Phew...

It's been a tad quiet in this corner of the blogosphere of late, for a number of reasons. First of all, I've been relatively out of action in the breathing space I've had in a busy 'end of week' what with being struck direly ill...again.
Not that I've had much time to focus on the ailments. Seven hours worth of examinations on Friday. While the questions were suitably decent, the toll of writing solidly, without more than a ten minute break and foodless began to weigh heavily. At four o clock, I then had to dash to a harsh shift at work which wouldn;t end til half ten.
Bah!
Never mind...holidays tomorrow. I escape to Turkey with the family and step bastard for a week.
But there will be some form of ramblings here, courtesy of Jo.
Just so you don't miss me TOO much ;)

Big load of bull!

Last night I had the misfortune of tuning into Big Brother. This wasn't by choice, I was merely in a location where I had no control over the television, and no means of vacating the room either.

And sitting there, I only became further baffled at how people can derive 'entertainment' out of a blatant and cruel bullying campaign that will no doubt have encouraged the 95% of BB viewers who are schoolchildren to unleash similar torrents of abuse on fellow classmates because it's 'amusing'

Not only that, I was cringing with discomfort at the thought of several million people sitting in front of their televisions watching two de-clothed individuals wrapped round eachother, whispering and kissing in what anywhere else would be a very private moment...for a prolonged amount of time.

What a load of trash!

Hmm!

Gemmak has tagged me so here goes...

I am: still hoping for a solution
I want: everything to work out
I wish: that I wasn't so ill all of the time
I hate: Discrimination of any kind
I miss: Simplicity and the sensation of relaxation
I fear: Losing someone special
I hear: a noisy rabble of my brother's friends downstairs!
I wonder: what's going to happen next!
I regret: Not doing enough to stop certain things from happeneing.
I am not: likely to be an electrician
I dance: at gunpoint...badly
I sing in the shower:...NOT!
I cry: when crying helps. And sometimes when it doesn't
I am not always: on the ball!
I make with my hands: love, happiness and cake!
I write: so much that my hand is prone to cramp!
I confuse: the living daylights out of people with strange and erratic behaviour...and love it!
I need: Peace of mind. Even if only for a day
I should: Be revising right now
I start: things that I know I can't finish
I finish: only when I'm dead! Whenever that may be!

I'm TAGGING: Alice; Hursty and Abbi

100th post

So balloons, celebrations, cake and all that jazz...

Oh boy.

I was particularly annoyed to hear of THIS story in the news.
It tells of how, across 150 schools in England, nervous students sat down to the first of the most important school exams they will ever face. These aren't mocks, nor are they pointless SATs, these are GCSEs, the results of which will decide the next few steps in their futures.

As they sat down to their exam, they were posed questions which referred to charts and graphs which were apparentley supposed to be in a source booklet accompanying the paper.
One flaw of this was that this source booklet was absent.
So cue copious amounts of 'quiet as you can' panicking as the time ticked along and thousands of students realised there was no way they could answer half of the questions in the paper. By the end of the alloted time, many were in tears.
Now this is a good start to the month of exams that await them. A real confidence booster if ever I saw it. AQA, who are in charge of this particular exam, said that students were not to worry as the fact they had no sources would be taken into consideration. Meaning what exactly? The markers will be a bit more leniant. It's unfair to mark them at all. It would also be unfair to make them resit it. This was a botch up of the exam board and no amount of formal apologies and assurances not to worry will make it right.
Their advice to relax and concentrateon the rest of their exams will be a harder feat to overcome thanh they make out. Imagine the impression these students will have on the exams after their experiences with their very first.
GCSEs are (pointlessly) terrifying enough as it is, without knocking students' confidence to this extent.

Interesting website of the week...

Err check this out...

If any of you know what THIS is about, please tell me! It baffled me!

It would be nice...

...just once, that as well as being the recipient to the details of other people's deserving woes, that I could get listened to as well, when something weighed on my mind.

Fat bloody chance of that

Bravo...

If any mothers ever need tips on the upbringing of a child, then look no further than this shining example I encountered today.

Young child (about 5 years old): mummy, can I have another bag of crisps?

'Mummy': Can you F*** you greedy little c***

...with this as a mother, I can only sympathise with the child and the poor influences that will shape her personality into something as hideous.

The curse of temptation

There are many ways I could describe the word temptation. It is possibly the most troublesome of our natural emotions and certainly high up on the confusion charts.
More often than not, temptation refers to the urge to do something we know we probably shouldn't. or at least something we have to consider.
If this isn't the case, then temptation is bypassed when taking the action and deciding to go for it.
So I think it's safe to say that temptation can be linked to an equally common phase of dilemma.
If you're a glass half full kind of person, then dilemmas can be seen as life enhancers. They add a little bit of excitement, allow you your independance in the crossroads you face and get you thinking the inevitable question of what if...?
When faced with a great dilemma it is necessary to weigh up the options of each decision. The decision we are most tempted towards can be two things. Either the safe option...or the dangerous option. We would take the safe option for the easier life. To cause the least ripples or to cower out of something. The dangerous option would be taken for that little bit of excitement. morals are sometimes thrown out of the window in this case and it is likely to be connected with a 'live for the moment' kind of decision. The thing about a dilemma is that it is hard to decide. If there was one right answer and one wrong answer then it'd be easy. But both the safe option and the dangerous option can have perilous results. I guess I'm trying to say you're f**ked whatever you do!

Temptation is a message from our hearts. Logic is a message from our brains. Wherever possible, both should be combined for the optimum decision to keep everything smooth. But life rarely works like that. A temptation will no doubt lead to some degree of trouble, whether it be your personal disappointment that this temptation is out of bounds, or that the temptation is making you look at your current situation in a different light or perhaps that you've given in to temptation and realised that it was the wrong decision.
Our brains were made for decision making. The complicated thing is that our heart's fog what our brain is reasonably trying to tell us.

Temptation can be the fun option and also the better option. You can look back after taking the plunge and think 'yeah that was the right thing to do'
But, it's reasonable to say that it can work the opposite way and you can soon be telling yourself that you really botched things up there.
naturally, the outcome of the temptation and the subsequent decision depends heavily on the scale and circumstances of the situation.
Very rarely is there a straight forward solution. As soon as we stop searching for the impossible and keeping everyone happy, that's when we can start making those decisions based on our own gut feelings.

Hey, we all make mistakes. But we might as well have fun and learn something when doing so!

Education

It's that time of year again in British schools. Students begin regretting their leniancy towards revision, teachers yank out all but half of their hair in a blind panic and invigilators emerge from the land of twiddling thumbs.
Yes, exam season is upon us once again. And once again, it has prompted irritable thoughts from myself on the state of the country's education system. When once education was devoted to the discovery and execution of new knowledge, it is now a restricted palavar of spoon feeding and information overload matched perfectly to examination guidelines.
The only things we get to learn about in school is what goes on the blank lines in exam papers. No world is more contrived than the current school system, and now there is just a blatant competition for the highest examination results. No lessons in how to use the skills required for the exam in a real life situation, no example scenarios in how maths and english are actually useful and certainly no activities which contain any amount of originality.
School is just a year by year preparation for a period of exams. Once those exams are out of the way, then there are more to get working for.
The whole idea of education should be to teach children and young adults new skills and to develop their intellect and use their own minds. But I've lost count of the amount of times I have copied out of a textbook, word for word, information that I merely need to regurgitate onto a different sheet of paper in quieter conditions. Half of the battle is the memory test. If you have a memory, then you're likely to pass.
The only thing impressive about having a heap of GCSEs or A-Levels is the fact that you have managed to survive years of boredom to reach the exams.
I'm not saying that the exams are particulalry easy...nor are they stress free. However, the whole heart and overall point of education has got lost somewhere to be replaced by a governmental grasp for statistics.
Thus making students feel like mindless robots rather than individuals trying to gain personal achievements

Is it logical...

...that in a massive, many acred, field that someone would choose to sit their small jacksie in the patch layered with a dog's excrament?

*sigh* Some of the people I know...

The perils of online dating!

In order to save the face of the person this story refers to, I will refrain from revealing his identity here, but i was recently made aware of a friend's dapples in internet dating and cannot resist the urge to relate the story here.

You know the sites I refer to. Whether or not you've visited them at your lowest ebb in desperation for any form of solid partnership, or through casual curiosity or whatever, everyone is aware of them due to popups and website advertising.
It has always been a guideline for safe internet usage that not everyone is who they say they are. Well, my friend, who I shall call G for the purpose of this story, got a membership to one of these agencies and was soon chatting to several females. One such female caught his eye and boasted a profile picture of a slim, sexy blonde. Private chat sessions ensued and soon the pair were getting on like a house on fire.
After a few weeks of online chat and phone calls, G turned the subject round to a physical meeting. D (for date) regulalrly put this off until backed into a corner so a meet-up was arranged. G waited like a lemon for his date to turn up and, when it became clear he'd been stood up, he marched home to his computer and confronted her. She admitted that she wasn't all that she seemed so this prompted G to jump into his car and drive to his address. Arriving at the house, he saw a...rather large, silhouette against the closed curtained window. Gulping down his nerves at this twist, he knocked on the door and was met with a woman quite different to the picture she posted. Nevertheless, after the awkwardness of her lies subsided, he decided to take her out for a drink anyway but became nervous when she kept buying him doubles. Catching the eye of someone else in the bar, he managed to slip over and speak to her. She asked if he was seeing D and he said no. When he went to the toilet and returned however, it became interested who this new person was really interested in. She had her tongue shoved down D's throat.
G's surprises were not yet over though. When they came up for air, they noitced him and asked him quite a blatant question. 'Fancy a threesome?'
G felt it was time to back away from the situation, made his excuses, before realising he was too drunk to operate a vehicle, especially as several inches of snow had since fallen. Realising he was going to be forced to stay at D's he walked home with her, desperate to keep his senses alert. After refusing three subsequent offers to share her bed, he manaaged to fall asleep on the settee and woke at 4am. Snow cleared and feeling more sober, he tried to sneak out of the house, only to be met with pounding footsteps down the stairs and a chokeslam against the wall.
What took place in the next hour, my friend didn't go into detail but he did eventually emerge, after many pants of 'don't leave me' from D, a black eye and the realisation that she had made a voodoo doll of him in the night!

So I think I know one person at least who won't be tempted by the popups!

youve court to be kidding!

Many moons ago...well, due to all the related misfortunes to befall my friend since, it seems that length of time...a greasy, pointy nosed, unbelievably thick individual thought he'd try his luck with the light fingered variety of retail therapy.
Plonking his mits on a powertool, he bypassed the checkouts in the store I work and made for the exit but, before long, two colleagues were in close pursuit. While the police were kept up to date, the dimwit was eventually tracked down and, various 'not guilty' pleas, identity parades and small hearings later, the case came to court.
A friend of mine who gave chase to this lowlife, was also expected to attend, as a witness. Bearing in mind she has heard little from the authorities concerned and when she has it has involved threats of her arrest when the last date clashed with her holiday, it's fair to say she's been mucked around a bit.
So here we were, sitting in a cardboard sized waiting room, her attempting to look her dignified best in a dress suit whilst tugging at her socks, battling with a regularly self unfixing button accessory on her skirt and burping, plonked in wait of some progress.
And wait we did. It was soon that we were reduced to digging through handbags for scraps of chocolate and flicking through 3 year old magazines in desperate hope of an entertaining problem page (you know the ones...'I've fallen in love with my husband's murderer but a genie brought my husband back to life so I'm in a dilemma...I asked my cousin for advice and ended up in a threesome with him and his friend, who gives my son drugs in return for a hand job')
Eventually, an official looking woman wandered in and eventually, after significant amounts of faffing and destruction of her official look by pulling coffee and milk out of her briefcase, revealed herself as a witness advisory type person, who had travelled a distance to be here. After a copious amount of fondling with a television which had no aerial in the vain hope of getting a picture (why I don't know because we had already done the waiting thing...or so we thought) , she got down to business and went through the rigmoral of telling my friend what she could expect to happen in the witness box.
Next, we were visited by a police officer with eyes wider than Jade Goody's gob, and he informed us that the other colleague who was down to witness had fallen ill...and his evidence was valued. By the time the prosecution had had their say to my friend, it became obvious that the defendant was still yet to turn up. Predictably, he had pulled a 'no show' act, thus sending the case into an adjournment status. Once discussions for re-sheduling were underway, the lad turned up, an hour late, protesting that his taxi was late and walked smack bang into my friend who was due to give evidence against him.
Apparantely, because the adjournment had already been decided, it was irreversible. So, right in front of the thief, the next case was put down for a month's time, despite the fact that the magistrates couldn't possibly have had time to vacate the building.
The day couldn't have been more farcical if it tried.
Well that's a lie, the shopkeeper could have refused to give us change for the parking meter. Thank god SOME problems are simple to overcome!

Read a more entertaining account of this very same debacle HERE

well thank gawd for that!

After a tentative 36 hours, my mobile phone has regained conciousness and has made a full recovery.
I was on the brink of considering the purchase of a new phone online when I heard it vibrate on my windowsill and spring back into life
That's a relief!

Fletch, I share in your pain...

...like a relative at a patient's hospital bed, I am anxiously waiting to see if my phone will be all right...after it took the plunge into a mug of tea!
It's drying off at the moment, and currently not working...BAH!

Fair?

I, like many others, was made aware of this story in the last week and I must say, I am baffled by some points in the article.
In a nutshell, the story is that of an 11 year old girl becoming pregnant with the help of a 15 year old friend at a drunken party.
Details of the story suggests that this child has had a very poor upbringing. The fact that her mother would allow her daughter to become the focus of such media frenzy says a lot in itself. The girl is a regular drinker, and a chain smoker and it is pain stakingly obvious that she has no foundations in life. Her mother claims to be 'very proud' of her daughter and her imminent pregnancy, which is 'exciting' the expectant mother to be. The whole set up is quite disturbing. Something has gone sadly wrong in this family unit and, as an outsider who only knows the bare facts, my blame will have to fall mostly into the mother's lap. While most parents would shield both their child and themselves from exposure over a tender situation like this, this dozy mare is parading her daughter around like a celebrity and as if childhood pregnancy is a great achievement.
But the most startling behaviour is not the mother's neglect of parenting basics that would be obvious to a blind chipmunk. No, I was more confused by the treatment of the lad who got her up the duff in the first place. Yes, it was a stupid thing to do. But, this guy is being charged for statutory rape. Now, I urge you to correct me if I'm mistaken, but the term rape, I always thought, referred to non-consensual sex. This girl was clearly up for it and obviously has no regrets. both were drunk and it takes two to tango as the cliched proverb goes. And the fact that the girl is happy and excited at the prospect of motherhood shows that she can't be scarred by the events, instead suggesting quite the contrary. She is also granting the boy full rights to the child...this was not a rape. The main argument is that he is significantly older than her and yes, we are all aware that there is a law over sex with minors. But he is a minor as well. This judgement and subsequent punishment is yet to be justified in my eyes. If anyone can shed any light on reasoning surrounding this boy's rape charge, I'd be most interested to hear it!

This is really boring but what the hey...

Yes, another meme...and a rather mundane one at that. I will regain my inventive streak someday soon, I promise!

First

• First job: Working in a newsagents. Basically this involved standing at a till, reading comics/newspapers and eating anything I wanted!
  
• First screen name: If you mean IM then it would be my email address...obviously.
  
• First funeral: My aunt's funeral.
  
• First pet: One of my many cats! Snowy...yeah original I know. I didn't name her!
  
• First piercing: Don't have any piercings!
  
• First tattoo: Same here
  
• First credit card: Err...how is this question meant to be answered? :S
  
• First kiss: With my first girlfriend when I was the tender wee age of twelve. it was a pretty crap kiss...on her part of course ;P
  
• First enemy: ...and still my current enemy. A certain relative
  

Last

• Last car ride: emm...wow I can't remember. I haven't been in a car for ages actually. i walk everywhere.
  
• Last kiss: Ha, that would get me into A LOT of trouble with A LOT of people so I won't go there!
  
• Last movie watched: ummm none for a long time but a friend has loaned me Charlie and the chocolate factory so I'm sure Ill get round to watching that
  
• Last beverage drank: emm...a glass of wine
  
• Last food consumed: my mummys vegetable chilli. My intestines feel like they're on fire...
  
• Last phone call: I phoned my best friend
  
• Last time showered: About ten minutes ago
  
• Last CD played: Don't do CDs
  
• Last website visited: ...Blogger
  

Now

• Single or taken: Taken
  
• Gender: Male
  
• Birthday: December 6th
  
• Sign: Sagittarius
  
• Siblings: one younger brother
  
• Hair color: brown
  
• Eye color: Greyish green...it changes actually...at odd times
  
• Shoe size: Dunno!
  
• Height: Dunno!
  
• Wearing: Out of shower comfort clothes!
  
• Drinking: Nuffink!
  
• Thinking about: A lot of things. But the primary thought at this moment of time are the answers to these intellectually demanding questions...
  
• Listening to: Bugger all!

Oh and gemmak, you are so tagged!

Fancy Dress

Dear me, the things we do for a good cause!
My school year are running a fancy dress day to raise money for Cancer research, something close to my own heart and those of many others.
Well, stuck for cash and also lacking in imagination, I didn't have a clue who to go in as! Bear in mind we are also restricted to film characters! Who would you go as!?

As it's ended up, I have pur-chased a heap of random items...blonde plaits, a pink bowler hat, a cowboy badge, a bandit's eye mask and an owl mask and just plan to go in as a...for want of a better word...weirdo!

Considering i spend much of my life being weird, it's easy, perfect and plus it'll stand out!
And there's nothing better than getting one of those 'oh my good god, what the hell' looks!
;)

...wish me luck though...I might get beaten up!

Three things meme

I was tagged with this ages ago and it is now convenient to dust it off and post it, as I haven't got much else to write about! I'm not going to bother tagging anyone else with it, but I'd still like to see your answers if you want to have a go!

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME:
01 | Losing someone i love
02 | Fire!
03 | Water on my face

THREE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME LAUGH:
01 | Best friend
02 | My Girlfriend
03 | Gemmak

THREE THINGS I LOVE:
01 | Girlfriend
02 | My computer!
03 | TV Show, Bad Girls! Perfect trash!

THREE THINGS I HATE:
01 | A certain family member
02 | Dishonesty
03 | Discrimination

THREE THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND:
01 | Discrimination again
02 | Physics!
03 | Politics, though i'm sure I would if I tried

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK:
01 | Speakers
02 | Random pieces of paper
03 | My mobile phone

THREE THINGS I'M DOING RIGHT NOW:
01 | Filling this quiz out
02 | Chewing a pen
03 | Texting girlfriend

THREE THINGS I WANTTO DO BEFORE I DIE:
01 | Have some degree of success in acting
02 | Have a piece of written work ( a novel or a script) published
03 | Begin to like myself

THREE THINGS I CAN DO:
01 | Act
02 | Do impressions of people
03 | Play tennis!

THREE WAYS TO DESCRIBE MY PERSONALITY:
01 | Crazy!
02 | Selfless ( I hope that comes across!)
03 | Light hearted

THREE THINGS I CAN'T DO:
01 | Swim confidently
02 | Dance
03 | Anything involving scaling heights

THREE THINGS I'D LIKE TO LEARN:
01 | More Spanish
02 | To drive!
03 | Calligraphy

THREE SHOWS I WATCHED WHEN I WAS A KID:
01 | Pingu
02 | Pigeon Street
03 | Sharky and george

Ever felt trapped?

Or ever had the sensation of seeing a light at the end of a tunnel only to find it's a wall painted white?

I'm sick of this shit.

I have said...

...posted, thought, acted out, so many moans and so much doom and gloom lately!
I feel it necessary, in the wake of quite an uplifting day, to apologise and thank those who put up with me!

~~

A case of chinese whispers has gone seriously wrong between a few people I know recently. Whether or not bits are added to allow the information giver to feel more important to the situation, or if they're added to make the gossip all the more juicier or even if it's just an accident, I don't quite know.
But when something happens and it gets back to someone after being filtered through the lives of several others, it will always be more exaggerrated than when it first kicked off.
Hence I'm left with a heinous amount of pieces to pick up after two people who have been left feeling betrayed and mortified by eachother.

I don't understand the process of talking negatively about people behind their backs. It always...without a shadow of a lingering doubt, ends up causing more hurt and aggrivation than if it was just said to the person's face.
There's no animal that loves a bit of intrigue more than us pathetic humans and many will latch onto any piece of bitching they can find.

The conclusion: Don't be two faced :)

And so it's left to this...

I was faced with a dauntingly hard task to undertake today. In the wake of a close friend's recent diagnosis of a terminal illness, I have been left with the job of raking through all of her possessions in her dingy one roomed abode.
It seemed so plastic to reduce her life and achievements to a few items in torn boxes. Going through photos, tapes, CDs, books, ornaments and letters, I gradually managed to build up a brave, kind, loveable person with not a selfish bone in her body.

J.D. I hope this goes as qucikly and as painlessly as it possibly can for you.

How contrived...

Hollywood annoys me. With the news of the upcoming Titanic 2 feature film emerging from the plasitc realm of the showbiz world, I wonder again about Hollywood's disregard for history.
The original motion picture was a poor enough representation of true events but watch the trailer that I have linked for it's sequel and yet another poignant historic event has been commercialsed beyond belief and presented as trash.
Unbelievable.

And congratulations...

...to Jo, who has been accepted into the National Youth theatre after a successful audition.

Well done!! I'm sure you'll enjoy the experience as much as I did!

What a weight off my shoulders...

All coursework for this year is done, dusted, handed in and over with!
I'm at the point where I don't care what it's like or how good it is, so long as it is out of the way!
Maybe not the attitude to have but hey.