Everyone makes mistakes

By Simon Wright (Personal Piece)

THE gun goes off twice to indicate a false start and shock sweeps through the world.  The commentators scream in disbelief, millions of television viewers around the globe are left stunned into silence and over 60,000 spectators in the Daegu stadium in South Korea can’t quite believe what they have just seen.  The unflappable, likeable, cool Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt has just false started by miles.  The men’s 100m, expected to be a case of how fast Bolt will run has just been blown wide open.  Under the new, tight IAAF regulations, Bolt is disqualified.  He rips his Jamaican shirt off his torso, probably thinking why did I do that?  This incident alone yesterday just shows the point that everyone makes mistakes.

     Some people in life will claim that they’ve done nothing wrong, have no regrets in life and think they are absolutely perfect.  Hello, wake up and smell the coffee!!  Everyone has made an error of judgement before, no matter how big or small it is.  It’s life, ‘Pobody’s Nerfect!’

    

Mistakes can vary in sizes and form.  Here is a list of several potential examples;

• Someone making a bad career choice.  For example, thinking you can be a top chef and wreck Jamie Olivier’s career, only to realise that you can’t even cook microwave pizza and would never succeed in running a top London restaurant.  Oops!
• A drunken one-night stand, which many have probably done over the years.  Yes, it probably feels great when you have consumed gallons of tasty alcohol, but the next morning, it is bound to be a massive regret.  Plus, if you are in a secure relationship, the consequences are likely to be far more severe.  What were you thinking!
• Deciding to install a popular computer programme to continue competing with the technological times.  Hours later, your laptop simply won’t load up and nothing is backed up either.  Oh why oh why did I do that, I’m an idiot!
• As a football manager, making a bold tactical gamble to win a game, which you end up losing.  Don’t rub your hair furiously like Arsene Wenger!  Be a man and own up to your mistakes via the press.  Real-life or on Football Manager.  Yes, I totally lost the plot there!
• Getting home from the supermarket, unpack your shopping and think, oh nuts, I forgot to buy the crucial ingredient for dinner tonight.  With no money left, that chicken curry isn’t going to taste right now.  Don’t bother with Come Dine with me then, unless you want to be embarrassed.
• Getting out of your car, and putting the wrong type of petrol in!  Ah damn it; I knew it should have been unleaded fuel, not stupid diesel!  Oh no, that Mercedes car is going to pay for my clumsiness. 

Okay, it’s time to open up my closet of some of the daft errors/mistakes I’ve made down the years.  Those who know me must think I’m just an accident waiting to happen.

• Live streaming on illegal websites.  I know it’s dodgy, but when you begin, you think; ‘Ah, no problem, life’s all good.’  Then, when you check your latest anti-virus scan (like I did in April this year) and locate 272 potential deadly viruses, you realise, I made things far too critical.  I’ve learnt my lesson from that, but unfortunately – my current laptop probably will never recover from its previous healthy state.
• Aged 11 on my first foreign holiday in Lanzarote.  It’s December 30 and I see a Virtual Striker football machine.  Time to see if I can play for Brazil haha!  I start walking towards the games room, without realising there are a pair of glass doors in the way.  Ouch! That hurt and it did!  I tried brandy to cure the pain moments later.  Well, it eased the pain but then, I threw up at breakfast the next morning.  One alcoholic drink I must stay away from in future.
• I got mediocre AS level results, and saw the opportunity to go on a BTEC National Diploma Media Production course at Milton Keynes College.  Rather than go for it, I dither about it and by the time I want to go there, all places on the year’s course has gone.  I had to stick it out for another year at Radcliffe Secondary School, in the sixth form!  Wasn’t my smartest move, but luckily, it all turned out good and if I had gone a year earlier, I won’t have met my amazing friends on my journalism course at the University of Northampton.  Remember to put your career choices first before friend preference everybody!
• Saying things in the heat of the moment, when you think; ‘I’m right and you’re wrong, shut the #### up, I’m talking sense!’  Moments later, you think; ‘Why did I say that?’ and are forced to make a grovelling apology to the friend/colleague you just insulted.  It has happened to me time and again and is probably the one mistake I constantly make.  Fortunately, after another unsavoury incident earlier this year, I have managed to control this issue far greater.

     Of course, when you make a mistake, you must learn from the error of your ways and not do it again.    Like I said, no-one is perfect, we’ve all slipped up and we just have to accept the mistakes we’ve made and learn from them.  If you do, we become better people.  As we’ve seen from Usain Bolt in the last 24 hours and my own collection, hold your hands up and come back stronger.  It makes you stronger people.

Bernard Matthews passes away

HIS empire began with a humble £2.50 investment and it turned into a multi-million empire, but on November 25, Bernard Matthews died at the age of 80.

DISTINGUISHED: Bernard Matthews has passed away

He passed away on Thursday afternoon, as America was celebrating ‘Thanksgiving.’  His passing was confirmed in a statement by the chief executive of Bernard Matthews Farms, Noel Bertrand;

“It is with a great deal of personal sadness that I confirm Bernard Matthews passed away on the afternoon of 25^th November.  I have personally known Bernard Matthews for well over 30 years, and on behalf of myself and my fellow colleagues, I wish to express our great sorrow and extend our sympathies to his family.”

Born in 1930, Matthews left school at 16 and began his investments as a twenty-year old.  By 1952, he has moved into poultry full-time and three years later, bought the Great Witchingham Hall in Norwich, which still remains the headquarters of Bernard Matthews today.  He has enjoyed a rise of fame and prominence through the 1970s and 1980s, but in recent times, his name has taken some damaging credibility. 

ADDICTIVE: The Turkey Twizzler took stick

When Sainsbury’s campaigner and Chef Jamie Oliver launched a campaign to improve the healthy eating habits of children in schools, it was Matthews’s controversial product, the ‘Turkey Twizzlers,’ that took the big hits.  He was criticised severely by animal rights movements, when all the ingredients of the dangerously addictive Twizzlers were revealed in the press.  Less than a year later, video footage on YouTube showed two of Mr. Matthews’s employees playing “baseball” with two live turkeys.  It was a disgusting act caught on film and the men involved admitted to animal cruelty at a magistrate’s court case in Norwich.

Desperate to restore faith in consumer, Bernard Matthews ran several advertising campaigns, telling customers that their employees were hard-working people.  In February 2007, a strain of the deadly bird flu hit one of the Matthews plants in Suffolk, which led to the slaughtering of 160,000 birds, who might have contracted the disease.

Although there has been a slump in sales in recent times, Bernard Matthews has left a very distinguished legacy in the food industry and his presence will be missed.  

Oliver Fury As Junk Food Looks Set To Return Into Schools

Reports suggest that schools look set to start serving junk food again as an alternative option, which have infuriated Chef Jamie Oliver.  The education minister for the new coalition government, Maurice Gibb has told some of his close allies that the limited amount of content in fat, salt and sugar will be eliminated.

Although there is still encouragement from many independent school bodies that they will follow the recommended nutritional levels, they won’t be obliged to stick to these levels by the ConDems government.  Many heads will probably stick to the healthy option, but Labour are furious at these plans, especially as they worked very hard with Oliver to dismiss the unhealthy primary school stereotype of junk food culture and hyperactive vending machine products. 

Some experts feel that this change in food culture could be down to the necessary cuts required to reduce the growing deficit levels, but others think that it is abuse of the healthy eating campaign.  Since the 2004 Feed Me Better Campaign, which was set-up by Oliver and backed by the Labour government, supermarket giant Sainsbury’s and the Daily Mirror, there have been significant rises in the amount of children passing English, Maths and Science exams over the last five years.  This unhealthy culture could therefore spearhead the return of the unhealthy Turkey Twizzlers – which was made by Bernard Matthews but was removed by the company in January 2005 after it was revealed that it contained just 34% of turkey levels, yet a dangerously high 21.2% amount of salt.

I am not the healthiest person around when it comes to food, I do like my fizzy drinks and snacks, but I think it is essential that the healthy option remains as a compulsory option, especially for younger children, who need to stay fit and healthy in their growing up years.  Let’s hope that Maurice Gibb has a change in heart.  

Twitter vs Facebook - The Facts & Milestones

The debate is bound to rage on: Which social networking giant is really the best?  Some will prefer to Tweet, others prefer Farmville; tastes will depend on whoever you associated yourself with.  However, with Twitter having recently celebrated its 20^th billionth tweet – just days after Facebook notched up its 500^th millionth member, here are some interesting facts about the two dominant leaders in social networking.

Facebook

Facebook was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg – whilst he was studying a Psychology course at Harvard University.  In 2006, Zuckerburg rejected a $1billion takeover offer from Yahoo.  One year later, he sold a 1.6% stake to Microsoft for £117million.  This year, figures suggest that Facebook is estimated to make $1billion.  Users post videos, pictures, status updates and pictures on their own personal profiles.  They connect with their friends via Facebook Chat and can have total control on who has access to personal information.  Facebook makes most of its money by targeting advertising to certain individual’s likes and dislikes.  Statistics suggest that Facebook users will spend around eight billion minutes on the site every day, and they send about a billion messages via Facebook chat.  It is almost impossible to tell whether famous people are using the site – fan pages are more likely to pop up.  Recently, a tribute page to the UK’s most wanted man, Raoul Moat was set-up.  ‘RIP Raoul Moat You Legend!’ attracted 30,000 fans and received serious condemnation from David Cameron.  It has since been removed.  A campaign to get the 1992 song ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage against the Machine was successful in December 2009 for the coveted prize of Christmas No.1.  It beat ‘The Climb,’ by UK X-Factor winner Joe McElderry, in a bid to put an end to Simon Cowell’s domination of the Xmas No.1.

MY VIEW OF FACEBOOK: I joined Facebook back in July 2007, after being sent a friend recommendation.  Honestly, I didn’t think it would catch on, I hadn’t even heard of it before then.  However, I spend a load of time on Facebook and despite receiving some criticism of late – some of it deserved, it will remain king of the social networking world in my view.

Twitter

Twitter was created in 2006 by work buddies Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey.  It started initially as a side project to a blogging website.  There is no source of revenue so far for Twitter, with many waiting to see how it will generate profit.  People write short updates called ‘Tweets,’ of 140 characters or less.  These are posted to your profile/blog and sent to all of your followers.  In 2007, about 5,000 tweets were sent a day, with that increasing to 300,000 messages per day in 2008.  Famous celebrities who regularly tweet for their millions of fans include Jamie Olivier, Alan Carr, Dannii Minogue, Amanda Holden, Tony Blair, Kaya Scodelario, Stephen Fry, Lily Allen and Barack Obama.

MY VIEW OF TWITTER: I joined Twitter last October, as it was an expected requirement of my first year Journalism course at The University of Northampton.  To be honest, I rarely use it, although I will pop on from time-to-time to see what my friends and celebrities I’m following, and post the occasional updates, normally about this website.  Twitter is not my favourite site, but is a nice back-up to have, should I require it and it is one hundred times better than my MySpace account, which I closed down this summer due to lack of activity.