Ben Tylecote

It’s going to be a good day, at this point, as far as I remember I literally enjoyed every school day, getting to see all my friends and enjoying basically every subject. Today was extra special though. It was the first day we had a visitor in with our sports scholarship program.  I always loved the feeling, especially in yr7, of going out of class to do something sport related. I recall early on in a science lesson, I think Ms fletcher was our teacher, getting our pulse tested and Archie and I getting called out because we were triathletes so ours would be low.  Our schools sports scholarship program doesn't gain you any money off school, as it is already free, instead you get benefits such as gym membership, training and talks. And today was the first of the talks/ lessons. Today from  Anthony Clark , a former professional badminton player and one of the best the Uk has produced. Anthony Clark first talked to us and showed us videos of his career highlights, he h...

Quick tips:  Food:  Take Boil in the Bag food - it is SO much easier. Whilst all the other teams were spending ages making their pasta, watching over it to make sure it didn't burn, and making a proper meal we just sat their for two minutes and had a full curry or roast dinner, with some chocolate cake, it was great. If your having sandwiches for lunch use warburtons thins or pita bread in general. Clothing: For Bronze and Silver at least, just take two lots of cloths - one set for walking and one for night. Our school told us to take three lots, each set for a night and a day. What a waste of space. Wear two sets of socks (thin and thick, to prevent blisters) Stuff people forget: Spare socks  Torch Snacks for during the day (lots of them) Shoes for campsite Matches Plasters (in case you get blisters) Hay fever tablets (Piriton)(even if you don't end needing them someone else definitely is) Take cards or a tennis ball (something to entertain yourself at the campsite) // ...

I'd been watching some YouTube. It had long been a goal of mine to wake up early and get everything done before the day, for most people, had even begun. Finally, after some tests in the holidays I was ready to try and see if I could manage waking up at 5am for... as many days as I could.  Initially this challenge exited me, I had a plan in place. Everyday I would wake up 30 minutes earlier- to re-adjust my body clock. In the holidays I had done this - just reading in the time I was awake. Now I was at school I wanted to actually get stuff done.  My schedule would be wake up at 5, go and do school work for an hour, then do the  r/ bodyweight fitness Reddit recomended routine . breakfast, school then back to bed at 9 to get 8 hrs sleep - which is apparently the amount of sleep the body needs to fully recover .   The first four days went by and I was on top of the moon, everything was going so smoothly. I was getting all my work done really easily, it seemed like my br...

We on are way back from a day trip. The sun was glistening against the smooth ripples that raced across the lakes surface; the last rays were skipping down onto the shoreline where the ducks waddled gently out of the water. So low was the sun that it beamed right through the windows of the 8 seater van. All seats full with passengers, friends and family.  I was right beside the vans sliding door tumbling into a day dream. Thinking about school, about friends, about sport, about what would happen if you open the door. I wondered whether anyone would be crazy enough to try. I imagined the wind, the fresh air. I bet that would be quite fun I thought, stepping down another rung of the ladder, practically asleep.  "BEN!" I was awake in an instant. The door beside me had slid open. In shock I recoiled. Luckily I quickly managed to get it shut. My mother, who was sitting beside me, was holding firmly onto me - ensuring I didn't fall out. Adrenaline  was pumping through my body. ...

I've already talked about authors "ripping off" one another's style's... Well the new Alex Rider series is out on Amazon prime. These books are the epitome of using another persons structure.  Anthony Horowitz, the author of the rider series, utilises the classic James Bond techniques. Whenever I ponder this I wonder whether copying of styles is such a bad thing, always coming to the same conclusion. I don't think it is. Many of my favourite series are well known to be heavily inspired by other works. Even the Northern Lights, and books of dust are inspired by Paradise Lost, says Philip Pullum - their author.  Overall the combination of new ideas combined with unoriginal ideas is a good thing. Getting a truly novel idea, after so many years of human life, must be incredibly rare, you would think. Yet we can never truly know what everyone has thought throughout the course of history. Therefore, unless blatantly copying word for word, I would suggest using stole...

If I were to write a book, in which a child who was beaten by his farther, had to escape with his mother and brother whom his farther also beat; a child who cheated his way through school; a young man who weighed 300 pounds and yet still turned his life around - you might not believe it entirely plausible. Well Goggin's went on to lose 100 pounds in 3 months to be able to enter navy seal training, BUDS. He then went on to complete hell week, the physical training section of the course, on three separate occasions - having to leave twice on medical grounds - completing his third round of training on broken legs. Hell week is a section through which around 90% of applicants commonly drop out. During his military career he lost some of his friends in operation red wings, the story of  Lone Survivor tells the tale, after which he wanted to help these friends families by raising money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation . To do so he looked for the toughest race in the world ...

Nowadays online I seem to always be being preached to by some kind of "expert", on a YouTube ad, usually trying to get me to sign up for this Amazing! ; Once In A Lifetime! ; Life Changing!... course, seminar or newsletter. Of course, these people or rarely actually experts in anything apart from video advertising. Commonly this kind of thing is one massive pyramid scheme: "sign up for my course for $5 and I'll teach you how to make your own course and get people to sign up for $5". Over and over the process repeats. It got me thinking. Who would I actually be willing to get advice from and furthermore who would I actually be willing to pay for such advice? When thinking about this a few examples pop into my head, tutors and coaches being primary examples. Paying people in these two occupations is common, and this doesn't seem unreasonable. After all, these are people who probably do their job well and advance your ability in an area or skill set that you ar...

Its the 3rd of June 2020. It would be an understatement to describe the year as crazy. Just when we thought Coronavirus was the worst that could happen we get the news of yet another killing of a black man by police officers in America. These are the thoughts I put on my Instagram yesterday as the intensity of protests in America and action being taken by the public only increases. I wanted to make it clear what I think: That what is happening in America is insane; the racism and disrespect by police officers is completely unacceptable - to George Floyd specifically, but to the peaceful protesters as well. Large changes are clearly needed. The crazy thing is this shouldn't be a political issue at all. But when the POTUS is threatening protesters with bullets... I mean words can't really describe what I feel. // https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-praises-overwhelming-force-domination-dc-morning-peaceful/story?id=71018509 I don't really like being political but when the pr...

"So your entered in the engineer category," she said kindly, "Am I?" I responed, "I thought I was in the scientist category..." It was not off to a good start, fortunately it got a bit better from there... It was a few months ago that I had returned from America, Oklahoma specifically. Where over the last few months I had been recording earthquakes with the seismometer that my next door neighbour had allowed me to borrow. It wasn't a bad time to measure earthquakes over there, what with Donald Trump being elected and all. Whilst I managed to record several physical earthquakes I also managed to miss two magnitude 5 earthquakes, one week before and one week after I left OKC (Oklahoma City). Unlucky as that might have been I had still managed to record a large number of earthquakes. When I returned back to the UK my neighbour encouraged me to enter this regional science fair called the big bang, I had no idea how far it would take me.  I entered, without...

The popular trilogy of books, soon to be released as movies starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, by author Patrick Ness are a classic YA dystopian future hit.  They include all the classic workings you would expect from a hit young adult novel - a challenge they need to overcome; a journey where the protagonists inevitably fall in love, you get the idea...  A classic but nothing to special, right? As good as they are, you wouldn't think would be breaking any boundaries of literature.  But they do - at least - in my opinion. You see these books pose another interesting element. One that is not included in the likes of The Hunger Games or Maze Runner books. On the New World, the planet where some humans have emigrated to, everyone can hear everybody else's thoughts.  This led my friends and I to an interesting debate. Like most people, I assume, they thought a world like this would be horrible. It is certainly presented as horrible for humans when they first arrive. ...

After making multiple speeches to hundreds of people and winning a few competitions I found a formula that now allows me to write a good speech in as little as 5 minutes. Here are the simple steps Writing: Start off with something interesting like an anecdote, statistic, joke and try to use a prop if you are allowed. Do something that grabs the audience’s attention - the first 5 seconds are by far the most important- evoke some powerful emotion or reaction in them. Once you have their attention then introduce yourself and explain what questions or curiosities you’re going to answer. Following this get into the depth of your topic - include stats and facts but try to make everything a story or an anecdote. Doing this makes your speech 10x as interesting, at the end of the day a story is the most interesting thing you can tell people - so attempt to include your content, whatever it is, in some form of story. Once you have explained your idea you want to come to a simpl...