If you'd wondered why for the past three days I've been pretty much impossible to get hold of, and you haven't discovered it for yourself already, I am making an effort to clear my student debt and the method I have chosen is by donations. Announcing:

www.ClearMyStudentDebt.com

Some people maybe sceptical of what can be achieved, but my plea is real enough. I do really owe the Student Loans Company �12,338.34 and I do really intend to put any money donated into a fund that will be solely used to pay off the loan.

The reasons I have chosen this method of gathering payment is twofold. Firstly, I want to pay off my loan. I've promised the money is only to get me back onto a level par where I can then start thinking about things like saving up for a car or a deposit on a flat. If by some miracle I collect the full amount required to pay off the loan, I will donate any further money generated to an educational charity as the site will have served it's purpose by then.

The second reason is to air my personal frustration with the idea that being in debt is acceptable. I think most newspaper readers let the figures wash over them now, and like the subject of Northern Ireland, people have (unfortunately) lost interest. Their doesn't seem to be any organised student lobbying against it so it remains off topic and out of debate. My hope is that this might bring it back into peoples' minds, and remind them that if you want to go to uni when your parents can't pay the whack, you're going to be faced with paying back big bucks when you get out.

Student loans have been set up in a way that is meant to be manageable, but are so incomprehensibly big to a twenty-year-old, that it becomes numbing to them. Initial concerns about budgeting go out of the window after freshers' week when you realise the money 'apparently' is on-tap, and there are very few people I know who haven't had to worry about maxxing out on their overdraft(s).

We're all being brought up to accept the idea of living in constant debt is fine. Debt isn't a bad thing in itself , and does make parts of the world go around, but when you actively encourage every young person to borrow beyond their means you do have to wonder what will eventually give. Five years down the line are all today's youth going to be defaulting on their 100% mortgages? Are bankruptcy figures going to rise again after this, a record breaking year? I can't help thinking damage is being done right now when young people are being prepped to believe borrowing to your limit is risk-free, especially when other financial products aren't covered by the same lenient rates you get while you study.

Hopefully this project will get people talking about how wrong it is to be supplying children with really huge debts before they get their first real job, and with any luck it will re-enter the public discussion.

If you would like to help, you can do so by doing one of three things.

• Making a donation, no matter how small or large
• Putting a link or banner to ClearMyStudentDebt.com on your own site (click here for instructions)
• or spread the word otherwise, whether you mention it to a friend or email it to a colleague

Thanks, Andy :)

Since I got up this morning it has been pretty full on. I've hardly budged from in front of the WDM due to the waves of work that seem to be washing over me. Not only am I contending with client work, I'm also organising meetings, and most complicated of them all, switching servers.

This is going to be a phased thing. At the moments I'm moving all clients, but at some point I will be moving the blog and my folio over. This maybe a bit of a shake up - I'm very much considering moving my blog to a separate website, but have yet to decide on a name. It's going to get a bit of a makeover too.

In other news I don't know whether to be pleased or appalled. While flicking through the channels a few nights ago, The Father said,

"Hang on, Pimp My Ride, that's really quite good."

Recovering from the shock, I quickly had to establish whether he was referring to the far superior version hosted by American rapstar Xibit, or the UK one with the ever-obnoxious Tim Westwood. I was ultimately disappointed.

I suppose on the other hand, this is a dabbling in youth culture so some credit must be given, although The Father appears to have fallen on the wrong side of the tracks with some weedy looking British bloke putting an anglepoise in a Fiesta and saying 'That's real-bling baby, drop tha' bomb [sounds of foghorns and explosions]'.

I have yet to establish whether my iTrip is broken, my phone will ever sell on eBay, or find a pen under all the stuff on my desk.

Err, yes, and more.

Well that answered that. I have to admit now, that I am was a closet Bond fanatic, so any gratuitous outpouring of praise for this film is really what I've bottled up for a couple of years waiting for this film to arrive, and therefore will be fairly sickly to read. I'm sorry if you vomit.

About two years ago I left the cinema on a similarly dark winter night from seeing Layer Cake and said to Devito that I thought Daniel Craig would make a good Bond. This was before any new film had been tabled or Brosnan had been given the boot, and I remain smug. I was therefore over the moon when I discovered he had been awarded the role about a year later and can only say I was fairly, in fact really, shocked at the slating he got at the time, something which looks to have almost entirely dissipated since.

I also got a bit excited when it was rumoured Tarintino was eye-balling the script. I loved the idea of getting some grit back in the film and after although not keen on some of his abstract film-making, I thought he would be be forced into a compromise that would mean I would get what I wanted from the end result. In the end Tarintino didn't get the deal, and looking back, I'm quite happy he didn't. The film I saw tonight was exactly what I wanted.

At the end of Die Another Day (the last Bond film), I remember feeling distinctly disappointed. I simply could not believe any of the plot could actually occur. The villains were so over the top they were unreal and despite my like of John Cleese for his previous comic achievements, the idea of him as the new 'Q' didn't work, and neither did his over-the-top gadgets.

That's why this refresh was needed. The Bond films of the 70s when Moore was 007 were a mixed bag, and although enjoyable, they became so unbelievable they were practically fantasy. Moonraker for instance. In my opinion, Timothy Dalton followed with a much better character, flawed in some respects, but I actually quite like his two films. They brought things back down to earth (appalling pun not intended). Bond should throw reality about a bit, but it should not overstep the mark, and I think this latest incarnation trod that line very well.

I'm not going to drop any real spoilers (any more than you'll have already seen or heard), so if you've not seen it don't worry.

The tempo of the film is keep up due to the constant on/off action. I thought the opening credits are artistically very good, as is the use of the black and white photography. There is the grit I craved for, and a storyline that can be taken seriously for a change.

Le Chiffre, the bad guy, makes for a much more convincing villain than we've seen in any recent outing. The idea that the most central stake is at the poker table and not in a bunker or on some kind of battle field makes this movie a very different experience. The low tech nature of the conflict, the removal of most gadgets other than those necessary, peels Bond back to the bone and makes for a far more convincing character. We get to see a more egocentric, colder and impressionable man - from what I gather, a more true to form version of Flemming's original books.

Sentimentality has been thrown aside in some respects; not all Bond fans will like how they have sharpened the use of, or removed, some previous staples of the franchise. I however, am sold.

Because I can't give a review that is totally one sided, if I have to criticise I will do so with utter mediocrity and grumble while doing so. Yes, there is a lot of product placement, yes there is a blatant cameo by a certain famous entrepreneur as part of the product deals, and yes, the plot is thicker than you might expect (especially at the beginning). But as none of these things bothered me and it's my blog I can chose to dedicate one just sentence to criticism then just go back to praising it whether you like it or not.

The best film I've seen in a long while, and really looking forward to seeing the next one in 2008.

Two weeks on (plus an extra day here or there), I have my MacBook back. Annoyed still? Well yes, despite the people at the Apple Store trying to be as accommodating as they could without going too much out of their way, it's still frustrating when you are told something will be done overnight and it takes two weeks and nobody calls you back even when you asked at least three times, twice in person.

That said, the MacBook is essentially all new; new hard drive, new outer case, new fascia. That has made me happier; it's like getting a Mac all over again. I've just got to install everything again. Urgh.

I finished another website today, as well as making progress with some personal projects. I've been making the most of the shredder I found in the office. The fun you can have shredding your work rather than screwing it in balls is unbelievably satisfying, but I know it is just a matter of time before I have to tape something back together - if it fits, it's in there.

If the return of my MacBook can be seen as a positive, you can only imagine how thrilled I was to receive my letter from the Student Loans Company. Despite the eager twitch of my hand closest to the shredder, sanity prevailed and I am pleased to announce I am the proud owner of a fully fledged £12,338.34 debt. Fantastic. If you have never had to contend with a student loan, then you will probably be surprised to learn this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I would think the same applies to most students. The fact is, you start uni in utter fear that you could be spending so much so quickly, every year, only to numbed totally by the figures when you realise there is no real consequence to your spending and you can't do anything about it anyway.

There's hardly any interest and you don't have to pay any of it back until you start earning over £15k. At one time I even looked into paying bits of it back voluntarily, but according to the guides, it's not worth it. In fact it's best to leave it unpaid as long as possible due to the incredibly favourable rates.

I'd love to clear it though.

Being the huge football fan I am, it will come as no surprise (treat this sceptically) to my immediate friends, that I ended up going to watch the Baggies thrash Burnley today.

It was a good match, and had all the bits you need for a good match, including lots of goals for the side you are meant to be supporting, some amateur dramatics and a sending off. What more could you want? Well it could have been a bit warmer, but with a seat directly (and I do mean directly) behind the goal and a good atmosphere, it made a nice and sporty change to my usual (some might say geeky) Saturday afternoons.

I went with Taylor and his mate Rich. It was sort of a catch up session, and we ended up in the pub afterwards, albeit just to warm up (I opted not to have ice in my Coke). I'm still trying to get over this bloody flu, but it is getting better.

In other news, I'm trying to get the parents to use eBay. There is plenty of rubbish they could afford to shed, especially in the run up to Christmas when there are plenty of other people more than willing to pay good money for all the crap you want to get rid of. If I can explain to them how the digital camera works and how to put items up for sale, we should be ready to purge bits of the house sometime in December. 2007. At least there is some enthusiasm now though.

Also, my school friend Ian appears to have had a pretty good time while visiting Radio 1 this week. Who would have guessed that a Stourbridge born man would be fraternising with the likes of Jo Whiley and Vernon Kay in the corridors of broadcasting house? Well I know he was really there for an soundtest/interview, and so I wish him luck with getting the post. Do it for The 'Bridge.

Today I got a phone call from the editor of the Fat Controller, a national student magazine in which I've been keenly interested since I stumbled across it in the Union last year. It's the first time I'd directly spoken to anyone on the editorial team, but as I am currently in the process of working on some content for the next issue, we needed to talk.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I am a strong advocate of decent student publishing, and while at Loughborough, the quality of the weekly 'Label' publication was often lacklustre. It was a huge relief to find a magazine with a bit of creative flare, some gritty journalism on national issues and some truly interesting content. Also a place where I could get my work seen. It isn't meant to be a replacement for the 'local' zine, if anything it's the opposite, bringing national and general interest to the forefront.

I don't often get excited by text-based stuff; I haven't subscribed to a magazine, well, ever. But this is different, and I urge you, if you are a student or recent graduate, to consider picking up a copy when you next see it in your Union. It's free and you will be impressed. Don't expect watered down articles on 'student issues', or what this week's 'cool thing' is; they've been vetoed and replaced instead with genuinely interesting articles and professionally executed visual appeal.

The main problem is this. A number of universities are trying to stop this magazine getting to the students. They claim the magazine is a threat to their own advertising structures and therefore are trying to make Fat Controller pay exorbitant distribution costs (and I'm talking more than a student debt's worth per university, per issue). Ever wondered why there isn't a national student magazine already? Surely somebody must have tried it before? Well if they did, this is the reason they didn't get very far.

The facts are these. Fat Controller does not take local advertising. It would not be sensible to. It is a national publication, and therefore seeks it's advertising revenue from larger organisations, organisations who currently do not feature much in the local publications because of the small scale nature of their circulation.

This blockade is not coming from the elected sabbatical students, it's coming from the administrators within the Unions (non-elected, often long-serving members of staff). They are effectively running a monopoly and stopping a legitimate student publication from being seen in the universities; a publication that gives a chance for any young creative student to push their journalism/design skills onto a national stage. This valuable experience is being lost because of stubborn universities trying to make a fast buck on a student-run enterprise.

All I ask is this. If you are a student please visit www.fat-controller.com and facebook group to see the sort of thing they get up to. I would not endorse anything I didn't think was worthwhile. Try and pick up an issue the next time you are in the Union shop (in Loughborough they are in the shop on campus and outside the art shop by Label). Join the facebook action group [link to come] and check whether your university is one of the problem makers. Show some support for student freedom of speech and free enterprise, and if you are a photographer, creative writer or graphic artist with talent and you want free exposure to 100,000 readers, drop them an email.

I was sort of hoping when I arrived in Birmingham earlier that I would be able to rescue my MacBook from the Apple Store before meeting with Dave, but it didn't happen. Sandwiched in by a flu vaccination at 5pm, I wasn't even likely to be able to pick it up at the end of today, the earliest they reckoned it would be done. Annoying and expensive to be doing all these trips and still not being able to pick the thing up.

I woke up feeling pretty grotty this morning. I've managed to catch some sort of lurg and it was playing havoc with the back of my throat until it grew bored of that and decided to clog up my ears and sort me a running nose as well. Come back summer.

Swan ended up staying in Lufbra after I left and as far as I am aware skyved off his course today. He has absolutely no resistance to Mikes "Let's get drunk" plans and two days running missed his prebooked train home. In contrast, I have remained busy, sober and ill.