"I have nothing to declare but my genius"

Don't let an addiction rule your life

2007-08-24T16:25:00.000+01:00

Facebook is a rapidly snowballing social networking facility of HELL. Yes, you heard. HELL. It's great when you want to find someone that you can't any other way. If they are aged over 6 and below 50 it's likely they will be on facebook (or they don't have a life). But there are pitfalls as come with any technological breakthrough.
For instance, you can search, but if they've changed their name, or spell it differently, or are under a pseudo name that only their closest allies now know, you have no hope; or next to no hope of finding them.

Secondly it is now fast becoming an addiction to most of the population (those that have friends). I read this week that more and more employers are banning it because their employees are spending too much time on it. Basically, once you start, you're hooked. It's a slow but very steady addiction, much like gambling or alcohol, and similarly, people are finding it is losing them their jobs.

Thirdly, and this is by far the most disconcerting of all the pitfalls to facebook; it's so scary to actually find out what your friends are now doing. It installs a sense of fear, of inferiority, and of moral panic. Your friends all seem to have better jobs than you, get paid more than you, have cuter pets than you (which bizarrely they invite you to be friends with on facebook...yeah, as though a cat knows how to use the application). Or in my case, my friends are getting married, having babies in 5 weeks, or having just had second babies. This caused a mass crisis in my life. How do you compete with a baby for christ's sake? Yeah I just moved in with my boyfriend, into a rented house, with a job...that's temporary. Nothing appears permanent in my life. Needless to say I had my freak out at Mike about this. Needless to say he laughed.
After 'talking', yes, it required that much calming down; I came round.

It doesn't matter that I'm not ready to buy a house, or have a baby, or get engaged. It doesn't matter that they are living in London earning 10 times as much as me. It doesn't matter that pet Poochy won best dog at crufts. None of it matters. None of it indicates that you are any better a person than me. I don't earn much, but I love my job. I don't have to sit in a stuffy office all day staring at a computer screen worrying about whether my shares and stock in 'I'm so rich I don't know what to do with my money' are going up or down. I have freedom to move in a year if I want, to the other side of the world if I like...without paying huge sums in solicitors fees to sell my house/pay off the mortgage/have vaccinations for Poochy. I am me. That simple. We are happy. End of, definitely no kids or anything like that for now.

Ironically in the fortune cookie I got yesterday the message was:

"There will be a new addition to the family!"

Now excuse me while I go to check if anyone else has replied to my event that I created whilst at work this morning....

2007-08-19T20:06:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I'd like to rant about the twat that decided to whack my wing mirror. The indecency of it, is that they weren't even driving...couldn't have been, for it was the wingmirror next to the pavement that got hit. That means, that some (probably drunken) mindless twat arsed fuck face decided to hit it for fun last night. What the mindless twat arsed fuck face does not realise is that I am very upset and angry over the incident. I don't like violence really of any sort, although I admit I sometimes get very angry and violent myself, but rarely would I ever do anything to anyone, or any item of anyone else's. But this really makes me angry. It is just senseless vandlism to property belonging to someone else, without a thought for them, or how they are going to repair it, or if it's repairable, or if they have enough money to do so, and it's made me really REALLY angry. Therefore, if I EVER catch the fuckers that did this, there will be hell to pay, because I will not hold back. I just *know* my temper would flare, and I dread to think of what I might do to them.
The car is a material object, it doesn't have feelings, it is repairable, it doesn't matter that it might cost £100 or so to do. What annoys me is that the car is my pride and joy. I saved since I was 15 for my first car (and only managed to get it when I was 22). I love that little car so much, it got me through flash flooding marvellously the other day. That is what annoys me most. It's mine, that i've saved to buy and maintain, and someone, just because they feel like it, can smash it, or hit it or thump it or bump it. And there is nothing I can do.

I feel totally powerless in this unjust world.

Secondly, and more lightheartedly, it was Emma's party last night, firstly we went to her flat and drank lots of Pimm's, got mildly drunk and ended up looking at Sylvanian porn on youtube. Then Emma and Phil wanted to watch something else that was random and amusing on the internet, so Matt typed into google what Emma said. This came up, (turn up the sound, although if you are watching on a public PC, turn it down, or put headphones in!!) it was not what Emma or Phil had intended but had us rolling around the floor with laughter. It amazes me what you can find on the internet if you look, or as we did, accidentally type in the wrong thing, I mean, who is it aimed at? Who watches all of these things? How do people find them? Who creates them and to what purpose?

We ended up in an expensive restaurant somewhere towards the Jewellery Quarter at about 9.30pm, thinking it wasn't going to be as expensive as it was, but as we were led into the dining part of it (candlelit, leather sofa's and tables to sit at, attentive waitresses, and all of it separated from the bar by a turkish style arch with curtain) we realised we were financially fucked. However, it was a pleasant evening, quote of the day going to Richard who said:
"What's the latin for Robot?"

Ps..if you know the twat faces that did that to my car, either beat the shit out of them, or smash something of theirs they love, or let me know their address...I'll sort out the rest.

Kidnapped!

2007-07-13T09:33:00.000+01:00

"How was your day?"
"Ok, Boring, same old stuff I suppose. Yours?"
" Well......I did a home visit with German Girl, and essentially got locked in a flat on the 3rd floor of a Tower Block, with a suicidal crazy woman, who was brandishing a knife, waving it around and who threatened to kill herself, or, more preferably, her neighbour; and anyone else that 'backed her into a corner'; like us if we said the wrong thing."
"Ok, your day wins"

"I do"

2007-07-13T09:27:00.000+01:00

I put my hand on the bar of the trolley, gazed up at Mike and smiled inwardly. This was perfect. Mike glanced down at me and caught my eye and smiled; and I knew he was thinking what I was.
"I like this" I said "I feel like a proper couple"

He stopped and looked at me face on, and then it happened:

"Oh God! We're in a Garden Centre on a Saturday, we might as well be walking down the aisle!!!"
"We're buying fucking compost, don't exaggerate!"

2007-07-13T09:17:00.000+01:00

"why are we leaving the sunshine? Look at the cloud, look at that BLACK FOREBODING CLOUD WE ARE DRIVING TOWARDS...."
"Shut up, you sound like a child"
"Are we there yet?"
"Shut up!"
"But really, LOOK, look at the cloud, OH MY GOD, why are we leaving the sunny side of Birmingham"
(surrogate parents together) "Shut up!"
Suddenly the car in front of us brakes, due to the bus to the side of that trying to pull out into the side of the car in front of the car in front of us!!! I assume our driver sees this, but serious lack of braking whos this is obviously not the case. "Miiiiiiiiikkkkkkkeeeeeeee!" I scream as we nearly, oh so nearly lose our lives by careering into the back of the car in front.
The screech of tyres reluctantly grinding against tarmac rings in my ears, and through the smoke from the tyres we are relived to find we came inches from crashing. I glare whilst trying not to shake.
"Sorry, I was looking at that woman's stupid hat" He looks sheepish "Well, it was very stupid"

Fundraising

2007-06-21T11:08:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone,

Been busy, busy busy. But am ok. Moved house at the weekend so Mike and I now live together which is slightly scary! Will get the internet on the 27th so will be able to update you more then, and not at work!

I've gotta be quick, but I'm doing a sponsored abseil and caving event on Sunday if anyone would like to sponsor me, I'd be very, very grateful.

You can do this through the Justgiving website: http://www.justgiving.com/aliasbteam or if it works the link below! Thankyou very much. Speak to you all soon, Ali xxx

Walking Wounded.

2007-05-13T21:47:00.000+01:00

So, today, I gave up my treasured Sunday to participate in a mock up of a high scale emergency in birmingham city centre.

The location: Aston University
The brief: you have been attending a graduation ceremony when there is a gas explosion which affects several parts of the building. There are various wounded.
The idea: To test the emergency response teams and how they cope with a large scale disaster.

8.30am: Yes, AM!!! Arrival at Aston Uni and registration
9.00am: Told to eat danish pastry's - would be rude not to. Also given coffee to wake me up! This is essential; I need to be awake to understand my (very important) role.
9.30am: I do some networking in the coffee queue, handing out my business card; never let an opportunity to network escape!
10.00am: Make up is applied. My wounds were stinging eyes, redness to the face (from burns/heat) and bruising to the ribs.
10.30am: I start talking to a couple of women. One it emerges was in a play I recently saw. This is a coincidence we still can't get over.
10.45am: The 'Green Tag's' are called to be briefed in the corridor. From now on we are escorted by an army official and a WRVS (or whatever it is) woman. We are taken through the building, past the press, to waiting transport in the form of a Travel West Midlands Bus. The idea is that we are 'walking wounded' therefore if there had been an explosion someone would have shouted 'anyone who can walk over here' and we would have been loaded onto buses that would be drafted in to help cope in an emergency.
11.00am: we are sat on the bus. Watches are synchronised, but the 'explosion' (a foghorn) was delayed. There are now several onlookers apart from the press stood outside the pub.
11.20am: We leave the grounds as the 'explosion' happens. Not very realistic as we would have been inside. But the aim is also to test the hospital response and there are lots more volunteers being rescued inside.

I'm going to give up on times now, because there is no point. Basically we were taken to Heartlands Hospital first. Several things went wrong with this:
1. Security sent us the wrong way to A+E, so the bus had to do a four point turn to get back out of the dead end.
2. No one was prepared (which I guess in hindsight is good, although they should have had an email saying there was going to be a major incident exercise on Sunday, last Friday...maybe they didn't get it, or chose to ignore it, I don't know). The doctors wandered round confused. The ambulance men laughed, and we waited. It was only the bottom deck going to Heartlands, the rest of us were going on to Solihull.
They spent at least 5 minutes just trying to find fluorescent jackets for the doctors and nurses involved to wear. No one got on the bus to see to the injured. Eventually they got their asses into gear, but it took about half an hour from arrival to get everyone into A+E, nevermind assessed. Those that couldn't walk were forced to walk to the trolleys and wheelchairs that hadn't quite come to the door of the bus, then put on or in them. And so we waved them goodbye, thinking their survival rate probably wasn't going to be that high.

On we went to Solihull, on arrival they were prepared. Clearly Heartlands had phoned the main operational centre to find out what was going on, and messages had been sent to hospitals to standby to recieve patients. They had 2 doctors and a senior nurse onto the bus immediately assessing us, and prioritising us. Then as we got off the bus we were given a priority badge and told to register with someone who took our details outside, so as not to disrupte 'real' patients inside. Trolleys and wheelchairs on standby went right to the bus doors, and we were all directed calmly inside the hospital to various points.
I was immediately seen by a nurse who took my details, and description of symptoms from me. She immediately picked up on the fact that I needed Saline eyewash as I had stinging eyes and probably debris in them, and she offered me paracetamol, which I took for the pain in my side (bruising). However, I had to show her the bruise, she didn't check, even though I said that someone may have banged into me, or I may have been knocked against debris (I couldn't remember it all happened so quick). Then she got me to wait in the reception, and called me back shortly after, into a consultant room with a Doctor. The doctor went through everything with me, making me breathe in and out, neither he nor the nurse still picked up on my face being burned and stinging, and I had to mention it about 4 times before she twigged and offered me a gauze compress to take down the burn. Then they left me.

And left me.

And left me.

Finally another nurse checked on me, asking if I had spoken to Police yet. I had not, so she left me.

Then the fun really began. The policeman arrived. He went to pull one of the two plastic chairs in the room, as he did so I began to say 'I wouldn't do that...' but too late. It had a massive puddle of water in it, and as he pulled it towards him, it went all over him. I couldn't stop laughing.
He was not amused.
I still laughed.
He swore, which I don't think was terribly professional. Then he got another and sat down beside me.
He asked me the usual questions: Name, Address, Occupation, DOB etc...then asked to see some photo ID if I had it. I had my driving licence, so got it out.
He looked at the photo, he looked at me. He looked back at the photo, and back at me. I smiled nervously. He assessed both me and the photo again, before saying 'that's not you'. 'Er...yes, It is' I replied.
'No, it isn't'
'yes, it is'
This went on for several minutes.
Nevermind what happened at the event now, he was more concerned with my photo ID! He didn't believe it was me and threatened to confiscate it. Then I got arsey, saying he had better not, or I would be speaking to his superior, and that I needed it later when driving. He was like 'why do you need it when you are driving, incase you get stopped?'
'Er, yeah!' DUUUUHHHH, what else are they for?
He reluctantly took event details, still looking at me, and the driving licence for some time. I got the impression he wasn't interested in the event. He asked who I was with: 'no-one'. Where was I when it happened: 'in the great hall, Aston Uni'. Why was I there: 'attending a graduation ceremony'. Who had I come to see 'some fake name'. 'Where was my boyfriend at the time of the incident?' - Er, excuse me? Is he implying something.....
'I still don't believe this is you. For all I know you could be anyone, a terrorist. I bet you caused the explosion didn't you?'
Not liking how this was going I got a little indignant 'I think you'll find it was a gas explosion actually, if you ask people.'
It was hard to tell if he was joking or not, but irrespective of that, it wasn't professional.

It gets better. He leaves, and I wait. I've not been told to go anywhere so I don't. He comes back, asks to see the licence again. I said 'no'. He looks at me and starts telling me everyone else has gone but i'm going to be admitted. I do not believe everyone has gone as they do strict head counts so tell him I think he's winding me up. He says they've already done the brief and gone. I say that's impossible as debrief is back at the centre at 3! He leaves.

He comes back 10 minutes later (during which time no one has checked up on me and the ward has gone quiet) 'They really have gone. They're in the canteen. They've forgotten about you.'
'I don't believe you.'
'they have. They're eating cake in the canteen and have gone'
I ignore him. He's getting on my nerves.

He goes, and finally comes back with a nurse, who is like 'er, come with me.' He is laughing and saying 'they did really forget about you. Everyone else is back on the bus.'
They were.
They didn't go without me, obviously because they realised I was missing, and the lady actress, was alerting people to my not being there. Apparently she even told the policewoman who took her statement that her friend 'Alison has been separated from me in the hospital, I don't know where she is.' And the policewoman wrote it all down!
The marshalls realised I wasn't there at headcount and said to staff I had been lost, could they tell them where i was? - 'no'
Could they send porters to look for me? - 'Yes' but the porters didnt' find me, and I certainly didn't see any porters!
They gave them my name, so they could check their charts and everything.
Realistically the idiot policeman should have informed the nurses, but I don't think he was about to make anyone's life easier. I think obviously he finally did. After he had his fun.
Bastard.

Anyway, the marshalls took down my response to being 'lost' by the hospital staff, and my interview with the policeman, who basically told me he thought I was a terrorist. So i think all that will go into the de-brief. I am going to write to the head of the operation to complain anyway. He did not treat me right that policeman, and I want him to get a bit of a bollocking for it. At the end of the day, I gave up my Sunday to volunteer to do that exercise, I shouldn't then be accused of being a terrorist, or not who I say I am!
This did give me a real insight though, into how some of my victims must feel when the Police get the proceedures wrong. So far the police i've met have been co-operative at work, this is the first time I've come across one that isn't; but in fairness it was a different situation, although he didn't lay off even when I showed him my business card. But seriously, if some victims, and I was playing the part of a victim and was wounded so should have been sympathised with, are treated like that, it's no wonder they hold grudges against the police. And then I have to explain to them that they are just doing their job, etc, etc...I'm not sure I can do that now, having been on the receiving end. Think I'll just end up siding with the victims 'yeah, love, your'e right, they're bastards!'. LOL.

Anyway. The apparently the Heartlands lot didn't fair too well, as we predicted. They were phenomenally slow treating them and diagnosing them, and I have a sneaky suspicion that some of them deteriorated badly before the end of the day.

15.00: exercise was completed, I was given my £10 for participating, and I even ran into one of the Sergeants that I know from work. I collected my packed lunch and went home; to relay my adventures.

Quote of the day goes to Gilly; who when I was explaining about my day, I showed my 'bruise' to on my ribs. She was unusually quiet. Then 10 minutes later I said 'I think i'll go wash off my 'bruise' in the shower now.'
'oohhh!' came from Gilly. I looked at her, she giggled 'I thought they really bruised you, but it's make-up. It was all I could do not to advise you to sue!'

Apologies...Again

2007-04-23T12:38:00.000+01:00

Hello!

Sorry I have not been exactly active for the past few months, there has simply been too much going on in my life. My new job is not so new any more, infact I had my 3 month review today!!!

Anyway, I am back!

Musing: Englishness and Gay People

N0, the two are not related, well, I suppose they could be, but they are not intended to be!

So, today is St. George's day, hmmmm, I've never exactly celebrated today, to be honest I don't see the point. And also I mostly forget about it! But I guess it's about upbringing, and I've not been brought up to think 'I'm English'; which is odd you may think, living in England. To tell the truth, I feel more Scottish than English, which is maybe what I've latched onto throughout life. Ruth and I were brought up eating Haggis and knowing our Scottish roots. So this led to me thinking, "who am I?"

The answer is, I don't know. Of course I'm Ali who lives in Birmingham, blah blah blah. But my roots, I don't really know anything about them. I know that at some point in history I must have had Welsh heritage as my surname suggests (quite strongly), but what else? I'm not even sure how to find out, without of course all that tedious to-ing and fro-ing to archives that contain family history, and to be honest I wouldn't even know how to get that far.
So, this is my mission, for today, which means it will probably take me the best part of a year; to find out where I am from and a little more about my past.

Second musing then; Gay people.
This is not just about Gay people, I know plenty and to be honest I feel no real need to write about them specially. They are just people, like you or I and I don't get all this fuss that has to be made over them. Do they have 3 legs? Well, I suppose they might, but generally on the whole, no. So why make a big deal and single them out?
This has got me ranting because of an article I read in the Metro. Yes, I know, Mike is forever telling me to take everything I read in there with a pinch of salt, preferably a whole dispenser full! But, all the same, some element of truth has to be attributed to it. It's all about Gay holidays. I mean, seriously, why?

Do people assume that just because someone is gay they are going to want to go on holiday with a lot of other gay people? Why? I don't understand. I'm straight, and to be honest it doesn't bother me whether I go on holiday with gay or straight people...as long as I go on holiday!!
Maybe I'm missing something terribly important here, but I don't get this niche-ness that they seem to be going on about. Maybe someone could enlighten me?
Also, why do a cruise just for gay people? What could gay people possibly want that isn't on a 'normal' cruise? I just don't think encouraging segregation in cases where segregation is already a massive issue within society is a good idea. Surely it will only escalate problems and those who are bigoted will only be rewarded with more separation thus re-inforcing it. I don't know.
I'm going to leave it at that, because the more I think about it the more I feel I'm going around in circles.

Ps. on a culinary term I'm going to attempt to make Irish teabread, I'll let you know how it goes.

And my top tip for today: Scrambled Eggs; Delia Smith has a fantastic recipe - some butter in a pan, wait til it's melting and just starting to bubble, pour in lightly whisked egg (with seasoning) and continue to quickly move it all round the pan breaking it up with a pointy wooden spoon, when 2/3 of it is cooked, remove from heat, add a little more butter and put back over heat. Keep stirring and separating the mix and AS SOON as it is cooked, transfer to plate and serve. mmmmm yummy.

Bits and Pieces.

2007-02-18T23:52:00.000Z

One for Ruth:

"Up until a year ago I basically thought New Zealand was another word for Canada"
What's more worrying: She's 17 and does Geography at school, or the fact that she has relatives some of whom still live in New Zealand and some of whom she has certainly met in the last year who now live here?

For any of you who actually read this, I'm sure there are few, but for those few...Please, take a moment of your time to view this webpage and to comment. It would mean a lot to me.
And spread the word.
http://ubrm.facebook.com/album.php?aid=62270&id=223404804

Thankyou.

Also, does anyone happen to have a roll up sleeping bag, in a bag kinda thing that I could borrow friday to sunday please?

Apologies

2007-02-14T16:20:00.000Z

Ok. So I'm back. Thanks to everyone who nagged me to get a gmail account and switch my blog over so that once again I could write...I've done it! Happy now?

So here are some things I meant to blog, but didn't due to not wanting the hassle of switching:

For Jems:

A: "Jemma you're in denial." pause "although of course that's in Egypt"

Silence

Blank look from Jemma

A: "Denial...De Nial....The Nile...."

J: "yeah" (nervous laughter)

A: "You know the River Nile??"

J: (positively) "Yes!"

A: "Runs through Egypt..."

J: (not so positively) "ye-es"

Pause

J: "I thought that was the River that ran through London

A: (groans and hits forehead!)

This is my favourite New Year Pic. We had an awesome time that night. I met up with Abs, Kirsty, Meryn and Dunc in Revolution, Bath. There was much drinking and vodka shots, some dancing (ficken, ficken, ficken fur das volk!) and a bit of tit grabbing too...who was that mysterious person in the mask!?

I have to say, NYE was the best night out I've had in a long time, despite Mike not being able to make it to Bath. I had so much fun and was with such fantastic people I honestly don't think it would have mattered if I was drunk or not. And at the end of the night (apart from Kirsty who was driving) I think i'm safe to say I was the soberist. Dunc managed to fall into the lobby of Loch Fyne fish restaurant at least once, and fell down again outside...that proves his drunken state. Abs got quite drunk in the bar and was looking like she might nod off at any mo, when all of a sudden she got a fit of the giggles. Meryn was slurring her words and decidely not so hot on her feet when we came out. But who am I to judge if that pic is anything to go by!!!? I'll include a couple more pics for your entertainment on our night out to bring in 2007

Oh and commisserations to Dunc who for the second year in a row managed to get the Chili Vodka shot. Only this time he shared it with Abs, though I don't know how much good it did!

So, New Year, New Job!! It's all very exciting and I'm loving it at the moment. I have been there nearly a month now. In that month we have moved into our new offices which are on Corporation St and right by all the courts. We have started putting all the furniture together and tomorrow Mr. BT man is coming to get us hooked up to la internet and la telephone. Thus we will really be able to communicate and people will HAVE to take us seriously. It was only slightly depressing that the work mobile phone I got was much much better than my personal mobile phone, and only slightly gutting that although there are free minutes and texts, we are NOT to use it for any personal use. I am currently thinking of switching to a contract phone anyway, so let me know of any good deals out there!

My little car NOYT passed it's MOT no probs, which I was totally thrilled about. And a couple of weekends ago I managed to make Mike's year by telling him Jems back home was selling her ford fiesta and would he like to be first to view it? Yes was of course the answer. He was looking at getting a fiesta so this was a stroke of genius and luck. He bought it and has been happy ever since. Of course though whenever I do something he doesn't like, or am trying to persuade him to do something he doesn't like, all I have to do is the puppy dog eyes and say "if it wasn't for me you wouldn't have your car". I fear this will only work for so long though and it's already wearing off. Good news is his car has also just passed it's MOT. Wooooo.

Right it's valentine's day today. Ugh sicky sicky. Mike and I have totally broken our tradition of making something of this day for several reasons.

1) I was supposed to be in London on a Residential and only coming back this afternoon. (Although I have been very poorly and had to get a replacement to go instead of me)

2) The novelty of having a caring Boyfriend on Valentine's day is slowly wearing off. Of course after my spectacular Valentine's day of the First Year, whereby my boyfriend spectacularly stood me up at the Valentine's 24 hour formal; it is no wonder that I clung to all hope the last 2 years and wanted to do something special. This year though, I have realised I am with someone who loves me for who I am every day, not just one day a year. And who shows me this every day. Why then should he have to show me this extra specially this one day? Likewise I know he knows I love him totally and utterly. We do silly little things for each other all the time and I am refusing to bow to advertising this year. Mike and I will have dinner tonight, but that is about it. As for getting him a card, yes I have. And yes, it's cute. As for presents...haha, well I thought we could really take the piss out of the day and go for the 'see who can get the tackiest present' competition! I will let you know the results although I believe I have already won hands down.

The weekend before last was awesome. Karen came back to Birmingham for the weekend and this meant that there was lots of spontaneous drinking and travelling to Redditch and back and ending up in SNOBS. Wooooo. It also meant that I saw Loopy who I havent' seen for ages and who has had a little bit of bad luck recently. We've always promised ourselves to go to SNOBS, but only just got round to it. Again it was a fun night, although I decided to switch to lemonade halfway through the night, much to Karen's disapproval:

K "I'm going to the bar, what would you like?"

Various shouts of 'beer'

K "so beer, beer, beer, beer..." She turned to me

A "Lemonade please"

K "Lemonade!!!!!!" She rolled her eyes "whatever!"

K returns from the bar and dishes out beer

A "Where's my lemonade bitch?"

K "Lemonade bitch? I don't do lemonade, bitch!"

She clearly was NOT impressed. Still my reasons were valid and I stuck to them. If I hadn't switched I'd have been too drunk to get up the next morning to go to Hay-on-Wye with Mike. We had planned it for a while and I really wanted to go.

We climbed some hills, and were rewarded with stunning views of the valley and mountains. The air was so clear and fresh, and the surrounding countryside totally silent. All you could hear were the birds and it was wonderful. We also met a horse or two, one in particular I coaxed to us and it then proceeded to rub itself on the barbed wire. I was terrified it would bleed but it's fur was so thick. It did look a little mad tho, and when I have it from Mike, I'll post the picture to show you.

I really can't think of anything else at the moment, apart from minor incidents like colluding with Nic to bring back a tiger and an Orang-Utan from HSBC and loading said creatures into my car, before displaying them proudly in our living room. I shall just keep you updated as and when things happen.

Deutschland

2006-12-20T19:22:00.000Z

Ok, so I haven't exactly been very good at this lately, and yes, there are many (oh so many) things I need to blog about. I will try to be quick.

1. Bought a car - Self explanatory
2. Found out said car had a sort of rusted hole where the exhaust should be (explaining the noise that came out of the rear end - of the car - every time we started it.)
3. Have had tonsilitis (I didn't say this was going to be an interesting update) for the past 3 weeks, and scared all the kids at work by threatening them with it.
4. Consequently Mike kept well clear of me for a LOOOOONG time (not so fun)
5. Went to Germany with tonisilitis.

Here I will expand a little. The trip to Germany was fun filled, despite the tonsilitis. I have a very good friend called Kirsty who was living in Berlin who we stayed with (she is now back in the less glam Bristol area). We did ice skating,

we did a snow slide whereby I got given a huge rubber ring to sit on that said 'hardbody' oh the irony.

We ate phallic fruit at the German Christmas Markets

One night we had dinner up the Television tower in the rotating restaurant at the top (not good if you have vertigo, but luckily no one did). That was awesome, and it was where we saw a cool gingerbread house which was inspiration for my cooking the other night.

We did lots of touristy things, Mike was very impressed with the Reichstag building, and we went to see a bit of the wall that is still standing. Mike had to explain to me very patitently all about the wall, as I am terribly uncultured, despite having been to Berlin twice before, and Checkpoint Charlie on one visit. Yes, I know, how could I still NOT understand the politics? Lets just say I'm special and leave it at that eh.

We met fellow air hostesses Catherine and Louise "Throttle Back, Flaps up, what a lot of thrust.....ooooh". Louise is a filthy bitch! No, really! See photo below, entitled 'cherub penis stroking' it happened in a restaurant by the way, and no, it wasn't empty.

See what I mean?

Kirsty and I got a little carried away on Gluwein one night and decided to be 'Prime British Birds' on the U-Bahn platform much to the bewilderment of the other German passengers:

And then there was the incident when I got off the snowslide and turned around to the call of 'Ali' from Mike to be faced with this horrible, grotesque monster! No, not mike.

However, this is only as bad as Mike ever looks in the morning, so clearly it didn't frighten me too much, and instead I embraced the devil monster (hopefully scaring IT).

We did have some upperclass times too, hobnobbing it up in no less than a Moet Champagne bar, in Galleries La Fayette, which bizarrely have expanded from Paris to Berlin. The Berlin one is in complete contrast to the ancient Paris store, which is lovely and ornate and obviously old. It is very much in likeness to Harrods in London. This one though has the emphasis very much set on the modern and bizarre. There is some sort of glass mirror concave thing in the centre that is cylindrical and looks like it might be copying the Reichstag in some ways. Around this on swings were the mannequins in lingerie...very racy. Anwyay, the bar was lovely as you can see: The only other thing to really report was the random Free Hugs we found in a German Market (the one we went ice skating in), walking through off the Tram one day and there were all these people with signs saying 'free hug', did exactly what it said on the sign, and whilst initially seemed a little weird, certainly caused a few laughs; thus brightening up your day without realising it. Clever eh.

After that we ran into a giant snowman, yes, quite literally. What did we do? Got our legs over him, naturally!

Frohe Weihnachten! xx

Indoor Fireworks

2006-11-16T13:02:00.000Z

"I asked Tim to have a look at my hair straighteners"
"Why?"
"Because they aren't working, they've sort of...died"
"Right, and why did you ask Tim to do this?"
"Because he's an electrical engineer"
"Yes, to do with Helicopters, not hair straighteners"
"Well...you know" I shrugged my shoulders as Mike looked at me pathetically "Turns out it didn't matter" I continued
"How's that?"
"I blew them up!"
"You what?"
"I blew up my hair straighteners"
"How the fuck...."
"Well, I was poking around inside them, and you know what, they really don't want you to get inside hair straighteners, and Tim and I were trying to work out where the funny buzzing noise was coming from, and first I saw Tim hold the circuit board while they were on, and I was like 'oh is it ok to do that, you won't get shocked or anything?' and he was like 'no, it's fine', so then I decided to hold it, only I held a component which had metal on it, and I flew across the room! Tim was like 'was that hot, or shock?' and I was like 'ssshhhooock', it wasn't very pleasant."
Mike looked despairingly at me "You were fiddling around inside hair straighteners while they were on?"
"Yes"
He sighed
"Well, they had to be plugged in, because otherwise you couldn't hear the buzzing noise they were making"
He looked blankly at me
"I burned my thumb" I said looking sheepish "when it shocked me"
"Ok"
"Anyway" I continued "what was more embarassing was the fact that i'd just been boasting about how I was using a screwdriver with a PLASTIC handle on it, to avoid electrocution, after last time, with the plug at 223, when I decided to take a short cut and instead of screwing the cover back on the plug, just plug it into the mains, forgetting it had metal in it, and my hand was touching the metal, and I shocked myself. And then I go and touch another metal thing carrying electricity and STILL shock myself"
Mike looked at me with a withering look
"So," I continued not put off by this at all "Then I really, really had to find out what was wrong with them, and so i was poking around with the screwdriver having learnt my lesson, and suddenly 'BANG' and there were sparks, and smoke, and soot...."
Mike's eyebrows raised "You mean you actually blew them up blew them up?"
"Yes, and we had to check that it hadn't set fire to my rug or anything, but it was ok, it hadn't, but they aren't working at all now, there is no way they are ever going to work again. Tim looked at them and told me I'd managed to blow a transistor" I grinned "it's quite hard to do" I said proudly "and he said I was lucky, sometimes the ends fly off them when you do that, but it didn't happen this time"
Mike groaned
"Apparently I managed to cross two components with the metal of the screwdriver to short circuit it, something about a live one and a grounded one, which caused the bang and sparks."
"you're proud of this aren't you?"
"Well, if they weren't going to work before, they certainly aren't now, and I can add them officially to my list of things I've blow up: 2 hairdryers, a computer monitor, a printer, 2 tv's, a stereo, a hoover and a pair of hair straighteners" I grinned at mike, he gave me a blank look back.
"Another reason why you shouldn't be involved with electrics"

With links like this, how could I resist? "Transdimensional deer materialize on power lines. The mystery is still unsolved"

2006-11-14T14:23:00.000Z

Yesterday I burned my finger on a photocopier! It hurt, suprisingly a lot. Today I have a blister where the end of my finger was. To block out the trauma I am laughing at silly stories, have a look, and laugh along with me.

"Police Hunt Hallucinogenic Toad Thief"
"Mysterious Cheese" let me know if you did...I didn't ....at first, but then I had to go back and try!
"The Official Alexander Sphere Appreciation Society" The mind boggles! Well, mine does.

This morning, I was informed by Kirst that there was a giant spider in the bath...again. Giant perhaps not, but large and scary, definitely so. I killed it bravely with boiling hot water, this is the preferable method I have chosen to get rid of these horrible creatures. (watch the animal lovers slate me for this, and see if I care!). Baths are great, they trap spiders, they cannot escape out of the bath because the sides are too slippery and steep for them. This means that they cannot get back out and SCUTTLE AROUND YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT YOU KNOWING; something I find particularly horrible about them. So why, why, why, would anyone patent this idea??? Animal activist I'm thinking!

I wish I had nails, but frankley these women are just scary....I'd like to grow my nails but not to these disproportionate lengths.

Ok, when I read "Amazon Whacking" I just had to click to find out more....I suggest all those who are bored/trying to avoid working/trying to avoid other people/need a life/did English or related degree should try this. prize for the longest Amazon Whack.

And I leave you with the image of what I will shortly have if I don't stop clicking on all these links "Overworked Mouse"

Ps I got them all from this site (sorry little mouse, just one more click)

Ghostly goings on

2006-11-08T19:13:00.000Z

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, I would like you to look at something and give me your opinion.

I have always been interested in what is called 'paranormal'; I remain sceptical, but think there are things that cannot always be explained. This may simply be becuase we do not fully understand them, as I once heart Yvette Fielding say on an interview about Most Haunted 'years ago people used to think lightening was some kind of magic, that was just because they didn't understand it, science has moved on and now we do understand it we know it's not magic. Ghosts may be scary because we don't yet understand them, there may be fully rational explanations that we have not yet discovered'

Still I find the whole concept fascinating. Mike has given up all hope on me, and thinks he's lost me to some dark side, as he keeps saying 'you're going all weird on me', eh, and he thought he knew me after 2 1/2 years!!! Muhhahahaha.
Still...he hasn't left...yet...so I think he may tolerate my interest with scepticism and occasional outbursts of 'are you fucking crazy, there is nothing there'. Ah, now what he is referring to in that sentence, was my lastest interest. Ghostcams.
Yes, laugh away if you will, but I find it fascinating, webcams/video set up to record any paranormal activity.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not toally falling for every tiny thing that looks like it might be a ghost, I am, as I say, sceptical myself. There is one webcam which is not the best quality especially at night, it is very easy to think shift in light is something moving.

The best webcam I have found, and ok, gotten slightly addicted to watching I'll admit, is the Willard Library ghostcam. I never actually think i'm ever going to see anything, I'll be honest. So many pictures that have been submitted by others make me think 'I can't see anything!!!!' and sometimes I'm convinced people are hallucinating. So watching halfheartedly the other day whilst listening to the Dropkick Murphey's CD mike bought me, I suddenly froze. I captured the image. It suddenly appeared, probably because the webcams update every few seconds so there is a time delay, that's not the weird bit. Take a look mine is the last picture on the page under 'alleycat' (can't get it to upload so use the hyperlink)

It looks like a person, sure, that was what my first reaction was, it's a person on the stairs. Why is it black? Totally and utterly? I've seen people going up and down those stairs on the cam before, they aren't all silhouetted, they have colour, and depth, another thing this lacks. No depth to the colour. It isn't blurred, so it's not caught the motion of whatever it is, it's a very clear outline. You can see legs, arm, body, possible cape. Why is the head so small in proportion as well? That's another thing I don't understand.
So, laugh away, but in all honesty, I'd like you to feedback on this picture, because I'd like to know views. The things above are the things that I don't understand about it, so I'm throwing it open to discussion and rational explanations from you guys.

Cheers.

Grandma's Birthday

2006-11-02T23:11:00.000Z

Sat in the car, eating our sandwiches made lovingly by my mother on a crisp but sunny Sunday morning/afternoon at Westonbirt Arboretum last weekend. We arrived in 2 groups, our family in one car from Bath, and my Grandparents, Uncle and 2 cousins in my Uncle's car from Somerset. Given our normally rubbish timing, and general bad luck, it was astounding that despite coming from 15 odd miles apart, and no communication between groups that morning, that we arrived within minutes of each other, and thus were parked by the staff only one row and approximately 6 cars apart!

So we sit, and eat our sandwiches, drink the tea that mum put in the flask, and generally are quite civilized for us Evans'. I should imagine the other car were in a similar situation, sandwiches made by my Grandma that morning (she made a big fuss about going to get the ham from the butcher that morning and was told she could NOT go there at 7am, but could get it enroute, by my Grandpa!!!)

"We have the cake" my mum suddenly announced.
Silence
"Er, right" I said, more to fill the silence than to contribute to any forthcoming conversation about cake (although any conversation about cake is generally ameniable I find, so I am not averse to it)
"We will go over in a moment and take it to her" my mum decided
my dad snorted
"Why?" This is a typical father response and following logic for the response "If we have the cake, why do we have to go to her? It makes more sense for them to come to us"
"but there are 5 of them and 4 of us" This didn't have much impact on my dad who merely raised his eyebrows sceptically (he's a teacher and thus has perfected the art of speaking without speaking) and so my mum felt compelled to add "And it's her birthday"
Another look from my dad and my mum gave in.
"Ok, then, I'll go over in a moment and ask them to come over here"
Moments passed
"Aren't you going then dear?"
"In a moment"
Worried about possible marriage failures over this simple thing, I volunteered a solution
"Don't worry, I'll text James"
'We would like to cordially invite you to our spacious car for some celebratory cake. x' I wrote.

What then followed was this conversation which happened in moments, had my mother and sister practically wetting themselves and my father was so impressed he fell asleep and started to snore. The other car, which we could see perfectly well, were also laughing hysterically, at one point you could hear the roar of laughter as one particular text of mine was recieved. This was how it went:
'Is there champers and candles?'
'Naturally....not. What bloody idiots do you take us for? We can just eat it ourselves you know.'
'We are on the way'
'We will keep a lookout'
'You wil never see us. We are highly trained in the art of suprise'
'We will release the hounds in that case'
'They will love the poison meat!'
'Don't talk about Grandma like that!'

I would like to point out that for the remainder of the day, Grandma referred to herself as 'PM' for 'Poison meat'.

So Long, Farewell, Aufwiedersehen, Goodbye...

2006-10-15T16:44:00.000+01:00

"I have been manning a sexual health stall today, my manager has just done her Condom Distribution Training, so we had a plastic willy to demonstrate on if necessary"
"A plastic Willy? Aren't banana's more accessible?"
The room went Silent, people looked at Helena, Helena went red....
"Oh God! NO! I didn't mean like that!!!"

This week has been quite tough, I've had to say goodbye to a really good friend, who has been such an inspiration in my life. There were inevitable tears, and she knows she will be missed. Without her I am not sure how I would have coped during the really tough times, she has also done wonders for my career, keeping me on the right path, and it is really our loss, and their gain, so far as her new job is concerned. Damn right she deserves it though, out of everyone I know she deserves it the most.
But it still means she will be missed, by lots of people, not just me, because it is not just my life she has touched, but probably literally hundreds of people's in one way or another. And she has been my inspiration at work, and role model a lot too, which, when she reads this, will make her laugh out loud, knowing what we got up to in the office: playing cards. Yes, she sent me down a one way street to 'working hard' on the pc in the office through card games!
In all seriousness though, at times, when things have been particularly difficult she has always been there, non-judgemental and fully supportive without a doubt. And what I wrote in her card still stands 'sometimes I think without you I would have gone mad, but realistically, we probably went mad together'; that describes our friendship and working relationship. More than just my manager and role model; she has become a close and very good friend first and foremost; and I will miss our mad moments, such as wheely chair races across the car park, but I know there will be many more to come when she visits, or I got down to crash at hers! This is by no means the end of the Parker-Evans duo of madness.

A sombre post I know, but I want to end with: treasure your friends, you just don't know when you might need them next.

Impossible to explain

2006-10-02T14:20:00.000+01:00

Life is a Prison, By Puff.

Life is a prison,
Oh God let me out.
No one to listen,
To hear when you shout.

Climb the walls of insanity,
Ride the waves of despair.
If you fall it don't matter,
There's no one to care.

Used to wish for a window,
To see birds, trees and sky,
But you're better without one
-Stops you aiming too high.

Watching freedom is painful,
For those locked away.
Seeing joy, love and happiness,
Another price that you pay.

Strong is good, weak is bad.
Be it false, be it true.
Your mind makes the choice,
And enforces it too.

Cell walls built by society,
With rules to adhere.
If you breach the acceptable,
You had better beware.

Hide the pain, carry on,
Routine is the key.
Don't let on that you're not,
What you're pretending to be.

Lock it all up inside you,
How badly that bodes.
Look out for that one day,
When it all just explodes.

Leaving naught but a shell,
Base functionality too.
But killing all else,
That was uniquely you.

So how do you grow,
With a timebomb inside?
Or how to defuse it,
Without destroying its ride?

You can't.

There's only one F in OFSTED

2006-09-27T17:43:00.000+01:00

The only way to explain my upcoming fear of the next three weeks is with the following poem that someone once sent my dad during a particularly stressful OFSTED inspection; I found it here and believe now is the time to share it with the world, we all need a giggle at the moment!

There's only one f-in OFSTED

But that's quite enough for us.

But with no f-in lesson plans

There's one hell of an f-in fuss.

There's an f-in form to fill in

For everything that's said.

There'll be no f-in future

If that fails to please the Head.

Sounds like one f-in photocopier

Has died of overheat.

There's no f-in chance at all now

To keep the worksheets neat.

There'll be no f-in inspector

When your lesson is first rate,

And there's no f-in good excuse

To explain why you're late.

There should be an f-in handbook

For everything you do.

Tell the R.I. you left it

For light reading in the loo.

There's no f-in parking space

For half the f-in staff...

RESERVED for f-in OFSTED

Who have the last f-in laff.

There's no f-in spiritual

Or cultural education.

No f-in equality

But lots in differentiation.

There's only one F-in OFSTED

With it's "Education Speak"

Thank God there's an f-in Friday

To end the OFSTED WEEK.

(Check out the rest of the site cos it has another funny OFSTED reference posing the question, 'How many OFSTED inspectors does it take to change a lightbulb?')

You can't teach an old dog new tricks

2006-09-24T23:36:00.000+01:00

Lucy is back and we have a full house, well we did once Nic got back from her jaunt away this weekend; and to celebrate we went out for a meal, at Frankie and Benny's.

On arrival we were informed there were no steaks, salad, raspberries (???), bananas, fishcakes or coleslaw. Rather confused we said that was fine and were soon seated with menu's picking what we wanted.
Mistake number one was sitting in between Mike and Nic who intermittently pulled my chair back and forth between them making me feel like I was 5 and having to tell them that they need to learn to share me and I love them both very much! Having pacified the children we set about ordering which prompted me to have to speak aloud and pronounce food names that I swear were designed not to be uttered by mankind and certainly not me! Fortunately I chose one that I thought was fine; Calzone Siciliana. The focus on that sentence folks is THOUGHT. Mike sniggered "I do love it when you have to order"
This propmted sympathy from Gilly who admitted that whilst in Rome she was laughed at not only by her Dad, but also the waiter, and deliberately ordered things only in English to avoid the embarassment.

Presently our orders arrived, and despite what we were told on entering the establishment, miraculously both mine, and Mike's calzone had salad!!! Gill also commented that the blurb about it being 'generously smothered' with sauce was a little optimistic as it was a table spoon at most. Gill was also missing her corn on the cob and on enquiring as to its wearabouts, and obviously giving the waiter the false impression she had some corn fetish, he came back with the sentence: "I'm sorry they seem to have run out of corn as well, but I can give you a corn relish as a substitute" He plonked a tiny paper cup on the table filled with what looked like a watery sweetcorn substance. You had to admire his effort, what a substitute it was!

After Mike had shown me, using two knives, how a knife sharpener works; Gilly's Mike ranted about his final year knife sharpening project; and after I'd stuck two straws in my mouth like fangs and posed for the picture (picture coming), and Gilly's Mike contorted his face in trying to get coke out of a glass which was too big for the two tiny straws supplied with the drink, and then ever the engineer, made one large straw with both; Lucy proposed that Mike invent some sort of safety device for moving archives in offices. Now this prompted a whole new thought process for some of us into the realm of moving archives, or shelving. For those of us who have not worked in offices the concept was difficult to imagine - so we had it demonstrated using of course 4 glasses of diet coke and apple juice. However, even that didn't convince Kirsty and Mike's hands became the 'walls of the room' and thus a part of the demonstration until she finally understood. Sadly Lucy's rather serious point about nearly being squished in between these shelves for lack of safety devices got somewhat lost in the abstract reconstruction with glasses!

After our meal, waiting for the food to digest conversation naturally turned to a sillier course of direction, this time around OCD's. Gill let slip that there are signs to whether or not you have OCD and intrigued by this I asked for elaboration. I got the rather odd "Imagine a swing swinging in your head, now, can you make it stop swinging." Immediately, for some unknown reason that happens when you are trying very hard to think, 7 pairs of eyes turned up towards the ceiling, squinting, desparate to conjour the image of a swing swinging. Lots of murmurs of 'ooh it is difficult' and 'yes I can just about do it if I blink and imagine a still swing' I piped up and said "I'm having difficulty imagining a swing" I squinted some more at some people stood outside the window.
"Good God" was Gilly's reaction as I contorted my face, and Mike mused that clearly I have issues if I can't even imagine a swing, let along one swinging.
This then developed into the 'who can do what inherited thing, and who feels like an idiot when they can't?' game and involved finger movement - where you move certain fingers without moving the others, nose wrinkling and continuous twitching, nostril flaring and ear wiggling to name but a selection. Imagine now a table of 7 all trying to do these things simultaneously, but not necessarily the same ones, as Mike commented "anyone looking at us now would think we're completely insane!"*
Upon leaving the establishment I spied a banana and shouted a little louder than intended "look it's a banana!" whereby I was hustled out quickly by Nic and Mike after several looks from other customers confirmed they thought we were all insane.

The party then moved home where Gilly and Kirsty thought it a good idea to attempt to get me to do Ballet poses in the kitchen again. This meant more 'look at my hands, LOOK at my hands, now look at your hands' comments from Gilly, who I think has a hand complex. But on the plus side it also meant nicer comments from her and Kirsty such as 'you're really quite flexible' something I would have disagreed with, and some rather vague advice such as 'you're strength is going to come from your back in this pose!' and 'imagine you have string running through you'!!!!!!. I managed a couple of poses, but don't ask me to name them, and I'm available for demonstration after 10pm tomorrow, tuesday, and thursday, and from 12pm onwards wed and 3pm Friday should anyone like to see!

And what have I learned from tonight? Well, that I'm apparently a lot more flexible than I thought, either that or I've dislocated some things severely. That I can easily touch my toes. I've learnt that Frankie and Benny's lie about most things; the amount of sauce, whether you get salad or not, or whether they have bananas; but that they are willing to substitute items for the closest alternative! I have learnt that there are such things as moving archives, and that these pose a serious threat to humankind when in the archives. I have learnt that even if I choose an item from the menu that I think I can pronounce, I probably can't and that people will laugh. I have learnt I have issues when it comes to imagining things, especially swings; and that I think I have OCD so far as my bed is concerned (not in a dodgy way). I have learnt that drinking coffee before bed means I need to stay up and write this blog, but most of all, I think I have learned that the value of friendship means far more to me than I can ever express in words. That the 6 other people I was at dinner with tonight are probably those that I am closest to, and feel most at ease and comfortable around; and without them, I would truly be lost. In the laughter, the silliness and stupidity, I left knowing how much I love Mike and how much I value the others' friendships.

*words modified because I find original sentence too offensive to post.

PANDA-monium

2006-09-23T12:52:00.000+01:00

So I was told last night of this story, which I have to share with you all becuase it's funny, and it's the kind of thing I'd probably do too, if I was drunk and saw a Panda...and before you all jump to the spitroasting conclusion that I can just tell you're going to, admittedly because of several previous posts, it has nothing to do with spitroasting...either definition.

Different versions of the full story can be found here and here, but mine goes like this:

There was a man in China, who had had a few too many beers at lunchtime. Dizzy and disorientated he stumbled past a zoo, and more specifically a panda encolosure. On a sudden impulse to hug and shake the panda's hand he jumped into the enclosure.
The man crept up to Gu Gu the panda and hugged it, Gu Gu obviously shocked by this sudden affection from mankind bit the man's leg! Go Gu Gu! The man then kicked poor Gu Gu with his other leg...which Gu Gu promptly bit as well! The man bit Gu Gu back, and eventually man and panda started fighting and the zoo keeper had to break them up with a hosepipe!!!
Both Gu Gu and the man have suffered, although I think that the man came off worse, needing stiches and tetnus shots, Gu Gu just went off his food for a couple of days...understandable really!

But really, the question posed is, who when drunk, would not want to hug a panda?

Alice, Alice, who the F*** is Alice?

2006-09-19T23:56:00.000+01:00

"Hello I've just seen on your website a post advertised for Taped Interview Summariser and I'd like an application pack sent to me please"
"Oh right, What's your postcode"
"B** ***"
"and the house number?"
"96"
"Have I already spoken to you?"
"No, not to my knowledge"
"Oh. Nevermind. What's your name please?"
"Alison"
"Yes?"
"Evans"
"Right I'll send that out to you straight away"

I picked up the post this morning amongst which there was a big brown envelope addressed to 'Alice Nevins'. I sighed and inwardly concluded this is probably why a lot of criminals get away, they probably confess, and the police go and arrest someone else with a similar name!

Rejection on every level

2006-09-15T12:43:00.000+01:00

So yesterday I recieved a letter from The Rep refusing me an interview, at least I got a letter so I'm not left hanging on guessing if one is going to arrive I suppose. I also took a trip to the Job Centre in Northfield, which wasn't a pleasant experience, but they have found me a couple of jobs I can enquire into. Unfortunately though, I can't claim benefits, yes, it has got so desperate that was my aim, to join the dole queue; but even they have rejected me.

I sat, last night in my room after work, and cried. Cried my eyes out. Sobbing onto a piece of paper I wrote down how I was feeling while my candles flickered around me.

I feel a failure at the moment. Total failure. I just want a chance to prove I can work, and that I work well, I've never been asked to leave a job, they always want to hold onto me, that surely says something. And the range of jobs I've done varies from Bar work to Customer Service, to Tour guiding. It's not like I have no experience, I've got fucking shit loads of it.
I have never felt such a failure before, I feel like I'm letting people down, myself most of all. Yesterday the guys in the Job Centre looked at me like I was mad, I felt out of place, I looked out of place, here I am, recent graduate with a First in my subject, plenty of skills and qualifications, previous experience, have been volunteering since I was 15, and I can't get a job. What am I doing wrong? Seriously, someone tell me, cos at this rate, financially I'm going to be forced to swallow my pride and go home, and that would kill me.
Me and my dad can't live together, we've tried it before (for 18 years) and I couldn't wait to move out, I wanted to move out when I was 16, live on my own I was so unhappy at home. Nothing I do pleases him, and he finds fault with everything I do. How can I live like that? I can't.
So, it's either find a job here, or, I don't know. I contemplated going to live with a friend elsewhere in the country, see if I'm any better at finding jobs there. Or just doing one of those crappy jobs abroad where they pay for your flights and accommodation on ski resorts and you nanny kids. I could do that. Knowing my luck though, I wouldn't even get an interview, let alone the job.

So very frustrated at the moment, and so very depressed about it. I feel as though I'm treading water, and to be honest, I'm sick of it, I want to stop, I'm getting cramp in my legs and my arms are tired, I just want to give in, let the water wash over me and darkness swallow me up.

Tooth Fairy

2006-09-13T11:49:00.000+01:00

So yesterday I repeated the fiasco of a month or so back by having my second wisdom tooth out, top left (on me). It was suprisingly better. The anaesthetic tasted just as bad, but wore in just as quickly and even the Dentist remarked "you seem a lot calmer this time Alison"
So the tooth came out, with no tears, no pain, no uncontrollable shaking of the legs, and no glances at me from the nurses. Nice.
And then I was sat downstairs when a nurse approached me and asked if I had time for my 'scale and polish' as the other dentist had time to do that for me.
'Scale and Polish' I thought, sure, no problem "Ok" I agreed.

The Dentist was a leprachaun, well, he spoke like one, truly fulfilling the Irish stereotype in every way I almost expected a 'top of the mornin' to ya' but sadly didn't get it, that might have made things a little more bearable if I had.
A scale and polish, is to my knowledge, not supposed to hurt. It was all I could do to stop myself from leaping out of the chair.
"I'm sorry, am I being a little rough with ya?" the leprachaun said when I wriggled back as far into the chair as I could to avoid the pain
"Did I not tell you at the start to stop me if it hurt?" I don't know how he expected a reply, there were 8 instruments in my mouth...I said "ooooo" meaning 'no you fucking didn't!'
Upon seeing my dice earrings "oh, I do like your earrings, I'm going to Vegas over Christmas"
What did he expect? another gurgle from me to acknowledge this piece of information I clearly couldn't give a shit about?
Then we moved onto the polish, a lot better, not at all painful, but the leprachaun was now in his element with his 5 year old routine:
"This bit is a lot more fun, look it tickles a bit" he said putting it on the roof of my mouth where it didn't tickle at all, he laughed, I gave my best interpretation of a giggle to please him and hoped to God I'd be finished soon.
Clearly he was a junior dentist just qualified, clearly he has some way to go with his customer service skills. He resorted to treating me like I was 5:
"Well, your gums might be a little sore (you don't say!) but that shouldn't stop you brushing your teeth and doing the A1 job you've been doing!" He grinned.
I forced a lame smile back "oh good?" 'now where is my lollipop?' I thought.

Age Old Wisdom

2006-09-10T18:27:00.000+01:00

A discussion on age last night, oh what stimulating and riveting conversations we do have, it must mean we're getting old!!!

"oooh American Beauty, I love that film. I remember when it came out I went to see it with 2 of my friends at the cinema, and we giggled when we got in because we were 16 or 17 and it was an 18 film, and they didn't ask us for ID, and we were like: tee hee we didnt' get asked for ID I can't believe it!!"
Mike looked critically at me, I pondered whether he was assessing exactly WHAT he was going out with
"I think you could look anywhere between 18 and 30"
"Are you saying I look 30?" I looked offended
"no, I'm saying you could look a range of ages because women don't age like men do"
"I don't get it, and by the look on Nic's face, neither does she!"
"Oh I don't know, I think women can be more flexible with their age than men...I don't think I could pass for 30"
"Do you mean, that with today's make up, girls who are 13 who slap it on could easily pass for 18?"
"Sort of, but not really. I just think you could say to someone you were 20, or 25 or 30 and no one would question it, you could pass for any of them"
"If you shave your beard and moustache off, you look younger. In fact, you could pass quite easily for 14!!!"

Only the sane are mad!

2006-09-05T21:28:00.000+01:00

So the other night, at Mike's request I joined him for a jaunt to an Iranian restaurant in town for a romantic meal for two. Something we have not done of late. Sadly alas alack it was not that romantic, this was mostly due to me opening my mouth without thinking.

We had only just started walking up the road when I made my first remarkably stupid comment! It was never going to get any better you could just tell.
"Iranian! I'm quite excited!"
"Yes, although I noticed someone on the website likened it 'Persian'"
"No, they likened it to Persian and Greek food, probably because you don't get that many Iranian restaurants"
"That's my point my dear, Iran is the modern day Persia, it IS where Persia used to be, so it IS Persian, not 'like' Persian"
"ah!"

The food was delicious and only slightly spoilt by my lack of knowledge in one form or another:
"So is Latin what the Greek's spoke?"
An incredulous look of disbelief crossed Mike's face
"I mean" I said hurridly "Did they speak Latin, is it the same as Greek language?"
"No!"
"Oh"
"They don't even look similar"
"Well I've never seen it written...alright" I said changing tactics and realising that coming from a family of horticulturalists where everything is written in Latin this wasn't entirely true "I haven't seen it written for a long time."
"That's better"
"But they were around at the same time as the Roman's weren't they? The Greeks and Romans existed at the same time, I mean, I know Greeks still exist but..." I trailed off
"Yes darling they did exist at the same time, but they spoke different languages and wrote differently. Greek is entirely different to Latin"
"Right" I puzzled over this for a bit whilst munching on my humungous plate of food "What I don't get" I started "is that everything is measured around Christ. BC and AD. Were the roman's around before or after Christ? And how can anything before Christ be measured?"
"Darling the Romans were around Before and After christ, and what the hell do you mean about anything before being measured?"
"Well" I took a deep breath "Ok, so I get that after Christ it's AD, and we are now 2006AD, BUT, what I don't get is measuring before, I mean you can't say that 0AD was however many years before Christ because we aren't sure how old the earth is."
Mike took a deep breath "Ok" He said slowly "Christ is 0, you work back and forth from that, so before AD goes on to infinity or at least when the earth was created, after Christ, or AD is still happening, and going on until infinity or until the earth ceases to be"
I frowned "ri-ight"
"Look" Mike used the edge of the table in his demonstration and pointing to roughly near the middle he said "Christ is born. Anything this side" he pointed towards me "is BC, before Christ, however, anything this side" he gestured to his half "is AD. So here you have 308 BC: Rome conquers the Etruscan city of Tarquinia" he moved his hand further towards the centre "and here you have 149 BC: Rome destroys Carthage, then Christ is born, then 452: the Huns invade Italy and so on up to the present day"
"Oooh I see, I get it" I exclaimed
Mike heaved a sigh of relief "2006: Ali asks silly questions in a restaurant" He grinned at me.

Despite not having any alcohol (the restaurant is strictly non-alcoholic, not even BYOB) I felt as high as a kite, and extremely full on the way home. Walking down the Hagley Road I started singing and humming to myself.
"That was a good choice Minnie, I enjoyed it" Mike smiled at me
I grinned back "it was wasn't it? Hurrah for Minnie!"
I then took it a little too far, it might have been the satisfyingly full feeling, it might have been the relief at getting out of the house for a night, it might just have been spending quality time with the person I love most in this world, but something prompted me to go over the edge and sing, aloud, quite loudly:
"Minnnnnniiiieeee mininimininini" I varied the pitch "Oh mininininin mini mini miiiiiiiiiiiiini"
I giggled hysterically whilst holding Mike's hand as we approached someone walking towards us
"sssssh now" mike warned
What happened as we passed him was we heard a lot of muttering as he attempted to rap along to the music he was listening to. Both Mike and I giggled uncontrollably and between giggles I managed to squeal "nothing to worry about, he was having a sing song too!"
"Yes, it's like we've all been let out of the lunatic asylum for the day, perhaps he and his imaginary friend could join us for dinner next time!"

Drink up me hearties, yo ho!

2006-09-02T19:45:00.000+01:00

So Nic has informed me that it is International Speak like a pirate day on Sept 19th, and we are already planning our Pirate Party!
To attend you will need to learn the words to this song, or else ye will be made to walk the plank like the scurvy seaman/woman ye are:

And just remember me hearties, this was my pirate character as defined by talklikeapirate.com

You are The Cap'n!

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any man that stands between them and the mantle of power. You never met a man you couldn't eviscerate. Not that mindless violence is the only avenue open to you - but why take an avenue when you have complete freeway access? You are the definitive Man of Action. You are James Bond in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. Your swash was buckled long ago and you have never been so sure of anything in your life as in your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off their head if they show any sign of taking you on or backing down. You cannot be saddled with tedious underlings, but if one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones' locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed - a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.

What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

Monsters R us!

2006-09-02T19:21:00.000+01:00

Gill is not the only one in our house with mad hair, late last night my hair decided to do this:

Beatbox Ali

2006-09-01T22:27:00.000+01:00

We did Beatboxing, DJ and MC'ing today. To make beatbox noises, for those of you that haven't done it before, including secretly in your room when 10 and obsessed with rap and gangsters; it involves making simple noises into a mic to amplify them and get them impressively sounding like a drum kit. It's clever and once you can do that you can add in other noises like scratches (as in when a DJ scratches a record- yes you can do that with noises from your mouth, and yes, it does sound realistic, well, it does if a professional does it, if i do it it sounds desperately like 'waa-a-waaa-a-wa'.) So there I was fully participating in the workshop, saying 'Buh' and 'Kuh' and 'Tuh' into the microphone to form sounds vaguely resembling that a baby makes when trying to learn the alphabet.
Suddenly needing the loo I ran upstairs 'BKT,BKT,BBKT,BBKT' I repeated to myself under my breath as I went upstairs.
As I went into the bathroom they started beatboxing downstairs again and the whole building reverberated with the sounds; 'BKT,BKT,BBKKT,BBKKT' I practised whispering 'BKT, BKT, BKTSSS' (Cymbal sound!). I figured no one could hear so I increased my whisper to a normal volume, and was bobbing along to the beat whilst having a piss. The image alone is priceless. 'BKT BKT BKT BKT' I was practically shouting it. I opened the door and was in the middle of 'K' and 'T' when I stopped sharp as one of my 11 year old young people stood in front of me. Fortunately I don't think he knew what I was doing when I was having a wee, but still I turned a slow shade of red and stopped mid beatbox.
"You're funny you are"
You don't know the half of it kid!

"Card-a-mom?? What is Card-a-MOM?"
"You mean cardamom, and it's a spice"
"How do you not know this??"
"Oh god, a spice, I've only just learnt what Basil is!"

"That's my computer shutting down"
"I'm like a computer...I need to sleep, infact I shall go to bed and my little LED light will go out, and then in the morning you shake my mouse and.....oh god!" Mike went very red whilst I rolled around laughing.

Edinburgh

2006-08-29T11:31:00.000+01:00

Edinburgh is a gorgeous city, it is Georgian enough to remind me of Bath, and therefore feel at home; yet it is old enough, with it's winding streets and narrow closes to be different from Bath and therefore feel exciting and new.
I want to live there, and I am already planning my move there, have been infact all weekend.

'Wheeeeeeeeeeeee' I skidded along Dave's kitchen floor in my socks, 'Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooouccccccch' I watched in horror as one leg went one way and the other went on a trip in the opposite direction and I landed, oh so ladylike on my arse.
'You didn't see that!' I threatened Jack who was, quite possibly, on the verge of wetting himself.

"Ok guys" Said Dave entering the living room that is the size of our house "My dad is trying to be cool, and he wants me to offer you his beer...he's like the dad out of American Pie" Dave sighed.
Minutes later Dad enters the living room
"Did David offer you my beer? I told him to offer you my beer!"
"Yes, dad, I did, they're fine, god you're like the dad off of American Pie"
He looked up towards the ceiling trying to recollect who this was "Och aye, yes, no I don't think so, am I???" He looked slightly horrified.

"While we're here, we should climb Arthurs Seat"
"What's that?"
"It's the mountain" i said gesturing to the other side of Edinburgh
"it's not a mountain, its a hill"
"it's a mountain!"
"Hill"
"Mountain"
"Dave, you live here, is that a mountain?"
"no"
"It is!"
"Ali, it's a fucking molehill, infact you are quite literally making a mountain out of a molehill!"

"Lara, erm, I'm not quite sure how to tell you this, but, well, I tried to convince Dave but apparently there is nothing we can do, er, due to the lack of beds and rooms, it looks like there is no alternative but for you and Ali to be sleeping in my room tonight!"
"Jack, come up with a new line, you say that every time"
"hmmm You said it to me at your party too Jack, to me and Rox"
"He said it to me at his party too!"
"there you go then, Jack, come up with a new catchphrase"
"Bollocks!"

Me talking to Dave's Dad:
"your parrot is very cool, but why doesn't he speak when anyone's in the room?"
"We're not sure, we think he likes to listen to people rather than speak, but he's clever"
"Oh yeah, you can see that, he's constantly watching"
"Aye, and he'll be all quiet like and then suddenly he'll do a really accurate imitation of your voice."
"really?"
"Aye, we hear it all the time, especially when David came back from uni, suddenly the parrot was saying all kinds of things, like 'wax on, wax off', I dunno!" He shrugged his shoulders.

"Did you get the tickets"
"Yes, after a bit of a mix up!"
"What do you mean 'bit of a mix up'?"
"Well, I went up and said, 'Hi I phoned through earlier and reserved 4 tickets' And the guy said 'What name?' So I said 'Fulford' and he looked down the list and went 'hmmmmnope no Fulford' And I started to panic and I was like 'maybe the guy misheard me?' and then to my relief he found the tickets under another name."
"What other name?"
"Furlong, Mr. Furlong!"

"Right, we're going to have a group photo, it's going to be arty, so, Lara in the foreground, then Ali to her right, then Dan behind Ali. Ok? Got it? Right, One, Two, Three, Smile!.....Dan you've got your fucking eyes closed, ok, right again, one, two, three, smile!.....DAN you've fucking done it again. Right, last time; one, two, three.....DAN!!!!!!!"

Doesn't Dan's face just tell you this was the 3rd attempt!

Walking through a French Market in the town with Jack:
"Honey!"
"Yes, Sweetie?"

"Ok, so where is the restaurant" Jack asked into his phone...."yes we're walking along Grassmarket now, we'll be about 5 minutes then, see ya"
"Are you sure we're going the right way?"
"Yes"
"are you positive"
"For fucks sake Ali, yes!"
"Let me see the map"
"See, we are here, and we need to be, ah, right, up there, yes, ok, well, we'll turn back round and go up those steps"
I smiled smugly to myself.
5 minutes later
"Yeah, we're walking along castle street, be with you in 2 minutes, it's near what venue, right ok"..."It's near venue 152"Jack said to me
"Well that's 152 up there"
We walked, we walked further
"Yeh, we're still on castle street, yeah, oh right ok, see you in two"..."we have to keep going to the end of this road"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, he said keep going to the end of the road"
"I've a feeling it's further back up the road, the other way"
"Ali, it isn't, I promise."
"Ok."
"Er, Excuse me ladies" Jack stops a bunch of ladies "do you know where the Blue Theatre is?"
"No, sorry we don't"
"I'm telling you, it's back there."
"Hi yeah, we're still on castle street" Said Jack whipping out the phone for the umpteenth time "Right, ok, walk back along, ah right, ok yeah, see you in two minutes"
"So?"
"So, we need to turn round and walk back"
"Told you so!"
"Ali, what a stupid idea to come along this way, I told you it wasn't this way!"
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out
"He said we need to go up the steps, what steps? There are no steps, what the fuck is he talking about?"
"Does he mean the steps we already came up?"
"Ah"...."Excuse me, do you know where the Blue Theatre Restaurant is please?"
"Och aye, no, there is a Blue Cafe by the Traverse Theatre up there though!"
"yes! Yes! That's it! Jack, he mentioned the Traverse Theatre earlier today!"
"right, so we go back up here (this street we've been fucking walking up and down for half an hour) and turn off."
"So we need to turn back AGAIN"
"Ali, that was such a stupid idea to come this way, why did you suggest it!!!!"
"What????? Mr. I know where I'm going don't worry."

Knock Knock
Lara and I looked at each other
"Come in" We said simulataneously
From the other side of the door came "I hope you're both er, decent and er, not doing anything you shouldn't be!"
Lara and I looked at each other and sighed at Jack's lecherous comment!

"hehe, look at you two, beautifying yourselves up!"
"What about it?" I grunted as I battled with a hand held mirror and a tube of foundation that wanted to go over the mirror and not my face
"Nothing, it's just amusing the lengths you go to"

"Jack, why are you holding a pillow?"
"Jack's special!"
"I'm fucking holding it because I bought it for the train and travelling"
"You look so special carrying it up the street"
"Oh for fucks' sake, shut up all of you!"

When in the FIRST CLASS, yes that's right, first class carriage on the way back to Durham Jack entertained us with his middleclass accent:
"Why are we still in the station, no seriously people, why are we still here? I have a game of polo in three hours, I simply CANNOT be late."

Being in First Class clearly went to Jack's head
"I'm so glad we're sat here and not with all the commoners, one finds it such a relief to be away from all the common people!"

Is this just me?

2006-08-24T22:23:00.000+01:00

Work based assessment day commenced at 7.00am and my stomach was having a field day doing somersaults- it is clearly far more gymnastic than I am.

They weren't kidding when they said we'd be 'watching a short video' and then preparing a bullet point summary of it. Short is not the word. One and a half minutes long is not short, it is practically non existent!

You know when you sit somewhere, and you think 'is this me?' and then you think 'no, really, I just don't get it, is this just me?'
20 minutes we got to prepare our bullet point summary of a minute and a half long video. That I think is excessive considering bugger all happened in the video- there was no anti-social behaviour or anything. I sat there chewing my pen (which they probably noted) and I couldn't help but think 'this is mental, is this just me that isn't getting this? 20 minutes for a minute and a half long video. Seriously, is this just me? I just DON'T GET IT.'
Of course I couldn't say that, that would have put me at a severe disadvantage in the room, so I chewed my pen silently; however, it is my educated guess that it was not just me that didn't get this, due to the nervous and bemused looks being exchanged across the table between interviewees.

The lights are out, but everyone's home

2006-08-20T19:06:00.000+01:00

"So I'll see you tomo...."

Czssshhhhhshshhhhzz

It took me a split second to realise that the phone was no longer working but making the horrible noise, it took a further split second to realise the lights were suddenly off in the street, and now my house and then there was silence...followed by a groan. I kid you not, as my room plunged into darkness the groan, like a mexican wave went up the street.

Ok, so now I was in total darkness, it was approximately 11pm and there was NO LIGHT. I daren't move from my bed to try to go downstairs- my stairs are not lit by emergency lighting and are notoriously steep and narrow- it would, I was sure, only end in me going arse over tit and lots of tears when I hit the wall at the bottom.

I edged along my bed towards the window as my eyes got accustomed to the dark, ferverently I reached out for my candles on the window sil, groping I grabbed one, and cursing myself for not having a torch that worked, I found the lighter I keep there. Once one was lit lighting the other two was easy. It was at that stage a light appeared at the top of my stairs.
"are you ok?" Mike enquired with a torch
"yes" I squeaked "I have just found my candles"
"ah, yes I thought it would be dark up here"

Walking around the house with my candle lantern was oddly romantic, as was the reading of 'A clockwork Orange' that mike treated us to in our living room. Then the hysteria and lack of eating for a second night in a row (I was paintballing with 'youfs' til 10pm) set in.
My body lights are a wonderful invention, and so I danced about the darkened house with them on. Nic told me I looked like a dancing christmas tree, and the wonderful video of this can be seen here! And yes, that is me, remarking in the middle of a powercut:
"aaagghh I can't see, it's dark!"
How intelligent!

The Darkness

2006-08-20T18:59:00.000+01:00

So after a gruelling day at work on Wednesday I was greeted to a pitch black street when I arrived home at 9.30pm. I didn't notice this though, what I noticed was the occupants of the street lining it, and a little orange light flashing away further down opposite mike's house. I spoke to a lady and her daughter:
"Oh, are the workmen working now?"
"Yes" woman gave me a look akin to 'can you not see the orange flashing light you half wit?'
"I see" I proclaimed cheerfully
"They've turned the power off!" the woman stated not so cheerfully
"Oh god" I suddenly realised why my road looked odd "so they have, oh no!" I went into panic mode and strode down to a man who was inconveniently talking on his mobile.
Beep Beep My phone called me

'You're not going to like this much, they've cut the power to our street until the early morning' Mike's text informed me
Right. That was it. I've been at work, suffered a night of training, and worse still I HAVEN'T EATEN YET.
"How long is the power going to be off for" I enquired in my sweetest, I'm-so-innocent girly voice.
"'Bout 2 hours love"
"Oh" I sighed (girly I know) "That's terrible, I haven't eaten yet! I've just got in from work and I'm so dreadfully hungry"
Alright, I didnt' use those EXACT words, but enough to worry said workman who sympathised with me, and even more when I explained what my job was.
"Ok" He said sounding business like "Give me an hour and I'll have it back on for you so you can eat, I'm so sorry"
"Thank you so much" I smiled sweetly.

Sure enough, within an hour the lights came back on and I was able to eat my supernoodles!

Jack's party and some choice phrases

2006-08-15T13:06:00.000+01:00

Jack's party was better than the journey there, infact, I may even list it as one of my top 5 parties! It was good fun, and I met devil bunny herself.

Some choice phrases as the night got drunker!

"Oh my friend rang me today at 12.03 pm"
"why?"
"well when he was over earlier in the week, i managed to work his 'oh so cool' phone (it has a keyboard and windows, it is a mini computer) and put a reminder on it to ring me. Then i promptly forgot. This meant that he rang me and shouted at me down the phone 'my phone has just gone fucking berserk' I was like 'why?' and 'why are you telling me this, I can't do anything about it'. The reply was 'Ali, I'm telling you because it's because you put a fucking reminder on it it's just gone berserk and I can't turn it off, and you can do something about it, never touch my phone again.' I giggled and told Tim that I didn't think it would actually work to which I got a sigh and then the dial tone"
"ooh that happened to me today too" Said Noel
"how?"
"Well, I borrowed my brothers GPRS Sat Nav thing, and suddenly I'm going down a road at 60 and this thing starts going off, sirens, lights flashing, it wouldn't shut up. I finally figured it's becuase it's trying to tell me there is a speed camera in the vicinity. Only the dumb thing is, even if i'm going on a road that goes under another road, it will pick up the speed camera on the other road. So every 3 miles this thing went berserk at me shouting and screaming and flashing. It was horrible, I'm never borrowing it again."

"These are my uni friends, and uni friends these are my home friends. I'm splitting you into two groups to make it easier."
"Oh so just like apartheid then?"

"Jack, there's a pigeon on your windscreen!"

"Jack, why is the 12 year old girl from next door standing opposite your house, muttering to herself and throwing bread at your house?"
"Perhaps she wants Jack as her pet!"

"I can't give directions me."
"I can't recieve directions. It's really bad, the other day my dad was telling me how to get somewhere 'you go down there, turn there and ...' and my brother interrupted him and said 'no, you go up there, round there and down...' and then my mum said 'no what you want to do is, go round there, up there, down there.' I got in the car and the GPRS sat nav told me to do something completely different from any of them! And I still got lost, I'm never listening to anyone again."

And when I got home:
"It was amazing there was a whole beer full of fridge!"

A new Romantic

2006-08-15T11:59:00.000+01:00

I'm more of a cynic than a romantic; ask anyone and they'll more than likely agree- except possibly mike, who has had the rare delight of seeing me as a romantic on several occasions. However, even the most cycnical person to roam the earth couldn't have stayed so after seeing & experiencing what I did.
Let me explain...

Last weekend was Jack's 21st birthday party, which I paid £13.75 and travelled 2 hours and 45 minutes to attend. I had to change trains at Gloucester which is, and I apologise to any Gloucestionians who may be reading this, the most backward hole I've been to in a long time. This view, to put it into perspective, is formed entirely on my experience of the station and nothing else. Not only did I have to wait 40 minutes for my connection, a fate bad enough you may think, but I also really needed the toilet!

First, fleeting impressions were adequate, positive nearly- I did not have to roam far; a mere 20 paces down the platform to a well signed door. I did not hve to part with 20 pence to relieve myself unlike at New Street. It all seemed fine...until I opened the door.
My banished cynicism quickly returned; practically bounding up to me and leaping in my face like a puppy left alone while the owner takes a break from being responsible. I felt like the owner too - i found it suprisingly nice to find there is hope and pleasant fluffy feelings inside of me; it was liberating, but after a while something started niggling at me, telling me something was missing. And when the owner returns, inevitably they are greeted by puppy dog eyes and a cute face, and wonder why they left in the first place - that was me...why did I let go of my cynicism?

I sat on the toilet and then realised there was no loo rol, but of course my bladder not being too well acquainted with my brain had already started to empty. Equally I had failed to pack any tissues. I sighed when I left the cubicle (which was hasty as the toilet made a threatening noise not dissimilar to a car backfiring, upon flushing!) I went to wash my hands; but of course there was no soap, and so I was only mildly suprised upon reaching for the taps to discover they weren't there either! Just as I was leaving another lady entered my cubicle, I inwardly sighed when I saw in the mirror that she checked there was toilet paper first. One day I will get it right! Suddenly I understood why they charge 20 pence at New Street- It ensures there are basics like soap and taps! I left the toilets convinced that I'd contract some horrible Gloucestershire disease that would surely kill me at somepoint in the near future and went to find the waiting room.

What I found was a collection of 12 seats back to back in the lobby of the station, placed for your comfort and convenience, in between the door ot the car park and the door to the platform, with a complimentary chilling through breeze. There were of course more than 12 people 'waiting'. 'Nevermind' I thought 'I'll go and sit on the platform'.
Upon inspection of the cave paintings on the wall I found I was to depart from platform 1. Easy enough. Stepping onto the platform I discovered i was on platform 2. A sign informed me Platform 4 was 'over the footbridge', but as for 3 and 1, well, that was anyone's guess. Platform 3, I eventually spotted was to my left, at the end of platform two and on the other side apparently with the tracks disappearing into the ticket office and toilets. Beginning to catch on to the layout I looked to my right down platform two. I could see a lot of people gathered at the far end of platform 2 some way in the distance, finally I caught sight of a sign informing me platform 1 was '3 miles at the end of platform 2 where all the people are stood you idiot!' Silly me. I walked the 3 miles to find all the benches bar one were taken- you had to wade through a lake of coffee with an island of cake in it to get near it. I risked it.

When on the train of one carriage, my cynicism increased tenfold when the inspector asked to see my ticket 10 minutes before the train had even left the platform. If only they were as stringent with people stealing their taps was all I could think 'or mabye' my cynicism leapt off the scale 'they were new measures put in place to foil any more tap stealing or soap dispensing!'

Things soon started to pick up, by which I mean the train actually left the station, and I'd only been asked twice to show my ticket to the over enthusiastic inspector, when two people got on the train. One sat behind me, the other across the aisle from me. As soon as the woman spoke I wanted to slit my wrists. The voice was deep, and even more worryingly deeply, deeply West Country and very, VERY loud. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm from the West Country and I love the accent. It's unique and bizarrely homely to hear, but this, well, this coupled with the grammar, or lack of, well it was all I could do not to either wet myself laughing or get up and shake her to death! The conversation went something akin to this:

'Arwww, it wars goord to see unkle baaab again, weren't it? 'e 'asn't changerd ar bit 'as he? 'E do make me larf somethin' bard tho'!'
'Yers'
'Owwww 'e do make me larf' Pause ' 'e's so goord int 'e? I feels murch morre happier now innit.' This was followed by what I assume was laughter, but what sounded more like a donkey going into labour. Unfortunately the eager ticket officer, no doubt to check my ticket for the fourth time in ten minutes, chose this moment to appear on the scene.
'Erxcuse me'
'Yes'
'Does this 'ere train go right thro'?'
Baffled the inspector replied 'to where?'
'Werrll, right arn thro'. Or does we 'ave to change art Swindorn?'
'Ah' the inspector caught on 'if you mean London, no, you have to change at Swindon.'
'Arrr' The donkey went into labour again 'only ais thart they's goin' all ther way through like, innit.'
'No, this one doesn't. The longer trains do, but these little ones don't'
'Arr, raight, only ais thort they's go through like. So wer change art Swindorn thern.'
'Yes' the inspector clearly didn't know what to do and chose the safest option of scurrying back up the train, very quickly.
'Tharnks everr so murch for 'elpin' us like, else we wouldn't 'a knowrn whart to do like, innit, like, we wasern't sure like'. She called after him. 'Wer'll change art Swindorn then' she clarified 'Ais glard he told urs like, ais feels a lort more happier now' She said to the whole carriage.

Just as I was seriously considering whether the judge would be lenient on me for strangling her if I explained well enough and used the ticket inspector as my witness, I suddenly forgot everything. The train turned a corner on the side of the hill and suddenly bitterness, hostility and anger were banished, instead hope, happinness and a strange longing filled my soul.

There stretched out for miles was a view that melted me, made me forget everything and totally immersed me. The Cotswold stone cottages scattered among trees and lanes like a perfect model village. Babbling brooks with birds swooping over them wove among the trees. The church perched on the hilltop, the sunlight dappled and dancing through the leaves. The sheep grazing and the lambs skipping among the lush green grass. As my eyes soaked it all up I forgot I was on a train, instead I was convinced at any moment I'd see a fleeting glimpse of a deer in the sunlit forest we were snaking through, or a fox capering among the lush tall grass of a field. Nothing could get to me, and the longing filling me was to be able to roam free in this wonderfully stunning place. It inspired carefree thoughts and a warm, happy feeling, and then, just as suddenly as it arrived, it was swept from view by a tunnel; when we emerged it was endless flat fields and an overcast sky. I felt though that nothing could take from me the feeling, the magic the view had given me; and so I held onto the feeling when I crashed back to earth with a bump, well with the noise of a donkey going into labour actually; and I closed my eyes and smiled, and not a murderous thought entered my head.

Nature truly is an awe inspiring force, I've learnt to hold onto the feeling it gave me, and cast aside my cynical feelings. And now, I'm off to investigate a mysterious rash I'm breaking out in, medical websites assure me its a sure sign of something potentially fatal and more than likely picked up from not washing my hands after using a contaminated toilet...

Three's a Crowd

2006-08-05T18:08:00.000+01:00

"I don't know whether or not to keep the NPower bills from last year" Mike mused in Gill's room last night
"I should" I said "Just incase"
"Do you keep your receipts too?" Gilly enquired
"yes"
"Why?"
"I don't know, incase something goes wrong"
"You two" she said indicating to her mike and myself "would be perfect as a couple, if that's not too weird"
"That is a little weird" I said backing away.

Moments later upstairs in my room with my mike

"Gilly says me and her mike would be perfect together because we both keep receipts, I'm scared"
"I keep receipts!" Mike said
"Then we'd be a perfect threesome."

The Air Rescue IS an emergency service!

2006-08-02T21:26:00.000+01:00

'Have faith in yourself a little more' is what Tim has just told me.

Apparently Air Rescue exists, and it is an emergency service. It is called Search and Rescue force, and is not part of the RNLI or the coastguard, but they are yellow and operated by the RAF!! Usually they go and find sailors lost at sea, and in that respect they collaborate with the coastguard and RNLI, but they are a separate entity.
According to Tim, who, by the way, I am eternally grateful to for supplying me with this information and making me feel clever again; they also have big planes, but mostly fly helicopters. Hmmm trust a geek (sorry Tim, but your words not mine) who works a LOT with the RAF to know such things, but whom without I would still be ridiculed. Tim, next time you come to visit me drinks are on me!

By the way Wikipedia (which I realised for the first time the other day is Wikipedia and not WiLkipedia - I think I must have just misread it a lot) also has something to say on the subject: but I don't totally trust it as it also lists park rangers as being part of the emergency service which are described as a 'public service' ...true park rangers are public services, but hardly an emergency public service I would have thought!

Anyway, I was right, Mike was wrong, that's all that needs to be said (with a lot of tongue sticking out and 'nah nah nah nah nah, I was right' being chanted.

"Go and look up things you don't know" -"How am I supposed to do that if I don't know them? I don't know what I don't know!!"

2006-08-02T15:26:00.000+01:00

"Last night You and Gill were so funny"
"Why?"
"Because it's like you are competing to be the most blonde"
"Well we're not. We can't help it if we don't know stuff"
"yeah but that whole 'what's imperialism', Gill definitely took the lead there. I'm glad you knew what Imperialism meant."
Silence
"You DO know what it means don't you?"
More silence and me averting my eyes from Mike's
"Oh god, I thought you were taking the piss last night when you said 'mints'...you weren't were you?"
Shaking of head
"how? I mean, how do you NOT know what it means?"
"I've never had to"
"But, if I see a word and I don't know what it means, I look it up."
"So do I"
"But you obviously don't"
"I do...it's just that a long time ago, probably when I was 9 or something, I heard the word Imperialism and haven't thought about it since, not til last night. Therefore I've no need to look it up. Incidentally, what does it mean?"
"Ok, what does Imperial sound like?"
Ali pulls various 'thinking' faces
"Ok, lets try again, it sounds like...Imp...IMP...EMP..."
"...ORER. Emporer!" I grinned
"Yes. Right, Ok, and what is an Emporer in charge of?"
"Land?"
"Well, yes, but more specifically?"
"A country?"
"Ye-es...."
"er...Empire?"
"thankyou" Mike started to sound like he was a teacher, I think, contrary to what he thinks, he'd make a fab primary school teacher. Without him I'd not have got to that stage!
"Ok" He tried again "So to have an Empire is...."
"To have lots of land?"
"Yes, but what's it called?"
"Er..."
"Ok, that is Imperialism. Like when we were the British Empire and we had lots of land all over the world. That is Imperialism."
"Right! So is that why the storm troopers in Star Wars were IMPERIAL storm troopers?"
"yes. There was a hub, ie: the deathstar, and they were creating an empire all over the galaxy. Same principle applies here."
"OH, if you'd just said that, I'd have got it!"
Mike sighed "How do you not know these things? In this day and age, when we have dictionary.com? Look, go look up the things you don't know"
"How am I supposed to do that if I don't know them? I don't know what I don't know!" I grinned. I was winding him up spectacularly. He sighed. I decided to switch tracks and actually learn some shit.
"So what did we have?"
"when?"
"When we were an empire."
"The Indian Sub-Continent, Africa..."
"Africa?"
"Yes, Africa, that big country, you know!"
I grinned "I know" I said proudly having now learnt where it is.
"and bits of France when we were at the biggest. And Canada..."
"America?"
"No, not America."
I looked downcast.
"But what about when we went over there...the colonies"
"The colonials?"
"Yes, and the Pioneers. We went over and we then set up colonies and then we went off on wagons - they were the Pioneers."
"That all happened much later. And actually they sat around in swamps on the East Coast for years before going off...and the French were there and we were fighting them."
"the french?"
"yes, the french."
"But, how? We discovered America, how were the French already there?"
" We didn't discover America."
"Yes we did. Christopher Columbus!"
Groan "you think Christopher Columbus was British?!!"

The 6th....and 7th Emergency Services

2006-07-30T23:29:00.000+01:00

I blame sleep deprivation for the conversations tonight, that and trauma at finding a potentially dead person and the killer and feeling increasing guilt for not doing anything, like calling the emergency services...

'How many emergency services are there?'
'6...no, wait, 5: Police, Ambulance, Firebrigade, Mountain Rescue and Coastguard...but maybe there is a niche for a 6th, Gilly could be the 6th- Bear Rescue'
'she'll come and fight the bears, and Kill them and eat them for you' I laughed
then I did some thinking, something I shouldn't be allowed to do in a state such as I was in.
'Are the AA an Emergency service?'
'hahahahha..you're serious aren't you? NO, you don't dial 999 for the AA, you go to one of their telephones'
'But they are a rescue service?'
'Ye-es, but not emergency'
'I see.' I pondered 'What about helicopters?'
'What about them?'
'Are they part of the emergency services? Air Rescue?'
'hahahahahah help help I need resucing from the air, I'm stuck in the air' Mike mocked me.
'Seriously, they are used aren't they?'
'Yes, but by the other services, they aren't a service themselves'
'hmmmm'
'Ali, when would you need air rescue?'
'Well...' I thought hard 'Like if there was a really tall building, with a pole sticking out of it and a parachutist got caught on the pole...then you'd need air rescue!'
'What???!!!' Nic laughed at me incredulously (but no one actually dismissed it)
Again Mike mocked 'hlep help, I'm 3,000 feet up in the air and I'm stuck, I need rescuing'
'Or, if say, you know those people who work in airports...the ones that wave planes in' (I did helpful mime movements with my arms) I was determined to prove Mike wrong, 'well, what if one of their things got caught, in like, the plane doors, and they were hanging from the plane, THEN you'd need air rescue because you WOULD be 3,000 feet in the air. Stuck!'
Mike mocked more with a phrase not dissimilar to 'What if you decided to talk a walk out of the plane doors and got stuck on the wing, then you'd need air rescue'

I'd love to say it was a one off conversation, but it wasn't. Earlier in the evening (apart from being questioned by Gilly's dad on the validity of my pet dragon Doris for about 1/2 an hour), I was sat looking at my slippers which I always think are a purpley colour, but which in today's light looked blue and wondered about it aloud. My mike said 'no they are purpley' and Gill's mike said 'they're definitely on the red side of blue'
They're definitely on the red side of blue....I thought this phrase over....carefully:
'how do you make blue?'
'You don't make blue' Gilly's mike explained 'it's a primary colour'
'yes, but how do you make it'
'you don't, it's just blue'
'But blue doesn't exist as an entity, it's not a thing, it must come from other things to make it up'
'Are you talking about paint?' my mike asked helpfully, for once not mocking
'Ye-es, sort of. I mean, when you look on a paint packet, it says colour number this, and colour long number that to make up blue, it doesn't just exist'
'Well they use blue dye, it's just blue, it's not other things making it up, its naturally blue'
'like flowers?'
'yes, in the old days they would have used blue flowers to dye things'
'ri-ight' I think I'm getting the hang of this.
'How do you make white?' I said after a long pause where I was clearly mulling it all over according to both mikes who practically saw the cogs turning.
'White light' My mike started
'Is made up of all the colours' we finished together
'yes I know that, but white, like, white shirts'
'White shirts are usually cotton, and cotton is naturally white, that's why when you bleach something it goes white, it strips something of its colour' Said Gill's mike helpfully
We then got onto black and the fabric paint that Gill thought was green (it had a green lid and she claims it looked dark green), but which is black and which I think looks nothing like green. Mike (Gill's not mine) then said he agreed , he had thought it was green too, and, spotting the label of 'vibrant colours' mused aloud that it's not a vibrant black.
'Can you really get vibrant black?' my mike said
'yes' both mike and I replied
'Like Gloss black is vibrant' I said smugly
'Yes', Mike agreed 'Vibrant black for me' Mike said seriously 'would be a really black black that was glossy'
Musing that over I then said

'How black can you get?'

Both Mike's sighed.

Where you paint crush?

2006-07-30T22:56:00.000+01:00

Kirsty's party was really fun, we did a lot of drinking, a little dancing, and a lot of laughing at various things.
Last night resulted in many strange texts: One from Tim telling me in cryptic terms that he has applied on my behalf for Top Gear Tickets for me, and one from Nic (sat a mere 60 centimetres from me) saying simply 'Roar!' to name but two.
We managed to fit 6 of us into Kirsty's spare room (with 2 single beds- and we got 4 people on those...mostly). Mike and I shared a bed, and Mike (the other one) and Gill shared a bed. Gilly's Mike laughed in his sleep and Gilly said something amusing just as we were all drifting off, but no one can remember what it was now. My mike fell out of bed to start with; later hogged most of the bed until I elbowed him in the ribs for fear I'd fall off the bed and squash Nic laying in between the two beds. Then he trod on Lucy's head in the night, and hit Nic with his hand - quite abusive sleeping I think you'll agree. Lucy kept grabbing Nic's toes!! And Nic had an eerie 6th sense of knowing when I was awake and in pain- enough to wake up, sit up, say 'are you alright' listen to me say 'no, my tooth hurts' and then literally fall back to sleep again!
I woke up at 5am, hot and with the feeling that someone was driving a pneumatic drill into my jaw- although I had drunk what I thought was copious amounts of alcohol, enough to knock me out for the night - my tooth, or lack of, had other ideas. There was no way I could sleep, so I tossed and turned, had the brief conversation with Nic, before deciding at 6am to sleep on the floor on the other side of the bed. I got stuck. Mike had put his bags down there and I thought I could maybe slip under the bed, but it had boxes under it. It was uncomfortable and so grumpily I dislocated several limbs before getting up and leaving the room. I wander'd through the sleepy house tried the living room, which Simon had to himself but became cold...so found the utility room where I nodded off for a bit against the wall.

Several hours later we found ourselves travelling homeward. We always had the impression it wasn't going to be an easy journey. Yesterday getting there was difficult, so it wasn't going to be any better on a Sunday with fewer trains, shorter bus replacement services, fewer staff who are underpaid and overworked and lots of people to transport, and us, carrying swords and bridal outfits. Especially as before we set off, we discovered Nic had lost her railcard and ticket and so we all ransacked our bags hunting furiously and leaving late for the train, leaving nic behind to search even more. It transpired she eventually went to Northampton station, but we'll return to that story later.
Suprisingly, given all that, the trains were on time, plenty of room, and it was going rather well. I blame Matt for jiinxing it on the bus from Leicester to Nuneaton though 'this isn't that bad, it's not that far at all'. Thankyou Matt. Nuneaton station, the train in the platform ready to go. Gill and Mike went on ahead of us and we lost them but found a carriage...with a body on the floor.
We think the man was just sleeping...deeply...he looked like he was breathing...but he was curled up in the doorway. No one else seemed bothered. When I say no one else, I mean the only other man in the train...who thinking about it could have possibly murdered him. Anyway, we sat and waited, and waited and waited. Mark helpfully told us we were leaving later than advertised.
I got a text from Gill who told us what carriage she was in, I replied with 'we have a potential dead man in ours'; she replied with 'we have annoying girls debating whether spring is a season. Perhaps wish they were dead!'
It was then that the driver announced there was a technical problem with the train and we would leave shortly. Matt could no longer stand the temptation of the Coke Machine directly opposite our window and he and Mark braved the risk of leaping out of the train (coke advert stylee) and grabbing a Coke before leaping back on again...much to the amusement of potential murderer sat next to us.
Then the train driver announced the train on the platform next to us would 'be leaving first' - does this mean we need to let it leave? or we need to get on it to leave?
'Attention everyone, this train is NOT leaving any time soon, please get OFF and go over onto the other train'
We left potential murderer and dead body to quickly take the hint and leave. Why they stayed I don't know. Why the guy who was 'sleeping' didn't wake up at all, despite the intercom beign loud and us being loud I also don't know, furthering my suspicion that he was either dead or unconscious and maybe now in hindsight we should have checked.
We got onto the Virgin train and most of it, it transpired was First Class, we along with everyone else, feeling arsy about our journey just sat down, until the intercom told us that we would have to pay a surplus of £10 to sit there when the inspector came round - they so have cameras hidden on those trains, they KNEW what we were doing. We all moved....down the train to find...NIC. She left 45 minutes after us, at a different station, on a different line, and ended up on the same train as us having changed at Rugby. That if nothing else, shows how fucked up our rail system is.
Nic and I proceeded to annoy everyone in our carriage by looking at the photos from last night on her camera, which made a noise every time you looked at a new one. Occasionally the noise was accompanied by me laughing, and phrases such as 'Gorilla Dancing' and 'Tim Burton bride'. Gilly, aghast that I had deleted the text about paintbrushes the other night, sent me another, equally apallingly spelled text: 'Where your paintcrushes?'
We were just all so relieved to get back after what feels like a few days travelling constantly with corpses and murderers, and the weird people we came across in the process too like the guy on the floor...

Artisticali

2006-07-30T22:43:00.000+01:00

Having bought Gill's costume pieces with Nic, I left the two of them to do at least one costume without my help (I painted Nic's because she pleaded and did puppy dog eyes at me). Happily I sauntered over the road to watch on Film 4 'Lost in Translation' with Mike who claimed he'd never seen the film, although I could swear watching it with him in the cinema and even describe where we sat and who else was there. I arrived late, not a good start.
About halfway into the film I got a phonecall, from Gill! 'What's happened?' was my immediate reaction.
'Hello?'
'Ali, where is your paintbrush? We need paintbrushes.'
'Oh, um it's here.'
'Ah'
'It's not very big'
'How do you know?'
'I'm holding it in my hand, it's really not very big'
(stifled laughter at innuendo from Mike and Mark)
'Fuck off...no, not you Gill'
Laughter from Gill
'Gill's finally caught on'
'What?'
(or not)
'I'll bring them over shall I?'
'No, no you don't have to bring them over'
'I'll be there in a couple of minutes, hang on.'

What happens next I simply cannot blog any better than Gill did. All I will say is that I ended up staying at ours for the rest of the film, and Mike's romantic night in watching a film he claimed (rightly it turned out) he'd never seen (which gives wonder to the fact of who did I see it with? And more shockingly, did I, at the time, think they were mike?) turned into a romantic night in with Mark watching a film he'd never seen.
Apparently before the phone conversation Gill had sent me a text, which I only discovered when with Gill, it said quite brusquely:
'Where your paintbrush?'
It was followed later that night by another nearly incomprehensible text of 'where are keys to shed thing? They'd not hanging up'. Clearly Gill is so traumatised by becoming an English Graduate she's refusing to follow the laws of the English Language. Although this is coming from someone who said the other day:
'That's cos you made it from scratched innit'
Maybe it's just society in general that is deteriorating.

I swear to tell the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

2006-07-27T23:34:00.000+01:00

Monday evening: Cross because I had bad toothache, my wisdom teeth were hurting more than they had ever before.

Tuesday morning, 4am: As the pain awoke me I swore to go to the Dentist in the morning and even set my alarm so that I wouldn't forget. I drifted back to sleep about 5 after my concoction of Bonjela, Corsodyl gel, ibruprofen and antiseptic & Anasthetic throat spray sprayed onto my gum started to work.

Tuesday Morning 7.30am: No chance of forgetting, the pain woke me up as the concoction created a mere 2 and a half hours earlier wore off.

I then waited until 9 and phoned the Dentist, at least I was registered...only they couldn't find my details. Eventually I was asked if I paid for my dental care. I explained I used to have a form that entitled me to reduced dental care but I'd lost it in the move (after looking frantically for it at 4 am). The woman on the end of the phone sympathetically told me in that case I'd have to pay, and it was £25 for an examination (implying it would be more for anything that needed to be done) "I can't afford that" I said incredulously (having previously explained I'm just fresh faced out of uni with a fresh pile of debt to compliment me) "I'm sorry, company policy" the woman said "Ok, I sobbed", she then proceeded to give me another number that 'might be of some help'; on enquiring what it was she was giving me I was told it was another dental practice in Kings Norton. How the fuck was I supposed to get there.

I cried.

I was all alone in a house, with terrible toothache that hurt to do anything, even cry. It hurt when I wasn't doing anything and hurt twice as bad when I was. I wanted my mum, or someone, anyone. And I couldn't afford to go and get my teeth looked at. I felt terrible 'this' I thought 'is what moving away from home really means'. Solitary confinement when one needs it least.

I tried to eat and failed, the pain was too much. I mustered up some spirit that lay within me and told myself to stop being silly. I was going to sort this out. I had to. I phoned the helpline number for Help with NHS costs and explained my situation to the woman on the end of the phone who sounded much more sympathetic than the receptionist in the surgery had to my plight. She explained if I paid for the treatment but attached the receipt to the claim form I would most likely get it back (I really hope I do). She said she'd send me a form in the post.
I then rang back the dentists, and explained all that to them, they were more than happy to accommodate me then. Appointment booked for half eleven.

Half eleven saw me enter the surgery nervously. I don't like Dentists, I've never had a bad experience, infact, back Home we had a very good dentist who always told me that I had near perfect teeth when I was little. I never needed a brace. I've only had a couple of fillings and they were hardly traumatic. I just don't like people poking around in my mouth, especially some new dentist I don't know. I had to fill in more forms that I had done when I registered, I assume to replace the ones they'd lost. Then I was called up to see the Dentist.
He was very nice, charming, Pressing 2, yes, not one, but two, business cards into my hand as I entered. He asked what he could do for me and I explained. Then he reassured me by telling me that I was in good hands (I wasn't in anyone's hands as far as I was aware) and that he was a specialist with over 20 years experience, although he didn't look that old.
He had a look and then he told me that my jaw had stopped growing, that there wasn't room for my teeth (the wisdom's not all of them!!) and that they would have to be removed. 'Ok' I thought, remembering my father's words from earlier when I spoke to him; 'they won't do that today, they'll just give me a painkiller'. He then examined my teeth in general and I'm pleased to say that they were very good (especially considering I've not been to a dentist in at least 4 years). He then told me I would be a perfect candidate for tooth whitening and had I ever thought about it?
No! Idiot.
Who goes around thinking about tooth whitening? No doubt I have now inadvertantly managed to offend half the nation who go around thinking of nothing but tooth whitening, and no doubt they will try to sue me for trauma or something equally as ridiculous- ah well, maybe I can give Gilly some work there.
Then he told me he would see me later and sent me back down to the waiting room.

I waited. Then a woman, who sounded suspiciously like the non sympathetic woman on the phone the first time, came and sat down with an estimation of how much everything was going to cost me. She tried to get me to join a SMILE plan. What is so smiley about it I don't know, you still spend the same, but over a period of months. So instead of being broke now, you can be slightly broke over a few months. No difference to me.
I explained I'd sent off for this HC whatsit form and I would just pay the balance outright. Which I did.
Go on, for a laugh, guess. Guess how much an examination, x-ray, polish and de-scale (I sound like a washing machine) and one tooth to be removed cost me.
No
Not even close.
Oh come on, you must be joking.
No, it cost me a total of £130.00. Yes. I know. What has our National Health service come to, when we have to charge those who have £13,000 of debt and who are £1,000 into their £1,500 overdraft that much just to be rid of pain?
Shocking.
Well I paid. I had x-rays, and I thought that was it, but then the nurse told me that no, he was going to take my tooth out today. Now.
I had not mentally prepared for this, and so I cried. I was in the waiting room. I maintain it was shock, or hormones, or possibly both.
Then she took me back upstairs, with the receptionist calling up behind me, 'Don't worry, DR. Fickert is very good at taking out wisdom teeth, he took 2 of mine out and I hardly felt a thing'
The word I remembered from that throughout the proceedure was 'hardly'.
What did that mean? A bit? A lot? Enough to wince? Enough to cry? One tweak?

Firts I had two injections in my mouth, one in my gum, one in the roof. I swallowed some of the anaesthetic by mistake and made a funny noise, something akin to 'eugggh'. That may explain why I've been feeling sick, but I doubt it somehow. No room for sueing there.
I don't like needles, so I cried...and embarrassingly my leg started to uncontrollably shake...I have no idea why, but the nurses kept giving it strange looks. At one point the other one did it, but then my body clearly decided that the left leg was a better mover than the right and promptly switched back. That has never happened before, although sometimes, if I have a panic attack I shake, and stutter, so maybe that has something to do with it. But all throughout it shook. I wondered if it would come off, but it didn't.

When it went numb it was weird, I could feel the pressure applied to the gum, but no pain. Very odd sensation. And God (and the nurses) only know what he did, I certainly don't because I kept my eyes tightly shut throughout, and believe me, if I could have closed my ears off to the splintering sound of the tooth finally breaking and giving way I would have, because that, psychologically, made it 10 times worse. But that was it. Over in 3 minutes (£60 for 3 minutes!! Not even prostitutes who are destitute charge that).

I sat up and realised I was shaking, the whole of me, I also realised I'd been sobbing throughout the proceedure when the Dentist said in an amused tone 'you've got tears in your ears', if he thought it would make me laugh, he was wrong. He even wiped them out for me, what a nice man.
He then made me sit on a chair until I'd stopped shaking. I was biting down hard on the gauze strip they had inserted into my mouth in place of my tooth. He told me cheerfully to make an appointment for 2 weeks time when another would be taken. And I went downstairs.
I sat in the waiting room, biting my gauze, just incase it decided to shift. The receptionist greeted me with 'how was it?' just like you would to someone returning from holiday. 'Oh the chair was very comfy, the service excellent and the temperature, well would you believe it...' Instead I merely spluttered (the guaze does not take into consideration the function of talking) 'ok, yow were wight, I didwnt fweel a thwing' She smiled and I attempted a smile back, but due to numbing and gauze it probably better resembled a bloody grimace.
They then tried to get me to book and pay a deposit (again with the trying to make it into a holiday) on 2 weeks time, I told them I had forgotten my diary and would phone. It's now Thursday, I still haven't phoned!

I cried all the way home behind my sunglasses, and I have cried several times since. I sort of miss the tooth, there is a gaping hole that feels funny. But at the same time, my mouth feels better without it, less crowded, bigger somehow.
When mike saw my swollen face the words 'David Coulthard' passed his lips, my fist also nearly did. Swollen and sore, and still slightly numb hours later. It is now days later and although yesterday it was still swollen, and is slightly, ever so slightly but not noticeably today, it is reassuring that it is healing. What is not reassuring is that the pain is still very bad. But then the BUPA website said that it may be so up to a week. Oh and I'm to do no rigorous physical exercise (this is Me we're talking about) as it raises your blood pressure which can burst the blood clot over the wound and make you bleed eternally. Well ok, not eternally, but lots.

All this reminds me, it's surely time to get drugged up again...bring on the pills.

Fro-lly it's a new craze sweeping the nation!

2006-07-23T23:23:00.000+01:00

"I feel like something sweet" Gilly said prancing around the living room
"I feel like Jelly" I added slouched on the settee.
"I have Jelly!" Gilly announced excitedly, "shall we make some?" her eyes positively lit up, how could I say no?
To point out, this was but moments ago at quarter to eleven, at night!! Not saying we have odd eating habits but...
Gilly mixed the jelly while I washed up (it's strawberry hence the colour of the blog)
"Shall we have one sachet or two?"
"I don't mind"
"Two then"

Moments later...

"Ali!"
"yes?"
"can I have some assistance please?"
"what have you done?" I said entering the conservatory
"well I put the bowl of jelly in the freezer, but when I closed the drawer it spilt out and now it's all in the freezer and it's frozen because the bloody freezer is so cold!"
"hmmm, I see" I said whilst trying to scrape it out "It's really cold. It's, like, frozen already"
"Yeees!" The tone in Gilly's voice hinted at something along the lines of 'I've just told her that...it's a freezer, what does she bloody think it's going to do!!??'
Trying to redeam myself I said in that kind of false joking voice you hear in those dreadful comedy sketches:
"I suppose it would do that wouldn't it? I mean, it's a freezer isn't it? It's going to freeze things, silly me..." I trailed off "I'll go get a bowl of warm water to dissolve it!" I said leaving the conservatory.

Quotes of the day go to....

2006-07-23T19:55:00.000+01:00

Standing in train stations does not usually fill me with joy, nor does it usually make me laugh. Today was an exception. Bristol Temple Meads has a bloody good sense of humour!

Bing Bong
(Posh female pre recorded announcement)
This is a customer service announcement. Please would customers not feed the pigeons on the platforms as they are a nuisance and a health hazard. Thankyou.

And a very close second goes to Sky News on the central Train on the way back from New Street:

"...further investigations are being carried out on John Prescott after it emerged that he didn't declare a six hundred pound cowboy outfit he bought either...."
-This led to much wondering of was it:
A) a £600 cowboy outfit
or
B) a 600lb cowboy outfit

Votes on a postcard please!

5 foot 2 inch fish, now that's some impressive breeding!

2006-07-23T19:38:00.000+01:00

Friday was a hot day, and Mike took a shower before he and I were due to go out and meet Kirsty, who was over from Berlin, in Bath. I did my daughterly duty and instead of taking a much needed shower went downstairs to duly ooh and aaah over my mum's fancy dress fairy wings which had arrived that morning and had been eagerly anticipated for weeks since ordering! Mum was so excited about them arriving admiring the wings was a necessecity if we wanted to eat over the next few days.

Mike,got out of the shower and went to get changed...
"hello little fish, haven't you grown, you've got so big what have they been feeding you?"

....I hear mike is out of the shower and run upstairs

"They're nearly as big as me!" I burst out as I entered the room.

Mike looked at the fish, and then at me. A look of confusion passed his face.

"The wings!" I said helpfully
"Oh! Only I was just talking to the fish saying hadn't they grown and what were you feeding them and then you burst in saying 'they're nearly as big as me' I thought for a second you had heard me talking to them and were replying."

Back to spit roasting again...

2006-07-16T22:25:00.000+01:00

On a warm summers evening, what else is there to do but sit back in the garden with a chilled beer, chatting to your friends and having a BBQ? Personally I can think of few things better, and thus we had our impromptu BBQ at mikes.
Of course I failed to mention what one should chat about with one's friend at said BBQ. You may think, the weather, as it's such a British topic of conversation, but you'd be wrong. You may think Mike's new job, as he starts tomorrow, and whilst that featured briefly, it was not the main topic. Finally you may guess something as wild as our plans for the next year, and you'd not even come close.
You probably wouldn't immediately think we'd discuss sex, more sex, a few strippers, some more sex, lapdancing thrown into the equation for good measure, and spit roasting to finish with!
But that is what happened. Quite how we got onto knowing how X's (preserving annonymity on here, although those who were there know who i'm tlaking about) mum really enjoys sex and how she was heard enjoying sex by X and X's friend who was staying over one night, and how Y's mum didn't know what a blow job was and how Y had to explain it to her I really don't know. The topic gets more bizarre- Puppetry of the Penis *- when discussing this line of conversation my quote realy took the biscuit:
"They do things with it, like make famous landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower...I just don't know how they do it"

Mike whilst laughing at my innocence and possibly stupidity, then said in a mock voice 'can we spit roast a panda?'
"oh shut up, your'e never going to let me forget that are you?"
'No'
"spit roast a what?" said Louise
And thus the downward spiral of conversation continued in one LONG drop! So I made the mistake of trying to explain that quote we all know and love by now.
"I don't understand" Said Louise
Thank the lord there is a God, "Louise doesn't get it either, it's not just me!"
"Yeah is it just me that's not getting what this is?"
Mike sighed
I explained
"spit roast, is, apparently, a sexual position..."
"...involving two men and a woman" Mike completed my sentence (God we're getting so couply we're even completing each other's sentences)
After a bit of 'ah I see' from various others who were innocent like myself, I had the misfortune to open my mouth, and the even bigger misfortune to let words come out of it. Specific words, these words:
"I still don't get how it would work. I mean how does the woman stay in the air?"
Cue raucus laughter from EVERYONE and I do mean everyone.
After 10 or so minutes, it quietens enough for Mike to say
"you don't acutally think the woman is suspended do you?"
I quietly nodded and said 'well I don't know'
More laughter....at me!
"You don't suspend the woman in the air darling, it's not like you put her over a fire and turn her around as well" Mike said between snorts of laughter.
I looked at the floor and felt myself turn a shade of beetroot, I mumbled to myself, trying to console myself.
I get the distinct feeling, that I might just, possibly just, have outdone myself on stupid quotes. I get the even more distinct feeling that no one is going to remember (except possibly Mike) that I admitted to seeing male (and female from a distance) strippers tonight. Neither will they remember that I mentioned my mother once told me where I was conceived. I'm not even sure that X and Y's disclosures earlier mentioned will be remembered. What I am positively sure of, is that tonight, everyone will remember what I said about spit roasting, and what I'm even more positively sure of is that Mike will never, EVER let me live it down or forget it. This is one of the many reasons I should not be allowed to open my mouth in public-oh god, even that in the context of this conversation topic leaves a distasteful feeling....I'm going to shut up now.

* All those who were there tonight, please take note, they are appearing right here, in Birmingham, on the 16th November

Operation Camouflage

2006-07-12T15:39:00.000+01:00

Sitting in my room last night, listening to the lulling flow of traffic lurching over the speed bumps outside our house whilst getting undressed for bed. I was suddenly aware of a noise when the traffic fell quiet. A radio noise- someone speaking. My ears strained to pick up what was said and realisation suddenly dawned on me.

The police are outside our house, this exciting realisation came with the annoyance of just having pulled down my blind to get undressed. I heard no engine or voices, and realised with a quickening heartbeat it must be a covert operation.

Shit, I'm in my underwear, I can't look out of my window like this. As I lumbered about my room under the eaves trying not to bang my head and simultaneously find some clothes I realised I had to text Gill this exciting news, it was too good to keep to myself. I pulled my silky nightdress out from under my pillow with one hand, desperately trying to text with the other. I then realised I couldn't look out of my window in my nightdress, it was simply too sexy and suggestive, and having already been told off by Mike once today for getting Mr. Grahams email address, I was NOT going to be suggestive to any more policemen, especially as Mike's house is opposite. I threw the nightdress down, and my distinct lack of ability to do more than one thing at once, nearly resulted in the phone, mid text, being thrown down instead. Picking up a respectable T-shirt and throwing it on I finished the text...

"The Police are outside, I can hear the radio"

Sent.
Almost immediately I turned the light out (I couldn't draw attention to myself when I did pull the blind up) and pulled the blind up, craning to see. At first I thought they'd gone, but sense of not hearing an engine told me to look closer. It was then I spotted the car- dark in colour, blending into the night like a shadow...it must be an undercover car....with what looked like part of a yellow sticker on it...and old people's voices.

"Or a taxi!" I promptly text Gill.

you always use my finger to pick my nose with.

2006-07-12T15:36:00.000+01:00

Mike and I lay on my mattress (can't say bed anymore as it's just a mattress on the floor!) talking, and being generally daft as per usual. Suddenly he took control of my hand, made me point a finger, and proceeded to wipe something off the side of my nose with his hand.

"You always use my finger to pick my nose with, you never use your finger to pick my nose with!" I exclaimed as he narrowly missed blinding me.

Amid the following fits of laughter at the comment that was just meant to make him giggle, he managed to wheeze out: 'Ms Evans, exactly what is wrong with your relationship?' 'Well, my boyfriend always uses my finger to pick my nose with, he never uses his finger to pick my nose with!'

Damn right.

Botanical Gardens, frisbee, pedantic parents and ageist staff!

2006-07-09T18:45:00.000+01:00

I woke up unhappy. I realised properly for the first time today, that actually, I get an unclassified degree. That I get the same as someone who hardly worked, there will be nothing on my degree certificate to say how hard I worked. There will be nothing to distinguish me apart from those that couldn't be arsed. And I don't even get a payrise- the whole reason I came to uni in the first place was to get the JNC so that my pay was on the JNC scale and therefore an awful lot more than it would otherwise be. Of course, how was I to know that the university I had chosen was one that doesn't award proper degrees. And there was nothing that could have told me that actually, halfway through the degree the JNC payscale would be stopped, so I wouldn't even get more money for doing my job. I felt, this morning, like I had wasted 3 years of my life. And I sobbed. So hard for so long because the realisation truly filled me with sadness. More than anything I would like something that was written to prove how hard I did work for three years constantly, and particularly the last year, where I was on the edge of a breakdown for working so hard. When I realised my average was 71.6 I was elated, I cried. I'd done it, the sweat, the tears, and worse had not been for nothing. This morning, that was dashed, it had been for nothing.

I wasn't really in a good mood and shouldn't have left my bed I realise. On days like this I should just have one of those days you spend lounging around in bed.

I went to the Co-Op instead, which was mistake number 2 (mistake number one was getting out of bed). I had to wait 15 minutes because my card wouldn't work. Not only did it not work, it crashed the system. Mike was impatiently tapping his watch, and the queue were staring at me like I was the devil.
We were late getting back, but somehow we managed to still be ready on time for going to meet Emma and Toni- for we were going to Emma's Pimms Picnic in the Botanical Gardens. Other people alas were not ready, so after a while a few of us left, not wanting to leave Emma and Toni on their own.
When they rocked up at the pub we had a debate about how to get there, nearly everyone was in favour of the bus, so we ambled up through the university to a bus stop (despite me saying you could get a bus from the uni station) and waited. It must have only been a few minutes before someone pointed out there were no buses on a Sunday. Cue, very long walk to the Botanical gardens. I would like to point out at this point also that I was doing all this on the foodfuel of a plum and two forkfuls of spag bol (balanced diet I know!).
Relief when we reached the gardens. But that was where things started to go from bad to worse, seriously worse...

Firstly, paying. Easy you'd think! Clearly not! I had a £10 note, nothing too unusual about that I often have these about me. I showed my student ID and the woman said "£3.60 please" I gave her the note and she said, quite brusquely "do you have anything smaller?"
"I'm sorry, I don't" I replied. She sighed very audibly and I consequently felt I was committing some dreadful crime. "I can probably find the change to make it up though" I said making the mistake of thinking I was being helpful.
"That's no good" she said harshly, followed by patronising tone of "We don't have any five pound notes"
Misunderstanding that they must have SOME money, I said amicably "Oh, I don't mind having coins."
Cue audible sigh again and VERY patronising voice of "We don't have any of those either!" I very nearly said in the same patronising tone "well that's not MY fault" as I was clearly made to feel like it was.
This set the scene for the rest of the day sadly. We proceeded to the main lawn (second pic) sharpish as we were starving, and there was a brass band playing and kids running around and roly polying it down the hill and a group playing cricket and lots of picnics. We set ours up next to the mixed group playing cricket and proceeded to eat and drink Pimms and lemonade...mmmm.

After dining, we decided to play frisbee. I've lost count how many mistakes I've made but this was perhaps the biggest. Unfortunately one of the frisbee throws meant it rolled down the hill and into a man's back. Mike went after it, apologising and the man was fine with it. Sadly though, 10 minutes later it happened again, and rolled onto their little boys foot (makes your heart bleed doesn't it?!) Cue Angry Parents (with appropriate capitals). The man AP decided to shout at me, telling me I was stupid, that it was a compltely inappropriate game to play, and finishing at one point with "Actually I'm going to take this (frisbee) off of you" before deciding that was clearly not a good enough point to stop at and shouting some more at me. I told him politely that I understood, but thought he was being unreasonable and unecessarily rude. Cue AP number two: THE WIFE. Oh the shouting from her was bitchier on a much higher level than I'm used to (of course she was much OLDER than me, so is probably more experienced in underhanded bitchy shouting than I am, how I learned from her what to aim for in life though!) I nearly cried. Nearly. I'm glad I didn't but maybe if I had they may have had some remorse. However, I doubt it after their next actions.
I told them we would leave them alone and not disturb them any more and walked off with the leaving comment of 'Please pick your litter up before you go, it's disgusting' not sure what that was, my tongue trying to get in some bitchiness before I went I think. Who knows? It was, I was pleased to see, being blown over the lawn.
I walked with some dignity back to the group, who I was equally as annoyed with for not coming over and supporting me and allowing me to take the bollocking myself when it wasn't me that threw it. They asked if I wanted to play again and got a curt reply. The group we'd been sat next to, a mixed group of adults, picked up on what had happened and decided to shout, quite loudly things like:
"No ball games here please!" "No running on the grass" "No fun allowed here"
until the AP and child had finished their tea and moved...as they walked past the group more of these things were shouted. Not by us, totally them. It obviously sufficiently pissed them off to see us laughing at their cat calling (at their stupidity and stuck-up ness) for them to go inside and complain. Cue 5 minutes later an ANNOUNCEMENT on the tannoy to say "would all guests please be reminded that throwing games are not permitted" bastards. It would be 'throwing games' wouldn't it? More cat calling from our new friends.

To lighten things up we decided to copy the children and have good clean fun with rolling down the hills races. Nothing wrong with that. We also made it more interesting with rolling me up in a blanket, and then rolling the blanket down so that it unrolled and I kept going. That was fun. Much more like it, the day could still be salvaged.
No.
We were only on our second race when a staff member came over and told us to stop. On enquiring why we had to stop she said that we might roll into other children. I asked her to tell everyone, all the other children to stop too, otherwise that was unfairly picking on us. She then looked at me and said 'are you members?' (clearly implying there are different rules for members) but before I could reply said 'just start acting your age'. Oooh I leapt on that 'Excuse me that is ageist and I find it offensive'. She huffed and walked off.
How rude?
I know, but the best bit was when she first started to come over to us and started telling us to stop, an older member of hte group who had been next to us but started to pack up came over and had a go at her for telling us off, saying 'this is just a group of young people having fun, they're not doing any harm, leave them alone.' That was really good of him. And even as we walked past another family, muttering about not being able to have fun, they were giggling saying 'there was nothing wrong with what you were doing' and 'we were having fun watching you'.
It has really annoyed me, becuase we were so typically typecast as 'troublemakers' by so many people today. As someone pointed out, we could have just gone and drunk beer all day, got pissed and been abusive. As it was we were having a civilized picnic with a little drink and having fun, that was spoilt.
I tell you something though, it totally made me realise how pissed off my young people get when they are typecast like that. It got me really irate. To be told to stop having fun, I fully realised what it must be like for them to be told to stop playing football in the park and to disperse. It really irked me being pigeon holed and treated like that.

And whatever happened to our society to make us like this? When did we start to impose rules that forbid fun for young people? And why? Do we really think it makes them better people? Or are we setting ourselves up for a huge fall when the repurcussions really start? If we treat people in this way, then we are actually part of the problem and can't blame them for backlashes. I was so angry, I really was, all it succeeded in doing to me by telling me not to do it, was A) complain loudly and B) do it even more to piss them off even more. Now I totally understand why young people continue to do things when people shout at them. It's not that they are daft and don't realise the repurcussions, they totally do, it's just worth it to see them pissed off even more. It really caught my rebellious streak, my teenage streak.
I want people to realise this and bear it in mind the next time they want to tell people not to do something fun like playing football in the road. It will only piss them off even more if you do, and they WILL only find a way to pay you back, double (if you're lucky).

And I leave you with the memorable quote of "You are only as old as you feel." Personally, I feel no older than 8 a lot of the time, and that's how I intend to stay, I do not want to become one of the people who conforms to society and the 'standards' they seem to impose, I do not want to be one of these fuddy duddy 'adults' who are too scared to have any kind of fun, or who believe that they MUST conform and be sensible and not let loose their childish side. We all have a bit of a childish streak, harness it, use it, and enjoy having fun. Don't lose that, when you lose that, you really do, in my mind lose out in life.

My first ever football match

2006-06-21T12:25:00.000+01:00

So last night I went along, with everyone to the pub to watch the England match against Sweden. I've never been to the pub to watch football before, and I think I've only ever watched a handful of matches before... so clearly, this was a new experience.
I put up with a LOT of rowdiness before the match from everyone in the room, including the halfwit that brought a horn into a tiny room. So far I was not impressed, and as I drank my pint I began to contemplate that leaving halfway through might not be such a bad idea. I was also pining for my bed, with its soft pillows, comfy mattress and snug duvet.
Then it started, and I became quickly entranced in watching a ball being bopped around by 22 men, something I never thought I'd say. When we scored I got mildly excited and found my hands uncontrollably clapping by themselves, a grin on my face. When they scored, my hands again, acting without instruction, clamped themselves up to my mouth in horror. When we scored again I leapt out of my chair and started bouncing around like a true fan, before quickly falling over and landing involuntarily on my arse again! When they scored the second equaliser I wanted to shout rude things, but refrained.
All in all, I got very excited.
I was however, told in half time that this was not 'the interval' nor was it an 'intermission', it was 'half time' and the match was not over yet.
Mike also confused me by at the start telling me the tiny children that were paired up on the pitch in front of the players while they mouthed the words half heartedly to the national anthem, were , infact, their substitutes...this clearly could not be the case since they were mostly about 4 years old, and even I'm not that stupid, but I had had a long day, was tired and drinking and did cock my head in suprise before catching on.

Other news as I've not written for a while, well, the only other news that is BIG news, is that I have finished and my results are...well, we think that I got a first. Only because my department is silly, it is actually a distinction...but I'm distinctly calling it a first. I average out at 71.6 % so only just scraped it, but it means the hard work, the sweat, blood and toil of this year was worth it, oh so worth it. It's what I wanted since my tutor at the end of last year told me I had the potential to achieve, and I wanted it even more this year when she reiterated it along with my dissertation tutor. My dissertation, my god, I got an 80 in it! Astounded I cried when my tutor told me that, and then she cried and then we all cried...lol. I am so pleased, and so chuffed with myself, as was my dad when I told him. He was speechless, something, that anyone who knows my father will agree, never happens. He's one of these people who always has an answer for everything, this often irritates me, and is one of the reasons I could never go and live back home- we clash too much. We have got on so much better since I left home, and just visit. Well firstly he didnt' know what to say except of course 'well done' and 'congratulations' and then 'wow', then he started trying to talk about something else completely incoherently, then he went back to talking about me, and then he made a noise, not dissimilar to 'woooooooooooooooooooooo' down the phone. More than anything that was what I wanted, he told me over and over how proud he was of me, and although my folks have told me throughout life they are proud of me whatever I do, he was actually proud of me for achieving the very best. He always just says 'yes' or agrees with mum whenever she says she's proud, and he always has criticism at the ready even if you've done your best...when I passed my driving test first time I was ecstatic, he was in the driveway when I pulled up and I thought 'this time, this time he'll be over the moon and have no criticism or anything', I ran up to him and he said 'so?' and I was like 'I passed, I passed' and he smiled and said 'Of course I knew you'd passed, because your instructor was driving' and that was it. Nothing else. I remember crying for hours because of that. No 'well done' or 'congratulations'. When I got my GCSE's and A-Levels it was the same he just said things to the effect of 'well we knew you could do it' and 'as long as you did your best it doesn't matter' or 'that's very good' that's another favourite phrase of his, and although I know he is proud of me, it never quite comes across, I always feel he knew already what I'd get and had prepared himself for it, there was never any spotanaeity like with mum, it always seemed pre-prepared and thought out, nothing ever suprised him. And I worked myself into a hole of depression and sheer tiredness this year for it, and I felt so relieved. I pulled out all the stops amid grieving, arguments and a rough patch with Mike, and I DID IT. Finally, after 16 years of education, I've got what I wanted more than anything, my father being suprised and well and truly proud of my achievement without expecting it, or being prepared for it, or having any pre-prepared unemotional speeches ready for me. I heard down the phone his suprise, his love and his emotions for, I think, the first time ever to do with my education and achievement.

That's why I'm proud of my first; it nearly killed me doing it, but hearing that one 20 minute phone call made it all worth while.

admitting our mistakes can sometimes be a bigger challenge than learning from them

2006-06-13T18:08:00.000+01:00

So I did what I said I wouldn't do- deleted not one, but all 3 posts off of here regarding my stress last week of exams.
Why?
I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with coming to my senses that ok, maybe I shouldn't have ranted on here because it wasn't the most constructive thing to do, and that I quite obviously did not like comments recieved on it because it not only hurt, but angered me that no-one could see my POV even when I'd tried to (what I thought was) rationally explain my motives behind the rant. I've not posted since because of it, because I've been mulling over whether I should really have a blog if I dislike comments that are posted on it. I've also been mulling it over because I'm not sure I should write a blog; I'm not sure that what I write should be read if you see what I mean. I warned when I started this that I needed some space here to rant occasionally, but in retrospect I don't think this is the right place, because clearly some poeple misinterpret it and take offence. Offence is the last thing I want to cause and so I didn't write.
I missed it a bit. But not fanatically. I use this mostly instead of my diary, which I've severely neglected since November when I wrote about my Grandad dying. I didn't want to write in it after that as it upset me too much to read over what was written. It still does, so I'm still avoiding my diary. I did need somewhere else to write things down though, and that has become here. Maybe though I am better suited to my diary, where things are private and kept private; where they cannot be judged or cause offence.
Somehow though I'm reluctant to give this up, mostly I think because this is how I've been communicating with people, especially those like Meryn and Kirsty who are far away and whom I miss terribly as friends. Also though to those that are closer to me, I'm not a good person when it comes to communication. I don't DO communication very well, which is odd perhaps for someone in my job. If I was a young person coming to me saying these things, I'd encourage me to go and talk to my friends about issues, instead of just clamming up and hiding in my room for days and sometimes weeks. I'd reassure myself that actually they wouldnt' think me stupid or stark raving mad. And yet, somehow even though I know all this deep down inside, I still don't talk. It's my biggest fault. I know some people think I'm being deliberately awkward when I do that, sit in my room, don't talk, cry at night, and I know I am being awkward, but it's not that deliberate, it's just that I honestly don't know how to properly talk to people. I never have. I've never ever done that. Never sat down to someone and talked. See I can write this, and I can even write this knowing that people will read it, but I could never actually say this to someone; not unless I was really really close to them, like Mike. Mike knows these things, but it took me a while to confide in him as to how I am.
I've just never let myself get close to people, I'm afraid of being hurt like I was once before. And I know that you should never let past experiences marr the present, but they do, everyone has at least one that does have some impact on the present. This is mine. I dont' even know where this is going. I'm just writing for the sake of writing maybe, maybe for my own sanity. I don't know any more.
I can't talk any more about anything, because I'm getting too upset now and I'll say things, not that I don't want people to know, but that I'm not ready to admit to people just yet. All I ask at the moment is for some understanding and patience from my friends. And to forgive me if I'm short tempered, or angry for no reason, or if I inadvertantly annoy them or offend them. And whilst it may sometimes look like I'm pushing people away, really, I'm crying out for some help and support.

Forgive me.

x

Giant Twister

2006-06-05T22:19:00.000+01:00

So today, instead of revising I managed to quite spectacularly procrastinate, to the point where first thing this morning (9am) I went to the Uni, to the Aston Webb Media Centre to learn what I'm going to be doing next week with a bunch of kids. This was followed by going home via Tesco's where I met a Blind guy from Bristol, got talking about Public Policy, had a debate about equal rights, ended up going for coffee and lunch to debate it further, and then leaving Via Mike's house...where I used my powers of persuasion to get them all to agree to come with me to the Guild, again, to play Giant Twister. I then went home to put my Tesco's shopping in the fridge, Said Goodbye to Tariq who left today, went back and collected 53's rabble, and went to the Astroturf where Giant twister happened. I then spent a nice afternoon in the sun playing Giant twister, flashing my knickers, and failing quite spectacularly to catch frisbees and mini rugby balls. I then declined an offer to spend the rest of the late afternoon in the Goose and instead answered my brain's guilty cries of revision and finally finished typing up the essay I wrote yesterday, and made a plan of it, and then repeated the plan over and over. I am now in the process of trying to learn said plan.

It bothers me that really, for once, I'm not stressing about this exam. Don't know why, maybe I've lost my will to fight, I think that is it, I feel I've been fighting academia and hence being stressed out since September. I don't think I can do it any more. I don't want to do it any more! I refuse to get stressed out over this exam. I know the stuff, I have recently written about it, no more than 3 weeks ago in my dissertation. I just need to learn the plan and I will be able to write it. Why Stress?

Of course this might all change tomorrow when I realise I have ONLY tomorrow to learn the plan!

Visit to the zoo

2006-06-03T21:50:00.000+01:00

So today we went to the zoo for Nic's 21st Birthday- although that was actually a week ago now, but nevermind, we can't help it if she goes swanning off to France.
So many great things happened, so many fantastic animals...Lemeurs, Wallabies, Kangaroo's, Moongooses, Meercats, Red Panda's, Giraffes, Goats!, Cocks!!!, Pigs, Sheep....starting to sound like a glorified farmyard now isn't it....ok well it was cool anyway.

Several great moments of the day and pictures to go with some.
Firstly, when we all mounted an elephant!! Not a real one, a miniature one made of fibreglass. Whilst Kirsty was doing her 'balletic' impression of it, I was shouting helpful things such as 'Get your leg over' and 'Go on, mount it' to Gill's disgust. She pointed out there was a child nearby- a two year old who I think had been left out in the sun too long, she was wandering round in circles, clapping her hands and singing to herself, either that or she was possessed. I told Gill it was just a child, but then Gill did point out to me that said possessed child might repeat what it heard to its parents!! Ooops.
Anyway: photo of us mounting an elephant...and you can see my weird arms in it, my funny elbows that bend the wrong way!

Moment of the day two was when we were by the Giraffes....
'Aaaah' I said 'look, at the back' I pointed to the far reaches of the enclosure so Tariq could see 'look at the goat'
"That's not a goat!" said Tariq, "It's a baby Giraffe!"
"No, Tariq, it's a goat!" I proclaimed
"No, Ali, It's a baby Giraffe"
"Tariq!!" I said, losing all patience "It's not a bloody baby giraffe, its a goat. Baby Giraffes are not that small....that's a long way to drop when you're a baby giraffe! Look it has horns, it's a goat!" I looked around "That" I said "Is a baby Giraffe" Pointing to an animal about 20 times the size of the goat!
"Ooooh" Said Tariq.
Here is picture of said 'Baby Giraffe' against real baby Giraffe!!!!

My other highlight was definitely seeing the Lemeurs, they were amazing in the walk through enclosure, although one did try to molest lucy! They leap across from log to log, rope to rope, and are so agile it's amazing. Sometimes I think they don't even appear to 'jump' they don't appear to put any effort into it at all, more like just bouncing, but from a static position. I do love lemeurs. We had been watching them and one jumped across to near us, and looked like it was going to jump onto the fence in front of us, when I sneezed suddenly behind Tariq....it wasn't the lemeur that jumped 5 feet into the air I can tell you that!

I decided later on that I was going to attempt to try a 'balletic' pose of my own in the castle, I thought I could at least half decently do it. Unfortunately my first attempt resorted in me looking like I only have one leg (and yes, I do have my eyes closed, and yes, I do look stupid!):

I also attempted imitating an ape, not balletically!

The future laywers of our country are saying things like this:

2006-06-03T21:46:00.000+01:00

Gill: so have you blogged about the zoo today yet? You've had 5 hours, what else have you been doing?
Nic: Well, I made dinner, I straightened Lucy's hair, I straightened Kirsty's hair, I had a conversation with Ali about Rainbow Trout...
Me: Yes, she tried to convince me to bone it.
Gill suffocates a laugh
Tariq meanwhile starts saying something else as he misheard and Nic replies, I see Gill unable to control herself and reply "not like that"
Gill bursts out laughing, before saying "you mean, remove the bones?'
Me: Yes
Gill: So de-bone
Me: it's called boning
Gill laughs again and says "It means something else to me"
Me: Don't be so dirty
Mike.M: Gill only men can bone cos they have a boner, women can't bone anything.
Gill: Don't be sexist!

Rude Awakening

2006-06-02T22:21:00.000+01:00

And there I was, running, running through the field, a warm, happy sensation flowing over me, freedom at last...

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggg........

Feeling confused I regained consciousness and blearily peered at my clock, I can't even remember the time, but I reckon it was just before 9am, once I had established it was very early (oh yes it is! I didn't go to bed til nearly 2) I then quickly backtracked to what had woken me up...my legs were working faster than my brain, for I was already at my door putting on my dressing gown and on the landing before my brain had caught up to the fact that it was the doorbell. Kirst was of a similar mind, also just coming out of her room. Speculating about who the HELL this could be calling on a student house at this hour of the morning (definitely not another student that much is certain) we made our way downstairs.

With Bed hair quite specatacular even for me, and bleary eyes, I yawned and opened the door.....to quite a cute guy. Cheerfully he bid me goodmorning and explained that he had come to look at our boiler and he had told our landlord (who had neglected to tell us...oh no, wait, what's this...) the phone rang at that point (yes our landlord!)....kirsty and I were not amused at all, but graciously showed the man in to the kitchen, whereby I remembered my manners and offered him a cup of tea while he was still apologising for waking us up.

So the boiler farce continues now, fantastic news- Kirsty may have to move out of her room! LOL. He was telling us, after we had checked rooms for thermastats and goodness knows what else, that the situation is that basically our boiler is fucked. Something I have been trying to tell our landlord from day one last year when it first broke. It's obvious...I'm not an engineer, or a mechanical person, although I do my fair share of tampering when something is broken and trying to fix it, but even to a simpleton such as me, it is blatantly obvious that the boiler is much older than the 12 years the last engineer tried to convince us it was. It is knackered, broke beyond belief, it should go off to the boiler heaven and be put out of its misery. Yes I am advocating euthanasia for this boiler and so would you if you saw its distress, and more importantly, our distress every time it breaks.
So it has to be replaced, much to the Landlord's annoyance. And this, the engineer was telling us, may require the laying of new pipes...through kirsty's room...which requires the pulling up of carpet and the removal of all things Kirsty. Our landlord inevitably won't tell us when this will happen, considering he didn't tell us the guy was coming this morning until he'd actually turned up, so it will probably be a hit and miss and rush job to get everything out...and she will probably have to stay in one of our rooms!

On the plus side, our new house has had it's tenants evicted (apparently they were horrible) so there may be the chance to move in early...which may benefit kirsty!!

Men, work, Word and babies- what a combination!!

2006-05-30T20:36:00.000+01:00

I really need to kick my ass into gear, I have started working on this question, but frankly i've lost all motivation at the moment. Tim has just tried to give it back to me, by telling me that assuming i'm working Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, that leaves me only 3 days to finish this! That was great - I've deleted that text, instead of motivating me it just further depressed me!

Furthermore I just tried to coerce mike into talking to me on msn, to be greeted by 'no, England are playing' I sent a rude text back saying that he hasn't spoken to me or seen me for days, and the opportunity I offer him gets rebuffed because of football. I think that's bloody disgusting if you ask me. So I'm less important than football now. Then he told me that his new eye appointment is on the 13th July - My GRADUATION....that also got rude comments back. He has now appeared oh so graciously online to talk to me about it, so I shall leave this for a second....it's fine, it's at 9 in the morning.

Word is definitely not getting any sex! I have figured this out, not only is the paperclip annoying saying really obvious things like 'it looks like you're writing a letter, would you like some help fucking up your English spelling, punctuation and grammar and making it more American?' But it has also taken to not closing. Yes it loved me so much it refused to close, firstly telling me 'normal template already exists, do you wish to save over it?' ...I cancelled pretty quick not understanding what 'normal template' was! Then I tried again, and this time I got 'Changes have been made that affect the global template normal, do you wish to save them?'
I clicked 'no' hoping for the best, and then it closed!!! weird. Like I said, lack of sex!

Yesterday I went to Kilmersdon village fete day- Kilmersdon, supposedly the home of THE Jack and Jill (no, not you Gill), which are supposedly VERY distantly related to my mum's side of the family...we know this through tracing names back....very weird.
Met Meryn and her two brothers, whose names I cannot spell, and her mum. Her little brother is only 6, and very VERY cute- i nearly adopted him then and there. He has a hair full of blonde curls, very very cute, like I said. Anyway, his word of the week is 'psychic' I have no idea why, but he kept telling me he was psychic- I did ask him for 6 numbers between 1 and 48 but he didn't oblige! I said to Meryn's older brother 'he's modest too' at which point this 6 year old looked up at me innocently and said 'How do you know i'm modest too??' In absolute wonderment! It was great. Also while we were walking around his little hand suddenly crept into mine, which gave me pause for thought, maybe I wouldn't make such a bad mother one day, maybe Kids really do like me.....ok, stop thinking scary thoughts, not just yet, not just yet...but one day! One day in the not-too-distant-but-distant-enough future. If it was like him, I don't think I'd even mind a little boy.

I want this computer's babies!

2006-05-28T16:28:00.000+01:00

I love my dad's new computer....I am just discovering how clever it is....put in a burned cd Mike gave me, and it asked what I wanted to play it on...Media Center was at the top, so I just assumed the computer knew what it was doing and pressed it. Next thing I know, it RECOGNISES the CD even tho it's burned (something my PC doesn't do) and had the front cover of Coheed and Cambria; Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol 1: Through the eyes of Madness- up on the screen....with a menu. There is a lovely front cover, the computer knows what the front cover looks like!!! Intelligent. And there is a playlist, so you can skip back and forth, there are shiny buttons on the screen that let you copy it and record and play and stuff, it is exciting.

I am so impressed with this computer and 'The Suffering' has never sounded so good, as it does coming out from this sound system. I actually think I want this computer's babies, it is so intelligent, and clever.

Revelling in my new found toy I tried to explain to jack on Msn:
Ali says: my dad's new computer is AMAZING
Ali says: media center is amazing
Ali says: it knows what CD i have in the machine
Ali says: even tho it's a copied one
Ali says: and has the front cover on display
Ali says: you can scroll through the playlist
Ali says: and it's amazing
Ali says: you can do ANYTHING
Jack - www.strangecreation.com says: can it cook you a gourmet meal?

Do you know what, it wouldn't suprise me if it could!!

I was going to give pretty pictures to illustrate how amazing this device is, but unfortunately in trying to do so, I managed to take a screen shot and put it on the main part of the computer, the display, and have just spent about 10 minutes trying to get it off, and back to how Dad had it set!!! so we'll leave that I think for another time!

Jazz hands are at the forefront of our nation's security!

2006-05-28T15:34:00.000+01:00

Woke up at 5 am feeling very confused.

'I'm in Mike's bed' I thought, 'it's a single' then I reconsidered 'no, that can't be right, I'm in my bed, stop being silly' I felt over the side of the bed with my eyes still shut 'no' I thought 'I'm definitely NOT in my bed...too small' I opened my eyes a little bit, the grey light was no use, except, the window was opposite me 'I'm in Tim's bed- the window is opposite me' then my head seemed to clear as I really took in my surroundings, the fact that I was over 4 feet in the air, the fish tank in the corner, the TINY bedroom, no trains 'No' I thought as the fuzz cleared away and relief settled in at finally knowing where I was 'I'm at home! In my bed!' I climbed down the ladder and set off in search of the bathroom, hoping it was still where I'd left it the previous evening, at the end of the hall!!

This will confuse Gill if I now don't explain that I'm going to 'backtrack'....to friday. To make this clearer I will switch to a different colour font.

I went to uni and had a free lunch, chatted to some people on our course but years below us, debated whether my Scottish tutor was part of the Maffia, made the wonderful comment of
"Yes I can see Andy as a maffia member- a hold up with a haggis!"
Then I came home and packed - that was hard to do as the previous blog will explain!! I did not have to resort to sitting on my suitcase though, something I was fairly proud of! After a rush of packing, and retrieving my toothbrush at the last moment, I set off for the train station and Worcester. There was a 'moment' where I panicked -the train was for Shrub Hill not Foregate Street, I don't really know worcester having only been there twice (once when I was 12 and on a trip with school, and the other time last summer with Mike when we went to foregate street which is right in the centre) so I was concerned that maybe Shrub Hill was on the outskirts. I phoned Tim who reassured me he would still meet me and still check the time it was due.

Half an hour later and I was getting off the train and into Tim's bright red shiny new car that worryingly requires no keys at all!
On entering Tim's flat I immediately made myself at home- suitcase was opened with a snigger from Tim who then commented 'I bet you had to sit on that to get it closed didn't you?' and an indignant reply from myself.
Slippers out....washing that I'd forgotten to get out of the machine earlier onto a dryer, and sat in front of the TV scrupulously examining tim's BOOKSHELF (that is taller than me) of DVD's. A cup of tea, and a game of mini pool (by myself) later, and I'm sat on the breakfast bar area when a funny look crosses my eye, the ground is ever so slightly wobbling (and this was before I'd been drinking)
"Did the ground just move for you?" enquires Tim
My eyes opened wide "Yes!" I said astounded.
"Ah, that'd be the trains" Tim said knowingly ...his apartment backs onto a railway line!!! It is a very odd sensation, similar only to that which you get before you realise you are on your way to being drunk and swaying.

A Bottle of wine, Spaghetti Bolognaise and half of Big Brother later and Tim decides to show me Worcester. We head off for 'Heroes' a nice little bar, in a backstreet with a regular drunk outside. It's an old building, low beams and ceilings, and although similar to snobs in the customers it holds, and the music it plays, is definitely a step up the sophistication ladder.
We settle on a settee behind an old fireplace and are shortly joined by tim's friends James and Sian. Sian is the only other person I know (not on our course or associated with work) that is a Youth Worker!

The conversation then switched to how Tim and James are integral to the Nation's security (if I told you why, I'd have to kill you!) at which point I was led back to thinking about my Birthday a week earlier in Snobs....there were Jazz hands at one point (aimed at Nic, Lucy, Gill and Kirst) from Tim....yes Tim and his Jazz hands are an integral part of our Nation's security- how safe does that make you feel?? It is, quite frankly, worrying! This is Tim, who leans on a soldering iron and ends up with a burn, cuts his finger in the lab and puts his arm on a socket leaving a nice little mark on his forearm...all in one day.
This is tim who is worried that his car is more intelligent than he is....and he is in the forefront of our nations defence. If it doesn't bother you, IT SHOULD.

We left at one with the other two and headed for home, I managed to get a few beats in on the way- yellow car in the car park, which tim contested was a white car under a funny light, and while he was contesting that, a yellow taxi pulled up!! No denying that one, Sian and James laughed aloud and witnessed it!

Back at the flat I had some water, and said goodnight, tucking myself up in Tim's bed that he gave me for the night. He claims this was because he is a good host, I claim it's so he could get a good night's sleep on the couch away from the trains that start thundering past at 5 am!

The morning brought forth packing, Bacon sandwiches, orange juice and resentment about getting beats from the previous night being dissipated. Then we set off in the shiny new car on a roadtrip home. Roadtrip! Lol, within seconds of being on the M5 we encountered the curse of Bank holiday weekends, no, not caravans, although they were out in force....TRAFFIC JAMS. On off, on off, on off.....MINI- beats....stop, start, stop, start YELLOW CAR- beats. This continued fo r a while, Tim's shoulder getting more and more bruised.

We got off the M5 at Stroud and went the scenic route! Via Yellow JCB's which I got beats for. And many Mini's which Tim got beats for. It entertained us. However, I was holding back my secret weapon for last.
Directing tim the last bit home into the city the back way (no tourists), I was thinking more and more about my secret weapon. Staying remarkably controlled. Left here, right there, straight on, over the traffic lights, turn left immediately after the traffic lights, straight up the hill, turn right and 'YELLOW VAN' lots of beats as we turned the corner into my road.

'ouuuuccchhh' exclaimed Tim knowing I had got the last laugh. 'which one is your house?'
I laughed 'the one with the yellow van outside!'

Oh sweet sweet revenge!

Tim now has a sore upper arm to add to the list of injury's!

Packing

2006-05-26T15:11:00.000+01:00

Tonight I am travelling to Worcester to stay with Tim (who is cooking me something exciting apparently). I am currently trying to get everything into my suitcase. Why is it there is NEVER a suitcase that is JUST the right size?? It's small, compact and perfect, only it doesn't hold all the clothes/shoes/ books I want to take with me - even when it is expanded. I'm only going home for 4 nights I don't need a bigger suitcase- it looks unreasonable, AND i'll have to lugg it back on the train...but things don't quite fit into this one. I don't know what to do, and to make matters worse, because i'm dumb and have no foresight, I only washed my clothes yesterday, forgot to hang them up, so half of what i've packed is really damp... I'm hoping the plastic bag they're packed in will protect my slippers and pyjamas which I will need later...I wonder if Tim has a spindryer!

If you could spit roast a Panda and then cover it with Tiramisu, what would she say?

2006-05-22T14:14:00.000+01:00

last night in bed (pre sleep talk as Ali wasn't tired...and didn't care whether or not Mike was):
'What do you think about us?'
'Us' Mike raised his eyebrows 'I like us'
After a moment's pause, while spooning, a moment of affection crossed me
'I love you. You're perfect'
'Ah, thankyou, I'm really not you know'
'I know' (moment of affection clearly shattered by reality)
'Thanks!- "you're perfect"..."no i'm not", "no you're not!"'
'Well, you're very almost, nearly there perfect'
'Thanks a lot!'
'You did walk into that!'
I continued:
'So is there anything I could do to be a better girlfriend?'
Mike went to open his mouth, and I quickly cut him off 'apart from not get so angry and upset?'
'Er...get me a baby orangutan?'
I thought this through, and then said: 'Panda?'
'Panda? Where did Panda come from?'
'I dont' know, I was just thinking about them- they look all sad with their big black eyes'
'That's cos they're rubbish and can't hibernate cos all they eat is shitty bamboo'
'Really?' My eyes widened 'They can't hibernate?'
'No, they don't store enough fat cos bamboo has hardly any'
'But they're huge!'
I pondered this new piece of information and then a funny image entered my mind, which speaks volumes for how my mind works on a daily basis. I was laying there thinking about how big panda's are, and then the thought of a panda above a fire, being openly roasted on a spit entered it for some unknown reason.
'Could you spit roast a panda?' I said thoughtfully.
Mike erupted into fits of laughter, at one stage burying himself in the duvet so as not to wake anyone up. I lay there feeling bemused. Mike carried on laughing, in total for about 5 minutes constantly-crouched in the foetal position, all i was presented with was his shoulders bobbing up and down from the laughing.
Eventually he pulled a semi straight face, although I could tell he was doing his best not to continue laughing. He stopped enough to look me in the eye, tears nearly rolling down his face and say:
'You do know that that's a sexual position don't you?' Before going off into another fit.
'Noooo!' I did not know, I did not know that at all, why did I not know. What was it?
'What is it?'
-more laughter followed by (with giggles) 'how could you not know...it involves a man, and a woman and another man...work it out'
While i worked it out he then said 'It was the sincerity with which you said it "can you spit roast a panda?" as though you wanted to try it...' the rest of the sentence was lost as more laughter emerged. I rolled over unamused.

I have no idea how the conversation then went, but it somehow got me saying (roughly along these lines cos BOY is being mean and won't actually re-tell it to me now):
'what's your favourite ice cream flavour?'
'Really well made vanilla'
'I had phish food the other day for the first time'
'Well, if we're talking novelty flavour then rum n raisin is always good'
'ooh I have to take you to the ice cream stall in the indoor market, they do really good tiramisu'
Mike giggled again,
'What now?' I said
'Oh that just reminds me of when I was younger and I said to sooz "I like this Tiramisu" and she said "I'm glad you like The TiramiMick!"
Mike laughed at the memory repeating it...I repeated it in my head and about a minute later fell about laughing saying 'iv'e just got it, TiramiSOO' Mike groaned.

Just done a little googling- thought Google must have something on spit roasted pandas! check it out http://www.seeuinhell.com/PandaRecipes.htm

Memories

2006-05-21T17:29:00.000+01:00

Whilst tidying out my room today, I came across a piece of A4 lined paper, with some 'poetry' on it that I wrote aged 12. I found it when I was last home and in a fit of reminiscence I brought it back here. There is only one that I think is fitting to how I am feeling at the moment - certainly not the one so passionately and imaginatively entitled 'Homework!'. So I shall share just this one with you all, with the other night still in mind, but also deeper than that: the fact that we are finishing a significant period of our lives at the moment, that in a month or so we will all be graduating and taking the tentative steps into the next phases of our lives, out into the big wide world- whether that still be within academia, but at a higher level, or into a job - it is a daunting thought. We shall be saying goodbye to some who leave for elsewhere, travel and work; there will inevitably be promises of keeping in touch that will never be fulfilled. They say the friends you make at University are the friends you keep for life, which personally I feel to be a little short sighted - it is possible to make friends elsewhere, but true to the statement, I feel that sometimes, without good friendships I would have gone mad here, or worse: left.

Lucy has saved me more than once- never shall I forget last year just before the summer when she found me manically hoovering our hallway in floods of tears becuase everyone (especially Mike) was leaving. She gave me hugs and has done on many occasions. Without Gill's friendship over the summer I would not have laughed so much and more importantly I would not have gained a friendship I truly treasure. Nic is always ready with hugs and tea if necessary...and cool little gifts to give you a lift if you need it, such as Cow pens, or magnetic cows!! Tariq listens to everything I have to say, sometimes I think he understands, sometimes I think he just nods, but whatever I feel better- and it was he over Easter when it was just us here that found me sitting on the front doorstep having given up all hope of ever entering my house that drunken night. It was him who helped me while I was throwing up and cursing myself. Kirst always has hugs, sweets or a dvd to hand and an ever welcoming smile, I cannot think of anyone else who is so bouncy and ready to do things and go places.

Mike is my rock, always ready to placate if I need calming down, always a shoulder to cry on no matter what time of day, and often, night. It is him that I trust implicitely, it is with he that I have managed to finally realise what happiness within a relationship means. And all the other people too- Jack who I have only been friends with for a short time, but who understands my insane obsession with Theatre, and it is only he who can understand why I miss technical and dress rehearsals! Jodie, with whom I rant about our course and the inept staff that sometimes inhabit places like Student Services! Without all of these people and more, my time at university wouldn't have been half as good as it has been. All of them, in their own way, have changed my life a tiny bit; and I like to hope, that in some way, I have changed theirs too.
So as I realise I only have 17 days left at University, I feel this poem is fully justified:

Memories
Memories come straight from
the heart.
Memories are what you remember
but can't.
Memories are stirred from
deep within you.
Spelling out things which
you never knew.
Memories exist when nothing
else does.
Stirring up trouble for want
of a buzz.
You, when you got pissed out
of your mind.
The morning after the night
left behind.
Your emotions, sorrows and Secrets
all hidden.
All things which you've said
and won't be forgiven.
Lie deep within you and your
mortal soul.
And only you and yourself to
share it all.

Oh what a night!

2006-05-20T19:42:00.000+01:00

This post is yellow as a tribute to Mike last night.....yeah we'll get on to that in a moment. So, lets start at the beginning (a very good place to start).

Congregations began here at approximately 8.30 with a sudden influx of people to our house, and much drinking and merriment. Within 5 minutes Gill had spilt her drink, and within another 2 so had Emma- is it catching I wonder, they were sat next to each other! Still the stain remover I bought over the summer came in handy (i knew it would one day). Then there was much suprise when Tariq announced he wanted everyone out of the kitchen, I just thought he wanted to cook, but then there was even more suprise when emerging from the kitchen were 2 candlelit cakes!!! I got very excited at that point as that morning I had thought "there was something missing from yesterday....CAKE, I forgot to buy a cake, I didn't have cake for my birthday....this is the first EVER birthday I've not had cake...bugger" Now there is an insight into how my mind works...yes everything revolves around food! Mike has worked this out already.
So the excitement was followed by much drinking of wine and beer and then transportation to snobs via pre ordered taxis (thankyou Rachel). Gill and I also compared blonde moments- she knew where Hastings is, and she knew where Hadrian's wall is, and annoyingly, she knew that they were no where near each other. I felt stupid until she mentioned that she thought Carlisle was in Scotland...I don't feel so bad anymore.

Although quiet to start off with it livened up pretty quickly...I had an interesting encounter with the 'freshen up' lady in the toilet, who tried to talk to me at the start of the night, thus proving that it is an extremely lonely job sitting in a toilet (well, not in, but you get the idea) saying repeatedly 'freshen up ladies'...oh what a job! She insisted on talking to me, and then hugging me at every opportunity, needless to say I escaped as quick as I could and avoided her eye contact the rest of the night for fear of more hugging! I also managed to scare Nic and Gill with the repetition of the encounter once out and back in the safety of the club (now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say!)...so much so Nic didn't want to go to the loo on her own and I had to go too (avoiding eye contact)!
Tim handed me a drink that was a DOUBLE vodka and coke. Although he denied it for ages, but he can't lie, or at least not when marginally drunk. Bizarrely ran into some people who he was at Manor with that I met once before.
A beer, and several malibu and Coke's later and Greenday made an appearance on the sound system, which resulted in much shrieking and jumping up and down on my part, dragging poeple to the dance floor to dance (duh! what else!?? Just realised how silly that sounded)

Several dances later (and text messages I don't remember sending) and Mike disappeared..literally vanished, today niether he nor I know where he went for 20 mins! But Tim found him just as he was about to leave, and so me, Rach and Mike left- leaving Tim in the club (he was meeting someone to take him home a bit later). Stopping off at Top Nosh for the compulsorary burger and I was hustled into a Taxi. Which Rach got to stop outside Tesco on Bristol Road. Mike also got out which confused me, until the TAxi driver pointed out he was throwing up into the Bournbrook. I thanked the Taxi driver, paid and then got out myself, seeing that we weren't going any further in it! I left Mike on the Bristol Road throwing up, hoping he found his way home, whilst I walked to Rach's...bad idea. I managed to block my phone, and then spent about 20 mins on the phone to the helpline from Rach's phone (thankyou Rach...again). The idiot staff that they employ to deal with drunkards like myself at 1.30am were not too clever- he told me to enter the PUK code, which I thought I did, but obviously getting it VERY wrong. He then told me to take out my sim card, which I did, and read him a number and the phone number, which I did, he then told me what phone I had (which I know!) and to put the Sim back in, which we did, but unknowingly upside down. This meant that when he asked me to turn it on, instead of the message he was expecting (whatever that is) he got read to him by me 'it says insert sim card....which we've done...what now?' his reply 'oh! er....there's nothing else I can do I'm afraid, we're going to have to send you a new Sim card, call us when you get it and we'll transfer the numbers across.'
I couldn't believe that was it, but apparently so. Rach then walked back to Mike's with me, just as well as I didn't have a clue where I was going and turned the wrong way out of her front door!

'Richard the elusive' greeted us at the door of 53, and then said 'mike's been in the toilet for 20 minutes...we think he's being sick'.
I forced Rich to walk Rach back, relaying a story of someone being beaten up the other night about 6 times first. Then went to deal with the sick....there was a fair bit...although fortunately any half digested foodstuffs went into the Bournbrook, so it was ok...and now you know the reasoning for the colour of this blog...that and what caused it- Whiskey!
Over an hour passed with us in the toilet, and then I put Mike to bed, and kipped on his floor in a spare duvet. I was fine at 7am when I woke up and got myself some breakfast and tea, and then Mike awoke, and was annoyingly fine. Then I went back to sleep for an hour, which was a mistake, because when I awoke I felt very ill....and kept feeling worse.

The hangover cure of Subway for lunch (and pizza just now for dinner) hasn't helped much suprisingly. When I did come home I went back to bed for a few hours. I have managed to unblock my phone today now that I'm sober, the woman on the other end of the phone was laughing when I told her I'd found out the sim was inserted upside down, she said 'sounds like you had a hell of a night' I was like 'er, yes'.
But it was a good night, and I hope people enjoyed themselves, cos I did. I feel bad I didn't get to talk to more people- like Jack and Lucy. Overall though, last night made up for the not so good actual Birthday, so it's all good.

Talked to Tim earlier as well to let him know there was no way I could get on a train to Worcester the state I was in...during our lengthy conversation I said 'I'm mad...I've gone mad...again' Which prompted me to reason:

If one has gone mad once, then surely to that mad person, sanity is madness, as their madness is the norm, so therefore if you were mad and go mad again, you actually become sane.

Now there's a thought-provoking and slightly confusing statement to leave you with!
xx

How I saw my Birthday in...

2006-05-18T09:03:00.000+01:00

Finished watching a film last night with Jack and Tariq, and there was only like 5 minutes before midnight, so we all decided to wait up (like kids) and see in my Birthday. We were talking about the presents that have come through my door that kirsty has pinched and hidden (most miffed cos now I have to wait for her to wake up...and I'm awake!!!!), one of which was rather large. I was saying how knowing my Godparents it will be well packaged and a small thing in a large box. Tariq started speculating about what my presents could be, coming up with this little gem:

Tariq 'Maybe it's one of those toys that requires batteries'
Cue raucaus laughter from me and a lot of sniggering from Jack who was trying to keep a straight face. Realisation dawned quite suddenly on what he had said and poor Tariq then tried to rectify the situation, alas to no avail:

'No I mean one of those toy rabbits!'

More hysterical giggling from me, as I cried 'Tariq, please stop, you're making it worse'

We were so preoccupied with laughing at Tariq's comments of toy rabbits that need batteries (I think he meant the Duracell advert toy bunnies) that we completely missed midnight, only realising afterwards that it was now my birthday!

So, not sure what I'm going to do today, apart from at 11 go and collect an essay, and at 4.30 meet my ex English teacher, and then this evening go and gorge myself stupid at Lasan....but hopefully whatever I do, Won't invovle Battery operated toy rabbits!

Where are the Andes?

2006-05-17T12:57:00.000+01:00

Pillow talk is amazing, after brushing up on my geographical knowledge (China is NOT an island, Hawaii is in the Pacific- and is also where they film 'LOST'- yeah i know! getting good aren't I???) I decided for our pillow talk this morning, Mike could again test me on my geographical knowledge, and this time, this time, I would impress him with it...really I would.

'Where is Madagascar?'
'Africa!' I proudly announced.
'Yes, but where abouts?'
'Ah. Um....North...'
'no'
'South'
'no'
'East?'
'yes'
'Ah-ha! I got it!' I proclaimed proudly. Mike inwardly sighed.
'And what is special about it?'
'oh....er....I dunno...oooh it's...'
'It's an island'
'yes, i was going to say that. I know that. It is an island, because of the film.'
'no, not because of the film. It was an island before the film.'
'yes.'
'And why is the island so special?'
'Er....'
'Because it broke off from Africa and floated away' Now...I'd like to point out here, if Mike hadn't mentioned the word 'floated' the next thought wouldn't have entered my head.
'So it's moving?'
'yes'
'floating?'
'Yes'
'So, you could swim under it?'
'no! not floating on water. It's floating on the mantle, the tectonic plate it's on, it broke up, so the island is floating away, but not on the top of the water!!!'
'Is it still floating?'
'probably, yes'
'but not on the water?'
'NO!'
'Give me another one'
'Where is the Bay of Biscay?'
'Italy?'
'No'
'America?'
'No'
'India?'
'NO!'
'Australia?'
'No'
'France'
'yes!! Finally. I suppose you finally got there after going 4 times round the world' Mike conceeded taking a look at my chuffed face.
A fascinating fact about Iceland and a few more countries later, and Mike is tiring of this game, we established that i've never seen a proper map, which explains a lot. And that I think that New Zealand is above, not below Australia; That China is an island; that Hawaii is in the Atlantic, That Madagascar is floating quite literally, and that India and Asia are separate- that Asia is next door to India. I was fascinated to learn that Asia is huge, encompassing all the 'ikstans' such as Kazikstan (not spelt right, spelt phoenetically), and Russia bits, and China, and Japan- but not Australia. Mike threatens to leave for a shower, so I beg him 'Just one more'

'ok, but last one'
'ok' I said grinning
'Right, where are the Andes?'
I stifled a giggle but couldn't resist 'at the end of your sleevies' I burst into laughter and a slightly annoyed look crossed Mike's face. He sighed. Quite loudly. 'You juts couldn't resist could you? You've been waiting to say that I can tell. You've never actually grown up have you?' He said looking at my impish grin whilst i giggled manically to myself.
'No i haven't!' I proclaimed, then seeing his dismayed face as realisation dawned on what (not who) he was exactly dating, I quickly changed my mind. 'Ok, the Andes, now let me think about this carefully, I don't wanna get it wrong'
'no, you don't' mike helpfully said.
'Well, they aren't the pyrannes'
'no, well spotted, they aren't'
'shh you. And they aren't the Swiss Alps'
Mike laughed 'no, I think you'll find the Swiss Alps are the Swiss Alps. They're the longest mountain range'
'yes.' I said matter of factly, thinking that Mike meant the Swiss Alps were the longest mountain range...not the Andes.
I finally, after screwing my face up and muttering things came to a conclusion 'France!' I proclaimed.
'Oh god, mary mother of jesus' Mike groaned. 'The longest mountain range and you think it can fit into France???'
'oh, you mean the Andes are the longest mountain range?'
'yes!!!'
'Switzerland?'
Groaning was my response
'Spain'
More Groaning
'China!'
The groaning got worse so I figured that was wrong
'Russia!!'
'NO!' Mike finally cracked under the pressure 'The Andes are in South America'
'Ah'
'I thought they were separating, I want to say a country'
'What country?'
'I don't know'
'Agggghhh'
'No, wait, P, P....Tibet! That's the one. I thought they separated Tibet from somewhere'
'NO, that's the Himalayas- TALLEST mountain range, not LONGEST'
'oh'
'I thought I actually thought for a moment you were going to get it right for once, that we would end on a high note, but no, you didn't- France!!!!! Switzerland????'
'Well I thought they might start in Switzerland and go down into france....'
'Go down into? Switzerland is here, France is here'- mike showed me on my imaginary pillow map
'Well they could start in Switzerland and then curve round into France and down into Spain' I finished triumphantly!
'you really are wonderfully ignorant aren't you?' Mike finished and left sharpish to have his shower before any more illusions about me being marginally clever could be shattered.

kirsty's blonde moment

2006-05-16T17:57:00.000+01:00

This truly deserves to be blogged, happening only moments ago, it had me seriously wondering about my housemates mentality!

Kirsty knocks and enters my room 'Ali, have you seen your post today?' proudly she displays a parcel and an envelope.
'yes' I reply 'I'm waiting til thursday'
'Thursday? Oooh, Thursday' says kirsty wonderously
'Yes, Thursday. They are birthday cards and presents'
'oh, see you said your mum was sending you something, I didn't associate it with your birthday!!!'

She has, bless her, proceeded to hide them in her room in an oddly compulsive manner....making me think it's a good job she doesn't know about the huge parcel under the stairs that's been there for a month!!!!

xxx

2 years

2006-05-16T17:36:00.000+01:00

'What shall we have for breakfast?' I asked Mike this morning (as a break from asking him how much he loves me, and why).
'Er...what've you got?'
'Eggs, Cereal or toast' I replied.
'Lets have eggs and toast...boiled eggs and soldiers. I like boiled eggs and soldiers, I only ever eat it when I stay over here with you.'
'So, that means you associate it with me?'
'yes'
'So, that means, that in the future, should we ever break up, then you'll never be able to eat them again because they'll be forever associated with me?'
'That's a lovely thought, thankyou so much for that'
I grinned 'Happy 2 year anniversary!' I smiled cheesily.
Mike laughed and cuddled me 'perfectly timed' he replied smiling.

Alison needs...

2006-05-15T21:26:00.000+01:00

Ok, basically this was sent to me as an email, but I thought it was hilarious (this may be because I haven't been out of the house in a while) so I thought I'd share it all with you here.
What you do is go to google and type in your first name, followed by the word 'needs'; so for example 'Alison needs' and see what it comes up with. Mine was:

Alison needs males for her art...alison needs older men for her art!!! yes I know, so lads, feel free to leave me a message!

haha- I found it a useful distraction from revision and dissertation- which by the way I finished today! I know! Hurrah hurrah hurrah! I am so relieved...feels like it's been forever, but it's only been 6 months!

The best one by far was for Meryn's b'f- Duncan that I chose to look up:
'Duncan needs to die'!!!!
Followed by the one for Kirsty:
Kirsty needs to look at her relationship with
politicians if she wants to retain her reputation as an independent
commentator

ps. If anyone can tell me why on earth my Ex-English teacher (who is now head of careers at the Uni I recently found out) thinks his English lessons contained many references to giant squid? I think he must have been drinking when he wrote me that email!!!! Unless John the Giant Squid made guest appearances in my English classes, and I've either had a temporary lapse in memory, or was absent for those lessons!

Breasts!

2006-05-14T21:47:00.000+01:00

Jack: I wish we'd got a taxi
Ali: Why?
Jack: Because I can't be bothered to walk.
Ali: oh for fucks sake, it's only up the road
Jack: I know, but I had a big dinner and I'm tired.
Ali: well, I have to stop for cash so you can have a b..rest then.
Jack: (looks stunned)
Ali (laughing at another of her faux pas'): I was going to say breather, but changed it halfway to rest....
Jack (amid laughter): that's ok, but all I can think about is breasts now!

Just for the record, there weren't any breasts at the cashpoint, just an idiotic man who stood in front of one of the machines, while waiting for his friend who was using the other...but he wasn't actually using it and thus preventing me from doing so. Why is the world filled with such idiots? Why haven't they been struck down with some idiot disease that has wiped them out by now...although....given the dialogue above...maybe...i'd....fall...into...that..category-no hold that thought, the world is a great place and I love it becuase it is filled with so many diverse individuals, both clever and innanely stupid! :D

Dissertation word count: 14,194!!!

You mean Hastings isn't near Hadrians Wall?

2006-05-09T20:08:00.000+01:00

'When was the First World War?' said mike
'ummmm' I thought long and hard, I was taught this the other day 'er...... was it 19.....18...no...er...'
Mike shook his head in dispair making groaning noises.
'Give me a minute....no it was 1914-1918'
'Well done! At least you know when the Second World war was...don't you?' He said to my ever widening eyes.
'oh no' I thought, 'He's going to ask me when it was and I have forgotten'
'Don't you?' he repeated
'Er, not as such' I said
Eventually I found out it was 1939-1945, not, as I previously thought, 1935-1949!
Somehow we then got onto the Japanese in the war

'There were Japanese in the war?'
'Yes ali, there were Japanese in the war, they officially entered the war when they dropped a huge bomb on the US Naval base'
'oh, what naval base?'
'Pearl Harbour' Mike said with his eyes half shut in anticipation of the next question.
'Pearl Harbour?'
'Yes, oh god, please tell me you've heard of Pearl Harbour?'
'Ummmmm, heard of yes, seen, no!'
'Well, the Americans had this base in Hawaii called Pearl Harbour, they have bases everywhere but this one was in the Pacific'
'Hawaii is in the pacific?'
'Yes, oh my god!'
'I always thought it was in the Atlantic, are you sure it's not in the Atlantic?'
'Yes, quite sure'
'Really, now that is interesting. So it's on the West Coast of America, not the East Coast?'
'Yes. In the middle of the Pacific'
'Ah.'
'And the Japanese bombed it'
'See I'd know all this if I'd watched the film' I said.
Mike closed his eyes.
'And when the war ended the Japanese were still fighting, infact we stopped them from fighting by dropping a big fuck off bomb on them, that officially ended the war.' Mike tried to explain
'A big bomb?'
'Yes, a big, big bomb. An atom bomb! Hiroshima, Nagasaki.....'
'Ah, now Hiroshima I have heard of, but not the other one'
'You are wonderfully ignorant aren't you?'

Get away thou foul olive stones

2006-05-05T12:26:00.000+01:00

Eating Olives in La Tasca last night, that WEREN'T already stoned, I decided the thing i REALLY don't like about olives, is the stones. They feel bark like on your tongue, all rough and nasty, gives me goosebumps! So i held my olive nibbling bits off of it.
Mike said "will you stop that please?" to which i replied "why?"
"Because it's quite disgusting, put it back in your mouth"
"But I don't like it in my mouth, the stones feel funny on my tongue, I don't like the bark like taste"
"Oh my god, you really are odd aren't you? You won't eat olives with stones in because you don't like the taste of the stone, but if there's a baby octopus, it's a case of 'send it my way'!"

This was Richard's impression of 'baby octopus' that he and I shared on Mike's birthday at Las Iguanas....it's a very good impression!

"I'm sorry, what the hell just happened?"

2006-05-02T21:03:00.000+01:00

Ali: what shall i have for dinner today I wonder....(opens fridge)
Nic: I don't know what shall you have for dinner today?
Ali: (looking in fridge) Caaaaaawwwwwwww (does flappy arm movements)
Nic: Caaaaaaaawwwww (does arm movements)
Ali: oooh look, I have leftovers
Nic: yay
Jack: I'm sorry! What the hell just happened?

Big Brother Grad Ball Ticket queuing!

2006-04-29T11:18:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-25T10:26:00.000+01:00

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...

2006-04-09T20:05:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-05T13:00:00.000+01:00

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....

2006-04-02T12:38:00.000+01:00

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:

Your rabbit has devil eyes!

2006-03-31T19:30:00.000+01:00

Look at the bunny, and tell me it doesn't have devil eyes!

See, I told you! Well, no, I told Jack actually- as awful as it may be to accept, 'Sooty' (original Jack, so original) is definately under Satan's spell......

And also being attacked by a giant Mole by the sound of it too, the devil bunny is apparently confused and 'perturbed' was the word Jack used, describing her reaction (the rabbit, not Jack's) to the sudden appearance of giant mole hills in the garden, presumably caused by a giant mole to go with them....who knows.

Have spent today feeling sick, with backache- in bed mostly; sometimes sleeping, sometimes watching trashy day time tv, sometimes even academically reading...but the original plans for spending the entirity of today transcribing some tapes I have of young people discussing my dissertation topic, have gone horribly awry. I have so far written in 'Word' their names! Productive...very productive!

On the plus side, I am managing to drink the recommended dose of 2 litres of water a day, quite possibly more, at the moment. And the Doctor did today prescribe me more antibiotics- this time for the Cystitis I've had for a week-feeling the urge to pee all the time really isn't productive either as time spent otherwise working is spent dashing to the bathroom and back, half the time only to discover you don't even need to pee!!! The other 'good' news, is that the back pain I have is only partly contributed by my awkward right hip that has a loose joint and occasionally decides to pop out and cause me immensive pain, it is also partly to do with the Cystitis, as apprently is the constant nauseous feeling I have had today...the bad news is, the antibiotics prescribed have a side effect of...nausea, so no escaping that then!

de lamb?

2006-03-30T17:24:00.000+01:00

Like Gill I dislike ordering food in foreign restaurants, for fear of mispronouncing it, usually I point and say 'that one please' but then I feel stupid (still) for not attempting to pronounce it and thus conforming to the stuck up, laziness of English people when it comes to learning or speaking a foreign language.
Last night was no exception. After watching V for Vendetta at the cinema and me hiding behind my hands whenever someone died and then complaining afterwards it was gory ('Gory? Exactly what bit of it was Gory Ali?' - Mike) Mike and I went to Zagora to eat, a nice, quaint Moroccan restaurant in Fletchers walk in town.
After pondering the menu, it came to ordering. Mike, confident as ever stated that we would have the Briout de Crevettes to start, and for his main he would like the Tagine Zagora. Nice and easy. The waiter then looked at me, I said could I please have the Brochettes de Lamb.
"De lamb?" mike said stifling a laugh
"That's what it says on the menu" I said defiantly, feeling myself go red "Brochettes de Poulet/Lamb"
Mike stifled even more laughter
The waiter smirked
I went red.
The waiter addressed me- do you mean number 23? (great, now he had obviously decided I was such an idiot I needed to order using the numbers instead of the names) I nodded meekly.
Mike said "can we also have a pot of mixed olives please"
The waiter looked at me and said: "sorry, do you want lamb or chicken?"
I sighed inwardly "Lamb please" and then added "and can we..."
"and do you want that with fries or rice?"
"Er, rice please" I waited to make sure that I'd not be interrupted again and was about to request a Tagine of mixed vegetables when the waiter DID speak again "and a number 19?"
"Er, the mixed olives, yes please" I tried not to look at mike "and also a tagine of vegetables" I was determined to say something
"Number 21" He concluded
He then looked at me 'oh god, what now?' I thought
"And do you want a starter"
"Um, no thanks, we'll just share the one" Now I feel stingy and stupid.
The waiter left
Mike smirked
I drank (lots of) my red wine!

The difference between a small dog and my boyfriend...

2006-03-30T16:35:00.000+01:00

I have just discovered that Mike is my Affenpinscher!! An Affenpinscher is a 'small breed of dog, related to the so-called Brussels griffon, and having tufts of hair on the face.' I might have short(er) hair but at least I'm not an Affenpinscher. Come to think of it, at least I'm not an Ailurophile either (one who is abnormally fond of cats!!...note the word, ABNORMALLY, I like cats, I have 2, but not so much that I smell of cat piss...I hope!)

Anyway, after Mike's animadvert response to the haircut ('to pass critical comment or animadversion, upon something or someone'), he seems to have gotten over it, and thinks I am still Epigamic, which is a relief somewhat. (look the last one up yourself!)

Ali xx

ps: one for Gill: I do worry that you have Gamophobia.....look it up and deny it if you will!!! xx

So much left unsaid...

2006-03-28T17:07:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it's not what you say, or even how you say it, remarkably it's what you don't say that can spell out a thousand more things than if anything was said.

In regards to this, I got my hair cut in a 'choppy' style today. Not what I originally thought would happen, but then I was a little vague with the girl about what I wanted- 'layers, kinda up to about here (shoulders)' when asked what the shortest layer I wanted was I replied red faced with 'er, oh, um well I'm not sure, I don't really know, here is the shortest one i've got now' the woman kindly pointed out this was feathering around my face, not layers, to which i went even redder! We finally agreed on something and she got to work on washing and then cutting it.
She was a student, so I have some sympathy for her, but she obviously didn't feel too comfortable cutting my hair in this way and kept asking for direction from her supervisor which didn't lend me much confidence- none actually. The more she cut it the more I began to realise it would very much be a different style to anything I've had before, but also that this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
I like it. I'd just like to say that, sure it's short, certainly shorter than anticipated, and rather than just tidying up the layers, she's given me more and a completely different style. But although at first my initial reaction (which is the same whichever hairdresser I go to, however much it costs and whatever style it is) was: 'oh god, I'm not sure I like it!' after scrutinising it a little longer as she dryed it off and styled it, I really became quite attached to it. Walking around town I had the 'I've had a new haircut' look on my face, which was mirrored in my actions of swishing my hair and looking at it in every window/mirror/thing that reflected me!

And then I came home (after spending a little of my pay packet). I warned Mike that I didn't think he'd like it. It was much shorter than we had discussed, and I know he likes longer hair. But I was still secretly hoping that like me, he'd come round quickly and really quite like it. Even the words 'it's not so bad' would have been a comfort.
He rang the doorbell and muttering 'oh god, oh god, oh god' under my breath I descended the stairs and went to the door. Shouting through the door 'I'm only going to open this if you promise not to shout at me' and getting no reply was not a good start. Reluctantly I opened the door a fraction and let him in. He didn't look too amused. Or too happy. Or too anything really. Stunned is perhaps a better word.
We went upstairs whereby he said 'It doesn't look like you' (welcome to my world when you shaved the moustache off!) followed by 'It doesn't look like my ali-cat!' Worse was to come. Then he said 'It's a good cut, don't get me wrong. But you know I don't like short hair, and worryingly you look just like one of my ex's'.....the response he got to that was me bursting into tears.
"Don't worry" he said "I don't like them any more"
"I know" I blubbed "you dumped them... you didn't like them any more" I was fearful he'd not like me any more looking as I did.
He took me into his arms and cuddled me for ages, telling me just how much he loved me regardless of what cut or colour my hair was and that he had no intention of leaving me.
Finally I stopped blubbing only to discover my mascara had run completely and I looked like a panda at best!
For ages he just cuddled me, but although he didn't really expand any more on what he'd said, I know he hates it. And I feel now like I've made such a mistake, because he doesn't think I'm as attractive any more, he doesn't like it.
I thought that wearing new clothes bought in M&S (sale!) might placate the response, and divert his attention, but he didn't even notice the clothes, or shoes...

What am I going to do?

x

Phase 2 of hair

2006-03-27T22:12:00.000+01:00

Went into Toni and Guy today, have an appointment at 9am (!!!!) tomorrow morning! So going to have to set my alarm tonight otherwise I fear I will sleep through it. The woman had really cool hair, just how I'd love to have mine- Black layers on top, with purple underneath....I'm so getting that one day! Tomorrow however is all about tidying up the hair that is a mangled mess of I don't know what! She asked if I'd considered having it in a bob, which I have had before, and I think I look smart and sophisticated, but Misery guts says he wont be as attracted to me if I do that. As we left the salon he muttered:
"Bloody hairdressers, persuading you to spend a fortune and cutting all your hair off...it's not your hairdressers job to be attracted to you [when I tested the water for possibility of a bob!]!!!"

Guess that is a fairly solid 'no' then to a bob?! Shame, but I'll stay content, afterall, I got totally freaked out when the beard was shaved off so I can understand.

Going to bed now, especially as I have to get up early. Smelly Mike won't come round to stay but I really want him to- work tonight was fairly harrowing with Paul Guyver from the Fire Service coming in to do his thing about Road Traffic Safety "Your Choice" with all the photos and videos (god the videos) of dead people, or dying people- this one man just moaning over and over as he died...it was horrific, and people cut in half and limbs strewn around, headless bodies in cars...you get the idea. The young people left suprisingly quietly...and I felt sick. Even though I've seen most of it before. I am now worried I will have nightmares, and I'd just like Mike to be there to hold me if so...but smelly BOY won't come over.
May he rot in his own cesspit the UNWASHED CRAPBAG!!!

night xx

All alone

2006-03-26T21:39:00.000+01:00

All alone, everyone has left, going steadily stir crazy....mike is taking me to the art gallery in town tomorrow in a desperate attempt to culturize me!
Last night was a success, Abligurition is one of my more successful skills:

Abligurition: Extravagance in cooking and serving

Yes, definitely one of my better skills! We had seafood medley over spaghetti in a creamy garlic mushroom sauce...yummmmm with added smoked salmon! who says you can't eat properly when a student? Also proud moment of yesterday was when I managed to legitimately get 'abdabs' into the conversation! Mike was very impressed, so was I- I managed to suprise myself!

Never answer the door while dying your hair!

2006-03-25T18:17:00.000Z

Oh deary, deary me!
Started to dye my hair, it's all piled on top of my head in a very messy bun/thing and i'm waiting for the colour (deep rich brown) to develop. I go upstairs and my first mistake is to look in the mirror:
Here I notice all around my ears, neck, and head I look like i've partaken in a mud wrestling match- no really, the colour was that of dried caked on mud! mmmm nice. So I sigh and get out the cotton wool and makeup remover and apply...only to discover the make up remover is not enough, the stain won't disappear...frantically I tried cleanse and tone stuff, which had no effect whatsoever, in absolute dispair of having to turn up at a party tonight looking like the beast from the swamp I reached for nail polish remover...it smells potent enough, and will probably strip my skin, but who cares? The skin stripping was quite well predicted, and should you ever decide to use this method, a word of warning: don't put it near your eyes. So now I look like I've been crying for hours with my eyes smarting and I smell of nail polish remover, but the stain HAS gone...I must remember to put vaseline round my hairline / anywhere else the dye may go next time to avoid this! I think this everytime, I've only ever remembered once!

Secondly I sit down, thinking I have 1/2 an hour and I feel like prettying up my feet (???don't ask!) so I buff the nails, cut them and shape the cuticles and start to apply nail polish. It was then the doorbell rang. Now, don't laugh, but when I dye my hair I usually do so wearing as little as possible to avoid staining which inevitably occurs when I wear clothes- today this meant 'nothing', I scuttled from the bathroom to my bedroom with a towel wrapped around me. Shit, I'm the only one in who can hear the doorbell so I have to answer. I grabbed my towel, flinging it around me, and try to hobble (nail varnish has not dried yet) downstairs, I suddenly realise what I look like and know I cannot open the door like this, but think I'll knock on Tariq's door and get him to open it....too late, Tariq is already opening the door, as I, in my hair dye/towel wrapped monster state open the living room door to the hall, and see a girl glancing over Tariq's shoulder at the bizarre state I'm in. Worse still, I'm so horrified but transfixed, I don't even retreat! Tariq closes the door and looks at me with a mix of suprise and horror on his face, as I attempt to explain.
Hobbling back upstairs, annoyingly I can see after all that, in my rush to open the door, my nail polish smudged...guess the nail polish remover will be doing its normal job later.

So I'm sat here, in a towel about to go and wash out the dye...wish me luck!
x

Abdabs!

2006-03-25T12:46:00.000Z

Bought a wonderful new book yesterday that will increase my vocabulary and probably make my tutors wish I hadn't bought it! It is 'The superior person's second book of words' by Peter Bowler, and I highly recommend it...actually, don't worry about buying it, I shall be sharing some of the words it contains with you.

The first of which is the first one in the book- Abdabs or Habdabs. The extract for which is:

Abdabs or Habdabs: n. A state of extreme nervousness- the jitters. One of those
marvelous, naturally expressive terms which the dictionaries don't even try to
etymologize. 'Hoo-ha' is another. 'All this hoo-ha is giving me the abdabs.'

A wonderful book I'm sure you will agree. And like me, I'm sure you look forward to hearing more words that will undoubtedly give you the abdabs!!

Ps: everyone is leaving. Lucy was first to go (boo hiss), Kirsty followed quickly, and now Nic is preparing to leave, alas it will be just me and Tariq here for the next 2 weeks before I depart back home. But on the plus side, it feels more like spring today and my illness is getting better, I've already had 2 meals today, and don't feel half as bad as yesterday. wooo! xx

Phase one of hair transformation

2006-03-24T18:53:00.000Z

Bought a brown hair dye today, so stage one of hair transformation can go underway tomorrow! Exciting! Then i need to book an appointment to get it cut and highlights put in. Scary!
Going off to ramshackle tonight, watch this space for more photos!!
xx

Embarrassing moments...

2006-03-23T18:06:00.000Z

Have just read Gill's blog about embarrassing situations...
This is odd, as her conversation with her mike is very very similar to my conversation with my mike as pillow talk the other night too...we are morphing I think.

Our conversation was very similar:
Ali: What's your most embarrassing moment?
Mike: You know this, I've told you.
Ali: well I don't remember, tell me again!
Mike: No
Ali: yes

I forced it out of him in the end, and I have to say, it was more horrible than embarrassing. He then asked what mine was.
Ali: Oh god (rolling my eyes) it has to have been when I was about 9 or 10, and we were waiting outside M&S for my mum to finish work one evening. It was the summer, and hot, and I was wearing a dress. I don't know if you remember the game 'leap frog' but I decided, with my younger sister, to while the time in the side street next to the store, to play this game over the bollards lining the street.
This was not such a good idea as I found out 3 seconds later when my dress caught on the bollard and I was left hanging upside down on the bollard, feet waving in the air, knickers in full view and my dad sat in the car wetting himself laughing! I was helpless and my father decided not to help me at all, neither did my sister. I stayed like this for what must have been nearly 5 minutes although it felt like an hour, you'd think now is the time my father comes to rescue me, but no, it took a passing old lady to stop and say "do you need any help dear?" to which I muttered a reply and graciously accepted, scuttling back to the car as quick as I could after!

Mike: oh yeah! That is quite funny!
Ali: Thanks!

It just made me think even more of today's embarrassing moment. Gill gets about 5 a day- and i'm not referring to daily fruit and veg intake- i can so relate to this. Take today for instance:
In a lecture I decide to open up my lucozade drink, unfortnately for me, it had got somewhat shaken up in my bag, and thus covered everything quite spectacularly within a few feet, including me, the chair and other people (nearly the tutor)! The room erupted with laughter, mostly at the tutors face of disbelief, and to make matters worse I apologised with the legendary words of "er, sorry everyone, I appear to have had an explosion!"
Result- more laughter and a few tears...of laughter! I scuttled out of the room which in retrospect of those words was perhaps not such a good idea with the words of Arnie "I'll be back!" and ran to the toilet emerging later with hand towels, bursting back into the room with much more apologising and mopping up of my 'explosion'!

I feel Gill's pain, and my conclusion is, that some of us in this life are just destined to have more embarrassing moments than others!

Legends!!

2006-03-23T17:31:00.000Z

Would just like to say, Andy Simpson, Wayne Richards and Gill Cressey are gods and goddess respectively!
How amazing are our lecturers? They've managed to change our exam date from April 25th to June 7th instead because we have so much else to do over easter- like essays and dissertation!
How cool is that?
Just had to say that we have the BEST lecturers in the world who actually fight in our corner for us.

On another note, feedback from the prison presentation from our lecturer was very positive, so all we have to do now is write it up and hand it in!

And i'm thinking of dying my hair brown again- back to it's normal (ish) colour and getting rid of the very faded red, and then getting it trimmed and some highlights put in, in dark blonde/light brown...comments please! xx

Chihuahua!

2006-03-21T21:10:00.000Z

According to this: http://uk.tickle.com I am a Chihuahua! Yes I took the 'Dog' test...ironic eh!?

These are my traits, read them and tell me if that has not just got my name written all over it!

No bones about it, you're an energetic, devoted Chihuahua. For your breed, size definitely doesn't matter. After all, sometimes the best things (diamonds, car keys, Godiva truffles) come in small packages. Honest and straightforward, you're never afraid to speak up for what you believe in, especially if it's a cause near and dear to your heart. Having such a passionate personality can come with a few drawbacks, though. You can be moody at times, and people often find it hard to live up to your high standards. But once you make a friend, it's for life. Saucy and intense, your energy and unfailing loyalty make you a great companion. Woof!

Pill Popping

2006-03-21T20:03:00.000Z

Have been given antibiotics by the doctor- I finally relented yesterday, and fed up at not being able to sleep, my abs killing me whenever I cough, and just generally feeling shitty, I made an appointment first thing yesterday morning and was offered the chance to see the Doc at 8.40- which i gratefully accepted. He told me nothing I couldn't have told him:

Doc: hmmmm I see
Ali: What? What do you see?
Doc: Well you're tonsils are inflamed
Ali: My tonsils are always big though
Doc: Yes, but this is affecting your whole head- your throat is also inflamed and you have a temperature.
Ali: yes, I thought so.
Doc: And it's affecting your sinus' also. I will prescribe you something.
Ali: Oh, good. Er....so what is it then?
Doc: Well it's hard to tell (!!!!!) It could be bacterial or it could be viral, I don't know (!!!!!!!!) but what I've prescribed will cover both!
Ali: Oh, er, good!
Doc: And keep taking LOTS of paracetamol, or ibruprofen or whatever
Ali- ponders what 'whatever' means.
Doc: Thankyou, goodbye.
Ali: oh, er, thanks, bye.

No room there then for additional questions I guess! I then endured blistering winds on the corner or Dawlish for 10 minutes whilst I waited for the Chemist to open. It seems ridiculous that the Chemist opening time does NOT correspond to the Doctor opening time. When I did go in, I had to pay for my prescription (thank you to the people who work out whether you're entitled to free prescriptions or not, they decided last week NOT to renew mine- I am apparently no longer poor enough to warrant leeching off them with free prescriptions!) so in going to pay, I decided it was more convenient to pay on my card, and was told curtly by the witch behind the counter that 'there is a 35 pence charge for all cards' I grumpily said 'that's a bit of a rip off then isn't it?' and grudgingly gave her the money...all in coppers!

Party Pics

2006-03-18T12:40:00.000Z

These pictures give you some idea of the types of parties I've attended over the last month or so...and no, we weren't on drugs, although it is perfectly understandable as to why you may think so.

The aptly named 'corona crane dance'- lovin' emma's face (Richard just looks, as usual, psychotic)

Richard sneaks some more wine, when he thinks no one is looking....

Note the Haribo Bling!

'Smile and they won't notice we're stealing their alchohol'

"What are you looking at?"

This explains a LOT.....

The Penguin of Death spares me my life.

My life as 'Multi Hat Model' begins...

Sickness

2006-03-17T18:12:00.000Z

This is green. To reflect my mood. Very poetic eh?
Not when you consider how SICK i feel. There. That spoilt the romance and poetry didn't it? Sorry.
Yesterday, for the record, with the presentation went well. Really well I thought, despite me feeling like this. I dosed myself up on flu tablets and lucozade and acted bloody brilliantly (if I may say so) for an hour, then crashed. LOL
I'd have been screwed if we'd had to present for 2 hours, an hour I can do, but it drained me.
Today, I have mostly spent in bed to be honest. I didn't even move from it until gone 3pm! I have now showered, spent some time in my dressing gown contemplating putting on clothes, then decided against it and went back to pyjamas again. I'm now going to finish this, and then go back to bed. I can't stay long, the glare of the screen is hurting my eyes- but I did need to write a journal article which has to be submitted (as a University assignment) on thursday. This I have as good as done, and so I shall now retire...again.
Goodnight and Godbless.
x

How to get paid for talking!

2006-03-15T17:04:00.000Z

Feeling very pink today- possibly because of the types of lipstick i've been looking at for the last god knows how long...but yeah, I got £50 for just talking about lipstick, what I buy and don't and why- looking at advertisements and saying what I thought, and t.v programmes over 3 hours. Not bad work really.

Can feel a sore throat coming on though, which isn't good as I have this dreaded presentation tomorrow, still once that's over I can be as ill as I like- kinda- still got 2 essays in for next Thurs, although have started both so it's all good. All the same- hey, maybe it's psychosymatic (however it's spelt) maybe it's because I DON'T want to do the presentation and it will be miraculously better tomorrow night- somehow I doubt this. I've done presentations before, and not gotten a sore throat. Oh dear.

Google is Bad

2006-03-13T23:30:00.000Z

So I never thought I'd utter these words, but 'Google is Bad' with a capital 'B'. On a whim, which I'm never doing again, I typed in an ex's name....I do this every so often, mostly because I want to know what he's doing- he was highly intelligent, a literal Albert Einstein as Phsyics and Mathematics were his field, and I'm still convinced one day he'll come up with some genius theory or discover something and be famous. Only today I find out, courtesy of Google and Friends Reunited (not that I want to reunite with him- I was double checking what I read on Google) that he is no longer at teh University of Southampton, instead he has moved to the University of Adelaide- Australia.
Look, I've never had any regrets about leaving the bastard, anyone who knows me will tell you the misery he put me through with another girl being involved- note word 'girl' not woman! 16 to be precise, and he was 25! Yes, anyway, another story. I was very unhappy, I've never had any regrets about the choice I made- again people know the choice and dilemma I had. However, bear in mind, this guy once told me in his cryptic way, we 'could' be together forever. His way of stating committment I guess...
It scared me then, those of you who know me know why! But not enough to leave, and he was a multimillionnaire heir....not that that ever bothered me either- money scares me to be honest. As long as I have enough to get by I'm perfectly happy. I'd rather be poor and happy, than rich and unhappy- which is what it would have turned out like I think.
But Australia. *if* i'd stayed, that is a big if you all know, if i I'd stayed, just think- beaches, holidays, he could pay- he was rich enough dammit- hot, hot holidays.....shouldn't think like this I know, but it just naturally makes me wonder what *could* have been.
I know deep down, nothing would ever have happened long term between us, 5 months and I was so unhappy I was glad to leave, and like I say, never any regrets. The only thing really nagging me is whether he took the slut with him or not...cos I've always maintained despite evidence that pointed the other way, that he never actually did anything with her, or was interested in her, that it was her manipulating the situation the whole time. And I still believe that- if she didn't go. Because after we broke up, everyone said she'd be first on the scene, she outright asked me to leave him so she could be with him! Plucky 16 year old I have to say. She put me through hell and back in that relationship, and if it wasn't for her, maybe, just maybe we'd have made it longer... Who knows. But I always contested the fact that he'd go out with her, I was convinced, and still am, that he wasn't interested in her, it didn't make sense- he did so much to placate me. Stopped contacting her, wouldn't speak to her- that was why she got so mad and spoke to me directly! Lol, crazy bitch.
But if he did, if he did get with her, and took her to Australia, then I think I'd be annoyed, because I'd feel like a fool.
I'm not going to google her to find out....I'm going to try to resist anyway. Maybe I need to know. Oh god. This is bad now isn't it....leave it Ali, leave it.
I'm going to sit on my hands, so that I don't find out.

ali x

Paaartay!

2006-03-12T11:37:00.000Z

Ok, so as I'm sat here with my peppermint tea (1st cup for today) I'm trying to remember what the hell happened last night.
Well, I know what happened of course, it was 53's houseparty, and once again, predictably, I got drunk.
Suprisingly I don't have a hangover this morning...God only knows why, cos I think I deserve one.
So, I remember going to Subway, getting steak and cheese...I love that one. I remember going back to eat it because I was hungry and Mike wondering where the hell I was going. I remember drinking a lot, but not after subway, cos that made me tired, so I remember going to mike's room and getting into his bed and going to sleep. No idea how long I was asleep for, but I was very disorientated when Mike woke me up and told me I had to go home to sleep. I was also very uncooperative as well, sulking like a child. Yes, laugh away. I was horrible. God, I wish I hadn't been so horrid. I then remember getting quite annoyed at Mike because he palmed me off onto Kirst and her Mike as they were going back to mine, and didn't walk back with me or stay over...after he had said 'lets get you home'- in my drunken state it made perfect sense for that to mean 'i'm staying at yours'. So I walked up Dawlish muttering under my breath with my teeth chattering from the cold, cursing Mike for A) waking me up, B) making me walk home in the Godforsaken bitter cold and C) not coming with me.
I was still cross when I got in and noticed it was half 3, and so wrote him a text to tell him so....Oh deary me, NOT a good idea. I had 2 texts on my phone this morning apologising and apologising some more...when really, it should've been me apologising. The worrying thing was the time difference between them though, 3.52am and 4.27am- he was still feeling bad about it nearly an hour after I left.
Poor mike, he does wonders to put up with me, no one else would I'm sure.
x

ps...if anyone would like to tell me about an apparent knife I had last night, I sure would appreciate it, I can't remember it.

The world according to me

2006-03-06T22:15:00.000Z

Tonights session at youth club went really well. I mean, really, really well. I was nervous as I was running it, but the young people just went with it, once they got talking and discussing stuff they didn't wanna stop- great for me, but how the hell am I gonna edit it and write about it in my dissertation, and in only 3000 odd words?? I could write the whole dissertation just on what they've said tonight alone!
Wow, got such a buzz out of it, it's nights like this when i remember and realise exactly why I do the work I do. Gotta hold onto that thought when I get a bad night I think.
The only bit was right at the end, past the end actually....They'd been fantastic all night long, and I thought there was something a little odd in that...but anyway, they left, we did evaluation, then we left. I got a lift with Stretch, and as I got out of the car at the top of my road, I went round the back of it- there tucked into the boot and very artistically arranged were all the signs that are normally pinned to the door of the centre such as - "We do not have public toilets" and "Learn to Speak Spanish here on Wednesdays"!! I had to laugh, they were quite ingenious with how they used them really.

Oh and I feel it absolutely necessary to mention that I've drunk no less than 5 cups of tea today- 1 camomile, 3 peppermint, and one normal one! Beat that...no, don't actually!

"I know this one...."

2006-03-06T10:41:00.001Z

Had a delightful meal out last night in Chamon for Mark's 21st, even though the Saag I ordered had chili peppers in it (???) and was thus quite hot. After drinking copious amounts of cheap wine, and delightful conversation whereby I discovered that 'John the squid' isn't actually a real person with a funny name, instead he is a made up character created by the members of 53 in response to Pete's squid phobia.
We went back to 53 for a little bit, and then I got an invite to the Pear where Jack, his housemates and his friends were. So I trundled along. I'm now beginning to wonder why on earth Jack feels the need to invite me to these pub things, especially when they all seem to be quizzes, and I'm notoriously bad at quizzes, I know nothing...no, really...look, I thought 'John the squid' was a person; I'm not exactly going to know which country won the race to the top of Mt.Everest in 1875 am I? I'm not even sure if anyone had conquered Everest then....
Well, after sitting, feeling distinctly more and more disappointed with myself and my lack of knowledge, there came a question that I KNEW. It surely was a wonderous moment when the quizmaster read out:
"What other animal apart from Human can get Leprosy?"
"I know this, I know this" I leapt out of my chair like I was attached to a firecracker, shouting with Glee "I know this, It's Pigs"
The quizmaster then said "Is it A) Horses, B) some animal I can't remember or C...." I waited with anticipation "....Armadillos?"

Armadillos! Armadillos! WHAT??? It's bloody Pigs I'm telling you.
Lovely Dan then decided to ask me why on earth I thought Pigs could get Leprosy.
"Well" I explained "I'm from Bath, and the whole legacy of the city is based on Prince Blaudaud who was cast aside from his empire and exiled when he got Leprosy. No one would come near him and the only job he could get was as a Swinehearder (Pig herder), unfortunately (Note please the tour guide phrasiology!) the Pigs caught his leprosy. Finally he herded them into the Avon Valley, not called that at the time, and there was a big bog of mud which the pigs liked to wallow in. Blaudaud noticed sometime later that the pigs were being cured of their Leprosy slowly, so he decided to bathe in the water too and eventually his leprosy was cured and he went back to reclaim his crown. That's why just outside Bath there is a village called Swineford (pronounced by poncy locals as SWIN ford) and there are lots of streets with reference to Blaudaud. It's because the spa waters running through the valley and under the city that the Romans found and exploited have 43 minerals and 7 trace elements in them and are extremely good for you."
Dan rolled around laughing and Jack tactfully mentioned to me, did I not perhaps think the LEGEND of Bath was just that- a fable, a legend, not true?
Haughtily I replied No I did not think that was what it was.

I didn't even attempt any more questions, and for those of you desperate to know which animal it was, it was the one that we put down: Armadillos. Apparently they're the ONLY other animal to get leprosy, this is sadly confirmed by Google this morning. My whole life up until now has been a lie, a fable, false, not true (Sigh)- I hope the quizmaster feels good about himself, destroying my identity and throwing my life into turmoil like that!

Why doesn't our internet work?

2006-03-04T18:56:00.000Z

It is everyone's nightmare (or at least one of mine) to wake up and be told I've been cut off from the cyber world: no email, no msn, no Google! Horrific! And that's exactly what happened today.
From what I could tell it wasn't my fault, even though the router is in my room for accessability to signal for everyone. The lights were flashing where they should, it was just no one was home! I fiddled. Unplugged it. Mike re-set it. Still nothing. At a complete loss we text Kirsty's mike who is mechanical genius.

Some hours later, when Mike still hadn't turned up, Tariq emerges telling us that his internet isn't working properly (communal sigh), 'yes, we know. None of ours are either, mike is coming round to fix it.'
Tariq disappears, 20 minutes later a knock on the door- 'Sorry guys, it's my fault, I turned the modem off in my room last night!'

Thanks Tariq!
Apparently he 'wondered what the switch was for' and 'decided to turn it off' when nothing exploded or stopped working, he 'went to sleep'.

I am now filling time before Sushi. I'm very excited about this, I haven't had sushi for so long, too long. Only someone who will remain nameless but it's fairly obvious who it is, decided to play 'Civilization' and got carried away forgetting the time. Now, I don't think it's unfair to point out that I have been told on many an occasion that I need to plan my day to get the most from it. I did this today. Everything was planned around leaving at 6.30 for Sushi. I did some work, I arsed around on the 'net, I ate lunch appropriately, I even made time for my workout dvd only to get upstairs to a text asking if we can put it back to 7.30 because someone forgot the time and hence didn't do their Workout and would 'feel bad' if they didn't do it!
Hmmph.
Let it be written here forever, I NEVER want to be told again by said nameless person that I am to plan my day, and if those words are uttered, i reserve the right to shout at the top of my voice : HYPOCRITE.

thats all folks
xx