Big Brother Grad Ball Ticket queuing!

5.59 am- Ali wakes up and ponders the reasoning behind getting up at such an ungodly hour.
6.00 am- Ali's alarm goes off annoyingly loudly. She sighs and gets up to go have a shower.
6.15 am- Ali leaves 223's bathroom, engaging in brief conversation with Kirst as she does so.
6.30 am- Ali has raided the cupboards and is now eating a Tracker bar in the kitchen. Kirst wanders in to find her making cheese salad sandwiches.
6.48 am- Ali is ready to leave, however, looking at Kirst's attire, she goes back upstairs to get a different jacket.
6.50 am- Kirst and Ali leave 223
6.55 am- Kirst and Ali arrive at 53 and meet Mike, Pete, Tim, Emma, and Emma's strange, but wonderful housemate; Claire.
7.00 am- They all leave 53, with the exception of Pete who is told to catch them all up.
7.05 am - They arrive at the Guild to see an exceptionally bigger queue than expected. Heaving a sigh of disappointment they join the back of it. Settling down on their patch of asphalt for the next few hours.
7.10 am - Boredom sets in, and realisation dawns on the group about just what a task they've taken on.
7.15 am - Ali makes it known that she has a drain cover that she is sat on, rather than the asphalt, and whilst it may be making weird pattterns on her arse, she is not too concerned with that at the moment. The others, especially Pete, get a slight bit of drain cover envy.
7.30 am- Ali is attempting to sleep by placing her head in Mike's lap, but still keeping her drain cover. Drain cover envy amongst others is now rife. So is jealousy of thinking to use Mike's lap to sleep in.
7.45 am- Emma resorts to the 'Book about the fish'. Everyone else resorts to attempting to understand and read 'The Economist' and 'New Scientist'.
8.00 am- Boredom really sets in. The main part of the Guild opens. People in the queue start to leave to get drinks and food.
8.20 am- Ali, Mike and Pete decide to go and get drinks, and leave the queue. They join another equally long queue in the Guild for the hot drinks machine. Ali gives in and goes to get more money from the cash point.
8.25 am- Ali rings Mike telling him and Pete to come to Joe's as there is no queue and they are serving hot drinks. She is hailed as a hero. They return to the queue. And Emma, Claire and Tim leave.
8.35 am- Tim returns to the queue.
8.40 am- hot drinks start to get cold and are now drunk instead of just used to keep hands warm. Emma and Claire are still not back. The group begin to ponder the possibility that they have been eaten by ravenous students.
8.45 am- Ali optimistically gets out her paper for Mike to look for jobs. Mike tries but Ali keeps leaning over him and pointing out useless jobs whilst giggling manically. Secretly Mike thinks the cold has seeped into Ali's brain and she won't last much longer. Mike eventually snaps at Ali telling her to stop....but she doesn't. Emma and Claire return with a green bag and crisps and chocolate.
9.15- The group have now been sat here for just over 2 hours. Rumours start to circulate that the tickets will be sold early at 10.00am, the group ponder this likelihood and decide it is probably just wild rumours and don't get their hopes up. Ali and Mike have progressed from the jobs pages of the paper to the crossword pages. They are still bickering however, with Mike doing most of the crossword without letting Ali see it. Finally he gives in and lets her look.
9.40 am- Emma gives up all hope and between her and Claire, they open the bottle of wine they secretly bought. The others privately think this is a bad idea- the signs are not good, it is a screw cap bottle of wine for a start, and secondly they are all secretly thinking Claire is an alcoholic. Mike takes this opportunity to leave the queue to go and cash a cheque in the bank.
9.50 am- Ali leaves the queue to go to the toilet, she is now regretting the cup of tea. She stops off in the Basement to pick up, with the help of GTV Mike, 3 beanbags and a fold out sofa. They return and are treated like hero's.
9.55 am - more rumours circulate about things opening up sooner. Mike returns to the queue from the bank to find Ali smugly sitting on a fold out sofa and the others on beanbags playing cards. He rubs his eyes before finally believing what he sees and sitting next to Ali, giving her a little kiss in glee.
10.00 am- Suddenly everyone in the queue in front stands up and moves forward. People are more bunched together. And the group begin to wonder if they have been too sceptical about the tickets being on sale sooner than advertised. Nothing seems to happen, so they sit down again.
10.30 am- Emma and Claire are entertaining the group by getting steadily more drunk and Emma is telling stories about Claire that have the group roaring with laughter.
10.43 am- The group is accosted by a recruitment person, who gets them to fill in forms to possibly win a night in the hotel they are going to. He asks them if they have jobs for next year. Ali replies she was offered one yesterday, when he asks her what, she thinks before deciding he won't know what it is and simply replies: in management. He seems suitably impressed and leaves her alone, pouncing on the others instead. He spies the bottle of wine Claire has been drinking, and mentally makes a note to 'accidentally' lose the alcholic's entry. He also confirms the rumour of the doors having been opened.
11.43 am- The group has moved forward steadily, but slowly. They begin to wonder why it takes so long. Ali saw the computers set up in Joe's and there were lots. Speculation starts about what details they are extracting. It becomes known that you don't need to have anyone else's Guild Card if buying them a ticket, AND you can take someone that doesn't belong to the uni. Tim panics thinking he can buy Becky a ticket, and Kirsty rings Lucy-further back in the queue to see if she can buy Becky one. She can so they go off to sort that out.
11.50 am- The group are now in Mermaid Square. Claire suddenly says she needs the toilet, and walks very quickly off to go. They can now see the door they have to go through.
12.05 am- The group are steadily let through the door and greeted by a friendly security man who says "Hello there! Welcome to the front of the queue!" Ali feels like, for some reason, she is at Alton Towers and about to embark on a ride!
12.10 am- Ali, Mike, Pete, Kirst, Emma, Tim and Claire are all buying their tickets (and other people's) they meet in Joes and sit down to examine their pretty tickets. They shall all go to the Ball afterall!!!

A field full of penises

I love it when Gilly and Mike come round...inevitably we get onto topics such as 'would it be possible to have a field full of penises' which somehow brings up questions such as: would the penises be erect or floppy? Would there be equal representation of all races? Would there, assuming the answer to previous question is yes, then be equal representation of all religions? And disabilities? Are we including balls in this? yes according to Gilly we are- those are what make up the soft spongy underlay (!!!??? I wonder how much thought she's actually given this concept given that she answered that question immediately without hesitation!)

Then we bring lucy into the equation, who comes up with such gems as: Could you have a penis windfarm?! I don't know lucy, could you??? Discussion then continues along the lines of: would the whole windfarm be made from penises? Again do we include scrotums? And are we restricting ourselves to land mass, or do we think they can survive underwater as well? Would they be spongy like anemones, dotted here and there, or would it be a great barrier reef of penises as coral?

Mike, a genuninely nice guy, who I think, at times, despairs of the rest of us (he's going to have so much fun living with us all next year) then poses the question of 'why limit ourselves to penises, what other bodyparts could make up landscapes.
The obvious answer to that is that breasts are hills, lets not go into the feminism about that- bosom of the land and fertility, mother nature, etcetera etcetera.
But it got me wondering. Now surely, if we're thinking in body parts, arms (or legs for that matter) would make better windfarms-look at the symbol for the Isle of Man- legs, arranged together just like a wind turbine (top of)...now that makes sense.

Various discussion formed last night, which resulted in much hilarity from all of us, the penis thing started with Gill telling us about a silly quote she read about penis eye, which got us all wondering until she explained that rather than a venerable disease, it was a feminist thought about the male gaze...that pervy gaze that peter cain used to give every girl at manor is a typical example (yes, he inevitably arose in the conversation too). This led the talk onto Penis Eye as we called it. Mike took this a stage further, talking, though i can't quite remember why, about phones having eyes, and watching you have sex....we weren't drinking, I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify this, which perhaps makes the whole discussion more horrifying. Mike gave phones genders last night, apparently if you have a phone with an aerial, it's a 'boy phone'. We then had a lengthy discussion about whether if a phone is pink (such as Gilly's) it is a girl phone, or a gay phone? Maybe it's a gynaecologist.....maybe it's a gay gynaecologist! And has anyone ever met a gynaecologist that wasn't a man???
No, me neither. And why does Gilly's phone think it knows when she's ovulating, or worse, pregnant??

Quote of the night goes to lucy: Can the penises live underwater? And much wondering of if so, would they be dotted around like anemones, or in a huge coral penis great barrier reef?
Answers on a postcard please.

We topped the night off by finding Chlamydia in my salad plant (inappropriately named caterpiller by either Nic or Gill, can't remember which) and ended the evening by saying goodnight and goodbye to Chlamydia and throwing it out of the window.

x

Journey Ever Homeward...

Drunken night out on Friday ensured I woke up with a headache on Saturday, not remembering much about Friday, but with the vague recollection that A) It had been a good night, and B) I had been very, very, very drunk.
This last fact was confirmed when I looked over the side of my bed to discover vomit in my bin...first thing was first, headache or no headache, that bin had to go! It also had to be washed!! Eugh!

In hindsight it was probably just as well I was sick, thankyou once again to Tariq putting up with me, and letting me in the house in the first place, apparently I was struggling with the door, gave up all hope and just sat outside when he heard me. I was quite content to sit there all night.
Being sick at least meant I didn't really have much of a hangover.

After talking to Dad on the phone and him giving me a rough estimation of when he would be up to pick me up, I had to get googling (and packing) for he had given me the task of trying to find some comet warehouse near Walsall that one of my tutors had mentioned to me the other day in the kitchen at uni. I spent ages looking, couldn't find it, and resorted to phoning my tutor, at home, on a saturday morning, apologising profoundly to her. She didn't give a toss, she said it got her out of hoovering. Not only was she not able to give me the name of this place, she could not give me the road either, she could however give me complicated instructions (which included: speed camera behind tree) on how to get there. I settled for this and warned her we may well be ringing her later.

Dad arrived at 3pm, and miraculously I was packed, still feeling a little dodgy, but not too bad. So we set off for Willenhall...my directions getting us to J3 of M5 were fantastic, where it fell down was when we got off the M6 and started following my tutor's directions! Elaborate was not the word. Eventually, several wrong turning's later, and one stop to ask a man who was gardening, we decided we were approaching it from the wrong angle, we did finally get there...only after I'd tried to lead dad down a pedestrianised street (bear in mind we are in large, yellow, transit van) and into what was possibly the worlds smallest carpark, where we had to turn around, without mowing down 3 pedestrians, one child and a buggy!
On arrival we discovered their range of 'seconds' cookers was very limited and not very discounted! We left 4 minutes after arriving. I felt bad and just directed dad back to the M6 and M5.

We headed south.

Going along nicely, with stilted conversation from me and my father, he suddenly looks at the dashboard and proclaims 'Oh, no. that bloody red light's come on again, I knew it would.'
This meaning all of nothing to me I asked him to explain. Apparently if you push the engine too much the light comes on to let you know that the Turbo engine has cut out, basically you can only do about 50mph if you're lucky.
We had to pull over he explained, Stop the engine, and restart it and it would be fine.

Luckily there was a junction coming up. We took it and turned onto a main duel carriageway and into a layby. The sign ahead announced the imminent village as 'Uckbridge'. The van was restarted with no sign of light and so I waved goodbye to Uckbridge and we turned around and headed back to the motorway. We went over a bridge, which should have rung bells in hindsight, as, not having passed over any rivers, there was only one major thing to be going over! It wasn't until we were in the lane for the slip road I saw the sign 'M5 NORTH'

"STOP, it's north, not south" I shouted
"What??? Too late, there are cars behind me." My dad said "How the hell did I miss the turning onto the south carriageway?? I don't know how I did that"

As we went onto the NORTH carriageway I looked back and incredulously exclaimed 'there isn't a slipway onto the south!!'
Trust us to pick the only junction where you can get off the south carriageway, but not rejoin, and you can rejoin the north carriageway, but not leave!!!

We had to travel back north to the next junction to turn around....
That wasn't too bad, it wasn't too far....only about 15 miles back in the opposite direction, after deliberately overtaking a lorry, the engine cut out again...so we pulled in front of the pissed off looking lorry driver and went from 70mph to 40 mph!! Worse still, we were going uphill!!! The lorry driver promptly overtook us again! Slowly getting to the top of the hill, where we were passed by a caravan (insult of all insults), we pulled onto the hard shoulder. Engine off, engine on...off we go...2 minutes later...hard shoulder. Engine off...engine on....

Fortunately it held then until we got off the M4! Approaching the Almondsbury interchange in bristol, we were greeted with a sign saying 'Junction 18 of M4 closed'
"What?! Closed! But how are we going to get off and go home!" said my dad. I reassured him there would be more signs...but there weren't and fortunately it wasn't closed either. However the engine did cut out again!

We finally got home at something nearing half 6! To be greeted by my sister and all her cronies holding a pizza party...who left promptly when we arrived. She had thoughtfully left us a message on the side that said 'Gone over the park' Dad and I got cases upstairs and went straight back out to Sainsbury's.

Meanwhile my mum arrived home...to an empty house. Which she thought was odd because I'd text her when we got off the motorway, so we should have been home. Then she saw my coat on the stairs, realised we had been home, and saw the note my sister left, came to the bizarre conclusion that me and my dad were also over the park and was about to text us when we arrived home for the second time!

The other thing was, halfway down the motorway my dad exclaimed that my loving parents had not got my sister a birthday card, and we were supposed to get one...it's her birthday today! Fortunately, I had bought my mum a card that was suitable for Ruth instead and we decided that she could have that, and no one need ever know...mum asked about the card. When produced she said 'it's a bit swish isn't it?' both my dad and I muttered something and walked off....I couldn't keep it up this morning though and admitted it was meant for her, but after the hellish journey there was no way we could actually stop and get one! She didn't seem to mind.

So with all this having happened, like mike said: am I really willing to go all the way back on tues, and come back again weds?
Totally!
Like I explained to him...I'm going by train and it's not like trains can come off the tracks.....he told me to stop right there before I jiinxed myself!

xx

'Word' is retarded

Word is retarded, Microsoft owns half the world yet cannot seem to create a programme that DOESN'T randomly add in pages when you copy things across, that DOESN'T move diagrams when you don't want it to, that DOESN'T make it easy to move an entire text box down the page if there is no writing before it...it just moves it up the page if you try!
Quite seriously I think I have had it with Word, and No, I do not need any help from the 'help assistant' which proves even more annoying than the actual programme itself most of the time, offering useless 'assistance' and 'help', with that in mind I can cope perfectly well on my own, I am a degree student!

I think, our report is nearly finished, I write this in the OLRC, a place I'm becoming more and more familiar with recently; not of my own choice, I hasten to add. Jodie appears to have gone mad, she has reverted to talking to herself...outloud...when there are other people in the room!! I think this group report has got to all of us, but if we finish it today, that at least means I don't have to do it any more over this precious Easter Break, instead I can go home on Saturday, and spend time with my family (not forgetting to write the all important Dissertation) and go to the fun fair. I can' t wait.

Every year, at Easter, for 2 weeks there is a huge funfair that comes to Bath, big rides- expensive rides (back in the old days I remember when it was 50p a ride)! I missed it last year as I stayed in Birmingham, interspersed with the odd weekend home and to London, working ever so hard running an Easter Activity Programme...of which I refused to do this year (but am being paid stupid money to run a Drama Workshop for 3 hours on the 11th, for it).
Mike is coming to stay for a week over Easter and I have promised him many trips to the funfair, the best bit being, it's in the huge park we live next door to, I can't wait. It's been years since I had candy floss...that's the first thing I'm going to do...buy a huge stick of bright luminous pink candy floss, thus ensuring my teeth rot from the sugar content, and I get hyperactive on all the E numbers it contains...I can't think of anything better!

x

and on the menu today....

Q: what happens when you leave a fruit pie your Grandma has made you in the oven at least an hour longer than it should have been?


A: