Hellos! We’re back. Back to sunnier-than-thou weather, which is a bit strange. I know you’re only here for the (now traditional?) set of gorgeous photos so let’s just get straight to that, shall we?
We had to take this. We were in Paris!
Got to the top… lovely view…
But obviously just an excuse to pose
With unflappable hair
Historic y’know – Napoleon’s in there
Looking glam!
Carefully built to look exactly like the Da Vinci film set
Armed and dangerous
Jumpin’
Paris is really rather cultured
Or is it? I laughed so much at this
No no no idea what these are
Happy Family Moment (TM)
And no Babble, we haven’t adopted 
but it was Tasha’s birthday today. Hurrah! We all went bowling where I came a slightly-rubbish 3rd out of 5, but there was chocolate milkshake afterwards to soften the blow. (For the record, Tasha won 
)
Non-stereotypical image of Paris
Have fun, wherever you are this half term!
The Da Vinci Code
Of course it’s fiction. So is the Bible, although the latter has by far the larger body count and glaring plot holes. I really wish that this film did better than that sinister Narnia blockbuster, although sadly I don’t think it will.
Incidentally, on the way out of the cinema we ran into a congregation from the Science faculty. Ms Taylor has been duly added to the list of occasional blog watchers, which just demonstrates that people will read anything these days
Oh, and I did quite enjoy the world ‘jpeg’ [sic] being part of the French subtitles. What is Le JPEG is French exactly?
English Literature exam today, on Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance and Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife. Bumbled along happily with Wilde for an hour, although sadly not in a particularly witty section of the play, but with a decent enough question all the same. Then we got to Duffy – where the question was about how a male journalist (Mark Lawson, I found out later) said he ‘felt threatened’ by Duffy’s poetry.
[Sigh]I’m not saying it was a bad question that shouldn’t have ever been set. But it just seems like, every single year, AQA’s format is:
Q. Duffy is a Big Scary Lesbian Feminist, eh eh?
A. No, because….
Yeah, sure, it’s a nice way of catching out the 0.01% of readers who don’t like Duffy. But for the rest of us, isn’t it possible to move on and discuss the themes that actually are in the poetry? She says herself her work is “not to threaten men or anything as tedious as that” – so please, move on!
There’s not much to report about my Maths exam this morning. It went reasonably well, with the usual exam hiccoughs along the way. Strangely, I found Core 1 slightly harder than Core 2 even though it’s obviously ‘easier’ – mainly because I couldn’t check things back on a calculator. It would have saved me from the embarrassing detour as I forgot what 270 / 3 is, anyway… 
I mean, on a calculator paper, if you have to prove that something or other is 12, and you do it, and your calculator tells you it’s 12, and you write it down… how wrong can you be? Fingers crossed anyway!
Next Exam: Friday, English Literature. Should be fun. Then it’s half term anyway, and a couple of days in Paris, ‘revising’ naturally.
By the way, it’s good to see that the plans to change the system so you apply to university after A-level results come out are rumbling ahead, albeit slowly. The present system is so obviously broken – you wouldn’t apply for a job before passing your degree, would you? All it does it benefit the arrogance of private schools who over-estimate grades, pushing state school students out of the system altogether before the results come out.
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
