“I just got back from seeing a ventriloquist 
wasn’t expecting miniature dragons singing Bohemian Rhapsody…”
Strassman
Well, I said this to Josie on Thursday night and it made her laugh. Yes, Joshua graciously invited me along to see David Strassman at the Pleasance Theatre. It was a strange thing – the actual gags weren’t particularly funny and sometimes felt forced, but I’d never seen a ventriloquist before, so to hell with it. The second half picked up and I continued to have this weird feeling of ‘it’s just one guy on stage all this time’. Definitely enjoyable 
Now, Emily has boldly taken up to cause of Lucy deserving more airtime in this blog. I was planning to write about this weekend anyway, of course 
because it was lavly! (Private joke, move along, move along. Dammit – I can’t say ‘move along’ without singing The All-American Rejects to myself. Even when your hope is gone, move along, move along, just to make it through… But I digress.) After meeting up at Euston station after Lucy’s heroic train journey, we travelled to the exotic location of the Queen’s Park bandstand to meet up with anyone who wanted to meet up with us. Which included: Marion! Amber! Emily (who provided minstrels)! Saoirse! Robert (who provided glitter)! Rishal! Clare! It was a great afternoon, and a really nice way to start off the half term.
(Actually, I think in future, all social events should be arranged like this. Getting married? Pop to the bandstand in a nice suit or dress and see who turns up. You’re even covered in case of rain.)
On Saturday we visited Hampstead Heath, because it was the nearest thing to country I could muster. Also because the top of Parliament Hill is a nice spot. 
It also gave me a chance to make Lucy a proper London criminal with the ‘free’ Silverlink trains. You all know my views on Silverlink, however, so it’s OK. Lucy also believes she bumped into Gail Porter, though I was obviously too oblivious to celebrity to notice.
Lucy then departed on Sunday. (Yes, OK Emily, things did happen in the meantime like watching Diet Doctors and planning her crazed dictatorship of the world, but brevity is important.) I then spent the rest of the day reinstalling Windows onto Katie’s PC5, which I was rather pleased about, because it gave me something to do and created that ‘new computer’ feeling again where everything is clean and fresh and You have 76 updates to instally.
Finally! I would like to take a moment (*clears throat*) to celebrate the expansion of the Congestion Charge in London. Partly because so many people have been protesting road charing schemes recently, so here’s the case for the other side. The charge is a Good Thing (TM) and fairer than many of the alternatives. Taxes on petrol, for example, affect everyone whether they live close to good public transport or not. In London, however, if you haven’t even tried to use the bus or the Tube (or – shock horror – your feet!) to get around you shouldn’t complain about having to pay more for it. Not when uncongested roads help save businesses money in reducing traffic jams, or when the environmental impact of unnecessary car driving has never been so obvious. Invest the money into public transport, and London will be a better place for it.
Plus I don’t drive and get free buses. So, yeah 
Saoirse presenting her communist cake
Proof, if proof be needed, that giving shout outs on this blog can lead to great things. At breaktime today, Saoirse presented me with a homemade hammer and sickle cake celebrating the joys of communism. Exactly the right shade of red, and absolutely delicious.
Thanks, comrade!
My Physics lesson seems to be experiencing a bit of a boom time at the moment in finding creative alternatives to work. Our lovely new student teacher has been graced with the nickname ‘Ms Higgs Boson’ as a result of having a double-barrelled name, a geek joke if ever I heard one. My truly excellent cartoons on the backs of paper towels get stolen by Robert, while I’ve also invented the game of the century with the ‘Ran#’ button on my calculator. Yes, folks, up to know I wasn’t aware calculators could generate random numbers but now I do we’re all making up for lost time with outrages dares based on the unlikely probability of correctly picking the number it generates. I actually lost once – on the “you will buy a Mac” dare – so I’m hoping everyone at Babble has given up reading my blog else I’m in big trouble.
Not to feel outdone, History still features the admirable quest to cast a James Bond movie out of our school’s teachers. Out of interest, Mr Cain is definitely the main villain, while Mr Drummond is in the running for Bond. My dad helpfully suggested Mr Muchamore has to be Q, which I fully agree with. My vote is also with Ms Taylor for M. I hope I haven’t offended Mr Wrigley by telling him he’s slightly too moral to be a main character, probably getting killed off fairly early on. But doing something good. Like, being an informer. Sorry!
Moving swiftly on from school… last night I watched Paul Merton’s final show hosting Room 101. It’s never been amazingly laugh-out-loud funny but always interesting to ponder what you would put in yourself – at the moment my list includes buffets, Michael Winner and William Blake.
Checking the news this evening, I also see the shocking revelation that David Cameron smoked drugs at school. It is newsworthy, though, to note what common drug it was. Personally, I’m beginning to doubt whether Mr Cameron is telling the truth. This guy went to Eton and the best he could come up with was cannabis?! Mark my words – we’ll discover in 10 years time that he was actually brought up on a council estate attending Berkshire Comprehensive.
That reference to the class structure is, in fact, a neat link into my resurrected ‘shout out’ blog posts. Saoirse gets it today for deftly arguing the relative merits of Communism at lunchtime, which I’m sure is boring everyone else to death, but I love. One of the many ways in which I’m criticised is, of course, for sneakily promoting my website at school which – in a very indirect way – must surely bump up by Google AdSense by, ooh, about half a penny. But it’s still exploitation of children by indoctrinating them with advertising on Mr Kanj’s whiteboard. Hehe.
The past week or so has been rather hectic But History is cancelled so I’ll take the time to blog again!
Snowy garden
I guess I should start this blog with last Wednesday. There was fresh snow on the ground, you may remember, as mother and I ran (rather breathlessly) to catch a train to Birmingham for the university’s Open Day. Which I came out of rather enthused about, albeit with Cambridge still being the one to aim for
We then travelled deep into the heart of the countryside (well OK, not really) to Cofton Hackett for dinner with Lucy and family. Well, I lie. We actually travelled to Rubery and then walked, which was condemned as Dominic ‘forcing his poor mother to walk through the freezing cold’. Soz, mother! Dinner was lovely though
On Saturday there was another party at Catherine’s place, which was enjoyed by all \ all-who-didn’t-get-ill That night was rather eventful, actually, for a number of reasons I can’t really go onto on here. But suffice to say it set off some events which have upset me recently, but hey, I’m much happier now. I just get worried about other people sometimes 
Then jumping forward to last weekend (all you missed in the meantime was homework and coursework ) I saw Lucy again 
which was just very needed. I showed off at winning Connect 4 (sorry guys) and Matthew made us all laugh by reading Thumbelina complete with voices and a cynical commentary.
Oh that reminds me! Last Thursday I did get time to see Frost/Nixon which was absolutely fantastic and completely gripping. Not for everyone, certainly, but highly recommended for any one geeky about journalism or politics. Like me
Final thought: walking home on Saturday night, I think I saw the most flagrant abuse of apostrophes I have ever seen in my life. A club in Willesden advertising a D’J? What… the hell… is that?
I’ll try and blog properly later but for now I just wanted to throw open a question to the (admittedly not huge) audience.
Is there an actual name for the situation where you believe someone’s argument is fundamentally wrong in two separate ways, but arguing against them both at once seems contradictory?
(Note: ‘arrogance’ will not be accepted )
Examples:
Homosexuality is wrong because it is unnatural
(It is natural, but why would it matter if it wasn’t?)
Darwin recounted evolutionary theory on his deathbed
(He didn’t, but even if he did, it wouldn’t affect the validity of evolutionary theory?)
Chemicals are bad because they are man-made
(Well a great many clearly aren’t, but since when has man-made meant ‘bad’ anyway?)
…and I’m sure you can think of your own. I think it needs a snappier title than ‘you’re-wrong-but-even-if-you-were-right-you’d-still-be-wrong’ syndrome. (Note – I’m not actually asking for a debate on these particular arguments themselves (!) – if you disagree with me on their content, I’m sure you can still think of your own situations where this applies…)
Rob Bell on Baby’s first blog: “Congratulations! Sounds like you are really enjoying the first few weeks which is great. Time flies!” Oct 13, 12:59
