Engagement- The Official Story

Dan and I got engaged! This is the official story of how it happened from my side:

If you haven't read 'The story of Han and Dan' in March 2009 that is the prequel. I will start this part of our life story on Monday 6th December, when we both had a day off work and went for a lovely walk on Winter Hill- which is a wintery hill with snow and horses near Bolton (I'm not sure what happens to it in the summer.) Dan had been acting suspiciously for months and we had talked about getting engaged quite a bit, although it was all a bit in code, we used the word 'marriage' very rarely but we'd quite often discuss issues that are further ahead than that such as: would we find out the sex of our potential baby before it was born?- this implied marriage but was a bit less scary because it was more hypothetical.

From my detective work I had worked out the probability of him proposing on the Winter Hill day to be around 70% and I have since discovered that he was planning on doing it then but the ring didn't arrive in time. So we had a lovely day but no proposal. I wondered after that day if it was ever going to happen, and then came the actual day that he proposed. (19th December.) This day was the last day before I went back home to the midlands to see my family and make a life sized elephant. Dan drove from southport to Liverpool to visit me and we had our pretend Christmas where we exchanged gifts. We decided it would be fun to dress up so Dan dressed as Santa and I dressed as a elf. What I didn't realise till afterwards was that he had to stop at the service station on the way to buy credit and then phone my Dad to ask his permission. It didn't go as well as it could of because Sarah picked up the phone (who sounds like me) so then Dan thought he had accidentally phoned me and started talking to her as if she was me before realising, then he introduced himself as Daniel not Dan which further confused my Dad who didn't know who he was.- he did all this dressed as Santa, only to arrive at mine and see me in my normal clothes coz I was too embarrassed to be a elf on my own in my house before he got there.

We swapped presents and stuff and then Dan for some unknow reason (now I know) wanted to go to my room, so we went up and I was tiding the room around him a bit and then he said 'I've got an extra little gift for you, close your eyes' so I did and when I opened then he was down on one knee saying 'will you marry me' holding a ring. I was very surprised but said yes straight away. I'm glad I thought about my answer before though, you can't really decide something like that on the spot, especially as in the moment their was so many weird emotions that if he'd have asked something less important like 'is a sausage dog a type of dog or a type of sausage?' I would have found that very had to answer. I really have no memory of what happend in the next 1o minutes or so, I know we talked and hugged but I don't think either of us made much sense because of all the adrenalin.

After that time we started telling people which was really fun. We phoned his parents first just to give me Dad an extra few minutes to digest the fact that Dan had asked permission, before he had to digest the fact that I'd said yes. Then we went to our church carol service and told people so there was this lovely scene of candles everywhere and the gospel choir singing and then someone would scream or jump up and down because we'd just told them. afterwards we went to a bit of a party at Tina's and Luke bought us some champagne to celebrate. That night I only got 1 hours sleep because I was so excited. Here is the ring, I love it! (even though my sister says it looks like a uterus)

p.s Some people might think it's weird that he proposed dressed as Santa, but I think that everybody who proposes should be dressed as an old fat man because it's easy to say yes to an attractive man in their 20's ...but you have to remember they will one day be old and fat so by agreeing to marry an old fat man anything else is a bonus.

My Made-up Curriculum

This week was my last week working in schools before the Christmas holidays...then my job will be making a life sized elephant for a protest. I love being an artist.

This week in school has been interesting. I'm more used to secondary school aged children I've forgotten how much little children don't know. They really don't know anything, there's no way they could function on their own without help, we should really come up with some kind of system by which they can learn all the things they need to know in life. Sometimes I forget that they have to learn stuff in stages and I can't just talk about art at university level to them, although I have tried.

I'm not into the whole 'lets talk to children in a different voice than our normal voice' thing. Do teacher's actually know they're doing that? I find it amusing when I walk into a classroom and teacher is talking in this very sing-songy patronizing way, and then I have a little bet with myself about whether they have a normal voice that they use for adults or not. So far I've only met one teacher who has no adult setting on their voice box. it creeps me out talking to them, I feel like I'm in trouble all the time.

My method is to just talk normally but try and change my vocabulary a little bit so they can understand, as I don't generally use long words this is an easy task for me. The curriculum for art is very vague I figured I can teach what I like, I do the usual school stuff like Picasso and Monet ect but I like to throw in the odd Mentally ill Japanese instillation artist or contemporary political Palestinian artist into the mix. My students may not know how to colour neaty in the lines but they are at least very socially and politically aware, which is what you need if you're going to be an artist. You don't go to see the turner prize to see very neat colouring in do you? It was yesterday when I used the phrase 'born in exile' when I realised I had gone to far. 'what's exile?' what's a refugee?' 'why are they refugees?' 'when did the artist make a Islamic prayer mat from a bed of nails?' I realised in that moment that you can explain why an artist would make a Islamic prayer mat from a bed of nails, to people who still believed in Santa.

Miss Marshall the Christmas Decoration

This week I taught a lesson where the class had to invent a new product and make a poster to advertise it. There were a lot of funny ones but this was by far my favorite if you can't read it it says:

'With the Miss Marshall Christmas decoration your home will never be dull on Christmas, she will brighten up your mood and melt out the sadness in you. Act now and get a free Miss Marshall doll. Miss Marshall Christmas decoration costs £1.50. Song: she is Miss Marshall the snow girl and she loves to play.'

How cool is that?! I know it's a bit big headed, but I'd buy one, in fact I might buy a few dozen and decorate my tree entirely in me dolls.

I love working in primary schools, it's kind of like being a celebrity, you walk into a room and all the kids are like 'Miss Marshall's here hoary.' I don't think that is just because they love me, I think it's got a lot to do with the fact I bring paint and glue guns and bags of sparkly bits with me wherever I go. Children are like magpies when you get out shinny things.

But I do love it, some kids made me a christmas card this week, and because it was my last week in that school they were really sad. I like it when they say they enjoyed the lesson or they tryed something I taught them at home, but there's a couple of girls that take it a bit too far and say that I'm pretty or I smell nice, all nice things but a little weird coming from a random 10 year old. It does make a change from my old job where I got two bikes vandalised by students I taught, and death threats, and one student was overheard plotting to 'bang me' (which by the way means beat me up, not get it on with.) I love this new freedom of going into work with a spot, and knowing that it probably won't be pointed out.

My Family

I have recently decided to diss-own my sister Sarah. But before doing that I thought I owe her a little explanation. If you don't know me because you're just a weird internet stalker, I'm going to tell you about my family maybe you can stalk them too. I have two little sister's that are attually bigger than me, Sarah (age 16) and Jo (age 21) and then I have the regular relatives that most people have ie parents. In my extended family (which I accedentally called my 'pretend family' the other day) I have 3 aunties and 2.5 uncals, 66.66 reacuring % of my aunties are auntie Jills/Gills and 33.33reacuring % of my aunties are non Jills/Gills, don't worry I won't put a maths question at the end of this. I have no grandparents, but Dan has 4 so he said I could borrow at least 1 of his- I think I'll probabley go for the accordian playing french grandad. I have 6 cousins, 2 of the long lost variety and 4 of the regular kind. 50% of the non-long lost kind live in a very different culture to most people I know, they are very 'londonny' and by this I mean:

They are not in constant awe of technology everytime they ride the tube.
They think £4 in an acceptable price for a sandwidge.
They have never seen a real life tree.

But back to my sister...I'm pretty much the reson she's alive in the first place, when I was 7 or 8 I kept asking for a dog and then I changed tac and started asking for a baby sister. and when she was between the ages of newborn and 2 I was a very lovely big sister:


Awww. but you can't really blame me for not spending a load of time with her after that, I asked for a baby sister, not an atual person who can argue back. Over the years since I left home I felt that we have bonded over our shared intrest in art. I've always fancied being that nice carring supportive big sister role where she would look up to me and appreciate my artistic acheivements, and go to see exhabitions with me ect. My other sister Jo was never going to forfill this role...she's studing medcine now-how will that ever help society?! So Sarah is doing art GCSE and she always shows me her sketch books and stuff, she a far more talented at art than I was at her age. But last time I went home she droped a bombshell on me....her A level choices - French, Biology, Psychology and Maths. MATHS MATHS! why oh why would you do MATHS! and to add insult to indury she's even considering doing further maths! Her art teacher attually said to her that 'she'd broken her heart' I personally think that this teacher needs to get out more. I'm not attually heart broken I just need to find a new aprentice now that I'm the only member of my family that hasn't done maths for A level.

I'm thinking of getting one of my cousins I'll probably go for the youngest one Joshusa who is about 6 the younger they are the more impressionalable they are. So in 20 years time if your watching the tunner prize- look out for him.

Comedy Kisses

An incident on sunday which I shall not disscuss here inspired me to write this blog.


I think kissing is a weird concept, I mean it's normal because we're all used to a world in which kissing exsists, but if you were from a plannet where you never kissed, then I think it might be one of the things you struggle with culturally. Like clapping, I think it's odd when large groups of people bang their hands together to show they like something, and drinking cow's milk- it's clearly designed for baby cows, it kind of should be weirder for an adult to drink a cow's milk than for an adult to drink human milk, but for some reason it's not.

I know everyone is nervous on their first kiss, but think how nervous the people doing the first ever kiss would be, I mean like Adam and Eve or whoever, I wonder if they tryed lots of other things like tickeling eachother's elbows before they invented kissing.

This is the stages of my discovery of kissing (and by kissing I mean snogging):

1) Thinking that 'french kissing' was when you kiss eachother on both cheeks as a greeting, like the french.

2) saying infront of my parents friends at a party, that I was going to 'french kiss' my Dad ie give him a kiss on both cheeks.

3)being told what french kissing attually is and why I shouldn't use that term.

4) Thinking that only french people do this horrific kind of kiss that involves more than a peck on the cheek.

5) Realising that it's not only the french that kiss like that.

6) making a £100 bet with my dad that I wouldn't snog a boy before I was 17.

7) loosing the bet.

I have at least three more comedy kissing stories but I think they're not for the internet, ask me in real life and I'll tell you....attually one of them I can share:

I had just bought a brand new coat and I went round to meet up with a load of friends at Will and Lukes old house. I was unaware of how much static electricity had built up in me from my new super static coat. Dan opened the door and welcomed me, leaning in for a kiss (and this time I do mean kiss not snog), before our lips even touched a spark like a mini lightning bolt shot between us. I attually saw the flash, and it was so painful and I made such an odd noise that everyone came out to see what happend. Dan tryed to comfort me, he made sure I was properly grouded and leaned in for a comforting are you ok kind of kiss, but I was too freaked out and scared of it happening again that I didn't go near him. I calmed down, grounded my self again touched his hand first and then tryed to kiss him again but I could only go to a couple of cm away from him and then I kept getting freeked out and laughing, this happed about 10 times before I attually managed to give him a normal kiss. I think there's a phrase when two people like eachother that there's 'a spark between them' but if you really think about it, I don't think that's a good thing.

My Guide To Eygpt

As you may know I have recently made my blog public....it was always sort of public but you had to know the web address and I never said my real name on it. I kept it a bit secret because I kept thinking I might write something serious one day, and I didn't really want random people who hated me in primary school to read it. Not that I think random people who hated me in primary school have meetings together where they sit around googling me, but you never know. Now I've realised that all I write on this is silly stories from my life and I don't really care who reads it so, I have linked to facebook and therefore the world, so if you are a random person who hated me in primary school Hello! welcome to my blog : )

I would like to write this post to Dr Laura Mcgregor she isn't someone who hated me in primary school and it's always nice to know people who are in that category. She is currently trying to find out about nice 5* resorts with Jacuzzis and spars in sham-al-sheik so she can enjoy some winter sun. I went near there in 2005 and it was one of the best places I've been to so I thought I'd share some tips with her to try and persuade her to travel Hannah style.

1) start your journey in Palestine.

2) find two German traveling companions.

3) Plan to see the pyramids.

4) cross the boarded to Israel and get the bus to the southern most part.

5) Exit Israel and then have an argument with the Egyption boarder guards about visas, discover you can't get to Cairo without a visa cross back into Israel picking up some bad stamps in your passport that will forever cause you problems when traveling.

6) Spend the night sleeping on the beach coz Israel is expensive.

7) go the the visa place only to discover it's closed.

8) cross back into Egypt and go to the only place you can without a visa- the red sea.

9) find accommodation, and use your bargaining in Arabic skills to get it for £3 a night for a room or £1.50 if you take your mattress on the roof.

10) go to a restaurant where you sit on the beach between palm trees and smoke apple flavored tobacco.

11) have a day of camel trekking along the red sea, snorkeling, and tea with some Bedouins for £10. Even though a camel was sick on my friend and I got really sun burnt (it was august and I didn't wear sun tan lotion) it was still one of the top 5 days of my life ever!

12) cross the boarder back to Israel getting in to an argument with the boarder guards on the way and getting even more bad stuff written in your passport.

13) decide not to pay £7 for the bus, decide instead to hitch-hike back.

14) wait 4 hours in the desert for a lorry to pick you up and then drop you off in a random place (by that time it was night time).

15) come up with a better hitch-hiking strategy where I stand by the road and do my' poor little girl lost in the desert' face and the other two hide and then run out when a car stops.

16) Try to avoid talking about how much we love the Palestinians and volunteering in Palestine with the Jew who was kind enough to pick us up.

I think you should try all this Laura....all that 5* stuff is boring in comparison.

Essays Suck

I've never wanted to write an essay less than the one I'm suposedly writing today. I've become one of those people who has to reward themself with a biscuit every 100 words or so. I've also got the heating turned up and I'm wearing an ugly but warm and furry hoody I bought for a quid, just for extra compfort through the anguish of essay writing. Even a cancer victim whose just split up with their boyfriend wouldn't indulge themself with as many compforts as I am.

I was thinking of quitting the course last year as I could still leave with a qualification, but the lure of a free laptop, having my course fees paid for and still being able to cheekly use my student discount even though I work almost full time was too much for me. Oh well hopefully in a year I will have an M.A .........even though I will be fat-I can't remeber how long my dissertation is but I think it's a lot of biscuits worth.

Because I find reading really hard my method of writting essay's has become: read some articles and then absolutly everything I read has to go in the essay even if it's not answering the question because I don't like going through the effort of reading something for no reason. (from reading my blog I think it is obvious I don't read them through afterwards, sorry if they're incomprehendable.) If you think about it I'm kind of like the litterary version of someone who is constantly talking and never listening.

My essay is about children's rights..... and this document called 'the U.N Convention on the Rights on the a Child' which is like a document written by adults and only read by adults which in my opinion makes it pointless. There's no point me learning as an adult that 10 or 20 years ago I had the right to 'rest play and leisure' I can't go back in time to that moment when I had to write lines all lunch time for deliberatly forgetting to get off the school bus at the big cold swimming pool and acidently getting of at the nice warm baby pool with the infants even though I was a junior. If I could go back to that time with the knowlege I have of childrens rights now that would be awesome.....imagain the sceen:

angry teacher: how dare you diliberatly aviod swimming lessons! you will stay in at play time and write 50 lines!

Cheeky ginger kid: I understand the need to repremand me for my actions sir, but may I first reffer you to artical 31 in the UNCRC the right to rest play and leisure, I feel that depriving me of my play time today would infridge on my right as a child.

Angry teacher: you cheeky girl less of the backchat, 100 lines for you.

Cheeky ginger girl: I'm am only exercising my right as stated in artical 13 'the right to freedom of expression'

Angry teacher: 200 lines

Cheeky Ginger girl: Given my obvious hatred of reading and writing, doing 200 lines may come under the heading of 'tourure or other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment' which according to artical 31 I am to be protected from.

my personal helplines

Today I've got a flat tyre on the car that is almost my car. I phoned AA, Dan and my Dad. Dan and Dad gave helpful advice, the AA were rubish, but should you really expect cohearent advice from alcoholics?

It made me think about my personal helplines e.g who I phone for help in what situations and I have come up with a list I wish I could publish the numbers so everyone could benifit but as I don't have a data protection advice line person I probably shouldn't just in case.

Car advice - theroretical (e.g There is a spare tyre in there somewhere)
....................................................................................Dad

Car advice - practical (e.g I will help you fit it)....Dan

Money and investment advice...............................Dad

forms /acconting/ excell advice ............................Mum

crap medical advice (e.g 'don't bother going to a doctor they can't do anything for you')
....................................................................................Jo

youth interpritation (e.g BRB stands for be right back)
....................................................................................Sarah

cooking advice (e.g how many days after it's sell by date can you really eat eggs ect)
..................................................................................Mum

spritual advice........................................................Dan, Helen, Katie.

Theological advice...................................................Will

Musical knowledge..................................................Dan

Artistic advice..........................................................Rachel, Josh.

Dressmaking advice................................................Mum

french translation....................................................Dan

Business/ self employment advice........................Dad

fashion advice...........................................................Rachel

computor and internet advice................................Dan

from this list I can conclude that Dan is the most useful person to know, that's why I'm going out with him. I wonder if people ever ask me for advice? I think I could run these helplines succesfully:

crap arabic translation
crap french translation
what colour goes with what other colours advice
uk geography (specialising in the coventry ring road and translation of liverpool postcodes into atual area names)
how to make cheese sause
101 things to do with a glue gun.

Can anyone think of a business I could make with all these skills?

what happens if you put a cheese string in a glue gun?

Seven signs of aging

according to Olay these are the 7 signs of aging:

1) line and wrinkles
2) uneven skin texture
3) uneven skin tone
4) appearance of pores
5)blotches and age spots
6) dry skin
7) dullness

in the last couple of months I have experienced a few signs of aging that I have never experienced before.

1) listening to radio 2
2) a strange craving for brown bread instead of my usual white
3) fairly frequent discussions about tax

worrying isn't it? but just like the users of Olay I plan to combat these signs of aging,with a series of new rules that will hopefully stop this slippery slope to old age. I am currently 24 and 2 thirds, which means if I die when my grandmother died I am already middle aged. Here is my new pledge of 7 things I will not do before I'm 27, 30 and ever, anyone who reads this is responsible for holding me accountable.

before the age of 27 I shall not:

1) listen to radio 4 even for a second, unless someone else has it on. ditto radio 3 and classic fm obviously.

2)start saving for a pention

Before the age of 30 I shall not:

3) buy a bread maker or a national trust membership

4) read adult magazines...and by adult I mean something like 'the economist' not playboy

I will never ever:

5) Shop in Marks and Spencer's

6) feel the social pressure to make homemade cakes when visiting friends, (I'm allowed to home bake but only if I'm doing it out of fun not duty)

7) discuss the stock market or kitchens for more that 10 minutes per year.

Miss Marshmallow

I've started my new job working in lots of different primary schools doing art workshops, I'm not used to cute kids, I'm used to scary scallies who threaten to burn down your house, so it's nice to walk into a class and not be instantly hated. It's pretty good for my genral moral to show an example of my work and here 'woooooow!' and 'when I grow up I want to be just like Monet' and 'Miss can I tell you something.....I just love your curly hair.'

I've discoved schools have changed since I was at school, they seem to have interactive white board in every class and they have banned rubbers from the classroom the idea behind that is to make children carry on working through their mistakes but in reality it means that every time they make a mistake they get a new sheat of paper....what a great way to waste time and trees! I felt quite old this week when I brought in some items for obsevational drawing one of which was a casset tape and year 5s didn't know what it was. They guessed it was a video! I'm not really expecting them to own tape but at least know what they are, I've never owned a record but I know what one looks like. This week I started with the question can anyone remember my name from last week.....hillarious, my best answer was 'Miss Marshmallow'

Peanut Butter

I've been going to a creative writing class....it shocked me at first that I would do something so educational and words based in my spare time, I guess people change. I once said I would never wear a skirt by choice and now I own 8....I once said my favorite colour was florescent pink and gold stripy.....and I once made a bet of £100 that I wouldn't snog a boy by the time I was 17, and Dad you are wrong £100 is still worth a lot even though we are living in the future now, thanks for letting me off though even though there was written evidence. but attually come to think of it what kind of father makes their 7 year daughter old sign a bet like that?!

I've been going to creative writting for a while...usually my writting stays around on my bedroom floor for a few days and then goes in the bin but this time I thought I'd share it, I'm not great at fiction really because I don't like lying but here goes...

I'm waiting in the isle nervously and then I see the worlds most beautiful woman smile as she walks towards me, I'm dressed in my finnist...well tesco's finnist...I am a jar of tesco's finnist peanut butter. 'she's never gonna pick you' a voice calls out it was Gary 'and why's that?' I ask 'she may be a fitty but she's deffo a student, so if she's going home with either of us it will most likely be me' he had a fair point, I thought at first that it would be the glamorous shopers who would want me but it's quite often the middle aged ugly ones.

The lady continued towards us, I tryed to hide my sell by date from her as there were other jars that would last longer than me, Jeffrey and Clive's gang were the new jars, orriginally put at the back but they managed to sneek forwards into prime position at the front of the shelf, it was so unjust! they had all the time in the world, I was best before 30th May 2011.

The lady stoped right in front of us, she had blond curly hair and perfectly applied lipstick, I imagined being on those delicious looking lips, she seemed to look me right in the eye as she reached out her hand and touched my lid. For a second I thought she would take me and I was ready to spend the rest of my life devoted to pleasing this beutiful woman.

Sadly it wasn't to be , she glanced up to the shelf above and picked out Tesco own brand chocolate and hazelnut spread, I caught a glimpse as he was placed in the trolly. It was steve, I don't know him that well he's a friend of a friend really, I'm happy for him of course but not as happy as I would have been for myself, I know I could have impressed that woman with my beutifully formed organic nuts, she would have found me tasty, I bet I could have even achived my ultimate ambition of being eaten straight off a finger.'

Driving

I now have a car! It's not technically mine right now but I'm hoping the more I scratch it the less the parents will want it back. I've found the world of real life driving quite different to being a learner. I never drove with someone carrying a fish tank in the pasenger seat as a learner, and this presents a whole new set of challenges. Also it's pretty weird to drive somewhere for an atual reason, not just for the sake of driving. I think even if I have a car now for the rest of my life I will still always be a cyclist deep down. but I need to remember when I'm driving that I am not a cyclist and that I should try and keep law breaking to a minimum, I'm trying to at least follow may friend Luke's personal rule of not breaking more than one law at once, it is quite a challenge though. I've moved house to a different area of Liverpool so getting into town is a bit more challenging because there's a lot of different options, it's easy enough to set of and just somewhere in town, but to get to somewhere specific it takes a bit of forward planning. On my bike I can just ride on any road that goes west and I'll end up where I want to be eventually, but in a car it's complecated, it's not so sociablely acceptable to go down one way roads the wrong way or drive through parks or go on the pavement when there's a red traffic light.

The one big bonus of driving I thought would be food shopping, I have this thought every time I'm turning right at a major junction with no lights or helmet and a million shoping bags on my handle bars, however I recently discovered the pros of driving your shopping home are almost outweighed by the cons of shopping with a trolly not a basket. I realised that when I had pushed my trolly though the isle where you go to pay and then tryed to squize back to the bit where you put your pin number in and I got traped for quite a long time in between the trolly and the isle. My housemate Amber has never laughed so hard.

Africa for Wimps

I've spent the last to weeks in Uganda, Uganda is like Africa for wimps:

It's hot but not actually too hot because it is mountainous. (a pleasant 25'c all year round)
It's poor but not too dangerous or corrupt because it is a very christian country.
There are other languages but the official main language is English.....see what I mean?

We crammed a lot of stuff into our two week trip, I got to see most the animals from the Lion King which is the best Disney film ever made- probably the best film ever made. We went rafting and body boarding in the Nile and I got to test out some myths about the equator. It turns out the thing about water going clockwise in the north and anti-clockwise in the south is actually true because there was an experiment set up at the equator. even though the bowls were only a few meter apart it was enough to make a difference and the water in the bowl on the equator goes straight down which was weird to watch. The other myth about people walking on there hands in the southern hemisphere turned out to be false.

If you work for channel 5 and want to produce a program entitled something like 'Extraordinary Genitalia' Uganda is the place to go:

Grown-up Stuff

A lot of things are changing for me at the moment....I don't mean like I'm going through puberty or the menopause or something....I mean like life stuff like moving jobs and moving house and getting a car that a few years ago was 'grown up stuff' and now is just stuff, but quite exciting stuff. Even though I am doing relitively grown up stuff now I still apparently look like a teanager, I'm kind of board of that now, I think people don't really look properly, they see I'm a bit shorter than average and think I must be not fully grown and therefore still a teenager and they don't look at my slightly wrinkerly 24 year old eyes.

This old man who was a volunteer in the gallery I work at insulted me by not looking at my 24 year old eyes today:

old man: are you on work experience?

me: no I work here.

old man: oh is this just a little job for you before you go to uni?

me: no I've been to uni

old man: oh! you must be older than 21!

me: I'm 24

old man: you must be able to get a better job than working here with your dergee what was it in?

me: Art

old man: oh well, nervermind.

he pretty much insulted me at every stage of the conversation. If he though it was such a bad job why was he volunteering? at least I was being paid.

So anyway my new job is being an art workshop leader in lots of schools all over the north west. (that is replacing my job with the naughty kids but I will still do causal gallery work as a top up job) This company that have taken me on only take people on recomendation, and my friend Roz recomended me which ment I had the easist interview ever because there was no compotition, I just had to not be a total weirdo which I nearly managed. The interview was not far from my house just the other side of sefton park but not on a bus route so I cycled, but the problem was-
A: rain makes everywhere muddy
B: if you cycle through the park it is easy to come out the wrong exit and get lost
C: riding as fast as you can because you are lost when it is muddy and you don't have mud gaurds on your bike is not sensible before an interview.

The place I was interviewed had no mirrors so I have no idea if I had mud on my face, I definatly had some splatterd up my jumper, and when I got home there was some on my neck which I'm hoping was from the ride home. The point is I still got the job.

I didn't really manage to get rid of that first impression a few days later when I went to their office to give in stuff for a CRB check, it was really really pouring down like - you have to change your underwear when you get home wet. I'd brought my 8 previous CRB check with me just to prove that if I'm a weirdo, it's the safe kind. I discoverd CRBs are not waterproof even if they're in a waterproof-ish bag. the the ink runs everwhere so I can't even prove I'm not a crimanal now.

So that is the story of my new job, I also have to get a car to do that job, (I hope I have more luck with cars than bikes, I'm currently on my 7th bike since I've been in liverpool, which is 5 years.) and also I'm moving house to a different area of liverpool I've never lived in before. Tonight is my last night in this house before I move to my new house via the exciting detinations of Uganda and Coventry.

Tattoos

I'm either going through soem late teanage rebellion or early midlife crisis but I feel like changing my image a bit, not because I don't like who I am or anything I'm just board. I was considering getting a tattoo or a peircing or changing my hair. I think I've ruled out a tattoo now because it's to permanate, as I said to Dan 'I don't thnk I can make a decision about something I want now and be happy with it for the rest of my life' which I've since discoved is not a very reasuring thing to say to someone your in a serious relationship with. If I was going to have a tattoo though I think I'd like to have something useful like the 7 times table or the london tube map or the periodic table tattooed on to me. I'm suprised more people don't do that, there's no point having information you already know tatooed to you, like your children's names or whatever, you might as well have a french verb table or something. unless people who have there kids names tattooed on them do it coz they can't remember their kids names.

So I'm thinking about having my nose peirced, and if I can get my hair braided well I'm in uganda I will definatly do that.

Posh Protesting

This week my family were involved in the poshist protest I've ever seen. If your village was about to be destroyed to make way for a high speed railway would you get a marching band? Or would you think 'I shall juggle my clubs in anger' like my sister. I saw the whole news item on midlands today and infront of the marching band was 3 or 4 tractors. I think the people of northen Ireland and Gaza could learn at lot from the people of Burton Green. There posh protesting might not get them anything but at least it is fun for all the family.

The Chinese

You may have noticed that more than half of my blog comments are in Chinese. I'm not sure quite why Chinese people would want to read my blog and whether they would understand it. Some of the humour I think would be quite hard even for an American to understand. Even if they were google translating it, I don't think they could undrestand esspecially as google translate can't translate spelling misstakes. (although my spelling misstakes are there for a reason, more than just anakey - it's because what you write on a blog is copyright of google so if I ever wanted to publish any of it I could just spellcheck it and then I would own the rights to the good version.) I rarely understand the Chinese comments even when they've translated them into English. For example one of the comments on my blog 'scrumdelicious' when I translated it came out as 'you cannot control the weather but you can change the heart' and on my blog 'scrumdelious' google translate tells me they wrote 'Thinking and theory, you call the first action, but action is more noble than the ideas or theories'

you can see how unacurrate google translate is by translating a sentence into chinese and then back to English again. My first sentence come out like this:

'You may have noticed that more than half of the comments in my blog. I do not know why the Chinese people very much want to see my blog, they will understand it better. For some I think humor is very difficult, even for Americans to understand'

even more funny is points 4 and 5 from my previous blog:

'4) Your idea is interesting holiday sailing across the English Channel 7 take effect, the opposite of a Palestinian refugee camp stranded in Uganda, some even more interesting than the packet camping holiday.
5) The ability to roar once you have an apple.'

next time I have an apple I will roar, that sounds like a fun tradition to start. Here is a message for the chinese, all one billion of them:
感谢您的消息，但我并不总是理解他们。

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day Father,

here are some resons why you are my favorite dad


1) when I was little and I used to play pretend games you would be anything I told you to be, even if it was a climbing frame or someone pretending to be someone else.
2) you can make a perfect boiled egg.
3) you encorage my rebelious side.
4) your ideas of fun holidays are sailing in force 7 across the channel, staying opposite a refugee camp in palestine and camping in uganda- definatly more fun than the package holiday stuff.
5) you have the ability to peal an apple in one go.
6) I haven't got any other Dads


I hope you enjoy the novelty fathers day hankies I made you, and I hope you find blowing you're nose on pictures of things you hate is theraputic for you. I esspecially like the Areil Sharon hankie I think there may be a gap in the market for personalised policical hankies.

Patron Base Rap

Today I recorded a rap, like many rappers I like to rap about difficult things I am going through in this case it was the challenge of using an annoying piece of software called patron base at the gallery I work in. when I went to record it the Rap guy asked me how Fat I wanted my beat and I said 12 stone. I'm so Ghetto!

Scrumdelicious

I am a bit odd...most people know that and I think odd people attract odd people so I have a lot of odd friends, which makes me feel normal until I meet a normal person.

So me a Dan are both a bit wierd which makes things fun. On our first date before we were officially going out Dan said a few times 'what do normal people do?' and then he came up with the phrase 'more than normal' which is a nice way of saying we're weird. People often comment that we suit eachother well because we both have the same surreal sence of humor. The other day we were texting each other it started with me asking how you spell. 'In-ish-a-tive' (which I now know is initiative) and ended with Dan saying he would 'my booty so scrumdelicious' and it's how it got from initative to scrumdelicous booty that I would like to document as a typical Han and Dan text conversation.

Han to Dan:
How do you spell the word that is phenetacally spelt: In-ish-a tive and means thinking of something and doing it without being asked? Even my super clever dyslexic mashine doesn't know. x


Dan to Han:
Initative, I didn't even have to look it up yey me! How's the application going? Love Dan.


Han to Dan:
Thanks, it's going ok. I'm having my ear syrindged tommorrow, : ( have a good rest of the day dictionary Dan.


Dan to Han:
Have a good time at work scrumdelicious Han. Dan


Han to Dan:
My cooking's too scrumdelicious for you babe...sing that to the tune of Destiny's childs boodelicious. we could make it into a pop video with me wearing a sexy apron and you licking chocolate off a whisk! x

Dan to Han:
Oooh if you can engineer a colender into this video I'm yours. As long as I get to be the black one. Dan.

Han to Dan:
With all the melted chocolate I'm going to smother on you you'll look black. x

Dan to Han:
Saucy or rather chocolately! I'd shake my ghetto booty for you. oh yeah sings: my booty so scrumdelicious! Dan

Dear Virgin

I have been inspired by a book called 'Dear Customer Services' by Terry Ravenscroft. He writes to food companies like tesco and heinz or whatever and either complains or praises the product, the first letter starts of quite normal and then in his replys he gets more and more stupid like saying their product is improving his sex life. it's very funny. Anyway I think I will have a go at writing to someone I was going to choose T.V licencing because I hate them but I have already writen to them a few years ago when they sent me a threatening letter about not having a T.V licence when I didn't have a T.V. I wrote in red felt pen and signed it 'Love Hannah xx' and they wrote back and atually aplogised for scaring me. I've decided to send this letter below to Virgin:



Dear Virgin,

I wanted to congratulate you as an organisation for your moral values in a day and age where morals seem to have gone out of the window. It is rare for a company as large as yourselfs to adear so closely to biblical principles. I know that Cadbury's were on of the first companies to trully look after their workers and provide them with deccent housing and that this was born out of their religious Quaker rootes, but to only employ virgins in your company is very noble of you. It must be a considerable sacrifice for older members of your company such as Richard Branson to have keept their virginity for all this time. However I was wondering what is your policy with your staff who are married? Must they also refrain from sexual activity? because I feel that this is a little to harsh, even Christians have sex within the context of marrige and this even encoraged in the bible- shocking I know! 'the husband should not deprive his wife of sexual intermacy, which is her right as a married woman, nor should the wife deprive her husband' (1 Corinthians 7:3) I'd be intrigued to know what your policy on this is. Once again may I congratulate you on your outstading moral values.

Yours sincerly
Miss H Wibble

The Naked Horse Lady

This week I organised a group of people called 'studio' to come to an arts event which on a poster discribed itself as a 'magical live art comedy experience.' On the day of the event which was held in the gallery I work it, I asked a few people who had been before what it was like and it was discribed as 'the worse preformance I have ever been to' which made me a bit nervous as to what the people I'd invited would think. I was still trying to redeem myself from the last time I organised something cultural which was going to a open mic poetry event in a hippy drug den where the first poem read out I would describe as in the 'angry lesbian' genre. It wasn't atually that bad once it got going, and I had a nice chat with the angry lesbian after and she was atually quite friendly.


So this live art comedy thing started with the most unfunny couple in the world saying unfunny things to each other, it wasn't even funny in the 'it's funny coz it's not funny way' it just wasn't funny. The they left the stage and a woman who was wearing absolutly nothing except a pair of red shoes and a rubber horse's head walked on to the stage and talking in a belguim accecent about being a horse, but thinking she was a different horse to the one she was. it want on for a quite a while, I tryed to look at my friends in a sorry-for-bringing-you-here sort of way but unfortunatly there's not some kind of international sign language for 'I didn't intend to make you pay to see a naked woman with a horses head' the horse lady then started walking into the audience and decided to sit down on the seat next to my friend Hazel who had never been to a studio event before and probably never will again. The horse lady asked Hazel to stroke her....what do you do in this situation?! no one wants to stroke a naked lady who's wearing a horse head but then it's a bit rude to refuse to do something by a woman it one of the most vunrable positions ever..naked with very little vision infront of an audience. Hazel was very diplomatic and stroked the head of the horse not the atual woman. There are two life lessons that I will take away from this experience: first never take people to live art events you know nothing about and second be prepaired for every eventuality even if it is as unlikely as knowing what you would do if a naked woman with a horses' head asks you to stroke her. I quite often prepaire myself for the senario of a man holding me at gunpiont and saying 'is a sausage dog a dog or a sausage?' or ''is a hotdog a dog or a sausage?' me and my housemate Danni do it to each other at random intervals just to test our reflexes, but I think I need to branch out to more surreal senarios just in case.

A letter to my boss

Dear Manager,
I am writing to express my concern about the lack of toilet facilities specifically for staff use on our premisis. I am under the impression that most organisations the size of ours that work with young people do have a seperate staff toilet. I know that funding is tight and you may think that money can be put to better use elsewhere but let allow me to put forward and argument for a staff toilet by drawing on some anecdotal evidence:

Yesterday after I'd finished work I went to the toilet to do a poo, I have a personal rule not to poo if I can hear anyone else in the toilet area, when I sat down the toilet was empty so I proceded to go about my business. Mid -poo a student walked in, just at the point of no return, I had no choice but to continue, I'd tryed to minimise the 'plop' sound as best I could, but unfortunatly I was all to aware of an audible 'plop' I finished my business and went out to wash my hand when I was greeted by the student who said 'alright Hannah' in a friendly fashion. I breathed a sigh of relef - either she hadn't heard or she wasn't going to mention it. She continued 'did you have a good poo? I can smell it!' (I personally think she couldn't smell it she could only hear it) I answered 'yes' I could hardly deny it and I like to think I was making a small step to removing the taboo that sourounds pooing.

After washing my hands I walked out to be greeted by another smiling overly friendly youth, this time I was suspicious and I had every right to be as they continued to question me about my poo very loudly in the busy recception area. I decided the only thing to do was to refused to be embarrased, it is a natural bodily function after all. I contiued as normal collecting my bike and signing out of the building redy for my ride home. Gathered by the railing were a whole gang of youths smoking and laughing, as I walked my bike past them they began to ask me in great detail about my toilet experience. not not be out done I tryed to answer back in equally as much detail ' I had a fantastic poo thanks, there's nothing better after a hard day at work than to relax by having a massive poo'

So if you don't want members of staff standing outside your building shouting about their poo then a staff toilet is nessisary. It is my ambition to one day work for an organisation where you can share a toilet with people who are to polite to tell you they can hear or smell your poo.

yours sincerly
Hannah.

The Blood-Stained Hat

I was recently talking to my housemate Danni who's been away at her parents for a few days. We were catching up about what's been happening- she's been ill and I've been getting naked and phoning the police (not at the same time- see previous 2 blogs for details) So I was discribing this woman that I was life modleing for (heavy smoker, bad teath, dyed blond hair in a bowl hair cut, potential lesbian) and that's when Danni started linking the two stories together purly based on the fact that I discribled this woman as a potential lesbian and when I saw the fight in my street a man was shouting 'your a f***ing lesbian' she put 2 and 2 together then divided it by the square root of 43.9 and then multiplied it by pi and together we came up with this possible seniriao:

So this lady who I will give the false name Jackie, was happly marred to a man who I will call Jack. Jack was rooting through a cupboard looking for his favorite grey hat when he came accros a folded up chalk drawing of me naked dated last week. Why had Jakie been drawing naked woman in thir flat? in a fit of rage and jelousy he ripped up the drawing and went in search of her. after half an hour of fruitless searching he did what all bad stalkers do and phone her to ask where she was, Jackie claimed she was shoping but attually she came over to mine bringing a grey hat that she wanted me to wear in my next modeling session. Jack drove around near the shops for ages until he spoted Jackie holding his beloved gray hat. If Jack had been a little more eloquent he would have said 'I am pondering as to why you invited an 24 year old woman round to our flat for a life modling session, and quite franckly your secreacy regarding this matter has lead me to question your sexuality' but Jack who had never been good at confrontation pulled up in his car and started shouting 'your a f***ing lesbian!' over and over again. In the fight the hat was droped on the floor and Jackie was beaten to a pulp. In a panic Jack disposed of her body in greenbank park lake. leaving behing the Blood-stained hat as evedence.

Back to reality- this is the hat found outside my house, it looked a lot more blood-stained than this in real life. The police phoned me back about the incedent I reported, they said it was lads playfighting and I was like really that's not what it sounded like? and then they said 'oh no sorry- it was domestic, half the crimes on my list are play fight and half are domestic I get confused sometimes.' Woo! go mersyside police, hope you don't mistakes like that when your arresting people. I'm half expecting them to phone back and say 'oh atually it was murder'

'The Busys'

If your not from liverpool you might not know that 'the busys' is scouce for the police. I got to phone the police on saturday night/ sunday morning it was really fun, I've never phoned them before. Although when I was 10 I did get my name and address taken down by the police for making prank calls even though I attually didn't, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and lied about stuff.

There's been a couple of other times that I could have phone the police but they were both in situations where the scaryness of what was happening outweighed my excitment about phoning the police and someone else ending up calling. but this time it was quite fun, there was a fight in my street and a lot of shouting 'your a *uckin* lesbian' (I thougt I go for alturnative starring there) it carried on for about five minutes well I watched out of my window thinking 'can I justify calling the police they're only really arguing', but then I saw a bit of kicking and some more vehicals pulling up so I though I could justify it. Its quite exciting watching crime from the comfort of your own bed. The next day there was a blood stained hat outside my neighbours house, I'm not sure if that's connected.

My Nudity-Soup Exchange

On Wednesday I exchange My own nudity for soup..... it was really good soup though, Jamie Oliver chirizo and sweet potatoe soup (and many other expencive ingredience). I guess if your the average internet user then you would be more interested in hearing about nudity than soup though. There are two ways of telling this story one is that I'm so poor that I had to sell myself in order to buy soup, and the other is that I spent and hour sitting around doing nothing and got £15 pounds which I chose to spend on soup ingredience. The first is a lie, the second is a lot more true. I should probably point out that the getting naked bit was life modeling, eg I got naked and sat on this womans sofa and she drew me. I think it's probably the most socially accecptable way of getting naked for cash. I wasn't atually too bothered about the getting naked part, I've been to life drawing classes before so I know the unwritten rules of life modeling:

- When a model is naked don't talk to them or even look them in the eye.

- when they are clothed have a nice chat with them.

this means that models need to bring a dressing gown so that the artists can direct them inbetween poses.

The bit I was nervous about was going to this womans flat, even though I'd spoken to her on the phone and she sounded like an old lady, it could have been a elaborate plot involving an evil gang of men ad a webcam or something. Me and Dan arraged beforehand that if he hadn't heard from me by 4pm he would come and break her door down. Good job my phone didn't run out of battery or anything that could have been unfortunate.

Santa's little helper

I had a needs assesment yesterday which is when you tell someone what you need and they give it to you. It's because I'm doing a part time MA in youthwork and I'm dyslexic. The government like to give gifts to dyslexics to compensate them for putting them through a school system where you get in trouble for being bad at spelling. It's like a present for surviving years of nasty teachers.

So this needs assament guy was talking me through my psychologists report yesterday, which I've had for 4 years but not really read properly....because I'm dyslexic which means I DON'T LIKE READING. So anyway it turns out that I'm an atual genius at 'understanding conseptual similarities'...whatever that means. I'm in the more than 99.9 percentile for it. but my percentile for decoding symbols within symbols is 2. So I come out as kind of normalish but attually I'm super clever and some things and very bad at others.

So this man's job is a bit like being santa's middle man, he has to decide what I need and wheather I really need it enough for santa (or my local authrity) to pay for it. The easyist way is for you to go in there and say all this stuff you "need" but I'm not really good at lying. I was a bit too honest about what I used my degree disabled student allowence for. Using up your photocopy budget by doing enlaged photocopyies of feathers and gliter is not what they want to hear, but what do you expect, when you give a creative student who hates reading a ridiculus amount of money to spend on photocopying. This is one of my photocopies:

I did manage not to tell him about the time I bought shoes with the book money. My local authority had just written to me and told me they weren't going to check my recipts anymore. My freind Dave justified my shoe buying by saying "spell this word or I'll stamp on your foot!"

When I was doing my degree about 4 years ago is when I got the free computor, and it still works alright, so when it came to the bit at the end about what I attually need I said I don't really need anything, which is not what they want to here. I would quite like a laptop but in order to get one we had to play a silly game of 'try and think of a reason to justify you having a laptop' I had about five attepts before I hit the jackpot answer.

'I could do my work downstairs infront of the T.V'

'I could work on trains'

'They're pretty'

'it's less anoying when you move house'

'I could sell my old one and buy shoes'

and the jackpot answer: 'I could take it to work'

it's true that I could take it to work but I wouldn't ever do that because both my places of work have computors, it would be too heavy to carry on my bike and if I took it to my job with the expelled kids it would prabably get trashed. Nevermind that though, I said the jackpot answer, that was the end of the meeting he's going to write to santa or whoever and tell them I need a laptop. I love being dyslexic.

I Hate Harvard Referencing

I hate Harvard Referencing.... even more than I hate rice pudding. Infact if I was offered a scholoship at Harvard University where I got paid £50,000 a year to study whatever I wanted, I would turn it down because I wouldn't want to study somewhere with the name Harvard in case it reminded me of Harvard Refencing. I know it's intended to be one offical way of reffencing anything but I don't think there should be an offical way of doing anything. I think everyone should make up there own way to do things.

It's easy enough to reference books and stuff you just write the title and authour and a few other bits of pointless information, and then randomly highlight a bit of it and put it in italics and add in some of the puntuation that doesn't get used much in everyday life and feels left out like this ( ) :
but what if you're refencing something you heard in a game of chinnese whispers? or what if you're referencing a quote you saw tatooed on a sailor's arm which was inspired by his mum's facebook status which was quoting part of an artical she read in heat magazine? How would you reference that?

3 twelths to Pink Cornflakes

I've invented a new way of telling the time, and before you laugh, I bet whoever thought of telling the time in 24 hours was laughed at when they first came up with the idea.


so hours just go in rainbow colours:

1 O'clock = Red O'clock
2 O'clock = Orange O'clock
3 O'clock = Yellow O'clock
4 O'clock = Green O'clock
5 O'clock = Blue O'clock
6 O'clock = Purple O'clock

Then from 7 O'clock to 12 O'clock you have to think of the same rainbow clours and visualise them being mixed with white paint and that becomes the colour e.g

7 O'clock = Pink O'clock
8 O'clock = Peach O'clock
9 O'clock = Cream O'clock
10 O'clock = Mint Green O'clock
11 O'clock = Baby Blue O'clock
12 O'clock = Lilac O'clock

-Then for telling the minutes you alway say how long to the next hour, never how long past the hour.

-Time is always said in fractions it's never 10 to an hour it's always 1 sixth to the hour.

-The fractions that are banned are half and quarters they are banned because they aren't very original.

-This leaves Twelths, sixths, and thirds.

so 5 past = 11 twelths to
10 past = 5 sixths to
quarter past=9 twelths to
twenty past = 2 thirds to

Therefore:
9:45 = 3 twelths to mint green O'clock
4:10= 5 sixths to blue O'clock
7:30 = 6 twelths to peach O'clock
1:40= a third to orange O'clock

Then if you want to be able to know wheather it's 2pm or 2am you add a food to the end of your time. The problem I find with am and pm is that I think 2am is really the evening and 2pm is really the morning, so I feel the need for three different endings to depict the time of day. I have chosen the endings cornflakes to represent morning, sandwidge to reprosent afternoon, and pizza to reprosent evening/night time. so If you haven't learned the official times off by heart which of course you should, you can just guess at whats the most likely thing that you would be eating at that time, but here are the offcial times. I've taken off the unessiasry O'clocks and added the AM/PM substitutes

1am-Red Pizza
2am-Orange Pizza
3am-Yellow Pizza
4am-Green Pizza

5am-Blue Cornflakes
6am-Purple Cornflakes
7am-Pink Cornflakes
8am-Peach Cornflakes
9am-Cream Cornflakes
10am-Mint Green Cornflakes
11am-Baby Blue Cornflakes

12 noon-Lilac Sandwidges
1pm-Red Sandwidges
2pm-Orange Sandwidges
3pm-yellow Sandwidges
4pm-Green Sandwidges

5pm-Blue Pizza
6pm-Purple Pizza
7pm-Pink Pizza
8pm-Peach Pizza
9pm- Cream Pizza
10pm-Mint Green Pizza
11pm-Baby Blue Pizza
Midnight-Lilac Pizza

So you should now be able to work out any time with my new and more creative way of telling the time. Here are some examples:

3.20pm= 2 thirds to Green Sandwidge
10:10pm= 5 sixths to Baby Blue Pizza
6:45am=3 twelths to Pink Cornflakes

Next time someone asks you for the time, answer them with this new way of telling the time but give them no explanation and maybe people will start working it out and it could catch on. Try it I dare you.

Inflatable Christmas Tree Fun

I celebrated Christmas on wednesday, which was attually St Patric's day (the patron saint of Gunniess) For a over a year and a half I've been working with teenages that have been expelled from school. My job is to teach art, but the catch is I only have a box of broken crayons and half a rubber, and some poster paints, but no paint pallets and know folders to keep work safe so quite often the student put their work in the bin at the end of the lesson. I do occasionlly get other more intresting stuff but it gets used up really quick.

Last week was a good week though, and I finally won my campain for good art stuff, so for the first time ever we have really deccent acrilic paints and oil pastels and charcoal and canvases, which makes teaching art so much more fun. I wanted the student to take ownership over their new stuff and really look after it and value it. So I decided on having pretend christmas. This involed me cycling 8 miles through liverpool with and inflatable christmas tree on one handle bar, and tubes of acric paint wraped in wraping paper on the other (well technically is wasn't wraping paper it was free wall paper samples but whatever) I also had tinsel and a santa outfit in my bag.

So instead of my class walking into their normal class room they walked into a kind of low budget santa's grotto, but they loved it. They ripped open the presents in about 30 seconds, and I did acheive my aim of getting them to take ownership, but they took that a bit to far. After they'd opened the presents I said 'ok lets get the desks out and put all the art stuff in the middle' but things I tell them to do are not often top of their list of priorities. As far as they were concerened they had just been given a gift and they wern't ever going to give it back or share it. The tubes of paint were already in their bags. One girl had 20 pencils that she was going to keep all to herself, one girl had unwraped 2 canvases and wasn't prepaired to give away one of them. The only thing they were willing to share out were the document wallets, I guess you can't get a lot of weed in return for 20 document wallets.

Lie detecting pants of doom!

I have a new idea that I hope would reform the justice system. I'm not sure why we don't use lie detectors in court, surely that would save a lot of money as there would be no need for any of the court staff we currently have. I went on jury service last year and the whole thing seemed a big waste of money. Are silly wigs really nessisary? So more use of the lie detector was the basic idea but then I took that one step further to invent the 'Lie detecting pants of doom' which would be pants that the defendant would have to where and if they lied the clever lie detecting pants would set on fire. just a little painful spark for a small crime, but proper flames for more serious offences. I think it would significantly reduce the amount of people who lie in court.

The job of the jury would be a lot easier, they wouldn't have to make any decisions, all they would have to do is shout 'liar liar pant on fire!' and I personally think people would do jury service voluntarily if they got to see criminals with their pants on fire. so this would save even more public money. I think if I put this idea forward to the government they would eventually accept it. Some weirdo in the oldern days got them to wear silly wigs and they still do that now, surely my idea is more sensible than that.

What does a lesbian look like?

I was in the library yesterday. (shocking I know.) My section of the library is the youth work section but next to my bit are all the books about, relationships and sex and lesbians, and in that section I noticed a book 'What does a lesbian look like?' and although I'm not genrally a fan of books, but this is a book that might have lots of pictures in, so a had a quick flick through, but it was all words! what a stupid book.

I wonder what course you have to do to read that book, and what job you would get after doing that course. can you put 'I know what a lesbian looks like' on your c.v? It's as stupid as a book called 'what does a fart sound like?' or a piece of music called 'what does rubarb taste like?' If I wanted to publish a book called 'what does a lesbian look like?' (which by the way I don't) but if I did I would just google lesbians and then print out the first 20 images.

I was telling this story on the bus and Helen was begging me not to be so loud, so I tryed to wisper the title of the book. There was this man sitting next to me that aparently leaned in so he could try and hear what the title of the book I found so hilarious was.

Election Time

I think it's going to be election time soon, I know because when I cycle to work There's a picture of David Camerons face on a billboard. He must think that putting a giant picture on my way to work will subliminally make me vote for him. It's not that subliminal though, it's pretty bliminal. It doesn't make me want to vote for hime it just makes me think 'Well done David Cameron your face is more attractive than Gordan brown's,' but that's not really an achivement is it.

I'm not a major fan of politics just because I don't think they make it fun and accessable for every one. I mean they have signs everywhere on election day saying 'polling station' and that does sound like a fun adventure place you'd go on a stag night to do a dangerous sport. But in reality voting isn't fun or dangerous, at least not in this country. My Dad took this photo on election day in palestine (2006) though and people seem to be getting more into the spirit of it there:

I also think 16 year olds should be allowed to vote because if your old enough to have sex you should really be allowed to vote. Maybe if you were allowed to vote at 16 soaps would have story lines like this:

Teanage Girl: Mum, I've got some thing to tell you, I made a terrible mistake today, I'm sorry, I was just drunk and not thinking straight....

Mum: what did you do? you're not pregnate are you?

Teanage Girl: No nothing like that, I went into a polling station and voted for the Tory's.

Mum: What!! That's even worse! how could you be so thoughtless? If they get in you'll have to live with the consequences for the rest of your life!!

Teanage Girl: I'm so sorry, it was just the pressure of being old enough to vote, and seeing david camerons face on that billboard, all my freinds were voting for him, I just did it to fit in.

I also think 16 year old should be allowed to buy sparklers as long as they don't light them whilst have sex because that could be dangerous.

I don't Know who I will vote for though, I'm kind of board with labour coz they've been around since I was 11 and I don't remember much politaically before that, and although a lot of people hate the conservertives I don't feel like they've personally wronged me. I think when I was in reception class we might have stoped getting free milk, but don't think I liked cold milk then anyway, so I'm prepaired to forgive them on that one. I think voting for the conservitives might be like having my hair cut short though, I enjoy the novelty of it for a bit but then I'll want it back the way it was.

I think I will conclude my very interlectual political blog post with a list of other more exciting way's to have a election inspired by Phil who suggested Brown and Cameron had a Gym bench fight after reading my previous blog.

1) The top 10 candiates for primeminister go into a big brother style house and one is voted out each week. They are set tasks each week like solve unemployment with only £5000 and a box of toilet roles or rescue the NHS with £3000 a tin of tomatoes and a gun. The winner gets to be priminister.

2) A Thumb War Between Gordan Brown and David Cameron.

3) Gordan Brown and David cameron have to my job, teaching Art to really naughty teenagers that have been expelled, in a falling down building with only a box of broken pencils. Whoever can't take it any longer looses and the other one get to be priminister.

4) The first one who can succesfully get past security and break into number 10 wins, in a 'finders keeper loosers weepers' kind of way.

Dear Tony Blair...

Hey Tony,

I know you've been waiting for my answer to the middle east crisis because it's really your job to sort that whole mess out now, and I know you read my blog. I've been working on this issue in my head for 13 years now ever since I first went to Israel and Palestine in 1997 when I was 11. I remember when I came back I wanted to live there, and I remember thinking a lot about the issues. I once did a gym routine, where I was Benjamin Netenyahou and I made my best friend at the time Frankie be Yassa Arafat and essencially we just had a big fight on those gym benches that are the main componant of primary school gyms. Yassa won, because in my 11 year old logic he was the goodie. political gym routines are where it's at, I'd like to see a lot more of them in the 2012 olympics.

Anyway back to 1997...my solution to the middle east crisis then, was simular to the solution for who had the biggist slice of pizzza in my house. One cuts the other chooses, I even didn't mind the israelis cutting who were not really my favorites of the two sides. I know your not ment to have favorites but our family holiday was a little bit biased, we stayed opposit a palestinian refugee camp and most of the israelis we saw had guns and looked scary. -I loved my non-packaged childhoood family holidays!

Things have come a long way since then and I have made 3 more trips there on my own totalling 4 months living there. Plus I've read a few things and done art based on it, and I even know someone who's babysitter is the neice of Yassa (that's one of my favorite claims to fame, if you don't know who yassa is he's the one that's famous for the 'tea-towl-on-your-head' look, although he's dead now) so with all this political information in my brain I'm now at least as qulified as Tony to do the middle east job, plus I recently watched a Ross Kemp documentary. In that documentary he basically said there are good people who want peace on both sides but there are also a minority on both sides that want to keep fighting...so that's basically 3 groups, and what I realised is there's also 3 bits of land: Israel, the west bank and Gaza.

so the obvious solution is:
Israel is kept just for nice Israelis the kind that just want to eat bagels.
The West Bank is kept for the nice Palestinians the kind that just want to eat falafil
and Gaza can be for the baddies the kind of people who don't care about bagels or falafil the kind that just want to kill each other. After a while all the badies will have killed eachother and the world will be a happy place.

So Tony there's something for you to be getting on with, let me know when it's sorted.
xx

saving the world

I've been quite thinky recently. For my course 'children and young people in society' I have to read a lot of things that say the world is doomed and we are killing our children and no one is happy and our nation is falling apart, it makes me a bit sad some times because it's a bit true, and I see a lot of messed up kids where I work.

I was reading this week about how awlful our current education system is and how bad our childrens spelling and grammer is and I know mine is really bad, but this week I heard a teacher say 'I've been inspirationed by indian music and I want to learn it you' I tryed to be a supportive suport worker, and nod and smile but I couldn't it was just too funny.

I feel like I am nearly at a point at which I know how I could save the world but not quite, my thought so far are that if everyone spent more time playing board games with friends and family that would at least slow down our society from meeting it's impending doom. I bought two board games from charity shops this week so I definatly feel like I'm doing my bit to save the world.

I wrote this blog attually a while ago, since then I have come up with a plan to save the middle east which I will share next time.

snow

I've decided today is my last day of being in my early 20s as tommorrow I am 24 and that is definatly mid 20s. I never really feel overly old or overly young because of the way your perspective changes as you grow up. for example I remember the first time I heard the abba lyric ' Dancing queen....something something...only 17' and thinking 'only 17! that's anchent'

Anyway I've had my midlife crisis already. I think that was when I was turning 14 or 15 and I realised I couldn't wear orange jeans forever. I hated the thought of beeing older when I was younger because there was a definate divide between adults and children and having birthdays was like joining the enemy.

There has been a lot of snow recently, possible the longist lasting I have ever seen. It started on the day I had my driving theory test, which I went into town for and then couldn't get the bus back because all got cancelled. On the way back I passes some people having a snowball fight, who looked far to old for that kind of stuff but it turned out they were my friends and I was invited to join, by the new method of invitation that only aplies in snow: everyone thowing snowballs at your window.

On Wednesday I got the day off work after a long conversation with my boss who I eventually realised couldn't tell me not to come in but was trying to subtly tell me, to tell him ,I couldn't come in. but I really wasn't getting it.

I went on a trip to sefton park with other people who had got the day off. I managed to put my foot in what I percived to be a frozen lake, straight after laughing at Jon for doing the same.

p.s I've discoved the perfect murdor wepon: a pointy icycle because it will melt away leaving no evedence.