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.
Lovelydarlings! That’s a LucyPhrase (TM) for Lucy who complains at a paucity of shout-outs. I realise the blog has been looking a bit bare this week, so let’s catch up with the fun and entertaining life that is Me.
Big Brother. No, I didn’t watch it. No, I’ve never watched it because it’s utterly terribly boring. However, in order to stay vaguely in the cultural loop, I did the slightly evil thing of getting someone else to watch it and feed back to me any important details, so in case of accidental conversation I won’t suddenly say “Oh Mickey, he sounds nice” or “Pfft, they’d never steep so low as to put a guy with Tourette’s in there, stop being stupid.” Incidentally, next year I predict a Nazi, a foetus, a robot and a junior ‘celebrity’ member of the Taliban. My money’s on the foetus for the public vote, although the surprise entrance of a dead llama half way through might just swing it.
Back in the real world – Monday is 3 Hour Maths Exam Day With Extra Capital Letters For Emphasis. I’ve just finished another practice exam right now, and I can do it all except for Prove that (cos x + sin x)^2 + (cos x – sin x)^2 = 2. If you would like to telephone vote your answer in, feel welcome. (To anyone worried, I do have a vague idea of how it might be done and I will do it before tomorrow. Promise.)
Yesterday was examy too, 2 hours of English mock at 9am on a bright and lovely rain rain rainy Saturday morning. Still, at least Holly was nice enough to phone me afterwards with what I got. (She read my paper after I left… which is, ur, an interesting tactic in an exam.)
Oh and I should also mention Doctor Who, and <spoiler alert> the departure of Mickey Smith to a parallel universe (roll over to read) which I certainly didn’t see coming. Neither did my mum, who is most upset and threatening not to watch until Russell T changes his mind.
This is not forgetting Eurovision, of course, although there isn’t a great deal to write about. The tactical voting, well, it’s gotten a bit tiresome now. Someone has even written up a paper on it, including this useful diagram of what has happened in the past couple of years. Having said all that, it’s nice to know that Ireland still feel sorry enough for us to swing us some votes… 
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
