Talkin' 'bout procrastination

That whole efficiency thing I had going for a while? Yeah, that was just a phase. Regular service has been resumed. I am hopelessly inefficient.

I started my 7 week block placement today and realised I hadn't yet made contact with my Link Tutor - the guy who has to come in and observe me teaching 3 times over the next 7 weeks. We were told to make contact with our tutors over a week ago. Oops!

Also I was supposed to have read through the school's policies and medium-term plans. Yeah, didn't do that either. Also I need to purcahse some kind of sandwich filling this evening, otherwise my sandwiches are going to be pretty, well, empty and tasteless tomorrow. I feel so disorganised that I don't think I will ever get organised. It frustrates me so much.

But school was fun. One of the kids has this weird patch shaved out of the side of his head. The teacher and I were debating whether or not he'd had a lobotomy over the holidays, but it turns out his dad accidentally left the cover off the clippers and instead of giving the kid a number 2 all over, gave him a 0 in this one single stripe, but then the kid's mum wouldn't let the dad do 0 all over, so the rest was done as usual with the clippers on a number 2. But the poor kid has this practically bald patch. It does look funny.

I got to leave pretty early as my teacher had netball club after school so there wasn't much for me to stay for. Instead I got to deal with the crazy people who drive down the country lanes I have to take to get to school. It's insane. Most of the lanes have a 40mph limit, which personally I think is crazy as they are rarely wide enough for two cars to comfortably fit down side by side and are full of blind corners that are so sharp you have to take them in 3rd gear. And yet some maniacs still whizz down there at 40, practically taking my wing mirror with them. Not to mention the idiots who seemed to conveniently forget that when a car is parked on their side of the road I have right of way, but just continue bombing it down the road, swinging out around the parked car and nearly plowing into my front bumper. Get off the road, morons!

Well I'm going to sit down and have a cup of tea and then try and get something productive done (we'll see!) before I have to go out again. I've been going to a new church for a couple of months and one of the girls there invited me out for dinner. I'll check back in later if I have anything interesting to say.

A little something to make you smile...

I found this on Metrodad's blog. It made me smile so I thought I'd share it with you. Hope you're all having a good weekend.

Productivity down 50%, Amusement up 200%

Well, it has been a long couple of days. I haven't stopped and yet I really haven't got very much of anything done (story of my life!).

I met up with my friend J in London yesterday and we had breakfast in Cafe Rouge before heading across the river to the Tate Modern. It is often said that as a nation, we Brits like to queue. OMG, the queues! The slides on the lower floors had massively long queues to get on them (mostly children, flippin' half term holidays grrrrrrrrr) and the slides on the upper floors required a ticket, which was free, but there were none left. Wah! So we didn't get to go sliding after all. Which was so annoying because the slides looked so cool!


We went to the bookshop there because I wanted to see if I could find useful stuff for school, which I didn't. Again, totally unproductive. But there were these totally cute lego-type figures of artists with their artwork. They were available to buy for the bargain price of £325! But they were cute. Here is Dali with his lobster phone:

So we then decided to go to the Saatchi gallery. We considered getting a boat down the river, but ultimately decided a stroll down the South Bank would be quite pleasant, so we walked down to County Hall. Before we got there we decided we were quite hungry, so crossed the Hungerford bridge and ended up walking right up to Covent Garden and had lunch in Walkabout.

After this we walked back across the river and up to County Hall. Only the Saatchi isn't there any more! I can't believe we didn't know this. Again, totally unproductive. So we walked BACK across the river and headed up to Leicester Square. I did however manage to take some pretty cool pictures from the many bridges that we crossed.

These are the best I think, but I may well upload the rest to Flickr at some point in the near future.

Anyway, we went to Leicester Square and possibly the best place in the whole of London - the Haagen Dazs Cafe!

And we saw the pancakes and everything was good. Then we ate the pancakes. Oh, man was that good?! Then we walked back up to Covent Garden to meet another friend of ours.

I'd hoped to have had my car back and to go to the cinema with Ali last night, but my car was still at the garage, not being worked on but just sitting there whilst my mum and step dad tried to contact another mechanic they know of. So I was carless and figured I may as well stay in London.

The three of us went back to Walkabout and had some wine. Then we went to Victoria to meet some other friends - friends I hadn't seen in about 2 years. So it was proper reunion-styley! The wine did flow and J came back to stay at mine, being slightly the worse for wear.

This morning I had to go and pick up my car and book it back in for next Thursday. I'm going to have to figure out what I'm going to do for transport whilst it's in the garage. Ugh, so much to think about!

So then I dropped J at the station and then drove to another friend's house so we could go shopping. I spent the day with her and got home at like half ten this evening! Madness I tell you! But fun madness.

I leave you with a picture of me on Waterloo bridge. The wind is blowing my hair and has crafted it into a suspiciously mullet-like shape. I nearly wet myself laughing when I saw this picture. But as you can see from the picture below, I in no way shape or form have a mullet. Okay!

I don't do mornings....or afternoons....evenings I'm okay with!

It's been a busy weekend and I am still reeling from it. One day I will stop feeling tired. Don't know when that might be though. Maybe I am diabetic or have Chronic Fatigue. Or maybe I just need to get more sleep and stop being such a hypochondriac, haha.

I am so grateful to have most of this week off, although I still have lots to do. A huge backlog of housework being a major part of that. I also have to do a whistlestop tour of the London art galleries to do some background research for art. This may or may not be influenced by the fact that the Tate Modern currently has an exhibit consisting of actual slides that one can actually slide down.

WHEEEEEEEEEEE!

The weekend was okay. Being with my family is never exactly a walk in the park, but it was bearable and I was able to help my brother and cousin celebrate their birthdays, which is the important thing. They're 22 now - makes me feel so old! They were born on the same day, the two sisters (my mum and my aunt) being down the corridor from each other in the same ward of the same hospital. My brother is older by 9 hours. There was an article about them in a national paper when they were born.

I was supposed to go to a party when I got back last night, but after the two hour drive back I didn't feel much like getting dressed up and going out, so I caught up on all my blog reading instead. I know, I am the epitome of coolness.

However, I am about to go out tonight, so need to rush off in a minute to sort my hair out (cursed rain!) and reapply my makeup.

Portrait of the artist as Dorothy

Today has been a looooooong day. And I have been badly organised with my time and have just come home about half an hour ago and had to pack a bag because I'm going down to my mum's new house tomorrow straight from uni.

So I won't be around for a couple of days. I'll miss you guys!

Today was good, we had art and music. Both were fun. We had to take a photo of ourselves to art and as soon as our tutor started talking about self portraits I died a little inside, because, as you all witnessed yesterday, I am rubbish at drawing.

BUT, we weren't drawing, we were painting. And we had Van Gogh for inspiration and then had a variety of different paints to create different textures, eg. mixing with sand or sawdust or wallpaper paste and only the primary colours. It was brilliant and I was really pleased with the result, check it out!



So, I'm gonna be off for a couple of days now, but I'll see you all soon, hopefully with something interesting to say. Haha.

School Daze

So, I finished my first day of school. I have another placement day to do next Wednesday and then I start my block placement on 30th October and carry on until Christmas. I'm with a Year 3 class, which is nice, but I was with Year 2 last year, so it won't be that different, even though they're the next National Curriculum KeyStage up. The school is small - only one class per year group - but it's in an area where most of the kids have very disturbed home lives. A lot of them are Travellers.

Today during lunch, one of the Year 4 boys peed on another one. Right up his back so it can't possibly have been an accident.

During numeracy I sat with a girl who has a lot of problems focussing. Their task was to estimate and then measure straws of different lengths. Each straw was colour coded so they could colour code their answers on the worksheet. I held up a straw.

Me: Okay Sharon (not real name, could get in trouble otherwise!), how many centimetres do you think this is?

Sharon: Purple!

Me: Umm, okay, yes, it is a purple straw, but how LONG do you think it is? How many CENTIMETRES?

Sharon: Purple!

Me: *sigh*

To be fair, she did estimate a fair few and was pretty close to the mark, even when she wasn't, they were still reasonable estimates. But a few times she did just repeat the colour over and over.

At one point the teacher was asking the whole class about using different units of measurement. For example, what units of measurement would you use to measure a stamp (millimetres), a cup (centimetres), a garden (metres) and a journey (kilometres).

Teacher: So why wouldn't you use centimetres to measure from here to the moon?

Kid: Because there's no oxygen.

That kid's on the ball! I managed to learn all their names in one day, but I bet I forget most of them by next week. I'm still kind of ill, but not as bad as yesterday (thank goodness!). I got my dad the funniest card for his birthday. It's so apt.



Outside says: Here it is Dad - the latest breakthrough in birthday cards. Inside reads: You can read it without taking your eyes off the TV!

SO TRUE!

Maybe crusts do make your hair go curly

You know, when I was a baby, my hair had a subtle wave to it. It was never curly, but it might have been described as wavy. By the time I was three it was more or less straight. From 5 onwards it was dead straight. Poker straight. See exhibits 1 - 3:

Exhibit 1: Top infants school photo

Exhibit 2: Me playing twister aged 8

Exhibit 3: Me at New Year's aged 22

I was always a fussy child and refused to eat the crusts off my sandwiches, despite my mum telling me "They're the best bit!" No kid believes an adult when they tell them that. My friend used to tell me they make your hair go curly. I think that was supposed to encourage me to eat them, but it put me off even more. I didn't really believe it, but I thought well if it was true it gave me even more reason not to eat them, because I liked my straight hair thankyouverymuch!

The weird thing is that about a year or so ago, I noticed that my hair, which I usually tended to let air dry, wasn't exactly dead straight any more. Okay, so I'd usually tie it back when it was wet, but not always. I bought a hair dryer, but I just couldn't get it to really dry straight straight. In the end I bought hair straighteners, which I love and couldn't live without and for the most part I wash my hair, blow dry it and straighten it all at the same time (not literally at the same time, obviously, but one after the other when I wake up in the morning).

But from time to time I've let it just air dry after washing it and OMG. It is really quite curly now. How did that happen?

Exhibit 4: Me half an hour ago

On your doorstep

There is a park near me that I quite often walk through to get to the High Street. It takes about the same amount of time to get there, but it's a slightly more scenic route with the grass and the trees and the ducks and the pond (which hopefully doesn't stink, as it tends to do when it dries out!). During the summer it's really quite a pleasant walk.

But I don't know if I'll be making that particular trip for a while now, after this happened. It's scary. My area isn't the nicest area around. I live at the more chavvy end of town. But I don't think twice about walking for 15 minutes down to the late night garage just before midnight if I'm craving a milkshake or something (the 15 minute walk makes up for the calories consumed!).

It's so scary to think these things can happen so close to home, and even first thing in the morning you're not safe. What is the world coming to? Seriously?

**UPDATE: The guy who stabbed her has been arrested. So at least that's good news!

There's nothing like the bond between a father and his daughter!

It wasn't until I was filling out a form this afternoon and had to write the date that I realised, "Oh, CRAP! It's my dad's birthday!"

I'd remembered at the weekend and half-heartedly thought that I should 1) text him and find out what he wants (Sidenote: He is impossible to buy for because he buys himself all the latest DVDs, CDs, gadgets and gizmos and we always end up getting him something totally lame) and 2) actually go and get him a card and a present early this week. But then what with everything that's going on in my life right now, and the problem with my leaky brain, it TOTALLY went out of my head until this afternoon.

I'm not close to my dad at all. I usually see him about once every couple of months I suppose. He's usually pretty good with our birthdays - better than he used to be anyway - but it's kind of a bit, out of sight, out of mind. He's really not a big presence in my or my brothers' lives, so it is kind of hard to remember things like this. One year we all forgot Father's Day and he didn't speak to us for about a month. Ironically, we didn't realise for about three weeks, because it isn't like he rings us all the time anyway. And in the end, after I'd asked my brothers a few times if they'd heard from him and they'd said no, I eventually rang him and found out he hadn't been talking to us.

Well, that clearly worked.

Anyway, when I realised it was 2pm and I hadn't wished him happy birthday yet, I sent a speedy text message saying I was pretty busy this week, but if he wanted to do something to celebrate to let me know and I'd see what I could do.

This is the text I got back:

Thanks for your message. Am out in Thailand

at the moment. Back in UK on Sunday.

Perhaps we can do something next week.

This is the second time I've texted him on his birthday only discover he's not even on the same continent as me! This just shows how close we are. Thanks for letting me know, Dad!

Imaginary

I am feeling much better. Still not so much with the sleeping, but not sick anymore, so that's a bonus.

Have you seen that website I Used To Believe? It's an amusing read. People submit the crazy things they used to believe when they were little, like believing you could grow potatoes in your ears if you didn't wash behind them properly. (Anyone else's parents tell them that? No? Just me then!)

There are lots of funny and crazy things kids believe. I think it's because when we're little, we're so much better at the whole suspension of disbelief thing. Once we get older we need proof, but before the age of, what, 11 or 12 we take most things totally at face value.

I will never forget the day the 'Smiley Gang' was spotted near my school. I must have been 9 or 10. It was just a regular day at school. My junior school was huge so each year group had their own playground. I must have been in Year 5, because I have clear memories of the discussion taking place in the Year 5 playground.

It was morning break and we were all doing our thing, as kids do. The boys were living up to the stereotypical "jumpers-for-goalposts" scenario, with the goalie playing monkey rush because there were only 3 or 4 on each team, and us girls were dotted around in twos or threes walking and talking hand in hand, or playing clapping games, feeding into another cliche. I was with my friend who for this purpose I shall call Hannah.

Hannah and I were walking the perimeter of the playground, trying to avoid the stray footballs that resulted from the boys' poor aim. The twins came up to us looking scared. We asked them what was wrong.

"Have you heard of the Smiley Gang?" Asked twin number one.

"No," Hannah and I whispered, desperate and yet deathly afraid to hear more. The nature of this particular gang suggested by their name was not backed up by the tone of twin number one's voice.

"They're this gang that drives around in this blue van," said twin number two. "They wait around for kids and then if they catch you they get a knife and make tiny little cuts in the corners of your mouth. Then they put acid on it."

"Acid? On the cuts?" I was horrified.

"Yeah, but that's not the worst of it," said twin number one, relishing the moment. "Then they punch you in the stomach and it makes your face rip right along the cuts. That's why they're called the Smiley Gang, 'cause they give you this big huge smile for the rest of your life."

Hannah and I were frozen to the spot at the very thought. "Why are you telling us about them?" Hannah whispered, dreading the response.

"Charlee saw a blue van on her way to school this morning," said twin number one. "That means they're around."

Hannah and I glanced around at the alleyway that ran adjacent to the playground on one side and the woodlands that sprawled for miles behind us. If you visit my old school now the woodlands is all fenced off, but in the early nineties the world was obviously still considered safe enough to allow children to play near the woods with minimal risk. We were not allowed to play in them, but of course we did, never straying far from the school, but daring each other to jump back and forth across the tiny stream that marked the boundary of the woods and the school.

Suddenly the woods that held so many happy memories seemed full of danger, evil positively resonating from the very trees.

The whistle blew and we lined up for class, but how much work we actually got done, who can say? The classroom buzzed with talk of the Smiley Gang. Suddenly more sightings were coming out of the woodwork. Things that had seemed innocuous hours earlier suddenly reinforced Charlee's story. Someone had seen smiley face stickers stuck on trees and the fence all down one side of the alleyway. That was the Smiley Gang's symbol, their way of marking their territory - territory in which they would hunt little children in order to give them a permanent 'smile'.

Lunchtime came verging on hysteria. Suddenly kids were seeing clues everywhere. No one from any of the six Year 5 classes would pass an imaginary line that would place them too close to the woods. Hannah and I hung out as close to the woods as we could stand, whispering to each other, on the verge of tears from fear, but compelled to look out for clues or sightings.

Lunchtime passed without incident. No children were discovered hideously disfigured. After a few days the rumours died down and we got used to playing close to and even in the woods again. But it was a long time before I really believed that the whole incident was make believe, based on rumours and urban myths.

For children, the monster under the bed is real. The vampire outside the window exists. The sadistic gang of villains is truly parked a block away from their school.

Despite how scared I used to be of even getting out of bed in the middle of the night, part of me is nostalgic for that time, when my whole world was dependent on the heights and depths of my imagination.

The politics of friendship

My friends are nagging me to go out with them tomorrow night. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my friends and love spending time with them, but there are two major flaws in their plan.

First of all, I am broke. Seriously broke. They have offered to lend me money, but it's a bit dodgy borrowing from friends isn't it? Plus, I am a nightmare for impulse buying and spending beyond my means and it's about time I had a word with myself and only spent money I actually have. (It's gonna be tough, but I'm gonna try!)

Secondly, the are going to a town near me, that I wasn't going to name, until I realised that I've tagged my two nearest train stations at London Bloggers so my location is hardly a secret. Even less so now that I've just announced to the Internet where they can discover my nearest two stations...as if you'd want to anyway.

Okay, that was a bit of a crazy run on sentence wasn't it? I'll try to do better.

Anyway, so my friends are planning on going to Bromley. Ugh. Why? Why? Why? Would anyone want to go to Bromley on a Friday night? Bromley is the nearest town to us with anything vaguely resembling a club, although in this instance these premises are best referred to as "the fiery meat markets of Hell". The only reasonable alternative for a night out beyond sitting in a pub (which, by the way, I'm more than amenable to, pubs are good, if not too smoky!) is London, which, although it isn't far, does tend to cost the gross domestic product of a small country if you want a good night out.

Not improving much with the run on sentences. And I allege to be good at English. Pah!

So yeah, I love dancing. A good night out dancing is one of my favourite things. But I don't do it often because London is expensive and Bromley.....O Bromley, why must you be so wretched?

Maybe it's because I'm getting old now (or older at least), but Bromley on a Friday night just does not hold the appeal it used to. I don't know if I've changed or if it has. It's possibly a little bit of both. But these are some of the thrills you can look forward to on a night out in Bromley:

• Being groped, fondled or otherwise inappropriately touched on several many occasions
• Breathing air composed entirely of cigarette smoke and evaporated sweat
• Being surrounded by 14 year old girls in boob tubes and skirts that show their buttocks
• Being surrounded by chavs, as this is what the majority of the population of Bromley is comprised of
• Having at least one person drunkenly fall on you
• Wondering what would happen if someone committed a crime somewhere other than the High Street as the entire Metropolitan Police force of Bromley gathers to deal with the drunken fights.
• Having overpriced, greasy kebab-shop wares flung at you for no reason (yes this actually happened to me once)

Understandably I really have no desire to go, but I don't want to offend my friends or have them think that I look down on their choice of venue. If they want to go, they are welcome to and I won't judge them for it. I just don't have the temperament to stand it without getting irritated. I hope they can appreciate my feelings and not think I'm weird for preferring to spend my Friday night alone in front of the telly, than amongst drunken idiots (other patrons, not my friends - haha).

I am the lizard queen! *

* First person to correctly identify the quote in the title wins a year's supply of Cillit Bang. Why Cillit Bang? Because it is funny. At least, it is funny to me in my sleep deprived delirium.

It is possible, perhaps, that I am a little off the planet, having amassed an impressive 1 and a half hours sleep last night (or really it should be this morning as I drifted off around 9). Actually, it may be 2 hours if you include the half hour I snoozed the alarm. Which I don't. Because really, sleep that only lasts 10 minutes without interruption is really not worth counting.

So I got up at around 10:50 this morning. Mostly because I had a training meeting to get to this afternoon, but also because this whole being awake all night thing? Yeah, it's wearing a little thin.

So I crawled out of bed, bleary eyed and requiring vast amounts of caffeine and managed to make myself look semi-presentable (if you ignored the suitcases under my eyes that concealer just would not, like, conceal!). I walked down the road to the bus stop because due to complicated travel arrangements I had to meet a friend of mine in the next town, where she would have her car and then she would drive me, and others to and from the meeting, dropping me home afterwards.

I hate the bus. The bus sucks. But at least I got to chill out with my iPod and try not to fall asleep to the gentle roaring of the engine (which I decided to sit above, smart move). The worst thing about the bus, though, is the old people, who get on in their droves and then proceed to give me the dirtiest looks ever because I haven't given up my seat for them, even though there are like, 5 other empty seats all around!! At one point I looked up and they all seemed to be really scowling at me and I was all like What, my iPod is NOT that loud! But afterwards I looked at my phone and saw I had a missed call and realised that was probably what the evil eye was all about. At least when my friend calls me my phone plays 'Get Happy', which they should appreciate, it being an oldie and all, and not some crazy techno hiphop concoction that exists solely of swearing and sexual references, like the phones of most teenagers seem to these days.

(OMG I'm getting old!)

More disturbing than the assortment of moody old biddies on the bus, however, was the old guy jogging down the road. He wore nothing but a pair of fetching blue shorts, ensuring all who saw him got a perfect view of his saggy, jiggling man boobs. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

The training meeting was good. It's training for a charity I sometimes work for as a volunteer, who do assemblies and RE lessons in Primary schools. We were discussing the things that influence today's children - good and bad - and how this affects our work within schools. It was a fascinating discussion that brought up some interesting points of view, but the highlight for me was my friend's story about her little boy.

We were talking about the pressure children have to face these days that wasn't so prevalent before the National Curriculum, such as the fact that 7-year-olds have to take SATs. Her son has just gone into Year 2 (the first SATs year) and his teacher sounds like a bit of an ogre who is convinced she can make her whole class achieve level 3s (what the average 9-year-old achieves). A lot of the children in Dan's class have felt the pressure and there have been a lot of tears by the school gates in the morning. Apparently Dan was praying the other night, before he went to bed and said, "Dear God, Please give me a sore throat so I don't have to go to school tomorrow."

My friend said she was so shocked by his ability to think this through that she just went, "Errrr, amen!"

Kids say the funniest things!

Well, I'm off to wallow in my sleep-deprived delirium some more. Hopefully I will actually sleep tonight!

Oh that's so much Beta

Conversation between me and a 13-year-old girl:

Her: Have you got that new MSN Beta?
Me: No. And it's pronounced BAY-TAH.
Her: Oh, I thought it was 'better' like when you text and you're like, "r u feelin beta now".
Me: No, it's not better it's beta. It's the second letter of the Greek alphabet.
Her: Oh right. I thought it was called Beta cos it's, like, better.

It was an amusing discussion at the time. And now, woooo, I've upgraded to Blogger Beta. Note to self: Beta DOES NOT mean 'better'. ARGH!!!

Does anyone actually understand XLS or whatever. I tried to put HTML tags in there and it was all "Erm, excuse me, but what do you think you are doing, sullying our beautiful XLS with your cheap and basic HTML."

So I was all like, "But I don't understand XLS. *sob* My knowledge of HTML is basic enough, dating back to when I made that David Duchovny fan site (that totally rocked) when I was 16. That was like, 9 YEARS AGO, people."

"Well your rudimentary HTML is not welcome here, please use our drag and drop layout editor instead. Even you can use that without too much trouble."

Well yah boo sucks to you Blogger Beta. You are annoying. And I will find a techie XLS-knowledgeable friend to help me too. Until then, my header will look a bit crap. Sorry people.

Commercial Breakdown

Since childhood I’ve always loved adverts. I would demonstrate a wider knowledge of TV commercials than the programmes they dissected. My grandad was in the industry, owning his own advertising partnership, so maybe this influenced my televison viewing, but I never nurtured an interest in entering the industry myself. I don't think I really have the creativity for it anyway. I am creative, but not in that way.

I like ads – good ads anyway. I like the way they can influence our thinking and persuade us of things we might never have thought.

On holiday a few weeks ago I was complaining about the current Skechers advert, a ‘Real World’ type set up where one housemate steals another’s Skechers and then accidentally damages them by leaving them too close to the water’s edge whilst making out with his girlfriend on the beach. It’s simply irritating – badly acted and pointless. A friend of mine questioned my complaint. “But you remember it though?”

“Yes, but it’s annoying.”

“But if you remember it, then it achieved its purpose.”

But I disagree. I may remember the advert, and personally, I am a fan of Skechers anyway, but even though I remember it, it DOES NOT make me want to buy a pair. It makes me want to poke toothpicks under the fingernails of the ‘actors’ in order to teach them a lesson about the pain their bad acting causes the general public.

The best adverts are not only memorable, but memorably GOOD. I can still recall with warmth the Milky Way advert that featured the cartoon and the little song about how “the red car and the blue car had a race.” And how old was I then? 10? But wasn't it great? I remain convinced that Milky Ways are far superior as an in-between-meals-snack choice than all that scrap metal the red car ate!

There are some abysmal adverts out now, such as the aforementioned Skechers one, but there are also some that I really love. Good adverts can be like mini-treats between TV shows, as interesting, exciting or amusing as any full-length programme. At the moment I’m loving the Quinn’s advert. Funnily enough, I’m not too bothered about sampling the product itself, but let’s face it, at the end of the day it is just another alco-pop. But the commercial itself is a pleasure to watch, particularly the longer version you get at the cinema. The poem and the graphics of the plants coming alive are beautifully Lewis Carroll-like, which I love, by the way, and the gravelly-voiced American woman who reads the words is an absolute pleasure to listen to – her voice has the kind of timbre that sends shivers down the spine. I could watch it over and over again, captured by the fairy-world hidden deep in the undergrowth where this product ‘grows’.

Another fantastic advert right now is the Mint credit card one. The Mint adverts have always been good, but the current ones are brilliant. Apparently for every clever thing that happens in the world, a very stupid one must happen to balance it out. So on one side of the world we see a man opening an envelope containing his new Mint card, offering 0% on purchases blah blah blah. So conversely, on the other side of the world, a woman is cleaning her patio doors and she walks up to the next window, leans forward to wipe it and falls through the open door. The first time I saw it I laughed out loud.

I'm wary of credit cards because I have one and it's mostly maxed out although I try to save it for emergencies (emergencies being, OMG I need that pair of shoes from that website and they don't accept Maestro), but if I was getting a credit card, I'd so get a Mint one. Or an Egg one 'cause those guinea pigs? Hilarious!

Water palaver

I am now in the last few weeks before I get the first installment of my student loan for this school year, so I'm sure you can imagine the current state of my finances. That's right, they are redder than Ronald McDonald's hair.

So imagine my dismay when I discover Thames Water have upped my monthly water bill from £17 to £47. Honestly, forty-seven pounds! So I rang them up to query this insane amount of inflation and was informed that as they bill from an estimate, it appears they underestimated my water usage from last year and so are billing me to make up the difference. But that increase seems ridiculously high. The woman I was speaking to asked me how many people live at my residence and I informed her, "Uh, just me."

Even she was shocked that one person could apparently use £47 worth of water every month. I swear I don't know how they could have come up with that estimate. I'm rubbish with washing and I always leave it festering in the laundry basket for AGES before seriously overloading my poor washing machine.

Well, she agreed to lower it to £30 a month for me (thanks so much!) and basically if at the end of the year when they actually check the meter I've paid way too much, they'll knock it off my monthly bills from next year. Great!

Until then I have to fork out £30 each month when I'm a poor, penniless student. This whole grown-up, independent, financial responsibility malarkey sucks!

If I had a hammer...

So. Apparently I look like a 15-year-old!

I went into Wilkinsons today, to buy a hammer. I wanted to hang a picture, so I needed some picture hooks and a hammer as I lack even the most fundamental of tools. So there I am, perusing the fine selection of hammers available at Wilkinsons, when I'm approached by a security guard. "You want something from there?" He asks with unnecessary incredulity.

"Yes, I want a hammer."

"What you want a hammer for? You got ID?"

"ID? For a hammer?"

"Yes, ID, you have ID?"

I have a brief flick through my bag. "No, I don't have ID. But I'm 25. I didn't think I'd need ID. Especially just to buy a hammer."

"Well, it's the law that they will ask you for ID if you try to buy that. It's against the law. We have to ask for ID."

"Well, I'm 25," I insist, somewhat taken aback to say the least. "Anyway, it says there that ID may be asked for if you're trying to buy knives, blades or solvents. It doesn't say anything about hammers."

"Hammers are weapons. You could hammer someone over the head with them."

"Yes, but it doesn't say on the notice that you need ID to buy a hammer, it doesn't say there's an age restriction on that."

"You need ID."

"Fine, I'll get my hammer somewhere else."

And I did. Woolworths, as a matter of fact. And the lady who served me there didn't bat an eyelid when I placed my hammer on the counter in front of her. What is up with the world?