Just back from seeing In The Loop with Owen, Andrew, Matt and Caroline. As a big fan of The Thick Of It I knew this was going to be good but, wow, I don’t know if there will be a film I’ll enjoy quite as much for a long time. Fantastic stuff: I laughed all the way through and (the mark of a good film) didn’t check my watch once. Go see this!
Of course, the flip side is that it comes across as a brutally realistic portrayal of politics. This, one could argue, is a tad depressing. Not unlike the prospects for the UK, actually, and Owen and I had a good time enraging one another on the way home by imagining the upcoming weariness of a Conservative government. It’s all so predictable already: watch out for the token right-wing nasties thrown to the back benchers at times of trouble (bribes for marriage! inheritance tax cuts! privatised police!) which will punctuate the mundane, day-to-day rubbishness. (I originally put ‘privatised police’ as a bit of a joke, but the more I think about it the more plausible it becomes.) This is nothing, however, when it comes to the threat of the BNP in June. People sometimes shrug their shoulders about this since they’ll never be more than a pungent smell from the sidelines. They’re missing the point. Powell didn’t win, either, but it sets a tone of racism which sinks deep into local communities. So, if you wouldn’t mind, could everyone who’s just received one of those pretty white poll cards for 4th June vote please. Labour, Lib Dem, Green, even Tory – I don’t really mind, but just do it 
Ooh, this is clearly going to come out as a bit of a rant. And they never get any comments! So here’s a funny picture instead 
Shameless distraction
(Oh, and I’m going to steal an anecdote from Owen because it’s a good one: he overheard someone proudly announcing that for his 21st birthday his mother had bought him private health insurance. Who does this?!)
It was only after writing today’s to-do list of revision that I realised it may come across as rather ambitious:
To-Do
Five-year-olds are cheerful, energetic, and enthusiastic. They enjoy planning, and spend a great deal of time discussing who will do what. They especially enjoy dramatic play […] Five-year-olds are more sensitive to the needs and feelings of others around them. It is less difficult for them to wait for a turn or to share toys and material. “Best friends” become very important.
This also seems like an appropriate time to mourn the imminent demise of GeoCities, on which this site originated. I know GeoCities sites had a tendency to be incredibly (some might say universally) naff and poorly designed, but I’m also quite fond of the days when people actually tried to hand-build their own websites rather than merely populate Facebook or the ultra-simple Twitter. (I realise this makes me sound like a grumpy old man, but I’m allowed a little bit of fondness ) And now that we have services with the ease and flexibility of WordPress I’m not sure that I would have even bothered learning how to create my own site had I come along a couple of years later than I did. So thank you, GeoCities, for being alluring enough to start me up yet rubbish enough to move me on at the right time!
My GeoCities banner
Yes, I am alive! A little worried about the short-term viability of this blog though, to be honest, because practically the only thing going on at the moment is revision, or talking about revision, or thinking about revision, or panicking about revision, etc. And one unfortunate side effect of spending your days immersed in notes, essay and past exam papers is a tendency to start to reformulate your entire life in the style of essay questions. So:
- Account for the success of Peggle in the friendship group.
- ‘Rambling for the first few lines in something which can only be described as drivel’. How fair is this as an assessment of Nic’s blogging style?
- Which was more important to the success of SexFest: sex or alcohol?
- How significant has chocolate fudge cake been for Dominic during the period 1989-2009?
- ‘I just assumed they were a couple’. Which couple?
I worry about me 
They sailed away
Pussy said to the Owl “You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long we have tarried;
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
