Jonny Nexus

Category: Life

  • The Tragic Story of Oxfordia

    Let’s talk about a small, remote, poor, and undeveloped country called Oxfordia that recently held an election. Oxfordia has a simple “first-past-the-post” election system; the country is divided into two halves, each of which returns a member of parliament. The results of the election were as follows: East Oxfordia Labourious Party: 21,938 votes (42.5%) The…

  • LibDems And The Mad FPTP Dance

    Some of you might be wondering just how it’s possible for the Liberal Democrats to increase their share of the vote, albeit by only 1% or so, but to then have lost several seats. The point you have to bear in mind is that because of the way they get squeezed, bashed and generally thrown…

  • Brighton Festival Events One to Four

    A few years back we went to Edinburgh for the festival. I remember being really jealous of people who lived in the city; I resolved that should I ever live there I’d become a festival fanatic each August, immersing myself in it and seeing as many events as I could. We didn’t move to Edinburgh; at…

  • On Why The Lib Dems Just Might Be Different

    It’s no secret that the Lib Dems are doing better right now than they have since the early 80s heyday of the SDP, nor that the Tories and their friends in the press have gone into serious and sustained brick production as a result – something neatly demonstrated by the picture to the right of…

  • First Past The Post: A Good Idea?

    The BBC have put up an election calculator, where you can plug in various hypothetical national votes shares for the parties and then see what the election result would be, assuming consistent swings. You can find it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm I had a play around, and managed to come up with an interesting scenario. Imagine you had the…

  • Three Minute Chocolate Cake

    How cool would it be if you had some mates around (possibly after the consumption of some alcohol), and you asked them if they fancied some pudding, and less than ten minutes later you returned with some delicious chocolate sponge pudding cooked there and then from scratch? It would be cool right? Well it’s possible,…

  • What Does It Actually Mean To Be British?

    Canadian author, journalist, blogger, Internet freedom fighter and general all-round good guy Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) is apparently having a bit of a rough time at the moment. As he reports via Twitter: Hired a temp flat through #Foxtons; loo ceiling is leaking and water is ELECTRIFIED. Foxtons claims this isn’t their problem [link] As you…

  • There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World…

    That there are two kinds of people in this world is a truth universally acknowledged; what exactly it is that divides the world is where the disagreements arise. Extroverts and Introverts? Optimists and Pessimists? (Or as famed fictional pessimist Sir Humphrey Appleby would have it, Idealists and Realists?) Left-wing or right-wing? Liberal or Conservative? North…

  • Ian Sturrock’s Game Night Drabble Competition

    A few weeks ago, I made the latest stop on the Game Night on the Web blog tour, at Ian Sturrock’s Live Journal. Ian’s a roleplaying writer of some repute, with the works on his CV including the Conan RPG from Mongoose Publishing, so I was very pleased to stop there. Ian did first an…

  • Thoughts On Recently Read Books

    In no particular order, and in no way a complete list, here are some thoughts on some books I’ve read recently. These aren’t quite reviews, and I’m not therefore going to be scoring them. * * * * * Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes Like David Devereux’s Hunter’s Moon, which I’m…