h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh, two Toms and two Davids as well...

Thank you for all your congratulatory messages. There were times on Thursday night when I was doing box counts that my eyes were almost popping out. I actually won in one polling station and was doing surprisingly well in a number of others.

I have to get down and do some analysis of these box scores. However, it looks like I should get elected to the council in my chosen area and may not be alone looking at the results from elsewhere.

I managed to pick up 1 vote through the spoilt ballot paper review to make such a nice round figure although I had no idea it was going to be so neat at the time.

At school my friends used to have to nudge me when the register was called, otherwise I tended to answer for other people of the same first name..

Oh, well done Demon Drawer.


(I'm not dozy honest!!!)

DD do they publish the no of spoilt balot papers , and what constitute one ,i:e is it standerdized acrossedd the country ,are ticks or crosses discounted ,or ripped balot papers ect what checks are made on large nos of spoilt papers in any particuler station for example ,seem to be a perfect way to nobble the result bit of graphite on thumb you could easily spoil several hundered papers in sorting of them, not for one moment am i suggesting that is happening.

But feeling impish this morning/afternoon thought why not start a conspiracy theory, or put an ideah in to some heads

There are four reasons for a spolit ballot these are part of the official return by the returning officer.

1) No valid mark ie writing in none of the above or leaving the ballot blank.

2) Mutilple marks or intnetion of voter not clear, ie there is a mark or more than one mark

3) Where the identity of the voter might be determined usally a name on the ballot paper.

4) Without official mark ie not bearing the official electoral stamp. There were none of these in my constituency.

BTW ticks are as valid as crosses as long as they are clearly for one candidate only.

>>Better still Montana have student/pupil thats annoyed youu the most flayed and use his/her skin to bind it<<

Ah, if only I could. I know just the one, too. A big boy, wouldn't miss that little of his skin...

No, no. That's just mean of me.

I am going to have the papers bound. Makes me look like I care. Which, after only 3.5 hours of sleep, I really don't.

This morning, when I went to pick up D's backpack to put her lunch ticket in it, I realized it weighed a lot for just having a binder and some pencils in it. I opened it up and what do I find? About a pound of gravel...apparently, she's taken to bringing home small rocks, for what purpose I do no know. Some days I wonder...

Has it been windy lately? Maybe she is using it as ballast.

I wish. There's also a bunch of sticks, broken pencils, random legos...she's like a crow, picking up shiny things.

Does/did anyone else's kids do this?

And Titiana, can I come live in Sweden? California has some of the best laws regarding parenting in the States, and it's not that great.

Does she have a gizzard?

Hypatia, I've received the notes -- people should put their running shoes on tomorrow, around lunch if they're British or breakfast if they're on the same continent as I am.

I won't be around tomorrow. I'm teaching music all week. It's a tough school and the regular teacher has been absent for six weeks . No work set. Fortunately I'd had the foresight to download something about pentatonic scales and chinese music at the weekend .

[Ben]

For a time in the 8th grade there were 22 Jessicas in the school I went to - this was out of only 347 students. Interesting times...

That makes for an easy scapegoat Sporky. You can just blame it on Jessica.

At the Holy School, where I sometimes teach, nearly everyone is called Matthew . I just learn the names of those not called Matthew. It makes life so much simpler.

That reminds of that Mike Doughty song... 27 Jennifers.

[Ag]

Montana:

Does she like art? 'cos it could be for a sculpture or something , people can use anything these days..
Or gardening although that wouldn't explain the lego.

First day of school.

Welcome to the class.This is Jessica, Jessica, Jessica, Jessica and Jessica...

Sorry, I've got to get this off my thorax. Just ignore me.

Here I am, taking a break from reading the National Curriculum documents for music. I am not a musician but I know a bit more than the kids I'm teaching, and that's enough. I went to school today equipped with some work about Chinese music, just in case, but I'd have happily worked to any scheme of work they gave me.

The teacher I'm covering for has been away for six weeks. I'm guessing it's stress-related. She's the only music teacher in the school, she teaches every child in Grades 7 to 9 once a week and the remainder of her timetable is taken up with the (very) few older kids who opt for music. She has left no work for her classes and her schemes of work are woefully incomplete. Her line manager does not have even the faintest idea what she intended to teach this term.

There are precious few text books and the CDs that go with the books aren't in their cases and presumably have been lost. The small library of classical CDs is made up of some cheap, garage forecourt special offers. There's no rock, pop or anything else except for a Robbie Williams CD which came free with a Sunday newspaper. In a school which contains kids from nearly 100 different countries and territories, there is no world or ethnic music whatsoever.

The room has been trashed, as have all the practice rooms and the teacher's office. The piano is now out of tune from the battering it has received from errant students. I spent the first lesson cannabalising headphones from the large pile of dead ones in the cupboard to make enough for my classes to use with the keyboards and I bribed a few eleven year-olds to help me sort out some of the mess at lunchtime.

And no one cares. I had to put several of my feet down with a firm hand today to get any support at all. Getting photocopying rights was like getting the proverbial red stuff out of granite. But no one cares whether I teach the National Curriculum or not as long as I don't bother them. I could cry.

Kids deserve better than this.