Every couple of years, I try out something new with this web site. Up until now, this site was run under Joomla!. Joomla! is a content management system for creating websites, written in PHP. It is open source software, and in a way a step up from simpler blogging solutions than for example WordPress. For the purpose of running a simple blog-style web site, with little to no page views anyway, let’s be honest, it is somewhat of an overkill solution.

This is so exciting. I am currently on vacatrion in the Lake District, away from all the internet, so I nearly missed a surprise! My friend Alex has read one of my stories as an audiobook, and published it on soundcloud. This is so cool! I never really thought of doing that. He sent me the original fle to publish here too, and I already put the download link online.

I confess I haven’t been listening to Nightwish since Tarja left the band. I always thought that her vocals were vital to the sound. I’m not a metal-head, but I always liked Nightwish, because I like the combination of oprea loke vocals and guitar riffs. The latest single caught my attention though. The B-Side of their current single “Élan” is called Sagan, and it is a tribute to the great Carl Sagan, and his contribution in popularising cosmology to a wide public.

The Mail on Sunday has never been known for their subtlety. So today, they report, that a BBC official has compared the current affair around Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson punching a member of the production team to the scandal surrounding long time Top of the Pops presenter Jimmy Savile. Even though it is clear, even from the scandalising Mail report, that these statements do not imply, that Clarkson might be a child molester, but that he has the same friendly relations to important people in society than Savile had, backing his misdemanour, this statement, if it is true, does a disservice to the BBC in this case.

It is a long known fact, that we are a nation of wussies, when it comes to our own children. On one hand, we pamper them so much, that they are hardly ever allowed to play outside, on the other hand, where infamous for being terribly afraid of them. Our home secretary Theresa May has just added one to the latter. In a a consultation document for the current Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, currently before parliament, the Home Office proposes nurseries and childcarers have a duty “to prevent people being drawn into terrorism”.

Spoiler Warning: This text is about the new Hunger Games movie Mockingjay. It contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen it yet, and plan on doing so, your probably shouldn’t read on! Aparently, I’m not a real adult. Because I recently went to the movies to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. According to BBC’s film critic Owen Gleiberman, I am somehow stuck in my teens, and lack a real perspective on the world.

When I browsed trough my Twitter-timeline today, I stumbled on a debate, that has been sparked by Adam Boulton, the political editor at Sky News, who, in a comment on an international conference against sexual violence in war, posted the following statement: But doesn’t it all look a bit trivial in a week when a brutal Islamist militia took control of much of northern Iraq -openly confounding the “casus belli” for which the British military lost 179 lives and the US forces 4,489, and in which more than 100,000 Iraqis died?

I think I have been writing about Zoë Keating before. If not here, then on Twitter. I have been listening to her music ever since she played second chair in Rasputina, and she has been my favourite artist ever since. If you don’t know her, Zoë is a one woman orchestra. By using sampling and looping technologies, she creates complex and inticrate music with just one cello. All live and in real time.

Day One After my boss successfully ruined this years spring bank holiday by making me work on Monday, I finally find the time to drop down a few lines about my short-term vacation in London. I had a few days left over from last years vacation (my boss really loves it, when I’m at the office), just enough for a short trip to London. First of all: Hotels in London are way too expensive!

I had the very exciting opportunity to publish a story, written by my dear friend Virginia. I always hoped to get someone else to write for this platform, although it might be a bit weird, since the site is named Afanen-Writes. So having writers on here, who are not, well, me, is a little bit confusing. However, when Virginia told me, she wrote a short story, and asked me for an opinon, I was really excited.