits back home!

#oneaday Day 726: Coming Clean

Okay, I lied. Last night I didn't pull an allnighter playing Ascension. I played Ascension until 1AM with my good buddy Chris Whittington, and then wrote last night's blog post. The reason it appeared to post at something like 6AM UK time is because I am actually in California right now, but was unable to say so.

Why? Because today was my brother's surprise 40th birthday party, which managed to remain a secret for months, even right up to today. Good job, everyone. And happy birthday, John!

Now he knows I, the rest of my family and Andie are all here, though, I can comfortably and confidently say that yes, I am indeed in California enjoying weather that is quite a bit better than what I understand is rather chilly back home.

I like America a lot. Well, the parts of it I've been to, anyway. I'm aware it's a rather big place with plenty of grotty bits as well as pleasant places. But certainly I've never had a time when I felt like "oh no, not America AGAIN."

California in particular is a beautiful part of the world, featuring everything from woods to beaches to mist-capped mountains. I would very happily live here given the opportunity (namely, an offer of employment that would sort out my work visa for me) and probably wouldn't return to the UK in a hurry if that happened. Yes, it'd be hard leaving friends and parts of my life behind in the UK, but I feel the good things that would come from living in the States would outweigh those negative things. Besides, the Internet makes staying in touch with people easier than ever, and given enough money, you can always hop on a flight across the pond to visit people.

This is all a moot point, of course, because no-one has, as yet, offered me permanent employment in the United States and offered to sort out a work visa for me. So far as I can make out, this is a complicated procedure designed to make it as difficult as possible for people to emigrate to the United States, dependent on a cyclic series of requirements that all seem to contradict each other, or at least cancel each other out. For example, the last time I looked into a potential international move, it seemed that I wouldn't be able to get a visa without a job offer, but I wouldn't be able to get a job offer without a visa.

Obviously there are ways around this, otherwise there would be no (legal) immigrants in the U.S. But the whole process seems like a huge challenge, and like something of an impossible dream right now.

Ah well. I shall just have to enjoy the trips across the pond when they do happen. I've certainly enjoyed this one so far.

#oneaday Day 724: Schoolyard Tales: Group Work

Mr Benson was a strong believer in cooperation and collaboration, particularly where his students were concerned. Every opportunity he had, he encouraged them to work together on projects and get to know each other a little better. At times this led to conflicts, especially in the more "lively" classes, as he termed them, but on the whole he felt it was a positive teaching strategy, and one which had seen him comfortably through several school inspections with a "Good" rating.

It was a new term, a new chance for the kids to group up and work together. 9F weren't the most cooperative class in the world, but most of them had seemed to accept the fact that English might be a relatively important subject, at least as far as qualifications were concerned.

He surveyed the classroom, the pupils gradually moving into their friendship groups to work on the first assignment he'd given them: to prepare a short interview-style presentation on a book they'd read recently. He always kept the first assignment of a new term relatively freeform and allowed the students to pick who they worked with. As time went on, he deliberately mixed them up and made them work with people they might not normally think to collaborate with. Sometimes this had disastrous consequences, but more often than not he found it had a positive impact on the interpersonal relationships in the classroom.

There was a wild card this time, though. He glanced at the new girl sitting in the corner and frowned at his register. Erin Adams, her name was, scruffily added in pen underneath the cleanly-printed class list he was already familiar with. He'd taught 9F when they were still 8F, and even the "tough" kids in the class gave him some grudging respect. This Adams girl, though, she was an unknown quantity — and judging by her reticence, she felt the same way about her peers.

"Erin," said Benson. "Having trouble finding a group?"

"Y-yes," she said meekly. "I'm new."

"Yes, I know," he said, smiling. "How about you go and work with Berri and Danielle?" He indicated a pair of smiling girls sitting in the corner, knowing full well that they were probably the friendliest of the whole bunch. "Berri? Danielle? You all right with that?"

The two girls nodded and beamed at him. Mr Benson was their favourite. They secretly both harboured a crush on him, but neither would dare admit it to the other, and certainly not to him.

Erin wandered over to the pair of girls and stood looking at them shyly, waiting for one of them to speak.

"Hey," said the blonde girl. "I'm Berri. You knew that already, probably. But I think this is the first time we've spoken."

"And I'm Danielle," said the girl with auburn hair. "You might have known that already, too. You're Erin, right?"

"Yes," said Erin. "I'm, err, new."

Berri giggled.

"Well, no shit. C'mon, this class may act tough but they're easy enough to ignore. Let's get started."

Benson sat down at his desk and began to mark books as the murmuring of conversation began to take hold of the class. Over the course of ten minutes, the murmuring had crescendoed to chattering, and the volume was gradually increasing bit by bit. He knew perfectly well that a goodly proportion of the group weren't listening, so he pulled out his favourite trick.

"All right!" he bellowed, slamming a hardback dictionary down on the desk as hard as he could. His Internet-connected computer in the corner of the room had made physical dictionaries almost obsolete, but he kept the bulky volume around specifically to bang on the desk when he needed to restore order. "And stop."

The chattering gradually subsided, a few disgruntled-looking boys in the corner continuing to whisper for a few seconds longer than anyone else. Benson frowned at them, but said nothing, and they too fell silent.

"I want to just check you're all getting on all right," he said. "And to do that, you're going to tell me what your group is going to talk about."

Benson methodically questioned each group in the room on what they were covering. He weeded out those who were slacking and made a mental note to have a quiet word with them once discussion started once more, and publicly praised those who had taken on ambitious books.

When he came round to Erin, Danielle and Berri's group, he actually applauded when Erin claimed to have read Pride and Prejudice.

"I watched the TV series," admitted Erin. "And I thought it might be fun to read it. You know how people always say that books are always better than films, right? I wanted to see if it was true with a TV series."

"Loser," muttered a boy in the corner. Darren Jackson, Benson's least favourite student. He tried very hard not to have favourites — and, for that matter, least favourites — but when a child was as obnoxious as Darren was, it was difficult not to dislike him. Benson knew there were extenuating circumstances — a broken home life, some possibly-spurious medical condition, a brother in prison — but he didn't felt that excused poor behaviour.

"Darren," said Benson coolly. "What you have done there is made a choice. You have made a choice to be rude and unpleasant to someone we should be making feel welcome. You can wait behind after class, if you please."

Darren tutted, but didn't argue further. He'd learned long ago that Benson was impossible to argue against. Benson only raised his voice when he was banging his dictionary on the table, and even then only to get the students' attention. He certainly never did it in anger.

Erin looked around at everyone who was staring at her after what she had said, and Darren's outburst. She blushed and sat down again.

"Wow," said Berri. "You're smart. Don't mind Darren, he's a dick."

"Yeah," said Danielle. "Stick with us and you'll be fine."

"All right," said Erin absently, but she wasn't really listening. Her hands were shaking and she felt more nervous than she had ever been in her life. She'd spoken up, and someone had ridiculed her. It was going to take a while to recover from this one.

#oneaday Day 723: The Escapist

Escapism is cool, and an important and valid method of keeping yourself sane.

There are, of course, many means of escapism, and different ones are more or less effective for different people.

There's the escapism of a child giving life to the inanimate lumps of plastic they own. Without a child, they're just potential, models, things to be looked at, without life. Add a child (or, more specifically, someone still in possession of their childish imagination) and something magical happens — those objects come alive, engaging in battles to save the galaxy; heroic adventures; or even just a normal day in a normal street.

Then there's the escapism of a good book. Good readers also have one of the most important qualities of a good creative writer: that active imagination again. But it's partly also down to the writer to create a convincing world, compelling characters and a reason for the reader to commit part of their life to staring at tiny print on paper, e-ink or an LCD display. You know a writer's done their job properly if you can hear the characters' voices, see the places they're in, picture the things they're doing. And as a reader, your interpretation and mental imagery might not be the same as the writer (or indeed the person who designed the book's cover) — but that doesn't make it any less valid.

There's the escapism of interactive entertainment. Instead of passively observing an unfolding story, you become a part of it. It doesn't have to be an explicit narrative as such — a long game of Civilization tells a story just as much as a chapter of Heavy Rain. The meaning the player chooses to assign to the experience is what makes interactive entertainment special.

There's the escapism of film. Increasingly designed as memorable spectacles these days, a good movie plunges its audience into darkness before casting them into a whole new world. It could be a world of giant robots; of CIA agents; of lads on a pulling holiday. For those couple of hours, though, the outside world ceases to matter.

There's the escapism of a good TV show. When you find a show that resonates with you, you want to stick with those characters, to find out what makes them tick, what they want, what they find challenging. You cheer for their successes, feel bad when they encounter adversity. And given the amount of time you spend with the cast of a TV show over an average run of a moderately successful show these days, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the cast might feel like "friends" by the time you're through.

And there's the escapism of music. Music is a powerful imaginative stimulus, but again it means different things to different people. For one person it might stir up dormant memories. For another it might encourage them to close their eyes and picture themselves in a whole new situation. For yet another it might have an emotional impact that reflects the things that are weighing on their mind at that moment in time. And for others still it might inspire them to push forward, to do their best, to power on through and do that extra set at the gym, or put in that extra bit of effort at homework.

All this isn't even getting into what it means to be a creator as opposed to a consumer of all the above media, either.

The fact is, the world can be, at times, a bit of a sucky place. Having something comforting to escape into, whatever form that escapism might take, is important. No-one likes to feel trapped, so even if it's only for a short while, escape into something awesome and return to the real world refreshed, invigorated and ready to tackle any challenges it might want to throw at you.

And if you don't have anything like that? Then you need to have more fun.