Land of Frogs and Snails

Okay, even though I say this every time, I’m sorry. It’s been a month and a day since I last wrote a blog. There are valid reasons though, honest. I mean, not an awful lot happened between the last blog and my holiday, and I’ll say that I’ve been “recovering” from my holiday since I got back (ignore the irony there).

Yes, as the title suggests, I’ve been in France, the land of glorious cheese (from the 1st to the 15th) on holiday. And of course, I wasn’t going to get away without eating regional delicacies, even if I didn’t choose to. After a mid-day ferry crossing, we stopped at a hotel north of Evreux (west of Paris), with things getting off to a good start with the car being scratched by some Belgians and their bikes; not that it was noticeable or anything, but of course Mum has to go and make a big deal and not let go, despite the fact that the Belgians (as per usual with sickeningly good English) gave us their details so they could pay for the repairs. Anyway, we went down to the restaurant and of course only vaugely knew what the dishes were on the set menu, so ordered all four things for all of us, with one of these being the dish of the day (the same was the case for each course). So along came the first three dishes. Fine. Fourth plate. Hmm. A lovely big plate to snails. Of course none of the rest of my (whimpy!!!) family wanted to eat them, so I voulunteered, seen as I’m not a snail virgin. So away I went at these escargots (still in shells) and large pot of mystery sauce with my fork, with the waitress and barman standing behind the bar to see if le Garçon Anglais would eat his plate of snails. After mentioning the difficulty of the task of removing small snails with a large fork, Mum then pulled an implement from behind her plate and said “Oh! Maybe that’s what this is for” and ever so kindly passed it to me. This piece of snail eating cutlery is about the same size as a cake fork (I’m English don’t you know) and looks exactly the same as those two-pronged things you use for pork. This, thankfully, made the task much easier, and I finished the plate of slimy, chewy beasts, which is maybe why I was given such a large glass of cointreau by the waiter (not for free though).

So on we moved to our gîte in a hamlet south of Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Limousin, which is south-east of Angoulême. And this all looked very good; a nice old stone cottage with swimming pool. However, come 3 am, things weren’t looking good. The gîte we were staying in was on the end row of a terrace of three gîtes, each of which slept four. The owners (who lived in another gîte, detatched) had put on both floors paper-thin doors that allow them to open up the property to make it big enough for 8 or 12 people accordingly. Great. More money for them. Less sleep for us, as next door to us was a baby of so many months old, which screamed its head off at random intervals throughout the day and night. Anyway, apart from the fact that my bed was really sqeaky, everything else was really good, including “those nice young Belgian girls” (as Dad called them). And towards the end of the week, Dad and I were having a chat to them (in English of course, as nice as the Flemmish language is) and the younger one (19) claimed that her English wasn’t really that good. Was it hell! That with the fact their French is near fluent, and the rest of the family speak Spanish and “a little” Italian, is enough to make your “Avez-vous un fromage comme Parmesan?” standard French sick. (Actually, that was the best bit of French I used all holiday; Mum wanted some Parmesan-esque cheese to go on the spag bol she’d made.) Ross had his birthday that week too, turning 14, so is still a youngster by my standards.

Our second week was spent in a housey thing in Baudrières, Burgandy, near Chalon-sur-Saône, which is between Mâcon and Dijon. Actually, it was a bungalow, not a housey thing. Yes, low is in bold, because all the doorways were a good few inches too short for myself, Dad and Ross, meaning we had to duck everywhere, even in the shower. Mum, on the other hand, being the short-arse that she is, was fine. This week too was fine, with nothing really to complain about besides the odd burst of rain and the slightly cooler weather (it was in the low 30s during the first week).

On the way back, we stayed with Dad’s cousin and her husband in Harlow (London-ish area), both of whom are lovely people who insist on filling you with as much food as is physically possible. Ooh, they have really cool stairs too (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen them). And, we found out that the cox for the mens eights rowing in Beijing (Acer Nethercott) is one of their son’s best friends from school, once again proving that it’s a small world. (Pat and Martin, thankyou once again, and now that I’ve written a nice paragraph about you, would you please be so kind as to leave me a comment so that I know you’ve read this. Expect a plethora of angry emails if you don’t ;) )

In other news, I got the result of my Critical Thinking AS Level paper one today. Miss. Youngs was phoning people at half nine this morning giving results; does she honestly expect anyone to be up by then?! Anyway, I phoned back when I woke up to find that I’ve got a C, which I think is very good, seen as it’s an AS level and I’m only on my GCSEs at the moment!

And good luck to all the year 11s who are finding out their GCSE results tomorrow, all the best!

Three Toblerones and a Plastic Duck

Okay, to all you non-existant avid readers of my blogs, I’m sorry, as it’s a day short of 2 weeks since I last wrote a blog. So soz’ard. But with a few exceptions, nothing that exciting has happened since the first week of work experience.

My second week of work experience past without incident, and as a thankyou present to everyone, I bought a card, three toblerones and a plastic ornamental garden duck, which seemed to be the highlight. So next time I or my parents go into Tanners, we must ask of the duck (maybe in the vain hope of a discount).

On the Wednesday of the second week of work experience, I came home to find a letter on the worktop, addressed to me. Well, I say me, but school, of all people, had spelt my name wrong on the address. The people who have my name on every register, record and piece of work that I’ve ever had anything to do with spelt my name with an s. Curses go to my parents (for giving the awkwardly spelt, Scottish name (God knows why, we have no Scottish connections)) and in some parts to America (who’s stupid TV sitcom ‘Frasier’ has meant my name has been pronounced and spelt wrong by anyone new to me). Anyway, I opened up this letter, which I found asked me to go to a meeting on Monday about being senior prefect (i.e. Head Boy). After a pause, and a run around the (empty) house screaming, I decided to celebrate by eating some breadsticks (sod the Moët, which I’d been working with for the last week and a half anyway).

So, off I toddled to school on Monday, rather nervous and thinking up answers to all the possible questions I could think up in my head. I later found that the only contenders I had were Oli Longland, who I get on quite well with and… Tarquin! Yes yes, you might laugh at the name, but really, it’s as prattish as he is. This is the same person who has in the past stabbed me (in the chest) with a pen, ripped my T-shirt (making it look like a boob-tube) and told Kim (South African) that she should F***k off back to her own country (causing Kim to cry) just because she told him to shut up. On top of this, his trousers are way to short, he has an annoying voice, he tries to act ‘ard all the time and thinks of himself even more so because he does kick-boxing; also, there’s hilarious videos on Bebo (social networking site) of him punching a punch bag, which are so obviously sped up. What a bastard, you might be thinking, and you’d be right. Socially, he is looked down upon by nearly everyone for these exact reasons. Anyway, I went to this meeting (I was the first out of three boys and four girls up for the jobs) that was being conducted by Miss. Youngs and Mr. Sherwin. This involved a variety of questions, including “What do you think the job would involve?”, “Describe yourself in three words” etc. I thought the interview went okay, but not brilliant.

“Oli, Tarquin and Frazer, could you please go to the foyer at break-time”. Two hours! That’s how long I had to wait from getting that message from my tutor to finding out the result of my interview. So, after this agonising period of time, all seven of us met in the foyer and were then taken into Mr. Thompson’s (the Head’s) office. But rather than just telling us who had gotten what, he proceeded to waffle for another agonising five minutes. Just bloody get on with it and tell us! And he did, in a rather casual manner. So now you’re reading the blog of the Corbet School’s head boy (Y). The deputy head boy is Oli, meaning that Tarquin got diddly-squat! Ha!
So all that was left to do was receive the badge off the previous year’s head boy in the 40 minute, end of year assembly, in which all of years 7, 8, 9 and 10 (about 600 pupils) are squashed into the hall. Great. But thankfully that went without incident.

In other news, my (French) Spanish teacher, Mrs. Chudleigh, is leaving, as her (English) husband has got a job in Devon and she too is going with him. I think this is a real shame, as she was really nice to our (small-ish) Spanish group, and even brought in Orangina and brioche (not very Spanish) on our last lesson. Despite this, the rest of the school says that she is a total cow in other lessons, and gives out after-schools rather un-necessarily. But anyway, she was nice to us, so I don’t really care.

Well I’m off to Yorkshire tomorrow morning with Kim, Georgi and her parents until Thursday, so if anyone is stalking me, please follow closely (I wouldn’t want you to miss me).

This Rives-Blanques?

Oh yes, work experience week one has passed, without too much incident.

For those of you who live in a box or on the moon, work experience is (a fairly self explanitory) two weeks of Monday to Friday, unpaid work that school makes us do. Most schools only do one week, but ours let us do two, and some people choose to work at a different placement each week. I opted to do two weeks a Tanners Wines of Shrewsbury, which (for the Shrewsbury-ites among you) is at the bottom of Wyle Cop, by that wierd junction and not too far from the English Bridge.
Why did I choose Tanners? Well Mum and Dad get their wine from there, it’s somewhere different, so I thought, why not?

Unfortunately, working in town means I have to catch the bus (yay) at 8 in the morning. I then start at 9, and I get away with finishing at about quater-to-five, so I can catch the 5 o’ clock bus home (which is quite good considdering Tanners shuts at 6).

Monday involved a tour around the building (big), and its 40 or so staff, by Steve, who’s quite high up the rankings. A large chunk of the attention during the tour was taken off me by Robbie, who’s first day of proper work it was after a 3 month work placement last year. Mostly, introductions were as follows:
Steve - “Hello everyone”
Tanners People - “Ooh, hello”
Steve - “I’m sure you all remember Robbie”
Tanners People - “Oh, of course we remember Robbie” [*friendly banter follows*]
Steve - “And this is Frazer, he’s here on work experience for two weeks”
Tanners People - “Hi Frazer”    [*sometimes followed by a handshake*]
[Note how I say nothing. Great.]

Followed by a few forms and health and saftey rubbish, I was set to work.
My work mostly involves moving boxes or bottles from one place to another, whether that be the shop, the store room or the beer end (where the delivery stuff goes in).

Monday afternoon was so exciting. I was told by Rob (also quite high up the tree, and the one that had organised my work experience) to dust every shelf in the liquers/aperetifs/fortifieds etc and whisky/brandy sections. [*Jaw drops*]. To give you an idea, the shelves go from the floor to about a foot taller than me, with the height being divided into 5 boxes, with each box being able to fit about 5 liquer bottles accross, and the same for depth. In total, I must have done about 50 boxes. To dust each box I needed to take out every single bottle, dust it, and put all the bottles back. This lead to me nearly dropping two bottles of Bells whisky on the floor, but I managed to catch them and was on the floor, in a heap clutching two bottles of whisky to my chest. However, I did learn that they have some wierd liquers. Some noteable examples include hazelnut, melon, mint and banana.

Wednesday entailed me going to the Welshpool depot with Matt to help sort out orders, as all deliveries and orders go in to and out of Welshpool respectively. The (comparatively small) store room at Shrewsbury has labels on each shelf (e.g. Italian Red, Beaujolais etc), whereas Welshpool is just a wharehouse of two floors, no labels, and a helluvalot of wine boxes. This meant I looked totally stupid, as every time Matt gave me an order to fetch (he needed to stay in shop ¬¬) I had to ask someone in the wharehouse where each wine was kept.
But seriously, they have some shifty shifty looking customers in Welshpool.

Thursday went by okay; it started with me making boxes in the store room, a theraputic activity as Steve called it. Anyway, all was not too bad, as Radio 1 is always on in the store room, and I heard the best Live Lounge performance ever. Dizee Rascal doing a cover of ‘That’s Not My Name’ by The Ting Tings. A-MAZING.

Later that day, I think I was the cause of some missing wine. Oh dear. Nick told me to note down all the wines that were missing or in short supply (in the Southern France and Italy sections) and to then go and replenish them with bottles from the store room. Anyway, when I got on to the Italy section, Steve and Will (works in the office I think) were dashing round looking for four bottles of Rives-Blanques Chenin something or other. They were still dicussing this whilst Nick and I were having a tea break in Rob and Steve’s office. It then clicked in my mind. So I finished my tea, went and rumaged in the paper bin under one of the counters and ventured back into the office. I had with me the piece of paper on which I had been noting down missing wines on. I gave it to Steve and on it was the missing wine times 3 bottles, which Steve was relieved to see, although they were looking for four. I shall ask them on Monday if they found them.

Friday was dull dull dull. Dull. I was sent to work in the office, where I was instructed by Bob to go through this list of customer/business accounts (of which there must have been a good few hundred) and make sure that each name entry was less than 30 characers long (there were columns on the sheets to tell me the original number of characters). This meant backspacing/abbreviating account names all day. How exciting. This was slightly compensated for by the fact that the people that work in the office are a great bunch, and make cups of tea all the time. In fact, all the people at Tanners are wonderful, and always make an effort to make you feel like you’re doing something useful.

So, one week left. And I have a teacher from school coming to check up on me on Tuesday.
Oh the joys.

A Mere Exam

Sorry for the bad pun, but I just couldn’t resist.
And oh dear; 8 days without a blog. Tut tut.

Some background info for you first, which might add some sense to all this. I’m a Hoff wannabe, so I’m doing a load of lifesaving exams, with my training being done at Oswestry Leisure Centre once a week, and the examination board being the RLSS (Royal Life Saving Society). Three out of the five awards they do are pool-based, which is fine. However, two of the awards, the bronze and silver crosses, need to be done in open water, and so ours take place at Ellesmere, in the Mere.

The Mere (hence the ‘punny’ title- oh I’m on a roll) is the main Mere out of the many Meres around Ellesmere, and probably is oficially called Ellesmere too, like the town. A Mere, for you non-locals, is a lake. Anyway, on Tuesday, Thursday and today, I was in it. That’s right. So the RLSS (Royal Life Saving Society) must have decided that as well as doing very tiring pool-based examinations, they would subject teenagers to the freezing cold British water in their awards too.
“Now what’s he on about?” you might ask yourself, “it’s June, it’ll be lovely and warm.” And usually, you’d be right. But not this year…

Tuesday’s training session was overcast and windy. It was also the first time I’d been in some cold open water since The Red Sea at new year, but then there was WARM SUN, which Britain doesn’t have an awful lot of. To say the least it was something beginning with F and cold. We did a few excercises to prepare us for out bronze cross award on Thursday, as well as some theory. Lovely. Bring it on.

Or maybe not. Along came Thursday. In typical British ”summer” fashion, it was blowing a gale and pouring with rain all day, and didn’t let up for 6.30. Oh dear. Once you were used to the very cold water temperature, being in the Mere wasn’t so bad, it was just the standing on the bank being a bystander or waiting that was absolutely freezing, causing you to shake like a [insert simile here]. On top of this, any swimming and towing of casualities that had to be done was hard work, due to both the cold and the fact that we had to wear shoes, socks, trousers and two tops, with the same going for the silver cross examination. Bring on Sunday.

And I wasn’t a happy bunny to begin with, as I’d had to wake up at 7 to get to Ellesmere for 9. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I was told that I was in the group that wouldn’t be doing its examination until midday. That meant 3 hours of waiting. Plus, when I finally did get started, my whole family were watching. What’s more, it was windy and had started to rain on and off.
There were a variety of tests, a couple of which involved rescuing two caualties, and another two that involved towing a casualty from 30 metres out, which there and back makes the length of 1.2 Olympic sized swimming pools. Without all the clothes, the casualties and the cold, that would be fine, but I had all those. By the time I was finished I was absolutely knackered, to the extent where I just felt like collapsing on the bank.
Thankfully, it was all worth it, as I passed. Woo!

So all that’re left to do now are my award of merit (silver medallion) and distinction (gold), both of which are pool based. YES! After those, once 16, I can take lifeguard exams and get a job as a lifeguard and then a teacher at the leisure centre, both of which pay quite well, with sociable hours.

In other news, my work experience starts tomorrow. *Groans*. It means getting a bus at 8.08 and working until 5. Also, I have to wear a shirt (of which I now have a few, thanks to a Matalan special offer). I hate wearing shirts, but I guess I’ll have to live with it. On top of that, school make us fill out a diary of what we did each day and our feelings before and after.

So if you phone Tanner’s of Shrewsbury and hear “Hello Heathrow Customs and Excise” , then chances are its me.

Teenage Kicks

Seen as Georgi wrote one on this, I might as well too, seen as she thinks mine will be better. We’ll see.

How do normal teenagers get their kicks? Sports, games consoles and vandalism are a few that might spring to mind. Not me. Although I don’t suspect I’m classed as your “average” teenager. I mean, I might look relatively “normal”, but you know what they say about the book and all that. Let’s take a look shall we:

Case study numero uno: shoe stealing.
As I’ve already mentioned, we’re allowed to sit on a patch the school field at luch time, now that it’s “summer” term. So usually I’ll be with Kim, Georgi (no longer, she’s supposed to have left), Connor, Erin etc, and almost always end up in a spot near to this lovely couple [*cackles*]. Come to think of it, the girl’s mum used to teach me when I was at primary school (Christ, that’s a whole blog in itself, Primary school). Anyway, we’ve had notices in the registers telling couples not to show their love for each other so “passionately”, or words to that effect (i.e. STOP SNOGGING EACH OTHERS FACES OFF!!!). So of course these two, in the year below us, continue with their passion on the school field, amidst their friends so they don’t get spotted. Now the other week, I noticed that her shoes were off her feet. Que wierd mind.
“Wouldn’t it be great if I stole her shoes whilst they were romancing and they’ll get all worried at the end of lunch when they’re gone”, was the kind of thought that appeared in my mind. So whilst they were *ahem* on top of each other, I stole the shoes, and they didn’t realise they were gone ’till the end of lunch time. They got annoyed and I threw them back, when they were turned around, so they got hit in the head. Ha!
Now I was hooked. I needed my fix again.
So I was on the field with a slightly bigger group, and an opportunity arose. She had gone off to talk to someone, without her shoes. So I waited until the boyfriend had turned around, so I could make my move. I ran, I grabbed the shoes, I was just leaving when… he turned around and saw me! “No! I’ve been rumbled!” I thought to myself, but I ran back to my group nevertheless. Ooh! So, being the valiant and brave [*sniggers*] boyfriend, he came over with a mate to get her shoes back. Bless. I had them under my leg at this point:
BF- “Can I have those shoes back?” (no please ¬¬)
Me- “What shoes?”
BF- “Those shoes that are by your groin, ya prick!” (Ooh! I thought)
Me- “Oh! Those shoes.” (Throws shoes at BF)
*BF walks off*
BF - “And get a haircut [*mumbles*]” (That’s it! I thought)
Me- “You can talk” (then, at top of voice) “TOSSER!!!” (which caused half the people on the field to look at me, then him).
This was war. I needed those shoes again, just to spite them.
Every dog had its day, and the next one was MINE.
Now, the couple saw me come onto the field, so were a bit wary. But of course they were on top of each other soon enough. My chance came, I snook over (quite stealthily, I might add) and took the shoes that once again were not on her feet. Some people never learn. I kept them for the rest of lunch and put them back on her feet when the bell went, only to get glares as I walked off.

Wierd enough for you? Well here’s some more.

Case study numero dos: road signs.
After recitals, Georgi and I were often quite happy to sit by the bus stop, waving at random motorists to see if they wave back. But after a while, like rats on THC (see last blog), this didn’t give us our full fix. So we’ve written “HONK! 4 CHEESE” on a piece of A3 paper, and have since had barrels of fun.
Last night was no exception, and we were helped by traffic lights (apparently they’re fixing something outside the pub), meaning people had to slow down or even stop to read our sign. To start with, chavs were on our bench, so we of course stood opposite the traffic lights, right were people stopped. We got a fair few honks and puzzled looks, and even some adoring fans in the form of red Land Rover people. When we did move back to our bench (a couple of hundred yards away), people started to wave at us. No. Since when does wave look like honk? 
We need a bigger sheet, maybe even A1, if I can get my mitts on one. And we should try rush hour, when there are queues of people.
Then there will be no excuse for waving.

Case study numero tres: hide and seek.
Is it not slightly worrying that I still enjoy this? And (without sounding too cocky here) I’m not too bad at it, considdering I’m over 6′2″ in hight. I mean, I managed to be the last person found when playing in the Wilson’s back garden, by moving furniture and then curling up into a ball behind the end of a sofa in their Wendy House (no father Wilson, it is not a ‘Ponder Shed’, or whatever you called it). It was so good that the seeker even came to the door of the Wendy House and said “Nah, he won’t be in here, he’s too big to fit”. How wrong she was. 

I’m sure I could add more case studies, but I think y’all get the picture.

Now I must go and finish my English media essay, which I’ve been given an extension on. Comparing Sue Barker and Anne Robinson is great fun, really great fun.

Las Gambas En La Calle

For those of you who speak Spanish, yes, you read that right.

Chloe and I are both very silly, which is plain to see in Spanish, and was even more so the other day. At the moment, we are learning how to describe accidents, breakdowns etc., for a piece of coursework on ‘A Day That Went Wrong’. Hmm. Anyway, we were told to do an exercise from the text book that involved describing an road accident. It gave a basic structure and we had to flesh it out with details. Oh dear. When Chloe and I are given any creative freedom, our writing goes really quite silly. Her accident involved her talking to her cheese, and mine looked like this:
“Esta mañana, hubo un accidente muy grande. Estaba nevado y yo estaba cantando a un peatón, cuando un moto atropelló a un queso azul. El pobre queso murío, el perro estaba llorando y las gambas estaban en la calle. La motociclista no fue herida, porque había caido sobre las gambas.”
This (hopefully) translates as:
“This morning, there was a very big accident. It was snowing and I was singing to a pedestrian, when a motorbike ran over a blue cheese. The poor cheese died, the dog was crying and the prawns were in the street. The motorcyclist was not hurt because she fell on the prawns.”
I was asked where the prawns came from by my teacher, to which I replied “I dunno, they just… appeared there”; the same goes for the crying dog. Let’s just hope I never have to give a witness statement to the Spanish police.

In other news, I got into the Shropshire Youth Orchestra. Woo! I received a letter yesterday congratulating me, and telling me to expect yet more forms to fill in. Unfortunately, Lydia, a cellist friend of mine, did not get in, so commiserations to her.
So, this means I can get rid of the bow tie and white shirt! Bring on the black shirt!

Argh, I’ve had some real GCSE exams this week: biology yeterday, chemistry today and physics to come on Friday. Oh yay. But some of the questions were seriously wierd. In the biology paper, we were told about drug testing on rats (not brilliant). Scientists gave some ‘teenage’ rats THC (the active chemical in cannabis) and then had some that had had none. The rats then had catheters shoved up their noses, and they could administer themselves THC (or maybe heroin, not too sure) by pressing on a lever. Supposedly, it helped to show a link between cannabis and heroin addiction in humans, because the rats that had already had THC administered themselves more, because their bodies had become used to the chemical, or something like that. I actually laughed at this question. I mean, to start with, I had visions of doped up rats pushing on a lever to get their fix, which retrospectively is quite sad. And also, why? I mean, any statistics will tell you that people who take cannabis are far more likely to go onto harder drugs, like heroin, most probably because it’s stronger and they get higher from it becuase their bodies are used to the chemicals in cannabis. Leave the poor rats out of it! Personally, I think that drugs are really quite silly. I mean, wasting your money on something that’ll eventually lead on to brain/heart/lung damage seems totally pointless to me. Yes, OK, you feel all laadeeydah and happy, but you can do the same with a little alcohol, that you can easily control the intake of. Not that I’m endorsing alcohol, because that ruins lives and livers too.

Anyway, I must go, seen as I have to write some more for my English media essay on quiz shows: ‘The Weakest Link’ and ‘A Question of Sport’. How lovely.

Condoms, Auditions and Photo Booths

Well what a fun filled day I had yesterday, as the title suggests.

Yesterday was a focus day; instead of having a PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) lesson every week, our school gives us a whole day of it every half term. PSHE is basically about trying to educate us on things in the big wide world, so we have lessons on things from ”careers advice”, family planning and fair trade chocolate to people telling us not to smoke, drink, do drugs or have unprotected sex. And we had yet another one of those lessons on sex yesterday, this time about condoms and how to *ah hem* apply them, with these delightful fake penises. Hmm, a load of 15-year-olds with condoms. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination, and fill in some for you. Those who know me or have read my previous blogs will know that I’m very childish sometimes, so add these latex things to the mix, and oh dear. I blew a couple of them up into balloons (as you do), without realising that our headmaster was standing right behind me. Well ”oh *&#$£!” went through my mind to start with, before he (thankfully) just laughed and hit me over the head with some paper. A close shave that one. Following this, we had to list various reasons why young people might have sex; some the reasons that people came up with were quite disturbing/odd/disgusting/wierd, to say the least. I shall file that session under “interesting”.

Almost straight after the “interesting” lesson, I had to pop off to Shrewsbury for my audition for the Shropshire Youth Orchestra. Now, the day before, I’d had a music lesson, which thankfully meant that I was a lot less panicky than I would have otherwise been, as I found that my piece didn’t sound too bad, and that I didn’t have to play three octaves to a bow scales, only seven notes to a bow, which I could just about manage. Of course, as soon as I went into the main hall to wait I was once again saying “*&#$£!”, to myself of course. Also, I was supposed to have 20 minutes prep time before-hand, but in typical Roberts family fashion we arrived late, to the extent that I was still getting my viola out of its case when someone stuck their head through the door and politely smiled at me. “Oh *&#$£!”. So off I toddled into the exam room, where I was met by my audition panel, consisting of two string teachers, one of whom I know quite well. Anyway, I got the scales off the way first; they didn’t sound brilliant, but then I suppose they weren’t awful either. Then to my piece: A Courante in G Major, from the first of Bach’s Cello suites, for those of you who might have heard of it. There were a few cock-ups, nothing major (no pun intended), but then it didn’t sound uber good. Finally, some sight reading, that went OK, but once again not brilliant. Of course, all of that was in my opinion, so who knows, but hopefully the fact there are less violists around might play into my hands. Fingers crossed!

After the (rather short) audition, we popped off to Sainsbury’s to find a photo booth, as my brother and I needed some passport photos. I think it must be law that your passport photo should look terrible. The thing was, in this photo booth you weren’t given a countdown on screen, instead it was just a woman’s voice that said “Ready? OK!” before the picture was taken. Consequently, Ross looked like he was about to be shot, and I looked like I was about to whack someone across the face. Nice. Unfotunately, getting a new passport means that I’ll have no stamps to show people, which I like doing; I only have three (one from Egypt, one from the US and one from Zimbabwe) but still, I like having them. One day I would love to have a passport full of stamps. Maybe my gap year, if I have one.

So, condoms, auditions and passport photos all in one day. I’ll be able to look at my passport photo and tell people this very story. You heard it here first. 

Resolution? Yes Please

Well what a lovely day we’ve had today. That’s right, I’m talking about the weather, so I must be British.

So, to celebrate our neighbour Julia’s birthday, my Dad and her went and played golf (that awful sport) this morning, followed by her and her husband Joe coming round for a barbeque lunch, which lasted all afternoon. Actually, Julia and Joe aren’t married, but they might as well be, and it’s easier to refer to them as married in conversation. Anyway, they came round after the game of golf for lunch, which was very nice. It also entailed my brother getting wet thanks to Dad throwing a glass of water at him randomly, followed by Julia throwing a glass of water at him, randomly. Of course I thought this was a bit unfair, so I threw my glass of water at Dad, forgetting that he had the (rather large) jug of water on the table next to him. Oh dear. Consequently, I was a bit wet, but hey, it was quite warm anyway.

Hmm, back to the aforementioned stuff in my last blog. I have a new MP3 player, a 16GB Creative Zen, which was a rather late birthday present, but much appreciated nonetheless. I was going to get an iPod nano, and was just about to buy one when I saw the Zen in Comet, with its bigger screen and double memory for the same price. So I Googled, and managed to find the Zen for 100 squids on play.com, £30 cheaper than a nano. Bargain. And to save buying a case or screen protector, I’m keeping it in an old trainer sock. It’s always a great ice breaker “I’ll just whip out my sock and we can listen to some tunes.” .

Ah yes, my work experience, which starts on the 30th of June. After orchesterals yesterday, Mum popped into Tanners to buy some wine, so I thought I’d ask about work experience (times, what I had to wear etc.) seen as I was there. So I asked the bloke that we were paying who I’d need to speak to in reference to work experience for this year (seen as I’d totally forgotten who it was from when I wrote my letter a good few months prior). He told us that it was him, and when I asked him about times he said that he’d have to phone me, seen as he told us that it was just him running the shop that day (which he evidently wasn’t, as I’d seen some other bloke with a name badge carrying a box of wine of few minutes earlier). Because of this man, I am not looking forward to my work experience; he is incredibly dull, and is very like our deputy head, Mr. Sherwin, both looks-wise and personaltiy-wise. Briliant.

Oof, the “resolved” school timetable changes. Well in my opinion, his resolutions will make no difference. If you remember, the major gripe with the changes was that lunch would be moved to 1.30 and shortened to 45 minutes, meaning that everyone will be hungry and lunch time sports clubs are a wee bit stuffed. He says it will help improve concentration, I think he’s talking a load of bull. Anyway, he says that this has been resolved, because in the letter he sent out, break (now at 11.05) will be 5 minutes longer (oh wow) and that his “School business manager is working in conjunction with Shire Catering” to make sure that we have some “healthy” food. How 5 minutes extra and a bit more food will help, I can’t see.

And finally my audition, which is on this Friday (a 13th). Oh dear. I honestly can’t see the Youth Orchestra wanting me after this audition. I’ve been practising my piece for ages and I hit a point a few weeks ago where I thought I was playing it pretty well. Since then, my Courante has been getting progressively worse, and as for the scales, don’t even go there. They’re easy scales (sorry if I loose the non-musically minded here), and I can do the 3 octave D major in single bows, but that’s about it. I can’t do it seven notes to a bow, seen as I can’t multi-task, and I can’t play the 2 octave B major at all. Those of you reading who are any good at music will probably laugh at how bad I am, and you probably have a right to. The only upside is that I know one of the audition panel, which isn’t too bad I suppose.

So on that note (no pun intended) I’ll finish.
Wish me luck, ‘cos by God I’ll need it.

An Atheist on Judaism. And Pantos.

Oh Christ, my WordPress is being deprived. I said I’d try and write a blog every 3 days. So much for that idea. Oh well. But I haven’t that much to talk about really. Half term went by as it usually does, filled with the odd trip to Oz and Shrews and doing coursework; this time a Spanish essay on holidays and my English essay on Julius Caesar (I won’t rant about literature this time), which I got an A* for, which is always good news.

Thrilling stuff yesterday: Judaism exam!!! As this was an actual GCSE paper, I managed to get myself very worked up before hand, and so tried lots of things to calm myself down, including singing ’You Spin Me Right Round’, which seemed to work before Space Mountain, that shit scary ride at Disneyland Paris. But thank “God”, as with SATs, it was way easier than I’d hyped it up to be. The first question I had to answer was on synagogues, followed by one that I chose to do on Sukkot, a festival that Jews have to celebrate the fact that God looked out for them in the desert when they were fleeing Egypt. To celebrate this they build shelters in their gardens and (the bit I forgot in the exam) wave the Lulav around, which consists of a load of branches and a lemon that isn’t a lemon. Isn’t Judaism great? Anyway, provided I haven’t make a total cock-up of this one, I won’t have to repeat the paper and so I will never have to know about anything Jewish ever again. Honestly, learning about Brit Milah (ie. compulsory cirumcision) was ugh. In fact, I think I can take something away from this exam; I’ve learned that God is selfish. Yup. I mean, come on, the whole religion is centred around him anyway, and then he goes and commands loads of wierd festivals to celebrate his greatness (or words to that effect). On top of that, he commands that all Jewish males must be circumcised at 8 days old. I mean, was he bored or something when he wrote his commandments?
“Hmm… praise me, build shelters, bugger off to synangogue, celebrate me again, and… hmm… I know! Circumcise all baby boys at 8 days old.”
Sorry God, but that is ODD. Although saying that, Jews tend to celebrate nearly everything with wine, so at least they’ll go to heaven with normal livers. It still doesn’t make up for a life without bacon though.

In other news, school are organising another crappy production (I take that back, We Will Rock You was AMAZING. I miss being Madonna). So t’other day, Mr. Evans stopped me and informed me of a meeting about a school panto that is to be held in November. “Woah! Panto?”, I thought to myself. So I decided to go to the meeting, to see what it was about, having already decided I had no intention of being in it (but what the hell). It is going to be ‘Calamity Dame’, a (very cheesy sounding) comedy take on Calamity Jane. Of course, I tried to slip out of the room unnoticed, but that wasn’t going to happen, was it? Mrs. Lake managed to thrust a few audition scipts upon me before I left, but I didn’t sign up. This is all because I’ve promised to do the panto in Ruyton, and I don’t want to be a panto whore.

Oh dear. It appears my blog has once again become a big load of waffle about nothing. I evidently haven’t mastered the art of writing interesting blogs, unlike Andrew, who actually has interesting stuff to write about (please leave comment if you’re reading this Andrew, your blogs are ace =D ). Oh well. If I find time, I’ll write a blog tomorrow about my new MP3 player, my upcoming audition and my upcoming work experience, which’ll probably be quite dull. Oh, and our headmaster has ”resolved” the planned timetable changes- more tomorrow. Yay.

¡Eurovisión! ¡No Mierda!

I thought I’d put the title in Spanish, in honour of last night’s amazing entry from Spain. I would do it in Latvian or Azerbaijani, but I can’t speak either of those.

Oh yes, the event of the year came round last night. That’s right, better than my birthday or Christmas, seen as you don’t get Wogan, cheesy pop, European ”celeberities” or amazing dance routines at either. Hmm, come to think, those Latvian Pirates would have made my birthday so much more interesting.

So, Georgi, Kim and I decided to organise a little Eurovision party for last night, seen as none of us had ever been to one before and ‘cos we’re really cool (Y). Kim brought Oreos, Georgi hosted (because she has the biggest telly =D ) and contributed party rings, crispy chocolate things and Cadbury yoghurts, whilst I brought Union Jack hats and flags, coke and cheese and pineapple sticks. Stupid as it may sound, there is actually an art to making those cheese and pineapple sticks, especially when you have uber mature cheddar that keeps crumbling. And on the flag and hat thing, we didn’t even want the UK to win (we wouldn’t even if it was the best, like last year’s, thanks to political voting) but they added to the cheesiness.

So off we toddled to Georgi’s, where a big sofa was set up in front of a big telly. Add to that Oreos, party rings, crispy things, chocolate yoghurts, cheese and pineapple stucks, coke and really plasticy hats and flags and you’ve got yourself a proper Eurovision party. Yeah.

And we weren’t let down by the acts, although I was really disappointed that Ireland’s Dustin the turkey didn’t get in, as well as Andorra’s Boudaka (spelling?) look-a-like entry. But never mind. We kept track of our favourites and then wrote down our top 3 at the end, which turned into a top 5 and eventually a top 12. Our top favourites were Latvia at the top, with their AMAZING pirates doing a really cool song and dance. This was followed by Azerbaijan, who had a bloke who sounded like he had tight trousers along with a man with very long hair. Our third (and by no means turd) favourite was Spain, an old man with a load of GaGa-esque women; oh, and it had lyrics like “Cuatro, el Robocop. Baila Chiki Chiki…”. Wowawooa. Other notable gooduns included Iceland, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, France and Bosnia & Herzegovina.

So, the scoring. Obviously political voting played a major part, with Eastern Europe voting mostly for itself. The UK came joint last on 14 points with Germany and Poland, but then thats no big surprise. Even Latvia, our favourite, despite being fairly eastern, did not get many votes. Boo. In the end, as predicted by Wogan, Russia won, which wasn’t too bad, seen as they were in our top 12 and had a (quite literally) cool act involving an ice skater (on a very small patch of ice), a violinist and a singer who (apparently) resembled Russel Howard.

So now Russia are one step closer to world domination.
Any competitors beware of Polonium 210 and the KGB.