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.
25 April 2007
18 April 2007
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.
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.
06 April 2007
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)
Want a taster of my experiences with national transport? The Return of the Train Cowboy (January 2007)
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