Robert

I've been listening through every Foo Fighters album recently and found that their earlier albums, especially their 1995 debut and One By One, are far more memorable than anything on Concrete and Gold or Sonic Highways. Songs such as Learn To Fly and Times Like These have a melodic and slightly jangly feel, while non-single songs such as Good Grief have a great beat and strong riff/bassline. What's up with their newer stuff, which is better produced but lacking in memorable hooks and too variant in beat?

So is a typical southern English accent stronger, or is a typical northern American accent stronger? I'm British, and think the American accent is stronger, but many Americans disagree.

I hear a lot of people claiming that "golden age" music from circa 1955-1975 and contemporary 2009-present music is the most melodic. At the same time, I find power chord based rock and punk from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s most melodic, which a lot of people claim to be some of the least melodic besides rap. Why is this?

I thought the free version of Spotify only allows you to play tracks in shuffle mode, but I downloaded it onto my iPad the other day and it's allowing me to play them in any order, with an ad between every few songs. Why is this? There are four possibilities:

*Spotify have recently changed its free version to allow tracks to be played in any order

*It's a bug

*They give you free selection for a few days after you've downloaded the app (makes no mention of this)

*They are allowing all users free selection over a certain time period

I logged out of Spotify and back in, and it's still giving me free selection over what track I play and when. The ads make me know I am using the free version, though, and I am still unable to do premium things such as download tracks. What's gone on?

In American English, "gotten" is sometimes used over got. Now being British, I was never taught how to use it at school, but still find it more grammatically correct than "got" in some cases. Of these sentences that "got" would be used in British English, which would an American use got and which would they use gotten for?

1: I've got/gotten to go

2: Had I got/gotten far into it

3: I've got/gotten some chocolate on me

4: I'd got/gotten some chocolate on me

5: This newspaper has got/gotten terrible lately

6: I will have got/gotten good by then

I think it's got, gotten, got, gotten, gotten and gotten but I'm interested in checking. Also, some younger people I've known in the UK have sometimes used gotten, while older people never use it at all. Why is this probably?

I got my GCSE grades today, and a lot of people told me "well done", but I'm a little suspicious as to how good these grades are. I got an A* for a GCSE equivelant, 5 C's, 2 D's and three E's, however I passed all my core subjects. This is what I got:

ICT (TLM equivelant) - A*

Mathematics - C

English Language iGCSE - C

Philosophy/Ethics - C

Physics - C

Art - C

Computer Science - D

Geography - D

English Literature - E

Biology - E

Chemistry - E

I know these grades are not brilliant, but are they of an acceptable standard or not? Will I be able to get into university?

I'm British and would always say proven instead of proved when in the context of "I have proven my theory", but then I read Wikipedia yesterday and found out that "proved" is strongly preferred over "proven" in British English, but "proven" is commonplace in American English. So how come I speak British English but find "proven" more natural sounding in the example I gave?

Previously, I had heard others at school say words such as "proved" and thought they were talking slang.

Virtually everyone I know draws both of these letters from the top, anticlockwise, but I've always drawn them from the bottom, clockwise. I was told by my teacher to do them the way all the others did, but I always found that way unnatural and uncomfortable feeling. At 16, I'm trying to draw them the way that others do, but the perspective still feels all weird to me and I cannot get the hang. Why is this? Should I learn to do them the way that others always have, or continue drawing them my own way?

I'm curious as to the style of music that I like. Several people have told me how dull it is, so what do you think? I've included my favourite songs by them in order to help you.

Interpol (Untitled)

Green Day (When I Come Around)

Coldplay's second and third album (Clocks)

Foo Fighters (Good Grief, Times Like These)

Joy Division (Disorder)

Husker Du (Standing In the Rain)

Radiohead's first album (Lurgee)

Ash (Shining Light)

Primal Scream (Inner Flight)

Moby (Porcelain)

Grant Hart (You Don't Have To Tell Me Now)

U2 (In God's Country)

Do my musical tastes seem at all strange for a 16 year old, and what sort of sound do I graviate towards? I mean in terms of genre; the song complexity; whether my taste is at all middle of the road or interesting etc;

I'm 16, but like a lot of rock/alternative stuff from the 1990s and early 2000s, such as Foo Fighters, Idlewild, Green Day, Interpol, Placebo, Ash etc. Since the late 2000s, there have been very few new bands creating music similar to these bands, and even these bands have become less melodic since. What happened to that catchy verse-chorus rock style that existed in the 1990s/2000s? I've come across a handful of older artists (Bob Mould in particular) who are still doing stuff like this, so clearly not all of the memorable melodies have been taken. Have people's tastes just moved on? And would you say that music from now (rock) is as catchy as back then?

I draw mine clockwise from the bottom-left, however most other people I know draw theirs from the top anticlockwise. How do you draw the letter on its own?

Virtually everybody I can think of in the music industry has either given no opinion or supported the remain campaign (which lost). Remain supporters that I'm aware of include Richard Branson (Virgin founder), Polydor Records, former Marillion singer Fish, Florence, Jarvis Cocker, Johnny Marr, Posh Spice and many more.

I'm tempted to say that Morrissey might be a leave supporter, given that he claimed that he had "admirations for Farage". Are there any that you can name who support Britain's leave decision?

Culturally, would somebody born in 1999 or 2000 be closer to somebody born in the late 80s/early 90s or someone born today (2016)? I'm talking in terms of typical names, upbringing, and lifestyle. The two main things that make me ask is that 1: we did not commonly use smart phones/tablets in the early 2000s, and 2: I've noticed a big change in first names between about 2001 and 2008, which is after 2000.

I finished my final GCSE paper today, however based on how easy I found each paper, there are the grades that I predict I got:

ICT - B

Maths - B

English Language - C

Philosophy/Ethics/RE - C

Computer Science - C

English Literature - D

Geography - D

Art - D

Physics - D

Biology - D

Chemistry - E

I'm a bit concerned on what do do next year if these are the grades I actually got. I was also predicted roughly these by my school earlier in the year. My dad got A/B O-Level grades, or all A*/A GCSEs by the current system...

I found out today that people born in Northern Ireland have dual citizenship. My dad was born in Northern Ireland in the 1960s (to a father born in the ROI) and I was born in England in 2000. The ROI Government's page on citizenship by ancestry says that anyone who had a parent who was an Irish citizen at the time of their birth is also an Irish citizenship. So does this apply for me? The term "Ireland" on this page appears to be talking about the island as a whole.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_countr...

I'm 16, and created this webcomic a few weeks back. It's about two best friends and their experiences in the world. But it doesn't seem to have much of a hook when it comes to plot. I cannot think of what to write my strips about most of the time. Others seem supportive of my idea, yet I cannot come up with enough stories. You can see what I have so far below. How can I establish a decent plot?

http://josh-angus-adventures.thecomicseries.com/

By the way, I keep getting D/E/F grades in GCSE English Literature at school. Does this have something to do with why I can't come up with anything?

I do my English Literature exams next week (WJEC) and am really struggling. I'm in the foundation tier for the subject, and in the mocks and practice questions that we have done in class, I've got a mixture of D, E, F, and G grades. Not one C. What's the chance of me passing this one, and what should I do (the first exam is on Monday)?

I'm struggling to decide which of my two eyes is dominant. If I point with my index finger to an object, and focus on the object, I tend to default on the leftward finger (as seen by my right eye), yet sometimes default on the other. In general, I use a camera viewfinder with my left eye. And, when doing the two-hand triangle method, I seem to get dominance from both eyes depending on what I am looking at. Am I doing something wrong here? Why am I unable to determine? I really want to find out my dominant eye.

I'm currently 16, and will be doing my maths GCSE paper in a few weeks. Currently I am predicted a B, and my year group will be the last one to do the old style GCSE curriculum. Out of curiosity, I found a number of sample exam papers for the upcoming curriculum that years below me will be studying, and could not understand the vast majority of the questions. There was a lot of terminology that I have never been taught, and many unfamiliar symbols, randomly given expressions and unclear instructions. However, both my parents (who did O levels) could understand it, as could my younger sister. So why does nobody my age get these questions when younger people at my school are?

I'm 16, and into a lot of music from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s (mostly alternative rock stuff), but since about 2008, anything by young artists has just sounded dull and boring. My parents listen to some newer music and actually like it more than I do. Likewise, I've recorded some demos and people have compared the sound to that of Joy Division circa 1979.

What happened to music in the late 2000s? Previously a lot of rock/indie songs had a conventional structure, and catchy hook, but since then the AutoTune has been cranked up a lot on vocals, verse-chorus structure has been lost, and there has been a lot more operatic focus. Will it go the other way again?

How come if my parents and everyone else I know likes the current rock music being released, do I not? I grew up listening to a lot of stuff from the 80s and 90s, but so did other kids who are my age.