What could have turned out to be an unsatisfacory day (all my family hate me; rushed shopping in Lincoln; stuck in traffic 30 minutes into the game; nowhere to park) turned out pretty darned good (no-one on the turnstiles to take our money; scored as soon as we got there; won two nought with a rainbow in the background).

So I want you to help me with this:

Sixpence and I are in the car playing a juvenile "Guess the animal" game and I'm struggling to guess the animal beginning with "w" (which, as it happens, was Walrus) so I ask her for a clue. Specifically, I ask her "What's the next letter after W?"

Helpfully she says "x" and I continue guessing...Wxflume? Wxytosis? Wxsteedpark?

How many of you, in her position, would have said that x was the next letter? Go on, hands right up.

How many of you would have thought I meant WHAT IS THE NEXT LETTER IN THE ALPHABET AFTER W?

Nobody? Thought not.

I thought she was going to wet herself laughing.

Up the Shakers and all that

These "Miss You" nights
Are the longest.

During 2004 there were 74,770 people in prison in England and Wales serving either a custodial sentence or on remand. This has risen 50% over the last decade (Department for Education and Skill (2004), Offenders’ Learning
Journey). According to the Prison Service Annual Report 2003-04 the cost of keeping an individual in prison during 2004 was £27,320. Therefore, there is both a social and economic argument for preventing re-offending and providing the appropriate skills for employment would seem to be a positive solution for many of those who have been involved in the criminal justice system.

Not much to laugh at there, is there?
Sorry. I'll be blogging about the goverment next. Stop me if I do. I had that Gotrdon Brown in the back of my cab once and I telll you... (cont. Blogpage 94)

Dull dull dull course.
Afterwards, went into Borders and bought Combat Rock for 4 quid.
Glanced at a book called The History of The Fanny. Turned out to be about some new yoik jewellers. I don't know what's wrong with me.

http://www.tiffany.com/International.aspx

It was twenty years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile.
So may I introduce to you
The act you've known for all these years....

Even more obscure than usual, but it's 5:45 am on Sunday morning for goodness sake it's the hippy shake.

Radio Four Sat 11:50am
A feature on Chinese food.
It's very popular in this country, apparently, even though we it features some dishes deemed socially unaccceptable over here.

I knew the EXACT PHRASE that was acoming next:
"A steaming plate of dog."

Last night watched the tedious, other-worldly Trinny and Susannah documentary, in which a succession of posh twits ( one of whom was alternately captioned "A fiend of Viscount Linley" and "A Friend of Susannah's former boyfriend") and which was briefly enlivened by an appearance by Chris Donald, who ran a cartoon piss-take of "Fatty and Skinny" and was threatened by legal action. His response was to run another one the next week.

In his Viz magazine.
Which, by a bizarre coincidence, featured another catchphrase which is EXACTLY THE SAME as what the guy on the radio is eating:

BIG DOG'S COCK!

Enjoy your lunch.

Had an appointment today with "Person who used to be Responsible for Behaviour and Attendance"
She didn't turn up! Oh how we laughed at the irony!
She finally arrived 30 minutes too late to do anything.

At least that gave the time to mark some Year 9 books, where I found the following beautifully typed gem to brighten my afternoon:

"I pressed my hand against the stone cold door and it opened slowly, creaking. It smelt strange as it had been shit up for so many years. Dust covered everything."

Her mother will be so Proud!

frustrating bastard afternoon sending e:mails back and forth between two computers that were next to each other...one with all the stuff on it...the other with a printer attached...and of course there are easier methods, such as a memory stick ("Windows has found new hardware and is prepared to search to the ends of the earth to make it work...nah, only joking , Windows can't be arsed...Windows recognises the memory stick that worked yesterday, and has decided to shun it royally and pretend we've never met") or a usb cable (Printer has called the police; you are not sticking that thing in me;I'm a serial port kind of girl)....and...and...and...

Me: Can I use this Grand's worth of colour laser printer?
Head of Resources: It's just for me really.

So I ended up e:mailing it to her machine, 3 metres away from the other two pCs who had passed the "getting to know" you stage and had gone outside for a shag.

How long? Don't panic!
I've already unloaded the day's excesses on Six, but I might as well give you the edited highlights.
After last night's threat to withhold the wee lad from my the ten minutes I get to see him 3 days a week, I turned up this morning and, despite a bit of a wait, did get to see him and take him to nursery - which was probably the best bit of the day. It certainly went downhill thereafter!
Fairly intensive morning's teaching, during which time I had to complete 4 page document relating to the course I should have been on. I'd not got the time off work so was going to make it for the afternoon only. But first I had to run a lunchtime detention and then schlepp across the city, which made me 10 minutes late and flustered. One of the course leaders attempted to talk me through the 3 hours I'd missed, but there was a good reason it took 3 hours CM so don't bother next time.

Grabbed some speaker cable and some 4 gang sockets to replace the one I nicked to make the stereo work (yay!) so that I can make the Surroundsound dvd work (yay!) and then hit bad traffic (boo!) and forgot where I was going (boo!)and lost my phone in the car (boo!) because it's full off old mags, bits of computer, old books and other shite (boo!) so I have a nervous breakdown (boo!)but finally arrive at the same time as Joe's van (yay!) and manage to get the settee out of the house (yay!) but find that it won't fit in our house (boo!) but manage once I've taken the sliding door off (yay!)and then I get to sit, lie slouch and generally veg on it for two hours (YAY!)

So on balance, I think I'm up on the day.Hope you had a good one.

...of her own accord to Bermuda.
Q: When is teaching like being a really really terrible music hall comedian?
A: All the time!

This morning, an icebreaker exercise with Y6 where they need to tell me two facts, one of which is false.
Child fact 1: I was born on the same day as Winston Churchill
Child fact 2: My mother is from Canada.

After a brief warm up (Well, I don't think you mean you were born on the same date because then you'd be very very ho ho ho old) I went in for the kill:
Me (a la Poirot): Your mother was not born in Canada!
Kid (awestruck): Wow, brilliant! She was born in America.
Me (a la Richard or Judy, you choose): And which part of America is she from?
Kid (a la mo): Alaska!
Me (a la Les Dawson): Well when she tells you, let me know.
Blogland (a lav Lucy): Good grief, Charlie Brown.

What the devil is this?
If you have ever had a "conversation" that began "a/s/l?" then you'll know this isn't really a good idea. It's good to know who is online, but spare me the m42!

I have found a shoe.
I have a text message wishing I was dead.

If you can dream, but not make dreams your master,
If you can think, but not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
And treat those two impostors just the same
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken,
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn out tools.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Then yours is the world, and all that's in it,
And, which is more, you'll be a man my son.

Stolen from blah blah
• Bold: books you’ve read
• Italics: books you’ve started but not finished
• Ordinary print: books you’ve never read

I'd like to add some more categories to this.
*Books I've never heard of, for shame!
Underline: There's film: it's safer

Books that are somewhere in the garage, the greenhouse or my last house! This is a scrarily large category, and I'm stopping now cus it's too depressing and I suspect I should be doing something else!

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
* 28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* 33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton – what?
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Saw it on stage in Nottingham, in the days when I had a daughter who would talk to me. Does that count?
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo [Film version 1998]
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
*124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
* 125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walkerher, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
My copy is from a prison library. How cool?
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
* 160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon (called Outlander in the US and Canada)
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
* 183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
* 196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

OK, I haven't got much to say about today. There are several "Today sucked" posts hits the wires already, so just file me with those.

However, while waiting for inspiration from the ether, I noticed a little Norton AV balloon that said "One item is affecting your status: Fix Now?"

Like a sucker I clicked yes. Can you hear that whirring in the distance? It's the hard disk churning itself up while Norton AV scans 6 million files for a virus. Look, you didn't say that was what you were going to do! You promised me a painless, quick solution to whatever fictitious problem you thought you'd detected. Stop it. Please stop it. Please.

Blogging about anti-virus software! Man, today sucked!