The Pessimism and Occasional Optimism of Juvenile Adulthood

On Friday, I went on strike from sixth form to protest against the lack of action to prevent climate change, and I felt that the overall experience was interesting enough to write about. So here goes... . I had been considering going on strike for several weeks and I had been aware for a while of Greta's Thunberg's actions outside the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag). With a friend having gone to the previous march in Birmingham and speaking highly of it, my mind was made up. With so much focus on Brexit in recent weeks and the minimal news coverage of climate change and its rising seas, pollution levels and increasing plastic waste in the ocean, I wanted to strike and feel as though I was filling the void of noise which I wasn't hearing on the news. I was well aware going into the protest that there would be no direct impact of me choosing to strike but that it would raise awareness of the issue and I would feel better about it. The protest was very en...

As part of my full-time education, I was given the opportunity to create an extended project, wherein I could write a dissertation on any subject of my choosing. I chose to focus my spare time on the viability of Germany’s specific ownership rules potentially being implemented in professional football in England. With Hereford’s demise being my inspiration for this little project, I thought here may be as good a place as any to explain my conclusions from my research. The 50+1 rule is implemented in the top two tiers of German football and essentially means that the supporters’ trusts and societies must retain 50% of a club’s shares plus one more. This way, supporters retain the majority of voting rights and as such, can dictate ticket prices and merchandise costs. The consequence of this is that German football has attendances far higher than in England and the atmosphere in grounds smashes the London stadium out of the park - in this case the Queen Elizabeth Olympic. So far...