I have so totally decided to steal someone else’s style of formatting text because it’s a rather gorgeous way of writing and they’re not here to object, hehe.
We’ve rather decided to give up on school with all the lessons now either cancelled or at least pretending to be. Today was the sexy Sixth Form Hampstead Heath pic-a-nic (OK, sorry, picnic) which was terrifying for a moment as the teachers managed to outnumber the students. Still, it was nice to dip your feet in the lake during the continuing hotter than the hottest hot heatwave.
*(That’s Katie, for those not in the know)
Yes, it’s past midnight and I shouldn’t be up, but it is truly Katie’s 11th birthday today. Huzzah! Ah, I remember being that age. Even more so since it was the ‘Welcome to QPCS’ evening tonight which I tagged along to for nostalgia reasons. My dad and I invented a new (snowy) Canadian town – Happenmattersmattersnow – out of all the words that were exclamation marked on the back of the PTFA leaflet. Say it out loud joyously!
I bought Katie’s present at the Bull Ring in Birmingham cause that’s where I was all weekend, happily invited to Lucy’s dad’s 50th birthday party as documented by the ever-wonderful Josie here – who now becomes my most seen Birmingham person ever with a grand total of 5 occasions! Oh and congrats for running the Sport Relief mile, something Joshua did back here in Lon to the Don too.
Incidentally, in the morning at Lucy’s house we found surely on of the funniest books ever made: a Brit’s guide to Disney World Florida. With such helpful advice such as ‘if your kids want to eat chicken nuggets solid for 2 weeks, let them. It won’t kill them and will make mealtimes easier for you!’ and ‘if you’re tempted to doctor your receipts to avoid export tax, don’t, it’s illegal’. OK well it was amusing at the time 
We’ve had months of headlines about the dangers of MySpace, Bebo and the other social networking websites. The US Government has been making regulatory noises, the media boiling and bubbling cases of toil and trouble online, and schools all too eager to write home warning of their perils. The schools irritate me the most, actually, with their brazenly populist appeal to parents attempting to score a few easy brownie points by saying ‘We blocked Bebo’ as if it had been a gigantic struggle.
How curious, therefore, to see the following on BBC News today. As part of an effort to deter bullies in schools, children will be able to vote on the worst offenders in their school via a website.
“Bully Beater is part of the School Poll service used to gauge children’s opinions on a number of subjects. It lists all pupils in a school alphabetically, allowing their peers to rank them on a bullying scale.”
(Emphasis mine)
Oh good! So anyone with access to this website would have a list of every single pupil in the school. Will there be logins? Sure. Aren’t there logins to Bebo and Myspace too?
On a much better note, Yahoo and Windows Live Messengers have now linked up, as long promised. That’ll be more scary online people to talk to then… 
I had walked most of the way home today when I stopped. Babble CDs playing in my ear, unworn hoodie (not huggable, sorry Andy) swaying about my shoulders in the sun, I suddenly realised I was missing something. What’s that? Oh yeah, my bag. I retraced my steps quickly thinking it would really be a good idea to find it, if I had put it down on the street somewhere, before 3.25 when the hordes of kids come out. As it happens, I traced my steps all the way back to the science classroom and there it was.
Dominic, you’re getting old… said Ms Saleem, helpfully.
I also realise today I haven’t actually blogged about the Doctor Who finale last Saturday but, after watching it again today, I can safely say how amazing and emotional it was. Daleks! Cybermen! “This is not war, this is pest control!” But the most touching moment must surely be The Doctor and Rose up against the wall in each universe, separated, forever. Well it makes the child inside me swell up emotionally anyway 
Katie’s Induction Day into QPCS is tomorrow. One piece of advice for secondary school? Whatever you do, don’t do anything insanely stupid like blog at nearly 2 in the morning instead of going to sleep. Oh and on the topic of school – would anyone like me to publish my gently jibing essay, Sexual Prudishness in the Humanities Department? If the readers demand…
I picked up an inflatable hammer from the school’s summer fair on Saturday (lucky dip) which proudly proclaims ‘Kid Power’. Never would I have guessed that his would soon be David Cameron’s policy platform. He’s starting to annoy me a bit now, actually. Pretty soon he’ll be quoting Marx. That’s not to say what he said was necessarily wrong but it just all smacks of the kid at the back of the class who’s flunked three general elections and is now copying desperately from the textbook to pass the next one.
On Saturday I also bugged Robert to introduce the famous Tanysha to the gang, who is deserving of a shout out (howdy) in an effort to show what nice people we are. Oh OK, my real motive is… I don’t have a real motive because we really are nice people 
The other half of the weekend I spent in Suffolk with dad, seeing grandparents and exploring graveyards and countrysidey walks and such. I thought we were all cultured in the car on the way back with Mozart on his mix tape, until it changed to ABBA, in a perfect example of what my English teacher would term bathos
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
