Yesterday (back when we were sensibly using GMT instead of this BST nonsense – have to change blog settings again) I went on a little recce to Oxford partly to see what it was like, and also to meet up with Josie and Lucy (who was Alton Towersing (see comments) last Saturday). The funny thing was that I found it a bit small and towny – even more so than Cambridge – while they found it large and peopley 
Oh, and I broke McDonald’s.
Incidentally, someone in the train station said ‘boofet’ over the PA system. And when Birmingham and London people both agree it’s ‘buffet’ with a silent t you know there’s been a linguistic error. Which was confirmed by linguistic parents today. Hurrah.
I think Cambridge wins out over Oxford for me, so far. But that assumes I can get in. Hence the slightly reduced blog posts recently as I rush around doing homework and coursework and work of any nature whatsoever 
It’s only one week till the Easter holidays though! And hopefully, as well as getting Maths and ICT coursework done, and as well as revising hard for, ur, everything else, I will have the time to implement some planned tweaks to this site. Stay tuned!
Oh and I need to make a ‘browser compatibility statement’ so here goes: I only plan to design for the very latest non-beta versions of Firefox and Opera. Of course with Internet Explorer it’s slightly harder. At the moment I will try to ensure that everything works in IE6 (I don’t go lower than IE6, sorry!) and IE7 even when IE7 goes final – but IE7 has so many rendering improvements that I do strongly encourage all readers to upgrade when it goes final sometime this year. In the meantime I have a bit of a problem as I can’t check the site in IE6 so easily, so if you spot any glaring errors, lemme know!
And finally – Happy Mother’s Day! In Oxford we saw rather too many cards saying ‘For my wife on Mother’s Day’ which I thought was soliciting the crime of incest and therefore rather dodgy. No one outside of the Self clan will get this (inside joke!), but I might as well link to what passes for a card from me 
Tis the thought! (Which reminds me, am I the only one counts my mother as a – sadly non-RSS – blog reader?)
It’s a bit of a ‘what happened next’ post tonight. For anyone following the exciting Rummikub series I mentioned last time, Katie won on Monday and I won on Tuesday and Wednesday. Assuming the last match is tomorrow (and it will be unless Mum is delayed, so please don’t be 
) I’ll have a minimum of 3/5 and therefore overall majority and victory! Hooray!
It has also come to my attention that many of you have not played Rummkiub.
Jason – Before and after
What else has been happening? Well in English we’re reading A Woman of No Importance which has a peculiar train of argument in it so far: “Men and women have pre-marital sexual affairs, but it’s only the woman who gets shamed and ostracised. (So far, so Christina Aguilera) In the interests of equality, let’s punish the men too!”
I’m having difficulty working out whether making each gender feel equally guilty about sex is a progressive or regressive step
Oh and talking of progressive steps, a little woo to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Should creationism be taught in schools? “I don’t think it should, actually. No, no.” Nice one. You were wrong about selective schools, but nice to have the Church onside for once.
Regular MSN chatees will know of my fondness for a Quote of the Day, but a few days ago I stumbled across something truly exceptional that I’d like to end with, from MediaGuardian:
“I was watching with a school friend and we wanted to see something fun but then there were all these horrible pictures of naked people.”
And on that note, goodnight!
Today was a rather amusing day on several counts 
aside from being March 20th (although apparently March 14th counts too, so says Wikipedia, those with no idea what I’m talking about should discard this sentence.)
The first incident occurred in History where we entered to find the board defaced with some frankly immature messages implying that they disliked the school, that they preferred certain sexual positions and most notably a charming phallic illustration. So far so good. However, one member of the class did not appreciate the illustration, taking a full 15 minutes to catch on. Apparently, he\she had viewed it as ‘An A with two 0s’
Rest assured said person will now bear that catchphrase for the rest of his\her life.
Our assembly today took place in the gym with us all sat at little exam desks so we could do a little Reasoning Test for a university researcher, but first Mr. Birch came to sell PhotoReading once again. And denounced me! “SOMEONE in this hall I know doesn’t agree with PhotoReading, questions the ETHICS of PhotoReading…” as I sat at the back grinning. (For the record it was very nice and good natured and don’t shoot me!)
Well here’s the deal. There are perfectly valid techniques which I’m sure you pick up on these courses. Skim reading, scanning, concentration, etc. If you want this, go for it! I have, however, a healthy scepticism of the ‘PhotoReading’ component which has – as far as I can see – never undergone a scientific peer-review.
So that’s that. Have a lovely afternoon. 
P.S. Oooh I nearly forgot! Mum has gone away for the week so we perform the ancient tradition of Dad, Tash, Katie and I playing Rummikub each night. And I won the opening match! Woot 
Woo hay! This morning at around 7.30 I got up, which may sound unremarkable but Nic’s RV crew had all been up since about 3 in the morning to get a coach to London. So I hopped along to meet them. There was actually something weird about seeing people in real life for the first time actually. A bit like meeting a celebrity from TV, but with added Brummie accents.
See, I am real after all!
So, we all headed on the wonderful Tubular Railway – me with my Oyster card and everyone else with those amusing paper tickets. And we went to Oxford Street so people could shop, and then on to Westminster for the touristy things like looking up at Big Ben and the London Eye and going “Oh look, it’s Big Ben and the London Eye.” Far more interesting was the tail-end of those anti war protests which we ran into. And nicked some of their posters!
I’ve also been asked to announce on the blog that Jason will be shaving off his hair. Nice, Jason. I also need to take a moment to denounce the cynical marketing strategy that GG has adopted. After some initial high-brow podcasts, a character called ‘No Name Toony’ was brought in in an obvious attempt to sell some merchandise to small children later on. I am disgusted. Vent your anger at GG by all going and listening to his podcasts now.
Apologies for the dearth of blogging, I’ve been rather busy running around with all little bits of work. Tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with Nic, Josie et al on their London Adventurey thing. Hurrah!
Patel Pier
Cash for Piers, it’s the hot new thing.
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
