I put ‘The Dom is back’ in my screenname the other day and too many people wondered where I’d gone, so what I meant is, I’m back in business people 
Yes, school, work, going to bed at reasonable (ur, ‘more reasonable’) times, homework, deadlines, gossip, shock gossip – you get the idea
Here’s a quick run down of the ups and downs of the last few days:
Thursday – Back to school! Yay!
Friday – Got my phone stolen on the way back home from school. 
Long story… he ended up giving us (I wasn’t alone) our SIM cards back, which is oddly considerate in a very sideways look at it. But he did say we had ‘fucking boring phonebooks’ which, given I have an entry called ‘Pingu’, I thought a bit unkind.
Saturday – Took Tasha to visit Birmingham and meet Andy (who has a l33t house) and then later Nic and Josie – who posed together when I abandoned them for a short period, of which Nic decided to invent wild explanations for. Tsst Nic. Tsst.
Sunday – Queen’s Park Day! No, not for fun – I volunteered and carried chairs \ put up fences \ had Mr. Birch pay for my lunch whilst wearing a sexay yellow shiny top thing that Important People wear.
Sorry for the brevity, though it’s probably a welcome relief. Maybe I should implement a voting system – if you’d like to hear more about Thursday, text THUR to… (and yes, you can still text me, I’m using my old phone.)
PS – Almost missed out on Brent Council’s Irony of the Week (TM) – handing out green ‘Recycle – it’s cool’ wristbands. In hundreds and hundreds of little individual plastics bags.
London Overground
Talking of TfL, once I’m back at school (from tomorrow!) I should be able to apply for free bus travel for under 18s, which comes in effect this month. I’m sure it’ll mean yet another new Oyster card, but oh well 
Katie has her first day at Queen’s Park today, incidentally, so for one year only it’ll be all three of us trying to avoid each other in the corridors 
The 39 Steps
Anyway, tonight we saw The 39 Steps, basically a spoof of the famous Hitchcock film (which I’d managed not to have seen or heard of before) with a cast of four. And… about 150 characters. (That’s… not an exaggeration.) Incredibly fast paced and entertaining and just… so so enjoyable, it sent itself up brilliantly. Oh, go read a proper review cause I won’t be able to say anything bad about it, I loved it. Yay.
Incidentally, a group of women sitting on the row behind us had a most, ur, unusual conversation before it began. This is a word-for-word recollection of what one of them suddenly blurted out:
“I had a very sexy dream about David Cameron last night!”
I froze and jabbed the person next to me (which happened to be mum) to check I hadn’t heard wrongly. But no, I hadn’t. If the Tories win the next election I’ll now know why – erotic adventures of the subconscious starring that dashing young lad from Eton. Urgh… I shudder. “Are you sure we’re not just being unkind because they’re Tories? Didn’t you ever have dreams of Neil Kinnock, mum?” The answer was a swift yet firm no.
Strange. I blog more in the busy term time than during the long summer holiday. I think it’s the lack of routine, and the lack of ‘incident’ so that I can’t come home and blog “Oooh at school today we met Ricky Martin” in one neat, tidy post. That’s not to say nothing’s happening! But… maybe when Alex Trafford runs at you in the park to give you a hug you know it’s time to get back to the geek community of bloggers writing about nothing
(Haven’t seen SoaP though, because I think it would actually disturb me. The sheer… unimaginable… horror… of having a group of them all coming for you at once, venomous bites, fear in the whites of their victim’s eyes – yes, I’m talking about an army of hyping bloggers, of course 
)
I guess I do have one public service bit of news to blog – apparently, according to sources – Queen’s Park achieved their 50% 5 A*-C target for GCSEs this year. Put this into context that last year we got 40% – yes, a blip year – but it’s still a massive 25% improvement*. You have to feel a bit miffed, though, what was so wrong with us? The signs aren’t looking good for our AS results other, the signs being that it has been impossible to extract gossip from the school about them during the summer. Can’t bloggers get a seat on the SMT meeting? No? Fine. Be like that. You’re so Web 1.0, school.
Talking of school, I really need to write my personal statement \ complete my online UCAS form \ decide which unis I actually want to \ apply to do that pesky Maths homework \ read Hamlet \ find out about the French Revolution \ buy precious stationary \ tidy my shelf so that I have room for new work after last year’s worksheet bonanza. (It was cathartic writing that!) In my defence, I have finished reading Regeneration and am well stuck into Birdsong now – more elaborate reviews to follow. Probably. At this rate of blogging, probably sometime in 2008, but we’ll try and speed things along.
Message Corner: Happy Birthday, Carolyn! Fingers crossed, Andrew! Time to resign, Blair!
P.S. I also expect no complaints about the laziness in categorising posts. Might try ‘rationalising’ that soon. You know, 2012ish.
[*Just in case you think of correcting this to a 10% improvement, please don’t]
Wow, so it was. Mega congratulations to everyone who triumphed in their exams this summer – in Birmingham at least, you’ve all done brilliantly! (There’s Nic, Andy, Lucy 
and Josie there but I’ve also heard great things from Nathan, Lou, Fliss… and more. Well done!)
There was some sad news today, however. Pluto – our beloved ninth planet – has been stripped of its status and will shortly be removed from the collective consciousness, leaving only eight planets in our solar system. Yes, I understand why it had to happen. But it’s still upsetting. My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets, I was taught, by Mr. Fisher in Year 5 to be precise. All gone now. 
At least Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 today, and finally fixed a UI bug I’d moaned about for ages. Huzzah! Savour the small victories Dominic…
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
