Uncrate - for guys who love stuff

Ok perhaps 'guys who love stuff' is a little vague. Part of the Federation media group, this site is bachelor friendly product recommendation site for 'guys' (as opposed to men) probably on the fresher side of 40. Simple and masculine in design this easily navigated site has a clean modern layout which is pleasing to the eye.

Its entire content is made up short articles/adverts recommending modern, quirky, flashy products (innovative but unnecessary perhaps) each with their own direct link for immediate purchase. With items ranging from the affordable Kiehl's Ultimate Man Soap to the new, slightly less modest in price, Alfa Romeo 8C Spider its easy to imagine both wealthy businessmen, and office juniors scrolling through its listing on an desk-bound coffee break.

Though the site does not have a huge amount of advertising, that which it does have is from international brands such as Nike. It is of course possible that it is funded by commission made from any direct sales via the sites links, but would that pose a question over the integrity of the recommendations?

Ladies do not fear, you will not be subject to regular product browsing on your lunch breaks, linked from the homepage you can also find its sister site Unblush, pretty much identical but with an abundance of equally frivolous products!

Oatmeal TV

With media quickly jumping on the online bandwagon, we can soon find a vast array of online radio and TV stations at our fingertips. With even the likes of the BBC uploading previously aired episodes of our favorite shows ready for your perusal, its seems online media is spurring on the redundancy of other broadcast methods.

It is not only the TV bigwigs who have seized this opportunity to access the ever increasing online audience. Thanks to the likes of You-tube, home video phenomena has hit the net, and while there is an abundance of rubbish to sift through, there are still some nuggets of entertainment gold to be found.

One such nugget is online entertainment show Oatmeal TV.What may at first seem to resemble yet another self indulgent "I wanna be famous" project, actually offers a high quality scripted package of music and comedy.

With real interviews with popular artists including Kate Nash, Queens of the Stone Age and Patrick Wolf neatly edited alongside exclusive live performances and quirky animation, this outfit is clearly more than a couple of guys with a camera.

NUS: Not for US

What would we do without our beloved Student Union?

Well, our livers would probably be in much better condition as would our finances, but aside from these minor advantages we would be faced with the task of making our own evening entertainment in Farnham, or else (dread the thought) leave the safe boundaries of our country town and venture in the unknown depths of Guildford or London.

Admittedly for those who do not rush back to their parents every weekend to get a Sunday roast and some clean clothes, this is already a reality with the Union staying closed over the weekend, but this is not the point in hand.

The issue that got you all riled up this week is that of our Union's seemed pledge of allegiance to NUS Extra. NUS Extra cards basically entitle you to a whole bunch of discounts from lots of large retailers (lots of which you can still claim will a normal student card) and will cost you the grand sum of £10, available at the SU or to buy online. It has never been compulsory to purchase one, and for many struggling students its £10 that could be better spent elsewhere, without making any real financial loss.

This was until our Student Union jumped on the corporate NUS bandwagon. As of 22nd October any student wanting a night out at the Union must be the proud (or resentful) owner of an NUS Extra card or else be charged a whopping £3 on entry!

There was me thinking that the National Union of Students was there to help students and yet it seems instead they are manipulating our own Union into taking away the advantages we had in the first place. What's the point of paying for a discount???? Doesn't that defeat the object rather? What I'd like to know is what exactly our Student Union is getting out of this new 'partnership' with NUS Extra, are they getting commission on the sale of cards? If so, what exactly is that money being put towards, another overpriced event perhaps?

The point of the Student Union is to be run by us the students for us the students? I don't remember anyone suggesting we should fork out even more money to go out.

Don't get me wrong, I am totally in support of the Union itself, they put on some great nights and as I previously mentioned it makes living in such a quiet town a whole lot more bearable. This new NUS scheme just seems a little underhand, having forked out over £3000 to study here, asking for another tenner to be considered worthy of student discounts is a joke surely?

Flash Mob Hits Farnham.

At 10.30pm on Tuesday 23rd October 2007 chaos and confusion hit the homes of unsuspecting students. The Farnham Flash Mob had hit.

Actually perhaps Flash Mob is the wrong terminology as by definition a flash mob is large group of random people who meet in a designated place, at a designated time, and do a random action for a short period of time.
This event, it seemed, was born out of boredom rather than a social experiment. When money and alcohol is at a low, students will resort to the down right bizarre to occupy their evenings. On the evening in question a group of students from our very own UCCA set to the streets of the student village armed with 100 multicolour ELC balls and an army of photographers (well 3 photographers actually).


The group of students proceeded to invaded every student kitchen, who's owners allowed them entry, by throwing the plastic balls all over the room and then immediately clearing them away and leaving. Every act was performed in complete silence and each house was photographed, leaving the houses occupants alarmed, entertained and intrigued.

The student group are said to have no political motives or indeed any point to prove, they merely wanted to embrace 'arty' living and hoped they had inspired others have a bit of random fun.

In the meantime we shall await the groups next project with apprehension and intrigue.

Farnham Stands Proud as England Falls.

Saturday night perhaps conjures up memories avid Rugby fans would sooner forget, so I won't bore you with my sports illiterate analysis of the game. However with our town's nostalgic links with the beloved Jonny Wilkinson it would be wrong not to mention the event at all.

On Sunday night many of the Moleskine Massive denied the local student haunts of their business and made the long trek to Wrecclesham and Farnham's Rugby Club.

As Wilkinson's first rugby club, Farnham pulled out all the stops in order to cheer him to victory again (or not as it happened). A marquee of gargantuan proportions for such a small town, stood proudly in front of the club. A huge projection screen hung at one end, a fully functioning bar stood at the other and various large TV screens sat along its walls. The smell of grilled meat wafted enticingly from the barbecue as the local fans congregated on the pitch.

Not only did Farnham's local team play during the afternoon as a warm up to the big match, but last years triumphant final was played in the marquee to get everyone in the mood for another victory (In hindsight this may have made the following defeat even more bitter).

I am by no means a huge rugby fan or particularly patriotic, however as I stood side by side with my fellow countrymen in that packed marquee, belting out the national anthem (or the parts of it i knew) I couldn't help but feel terribly British and ever so proud.

Despite the unfortunate outcome of the game it was a brilliant evening and gave us the opportunity to feel less like a student and more like a local. Farnham Rugby Club are set to put on an event of similar proportions for their firework night 'extravaganza' on November 3rd. With a Doctor Who fancy dress theme and promises of mulled wine and another barbecue, I expect the tickets will be well worth the £3 they cost.

Castle Field Connections: We Want Wireless!

If you have ever had the pleasure of living on campus at Farnham you probably will be all too familiar with the ongoing Keysurf saga. If however you wisely chose freedom from the delights of early morning fire drills and moody letters from uninvited cleaners (don't get me started), you may not be aware of our wireless Internet frustrations.

Keysurf are a wireless Internet provider who target university halls of residence. They aim to provide a simple-to-use set up for students, allowing them wireless connection throughout the halls using a log-in system for £15 per month. Keysurf also allows you to cancel your contract at any point given 30days notice, not binding you to a year or more like other providers often will.

Ideal, wouldn't you say? Well actually no. Unfortunately Keysurf's promises of simple set up and non-binding contracts are left somewhat lacking when the actual Internet connection is, for want of a better word, crap! If you are lucky enough to successfully log-in after several futile attempts, and its stayed logged on for more than 5 minutes, your relief will be quickly dampened. You will soon realise that in the time it takes to load the Google homepage you could have walked down to the library, searched the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, found what you were looking for and stopped for a cigarette on the way home. OK, so maybe I exaggerate a fraction, but you sense the frustration.

Here at Farnham Keysurf have claimed they have sole rights to provide wireless in our halls, whether this is actually true or not is not confirmed. 'Splog' writes on ISPreview ...

"Keycom push themselves as being your only option at most halls, for both Internet and phone calls. turns out this is piffle. you're perfectly entitled to have a BT line installed and get your own phone/Internet package."

Perhaps you think this all sounds rather melodramatic, but I assure you I am not alone in my frustrations. So riled are the students who have been subjected to the pains of Keysurf that they have joined forces on networking site Facebook to draw attention to their plight. It is not only Farnham students who have used Facebook as a stage for their complaints, but also those at Birmingham and Maidstone with groups such as 'Keysurf is the bane of my existence' and 'Keysurf is absolutely s**t'

In the mean time, students at Farnham have resorted to more primitive forms of communication in order to keep themselves sane. On Thursday 18th Oct students residing at Castle Field were seen installing a tin can telephone between their houses. Whilst admiring their pro-active nature, I sincerely hope that Keysurf will get their act together before we all have to resort to this!