Mutual Induction

I now have a new revamped blog at http://mutualinduction.blogspot.com.
Hope you enjoy it.

Hell on paper

Oh the slightly precedented relief, the exams are not quite over. Whilst everyone else finished theirs with Physics today, Jingo and I both have the second Business Studies paper to complete next Thursday. Despite being told to cram like hell for five days before by our manic 20 year old teacher, I will certainly be taking it easy this weekend and next week, even going to see live stand up the night before. Blimey, he will not be impressed by that.

So back to the past; here's a run down of all of the exams thus far:

Citizenship
I checked about four times to make sure I hadn't been given the easier 'foundation paper'. 'Foundation' of course being the euphemism for "Oh my God you retard! Ha, the best grade you can get with this is a C!"

English Literature
Really not sure how well I've done on this one. The Carol Ann Duffy and Robert Browning poems were OK but I think I might have screwed up the Of Mice and Men essay a bit. Apparently if you got an A* on the coursework you only needed 70% on the exam for an A* overall. We'll have to wait and see what August brings.

ICT
By far one of the funniest and easiest exams completed. One of the questions was about supermarket barcoding relating to RFID tags that might combine to form an evil network. Beware the RFIDs. Apparently the film is coming out soon.

Geography
The first paper was alright, but the second was a bit more tricky to master. Some of the questions were a bit vague and I'm not sure I've pushed all the right buttons. Full marks in coursework mean that I'm already set up for good things...

English Language
I decided to take the plunge and do a Describe question for the first time ever, thinking I could at least manage to describe my own house. Lots of imagery relating to smell and touch should guide me to a decent grade - I hope. The comprehension was reasonable but my persuasive argument for a teenage magazine (never read one in my life - I prefer 'adult' titles :-) was probably a bit weak.

Biology
One of the best exams on the calendar. The test was quite hard but I felt I knew almost everything and identified with a smirk which questions the rest of the field would stumble on. I am being optimistic about this one.

Chemistry
Strewth! What a little piece of shit. That was quite difficult but 29/30 on coursework should help me a bit. It annoyed me that there were no titration calculations or questions involving 2,3,carboxyethyl-4-octanoic acids. Damn.

Business Studies
I woke up on Thursday morning thinking: "Wouldn't it be nice if we got a case study about a camera shop (since I am quite big on photography - purchasing a D-SLR in the next few days :-) so I can cram my answers with tons on contextual terminology. And that's exactly what I did. God bless Dave the redundant photographer and a desire to be his own boss.

Additional Maths
Thursday was one of only two days when we had two exams on the same day. It was worse for Nick though, he had History followed by Business Studies followed by Additional Maths. The first two involve writing and writing and writing, reams and reams of crap, altogether directly contributing to deforestation. Fortunately (ha!) I only had the two in the afternoon. And bloody hell I'm annoyed I did Maths a year early. That was pure, distilled, concentrated and refined whoop ass grade hell on paper. For two hours I sat there thinking: "Fuck! How the hell to I do this? Differentiate, integrate, complete the square for x?" I will personally eat all my hats if I pass that.

Physics
Today's exam was a mixture of easy and fairly tricky questions, but I think I knew most of the stuff. Similar feeling as Biology: beware the uneven surface other candidates.

So all in all, I think I did OK all in all. Please inform me on the comments if my persistent :-)ing at the end of brackets titrates, sorry, irates you.

Exams!

Bad tidings readers. The exams are literally knocking on my door! Not really. Anyway, the first GCSE (Geography) is next Monday and from then on there are more exams for the next two weeks. 'Expect little more than a sarcastic...' perhaps that one needs a rest for now.

Just a quick note to say that I finally have one plant that has germinated. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the hell it is because I crammed melons, butternut squashes, lemons, oranges and apples into the same tray in my desperation and longing for a mini-orchard. We'll have to wait and see what fruit it bears... if any.

Got to now. My mother has just handed me a large slab of expired Christmas cake.

Incredibly Comfortable Trousers

Phew! I feel like the exams are already over. Today we had English Literature and ICT.

The question for Of Mice and Men on the Lit paper was so vague that I hardly knew what to write about. Instead I wrote about everything. There, that should cover everything. But in enough detail? Shit. I'll probably get an A or something crap like that.

The other Literature question was about how language is used in four different poems. I chose to do two by Carol Ann Duffy (A lesbian poet with a CBE that lives in Manchester), one by Robert Browning (famous Victorian poet that lives in a grave) and another by Will Shakey. I kicked arse on these, pausing only to think about how to break WS's gay relationship with an actor to the examiner. According to my interpretations of Sonnet 130, there was man involved in his sexual life, other than himself.

This afternoon we also had ICT. This basically involves distinguishing between monitors and floppy disks and there's you A*. One of the questions asked:

Select two advantages of using RFID tags in supermarkets.
A) So police can trace thefts
B) So shopping can be calculated without being placed on the conveyor belt
C) So they can form evil networks

You need not have turned on a computer in your life to be able to see that an 'evil network' can't be a good thing. That, I would say, is actually a general picture of the exam. Its a complete wonder that everyone gets an A or A* at my college. Considering I got 79/80 on my coursework which is actually 60% of the final grade already, I would hazard a conservative guess of my grade at an A*.

The previous Friday we also had Citizenship. The coursework for this was the litter picking you are probably familiar with. That was also simple, although I fluked a couple of the questions on UN summits and Lay Magistrates. Apparently my answers were correct. Then again Jingo is known to get these kind of things wrong.

So now we have 13 days until the next exam, Geography, in 13 days time. In the mean time I'll be spending most of my time revising like crazy the subjects of Chemistry, Physics and Maths. I am taking all of these for A-level so need to get a decent grade. Therefore "expect little more than a sarcastic comment from Jingo to grace this blog over the next few days", sorry that's weeks...

Chrsythansythisieums

Fate, cruel fate. Why do you mock me? It turns out that the lemons that had supposedly started sprouting last week are actually some type of stupid flower whose name I cannot pronounce. Instead of the orchards of orange trees I had hoped would fill my conservatory (yeah right, we barely have a concrete yard), I will be stuck with chrsythansythisieums or whatever some old man in a potting shed decided to call them. Apparently my mother took the liberty of replanting my orange pots with this weird blue flower, but completely failed to inform anyone. So there I was jumping for joy at the sight of 5mm of green shoot erupting from the damp earth that I had nurtured so attentively for the last 2 weeks.

It looks like I will now have to consult some kind of trade journal or other literature on the basis of securing some knowledge of Mediterranean fruits. I once used to be a dab hand at avocados, cacti and small palms but even the most hardy of plants now look weak and shriveled in my room. Reminds me of me.

Elsewhere in my supremely interesting life so far, we have been doing a bit of 'spring cleaning' as some would like to refer to it as. I prefer to think of it as 'Time to get rid of some shit week', as that is basically what it is. My brother and I (yes, the Tracy Beaker one) have bother been at it, clearing out our rooms. It seems 6 year olds get through toys very quickly these days.

Whereas with me it was the same old wooden clothes peg and broken glass bottle that kept me amused from birth till 7, my bother seems to have gone through Postman Pat > Bob the Builder > Fireman Sam > The Shiny Show in a matter of months. Hence the jump to CBBC, as CBeebies no longer has the calibre to amuse him for longer than the time it takes to scroll past it to Channel 71 on Freeview.

Relevantly enough, I have just got myself some new speakers. And just in case Jingo thinks IKEA have launched a new range of electricals, I got them from Argos actually.

56%

Additional Maths mock-exam results came back today. Boy was that a shocker. It was rather strange though. The test was tough and I knew I hadn't done that well in it. So why was I so disappointed with 56%? It only just gets me a Grade C exactly.

It wasn't as though I was expecting anything higher. Indeed, the entire class broke down in laughter when the new teacher told us at the start of the year that he only got a Grade C in his Additional Maths course. But after completing this solid little piece of shit last Wednesday, I was bloody glad to still get a pass.

That, I'm afraid to reveal, is more than can be said for my good friend Jingo. Seemingly the Maths boffin of the past few years, he managed to get the highest grade in the school in the 3rd year exams. In the Maths GCSE in fourth year he was right up their again (second in the school I think).

But this news seemed to bring him back down to earth with a rather painful BANG! As I was walking home with him out of pity (normally I get the bus with more interesting mates), he hardly said a word. We solemnly strode into Home Bargains (the best discount store in the UK) to purchase drinks and snacks (Blue Coat Redemption still pounding along) and he barely uttered a 'thanks' to the cashier. Mind you he was a rude litter brat, throwing out purchases into bags with some vigor. And then there was the bloke on the till. What a retard.

Just as we were leaving, the silence broke and out came a flurry of "I am gonna revise maths 3 hours a day", "screw everything else" and "watch me get an A in this test" and other such bold claims. Perhaps it was the caffeine in his Coca Cola that spurred this particular outburst. Or maybe he is rather slow and needs time to think about what he is going to say next.

Unsocial Life

It has been another unsurprising week of activity in my busy unsocial life. After all the coursework deadlines were thankfully met before Easter (Spring Break for my thousands of American readers), we still had to complete redrafts to gain those crucial extra marks.

Even more crucial was Citizenship GCSE coursework. It is vital to get as many as possible since we have not actually been taught anything for the past 2 months. It turns out our teacher has been off school not because of a 'damaged knee', but instead due to a nervous breakdown. I'm not sure if I'm just being insensitive or just inexperienced, but I find that rather amusing.

This particular teacher's problems remind me of first year. Back then, all those 4 years ago, our music teacher by the name of Daunt, mysteriously vanished from school. Yes, she was daunting, especially when she threatened to give me zero on a test I was going to miss due to my father's own wedding! About half the class seemed to be absent on this test day and none of her threats came to fruition. Still, I missed the music test and haven't cared a drop for the subject ever since.

Daunt was a great fan of "There was an old man called Michael Finigan. He grew whiskers on his chin-ingin..." - you know the one, or perhaps not. Every single bleeding lesson she would sit at the piano and churn out the worst dirge imaginable just to emphasise a point about some notation thing. Apologies to all those music students reading this, but I don't see the point. Music is for the soul, and you can't learn about the soul.

Rather aside from my boring rant about mentally deranged teachers, my lemons have finally germinated! Yippee! Now I'll just have the wait another ten years for them to be visible over the rim of the pot.

In sports news, Jingo and I poned (is that how you spell it?) Richard and some guy called Colin at tennis today. Taking the set 6-3, the angle of my backhands easily disposed of Richard, and Jingo's smashes obliterated Colin and his feeble serves. We then swapped: Jingo and Rich VS Torquer and Colin, and it was a dead tie at 1 game all when we 'broke for lunch'.

In more local sports news, Chelsea screwed Liverpool 1-0. Bloody Londoners.

Chassen Park

It's been a rather long few days in the Torquer household, so I'll fill ya in.

Firstly I scooted off to Nottingham at the earliest opportunity to get away from my ignorant, insolent and persistent younger brother. After having grown out of CBeebies last year, he has been enveloped in the world of Tracy Beaker, a fictional TV character, young girl, roughly age 12. Her behaviour mainly involves complaining and tugging on other people's hair. Fortunately he does not copy the hair pulling bit, but unfortunately has already mastered sarcasm at the age of 6.

Furthermore, as I was in Nottingham, I noticed that everything seems to be much better there than in Liverpool. They have a 5 city centre cinemas, 60p bus fares, more frequent recycling collections, nicer scenery and even a Primark. The only aspects that Liverpool beats it on is 2 cathedrals and less gun shootings. They even have a Muji for Christ's sake.

Frequent readers of my blog (i.e. once a year) may remember my trials traveling to and from Nottingham over Christmas a few months ago. This time the train went wrong again. We were only waiting for an extra twenty minutes while some guy with a watering can topped up the coolant, though. However, this now means that I have had more unsuccessful journeys (being delayed, cancelled, no seats etc.) than successful ones aboard Central Trains services. A sign of the times, shall we say.

On the return leg from Nottingham, I called in at my other relatives in Manchester. Gratefully they do not live in Moss Side (like Toxteth but with more drugs) but in the quaint suburb of East Didsbury. Sigh, endless green avenues of trees in blossom, endless crunching of litter as you tread over it...

I stayed there one night, and, lets just say that bathroom is a bit, well, one star. I did manage to amass a large of amount of assorted confectionary and fruit for some reason.

So, lugging this heavy load down to the station the next morning, I consulted the departures board and went, as it indicated, to platform 7 for my train back to Liverpool. Now this platform is one all on its own at the side of the station. You can't actually see any of the other platforms/entrance/departure boards from there. I set my stuff down and waited with no-one else for about 15 minutes in silence, with silence all around me. I decided I fancied a quick snack form the extortionately priced vending machine at the end of the platform. I chanced leaving my bags unattended and hurried over for a 70p Twix (Innit! Bloody expensive or what?). I turned round and saw that the departure board had changed and my Liverpool train was apparently waiting to leave on the other side of the station: platform 1!

I legged it back over to my stuff, hurled the Twix into my bag and belted up the steps to the gantry. "Ah bollocks! Stitch for Christ's sake!" I cursed through the commuters, gathering surprised looks. I suspect people were thinking about how unorganised modern teenagers are ... always late ... tut tut. How totally unfair. I threw myself onto the train with moments to spare, almost giving an old man a heart attack.

"Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the 15:29 to Flixton, calling at Urmston, Chassen Park, Humphry Park and will terminate at Flixton."

I nearly cried.

Departure of the Train Cowboy

Its that time of year again folks. Any kind of 2-week or more holiday from college means I must make the tri-annual trip to visit assorted relatives across the country. Therefore, expect little more than a sarcastic comment from Jingo to grace this blog over the next few days. I will be back in full blown typing action in under a week. Do go away, but do come back.

Want a taster of my experiences with national transport? The Return of the Train Cowboy (January 2007)

Tardis Cafe

What a week it has been. Unfortunately, due to circumstances well within my personal control, I have been unable to write anything on this tardy blog for the past few days. Only on the Friday before last were we told that all coursework must be handed in the following Tuesday. This sparked a frenzy of activity amongst the GCSE students. I have always sniggered at the people in older years who are being chased by ruthless teachers for coursework around this time of year. "It can't be that hard, why do you always leave it till the last minute?" is a frequent question on my mind. Now I know exactly the pressure these people are under.

That's not to say of course that people snigger behind my back when mad Australian Geography teachers chase me for work: they have much more obvious things to laugh at me about. Take for example the mangy locks circumnavigating my head in a drunken fashion. Jingo said to me about three weeks ago: "Gosh, you need a rather viscous trim." I replied: "Gosh? I may need a haircut Jingo, but we are not in an Enid Blyton novel you know."

Further to the point, I was in town on Saturday morning enjoying freedom from work for the first time in roughly a month. My mother and I (for she had tagged along to try and absorb some of my über-coolness) ventured into a small cafe near the Met Quarter (the apparently trendy end of town - but lacking in character) for a quiet drink and a danish pastry. This place was owned by a bald, bog-eyed, fat Italian man wearing spectacles similar to those in a 1960s Michael Caine movie. He is actually an genuine guy. He used to be the manager of Costa Coffee in Waterstones, but about a year ago he started complaining about the shit food this franchise was selling: four day old sandwiches, warm soft drinks and the most appalling Cappuchinos (I could make better coffee drinks. No really I could - I took my work experience in a café) to ever grace a chipped Costa mug and wrong sized saucer.

So instead of putting up with the customers' complaints and bad publicity, he decided to go it alone. In fact, he complained so much to the owners that he got sacked. After a bit of research and locating suppliers around his home town somewhere in the north east of Italy, he set up the cafe that I presently sat in. I had the most exquisite carbonated orange juice from a can that even had a foil seal on top so as to stop dirt getting around the rim, and subsequently down your oesophagus. It was a but pricey (95p) but I didn't pay for it anyway. What goes in must come out, so I set off the find a toilet. The Italian dude informed me that it was through the door at the back. I took his advice and swung it tenaciously open.

It was like a friggin' Tardis. I nearly wet myself. On the other side of this cheap panel door was a hair salon, in full blown Saturday trade. I stood and gawped for at least half a minute at high-rollers having cut, wash and blow and all the rest of it. Eventually someone noticed me looking bemused. A rather attractive looking hairdresser came over and asked: "Would you like to get started?" I turned and replied: "I need a piss."

"Ah, you've come from the cafe. Take the escalator up to the third floor. It's straight ahead of you from there." She turned and began stacking bottles of conditioner on a table next to me.

Slowly, I stirred back into motion and groped along the walls to the lift. I pushed the button and the doors sprang open. It was like something out of a Carlsberg advert. Inside were five identically dressed and beautiful hairdressers. I stepped inside assertively and pushed '3'. Slowly their welcoming smiles inverted themselves as their eyes were drawn to the mess sitting astride my large head. By the time I reached the third floor, I think they could smell the sweat that had quickly seeped through the layers of my clothing, and had turned to face the other direction. I disembarked quickly and sprinted through to the lavatory ahead, just as promised by the woman downstairs.

After relieving myself with rather poor accuracy, I managed to break the tap. Those crappy continental taps are obviously not built with the brutal tendencies of the average scouser in mind. As I left, a hairdresser waited patiently outside. I'm sure I heard a yelp of disgust as she entered behind me. How would you feel if there was piss all round the rim and no way of washing your hands?

Courseworkout

The onslaught has been unprecedented. We were alerted during the arduously boring morning assembly:

"But in the end... [headmaster's favourite catch-phrase to tag on to the beginning of nearly every sentence] The final deadline for all coursework is Tuesday the 27th of March. That is actually next Tuesday in fact. The final coursework deadline for 5th year students is in fact next Tuesday the 27th of March. Now, that is not long away, is it?"

"You tell me," I murmur, collecting harsh glances from the obese teaching staff, already thinking hungrily of break time.

So that's the picture people. A rather sordid picture of me locked in my bedroom all weekend listening to Dinosaur Jr (remember them?) and my Courseworkout playlist on iTunes, comprised largely of medium paced dance music to keep my fingers typing (Chemical Brothers mainly). Writing this post is actually today's break from work. On Saturday I made the dinner.

I have somehow amassed nine pieces of coursework despite taking only 8 GCSEs this year (French and Maths last year: A* oh yeah). For English we have to analyse 'An Inspector Calls A Whore' by I P Freely. In Geography its 'Examine the Urban Land Use Patterns of Liverpool'. In IT we have to design a database on Microsoft Access which seems to keep breaking and crashing and opening 20 copies for some reason. There is only one piece of software worse than that program in circulation: Windows itself. Physics involves measuring the resistance of a piece of wire (whoo!) and writing 3000 words on it (uurgh!).

In other news:

My form wins the annual house football tournament. I say my house because I just sort of stood around on the pitch in a slight daze. Jingo was worse though, he was conscious and still played crap. It was a bitter victory with 6 bookings for the other team. We scraped through though.

All Business Studies students (that's me) had to pay a "voluntary contribution" of £5 to go to the Jaguar factory (see last post). It was shit. We watched several hundred old men (and women) screwing

pieces of car together. I really couldn't tell the two genders apart some of the time.

Muscle Cramp

After along and arduous week slaving away behind a badly designed desk, I ventured in the city centre for the third Saturday in a row to purchase muscle pain relief creams and chocolate bars to rub into my tired arms and sell to friends, respectively of course.

The bus journey was surprisingly exhilarating. I must be getting too used to staring at a blank piece of paper, wondering how to start the next coursework task: anything seems exciting these days. Speaking of coursework, I scooped full marks on the first draft of my Business Studies. Jingo currently trails me by 7 marks. How I wish it was out of eight.

Tomorrow we have yet another pointless trip to the Jaguar factory at Halewood. This time it is for the everlasting benefit of the appreciative Business Studies students. We are having a talk on finance. It is sure to be exceedingly boring. If nothing else it just another way for the school to get their dirty hands on our hard begged cash. £5 just for 'the cost of transportation'. I'm not sure how much it costs to hire a 60 seater coach for three hours, but 60 students x £5 gives you £300 quid straight up. It is entirely possible for all of us to get the 80A bus down to the Speke/Halewood area for 70p a go. Despite having to stop at every bus stop in the whole of South Liverpool, I'm sure it would still be quicker. You know what these coach drivers are like. I once went somewhere with my primary school and instead of going through the Mersey tunnels under the river, he instead went the long way round (an extra 1 hour/30 miles) across Runcorn bridge. For those non-scousers out there: he was a dick OK. All that effort just to save the £1.35 toll fare. Groan. The system bites.

Enough of my pre-complaining. It hasn't actually happened yet. The day could run as smoothly as a cloud on an oil slick.
Check back later this week for a full report on the inner workings and financial accounts of the Jaguar factory.

In other news, my lemons haven't germinated yet. Damn. My life will be so much more vibrant when those lemons germinate. Now for the weather...

Home Security 101

Jingo seems rather agitated in French. He is constantly shuffling around and fiddling with the pen he just bought from me. This behavior is very unusual. We are in French for Chirst's sake. He is normally completely unconscious with boredom and ignorance at this stage of the lesson.

"Torquer!" he whispers loudly to the right of me, "I've done big shit!"
"What? You've shit yourself?" I ask, trying to hang onto the last threads of my linguistic talent (A* in GCSE) as they are blown through the open window.
"No! Even worse."
"Oh God, worse than that?"
"I've think I've left my house this morning with the bedroom window two foot open and my laptop on the table and my dad's laptop on the floor and my iPod on the...oh no I've got my iPod...but my bank details, including statements, cheque book...that's right I've got a cheque book and you haven't, ha...debit cards and other related literature with my name and address and pin numbers all over it on my window sill next to the window that's two foot wide open with easy access via wheely bin and top of the porch," he sweats.
"Whoa, that is big shit," I stare back blankly at his cringing face. And then it hits me:
"Bloody hell you retard!"

He then goes about drawing a plan with equations and diagrams about just how much shit he is in. To make matters worse, his parents can't sort it out because they are at work in London.

And so the rest of the day progresses with me trying to calm him down, constantly the agitated by the though of his neighbour and arch enemy Zong stealing all his stuff, worthless as it is. Even the fight at lunchtime did little to distract him.

So, I've decided to compile some home security tips for my clumsy friend.

1) Check all windows when you leave the house to go out. Make sure they are locked.

2) Don't leave valuables on display: either on your desk, window sill or where ever. Put it under the bed in an inconspicuous box/folder/toilet role tube.

3) Don't leave wheely bins lying around that can make a nice leg-up to a window.

4) Make sure your parents have their own set of keys.

5) Move into a respectable area.

6) Have a security alarm with a code - a code that only you know.

7) Chain your valuables to something heavy - try a Kingston security lock, most things computery have it.

8) Finally, I offer lessons in common sense, I'll give you a free 1/2 hour session.

Queen Coleen

Today, I ventured into town to purchase more stock (Blue Coat Redemption is going well). I got some kick-arse deals on Penguins and Kit Kats. Perhaps Jamie Oliver will close me down unless I start offering fruit at break and lunch. Kit Kats only have 107 calories though- it can't be all bad.

After grabbing a selection of saleable confectionary, I continued down Bold Street and arrived in some sort of ration queueing system outside Waterstones. I'm sure in the 1940s people were a lot more civilised when obtaining their daily bread. What I saw here was gangs of teenage girls squabbling over square inches of pavement, all bristling with copies of a peculiarly pink book: Coleen's Autobiography.

"Shit on a stick" I thought. It seemed that some no-mark slag had boned Wayne Rooney and now she is entitled to have her autobiography published and achieve instant national fame. I could understand the hysterics if Mr Rooney him self had visited the dump aka Liverpool to scribble more clumsily than my 6 year old brother over a chunk of paper with his ugly face printed all over it, but come on!

I asked one of the many Waterstones employees crowded around the crowd what was going on and how I was supposed to get inside. He told me Ms Rooney was performing a book signing in "this very building". I asked him what time it was starting. "Half past two," he replied. I consulted my watch: 11:15 it read. "Innit," he smiled at me again, "Most of these people have been here since ten o'clock." "Wow," I sighed and pushed myself round him and into the main foyer.

Now what I was looking for was a copy of Queen Camila by Sue Townsend. When I went inside, shelves by author from R through V had been moved to make way for Queen Coleen and an army of agitated photographers. I asked an employee if I could access the 'T' section. My request was declined. Darn.

I left in a disgruntled manner, knocking over some of the special £1 World Book Day books in protest. Outside, there were more protesters. I'm not sure if this Coleen woman regularly wears fur or something, but there were anti-animal cruelty, anti-fur and anti-footballers wives protesters all gathered round on the opposite side of the street. They were all jostling each other in the most uncivilised manner, vying to get the attention of the camera crew who seemed to be recording the whole book signing affair. Funnily enough, I haven't seen any mention of the event on the local news this evening.

After that intolerable experience, I decided on some soothing retail therapy in the form of browsing aimlessly around, and not actually buying anything, in Lewis', a huge independent department store in Liverpool. To my horror, most of the lower facade of the building had been plastered with signs proclaiming: CLOSING DOWN SALE- EVERYTHING MUST GO. For some explicable reason, I decided to enter to see if there were any bargains to be had. There were none. Instead of the racks of '99% off everything' that I wanted to see, all there was were a few ornate teapots and pointless teddy bear picture frames being mulled over by old women who smelt funny.

I sighed and departed, instead spending my hard stolen cash on an Angus Burger in Burger King. Pretty decent sandwich that.

Trash Wars - The Condom Strikes Back

To waffle on about my new television would be the hight of tedium. I will therefore refrain from a full scale invasive inundation and give you only a sprinkling of techno-babble. Instead of the dual-scarted, Freeview built-in, 26" television that I was hoping to get, we have ended up with something that ticks none of these boxes (except being a television). As mentioned in my previous post, my tight walleted parents were eyeing up a single-scarted, non-Freeview, 23" Philips in the Richer Sounds Catalogue. Thanks ever so much, Jason Richer, for stocking crap TVs at cheap prices. Sigh. Even when my step-father unwrapped it he seemed slightly surprised that it only had one scart. I won't bore you with the consequences of having only one scart. This is the iPod listening, Internet browsing, heroine taking generation - I'm sure most will be more than competent.

Anyway, there doesn't seem to be much litter around Princes' Park these days. Our clan (Jingo, Robin and I) have been out there in the wilderness collecting beer cans and Mars bar wrappers. It seems slightly odd that a chocolate covered caramel-fest of a snack bar is supposed to help you work, rest and play. How can 300% of your GDA of sugar in just four mouthfuls help you to rest? Last time I had a Mars Big One, I couldn't sleep for a week. Damn you New Order for adding Blue Monday to their latest advert.

Fun ensured however when Robin decided to climb a 30 foot high tree in the park. That's not to say he climbed up to the top; he only managed half-way, despite his monkey-like qualities. As we were leaving with our sack-fulls of trash, three ten year old kids marched over with a Rotweiler.

"Oi mate, why you'd climb that tree over here then?" the smallest belched.
After deciphering what their first message meant, Robin replied: "Because I wanted to."
"What? You're crap at climbing," he complained, surrounded by an air of arrogance, and his cronies.
"OK," Robin concluded the lengthy conversation.

We turned or backs on them and set off for the humble comforts of Robin's two pokey flats. For some reason, Jingo had the nerve to turn his head round and to take a glance at these kids. General rule of thumb: don't stare at yobs, no matter how small and young they are. What a rookie, he never lived in Tokie. This place was Robin's current 'hood and my formed 'hood. I buggered off out of Toxteth to the suburbs, after being the only one in my primary school without an ASBO at the age of ten. What he then saw made us chuckle and chortle all the way home. These kids had only made it a third of the way up the tree that Robin had failed to scale and were instead struggling up a small dead tree that was bent over so that the highest part was about a metre off the ground. Rebels.

Robin's dad then came screeching down the path towards us on his bike to embarrass his son in front of his mates with talk of private family matters seemingly regarding toothbrushes.

Back at Robin's flat, I read the sports supplement of the Guardian. Jingo shredded the rest.

I then bored the others with camera jargon whilst Jingo snapped happily away with his Canon Ixus into direct sunlight, completely disregarding my advice about the 'rule of two thirds'. What he found to photograph in Robin's bleak and untended communal garden, I'll never know.

Absence of Technology

Pip! Fssst... Oh dear, the television has just exploded. Shit. I'm gonna miss Coronation Street in half an hour. Oh wait, I just remembered, I don't watch crap telly. Phew! Still, the television going bust is not what you want in today's modern society of Hotel Babylon, Ugly Betty and Lilies (only some of these I watch by the way- my TV life is not as proactive as some). I just hope World's Wildest Police Chase videos comes out on DVD quite soon, I'll miss the last three episodes.

In my house, we don't have broadband. In my house, we don't have Sky HD. In my house, we don't even have an iPod docking station. We seem to be stuck in 2002. And that means the hurt of England's world cup catastrophe, the boredom of Ferrari dominating F1, and the pain of S-Club 7, is still rife.

After the controlled explosion that sent acrid smoke throughout the house, our beloved (actually, I hated it. It didn't have teletext) 1985 Sony Trinitron 20" television had eloped to the world of broken televisions. Otterspool waste dump, to be precise. That's right people, since last Monday, we have been crowding round a TV that predates me and scart leads. Thank God for RF adaptors.

Now however, we are all huddled around my mothers first television: a 1987 colour portable 13" Ingersol Television system! Yet again, it predates me and scart leads, and doesn't even have a remote or teletext. The origin of this TV is actually my bedroom. Losing this has the added side effects of no PS2. Sigh.

The one thing right now that I would like more than a Digital-SLR camera, the latest MacBook computer, Broadband, iPod docking station, Sky HD (with RF adaptor: Ingersol is scartless remember) or tickets to see Liverpool against Sheffield today, is a modest (not asking for much here) 26" Panasonic with double scart and built-in Freeview. Price tag: £499 ($899?). Live a little dear parents.

I'll never be as happy as this pair

In other news, the allotment season has started again. That means regular (twice weekly) trips down to our squalid patch of land to plant potatoes and chard (yuk :-§ ). My usual job is to remove chunks of broken glass that seem to mysteriously accumulate on our soil. I am convinced our neighbors sprinkle it on our plot when we're not there. Last year was just the start. Now its time for full scale mass production of oddly shaped carrots.

Break! What Break?

Although its name does not specifically imply a holiday, you would naturally assume that 'half-term' was some kind of break from the continual grind of arduous college life. Nope. Here in Liverpool, our tutors have been specifically informed by the governors of the school to lay on as much work as possible to keep our tired little minds churning away throughout the whole of February.

In reality, half-terms were designed by the government as a means of cost cutting across the country. Some distant and probably now deceased Chancellor of the Exchequer was told by the equally dead Prime Minister to save money on Education. My bet it went something like this:

"I have a cunning plan, Prime Minister," chuckled the Chancellor hysterically.
"What's that PM-wannabe?" answered the Prime Minister.
"We will send all of the children home once a term, and call it 'half-term'! That way, we can set them lots of work over the holiday. They'll still be educated to the same standard, because teachers these days are just like having none whatsoever and then we'll save a bundle of money. Less teachers to employ, less utility bills to pay, schools can be rented out for rock concerts and WI days and we'll have more money to spend on invading other countries," the Chancellor rabbled on, some drool coming from the side of his mouth.
"Brilliant, I like it Chancellor," smiled the PM.
"Now can I be Prime Minister?" he pleaded.
"No," scorned his nemesis.

So, to sum up, I have the following work to complete over the week:
Business Studies coursework (approx. 3 hours)
Business Studies exam revision (approx. 2 hours)
English essay (approx. 2 hours)
Read Of Mice and Men for English revision (approx. 2 hours)
Geography coursework- all of it! (approx. 5 hours)
Physics Challenge revision and practice papers (approx. 3 hours)
Physics coursework (approx. 2 hours)
Additional Maths revision (approx. 2 hours)
Teach myself Chemistry GCSE and complete coursework -teacher is downright lazy- (approx. 5 hours)
Biology homework and revision (approx. 2 hours)
Citizenship homework, coursework and revision (approx. 2 hours)

Total learning/revision/coursework time: 30 HOURS

Divide this by 9 days and you get 3 hours and 20 minutes of work each day. It might not sound like much when reading this. Then you have to introduce the fact that I have to collect a 6 year old brother from school each week-day (his half-term was last week) and cook the God-damn diner. It suddenly becomes a whole different affair. I have only just found enough time to write this post in between boiling potatoes and watching my sole 1/2 hour of television a day. Perhaps the tutors never considered that we might like to relax somewhat before the real manic build up to exams starts. I am dreading it. I felt completely emotionally drained last year after taking just 2 GCSEs early (French and Maths). I cannot wait until the summer, breezing down the open road - to the job centre. I still intend to continue with A-levels next year but really need a job over the summer to finance an Digital-SLR camera. We all have our financial targets. Jingo's is nearly three times mine. He is gaging for a £1,500 Apple MacBook Pro. I already have a laptop but he already has a decent camera. Does this mean he will have to work triple shifts down at the local Tesco? As long as I don't have to its fine by me.

Adverse Conditions

School's out and half term is in full swing. Yesterday, my cronies and I ventured out to the vast white expanses of Sefton Park - the largest park in the city (I think). Me, Pask, Dave and Rich met at the latter's 'cosy' house (squalid damp flat, to be precise) and busied our selves constructing spheres of ice from the frozen precipitation around us and throwing them in the direction of the other members of the congregation.

Unfortunately (possibly fortunately) Jingo and Nick couldn't make it. Nick was jetting off to some distant country to contribute to climate change and Jingo had some kind of dentist appointment. There is a 24 hour appointment reschedule allowance. Use it next time.

Then Robin, the perennially late one, arrived to a volley of flying ice smattering him in the face. He tried to retaliate but there was not much snow in the middle of the road where he was walking. That'll teach him to use the pavement. Eventually, once his face was blue and blistered he greeted the new arrived, grabbed a football and strode off towards the park, only a matter metres away. And to think that once rich, Victorian merchants and their families had the park all to them selves, surrounded as it was by lavish mansions. Now these great edify to the past have been bulldozed to make way for Richard's seventies communal commode. He even pays for his electricity by pay-as-you-go top-up card, and has Sky TV but no washing machine.

Anyway, the park was completely deserted. There was literally no-one around except our little group. That may have something to do with the fact that there was 45 degree sleet pelting into the ground at Mach 2 and it had been likewise for the past four hours. Perfect!

You may assume intentional sarcasm if you wish, but actually it was the most fun I've had since inventing sliced bread. The conditions were absolutely horrendous. We split into teams of two and three and defence seemed to consist largely of pelted muddy ice at the opposition every time they came forward with the ball. Robin correctly identified a turd in amongst all the mud and inquisitively covered it up with a large mound of snow. Richard inquisitively announced that it looked like a large penis. We all applauded his imagination.

Then in an ironic twist of fate, Robin slid in hard to get the ball, and perfectly took out the long, hard pointy thing that he had built to warn unsuspecting footballers of the dangers underneath. Somehow, and I'm not quite sure how he managed it, he avoided to get any of the excrement onto his clothing. He took it all in the back of the head instead.

Such an issue is not really something to joke about although I did enjoy a jolly good chortle while writing this. I say, steady on old chap.

All in all, it was a bloody good afternoon in the park although my right shoe was completely full of ice and grass. My body mass must have at least doubled with all the compacted snow in various pockets and up my sleeves, not to mention my saturated trousers.

To add to all the glee, only two hours before, I had successfully bartered with the woman in a camera shop and saved 1/3 of the price of a memory card for my camera. Always go to the older staff, no matter how ugly and decrepit they are. These people are more likely to be managers who will have a bit of flexibility when it comes to wheeling and dealing.

Taster Sessions

With A-Level choices imminent, our school decided to lay on some 'taster sessions' to allow the students to sample some of the subjects on offer. I haven't really got much of a clue about what I'm going to be in the future. When someone asks me "What do you want to be when your older", I reply "Undecided", and let their opinions waft over my unconscious self.

First up was Chemistry. This was one of my many considerations, albeit a more serious consideration than, say, French. As you might expect, the teacher brawled on about how Chemistry is everything and when the world ends, all the chemists will be called upon by God to join him in the garden of heaven, and all the artists and historians will rot in the cesspit of hell. Did I mention he was a psychopathic creationist - teaching a science?

Second was ICT. There are two options here, IT or Computing. IT involves the general sort of questions and applied knowledge and creating problems and solving them etc. Computing involves programming and spawns many new computer nerds into our universities every year. These are the sort of people you see in a darkened room with 4 different computer screens covered in code and binary like something out of the Matrix. Neoites I call them.

After break in which I had a sausage wrapped in a slice of toast with brown sauce that taster like hand cream, a half-hour of Geography followed. I have always liked Geography, although now it seems like we won't actually learn anything new. The tutor told us we would study plate tectonics (done in 3rd year), tourism (done in 4th year), ecosystems (also done in fourth year) and farming in the UK (just finished it last week). What he should have said was: "GCSE? You're sorted mate. Don't bother coming back."

The next session to follow was Economics. I am currently taking a Business Studies GCSE and this sort of follows on from that. What we were told was that universities favour the more traditional subjects, and Economics is apparently one of them? I though the sciences, languages, Geography, History, English and Maths were viewed as being traditional, but not Economics? The teacher told us that he teaches with great knowledge, passion and with a true love and desire for the subject. This made all the girls laugh hysterically and flutter their eyelids. He merely smiled, but with a distinct twinkle in his eye. Maybe it was the fluorescent lighting.

Finally, Physics was attended by many students. The teacher told us that he would not lie to us. He told us that half of us were probably better off walking out the door right now, waffled on about quantum theory for a bit, showed us a video on You-Tube that he downloaded about people falling off roundabouts and gave us a poorly photocopied sheet on the subject.

Bonus. Now it was time to return to our final normal lesson of the day: IT. This lesson last thing on a Friday afternoon has traditionally been a sit-off where no work is conducted whatsoever. Alas! A cruel plan to dig boredom into our small little minds. "A meeting with the deputy headmaster and careers adviser in the school chapel?" How they got permission from God to talk about money and salary in his own bloody house I'll never know. They droned on for around 40 minutes about the importance of making good combinations of choices and not just doing things because your friends are. Personally, I would be glad to get away from some of my 'friends' once in a while to avoid their persistent nagging, stabbing and crude jokes based on other people's sexuality (usually mine).

So in conclusion, not quite sure what I'm going to be doing with my time on this mottled lump of rock hurtling around the sun. Maybe I'll be a professional blogger. Or maybe I'll get a life.

Read Jingo's account of the taster sessions

Lord of the Litter: Fellowship of the Syringe

T'was the first Saturdaye of t'month and that could only mean one thing: picking up other people's crap. Yup. Litter picking was upon us again. Me, Jingo and Robin set off into the thick swirling mists surrounding Princes' Park in Liverpool, armed with bin bags and the aptly named 'litter pickers'. We had a tough record to beat. Last time out we scored 2 condoms, 12 beer cans, 1 syringe and a managed to completely fill about 2 bins bags to bursting point. This time Robin hoped one of them wouldn't burst all over his foot.

Where as last time we excelled on the contraceptive front, this time we floundered. I found the only sexually related bounty of the expedition: one single, lousy durex wrapper. However, what we lacked in this department, we made up for with over 20 cans and bottles (including two wine bottles, one medicine bottle, ten cans of white light and assorted broken glass fragments (none of which ended up in my foot this time).

Jingo decided to dress in old jeans, an old jumper but instead of the obvious choice of old shoes, chose new, white trainers. Why? Ask him, not me. I attired sensibly for the occasion, also with a pair of much envied gloves.

The catalogue of calamitous events lengthened when Jingo trampled on a bed of newly planted daffodils towards the edge of the park. He assured me: "I'm sure they'll grow back."

After the tiresome yet CV boosting afternoon's main activity. Jingo and I checked out the job opportunities at the local Tesco store. We queued for about 20 minutes at the customer service desk as some old woman was trying to get her pension or something. The lady directly in front of us wanted a taxi to cart her elaborate and heavy purchases home, but no-one at the desk knew of a taxi number. I stepped forward boldly and brandished my Sefton Taxis business card, complete with calendar on reverse. Both women smiled and thanked me and the customer servicer called the number on the card. Since I was about to ask for a job, I could already feel the brownie points flooding into me. The number had expired.

She returned the card to me with a grimace that would have melted stone. Fortunately, my face is not made of such material, otherwise I would be enduring the deplorable British hospital system by now. The fact that a face made of stone is no cause for concern in the NHS anyway makes you wonder whether they would respond to a melted one either. Dissatisfied at me for some reason (I mean, its not like I work there or anything), the woman with the shopping lumbered off to get a bus home. Feeling depressed and embarrassed, I let Jingo do the talking, but he failed to secure us any position whatsoever. That's the last time I let him get me a job. We were told that there are usually several openings over Easter and should come back then.

Check out Jingo's alternative side of the day's events.

Assorted Potato Related Incidents

I have just spent my Sunday surrounded by small and/or boring people. The two options for the remaining part of my weekend were:

A) Endure my step-father's parents - why I have to be inflicted with his side of the family I don't know

B) Visit my dad and step-mum and look after their two children of ages two and one

I took the later option since I had not seen my father since the previous Thursday. Come to think of it I hadn't seen my half-step-grandparent thingies for about a month. Oh dear. They can continue to live in their tight-knit world of jam and inadequate washing-up skills while I clean up baby-goo and baby-poo on the other side of the county.

I began the 40km trek over to West Kirby via my favourite and most well run mode of transport - the train! Please excuse me while I wipe the sarcasm from the corners of my mouth. Actually, trains are quite decent for traveling very long distances, such as those to London. It seems as soon as Virgin is taken out of the equation, the whole thing falls to pieces. Fortunately, the price burden was reduced due to my student rail card (cost £20 but takes a third off anyrail fair across the country. Except weekdays before 10am for some reason: minimum fair of £8 applies). The 40 minute journey costs just £2.50 return, with the discount.

As I descended the 50 year old escalators to the underground station (no lie, the stations predate even my aging father), a rabble of happy-looking people came bustling up the other escalator in the other direction. Unfortunately, I recognised someone from West Kirby, meaning I had just missed a train. Fortunately, they didn't notice me so I didn't have to talk to them. As I got to the platform, low and behold, the electronic (only new thing in that station) sign system informed me that the next train to West Kirby would be arriving in approximately 28 minutes. Bugger.

I sat down on the maroon plastic seats installed with the original 1960s station decor and opened Philip Pullman's Northern Lights. Presently, a youngish woman, reasonably attractive, sat down next to me and opened a pack of smoky bacon Snack-A-Jacks.

"Want one?" she asked generously.
"No thank you," I answered, "I'm on an undiet."
"Oh," she replied solemnly, "so am I." and she took out a bag of Malteasers.
She then preceded to devour a whole apple, a bacon and cheese sandwich from Boots, a large bottle of Ribena, two scotch eggs and a tic tac.
"Less than 4 calories each," she said holding out the tic tacs to me.
I sighed thankfully, unwilling to repeat my need for putting on weight urgently, and had a green one.

An unusually uneventful train journey later, devoid of crashes, muggings or any other form of in-journey entertainment, I arrived refreshed yet hungry in West Kirby, with only the short one minute walk between me and the two little horrors. Then there's the kids of course.

Our day was to be spent at Gordale Garden Centre and Bathroom World. My step-mother requires a new toothbrush holder. As for the garden centre, who knows. I arrived at Gordale wedged in the back seat between two cocooning EU-regulation safety seats covered in snot and spittle. How that happened when they were actually asleep I'm not quite sure. We had a deplorable jacket potato in the centre cafe. When I ordered one with a baked bean and cheese topping, the bloke behind the counter asked my if I wanted it hot or cold.
"Cold, no wait. I think I'll try it hot this time, thank you."
"No extra charge on that, mind," he said, as if it wasn't already expensive enough already.

Halfway through my warm baked beans I realised that my potato must have imploded with the weight of all the cheese sauce it was sitting in. I discovered a small pebble at the bottom of the dish instead.

After lunch, we inspected the contents of the garden centre, one example of commercial diversification gone mad. I'm sure there were more out-of-date road atlases and dog-related calendars than plants. Then we spotted todays finest attraction. Merwyn Williams was giving a talk on potato growing. Wales' favourite gardener was revealing his tips to the public on how he was won the Annual Welsh Potato Show for the past nine years running. I listened agog as he spilled the spuds on half his life's work. One things for sure though: potatoes and old, balding Welsh men should never have been put in the same potting shed together. Then I went and inspected the junipers.

The Blue Coat Redemption

The same kid is still staring at me from across the dining hall. He's been doing this for the past few minutes. I'm not even sure he's blinked in all that time. Maybe he's dead.

The bell resonates throughout the ill-lit room to proclaim the start of afternoon lessons. I get up and head towards the creaking double doors that predate education itself.

"I understand you're a man who can get things," I hear a voice in my ear. It's that same kid.
"I've been known to locate certain things from time to time," I reply after a pause, slightly interested now in his undivided attention of me.
"How much two grey coursework folders, three highlighters, two yellow, one orange, a black biro and a Brunch Bar?" he asks from the list in his head. I do a quick mental calculation.
"£3.20" I reply, "You can have the pen free. Meet me on the maths corridor at 1:35 tomorrow."
"Thanks," he stammers ambivalently.

It seems business has been flourishing lately. I'm sometimes known as Red around the corridors of chaos that is my college. Last time I checked, selling things wasn't legitimate, although I prefer to call it swapping; cash for goods sort of thing.

The whole thing started a couple of years ago with the newly opened Home Bargains store opposite our school. Although I tend to use some other suppliers from time to time, generally for the more expensive and unusual types of double-ended Fair-trade green gel pens, this store has sewn the seeds of my of current business success.

Coupled with a qualification in Business Studies, I am set to do very well in my chosen area of school-based illegal activity. Others people have chosen more risky careers (generally the extroverts) such as theft, drugs and trying to avoid the dining hall queue system. There are only however, two and a half years left at my college and my turnover isn't exactly exciting. I now find myself regularly journeying over to the other side of the city just to get some cheap folders or writing implements from various warehouses. The problem now is that people are actually realising that it doesn't actually require that much effort to cross the road at the bottom of the hill and go into Home Bargains themselves. People now have the stamina and initiative to avoid my 15% mark-ups.

But, the real secret to my success is not just excellent salesmanship skills, high quality products or low, low prices, but scouting. Before buying anything more expensive than a bus ticket, I will always have a good look around every shop in the city that I can find that would sell a particular product. The same applies to supplies for others. When I have discovered the cheapest option for an item, I will constantly check back on all the other places just to make sure I haven't been getting ripped-off. Any savings will usually be passed onto me, unless particularly large or I need a quick sale, in which case I am my own sales executive with a bit of bartering power. As a Victorian sea merchant would say: "Arghh, I love a good deal!" (In the Sea Captain's voice from the Simpsons)

Thankfully, with everyone so busy and pre-occupied with coursework and detentions for queue-jumping, added to that the shear laziness of my customers, the profits should be bountiful and finance for a university degree secure.

Return of the Train Cowboy

For me, Christmas does not mean worshiping God, Jesus Christ, Mary or any other fictional character from the children's moral story book also known as the 'Bible'. Far from it. For me, Christmas means Iceland mince pies (deplorable), cheap Carol CDs from the 99p store (gut-wrenching) and crappy presents from relatives I haven't seen since I was two (crappy). Unfortunately, I was to visit some of these relatives for the first time in years. On the way there however, I was to spend the night with my grand parents who, I am proud to say, are actually the type you see in the Wherther's Originals adverts, constantly baking cakes, making lemon curd and willingly handing over the television remote for the duration of my stay.

However, the journey was not to be as straight forward as 2004. Why pick a Christmas two years ago you may think? The answer is it was pretty much the same as last year. What follows may shock and awe you but unfortunately will not even cause Chris Grayling to glance up from his morning Telegraph, so filled it is with the intriguing story of Big Brother contestant Realar Shole launching their Autobiography at the age of 12. I'll explain...

I arrived at Liverpool Lime Street with a fist full of sterling and a large and badly designed travel case. I had previously purchased my Young Person's Railcard for a whooping £20 (one thing subsidisation looked past) and only needed the right ticket to board my train. I was to be travelling to Nottingham first, to visit set of aging relatives number one (the one's who live in a lemon curd factory). I was told that there was a bus replacement service between Warrington and Dronfield, but the trains were fully operational between Liverpool and Warrington and this so-called Dronfield, Nottingham and then onto Norwich. Spirits dampened, I ordered a single and awaited my luxurious new Central Trains sprinter train.

Unfortunately, due to some ghastly mix-up between service operators, there was no high-speed, highly air-conditioned Central Trains service, but instead an announcement that make my heart sink and my breath stink: "Central Trains would like to apologise for the delay in your service today. Due to aspects beyond our control, the 15:29 Central Trains service between..." (shuffling of papers and coughing) "...Liverpool and Warrington, has been canceled due to aspects beyond our control. A replacement bus service will operate between Liverpool and Warrington for the 15:29, 16:29 and 17:29 Central Trains services to Warrington."

If my heart was round my knees before, it was round my ankles now. I consulted a nearby rail official for confirmation of this change. "Yup, looks like it, done it?" he replied. I asked him again about the other bus replacement service between Warrington and Dronfield. "Wot? Oh yeh, happens all the time." He then strode off, probably to smoke another fag, this time on platform seven. Eventually, I found someone who directed me to the correct bus stop, which was actually about half mile away.

Finally, after about another half hour wait, an old, crappy double-decker, last used in the Crimean War, lurched dangerously close to my foot and opened its doors after the driver's several attempts with the hydraulic lever system. By now it was getting dark and this was probably a good thing as I didn't really want to see to full contents of the crevice behind the seat where I was sitting. It looked like Florence Nightingale's dress covered in baboon shit. We (myself and four other weary passengers who had obviously just been shopping in Liverpool's overcrowded and badly designed shopping district) then had to endure another fifteen minute wait until the 'planned' departure time, sometime around half past four.

The rest of the initial bus journey was not so bad and I arrived in Warrington at about half past seven. Then, to my astonished and utterly utter amazement, there was a train waiting there on one of the lesser used platforms. A jolly-looking train official bounded down the steps to the coach lay-by where we had just parked. "Good news everyone!" he beamed, as though everything had been perfect and we had all just won massive premium bonds. "There is a train waiting to take us Dronfield!" And like the pied piper (or whatever the guy with the flute and green tights is called is called) he led the thirty-or-so passengers (more had joined at other stations along the route) off back up the steps and frolicked onto the train. I trailed behind, heaving my case up the steps, wishing someone would help me.

Eventually, after a spectacular one hour journey through the mountains at night (I imagined them to be spectacular, even though I couldn't actually see anything; the windows were covered in so much crud. Plus it was night of course) the train arrived at Dronfield. We all disembarked dutifully, dismal now that the novelty journey had ended.

Where to now then, I though. The departures screen confirmed that there was not another local train to Nottingham for about 40 minutes. I noticed a colourful poster on the station wall. It was about the nationally-famous Dronfield lace museum and workshops: open till 6pm Thursdays. Damn. It was only Wednesday.

Instead I found alternative enjoyment at the local fish and chip shop, although the chips resembled fried maggots. This managed to pass the time until the next local train was due. Unfortunaly, about a third of the seat were damaged in some way. Some had been soiled with God knows what, others did not contain padded seats and one had even been removed completely, frame and all. Even worse I had to sit opposite a man who smelled like I was in a urinal and he was using it. I prayed to all the Gods I could think of that he didn't vomit: I was point blank in the firing line.

Familiar sights started to fly past (slowly) as I approached Nottingham. This final train actually arrived slightly early, unless my watch had suddenly packed in. I boarded a bus to take me to the other side of the city, where the 'bakery' was and asked how much a student ticket was. Spying my case, the bus driver replied: "Its the same where ever you go in this country, mate." I paid the him £1 he was asking for and thanked him in a Russian accent.

Travel weary, I scraped my case up the 1/2 gradient hill up to my grandparent's bungalow and collapsed over the threshold in a heap. My grandmother revived me with a massive Victoria sponge and cup of strong tea.

Supporting the Community

Leaving college only yesterday, I thought there must have been a terror alert fluorescent yellow issued, for there were literally hoards of police officers, so-called "community support officers" (trainee cops), traffic wardens and a sprinkling of local travel authority operatives, all attired in the aforementioned colour. But there was no security alert, bank robbery or militant coup.

Instead, these civil servants were carrying out the menial task of ensuring that all bus passengers had the correct tickets and that no-one was parking in the bus stop to access the conveniently placed ATM.

Now I'm not one for meddling in local policy, but I sure do like a good winge about it. In a society that is suffering from terrorism, frequent violent assaults, rape and convicted prisoners roaming the streets, whether or not someone has paid to extortionate minimum fair of £1.50 to travel home one evening should be at the bottom of their 'most wanted' list. No less than 11 of this conglomeration of 'police' were counted by my eyes, and others were probably on their tea break checking no-one had dropped some litter on the next street.

I'm not one for meddling in local policy, but I sure do like a good winge about it

Each time a bus arrived at the stop in front of me (I had to wait there for several minutes because the busiest and smallest bus, i.e. mine, did not arrive on time, again) three of four of these officials boarded along with the other passengers and proceeded along the length of the aisle to check tickets and make sure no-one had their feet on the seats.

Obviously the potential of the traffic wardens was to 'ward' off any driver careless enough to accidently leave their car on the double-yellow no-parking-at-any-time-otherwise-you'll-die lines, whilst extracting cash from the nearby ATM (always remember to get out an extra £30 to pay your imminent fine). Their cars can block the busses getting to the right stop, cauing them to halt on the main road and thus cause carnage and congestion further down the road right next to a motorway (freeway) junction. Stationery cars and a 110kph speed limit only metres away are not best friends.

"What are we doing at a school bus stop?"

However, despite this futile attempt to create clear passage for the busses, they decided to place a sign at the edge of the bus stop lay-by informing of the police authority's clamp down on obstructive drivers.

I didn't think much of this until I realised that they had opted to park their bright yellow police van (I crave for the subtle blue American versions) at the other end of the bus lay-by, thus reducing the capacity of the tarmac stretch. I turned round and saw that each of the officers was oozing irony and incompetence at the seams. Outrage flowed in equal measures from my every orifice.

I eventually boarded my cramped, smelly and generally nauseating ride home. The police and bus company's manifestation strategy to boost public awareness, morale whatever, and make it seem as though they're doing something with their millions failed to rub off on me. Alas, I was mugged during the arduous trek up the hill to my flat.

All Torque, No Walk

What's this? Another blog to clog up the web-waves? Well yes, actually. After contributing sporadically to Jingoistic for the past few months, I have decided to consolidate several projects into this one blog entitled All Torque, No Walk. Readers of Jingoistic will be disappointed to hear that my column at the Daily Mail has not yet been erected. However, this should be the vital stepping stone towards that illustrious position.

Furthermore, analysis of Jingoistic proves that personal anecdotes are more successful than satirical blows at the modern media, particularly politics and video games. If you're not thinking "How about I just never visit this blog again- it reeks", please come again. I promise superior punctuation compared with Jingo.