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Ever wondered what the most watched Youtube video of all time is?

I hadn’t until today, when I saw that Ne-Yo’s video for “Closer” had amassed over 4 million views.

So after a little bit of research it appears that this video below is the most watched video of all time, with a staggering 91,051,862 views since the start of April 2006. It is followed closely by Avril Lavigne’s video for “Girlfriend” which has 90.5 million, then some spanish video with around 73 mill. Rhianna’s “Don’t Stop the Music”, One Republic’s “Apologize” and Alicia Keys’ “No One” are all around 60 mil views with no real chance of catching the top one.

So what is this video with 91 million plays? The most watched youtube vid of all time?

“The Evolution of Dance”…

Just applied for a job out in Dubai. A job that I could do, and one that I’m qualified to do too!

Will I get it? Probably not.

But it’s nice to day dream.

Definitely the best thing I’ve applied for since BBC 1Xtra turned a blind eye to my app.

Would be a damn sight better than bar work in Sunderland anywho… although some say that Sunderland is the Dubai of North East Engl… ah fuck it… no they don’t. Sunderland is a dump.

I went and saw Hancock last night, and I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.

I don’t suppose it helps that EVERY single person that has seen it before me said it was ‘mint’ or ‘awesome’.

Whilst the film was more intelligent than most summer blockbusters, and I can have no complaints about the performances from Will Smith or Charlize Theron - it seemed to start off funny and promisingly, but then tail off into a humourless, superhero rom-com which seemed completely out of place with the start of the film.

The concept of this film is brilliant. It’s one I’ve been looking forward to since the back end of last year. Finally, I thought, a superhero film which won’t take itself too seriously. One which has the premise of a quirky ’superhero’ who is drunk, gets everything wrong and is an ‘asshole’ (everybody elses words). But it evolves into a muddled storyline that stops being funny quite quickly.

The first hour or so of the film revolves around establishing Hancock as a drunk super hero who, when he’s not passed out, will do his best to foil crimes. But, as a series of clips show, the unconvential figure gets it wrong every time causing millions of dollars worth of damage in the process. Then he gets into tantrums, breaks stuff and swears at kids. And that’s all pretty funny.

Then, without warning, the movie takes a distinct change in tone and direction. An unexpected twist, which I won’t come to mention as a lot of people won’t have had the time to catch this film yet, sees the film abandon humor in the pursuit of a story. Who is John Hancock? Where did he come from? How did he get here? How long has he been here? Has he, or will he, ever find love? - just some of the questions you should expect to find in the second half of the film.

Without offering any real answers, or answers in any kind of amusing form, the film becomes quite a souring experience. The character’s origin is all well and good, but I’m not sure I’m alone in assuming that whilst knowing a super hero inside out is a convention of the genre - the majority of people coming to see this blockbuster are not coming to see a super hero film, most are hoping to see a comedy.

I can’t help but wonder why Sony and its director, Peter Berg, chose to pursue the backstory when, in actual fact, I’m not sure people really cared for it. What draws Hancock away from Batman and Superman is that he is a seemingly human individual who makes mistakes, a superhero who always seems to have a bad day, and I don’t think we need 45 minutes of character development to be able to relate to that.

While I don’t want to be too harsh because I did kind of enjoy this film - it’s not like I hated it - I just think it falls so spectacularly short of the mark. So while everyone is telling you that Hancock is “the film to go and see this summer!” try to take that comment with a pinch of salt - the film is not the same as the trailer.

“Overweight.”

“Make sure your weight doesn’t rise.”

That was the message I received yesterday when I worked out my body mass index.

13.1 stone is the ideal weight for a gentleman of my height (6ft), whereas I’ve ebbed away to a rather flabby and chubby 13.5. I actually thought I was like 12.7 or around that, so that was a little surprising.

Not the end of the world, I know - but turning a blind eye to being overweight (in medical terms) or to slimming and dieting is how I’ve become in such a state. Not addressing such a situation is how you worsen it. A relaxed attitude will only increase the margin between what is healthy and what is not.

The reason I was looking up my BMI is because I want to spend my free time this summer getting into shape. Not ripped or anything like that, just lose the flab - tighten up - run for longer than 15 minutes - lose the beer belly (which I’ve spent 3 years of uni working on). You know, the usual.

I want to be able to shake the tag of ‘lazy’ footballer, because I know its not so much laziness but a lack of fitness, which has essentially led to me becoming overweight and settling for the tag of lazy. Or perhaps preferring the word lazy to overweight.

Or fat.

I remember about 5 years ago when my dad decided he wanted to lose weight and he took up swimming, squash, cycling and jogging each week. Eating nothing but healthy sandwiches. And he shed so much weight it was remarkable.

I only need to shed half a stone to be ‘healthy’ - but in actual fact I want to lose much more. I want rid of the tire around my waste, and the love handles, and the turkey neck. I’m guessing there’s more than half a stone of excess skin there!

So, for the next month I will be exercising on a daily basis as an experiment to see just how much difference it will/can make. I say I will do it for the next month because if I kid myself that I can do it every day for the next year or so then I will no doubt give up straight away, deciding it will be too hard. If I can get through this month and see what the rewards are then who knows how I’ll feel? Or whether I’ll deem it worthwhile.

And when I say exercise - I mean serious exercise.

The schedule I’ve just put together includes swimming every weekday, visiting the gym twice a week (for running, cycling and rowing) and daily jogs every other week day. So that’s swimming and running (atleast) every day. I can’t kid myself that I can do exercise at weekends, because that is when I work mostly, so I will settle for weights at home, sit ups and a long walk each day for my weekend workout.

Added to this I’ve got notes up on my wall that says: ‘NO MORE FAST FOOD!’, ‘NO MORE TAKEAWAYS AFTER WORK!’, NO MORE MILKSHAKES AND POP/SODA!’. Instead, I will be mostly snacking on fruits, salads, healthy cereals, smoothies, veg and soup. Just reading that sentence makes me think that this is going to be a gruelling, but ultimately rewarding, process.

July is going to be a tricky month, but hopefully I can cut the amount of calories I’m taking in, and I can increase the amount of calories I’m shedding - so that I can go on holiday in August with my girlfriend and not look like Jabba the Hut on the beach.

“For those that didn’t get the memo, my name is Jay-Z and I’m pretty fucking awesome”

Jay absolutely tore Glastonbury down on Saturday night. Looks like the crowd enjoyed it too.

Here’s the full performance for those that ain’t seen it…

Unstoppable.

This song was out ATLEAST a month ago. In fact, the album was out in January, but it’s been getting a lot of exposure on the radio for a while now.

The video has JUST been released.

Better late than never I guess?

Awesome tune.

Well it’s over now. Women can rejoice as the daily games of International football fall away for another couple of years, while men will sit back and talk about a first major competition for quite some time that didn’t feature England and whether it was ‘any good’?

For me, it was not only good, it was great.

I’ve mentioned a few times what a difference it makes to have a tournament where every single moment isn’t made comparable to England. However, Spain’s triumph has been credited to the mastery of Fernando Torres and Cesc Fabregas. When, in actual fact, David Villa was the better of the two strikers (Fernando spent most of the tournament rolling around on the floor) and Xavi/Iniesta were far more effective for the Spaniards than British-based Fabregas - who was merely a well used substitute, just as Guiza and Corluza(sp?) were. Focus on Germany was more to do with Ballack and his terrible track record in finals competition. With every team in the competition it seemed all the punditry focused on the British based compenents (Kazim-Richards for Turkey, Modric for Tottenham, Tuncay for Turkey and so on and so forth).

But I guess you can’t get away from that kind of ‘lets make it all British’ kind of press for a whole month, can you?

Personally, I’ve just enjoyed seeing 16 teams play some pretty entertaining stuff, without ever having to worry about motivating myself for the England games. It’s been a pretty relaxing experience just enjoying the spectacle. Not feeling completely involved.

Spain deserved to win it, as far as I’m concerned. Germany kind of stumbled through the whole competition and looked uninspired in pretty much every game they played in. For all their individual talents, they didn’t look settled as a team, and I think that only two players that will come out of this tournament with any grace are Podolski and Schweinsteiger who put in excellent performances pretty much every time they turned out.

Spain, however, looked settled and comfortable as a team. They had a strike partnership that fully understood how to play together. They had a well organised defensive set up, and they had a midfield that had caution, composure, intelligence and patience. In every single game the Spanish midfield set the tempo. That notion couldn’t be more fitting than when they came up against Russia, who were being lauded as potential winners after eliminating the Dutch. What Spain did, that Holland couldn’t, was to address the threat of Arshavin (he was nowhere to be seen in that game) whilst still being a danger going forward. Xavi, Iniesta, Silva and Senna may not look like that most exhilerating line up on paper but in Xavi/Iniesta you have two incredibly clever players that are creative, but wary of doing the wrong thing. Attributes that lead to few wasted crosses/passes and an insistence on keeping possession until the killer pass or move comes along.

Whilst the Dutch played a lot of attractive football, and were a lot of people’s favourites to progress to the final (they were mine too!) they simply didn’t have a side or a squad as complete as Spain’s. What they produced on the attacking side of things was masterful, but the defensive co-ordination and organisation wasn’t quite capable of dealing with players like Arshavin. In the modern day game, the notion of you can score three and we’ll score four doesn’t quite work against the more organised units of international football. But it sure was enjoyable to watch.

A Spain-Holland game would surely have been a spectacle - it wouldn’t have been the final but it would have felt like one - because unlike the Germans, Holland would have gone at Spain with everything, which would have led to a much more open game than what we saw last night. Oh well, we can only dream.

A mate of mine declared that this tournament had been ‘boring’ and nothing compared to the Euro’s of 96. Bull shit, as far as I’m concerned. Euro ‘08 gave us the Turkish come back kings - a final couple of minutes against Croatia that will go down as absolute classics, just as their comeback against the Czechs will. You had a Dutch masterclass against the aging French and Italians. You had Russian underdogs doing extremely well against whoever they faced, inspired by the genius of Guus Hiddink. The Portuguese, of course, putting in a lot of attractive performances that were good for the neutral. You had Romania and the Croatians impressing a lot of people. And the refs were pretty good too!

The final may have been a bit of an anti-climax, but these days with so much at stake they often are. You can hardly say that Euro 2008 has been boring though, it’s been fantastic - it’s just a shame that it’s over.

Now lets have some transfers please!

Yesterday I found out my final marks for my three-year degree at Sunderland Uni.

And the news was all good. I bagged myself ‘First Class Honours’ (the highest mark attainable, which around 12% of graduates across the country receive) and, to my surprise, my dissertation was awarded 90% (which is 20% higher than the boundary). To say that I’m proud or chuffed is a bit of an understatement really.

I’ve been waiting for these marks to arrive for some time, and I’ve had countless e-mails knocked back saying they’ll be ready ’soon’, but I had no idea they would arrive through post. I’ve been without my phone (broken) for the past week, so when all my friends received their results through the post on Saturday morning I was frantically ringing my house back in York to have my mum check the mail. Except she wasn’t in. She wasn’t in all day! It wasn’t until 7pm that night whilst at work that I managed to get in touch with her, borrowing someone else’s phone and sat in a room full of furniture with a pen and paper at the ready. It was a pretty weird way to receive grades that you’ve been seeking for the majority of your adult life. My mum read out dozens of numbers and grades before eventually setting her eyes on the bottom of the letter to tell me that I had got ‘first class honours’. I don’t think she’d ever heard me swear as much in 21 years as she did in the following 21 seconds, but I’m sure she understands I meant well.

Whilst I’m not entirely surprised that I got a first, because my grades this year have been so much better than my first two years, I wasn’t expecting it. I had told myself at the start of the year that I wanted a 2:1 minimum (given that I had averaged those marks in my first and second years), but even then a 2:1 is a fairly standard mark. Not to discredit anyone who has received that this year, but contrary to 12% of people across the country who receive first class honours, almost 75% of UK graduates receive second class honours. The difference between the two boundaries is a big one, whilst the boundaries are fairly tight, and whilst a degree is a degree I wouldn’t want potential employers to look at me as ‘just another one of the 75%’ getting second class honours.

Forgive me if that sounds pretentious.

While getting the first is a massive achievement, and I’ve had so many people give me a big pat on the back, I know that in media that I’m still very far from where I need to be and that all the hard work still lies ahead. Unfortunately in media nothing falls at your feet, unlike some courses where you can guarantee yourself a job almost straight after university the sad reality is that nobody is waiting at the finish line for you. But, to be quite frank, where’s the fun in that?

I will revel in my degree joy for the next week or two, and then it’s time to make some things happen. I’m going to have to get more aggressive with applying for jobs, put myself about for some voluntary work experience and I’ve already got some ideas for independent projects which I’m sure I’ll write about on here when they become more than just pipe dreams. For now though, I will kick back and enjoy the fact that Sunderland Uni consider me to be ‘first class’.

Hope everyone else got the grades they wanted!

Just come across this video, from new rapper NY Oil.

It’s one of the only music videos to ever be banned from Youtube. This is the animated version. If anybody has the link to the original, throw it my way.

Pretty good song and concept. This, for me, is proper hip hop music - not the Lil Wayne/50 Cent shit. And this is the kind of stuff that I’m hoping for on the new Nas album.