Monday 29 September 2008

Tabloid Masquerade



Frown
Daily


Scream Daily


Be brain-washed Daily


Feel Apathy Daily


Pre-judge Daily


Dictate Daily


Withdraw Daily


Have Nightmares Daily


Encourage Ignorance Daily


Feel nothing Daily


Make ill-informed judgements Daily


Voice sympathy for facism Daily


Support the BNP Daily


Suspend rational thought Daily







Shock Yourself Daily




Victory!

Conker competition co-organised by my good self went very well yesterday.

Oh yeah and WE WON!!!

Considering two of our team didn't know how to play until about 3 hours before the tournament, it was pretty incredible!

6th Brighton, the Brighton District Cubs Conker Champions 2oo8!

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Poor vs Rich. Poor wins!

Brighton 2-2 Man City (5-3 pens)

Manchester City suffered an embarrassing Carling Cup exit after being beaten on penalties by Brighton.

Enough said! What a night! No result this season will top this one!

The richest club in the world beaten deservedly by one of the poorest. Capitalism is the way of the foolish man!

Tribute: There is nothing worse than...

For one night only... a tribute to another blog.

Yesterday I left you with the false impression that 'I have nothing going on'. This is never true for me, I should have made the slight alteration of adding 'of interest' in between 'nothing' and 'going on'.

Today I went and taught deaf teenagers. Aha I thought! This will produce enough fodder for a mighty fine blog, with many amusing anecdotes (mocking me more than anything else).

Actually the day was rather bland and dull, being left with about an hours worth of work for 5 hours was a little stressful, but with some impromptu role-play I just about fleshed it out. Actually two of the students also had a limited command of the English language too, so it was like two of my worlds rolled into one... Luckily one other student was easily understandable so a lot went through him.

Anyway, I am distracted. My journey there was eventful only as my keen desire not to overshoot the bus stop led to me undershooting it by two stops. Two stops very far apart.

So the No52 bus which I ruled out catching as 'it gets me there at 8.55 which is 25 minutes later than i need to' merrily drove past me as I approached shortly before my rather confused friend Sarah drove the other way fresh from dropping her child at school. I arrived, slightly damp from spitty rain, at 9am.

The way home was even more eventful. My thought processes as I approached my bus stop on thr coast road after already walking 15 minutes:

"Oh there's a police car by my stop. I wonder what it is doing?"

Upon closer inspection as I drew nearer...

"Oh, that police car is blocking the road so my bus can't get through. I wonder why. How am I going to get home?"

Upon speaking to nice friendly policeman:

"Ok, I'm walking back to Brighton then".

10 minutes later, the reason for my unscheduled bout of exercise and sea air... a rather mangled sports car/bus combination. Let's pray there were no fatalities.

Eventually, I reached Brighton (1 hour later) and caught my bus from the old steine. Thoroughly tired, at the end of my bus journey I descended the stairs to find the bottom deck liberally coated with human vomit.

Nice touch.

Tuesday 23 September 2008

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23 September 2008 04:57

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23 September 2008 04:58

Why? This is frustrating. I want to know what this person said, on 2 rapidly successive occasions that they so instantly found inexplicably unpublishable?

The worst thing is, I don't know who it is! I have my suspicions (I have, to my knowledge only 2 readers, maybe 3), but naming them 'the author' awards them a status of anonymity I don't think they deserve.

As you might be able to tell, I haven't got a lot going on at the moment, but tomorrow I'm spending the day teaching deaf teenagers so I'm sure my life will take a more interesting turn very soon.

Thursday 18 September 2008

Conkered!

Does anyone know the best way of stringing a conker?



I'm co-running a conker competition in 10 days time, and have to find and string a fair few of the blighters fairly soon. Suggestions welcome...

Wednesday 17 September 2008

Writer's Blog

I am unable to post today after reading the brilliance of the post dated Sunday 14th September on here

Monday 15 September 2008

Prepositioned!

Why is it so hard to explain prepositions in the English Language? My poor Turkish students (who have never heard of such a strange phenomena) really struggled...

"I have confidence about his ability?"
(No, that would be ...in his ability.)

"It wasn't an accident. He did it for purpose?"
(No, unfortunately ...on purpose.)

"Bill's absolutely terrified from spiders?"
(No, he's terrified of them).

etc etc

In better news. 5 bars of Dairy Milk for £1.00 in Messrs Frank Winfield Woolworth. Lovely stuff!

Saturday 13 September 2008

Fingers in your ears... 3...2...1..... er....

The arrogance of scientists still astounds me. No, we aren't all going to be sucked into oblivion. Thankfully we do not have a driver who's asleep behind the wheel, and personally the whole thing stinks of Babel, (see Genesis 11) just as much as this gene meddling and modifying we're doing.

This week has been unspeakably busy, but a lot of fun. I have been teaching students English and some of the classes have been up for a laugh. We ate chocolate, pretended to make sandwiches, tried to lick our elbows and two students even did handstands.

Proper football returns today after 2 weeks dominated by reading mere headlines while greedy Setanta ruins all the fun. Anyway, football focus is on in a minute so hopefully I'll see the goals in something better than the grainy Croatian TV coverage available on YouTube.

See here for an extremely coherant rant on this topic

They're making life more difficult for those of us with only 4 channels (why do I need any more??)

Wednesday 10 September 2008

Grrrr

Setanta. Grrr. Not having National Team Highllights on a terrestrial station is immoral and goes against the values of Public service Broadcasting. Who's with me?

Monday 8 September 2008

Happy Birthday Archippus



Today is my cat's 12th Birthday. That is all.

Friday 5 September 2008

Jolly Jobsworths...

My daily commute to central Brighton and my temporary position of employ involves a rather enjoyable daily read of the METRO (sexual?) free newspaper. However, an annoying common theme seems to have emerged towards the end of the week. After yesterday's front page story about a 24 year old mother-of-two denied a smear test despite a clear family history of cancer, today's Metro contains no less than 4 counts of what I would call 'Jobsworth-ing':

1. 13 year old boy's cat goes missing. As any normal boy would do, he puts up 'missing' posters. Threatened with ASBO and an £80 fine.

2. Soldier on sick leave from Afghanistan forced to sleep in his car in Surrey after Hotel wouldn't give him a room as 'they don't accept military personnel'.

3.Mother rings M&S to complain about 7 year old son's Superman suit. Told to pass phone to said 7 year old so they can either speak to him or get his permission to speak to her. Something to do with the data protection act apparently.

4. Essex police told to remove sunglasses as they intimidate people.

Ok, the last one is a bit more tenuous and possibly understandable.

Favourite METRO headlines of the last few days...

Keegan resigns. No, really, he does.

Sex slur hits 'Pitbull'.

Drug addict elephant is let out of rehab.

Hello Doctor... I've not been well since I died.

New fears over confidence dip.


Jobcentre threw me out for feeding baby (and no I wasn't breastfeeding.)
(Sorry, this actually belongs in the jobsworth section)

Looney Toons

and last but not least...

Inflatable dentist to save our teeth.

Wednesday 3 September 2008

It's a rich man's world...

I have been pondering the rather ugly side of money this week as the football season gets into full swing, and the hideousness of the end of the 'transfer window' (a period of time in which players can be bought and sold between clubs), which ended on Monday at Midnight. Clubs holding out to get the most money, other clubs trying to pay as little as possible. And, despite being a passionate football fan, it still angers me that players can wait for a "better offer", when they earn something like £120,000 a week and want £140,000. Footballers aren't worth it, but unfortunately, this side of the game is here to stay.

And create an elite it has, with the "top 4" likely to stay there. (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United to put them in alphabetical order). However, Manchester City's recent move from one dodgy owner to another, sees them promise offers like £135m for players worth much MUCH less, just to become "the biggest club in the world". Money no object? Rather dull I think. Bit like stealing the bank in Monopoly. NO fun for anyone.

The events in Shropshire have just left me speechless, the apparent desperation of a man who fell foul to the love of wealth. Just an unthinkable event that you can't imagine being real.

I was listening to a Pulp song last night; and while its tone is a bit more unkind and angry than I would take, it makes a solid point:

Check your lucky numbers.
That much money could drag you under, oh.
What's the point of being rich?
If you can't think what to do with it?
'Cause your so bleedin' thick.

Oh we weren't supposed to be,
We learnt too much at school
Now we can't help but see
That the future that you've got mapped out
Is nothing much to shout about....

Cocker/Banks/Mackey/Senior/Doyle/Webber
(Taken from 'Mis-shapes' on 'Different Class', 1995 Island Recordings.

On a cheerier note, I saw ZoƩ Ball in Western Road the other day and was so distracted by her and the man singing show tunes badly into a tinny PA system, that I almost joined Amnesty International.