Extras: Wine Tasting and Speed Dating

Hey guys, just a quick treat for you now as I’ve had a little help in getting reviews for things I didn’t attend myself last Thursday evening and Monday of this week.

Nick Townsend is a 2nd year BA Hons Journalism student and here are his reviews for Wine Tasting and Speed Dating.

 

“We want the finest wines available to humanity” demands Richard E. Grant’s title character in the student cult classic, ‘Withnail & I’.

 

For the participants of the wine tasting class though, they had to make do with the finest wines available to Co-Ops limited range of discount bottles. Maybe not humanity, but humane in the sense that the bottles of red and white were all Fair Trade.

 

I reasoned with the ‘Give It A Go’ volunteers that my lack of ID shouldn’t forbid me from participating (as I am and look 23!), by arguing the case ‘real wine tasters don’t swallow.’

 

As participants sat down, moderator and wine connoisseur Helen Gittins spoke of much wine varies throughout the world and how subtle the differences can be and how the qualities of the samples are judged and determined are set by parameters.

 

Using standards such as smell, taste, transparency and fluid density (referred to as leg) students were encouraged to guess the hidden ingredients inside each brand with a free bottle offered to those with the correct answer.

 

The samples of wine given ranged from the vineyards of South Africa, Argentina and France. By the end of the evening participants ranging from the non-regular wine drinkers to the fully fledged oenophile, were able to appreciate the process of wine production with a deeper understanding of its geographical origin…or maybe they’d just found out how much they could drink for their £2.50 admission!

 

 

 

The speed dating had the biggest turnout for a paid event on ‘Give It A Go’ with nearly a hundred participants in total.

 

The event invited a large spectrum of personalities to meet, befriend and woo members of the opposite sex within 3 minutes. This is the true acid test of the dating game. Attempting to sell yourself (personality wise that is!) in 180 seconds proved difficult for some but effortless for others.

 

Myself a participant – I began to tire of the same introduction patter of “Where are you from?” and “What are you studying”. To avoid this déjà vu of Freshers’ Week, I began to throw other questions within my intro such as, “What’s your favourite dirty joke?” or “Is the fact we’re both here an act of desperation or proof we want to meet other outgoing people?”

 

There was an American girl there who seemed more relaxed about the event than all the other participants, who I’m sure didn’t feel like she was just ‘giving it a go’ as her culture practically invented the format of speed dating.

 

Whilst the girls complained there were too many frogs and not enough princes (many also suspiciously claiming they were there just to offer support to a friend) the only objection from the boys was that the room was too dimly lit making the event seem overly romanticised. I even overheard one boy say during a break, “I won’t find my future wife here, but there’s plenty of totty!”

 

And who says romance isn’t dead?!

 

Now if any of you are currently thinking, “I’d like to have my review up on there” then send it into pfeatures@uclan.ac.uk and I’ll get it up on here too.

I’ll be posting up yesterday and today’s events in about half an hour, but for now, thanks to Nick and I’ll be back soon.

Em. x

Give It A Go: Day One

Hi guys, can’t believe it’s six months since I last wrote on this site! But here we are again and this time we have two weeks of ‘Give It A Go’ so there will be plenty of stuff appearing on the site.

For all the freshers and those that didn’t visit the site last time, I’m Emily Davies, Features Editor of Pluto and I’ve been given the task of giving as much of what’s going on a go as poss. I was shattered by the end of the event back in February so who knows what I’ll be like by the end of the next two weeks.

Again I’m looking for anyone who goes to the events to write their own reviews and add comments for the site, especially as I can’t make it to every event and if you see me at an event (I’ll be the short, ginger person with a dictaphone and camera!) come over and let me know what you think of the site and the whole GIAG experience.

Now I think I need to add this, if you are interested in an activity then you really need to sign up for it down in the SU otherwise there is a pretty good chance the event will be cancelled due to lack of interest so don’t just turn up, let them know in advance. The buddies are down in the SU if you need some help and want to know a bit more about various events and trust me, no matter what you do, you will have a good time!!!

Well that’s it for now. Unfortunately Reiki was cancelled this morning due to lack of interest, but Circus Skills in on right now and the Drama Society are also hosting an event in the SU this afternoon so hope to see you there before I rush off to my lecture at 4pm! Then I’ll be popping into Source at 5pm to have a go at the Wii Boxing Tournament so if you think you could fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee get yourself down there!!!

Tata for now,

Em. x