The Pessimism and Occasional Optimism of Juvenile Adulthood

I was fortunate enough to receive my English Language GCSE Paper 2 back and with marks back. As it happened, my mock newspaper article was rather well received and I scored in the highest band of marks. So I'm going to repost it here, unedited, to share to the wider world. This was written on a cold Friday morning in my school's sports hall and it took me 45 mins. It's therefore far from perfect but I'm happy with it nonetheless. Enjoy... My exam question was as follows: 'All Sport should be fun, fair and open to everyone. These days, sport seems to be more about money, corruption and winning at any cost'  Write a newspaper article explaining your point of view on this statement. Avery Brundage was a keen advocate of amateurism, the belief that sport should be a hobby and not corrupted by commercialisation. Yet he was also president of the International Olympic Committee in the post-war world for over 20 years. Brundage was a principled man. It...

Any one who knows me will know that I predominantly despise most modern music. My music taste typically tends to predate my presence on this planet and, as such, my Spotify contains a playlist devoted entirely to music of this millennia. Yet this makes up only around 30% of all of my songs. Most of this playlist only features an artist once or twice at6 most and I seldom follow an artist with great passion or interest. Yet I have two exceptions. One is Christine and the Queens, the French singer whose song writing ability in 2 languages is beyond extraordinary. However, the second is a young Norwegian singer whose music and lyrics have created a new sub-genre of synth-pop. Oh and she's bilingual   I first heard Sigrid's music when she appeared on BBC Breakfast, shortly after winning the corporation's Sound of 2018 award.  What stood out from her track Strangers was the instant beat combined with synthesising. Most of my music on ...

What I owe to Gavin McCallum There are many reasons why I went to my first Hereford game, in the February of 2009. Previously, as a young soul, I didn’t even enjoy football and when my dad abandoned me at my Aunt’s house as he headed onward to the Street, I would often pass on my best wishes for the opposing team, not through any malice but just because I didn’t understand why we commuted so far West every other weekend to watch 22 people kick leather out of each other. The rational part of me still doesn’t quite know why but passion, rather than a parent’s pestering has since motivated me to shout, scream and yell for the mighty Whites. The main reason my mind was finally changed was my dad telling me that during pre-season Hereford had signed a new winger, a Canadian named Gavin McCallum, a man who was once ranked highly enough to play for his country, but lowly enough to now be plying his trade for Welling in the Conference South. How times have changed. I’d be lying if I s...