I cannot help being addicted to this. Frankly, Sophie Ellis-Bextor's pronunciation of the word "Dancer" has me hooked forever.

For the first time in my life, I decided to listen in to BBC Switch's The Surgery on Radio 1 last night. Well, when I say last night what I actually mean is this morning. On iPlayer. But that's nothing less.

I am listening to the show because for a start, I wanted to hear how Aled was when he was presenting - and to be honest, he's incredibly good at it. Being a caring and listening kinda guy, I guess, it comes naturally. And he loves radio too - and understands it well from a producer's point of view.

He always said that he wouldn't want to become a presenter over producer - and being able to do this as well as the Chris Moyles show makes that possible, I guess. He's getting to do what he wants. But does that mean he is a success?

The first half of the show was dedicated to talking about judging success. And I'll move onto that a bit later. But as I quite like breaking tradition when I tell stories here on my blog I prefer to alter them for my own amusement, and to create them for you in an order which suits how I wish to exploit them for humour.

The second half of the show was dedicated to politics: questions like the voting age, and is politics boring?

Obviously, being aimed at the lower ages - the answer to these questions is of course "it's too high, and politics is boring."

And that perhaps demonstrates why young people don't get the vote - mainly because, they wouldn't use it because they either didn't have time to understand it or they couldn't be arsed to put an x in a box on the important day. Because they'd rather spend their life on Bebo talking to the Surgery.

If we're honest there is a general hatred of politics in this country - most people will talk about things being too "party political" or them "all being as bad as each other" and I think the expenses sandal recently has revealed that. But if I'm honest about the whole situation, I think that with the system how it was - it was bound to be exploited how it was. I don't think it's time for a whole new batch of MPs to come in and change everything down to the light bulbs.

It is true that there needs to be some perceived change in how the parliament in this country conducts itself, etc... But that's not what I want to talk about really.

The point I wanted to talk about was the perception of young people that politics is boring. Because I strongly believe that this comes from a lack of understanding of what politics actually is, and the comprehension by many young people that to be interested in politics means you sit at home watching the news in your 3 inch thick glasses and you snort a lot when you laugh. Normally, at things everyone else doesn't understand because they're too intellectually challenging.

(And having just spelt intellectually wrong twice in a row, I almost feel as if I'm proving a point here)

Politics is in everyone's day to day life. At Costa, we have politics - we have 'party' politics even. We have people who'll go behind people's backs and get the message out that they're doing x or doing y. We have people who'll lie to get what they want. And force everyone else to do it their own way. You get groups of people with one viewpoint and groups with another viewpoint.

Politics is organised ideas. Or arguments. Or something like that. There is no single reason on this earth that young people shouldn't be interested in the drinking age, whether smoking should be banned, what the speed limit should be. But equally, to have opinions on these facts - you do have to have an opinion on things like the euro - or interest rates - or how to cope with the credit crisis that the country was facing. And you cannot help but have an opinion.

Everyone, in truth, has an opinion on everything. Because they do. And if they say they don't - they're lying or just not realising what their opinion is.

To try and expect to be able to criticise the government and the people who run it you have to be able to say that you think you could do a better job!

Especially as a young person, saying politics is boring is a very popular thing to do. But if you say politics is boring, take no interest in it, and then find you're banned from leaving your house because the oldies elected a party whose main election promise was to ban young people from the streets then you'd be quite pissed off and wish you had paid attention.

I suppose what I'm trying to say in a really confused way is that young people today are a load of rubbish and they need to be removed. Or at very best they need to be taught how the world actually works.

And the very things that encourage this kind of behaviour from young people is the programmes like The Surgery when they talk about politics as if it's some kind of foreign procedure that adults take part in. Asking people if they understand it.

Organising an event involves politics. A load of people get together and suggest ideas, eventually a decision is made and that idea becomes reality. That's politics?

No-one claims that is boring.

So why is deciding the future of the country boring? It's one of the most exciting things I could think of spending my days doing. And it certainly links in with the success topic - if you can say that your actions made a difference to other people's lives in a way which you judge to be positive. Even if you're not thanked or even if no-one knows that you helped because you played such a small part as putting an x in a box, then you've been a success. You haven't wasted your life. You have made a difference.

Surely having contributed to the human experience in at least an equal quantity to what you have taken from it, is success?

Who knows. Listen to the show here.

So last night Twitter went mad as everyone went "omg it's really the stig". With a few sceptics saying "not really," is the masked character really Michael Schumacher? Doubtful to be honest isn't it?

Really? I don't believe you.

If you think about the actual facts that we know about the character, it's very unlikely that the stig is one person - even if, perhaps, one person is a "primary" stig (Ben Collins anyone?) there have to be multiple drivers simply because many of the car companies won't allow just anyone to drive their car.

In the case of last night, Ferrari happen to lend the FSX to them, and their 'house' driver comes with it and gets dressed as the stig. Makes sense, no?

Not that I really care to be honest. I just needed a topic for my blog today!

Nic x

Today I am going to talk about WebWorks. Partially because I've got a page full of results from the survey we did when I taught the course at a school in front of me, and partially because this blog might well help me align my thoughts into some sort of order which could see me saying something that actually makes sense, at some point.

So for those of you who are reading this going "What the hell is WebWorks?" - I'll tell you, my dear.

WebWorks is a course I've written along with Nathan Littleton and which we've developed over a period of almost six years now. This year, we took it commercial - and to more than just the school myself and Nathan attended and who commissioned the course all that time ago!

Having taught it at the various schools, we are now moving on to other projects - but it's always good to look back in time, and consider what you could have done better. And as well as that, looking forwards all the time strains my eyes.

To be honest, we try and create an atmosphere in the first lesson where we show them this isn't all serious and stuff.

So obviously, we start of by giving each of the students a piece of toilet paper and asking them to tell us a fact about themselves and then throw it away. Into a bin, neatly. Because the proper teacher is looking and tutting because I promised her I'd keep the room tidy.

Ideally, this method of starting off in lesson one should give us a group which like each other. And who are not afraid to talk to each other. As you can imagine, a lot of the people who we might like to sign up to this course are going to be the future web designers and system administrators of the world.

That means, quite simply that these people go home and sit in their room and type to other geeks about about geeky things like web design.

Much like I'm doing now.

Ideally, we want to change that person for an hour a week and make sure that they're all happy and stuff - enjoying being with the people they're with, and wanting to come back next time. Because these courses aren't compulsory and in some cases the kids are even paying to be there!

A lot of what we're doing with this is box ticking. So many of mine and Nathan's conversations have started or ended with the words "What do teachers like though?"

And the answer more often than not is that they want the course to somehow help out the students with their GCSE in Social Technological Effects on Resistant Materials and Psychology as well as giving them a step up in their BTEC in Golf.

And having never actually studied either of these topics, Nathan and I are of course in a really poor position to try and work out how we achieve that with our course. But luckily, 100% of the people who I taught decided that the course helped them out in other lessons.

Here's a graph to demonstrate that in a more understandable format.

100%

Quite how, as yet, has not been discovered. And Nathan & I are, we won't deny, quite chuffed that we've achieved it. If only we could work out what one of the many millions of things we 'had a go at' for this cause had actually worked.

I'd go as far as saying that the biscuit break probably helped more than anything.

Quite rewardingly, though, we converted 66.6% of people who had an interest in web design before they signed up to WebWorks into 100% of people who said they'd follow up this course with trying to continue to learn about web design.

For those of you still struggling with the 100%, here's another graph.

100%

Strangely, 16.7% of people wanted to learn more about web design, but said that they wouldn't be carrying on with their studies in the area.

Those two statistics are fantastic from my point of view, and from Nathan's. But I have to wonder why these people who weren't interested in web design actually signed up to the course in the first place?

I am not interested at all in learning about how to castrate wild boars and because of this lack of interest, I most certainly wouldn't sign up to a course called Chop The Sack if I were offered it. Even if it were free. Their reasoning is obviously something that we cannot consider.

Even more absurd is that having spent near enough to 10% of the course doing some lovely evaluation of the work, and looking at the course as a whole (and doing the survey that I am talking about) someone put one of their biggest desires down as 'evaluation'. Clearly we have amongst us someone who values giving time to looking back at what they've done far higher than I.

They'll probably have a sore neck at some point in their life.

Even more strangely, someone else wanted to spend a load of time on linking the pages. Rather difficult when you contemplate that there are only four pages to link to - and we even allow them to put the 4 links on each page separately. That is someone who likes linking.

I'd go as far as to say they were hyper-linking. Ahaha. Ahem.

I think the biggest point to bring from these results is that we can't really take much of what the course students themselves say to heart. But, of course, we have to. So we have to pick and chose which facts we pick.

And then as I've just realised over the past two hours as I've tried to write this post; do not try and take a set of statistics that are in front of you and type them out as a vaguely amusing blog. Because they're hard work to make interesting, let alone vaguely amusing.

I even had to result to boar testicles to get some humour into this thing, and at one point I almost strayed into bondage before deciding that hyper links weren't particularly sexual.

What I will leave you with though is a question that I feel is on the lips of every man woman and indeed castrated wild boar out there.

Is a web page male or female?

Nic x

I really really really may have been less than correct when I said Cascada might have released something decent. It sounds like Lady GaGa has been given dope. Go away Cascada.



Argh. My eyes.

A lot of the people reading this blog may well be students who are moving into their own house in September. Just in case you're really really really interested in taking my advice on internet access, you can now get a couple of months free. Mainly, the ones you're not there for. In a 12 month contract. How ammmmezzziiinnn?



Ye. It is. And it's pink too. Pop over to http://bethere.co.uk/student/ and sign up. It's £13.50 a month, and 24mb!!

Then you can have really quick access to Wikipedia.

Nic x

Someone else has moved into the house. Out on 6th July 2009 on iTunes and physical this is either a travesty or something wonderful - but I love it, and I think you should too.



I'm not going to take the credit for this one, as much as I would love to. Moyles played it on Tuesday about 9.30am on Radio 1 and to be honest, I got a little bit damp in that area. Rumours of my car requiring valet treatment are however, false.



Could this not only be a fantastic summer for the weather, but also for music. Will Josie & I get another Cascada song we love? (I think it's already been released!) and will we get another Paris to Berlin? Who bloody well knows.

This is where the magic happens ;)

Nic x

A baker had a good idea of how to use twitter to beat the recession. Which is good, because it's free and all.

This baker installed a twitter-box called Baker Tweet. And as soon as some fresh pain au chocolat or a few cottage style loaves come out of the oven, off it goes, into the world of twit.

Do you own a bakery?

I don't.

Do you?

You lucky thing.

You might be interested in going here. http://bakertweet.com/

No, you're not? Oh ... Ok then.

Nicx

So Mary Queen Of Charity Shops has ended on BBC TWO, last night. Not unusually for something to do with business - I watched it avidly, making sure I never watched a moment. And I've been twittering like mad trying to get as many people as possible to watch it - http://twitter.com/queenofshops .

There are two things that struck me about charity shops that I had never before thought of:

- They don't have to solely rely on second hand, donated clothing. You can offer free space to local designers, or you could even go as far as buying in cheap stock provided you can sell it at a profit. There is nothing about a charity shop that means you cannot run it as a normal business. And until Mary went on this mission, did even the charity shops realise that they were just another retailer?

- Charity shops share a lot of their business model with TK Maxx, a very successful company. How did I work this one out? Well, TK Maxx sell nothing in particular - brand names, at less. Admittedly, charity shops are likely to get a lot more from the cheaper shops rather than designer - and a lot has been worn before. But this isn't the main issue with charity shops and how they look (as the program revealed) - it's the layout and arrangement that's important, and TK Maxx get it right. Arranging stuff by sex and then by type of clothing and then even down to sections of different colour - with the occasional few things picked out onto stands that attract customers to that section of the store.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing different!

Well, actually - no I'm lying. You have to staff this TK Maxx store with clueless people who have no idea about retail, and who aren't being paid very much at all.

Having worked for TK Maxx, actually, that's not far from the truth.

So what IS the difference that makes the difference? TK Maxx have a format. Charity shops like Mary's in Orpington are left to their volunteers to decide how things happen and where stuff goes. And that's fine. But these people have no idea about retail. They've never done anything like it before. So they're just making it up as they go along.

And anyone with a right mind can see that that coupled with an idiot of a manager - like Nick in the programme - would result in awful results. Argh.

So if you haven't already - you've got 7 days to head over to the BBC iPlayer and watch it. You can do it here.

So the homepage of the site has been updated every single month since I started the whole "let's take the piss out of Costa's brand" with a new refreshing and exciting brand message. We've always stuck around the core of improving things slightly, and with the "no-one has an opinion like Nic has an opinion" brand message.



Quite important aspects of my site - because the only regulally-updated content is this blog right here, and although that's called "The Daily Nixx" it's rather less than daily most of the time. So to get people to come back I have to give you a lasting impression of my opinion mattering (that's what I'm giving you here after all) and that I do improve things slightly.

So ye. Urm, I am clearly going to have to be a creative kind of person to get this to work. And I'm sure most people would agree, when I put my mind to it I'm a creative little being. There is one slight problem, however.

I've run out of ideas.

So instead of a new theme this month, instead, you've got all of the old ones - on rotation. And a new one. Ever tried to get "No one has an opinon like Nic has an opinion" into the shape of a fuscia lightning bolt. No, me either.

More on why I might have tried that in a few minutes.

But first, something many people who read will know is that when you look for a way of rotating images on a website you're often left with a heap of shit designed by some script kiddie which takes the different URLs into an array in JScript and then just picks it out and spits it onto the end of a
I mean, most of my life revolves around PHP. Hell, this blog requires PHP to get my good word out to you people.

"Ah yes, sir, you're looking for some kind of solution to your problem?"

This is how the PHP people greet you if you knock on their door.

Having been offered a cup of 01110100 01100101 01100001 to be slurped down with a couple of cookies, I was well on my way to explaining I wanted a script that said...Look, I don't know how many images there are going to be. And I want to be able to add a new image simply by uploading it. That way, things can be nice and simple and nothing will interfere with my creative flow.

Indeed, I do not want creative Senokot.

"But why? This means the script will have to count the images and then put them into an array, randomize one and then display it."

"And I want to be able to specify the PHP file as the image source too."

And it was so.

Enjoy your rotation.

Nixx x

This actually almost made me wet myself when I logged into online banking today. I love the £20 experiment :P

Really you would think that a recession would make businesses more keen to please their customers. Working in the hospitality industry there is certainly more an air of "we do what the customers want now, not what we think will work."

Playing it safe is the new taking risks.

So why on earth have my web hosts and one used by a certain business partner of mine openly admitted that you shouldn't be using them for email?

"We would recommend that customers with email needs consider Google Apps for Business, which supports utilising your own domain name with GMail. Any customers looking for a refund due to the email disruption please contact support and we can arrange this."

That's like boots telling you you could go to the doctors and get it free on prescription or me advising you to go home and make a cup of Mellow Birds.

They also comment in the same post that the server nicparkes.com is hosted on has reached the end of its usable life. Still hosted it on it though, aren't I? Tut.

"We would like to apologise but the bus you are on has reached the end of its life. However, we will continue to run it stalling when necessary and we estimate the journey to be complete sometime before your untimely death."

Piss off Purple Cloud.

Nic x

This whole "Daily Nixx" thing is a bit of a lie. It's nowhere near daily, and all I can say about that is that I'm sorry. Sometimes life doesn't go to plan and you end up not quite understanding where you are. And the blog comes at the end of things.


Deary me. Well, first thing's first I do have one series to conclude "teaching without moving" and for those of you waiting for it unfortunately I have to tell you that as yet I have not managed to actually DO any more work. Making it really hard to talk about doing that work. So I'll get on that at some point. Like Nathan says, long term work - no matter how beneficial it is has an effect of putting me off.

So, over the next couple of days I'll be getting on that.

I also have several TV reviews which I need to do. Mary Queen of Shops is one, Michael McIntyre's comedy road show another and I have a pile of things I need to do/read/print/write/etc...too. So yes, this is another one of those blogs where I say roughly nothing - and achieve roughly the same. But it's a contribution I guess?

I also need ideas for where to go next with the promo images on the homepage. I've run out of ideas. Anyone?

Nic x

So, for those of you still interested or who still care, over the past few days my budgeting has been so strict that I have actually not been able to afford to blog.



I have to say that I am aware of how easy it is to live on this little amount of money if you need to. And that I'm cheating by adding in the petrol and parking as an extra, taking it up to £51.00.

So, indeed - everything I've written on this topic is rather pointless. But it has given me something to talk about.

As it happens, here's how the events have unfolded since I last updated you.

I topped up my parking card at the Kingfisher with just £5.00 so far, and what I've spent gives me roughly £11.00 left. Which is reasonably impressive - mainly for me - because I am used to blowing almost £200.00 a week on various pieces of crap I don't need, and on shit loads of food that I don't have to buy.

And to be honest, this little experiment might have seemed a little bit pointless to you. Perhaps you've thought "well i do that every week," - because you're a student, or you're unfortunate, or whatever. There are people who have to live on this and less each week. Some of them even have kids.

So yes, a little bit pointless. But for me - it's actually been incredibly interesting. I've managed to survive this week on literally no money in comparison to what I normally spend. And that's quite interesting when you look at how exactly this has affected my life.

To be honest, the only area where I truly feel that I've been affected is food. I would blow perhaps £4-8 a day on food, various meals and pointless bits of crap. I'd go into Marks & Spencer and buy two sandwiches, a cake and eat them for my lunch. Then I'd get home, decide cooking was pointless and spend money on food again.

That level of spending simply isn't sustainable. But it seems to just be normal. Not thinking about things is the norm - and spending in a splurge is quite normal for me as soon as I get any money.

So what has this £20 experiment done? It's taught me a lot, and it means that I have proved to myself that I can survive a month, maybe a lot longer, living on this tiny amount of money. The only thing I miss buying is DVDs. But even there, I don't have to cut it out completely - because there is always CEX to send you the DVDs that you want!

And it's about 4 million times cheaper.

So that's why I've done it and that's why I've been banging on about it - so if I've annoyed you because you've done it, either through choice or because of a need that comes from your situation then I apologise. But at the end of the day, I tend to talk about what I'm doing a lot. I fixate, I publicise things and I'm always right.

I can't help that, that's how I operate. And that's how you lot - any of those who know me quite well - know I am. Tomorrow is the last day, and while there is a temptation to go out and spend the whole £11 tomorrow, I think instead I will buy myself a single nice lunch - with anything I want within reason, and then pop into NatWest and pay the rest of the money back into the bank, before transferring it into an account where I can't spend it.

Thanks for listening - I'm improving things slightly ;)
Nic x

Over the past what seems like forever I have been reading the first book that Dawn French has ever read.

Dear Fatty is an autobiography with a twist - it's written as a series of open letters to various people - some of them have comedy, as you could expect from a character like Ms French, while others are a true account of exactly what her life has been about.

I can see a large amount of how the book comes together, I think, because of a few similarities between myself and the author - a huge focus on people. A lot of people have this skill, to be able to love and adore hundreds of people - to find people's achievements completely astonishing, to enjoy simply seeing people who are enjoying their life and to be incredibly upset and almost hurt, deep down inside, by people who are distressed and by people who are wondering around not happy with their lives.

Most of all, people are interesting to watch and observe. Quite often it's incredibly difficult to tell people what you think about them, and that's where this book comes in.

By writing these open letters, although they allow the extraction of comedy, a lot of the book is very very serious - and by the end of the book, having read the last letter which is slightly less in the same style as the rest - you can be left in no doubt about the reason why Dawn chose to write the book this way

By far, to be a successful comedian you have to have suffered a large amount of tragedy - or an awkward upbringing. Nothing could be more in fitting with this description than the story that unfolds inside the pages of Dear Fatty.

At the age of 19, Dawn's dad committed suicide.

And to an extent even admitted in the final letters this book marked closure for her on this subject. Knowing that her Dad was reachable just by talking out loud, and that his support was there.

Which takes me onto what I think is a very significant thing. Throughout the book, there is talk of hiding from the press and mentions that, quite rightly so, Dawn likes to keep her and her family safe and private - but this book is a release. And it's perhaps proof that this kind of system works - because what she has managed to do is release information in a controlled way, where only what she says gets published.

It's a good book, and deserving a read from anyone who loves people, comedy or who just wants to experience a rollercoaster to discover what makes such a genuinely funny woman the person she is today.

You should go get it.

Nic x

A lot of you might stalk me or simply take a look a bit further down this page and notice that I use twitter and mention things on twitter slightly earlier than I mention them on the blog. So some of you will already know this information which I am about to give you.

But you might have noticed in the earlier post that I posted about becoming a proper person of Brighton Uni when I was assigned a student number.

But not only do I now have a student number - but I have also logged in and accepted the hundreds of terms and conditions and created myself a computer ID for the uni systems - including, people, the email address that ends @brighton.ac.uk.

I'm not sure about you - but I think that makes everything just a little bit better? Although I have to say that mid-July when I manage to be assigned a home and told that I have or have not got what I want will help everything quite a lot. And make me feel slightly more "omg I'm going to university" - which does occasionally happen anyway.

On a completely other note, many of you will have noticed that adverts have appeared all over this site - I'm experimenting with how different locations work, and how ads have an effect on traffic to the site - so do bear with me, and if you do see an ad that you like obviously let me know. In whatever way you feel necessary.

Google, of course, doesn't permit me to say "why not click the adverts eh?" because that would be wrong. So I won't say that. While Amazon do allow it - although as Tom pointed out, I'm not quite sure why anyone would be interested in Treseme hair products. They're supposed to be contextual.

(And yes, I have realised that by mentioning it now I have given a reason for it to think you might be interested in it.)

Anyway, it's off to get dressed and run off to Redditch where I have too few staff and too much heat. Not complaining though, because I refuse to!

One of the best things about university is that it means I don't have to go to Redditch, and even better - I won't have to make a Costa brand standard cappuccino for at least a few months before I give in and get a job at one of the Costa stores in Brighton.

I won't, will i?

Nic x